"Liberal" Catholics

This is one of my "musing out loud" posts, so please bear with me. I'm not really sure where it's going but I've got the itch to write and the itch to muse, so it's better to let this tiger from its cage. 

The more I learn about the Church (via Ecclesiology), the more the political terms "Conservative" and "Liberal" become like spiritual nails on a chalkboard. They're completely inappropriate, for one can only fall into two categories as a Catholic:  Faithful (Orthodox) or Unfaithful (Heterodox).  Period. One is either in line with Church teachings, or one is not.  

That's not to say that one cannot ask questions or have personal reservations arising from a lack of understanding, so long as that person, with integrity, remains obedient to the teachings and truly seeks to understand them.  

What does "Liberal" mean?  

Recently I've spoken with a few people who claim to be "Liberal Catholics", and because of some interactions and definitions I've seen by commenters online or in real life, before I leap onto the "You're a Heretic!" bandwagon that seems to be so popular among certain groups of Catholics, I think it might be important to figure out what the term "Liberal" really means. 

One person was a commenter on another blog, and took the blog author to task on his own ground. The blog's author claims to be a "Liberal" and a "Progressive", while denouncing pretty much EVERYTHING that makes up the Church.  The "Liberal Catholic" commenter took care to define his terms, explaining that he was all the things personally that the blog's author claimed to be, but the commenter said he was faithful to the Church, respected the teaching authority of the Magisterium on faith and morals, the importance of the sacraments, the respective positions of the clergy and laity, etc.  I was amazed.  In what he was saying, he was obviously very...orthodox!  I wanted to meet that man and shake his hand for what he said, which he stated firmly, in charity, and through logical definition of terms.   

I've met other people who claim to be "Liberal" but haven't been so forthcoming on their definition of what that means. Some people define themselves as "Liberal" not in relation to the teachings of the Church, but in relation to the Liturgy.  These people would take the place of a child about to be aborted, they are supportive of their clergy, they live and breathe Catholicism and can pray circles around people who claim to be holy and devoted but are actually just mean and spiteful in their otherwise solid knowledge of the Church.  These "Liturgical Liberals" are "liberal" in only one area, in that they have an allergy to anything remotely Latin, although they'll fall all over themselves to attend and support Masses in every other language under the sun, even Klingon.  

The liturgical liberals  have no problem, for example,  with the Mass at the LA Educational Conference (the videos of which send the rest of us into paroxysms of a thousand brutal deaths), for they don't see a problem with songs that glorify the people while ignoring God. They don't see a problem with liturgical dancers in a culture in which this is not the norm (and is actually not permitted).  They've never actually READ the Vatican II documents, especially the one on the Liturgy, preferring to allow themselves to be deceived by people who gleefully tell them what the documents said. 

Never mind that the Novus Ordo as it is celebrated today doesn't even REMOTELY look like the Mass called for in Sacrosanctum Concilium.  But I digress.  Other documents have come along that have permitted most of what we see, and thus, Rome has spoken. But the, those changes should not be blamed on Vatican II, if we are to be truthful. 

And above all, we need to be truthful.  

Liberal is as liberal does

These examples have revealed to me a certain dichotomy in those to whom the label is often applied.  It seems that many who consider themselves to be "liberal" are actually faithful Catholics with questionable taste.  The last time I checked, bad taste isn't a sin.  And in fact, bad taste can be corrected, albeit in charity.

How does a wine snob help a redneck to appreciate anything other than Almaden White Zinfandel?  Through careful steps, one sweet wine to the next.  Perhaps to a better Rose', then to a Gwertztraminer, a Riesling, to a Chardonnay, to a Pinot Grigiot or Sauvignon Blanc. Then on to the Reds!  Start with light-bodied like a good Pinot Noir, moving through the Merlots to the Zins to the Cabs.      (Speaking through experience on this one..I was the redneck who had never had wine that didn't come from a box.)  

How does a Matador help a PETA  activist appreciate the art of bullfighting?   

Um...actually, I haven't figured that one out yet.  Yet the above is a bit more of the image of the infighting in the Church today, isn't it?    

Ahem.... 

A lot of these liturgical liberals aren't aware of the GIRM or the fact that the GIRM is, in fact, Canon Law, and MUST be obeyed.  If they KNEW something objectively defined was wrong, they'd be first in line to come into obedience, even if they disliked the facts.  

There is a downright nasty idea out there that anyone who claims to be a "Liberal Catholic" is willfully disobedient, willfully ignorant, mean, and out to wreck the Church.   That idea is completely unfair, completely uncharitable, and fully out of bounds for anyone claiming to be seeking holiness.  

As I've discovered, and cited above, many who claim to be "Liberal Catholics" are actually fully faithful to what the Church is and what she teaches, and perhaps is actually a bit more open than the rest of us about their favorite sins.  And about their confusion on what the Church is, and what she teaches.  

A Foot in Both Worlds

It is the general faithfulness of many of these "Liberal Catholics" that is a bit of a mystery to me, for on one hand, they profess what I profess and believe what I believe, bowing and kneeling to the same Jesus Christ present in the Blessed Sacrament.  They agree that contraception is wrong, they agree abortion is evil, they agree that the Church has no authority to ordain women, they agree that obedience to the Magisterium is important and more importantly, that Christ gave that authority to the Church. We agree that the Pope is the Vicar of Christ, that the Holy Spirit guides and protects us, and that our Bishops are successors to the Apostles.  

Yet invariably, through conversation, their views come into expression and I've found that although they are faithful, they've been secularized, and thus...all of their views, even with regard to Faith, have been warped such that they can ONLY see through the glasses of democratic politics.  

THAT'S how they think they could vote for Obama with a clear conscience. For in their minds, they are rendering unto Caesar while rendering unto God what is God's. To them, it's perfectly logical.   

They stand with a foot in both worlds, leaning more on the secular side. Seeing the Church not through the eyes of the Church and the eyes of objective Truth, but through the eyes of the world.  In short...they are worldly.  

This is recognized in several ways, although I'll only mention a few here:

*  They believe that abortion is the brutal murder of an unborn child and believe that it is an objective evil.  However, because there are people of other beliefs in the world, they do not see that they have the right AND duty to state across the board that it is wrong, for doing so "offends" other beliefs.  They are so ad extra that they see the immoral beliefs of others as being superior to their own.  

*  They do not believe that we have the right and duty to bring our faith into the public square, for there are those who would disagree, and to state the objective Truth which we firmly believe is a scourge to others who do not share that belief and might be "harmed" in their own positions. Thus, preaching Christ to anyone who is not Christian, to them, is not in keeping with the virtue of charity.   They have true love confused with permissiveness. 

* Vocations - this one has me scratching my head a bit, so I'll have to explain this one in more depth in another post.  Suffice to say that just as they don't understand what the Church really IS because they won't take their foot out of the world long enough to find out, so they see ALL of the Sacraments, and Vocations as well.  Their fix for more Vocations is the position they insist on holding:  a foot belonging to Caesar, defining themselves as primarily political, and a foot belonging to the Church, to whom they claim they want to be faithful. 

And in the end, they are torn to pieces because neither position makes sense to either side. 

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Now, this is one of those topics that can be inflammatory, and I'm not claiming to be objective about it;  this is my blog and I get to hold my own opinion, my own bias.  If you want biased objectivity, then go to MSM and let them lie to you.  I won't do that; I'm not a journalist and I think journalism as it's practiced today is soulless, cruel, and deceptive. 

That said, I'd be interested in hearing about my readers' observations on this issue, for clearly, the term "Liberal Catholic" even though it's improper, has to be understood from the perspective of the ones claiming the title.  We have to come to understand why they claim to be such, and if possible, if we can understand them, maybe we can help them shed the glasses of the world and see clearly the spikes on the fence they straddle.  

Draft of my commenting policy:  

If you comment, please keep your comments charitable. Humor is fine, no matter what your position, but I reserve the right to decide if someone is crossing a line.  You can even criticize me, for no doubt I've badly phrased something, and fully expect that even in writing this post I'm offending people.  I accept that.  That doesn't mean I'll change my position or wording because the fact is that some people are so thin-skinned a spring breeze is nearly a mortal wound to them. 

MIND YOU!  There are people who profess to be "Liberal Catholics" and are actually outright dissidents for they don't agree with ANYTHING the Church teaches, and in fact, their beliefs are outright heretical. For the purposes of this post, please ignore the Dissidents and in charity, please read what I'm actually stating about those who fit the definitions I am providing. Thank you. 

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Lose Your Language, Lose Your Culture

Back in 1994 when I lived in Mexico, we took a "study-trip" to Cuetzalan, which is a little puebla in the Sierra Madres. We walked the few kilometers to the local village belonging to the decendents of the Mexicas (commonly called "Aztecs"), who still speak as a first language that ancient tongue of Nauhatl. San Miguel Tzinacapan (St. Michael at the top of the noble mountain) consisted of homes of varying sorts; most had dirt floors, cooking implements akin to that of colonial America (or before), and in most ways, the people were still living much of the ancient lifestyle. Their religion was Catholic, but with the flavor of their culture; the ancient dances, such as the one that used to honor the god Quetzalcoatl (the feathered serpent) was danced in order to honor the One True God on special feast days. Likewise, the Voladores would dance on the top of a high pole and fly downward, on those same feast days.

Lessons from the Ancients

On the day we arrived, we were treated to these dances, for it was the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel, the patron of their city. The Church, built during the colonization of Mexico, was the center of the town, and Mass, the center of their lives.

It was amazing; they had lost nothing of who they were, but had embraced all they could be. It wasn't about materialism; it was about God. Life was about loving God and loving neighbor, even we, the strangers, as they welcomed us into their town and into their homes.

But we heard one dominating complaint, both there, and in articles written in various publications. It came up in class lectures, and is perhaps one of the biggest lessons I took with me from that experience: the young people were ashamed of their history. They had grown up first with their own culture, and then learned the adaptations to mainstream culture, that of the Spanish language and contemporary Mexican culture. They were being well educated in their towns, sent out to learn even more, and they were learning to be ashamed. They were TRYING to forget their ancient language.

Their elders were concerned; for if they lost their language, they would lose the rest of their culture as well. For their culture wasn't just a bunch of trappings, but was something far greater which was bound to them by their common language. It was the language that could properly define the culture and traditions they carried.

Their language was the key.

American Culture

America, as we've all learned from grade school, is a "melting-pot". It's a bunch of people from a bunch of places that nearly erased the native peoples in favor of what has come to be known as "tolerance" which tolerates only popular opinion.

As Americans, we have no culture. Although English is our common language, we're even losing that. We still see hints of the various people who came to live in this country; the Irish, the Germans, the Italians, the Spanish, and more recently, the Nigerians, the Somalians, the Hmong, the Vietnamese, and all those refugees from Mexico, Central America, and South America.

There are pockets of religiosity which are becoming smaller, but more intense. As we enter into this Holiday (Holy-Day) season, the culture wars become more obvious. The religious versus the secular. The secularist hodgepodge trying to erase any semblance of culture in the name of "tolerance", which tolerates nothing but the gray.


Overall, we have nothing that we share in common. Not even our language, anymore. We are all screamed at to be more "tolerant", and in this tolerance, we find that nothing is tolerable, for everything that defines us in a particular group, especially religious, is not acceptable in this society.

Many years ago my Mom was taking a class in Native American Studies. I went with her to a pow-wow where she spoke with a woman who observed, "America has no culture." I didn't understand then, but I do now. SHE had a culture; it was very easy for her to see how we did not; she was sad for us, my mother and I, who had lost ours. She saw us as orphans.

She was right.


Cultural Catholicism

Catholics were known from the beginning, for we stood out in the pagan culture. Our ways were documented in the Letter to Diognetus, and those same premises stand today...if we let them.

But there was more.

The Catholic Church is commonly identified in the media as ONLY the Roman Catholic Church, but there are many more Rites; the Maronite, the Syriac, the Ruthenian, the Byzantine...there are many. Each in union with Rome. We are united in our beliefs, under the Vicar of Christ, and the Roman Rite (Latin Rite) used to be more recognizable by our liturgy which was held in Latin, our common language. It was the largest Rite of the Church, and remains so...and is also, today, the most FRACTURED of Rites, for we have lost our language....and thus, our culture.

Vatican II was a very good thing and did make many reforms. However, the documents stated clearly that although the vernacular was to be given more freedom, such as in the readings and in the Gospel, the common language of Latin was to remain, as was the musical heritage of Gregorian Chant. The latter, which is purely in Latin, was to "maintain a high place" in the liturgy.

Yet, we've seen the systematic attack against this common language since the late 1960's so much so that Latin, as the main root of the English language, isn't even taught anymore. The prejudice against Latin and the Roman Church is so strong that classical education has been completely lost in this country.

Especially among Latin-Rite Catholics themselves.

This loss is horrific, for with the loss of our common language, we have also lost our common culture. After Vatican II, those who did not actually understand the hermeneutic of continuity interpreted them according to the spirit of the age, and attached the term "Spirit of Vatican II", bullying the American Church into accepting "reforms" that had NEVER been intended. It erased our language, cleansed our churches of art and beauty, and made us utilitarian in our newfound protestantism.

From the new "visionaries" that arose out of the pot-induced smog of the 1960's came the idea that Latin was the root of all that was wrong in the Church, and it MUST be QUASHED at any cost.

So it remains even today, even after we've emerged from the disorienting scent of weed into the growing popularity and clarity of pure incense, people hear the word "Latin" and automatically turn into war machines. It has become such a point of contention that those on both sides of the issue have seemed to become polar opposites, refusing even to see those things that truly divide them.

Latin is the symbol, but it isn't the problem, nor is it the cause. Even as it remains to be the key.

Have you noticed that this dichotomy does not exist in the other Catholic Rites? They have NEVER lost their common languages. ALL of their ancient traditions remain in place.

It is the Latin-Rite Church that is struggling, for our common bond has been lost. We lost the key to our culture, and we haven't been able to access it or understand it ever since.

There is something to be said for a common language. There is something to be said for allowing the vernacular, but with a common thread of a language we ALL understand, no matter where we are in the world. To know that those in Vietnam are hearing the Consecration in Latin, and understanding it...to know that those in Germany are hearing the Sanctus in Latin...and are singing along. To know that those in Mexico are raising their voices in the Gloria...in Latin....warms my heart.

We are not just united through Holy Communion, but through our language and our culture. I have been in contact with Catholics all over the world, and know that, if we all spoke Latin, we would be even more closely bonded.

The American Church, the Roman Church as a whole, lost our language, and that was only the first step. We've lost nearly our entire culture.

Those who claim to be "cultural Catholics" cite things they remember prior to the "reforms" of Vatican II. But they don't even live those things out today, and dissent against all those things CLEARLY taught by the Church, in the common vernacular. The popular media, when portraying ANYTHING Catholic, falls back on Gregorian Chant, upon statues, stained glass, and high altars, for those things are our true culture.


Are you seeing this? Those who dissent...claim as their own things they've never seen, or remember ONLY from their childhood. And those who observe, do not portray the Church in America as she is, but as she used to be, in all her beauty.

Even THEY see Truth and recognize what is right...even as they arm themselves in battle in order to defile her.

Yet we have an entire generation or so trying to lose that culture, and who have done everything they could to erase it even from their own memories. The memories they claim define them as "Cultural Catholics".

We, who survived the self-destructive tendencies of the now-graying and dying Baby Boomers are trying to revive the war-torn parishes, restoring what has been lost. Our dear Pope Benedict XVI has heard our cries and has made a huge move not only to restore the Mass as it was prior to Vatican II, but to reconcile those who reacted too strongly to what was wrong, and went into schizm.

Our culture is coming back; our true culture. It is no mistake that the most identifiable part of this culture is the Latin language.


The world calls Latin a "dead" language, and it also claims triumphantly that the Church is "dying". Yet, in my entire life on this earth, I've never seen more life in the Church than there is today with the ongoing restoration of all that has been lost, from the language, to the art, to the liturgy, to the morality going back to the Didache and beyond.

We will not "go back in time". The Novus Ordo is a valid Mass, and I do love it in its own way, for I grew up with this Mass. I accept the authority of our Popes and our Bishops, but I rejoice in the restoration of a history I have never been given a chance to experience.

I have never attended a "pre-Vatican II Mass" for it was only a memory by the time I was born. I've been to a Latin Novus Ordo, and it changed my life. I hope, this weekend to attend the Extraordinary Rite (ie "pre-Vatican II Mass") this weekend at St. Agnes, and even though I don't expect to understand anything going on...I embrace it as an experience in true culture.

You can destroy a civilization by destroying their language; the Catholic Church is far stronger than that, and refuses to devalue that which the rest of the world has defined as "obsolete".

I understand the concerns of the Elders at San Miguel Tzinacapan, and I thank them for sharing their wisdom. I pray they are well, that their children will grow to embrace their history instead of destroy it, and that God will have mercy on the Church in America and throughout the world.