THE UGLINESS OF CATHOLIC LIBERALISM OR PROGRESSIVISM

Let's be clear. I consider my self a middle of the road moderate in the Catholic Church but lean to the right mostly but also to the left infrequently. Just to be clear.

I grew up in a conservative town, with conservative, strict Catholic principles that could easily be classified as pre-Vatican II because our Catholicism was pre-Vatican II. We were a cusp family and the transition to a post-Vatican II Catholicism was not always pretty and in fact fragmented our family in terms of Catholicism just as it fragmented the Church of the 1960's and 70's.

I went to a very liberal seminary in the 1970's, St. Mary's in Baltimore, Maryland. However, I had many great teachers and they did an excellent job of comparing pre-Vatican II and post-Vatican II approaches to theology and doctrine. While the manner in which the liturgy was celebrated was very much of its period, it was done well even with the many liberties various priests took with the Mass, some more egregious than others. Some priests refused elevations and genuflections. Our Masses definitely emphasized "meal" over "sacrifice" and "low church" over "high church," as well as "low Christology or high Christology." And believe me you that is the crux of most of Catholic lite or liberalism, low, low, low, Church, Christology and Ecclesiology--the human dimension overemphasized and the divine dimension diminished or marginalized. It's Pope Benedict's apt description of the "closed circle" horizontal view of being Church that excludes the Vertical dimension that is Divine and opens us to God and directs us away from our smallness.

What I never liked though about progressive Catholicism was its arrogance, bullying and subversiveness. As seminarians we were explicitly told by the administration not to go back to the diocese and bad-mouth the seminary or tell our bishops of the more unusual liberties the seminary allowed or turned a blind eye toward.

If a seminarian gave any appearance of being enamored with the more traditional aspects of Catholicism (and this antipathy of seminary authorities says more about them than those who liked these) such as praying the rosary, making holy hours before the Blessed Sacrament, desiring Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament on a frequent basis and a desire for high church liturgy, that seminarian would be ridiculed, marginalized and ask to leave the seminary for being rigid and pre-Vatican II. I cringe today when I think about the great number of seminarians who either left the seminary disillusioned by the liberal tactics and bullying of the administration and/or other more liberal seminarians and who had their more conservative beliefs and values shattered by unthinking, uncaring and intolerant liberals. Yes, liberals are bullies when they think their agenda for the Church is being challenged or threatened by more conservative, right thinking individuals.

Look at the priests in Austria bullying their Cardinal Archbishop and bringing Austria to the brink of schism and the formation of yet another Protestant denomination, this time a new form of Protestantism that most Protestants would decry as unnecessary since there already exists numerous Protestant expression of the Church that embrace everything these bullying Clerics desire to establish. They simply want the Catholic Church to bend to their decrees and demands. They are truly bullies.

David Mills in a First Things article writes the following about progressive and dissident Catholics:

It’s the usual story: lifelong Catholics (who are women), love the Church, feel called to priesthood, Church misogynist, hope for future change, women were priests in the early church, have to stay to promote change, accepted someday, international movement, and so on, though it leaves out the almost inevitable “the church is not the magisterium” line and adds the faux reassurance that excommunication “does not remove one from the church” but only bars one from the sacraments. (Not, of course, that they care.) Blah, blah, blah! (my comment).

That type of speaking and thinking is quite prevalent amongst those who feel they have a mission to make the Catholic Church into something she simply isn't nor the Documents of Vatican II ever declared or intended. Yet, they continue to spew forth an errant theology claiming Vatican II supports them 100% of the way. They rely on the "dead" Magisterium that formulated the documents of Vatican II (all men as I recall) and yet deplore the male only hierarchy/Magisterium and its teaching authority that is living today. What hypocrisy!

Just read more progressive blogs and periodicals and comments that are written like PrayTell and The National Catholic Reporter. There is so much venom and hatred for official Catholicism. One wonders why in the world they don't leave and join the Episcopal Church or simply join together in a separate church with like-minded negative thinkers? Many of these characters display attitudes and contempt that could easily be diagnosed as "arrested development" when it comes to one's response to authority. It is no secret that many priests and religious have unresolved authority issues with their parents, particularly their fathers and bring that baggage and beat that adolescent drum as they project their hostility away from unresolved parental authority issues onto the authority figures of the Church, especially the hierarchy.

I did not despise the pre-Vatican II Church but recognized the rigid legalism of many Catholics of that period needed purification. I do dispise post-Vatican II promoters of the "spirit of Vatican II" which misled me and many others during that time and sowed confusion rather than clarity concerning Catholic identity. They were dead wrong and promoted an agenda that was alien to Catholicism and what Vatican II actually taught. But confusion is often the product of misguided renewal.

Today we are in a spiritual battle for the soul of Catholicism. For my part, no matter what, I will always be a papist. For me the heart of Catholicism is union with the Holy Father and the bishops in union with him including my very own bishop. I will never stray from that and I pray for an ever stronger and more glorious Catholic identity that is challenging and sacrificial and leads to true discipleship in the modern world.