the kinda pope Liberals Want

[JimFurst]

I'm liberal,

The College of Cardinals has chosen a Pope through the guidence of the Holy Spirit.


The Church will not be led astray, so I have the Pope I want. The one we are supposed to have. The one that was chosen.

Liberal or not, it makes no difference.

Jim

[Thy Geekdom Come]

I think a lot of this goes to the definition of "liberal."

As MC Just has it defined, it is those who are trying to make the Church into a politically progressive organization.

I don't like the terms "liberal" and "conservative" in Church matters, because they fail to grasp the real point, that there is one truth which is beyond liberal and conservative. We should instead use the terms "orthodox" and "heterodox." The Church's stance on welfare, afterall, is "liberal" and on abortion, it is "conservative." There is not necessarily anything wrong with the Church if it is liberal in some areas or conservative in others. However, it must be orthodox in all things. In terms of abortion, the "conservative" position is the mark of orthodoxy, but this does not make the Church conservative...it makes her true.

If we fail to call the Church anything but true and orthodox, but apply labels like "conservative" (which implies a right turn from truth), then we say that the Church is something besides true and orthodox.

However, there is a certain room for this terminology in the area of defining heresies. "Liberal Catholicism" for instance (i.e. cafeteria Catholicism, Liberation theology, etc.) is a heresy, because rather than recognizing Catholicism as truth, it seeks to legitimize an attempt to politicize the doctrines of the faith. There is, in fact, no such thing as "liberal Catholicism," since such is a contradiction in terms, as politics have no bearing on truth. Neither is there a "conservative Catholicism," for the same reasons. There is only orthodox Catholicism, by which the faith is defined in terms of faith and not in terms of politics, and heterodox pseudo-Catholicism, to which the heresies of "liberal Catholicism" and "conservative Catholicism" belong.

Although, I will give one concession: conservative politics disagree far less often with grave Catholic moral issues. This, however, I believe, is just a sign of the times. Communism and Fascism are both just as evil.