Today's truly liberal and progressive Catholics, the wave of the future, the hope of the Church:
Yesterday's neo-liberal, progressive Catholics, today's dinosaurs, waiting in the wings of total irrelevancy, a dying breed, angry and sour about their state in life and in the Church, unable to change and keep up with modern Catholicism:
Once upon a time a liberal was considered someone who lived by the "spirit of Vatican II." That meant going well beyond the documents of Vatican II and living as though one had already experienced a more liberating council such as Vatican III.
Liberals rejected hierarchy, Latin liturgy, habits, consistent ritual, and preferred to make it up as you go, not just with liturgy, but even with decision making in the church both on the parish level, diocesan level and even universal level. In other words, liberals were anarchists doing their own thing, very similar to the political anarchists of the 1960's and 70's. These groups have much in common and sometimes are the same people.
Today, these children of the 70's live in the world of not wanting to change much like those these very same people accused of doing the same thing back in the good old 1960's. Older people just don't like a lot of change especially if they have worked a life time bringing about a scenario with which they are very comfortable.
These old liberals from the 1970's fear that the new English translation of the Mass, the return of the Tridentine Mass and the consolidation of Catholic identity under the banner of the pope and bishops is like returning tO the past they overturned. They simply can't take it. This change is too much for them. They become angry, depressed old fuddy duddies! Sometimes they aren't even in their 60's yet, but fast approaching.
Today a progressive in the Church is one who embraces the hermeneutic of reform within continuity. Parishes that are liberal have two forms of the one Latin Rite, both the Ordinary and Extraordinary.
Liberal and progressive parishes today are embracing the new English translation of the Mass with great excitment and zeal. They see it as a long needed reform that will lead to a broader liturgical renweal as the Second Vatican Council envisioned.
Liberals today are not into doom and gloom. They don't lament this new changed toward a fortified Catholic identity. They embrace the present and future with a great deal of hope. They don't whine and complain about the Church, the hierarchy or how decisions came to be. They are obedient to the Church in the areas of faith, morals, canon law and discipline.
Those who want to live as though we are still in the 1970's, who want to keep things as they were way back then and try to re-accelerate the deconstruction of the Church they fought so long and hard to bring about are dinosaurs of the past. They are the living dead, walking in a daze, wondering what happened and how much more time they have left before it's all over and they are truly irrelevant for they have returned to the dust from which they came and will then meet their maker for their personal judgment, a judgment that will be rather authoritative and without an appeals process or a committee determining it.
Let us embrace our new liberals. They are the hope for the future. Let us care for the old outdated ones. Christian charity demands it.
6 comments:
Father,
The old liberals are definately becoming irrelevant but also louder and more shrill.
I am not sure I agree with the label of liberal for us who embrace what the pope is trying to do. I would rather stick with conservative if orthodox isn't used. I know what the term "liberal" means but it has been thoroughly ruined, and in my mind, unusable to describe things the way you have. It is kinda like describing myself as "gay" when I am happy... please don't.
Great post though.
I'm using the term liberal as liberally living our Catholic faith, which means embracing it in its entirety.Whereas the old way of understanding it (my editorial) is that is meant corrupting the faith and accepting as little of it as possible.
I like the word gay. Several years ago, the Flintstones cartoon change their closing lyrics from , we'll have a gay old time, to we'll have a great old time. In its original meaning, gay is different than great. I think they eventually went back to the "gay old time" because of baby boomers who protested the change.
I think one connotation of the word "liberal" is "open to beneficial change".
The constant mantra of the 1960s liberals--invariably shrieked at anyone who had reservations about what they were trying to do, e.g., jack hammering either the liturgy or the parish church itself--was "Why are you so opposed to change?"
The irony is that those same "liberals", themselves unchanged in their views but 40 years grayer, are now the ones most opposed to change.
Frajm. Perhaps it would be more clear if, instead of using the word “liberal” you substituted “obedient,” “faithful,” “generous,” “complete,” etc. In the religious context, the words, “liberal” and “conservative” have no clear valid application with regard to matters of faith and morals, which admit of no gray areas in their expression. Those terms can be validly used only with respect to accidentals. On expression of matters (teachings and belief) the terms “orthodox” and “heterodox” are applicable.
If one is not orthodox, he is necessarily heretical, isn’t he? The example of Biblical exegesis comes to mind. When one applies the historical-critical method and concludes (hints at, intimates, etc. or outright says), that the gospel “stories” are just that and not historical, hasn’t he moved into the heretical? When denying or downplaying the miraculous in the gospels, isn’t the person heretical? Your clarification on these matters would really be helpful.
The most strikingly old-style liberal in my parish is the Dir. of Religious Ed. When asked in RCIA about the ordination of women, her response is "Well, not yet...." When she is asked about the Rosary, it's "not for everyone."
Awaiting the "biological solution" requires patience. Although I agree that the new liberals are not so shrill, in my area, they do seem to be supportive of the dinosaurs. Sufficient, at least, that the dinosaurs continue to hold sway in the management of much of the parish.
The comment about heresy; I'm not sure we can say old fashioned liberals are all heretics, although they may well be heterodox. My use of new liberals is that they embrace the entirity of the faith, don't pick and choose and don't try to make the Church into something she isn't. They liberally accept the entire deposit of faith. Now old fashioned liberals hate the term "deposit of faith." and they also hate the Catechism of the Catholic Church. For them it makes things to clear and makes it more difficult for them to spread their heterodoxy. The historical critical method of studying scripture can be good only in so far as it leads to Christ and His truths. Pope Benedict in his Book on Jesus points out the pitfalls of using this method very well. We can say though that those who edited the Gospels, (put the oral tradition into a story form that has a theological context to it did so with 20/20 resurrection hindsight.
The definition of heresy from the Catholic Encyclopedia: Both matter and form of heresy admit of degrees which find expression in the following technical formula of theology and canon law. Pertinacious adhesion to a doctrine contradictory to a point of faith clearly defined by the Church is heresy pure and simple, heresy in the first degree. But if the doctrine in question has not been expressly "defined" or is not clearly proposed as an article of faith in the ordinary, authorized teaching of the Church, an opinion opposed to it is styled sententia haeresi proxima, that is, an opinion approaching heresy. Next, a doctrinal proposition, without directly contradicting a received dogma, may yet involve logical consequences at variance with revealed truth. Such a proposition is not heretical, it is a propositio theologice erronea, that is, erroneous in theology. Further, the opposition to an article of faith may not be strictly demonstrable, but only reach a certain degree of probability. In that case the doctrine is termed sententia de haeresi suspecta, haeresim sapiens; that is, an opinion suspected, or savouring, of heresy
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