Catholicism as a Protestantism

Abstract

“Among the ways in which the American Catholic church has protestantized itself in recent years, the most important has been its transformation into an intentional community. For Catholics now, as earlier for Protestants, religion is a matter of opinion, not of birth; and one may change religion as easily and frequently as one changes one's mind. However—and this is the key point—intentional, Protestant religious communities have long had ways of recognizing and removing those who do not share the grounding intention of the community, whatever it may be. The Catholic Church, for the moment anyway, does not.”