Ecclesial Movements and Communities: Origins, Significance and Issues

Ecclesial Movements and Communities: Origins, Significance and Issues by Brendan Leahy. paperback edition. ISBN: 9781565483965.

People on the lookout for trends in the Catholic Church will be very happy to discover Brendan Leahys Ecclesial Movements and Communities. His overview of their rise and development over the last 50 years captures the unique qualities of Charismatic Renewal, Communion and Liberation, Cursillo, Focolare, LArche, Legion of Mary, the Neocatechumenal Way, Regnum Christi, SantEgidio, and others. Leahy presents the movements as examples of the Churchs charismatic dimension, a principle which Pope John Paul II described as co-essential with the hierarchical-institutional dimension. The Holy Spirit is sort of the Harry Houdini of divinity, forever busting loose in seemingly impossible ways. In the Catholic Church, the new movements are the most remarkable recent example -- an unplanned and dynamic form of life thats erupted in an age when secularization, scandal, and the weight of history is often a recipe for decline. Fr. Brendan Leahy provides a concise yet theologically profound reading of this great escape act by the Spirit, one thats especially commendable for being neither cynical nor overly romantic. --John L. Allen Jr., author of The Future Church