ABSTRACT

With events such as the World Youth Day and so-called New Movements such as Focolare, the Roman Catholic Church enters the sphere of liquid modernity. Here, it is no longer ‘one sizes fits all’, standard procedures, and a formal approach to faith. “Will you be P.O.P.E. (Part of the Pilgrimage Experience)?” as the slogan of the World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro (2013) put it. Networks such as Focolare and the Catholic Charismatic Renewal are active in this event and in smaller events, presenting a simultaneous commitment to the teaching and hierarchy of the Church and to personal experience. Even more clearly than Evangelicalism, which has served as a role model in this respect, the Roman Catholic Church displays an ambivalent attitude towards liquid modernity. This is illustrated with Pope Benedict’s sermon on the World Youth Day in Cologne (2005) in which he commented on ‘do-it-yourself’ religion and the spontaneity of new communities. While performing at a media event, he criticized the very culture of fluidity he was taking part in. The New Movements have a similar double face: next to or rather than the campaigning movements these pretend to be, these are structured membership organizations for the religious virtuosi. As such, these are bound to influence the direction of a church that maneuvers its way in liquid modernity by alternately withdrawing in quiet areas and paddling against the current. At the same time, these events, movements, and other communities, less cherished by Rome, are part of liquid modernity too, as is expressed by their consumerism, network structure, and appreciation of religious experience.