The unexpected resignation of Benedict XVI and the election of his successor, Francis, have lifted into the mainstream conversation scenarios and proposals for the future of Catholicism and of Christianity in general. One of the most promising proposals comes from George Weigel, whose previous books include Witness to Hope, his bestselling biography of John Paul II, and The Courage to Be Catholic. Weigel's new vision for the future of the Church was published just in time for the ecclesial kairos, a week before Benedict's historic announcement, and is prominent not only for its timing and Weigel's stature, but also for the direction he points to: the book is called Evangelical Catholicism: Deep Reform in the 21st-Century Church. It is a title sure to tickle evangelical ears.

Weigel's title triggered a memory of the day I took a Norwegian minister on a tour of my hometown, São Paulo. When we came to Praça da Sé, the central square with the Catholic cathedral, there was an outdoor service at which the archbishop was evidently presiding. With the crowd, he sang Sonicflood's worship hit,

I want to know you
I want to hear your voice
I want to know you more

Nevertheless, Weigel makes clear that his vision is not one of raised hands singing Chris Tomlin at Mass. "Evangelical Catholicism is not a way of being Catholic," he states in the prologue, "that adapts certain catechetical practices and modes of worship from evangelical, fundamentalist, and Pentecostalist Protestantism." Evangelical Catholicism in the sense that he intends the term is an interpretation of Catholic history that points to a new era, when the catechetical-devotional model of Counter-Reformation Catholicism will be supplanted by a vibrant, mission-focused Catholicism. "Evangelical Catholicism invites Catholics," declares Weigel, "to move beyond the left/right surface arguments of the past decades, which were largely about ecclesiastical power, and into a deeper reflection on the missionary heart of the Church."

In Weigel's account, the new chapter really began with Pope Leo XIII's rejection of the antimodern stance of his predecessor in the final years of the 19th century. Leo revitalized Thomistic scholarship, fathered modern Catholic biblical studies and social doctrine, and set the course that would culminate in the Second Vatican Council's "restoration of the Gospel to the center of the Catholic Church's life," a restoration which has given authoritative interpretation by "two men of genius", John Paul II and Benedict XVI. From here, Weigel proposes a continuation and a deepening of the New Evangelization project of the last two popes, and he proposes reforms that aim at the Church's institutional life: reforms of the episcopate, priesthood, liturgy, consecrated life, lay vocation, intellectual life, public advocacy, and papacy. These reforms are to be carried out with an Evangelical Catholic spirit that focuses on friendship with Christ and constant conversion of life; affirms divine revelation and liturgy that is both biblically centered and sacramental; and maintains the Catholic hierarchy but with a thrust toward missionary engagement of culture.

From an evangelical standpoint, the term "Evangelical Catholicism" is both illuminating and confusing. It is illuminating because Weigel's manifesto parallels some of the emphases early Pietist leaders—and evangelical leaders more broadly—brought to what they saw as stagnant, ossified Protestantism in the 17th and 18th centuries: a devout life and concern for mission, born out of a Christocentric retrieval of core doctrines of the Gospel. In a similar way, Weigel's Evangelical Catholics seek to bring new life to what they see as Counter-Reformation Catholicism's overly rigid response to modernity, and to do that in a way that rejects both the progressive/liberal tendency to ease Catholic distinctives and the traditionalist longing for an ideal past. Evangelical Catholicism as Weigel conceives of it would bring a forward-looking missionary dynamism to the halls and altars of a complacent institution.

Though Weigel does not place his proposal in a liberal-fundamentalist continuum, it sounds notes similar to the evangelicalism of Billy Graham and John Stott, which sought a middle ground that, in its approach to Scripture and to the culture, was neither liberal nor fundamentalist. Thus, as the Church's emerging response to secularization and modernity, Evangelical Catholicism in some senses mirrors, but does not explicitly borrow from, evangelical Protestantism. The desired result is not a Church that resembles evangelicalism but rather a Roman Catholic Church that is more religiously vibrant, active, and evangelistic. The aim is a renewed Catholicism that counters the challenges of modernity, in the words of journalist John Allen, with "a more robust version of Catholic identity."

But the term Evangelical Catholicism is also confusing, and in some cases, perplexing to evangelical Protestants. On the one hand, Weigel uses language that will strongly appeal to Luther's descendants: he extols the example of ministries "flourishing because pastors are preaching the Gospel without compromise"; he proposes changing the terms of reference from "the Church teaches" to "the Gospel reveals"; he supports the Second Vatican Council's "intention to put the Gospel at the center of Catholic life and to build out from that center a reformed Catholicism: an Evangelical Catholicism that [has] the capacity to propose the good news of Jesus Christ to a disenchanted world."

Yet, before our deacons book trips from Colorado Springs to Rome, a closer look at Weigel's blueprint for reform undermines some of the initial enthusiasm. While Weigel's lifting of the category of "Gospel" even above traditional Catholicism's main organizing principle, "Church," seems theologically fruitful, his understanding of the Gospel will seem deficient to many Protestants. He mentions "salvation" or that Jesus is "savior" in the book a few times, but these are usually passing glances, and nowhere is soteriology an object of Weigel's "deep reform." The central issue of the Reformation, justification by faith alone, which is the article by which the Church stands or falls according to Luther, is simply not addressed, nor are the doctrines Catholicism has developed to coach its medieval and Counter-Reformation understandings of salvation, like the indulgences, purgatory, the treasury of the saints, masses for the dead. (Are these still valid for Evangelical Catholicism? Are they valid but now peripheral?) It is a telling omission on the part of a Church statesman of the stature of Weigel. He may have understood his project as one of "deep reform" of Catholic institutional life, not of its theological vision. In any case, this superficial engagement with the doctrine of salvation is not just a peripheral gap for a proposal which seeks to retrieve the Gospel. To many evangelicals, it will be a sign that the biblical Gospel is yet to be fully retrieved.

Still, the Evangelical Catholicism of Weigel and others will be a most welcome development to reform-minded evangelical Protestants—one which they will encourage and occasionally partner with. Weigel himself recognizes that, in many respects, his vision has not been fully realized in the Roman Catholic Church. This is the case especially in the contexts that have not shaped Catholicism as a purposeful minority (as in the United States), or where there isn't a growing evangelical presence modeling an alternative Christianity that may even land Sonicflood on the archbishop's lips (as in Latin America), but where Catholics are still an unrivalled majority haunted by memories of long-gone dominance (as in Italy and elsewhere in Europe).

Weigel's manifesto also deserves careful reading from evangelical leaders because he takes on many of the concerns an evangelical would voice—"the phenomenon of the baptized Catholic pagan," for example, would give way to "constant conversion of life"—and because Weigel himself raises a flag of cooperation between evangelically minded Protestants and Catholics, who are "in fuller communion" with each other than with theologians with unorthodox views. These elements may lead evangelicals to conclude that the most fruitful course of action (though the temptation to condemn from a distance or to assimilate uncritically are always present) is a critical cooperation which celebrates the project of recentering the Church around the Gospel, and which in love and out of lucid and sincere self-criticism, humbly calls Catholics to a still clearer understanding of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

In the first days of Francis' papacy, there is a sense of hope mingled with anxiety. Many challenges lie ahead. But if growing numbers of Catholic leaders embrace Weigel's vision, evangelicals will cheer them at every step.

René Breuel is the founding pastor of a church in Rome, Chiesa Evangelica San Lorenzo, editor of wonderingfair.com, and author of the forthcoming The Paradox of Happiness.

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