Kissing modernity goodbye

It has been five years since my book The Selfie Vote was released, and now seems as good a time as any to engage in some pundit accountability.

With the benefit of five years to look back, one prediction that turned out to be wrong was my speculation that the newly chosen Pope Francis would bring about greater interest in Catholicism or in Christianity generally on the part of millennials. At the core of The Selfie Vote was an argument that, to bring my generation aboard, old institutions need to modernize. “One often hears non-Catholics say they like what the new pope has to say, and his focus on elements of the faith that have universal appeal has the potential to draw the less religious to want to learn more,” I wrote.