(This was taken from a comment I made in an earlier thread that deserves its very own post.)
We keep hearing about how the new pope must reach "progressives," but who are these people, and how many of them are there? The world at large is not "progressive." Africa isn't, nor the Middle East. India and China are not, and that's a third of the world's population right there. Nor is Latin America, or most of Asia.
There are pockets of "progessive" people in all those regions, but by and large, they have not signed on to the liberal-secularist project. The "progressives" that need to be pleased are thus white Western elites with college educations — which is, what, maybe one percent of the world's population? That's a rather narrow perspective.
I have another word for "progressive": it's "decadent," a word that means "falling down" in Latin. The people who embrace this agenda are not advocating a more just and prosperous society, which are the measures of true earthly progress. The main objectives are simultaneously to remove any stigma against practically any sexual activity, and to get the state to pay for life's necessities. This has resulted, among the "progressive" societies of Western Europe, in the declining birthrates that are dooming their own existences. It's an unsustainable societal model, and it's collapsing as we speak.
How is that progress, exactly?
Not all of us white, college-educated males are progressives. :) I say this as an obviously imperfect Catholic who wonders if relativism means "wanting to do well by God and His people, but knowing I'm not perfect. Relative to Mother Theresa, for instance, I'm pretty pathetic".
I don't understand relativism very well, nor the "liberal" or"progressive" Catholics. I still thought Catholics were "liberal" in fighting for social support of the poor, for the rights of the truly helpless (babies), for all those who can't help themselves. I thought we were against excesses of culture, be it monetary, sexual or violence. Yes, I grew up thinking that's what it meant to be "liberal".
I say this as an obviously imperfect Catholic who wonders if relativism means wanting to do well by God and His people, but knowing I'm not perfect. Relative to Mother Theresa, for instance, I'm pretty pathetic.
Imagine my horror to find out (I think) that progressive, liberal adjectives meant "moving past religion" and "adapting religion to the current whims of culture". It's like asking the Church to sanctify a Roman orgy. To my simple, Southern mind it sums up to "We are the be-all, end-all of the world. There is no issue of a higher-power, because we are that power. That's why we can do whatever we want, whenever we want."
The death of conscience is the triumph of evil.
After all, how can you have temptation if afterward there is nothing to feel sorry for?
And at its core, "progressivism" is really REgressivism.
Progress towards the betterment of humanity has really accompanied and followed the flowering of the people of God acting out their faith. Regression comes by man deconstructing and denying the truth of God to worship at the altar's of man's fallible vainglorious ideologies.
Well said, GasPundit. I write as 'part of the problem' of course; being a European, white, college-educated, middle-class, male. But may be there is hope for this poor wretch, broken and sinful as I am. I no liberal where Holy Mother Church is concerned. So God Bless Pope Benedict XVI and lets look forward to some masculine, 'kick-arse' evangelisation in Europe. We need it.
I am progressive, as I wish to progress further towards Christ. In this way, so was John Paul the Great, and our new Pope Benedict XVI.
Long live the progressives!