"An ultimately boring question: how little can I believe, and how little can I do, and still remain a Catholic?"

George Weigel's latest commentary, on the death toll for the "progressive" movement in the Catholic Church -- read it at What Benedict XVI means

Quote: Conventional wisdom notwithstanding, the great divide in world Catholicism these past several decades has not been between "liberals" and "conservatives," "reformers" and "integrists." It's been between bishops, priests, religious and laity who see the church primarily in terms of its evangelical mission, and bishops, priests, religious and laity who see the church primarily in terms of institutional maintenance and the exercise of intra-institutional power. The conclave of 2005 was a rout for the latter and a smashing triumph for the former.

The conclave of 2005 also repudiated what might be called "50-yard-line Catholicism" --- the attempt to find the safe, comfortable, unthreatening "center" between "the extremes." Pope Benedict XVI, like his immediate predecessor, is emphatically not a 50-yard-line bishop. If one end zone is the truth of the world, and the other embodies a false story about the world and about us, you can't split the difference and rest comfortably at midfield. Benedict XVI, to press the imagery a little further, will not play to avoid the interception; he'll play for the touchdown.