Our blogging neighbor Nathan Nelson has had a change of heart or mind, and posted a note to "The Tower" to say that he doesn't want to give up on being a Catholic after all. Now he wants to be a "progressive Catholic".
So welcome back, Nathan! If you can be "progressive" while truly remaining one in faith and communion with the Catholic Church, you're doing OK. Do try to be accepting toward the Church, and give her the benefit of the doubt when the opportunity to do so arises. Being Catholic is a gift, and when Somebody gives you a gift, it's good to at least accept the whole package, even if you don't yet recognize the value of all the items inside it. Maybe they actually do go together.
For your penance :-) , read Fr. Groeschel's book Spiritual Passages. It's about phases in the spiritual life, and I figure you could use some long-term perspective.
I understand the point Nathan is making. He is, rather gently, saying that many "conservative" Catholics act like everybody else isn't Catholic. Unless spritualities are matched, point for point....unless the same music is liked, song for song, then there's something wrong with a person's Catholicism. I was amused, some time ago, to discover that "progressive and liberal" Catholics feel the same way about "conservative" Catholics.
I am not including those who hold anything in opposition to what the Church teaches. Anybody who does that, whether they call themselves "liberal" or conservative" isn't a Catholic at all.
But when it comes to matters of 'style', for lack of any better term....we have to be gentle with each other.
So....the headline should read: Rejoice! Period. All the rest can be left to the prayer and the Holy Spirit.
You can't be "progressive" and in union with the Catholic church IF progressive means being in dissent with the teachings of the Catholic church!!
You can be a wanna be who dissents from the Catholic chuch and lurks at the boundary....there are lots of those.
Some of them cause the Catholic chruch a lot of grief because they make it their business to teach false and stupid things.
I think the problem comes with Catholics identifying themselves as liberal or conservative in the first place. To be a liberal Catholic or a conservative Catholic implies that you accept Catholicism insofar as it meets up with your liberal or conservative "standard."
We're called to be orthodox Catholics, folks. Our political sway (for that's what liberalism and conservatism are) should serve our faith, not the other way around.
---Christina
FYI - Nathan has moved to http://paxetcaritas.diary-x.com/
which he calls Pax et Caritas.
I intend to continue reading and praying.
Ditto Christina. Catholicism shouldn't come in "flavors."
Conservative? Liberal? I'm a Lousy Catholic.