TIME magazine asks: "Is Liberal Catholicism Dead?"

TIME reporter David van Biema thinks the answer is basically "Yes, it is":

He may not have been thinking about it at the time, but Pope Benedict, in the course of his recent U.S. visit may have dealt a knockout blow to the liberal American Catholicism that has challenged Rome since the early 1960s. He did so by speaking frankly and forcefully of his "deep shame" during his meeting with victims of the Church's sex-abuse scandal. By demonstrating that he "gets" this most visceral of issues, the pontiff may have successfully mollified a good many alienated believers — and in the process, neutralized the last great rallying point for what was once a feisty and optimistic style of progressivism.

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To some extent, liberal Catholicism has been a victim of its own success. Its positions on sex and gender issues have become commonplace in the American Church, diminishing the distinctiveness of the progressives. More importantly, they failed to transform the main body of the Church: John Paul II, a charismatic  conservative, enjoyed the third-longest papacy in church history, and refused to budge on  the left's demands; instead, he eventually swept away liberal bishops. The heads at Call to Action grayed, and by the late 1990s, Vatican II progressivism began to look like a self-limited Boomer moment.

Then, the movement received a monstrous reprieve. The priest sex abuse scandal implicated not only the predators, but the superiors who shielded them.  John Paul remained mostly silent. A new reform group, Voice of the Faithful, arose; the old anger returned, crystallizing around the battle-cry "They just don't get it."

Benedict's visit, however, changed the dynamic. And that's a problem for progressives. Says Fr. Thomas Reese, a senior fellow at Georgetown University's Woodstock Theological Center whom Benedict famously removed from his previous job as editor of America, "Reform movements need an enemy to organize against. As most bishops have gotten their acts together on sex abuse, they have looked less like the enemy and more like part of the solution. Enthusiasm for reform declined. With the Pope's forthright response, it will decline even more."

That's nice to hear, although history indicates that dissenters, heretics, "reformers," and people with a dislike for any and all authority will always be among us. Congratulations, by the way, to Fr. Reese for finally making a reasonable remark in the media that avoids sniping at the Pope. How timely.

Comments

[Dan]

There are many hopeful signs that "liberal Catholicism" is about to be finished off but the job is not done yet. And I wouldn't under estimate the task that remains. We all know how fierce the cornered tiger can be and, in addition, the broad trend toward secularization will undoubtedly continue to seep into the Church from the bottom.

[Augustine II]

JP II swept away liberal bishops? Funny, Roger Mahoney still rules my town.

[Paul Cat]

Anyone involved in parish ministry knows that liberal catholicism is still going strong. The tides are changing, but they are changing slowly.

[Augustine]

Of course, no mention of the liberal views on sexuality that justified predators and their protectors in the scandal to start with...

May St. Maria Goretti pray for us.

[Paul]

I'll worry about liberal Catholicism being dead when evangelical Catholicism is dead. And buried.

[Carl Olson]

I'll worry about liberal Catholicism being dead when evangelical Catholicism is dead. And buried.

Ah, feel the love...

[Josh Miller]

We are the final death knell for liberal Catholicism: men and women my age (I'm 27) who're actually involved with parish life. Liberals nowadays have no need for religion in a "post-Christian" society, but those of us who remain have absolutely no axe to grind. We don't want to change doctrine or dogma. We're here not because we feel some compulsion to be (an inherited sense of "being Catholic," showing up on Sundays because that's what we're used to growing up; I, for instance, rarely went to Mass as a kid), but rather because we want to be.

van Biema gets it right, more or less: when the Baby Boomers go, so does all the unwarranted insolence. So, take heart, Paul Cat.

[Brian Schuettler]

...when the Baby Boomers go, so does all the unwarranted insolence.

Such youthful exuberance and, perhaps, unwarranted insolence. Unfortunately, every generation has it's "unwarranted insolence" going all the way back to the beginning.

[Augustine II]

But the '60s generation - as a generation - has to be counted among history's most loathsome, similar to the 1860s generation of Russian nihilists. It's good to see its poison being slowly, quietly, but surely being rejected.

Four recommended books:

Destructive Generation, by Collier & Horowitz

Slouching Towards Gomorrah, by Bork

Fathers and Sons, by Turgenev

&

Devils, by Dostoevsky (trans. Pevear)

[james mary evans]

Well my friends,

If liberalism is dying out, the "closing liturgy" at the 2008 West Coast Call To Action Conference may have been its opening farewell... If you have yet to view the video footage of Mr. Potato Heads concelebrating the Mass follow the link below:

www.fratres.wordpress.com

Note: see "Mr Potato Head Concelebrates The Holy Mass?"

I'm not a liturgical expert, but, would really like to know just how many abuses can be detected within the video.

On a sad personal note, I saw two lovely Catholics who helped our family convert to the faith 11 years ago within the video at the conference... View it, and then, pray as I am.

[Augustine II]

James: Unbelievable. Spawn of the devil indeed.

[Paul]

There's no love, Carl. Evangelical Catholicism is just as deviant as liberal Catholicism.

[Gail F]

Back to the actual subject... Does anyone else feel strangely detatched from all this, as if the writer were talking about some other religion? What exactly is Pope Benedict supposed to have done here that was so decisive for the church in America? Don't get me wrong, I know a lot of people whose faith was shaken by the abuse scandal, and I know very well that a lot of things were done wrong that still need to be fixed. But while I think it was wonderful of Pope Benedict to meet with people who were abused, it makes no difference to my faith and I don't think he fixed anything because I don't think that anything was broken.

It seems to me that it has been the secular media, and not American Catholics, that kept trying to bring the Pope's visit back to the abuse issue and away from the pastoral visit that it was. I don't see that liberal Catholicism has anything to do with it. As far as the liberal Catholics I know go, they aren't members of Call to Action or Voice of the Faithful, they are free lances off on their own "spiritual journeys." I don't think they care much about what the pope says or does.

[Carl Olson]

As far as the liberal Catholics I know go, they aren't members of Call to Action or Voice of the Faithful, they are free lances off on their own "spiritual journeys." I don't think they care much about what the pope says or does.

Gail: A very good observation. It's easier to get a bead on what an organized group says or believes; it's much harder to gauge what a random group of, say, one thousand Catholics believe, unless you are able to interview every one of them (and they are completely honest in their responses). Yes, "liberal Catholicism" is a real problem, but the bigger, underlying problem is the lack of understanding so many Catholics have when it comes to what and why the Catholic Church teaches--and how that teaching is a gift from God, not a dry list of "dos" and "don'ts." And, of course, there is the failure of Catholics to preach, teach, and live the Faith. So while it's good that organized dissent might be falling on hard times, we shouldn't kid ourselves about how deep and serious the problem continues to be.

[Dan]

The article leaves unstated the strange logic that would cause its author to assume that the sex abuse scandal could legitimately constitute a "last great rallying point" for "progressivism." In fact, the sex abuse scandal would be as a big problem for "progressivism" as it has been for the bishops were it not for the broad and deep sympathy that most of the media has for "progressivism." The agenda of Catholic "progressivism" focuses in large part on the relaxation of sexual morality. While the media will never admit it, insofar as the sex abuse scandal is concerned, the attitudes underlying the "progressivist" goal of relaxing sexual morality were a major contributing factor to the sex abuse scandal.

[Steve Cianca]

Regarding the Mr. Potato-Head Mass. What struck me immediately as I looked at the "assembly of the gathered" is that the vast majority of them are refugees from the 60s and 70s--aging boomers whose deviant (and empty) liberal brand of Catholicism will go to the grave with them--but not before much harm has been inflicted upon the faithful.

The other thing that struck me was how much "Liberal Catholicism" has devolved into self-parody. The whole thing is just pathetic. Although I loathe the mushy nonsense of Liberal Catholicism, towards its adherents what I mostly feel is pity.

[Gabriel Austin]

Only in modern California, since the arrival of the film industry.