a thought on "liberal" catholics...

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='Michael D.' date='Aug 6 2005, 11:14 PM']That is a good answer about freedom, i see your point and it can be abused.

Here is my new question... why is is wrong to have a diffrent view? That is what it seems like is being said. Why can't the church include people with diffrent points of view? Obviously there are certain dogma issues that define being a catholic... but apart from that... what is wrong with a certain amout of diversity in personal belief. So long as the core faith remains the same, why does it matter?

Religion aside, i would go so far as to say that there is a need for liberalism in government, just as there needs to be conservatism. There needs to be two sides of the coin and the arguement and without that there would be no safeguard to send us out of control into either of the extremes of government mentioned above. Diffrence of opinion is a keystone of our system of government.
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You can have a difference of opinion on non-dogmatic teachings as evidenced by the death penalty thread.

[Guest Eremite]

There is a difference between a doctrine, and a practical application of a doctrine.

Capital punishment is inherently ordered toward practical application, and so there is room for legitimate disagreement on that application.

The moral principles which guide such an application, however, are not up for negotation, even if they weren't formally dogmatic principles.

[quote]"It is not to be thought that what is set down in Encyclical letters does not demand assent in itself, because in this the popes do not exercise the supreme power of their magisterium. For these matters are taught by the ordinary magisterium, regarding which the following is pertinent: 'He who heareth you, heareth Me.' (Luke 10:16); and usually what is set forth and inculcated in Encyclical Letters, already pertains to Catholic doctrine. But if the Supreme Pontiffs in their acts, after due consideration, express an opinion on a hitherto controversial matter, it is clear to all that this matter, according to the mind and will of the same Pontiffs, cannot any longer be considered a question of free discussion among theologians."

--Pope Pius XII, Encyclical Letter "Humani Generis"[/quote]

[quote]"Religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra; that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will. His mind and will in the matter may be known either from the character of the documents, from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking."

--Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution "Lumen Gentium"[/quote]

The Second Vatican Council does speak of a "hierarchy of truth". This does not, however, imply that non-dogmatic teachings of the Church are up for disagreement, but rather, that doctrines are logically ordered in dependence, as Cardinal Schonborn explains:

[quote]"The ‘hierarchy of truth’ does not mean ‘a principle of subtraction,’ as if faith could be reduced to some ‘essentials’ whereas the ‘rest’ is left free or even dismissed as not significant. The ‘hierarchy of truth...is a principle of organic structure.’ It should not be confused with the degrees of certainty; it simply means that the different truths of faith are ‘organized’ around a center." [/quote]

[quote]Why can't the church include people with diffrent points of view?[/quote]

It does. They're called theologians. Free inquiry, however, does not exist by itself. You must first establish the boundaries of belief before you can plumb the depths. A Catholic intellect accepts the teaching of the Church in docility and reverence, and rather than spurning it, looks at it closely and brings more and more out of it. Catholicism has a rich history of discussion, evidenced most famously in the Thomist and Molinist debates. The key, however, is that the Church has specifically suspended judgement on either side, and so freedom of inquiry is legitimate. This is not so when the Church passes judgement, because the Christian faith rests on Revelation, not on subjective knowledge. The Church is the guarantor of this revelation, not any individual Christian.

[Guest Eremite]

[quote]All I need to know is that past Popes have condemned liberalism in all its shades and forms. Politically and Religiously. [/quote]

This is simply untrue. Pope Leo XIII, condemning the "Americanist" heresy in "Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae", specifically noted the legitimacy of American democracy:

[quote]But if by this name are to be understood certain endowments of mind which belong to the American people, just as other characteristics belong to various other nations, and if, moreover, by it is designated your political condition and the laws and customs by which you are governed, there is no reason to take exception to the name.[/quote]

As I've said before, democracy is an inherently liberal system of governance, as GK Chesterton boasts in "Orthodoxy":

[quote] I think, as the only positive bias. I was brought up a Liberal, and have always believed in democracy, in the elementary liberal doctrine of a self-governing humanity.[/quote]

Furthemore, the Church's social doctrine is not stagnant. Previous allocutions of the Roman Pontiffs must be contextualized with the social conditions of the day, and the express mind of modern Popes addressing modern conditions must be taken into account. Circumstances do change, as we see, for example, in the domain of usury, where the very nature of money developed.

[jmjtina]

[quote name='Leah' date='Aug 6 2005, 08:42 PM']Liberalism as defined by Dr. Don Felix Sarda Y Salvany should not be confused with post-World War II American-style welfare liberalism (which didn't exist yet). He is refering to "classical liberalism" which consists of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the ability to own private property, etc. It should be noted that classical liberalism and liberal democracy (i.e., separation of powers, universal sufferage, etc.) are not the same thing, though they are in the minds of Westerners. By this definition, both Democrats and Republicans would be considered liberals. True conservatism as it existed in Europe (i.e., the belief in monarchy, the aristocracy, and rigid classism) has never existed in the United States. After World War II, the meanings of liberalism and conservatism changed drastically,  to what they current mean (though it differs from country to country).  Given that the author of [i]Liberalism is a Sin[/i] was a conservative in the traditional, European sense, I think that modern readers should take it with a grain of salt as the liberalism being referred to is not the liberalism they are familar with.
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I disagree. Although I have yet to finish his book, so far the book specifically deals with issues on the faith and the example he uses the most is Protestantism which naturally begets toleration of error. Rejecting the principle of authority in religion, it has neither criterion nor definition of faith. It lays the way for endless differences and many contraditions.

It all deals with issues of the faith. when you talk about freedom of the press, do you mean the chapter on literature? The example he gave was very good, one I could compare to famous immoral writers of today. In Chapter 2, he defines liberalism, AND catholic liberalism later, which is the same definition I would still use today.

I think the liberalism defined by Dr. Father Felix should not be confused as a total and seperate "thought" of liberalism just because it was written post WWII. Matters on the faith will never be outdated and IMHO, Fr. Felix is hitting the nail right on the head as I read it now, almost more than a hundred years later.

God Bless.

[Leah]

[quote name='jmjtina' date='Aug 7 2005, 02:15 AM']I disagree. Although I have yet to finish his book, so far the book specifically deals with issues on the faith and the example he uses the most is Protestantism which naturally begets toleration of error. Rejecting the principle of authority in religion, it has neither criterion nor definition of faith. It lays the way for endless differences and many contraditions. 

It all deals with issues of the faith. when you talk about freedom of the press, do you mean the chapter on literature? The example he gave was very good, one I could compare to famous immoral writers of today. In Chapter 2, he defines liberalism, AND catholic liberalism later, which is the same definition I would still use today.

I think the liberalism defined by Dr. Father Felix should not be confused as a total and seperate "thought" of liberalism just because it was written post WWII. Matters on the faith will never be outdated and IMHO, Fr. Felix is hitting the nail right on the head as I read it now, almost more than a hundred years later.

God Bless.
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At the time Fr. Felix was writing, Spain was in extreme poltiical and cultural turmoil. It was probably the poorest country in Europe and was attempting to recover from a series of coup between Liberals (i.e., those in favor of increased civil liberties and some degree of sufferage) and monarchists from the old regime. Spain had also lost all of its colonies in the Caribbean as well as Asia. This chaos would continue throughout the twentieth century. Given this, I didn't find the chapter on literature to be very convincing. The book he was talking about, [i]The Light of Asia[/i], appears to be some book about the the life of the Budda. His objection is not from any percieved immorality implicit in the text, but the fact that the book seemed to put the Buddha on the same level as Jesus. Personally, I don't think that censorship is going to make anyone more virtuous, especially in the age of the internet when any banned text can easily be sought out. A person who is truly righteous doesn't need the intervention of the government , because they are able to shun immorality by themselves and the grace of God. When the Church becomes wedded to the State, as it did in Spain and most of Europe, nothing good can come of the marriage, for either party. I suspect that one reason the Church has declined so in Spain and in other European countries is precisely because there is no separation of Church and State. This especially becomes problematic when the Church becomes associated with an unpopular and deadly regime, as was the case with the Spanish Church's collaboration first with the monarchy and then with the Franco regime. Fr. Felix would probably also say that democracy and Catholicism are irreconcilible (I think it's implicit in his writing), which I disagree strongly with. This is why at the end, when discussing Liberal is this Country (which I take to mean the US) it is said, "so ingrained is it in our social conditions, so natural is it to the prevailing modes of thought, so congenital is it with the dominant religious notions about us...Indeed it is the very constituent of the pseudo-religious and pseudo-moral atmosphere we daily breathe." This is because the US was the first country explicitly founded on the Liberal principles denounced by Fr. Felix.

[MC Just]

lol nice... trying to justify a state of mind that opens doors for the evil one..

there is no difference between liberalism in the 1800s and the liberalism of today. From what ive read it all looks the same.

Catholics should have no part of it. In the book liberalism is a sin, its explains the different types and they are all pretty much bad, the book explains that Liberalism is the "ugly stepchild" of protestantism. It has even been condemned by the syllabus of errors.

[url="http://www.ourladyswarriors.org/dissent/libissin.htm#chap11"]http://www.ourladyswarriors.org/dissent/libissin.htm#chap11[/url]

CHAPTER 11 - The Solemn Condemnation of Liberalism by the Syllabus

Liberalism has been condemned by the Pope in many and various documents. From these let us select a few epithets which stigmatize it with unsparing emphasis. They will bring out in striking relief the perfidious character of this cunning heresy.

In his Brief to Mgr. de Segur in regard to the latter's well-known work Hommage Aux Catholiques Liberaux [Hommage to Liberal Catholics], the Pope calls it a "perfidious enemy",-- in his allocution to the Bishop of Nevers, "the present real calamity"; in his letter to the Catholic Circle of St. Ambrose of Milan, "a compact between injustice and iniquity"; in the same document he speaks of it as "more fatal and dangerous than a declared enemy"; in his letter to the Bishop of Quimper, "a hidden poison"; in the brief to the Belgians, "a crafty and insidious error"; in another brief, to Mgr. Gaume, "a most pernicious pest." All these documents from which we quote may be found in full in Mgr. Segur's book, Hommage Aux Catholiques Liberaux.

But Liberalism is always strategically cunning. It rejected these very plain condemnations on the ground that they had all been made to private persons, that they were, therefore, of an entirely private character, by no means ex cathedra, and, of course, not binding. Heresy is always sophistically obstinate; it clings to the least pretext, seeks every excuse to escape condemnation. Barricading itself behind these technical defenses, Liberalism practically defied the authority of the Church. Its perfidy was short-lived. A solemn official public document of a general character and universally promulgated would sweep away the cobwebs with which Liberal Catholics had endeavored to bind the authority of the Sovereign Pontiff. The Church could not refuse a formal and decisive word to relieve the anxiety of her children. That word was spoken; it was The Syllabus of Errors, December 8, 1864.

All faithful Catholics hailed it with an enthusiasm only equaled in intensity by the paroxysm of fury with which the Liberals received it. Liberal Catholics thought it more prudent to strike at it covertly by overwhelming it with artificial interpretations. The Liberals denounced it with unsparing bitterness; the Liberal Catholics whittled it away by all manner of emasculating explanations. It was a document fatal to both; they had reason to fear it, the one execrating it, the other seeking with desperate subtlety to parry the blow, for the Syllabus is an official catalog of the principle errors of the day in the form of concrete propositions placed under the formal ban of the Church. In it will be found, succinctly formulated, the various errors which are met within the current literature of the times. The Syllabus crystallizes all these errors and stamps them with the seal of the explicit and formal condemnation of the Church. Here we have in detail all the Liberal dogmas. Although Liberalism may not be expressly named in any one of the propositions, most of its errors are there placed in pillory. From the condemnation of each of the Liberal errors results a condemnation of the whole system. Let us briefly enumerate them.

Condemnation of liberty of worship (propositions 15, 77 and 78); of the placet of governments (propositions 20 and 28); of the absolute supremacy of the State (proposition 38); of the secularization of public education (proposition 45, 40 and 48); of the absolute separation of Church and State (proposition 15); of the absolute right to legislate without regard to God (proposition 56); of the principle of non-intervention (proposition 62); of the right of insurrection (proposition 63); of civil marriage (proposition 73 and others); of the liberty (license) of the press (proposition 79); of universal suffrage as the source of authority (proposition 60); of even the name of Liberalism (proposition 88).

There have been books, pamphlets, and articles innumerable written on the proper interpretation of the propositions of the Syllabus. But the most authoritative interpretation ought to be that of its radical enemies, not of course in the absurdities of their misunderstandings or perversions, like Mr. Gladstone's unfortunate attempt to distort some of its propositions into a sanction of civil disloyalty, a position from which he has since withdrawn, we are glad to be able to say. But outside of such patent misconstructions, we may rely upon the interpretation given by Liberals of all shades, especially in those points wherein we see them wince under its uncompromising phraseology. When Liberals regard the Syllabus of Errors as their most detestable enemy, as the complete symbol of what they term Clericalism, Ultramontanism and Reaction, we may rest assured that it has been well interpreted in that quarter. Satan, bad as he is, is not a fool, and sees clearly enough where the blow falls with most effect. Thus, he has set the authority of his seal--which after God's is most reliable--on this great work, the seal of his inextinguishable hate. Here is an instance in which we can believe the Father of Lies. What he most abhors and defames possesses an unimpeachable guaranty of its truth.

Edited August 7, 2005 by MC Just

[Guest Eremite]

[quote]From what ive read it all looks the same. [/quote]

Until you address the fact that democracy IS a liberal civil order, and that the Church has no problem with it, your contention that she condemns liberalism "in all its shades and forms" doesn't hold much water.

The Church does not concern herself with politics. She provides Christians with certain moral principles (eg, we must give a just wage). It's up to individual Christians to apply those principles, and there is room for legitimate disagreement, because there are "liberal" and "conservative" political forms that can be conformed to the Church's moral faith.

Then-Cardinal Josef Ratzinger noted that the allocutions of previous Pontiffs are not the end all be all:

[quote]"If it is desirable to offer a diagnosis of the text [of Gaudium et Spes] as a whole, we might say that (in conjunction with the texts on religious liberty and world religions) it is a revision of the Syllabus of Pius IX, a kind of counter syllabus…the one-sidedness of the position adopted by the Church under Pius IX and Pius X in response to the situation created by the new phase of history inaugurated by the French Revolution was, to a large extent, corrected via facti, especially in Central Europe, but there was still no basic statement of the relationship that should exist between the Church and the world that had come into existence after 1789."

--Principles of Catholic Theology, pg. 381[/quote]

The Church's moral faith is clear, but she is open to ways of exercising it.

[MC Just]

I see the errors of liberalism every where around me, ive see the damage that it does. There will forever (in my mind set and belief) be a giant red X over liberalism.

I just dont believe it can be justiffied. Past popes have condemned liberalism. I dont care much for all the different modern interpretations of it. . I mean just look at the very definition. That should automatically tell you that it is wrong.

[Paladin D]

[quote name='MC Just' date='Aug 7 2005, 02:23 PM']I see the errors of liberalism every where around me, ive see the damage that it does. There will forever (in my mind set and belief) be a giant red X over liberalism. 

I just dont believe it can be justiffied. Past popes have condemned liberalism. I dont care much for all the different modern  interpretations of it. . I mean just look at the very definition. That should automatically tell you that it is wrong.
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Someone can use the same argument when it comes to [b]conservatism[/b]. One of the definitions of conservatism is the resistance of sudden change and to defend what is traditional. This is great in many respects, but in others, it can be damaging. In some cases, it may be beneficial (and morally licit) for a sudden change in some things, yet could be at odds with the "traditional" or "original" way of that particular issue/thing/whatever. The conservative approach would to be to [b]not change[/b] but to remain the same, while the liberal approach would be to change.

We are not talking about doctrine or dogma, but anything in general. Pope John Paul II was considered a liberal pope in one aspect, because he would invite leaders of various religions to the Vatican, and work with them to bring peace and understanding amongst each other.

Liberal (in this sense of the word) isn't necessilary evil, it's a viewpoint. It varies depending in what field and what it applies too. One can say, the idea of "online shopping" is liberal, since it isn't the traditional way of shopping.

[philothea]

Wow... lots of... words.

Almost entirely off topic, I am reminded of when I was very young (~5), and read the directions on a bottle of hair conditioner. It said to "apply liberally". I looked up liberal in every dictionary I could find, but I couldn't figure out what the heck that meant!

Of course it seems obvious now.

[Michael D.]

I liked that post Paladin.

To extend it a bit one could even say that the position that abortion should be banned, if looked at through your definitions of liberal and conservative is a liberal issue because it is the one that proposes a change.

I guess what I am saying, and this kinda goes way way back to earlier when there was some debate and a lot of negative comments made about liberalism based on its definition, is that just because something is the traditional solution does not mean it is the correct solution. And the opposite is equally true.

When looked at in that light either one of the definitions of liberal and conservative could be viewed as equally negative, or as i prefer, equally vaild.

I would say that we should be neither liberal or conservative. We should always seek to hold the position that is the best without regard for its position on the scale of liberal/conservatism.

Obviously im not speaking of the "liberal" and "conservative" movements where the terms function more as a naming device rather than a description.

[Socrates]

[quote name='Eremite' date='Jul 31 2005, 07:16 PM']GK Chesterton, for example, was an unabashed "liberal". This had nothing at all to do with his Catholic faith. It had everything to do with his political views.
[/quote]

G.K. Chesterton was far from liberal! He was an "ultraconservative" who looked to restore a Catholic past and wanted absolutely nothing to do with modern "progressive" ideas.

[Guest Eremite]

[quote name='Socrates' date='Aug 8 2005, 08:41 PM']G.K. Chesterton was far from liberal! He was an "ultraconservative" who looked to restore a Catholic past and wanted absolutely nothing to do with modern "progressive" ideas.
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Are you being facetious?

GK Chesterton was a self-professed liberal, as he notes in his book "Orthodoxy":

[quote]I think, as the only positive bias. I was brought up a Liberal, and have always believed in democracy, in the elementary liberal doctrine of a self-governing humanity.[/quote]

[Paladin D]

[quote name='Michael D.' date='Aug 8 2005, 03:48 AM']I liked that post Paladin.

To extend it a bit one could even say that the position that abortion should be banned, if looked at through your definitions of liberal and conservative is a liberal issue because it is the one that proposes a change.

I guess what I am saying, and this kinda goes way way back to earlier when there was some debate and a lot of negative comments made about liberalism based on its definition, is that just because something is the traditional solution does not mean it is the correct solution. And the opposite is equally true.

When looked at in that light either one of the definitions of liberal and conservative could be viewed as equally negative, or as i prefer, equally vaild.

I would say that we should be neither liberal or conservative. We should always seek to hold the position that is the best without regard for its position on the scale of liberal/conservatism.

Obviously im not speaking of the "liberal" and "conservative" movements where the terms function more as a naming device rather than a description.
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Exactly! Exactly! Exactly!

Though conservatism does allow for change, but it tends to be more weary and gradual about it, while liberalism is "sudden" change.