The Emerging Catholic Church: A Community's Search

In this work Roberts presents the fruit of his decades of observations. It is a complex picture of a church that is still grappling with the meaning of the Second Vatican Council; responding to dramatic demographic shifts affecting both the church and society; absorbing the implications of the new cosmology, with its impact on traditional belief systems; accounting for the emerging leadership of women in the church and the wider culture, and its impact on an evolving concept of God; and reeling over the sex abuse scandal, and what it has revealed about the growing inadequacy of the hierarchical culture.

With all the signs of strain and stress, however, Roberts gives equal attention to signs of renewal, showing how the faith, hope, and love that have guided the church in the past will continue to shape the American Catholic community's search for itself in the future.