Today, Rohr is in conversations with Brian McLaren, one of the more well-known speakers of the Emergent Church, and is preparing to host an event next week around issues of the Emerging Church. It is expected to be the first time Roman Catholics have ever hosted such an event.

With Catholics just entering the Emerging Church conversation, Rohr says the conference is "no more than an opening of a very new and wonderful door. "We have no goal in sight now, except the excited conversation itself," he said. "There is a post conference, with those who want to talk about 'Where do we go from here?'"

Though some have labeled it a movement, McLaren prefers to call the Emergent or Emerging Church a conversation, saying that it is still in its "embryonic stages" and just part of a larger movement that is coming together.

Conservative Christians, however, have already begun to criticize leaders of the Emergent Church for denying doctrinal truths such as the substitutionary nature of the atonement and rejecting absolute truth.

Rohr believes what is emerging is not a new denomination but a new kind of reformation that won't focus on opposing existing structures.

"In the future, I don't really expect to be talking about 'the Emergent movement' ... I would hope that the conversation we're encouraging would take root and stimulate generative friendships across many if not all denominations around the world," he added. "So, in my mind, if the Emergent movement succeeds, it becomes invisible and brings new vision and new resources and new freedom to followers of Christ of all kinds."