Conservative or Liberal Catholic

This article is as true, if not moreso, today as when it written.

Conservative or Liberal Catholic
by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.

In almost any group of Catholics today, one hears the question frequently asked, "Are you a conservative or liberal Catholic?" Or perhaps it is posed, "Are you charismatic?" Then again the speaker may interrogate his audience about his familiarity with renewals, retreats, liberation theology, centering prayers, Cursillo or any other currently popular movement or practice within the Church. Oftentimes people feel that the answer to such a question involves deep philosophical pondering. Semantics aside, there can be only one answer to these questions.

The left of Rome, liberal Catholic manifests his faith in several unique public expressions. Often he is associated with causes such as gay rights, feminism, euthanasia, and a plethora of others. His religion is an umbrella which encompasses saving whales, recycling inorganic materials, worrying about CIA involvement in Latin American governments, humanizing bureaucratic organizations, and awaiting a cosmic Christ. The unity he envisions in the new world order has little if any linkage to the one bread, one body in which the religion he supposedly espouses was based. In his alleged concern for all rights, he supports many wrongs. Endorsed by him would be a church in which a non-gender-specific liturgical “service” is led by a female priest, assisted by altar girls for a congregation which consisted of those who hold disparate beliefs all of which were democratically allowed under the guise of freedom from the patriarchal system whose leadership, outdated and outmoded, was yet based in Rome.

At the opposite end of the belief spectrum is the conservative Catholic whose actions and opinions are always right (of center, that is). Archbishop Marcel Lefebre epitomizes for him the essence of strict adherence to the true faith. Just as his hands will not be sullied in an exchange of peace nor receive the Eucharist from a priest or (heaven forbid) an extraordinary minister, so too will his mind remain untouched by any of the allowable innovations inaugurated by the Second Vatican Council. As if the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass offered in the language of the laity instead of Latin were not bad enough, what could be said of the scandal of speaking in tongues and other manifestations of the charismatic Catholic? In practice much like strict interpreter of the Constitution, this believer professes only that which is explicitly expressed in the Ten Commandments of in Canon Law; all that which is tacitly implicit is not a viable worship option.

[O]ur duty as Roman Catholics is to adhere to both the letter and the Spirit as the Holy Father delineates them for us, not pick and choose those aspects of Catholicism more to our liking. As 2 John 9 reminds us, anyone who “does not remain rooted in the teaching of Christ does not possess God, while anyone who remains rooted in the teaching possesses both Father and the Son.”

Copyright © 1998 Inter Mirifica

The full article can be found here.