A liberal Catholic taxonomy
Jr, David R Carlin
OF SEVERAL MINDS DAVID R. CARLIN, JR. A LIBERAL CATHOLIC TAXONOMY Or was that a Catholic liberal taxonomy? In the November 18, 1994, issue of Commonweal the editorial was titled "Liberals &...
...The CL-Q reminds us of a man who says to his mistress: "You know, my dear, I love you more than my wife, but I'd feel terrible if I skipped her birthday party...
...there is also the prayer side, the moral side, the ritual side, the feeling side, the organizational side, etc...
...So they quietly dissent from liberal dogma at these points of conflict, saying to their liberal allies: "You know I'm with you on everything else, but I can't go along on this...
...After answering, not surprisingly, that Catholics can be liberals, the editors promised to discuss the question again in the future...
...If we want to investigate the compatibility of liberalism and Catholicism, it is essential to bear in mind that not all who are both liberal and Catholic are of the same type...
...I hope you'll understand...
...CLs can be divided into two categories according to how they respond to conflicts between Catholicism and conventional liberalism...
...Thus it is possible for a CL-P to be a dreadfully inconsistent Catholic from an intellectual point of view while leading a life of moral goodness combined with mystical prayer and big contributions to the bishop...
...In the November 18, 1994, issue of Commonweal the editorial was titled "Liberals & Catholics," and its opening words asked this pertinent question: "Can Catholics be liberals...
...Type 4 is strongly consistent, while types 2 and 3 are weakly consistent...
...Hence LC of this type will have no choice but to be critical of much that passes for liberalism in the secular world...
...That is to say, among people who are both liberal and Catholic, some (the CLs) stress the liberal aspect of their identity, while others (the LCs) stress the Catholic aspect...
...So here is a modest contribution toward such a taxonomy...
...Catholics who are liberal can be divided into two groups: "Catholic liberals" (CLs) and "liberal Catholics" (LCs...
...On the one hand there are those who adopt the agenda of conventional liberalism and then try to find Christian justifications for that agenda...
...The other CL subtype responds to liberal-Catholic conflicts by allowing the Catholic position to have a veto over the liberal position...
...In sum, we have four kinds of people who are both Catholic and liberal: (1) Catholic liberal, pure type (CL-P...
...In the meantime I'll cook up a story to explain why I'm coming home at three in the morning...
...and (4) liberal Catholic, critical type (LC-C...
...What I offer are "ideal types," Platonic forms as it were...
...So now back to the editorial's original question: "Can Catholics be liberals...
...and frankly I don't give a damn what my wife thinks...
...When I say they reject the Catholic position, I don't mean they come right out and say so...
...They wait for secular liberals to do the hard work of defining the liberal agenda, and then jump on board with words something like these, "This agenda has the blessings of the Holy Spirit...
...Of course, no individuals perfectly conform to any particular type, only more or less approximate it...
...They remain more liberal than Catholic, proof of which is found in their unwillingness to become champions of the Catholic position they profess to uphold...
...for it is commonly assumed, almost as a matter of definition, that anyone who criticizes conventional American liberalism must be a conservative...
...The former are liberals first and Catholics second, the latter Catholics first, liberals second...
...Or to put this more emphatically, type 4 is truly consistent, while types 2 and 3 create the appearance of consistency...
...but here a distinction needs to be made...
...Conventional liberalism, which derives from premises of a secular (even a secularist) nature, will inevitably conflict with a liberalism that derives from Catholic premises...
...Let us call these people "Catholic liberals of the qualified type" (CL-Q...
...In Christianity in general, and in Catholicism in particular, the intellectual side is enormously important, far more so than in most of the religions the human race has practiced...
...People of this kind start with Catholic premises and then try to figure out what liberal conclusions follow...
...When such a conflict arises (for example, on abortion), one CL subtype opts for the liberal position and rejects the Catholic position...
...Liberal Catholics (LCs) can also be divided into two classes...
...The question was especially pertinent since, just a few weeks earlier, the majority of American Catholics had voted Republican in the congressional elections...
...2) Catholic liberal, qualified type (CL-Q...
...We may call them "liberal Catholics of the piggyback type" (LC-PB...
...for if they were to fight for this position they would place themselves in open opposition to their liberal comrades, thus jeopardizing their liberal credentials...
...This type, it should be noted, will often be mistaken for a conservative...
...after all, it is my religion...
...3) liberal Catholic, piggyback type (LCPB...
...The other three are more-or-less consistent...
...We may call them "liberal Catholics of the critical type" (LC-C), since they are bound to be critical of the agenda of conventional liberalism...
...or "separation of church and state" or "you can't legislate morality...
...for obviously they can be, since so many of them are), but rather "Can a logically consistent person be both liberal and Catholic...
...I hope you'll understand...
...If the LC-PB starts with liberal conclusions and then searches, on a post hoc basis, for Catholic premises that will justify these conclusions, there is another kind of LC who does things the other way round...
...Of the four types, only type 1 holds a liberalism that is flatly and openly inconsistent with Catholicism...
...Let us call people of this kind "Catholic liberals of the pure type" (CL-P...
...which I construe to mean not "Can Catholics as a matter of fact be liberals...
...It would be helpful to sort out these types, to develop a liberal /Catholic taxonomy...
...Of course questions of logical consistency have to do with the intellectual side of religion only...
...The CL-P, by contrast, is like the man who says: "Don't worry, sweetheart, you can count on me...
...In doing so they don't renounce their liberal identity, not even temporarily...
...Usually CL-Ps finesse their rejection of the Catholic position, offering a theory whose purpose is to disguise this rejection (for example, "I am personally opposed but...
...See also my column of December 16,1994...
...But it is not the only side...
Vol. 122 • September 1995 • No. 16
