Keeping it Real With Pope Francis: The Catholic Neo-conservative's Sticky Dilemma

In the wake of two revealing interviews with the current pontiff in recent weeks, Catholic "conservatives" are both rationalizing, and reeling over, Francis' off the cuff comments. The central matter is well summed up here:

"To be sure, many Catholics wholeheartedly embraced the change in tone and spirit in which the pope discussed difficult questions like abortion. Unfortunately, some deeply involved in the prolife movement have taken those remarks as a rebuke. That is an overreaction and misinterpretation of what the pope said. Obviously, Francis was objecting to the uncompromising and confrontational rhetoric of some Catholic activists. Why? Because that approach is simply not working. Worse, it is preventing the larger gospel message from being heard both within and beyond the Catholic community. With a third of all baptized Catholics abandoning the church, and those who remain increasingly divided on ecclesial, cultural, and political questions, the pope’s diagnosis is hard to refute. Is it not time, as Francis urged, to “find a new balance” in presenting the church’s teaching to an often doubting flock and a sometimes hostile secular world? “Otherwise,” the pope warns, “even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the gospel. The proposal of the gospel must be more simple, profound, radiant. It is from this proposition that the moral consequences then flow.”

"Even more refreshing was the pope’s insistence that “thinking with the church” does not mean thinking only with the hierarchy. “The church [is]…the people of God, pastors and people together. The church is the totality of God’s people.” It has been a long time since that bit of orthodox wisdom has been heard from Rome..."

The original interview can be seen here.

The American Catholic right (as distinguished from traditionalists) has had a scattered response to Francis' comments, to say the least. Just consider this initial, bang-up analysis from the online Catholic World Report..

"Hours after the interview was released, the dissenting group Catholics United (see the August 2012 CWR article, “The Catholic Con Continues”) released a press statement penned by the CU communications director, Chris Pumpelly. The statement opens by claiming that “Francis articulates his vision of moving the priorities of the Catholic faith away from divisive social issues, like what he calls an 'obsession' with gay marriage, abortion and contraception, while refocusing on core Gospel teachings relating to poverty.” That statement is misleading at best, as “the priorities of the Catholic faith” have always been focused on proclaiming the gospel, even if many individual Catholics—laity, clergy, and religious alike—fail to do so. Pumpelly, like so many “progressives”, seeks to create a faulty “either/or” approach that seeks the silencing of those who uphold the clear and consistent teaching of the Church about sexuality, morality, and marriage.

"...Pope Francis has his own style, which reflects his unique personality and background, but it is also evident that he has the same central goal as his predecessors: to “proclaim the word; be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient; convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching” (2 Tim 4:2)."

He's still on our side, you guys!!! But NOT SO FAST. According to this write-up by Catholic right-wing writer and scholar John Zmirak:

"The pope’s most controversial statements seem to arise from a single motive: He doesn’t like “right-wing” Catholics, and wants to make it clear to all the world that he’s not one of them...I have met this kind of smug zealot up here in the U.S...who joke about burning heretics or who condemn the American founding because so many Founders were Freemasons...Some right-wing Catholics embrace a hardline agenda because they feel weak and irrelevant, and prefer magnificent fantasies of wielding power over their neighbors to the slow grunt work of evangelizing.

Zmirak, though, ultimately concludes:

"We are not living in fascist Argentina. The Culture of Death does not answer to men like General Galtieri, but to the likes of George Soros and Barack Obama. The bitterest traditionalists are not serving as tools of a grasping government which seeks to impose an anti-Christian ideology. Angry conservatives are not the cat’s paws of a potent political movement that seeks to marginalize the Church. The mass murder occurring throughout the West is not happening with the connivance of the Catholic right, but of the Catholic left, which pretends a moral equivalence between fundamental issues like abortion and prudential disputes over poverty programs and immigration totals, as a pretext for supporting candidates who oppose the natural law and the sanctity of life...

"Holy Father: Absurd as some of us are, we on the Catholic right are not your enemy."

Francis is clearly not their friend, either. That's going to become painfully apparent in the weeks and months ahead. Francis had this to say to La Repubblica as well: "It also happens to me that when I meet a clericalist, I suddenly become anti-clerical. Clericalism should not have anything to do with Christianity. St. Paul, who was the first to speak to the Gentiles, the pagans, to believers in other religions, was the first to teach us that."

Now, the pope's the "dissenter," and what are we to do? The absolute foolishness of the neocon ecclesiology has been laid bare, as now we can't just blindly follow all that Pope Francis says. So let's "guard the office" from the tainting of his unscripted, off the cuff interviews, and try to filter what he says ourselves to suit our agenda. JPII disliked left wingers because of the political history of his homeland. Francis dislikes right wingers, also because of the political history of his homeland. This translated into JPII's embrace of right wingers from other countries as well, and looks like it will mean Francis casting them aside. He's got their number, well beyond the secular politics he finds objectionable. The neocons are heavily clericalist, and like many Jesuits today, Francis loathes clericalism.

This could mean the complete undermining of entities like E.W.T.N. and its popular lay surrogates. They've always been tacked on to the papacy, but now what? Dissent from it? Save the papal office from the current pope, when all popes before him in the last century were 'saints?' The attempted integration of Catholicism into the public square (per the late Father Richard John Neuhaus and First Things) has been a disaster...former First Things editor Joseph Bottum now endorses gay marriage. Why? because there's no way back now. Rather than enforcing the Church's points of morality through the secular government (via the G.O.P.) onto non-Catholics, it's now high time to follow the REAL mission of this pope, and fix the Church from within, from the top-down. Now not only curia figures are being tossed out, but ordinary bishops (like Archbishop John J. Myers in Newark) are as well. Stay tuned there.

You Might Be In a Neo-con Parish If:

Our friends at the National Catholic Register have done it again with this one:

You Might Be In a Liberal Parish If…

...your family has to split up to find the tabernacle.

...the pastor wears an Izod shirt and introduces himself as "Steve."

...there's maraca's in the band.

...your pastor's last name starts with "Pf".

OR HOW ABOUT

..."Steve" quotes Hans Kung in his sermon.

...There's more Eucharistic ministers than parishioners receiving Communion.

...The sign of peace last twenty minutes and includes bear hugs.

...The scariest four letter words to your parish council aren't H.E.L.L but EWTN.

...the DRE is a female Episcopalian priest.

Absolutely classic. But what's really the prevailing alternative? How do you know you're in a "faithful," modern-day, EWTN-oriented American neoconservative Catholic parish? You know, truly devoted to the pontiff, to insulate your immortal soul from all this now-disappearing dissent? Each point is a little more detailed, but here are a few clues to look for at your church.

You might be at a neocon parish if:

...they play "traditional" music, that is, by the St. Louis Jesuits and David Hass, or "On Eagles Wings," but on the pipe organ accompanied by a violin. Sometimes even with bagpipes. How solemn, at least no guitars and drums, though!

...Every Sunday Mass includes a meditative post-Communion rendition in Latin, alternating between either Franck's "Panis Angelicus" or Schubert's "Ave Maria" ONLY. That is, with a synthesizer backdrop.

...the pastor is 35 years old, and really does look like he's wearing a black skirt while prancing around the parish center in his cassock.

...Father Connell, the young pastor, prays in Latin with a lisp.

...Father Connell's best friend, Gary, is a layman. But he's always at the church helping out, also wearing a cassock.

...The tabernacle is in the center of the sanctuary alright, behind the altar. But it's bronze and the size and shape of a mini-refrigerator.

...The incense Father uses smells like frankincense with a mothball preservant.

..."John Paul," not "Francis," is Pope.

...When Pope Francis is referenced, it's about "how much like" John Paul II he really is.

...No social justice committee here. Pro-life dominates.

...But we don't want to degrade younger women with the Pro-life message. So the pro-life committee mostly talks about how younger, potentially impregnating men just need to "man up" and "find jobs."

...Air-conditioning the church was so costly, that those new Mary and Joseph statues are both made of Styrofoam.

..."The Crusades" refers to Bush's War On Terror.

...The votive candle stands in the narthex are electric.

...The pastor is always saying how all 20 teenagers in the youth group constitutes a "huge faith revival."

...There's incredible preaching about True Mortal Sin. That is, believing anything "negative" that the secular media says about the Church.

...The DRE (Director of Religious Education) is an ex-Legion of Christ seminarian who scratches out all reference to Fr. Maciel, the true author of his photocopied handouts to the students.

...Father's vestments aren't the 1970's tie-dye ones at all. Rather, they look like they're made of actual fancy Italian restaurant tablecloth fabric.

Now the stereotypical liberal parish (as described) has been fast disappearing since the 1990s, along with the clapping and banjo-guided singing. But what's been replacing it is a bunch of sanctimonious, hyper-sentimentalist, clericalist drivel. Hyperbolizing the liberal parish as anything "typical," nowadays, only steers attention away from the new set of problems now in place.

Even some "liberal" parishes evolve:

The "Vortex" of Catholic Neoconservtives

In recent days, revelations emerged that Pope Francis spoke of a Vatican underworld that involves an actively homosexual clerical network. This video was produced by Michael Voris, who leads the ChurchMilitant.tv online media network.





Voris hesitates with this until the end of the broadcast, but then finally starts naming, well, institutions and entities that shill for the modern Petrine establishment at all costs. They are the usual suspects: EWTN (and apparently its prissy, effeminate news director), its weekly paper, the National Catholic Register, and various low-rated radio outlets, such as Ave Maria Radio, founded by former tycoon Tom Monahan.

You see, they are all fanatical clericalists. These are folks and institutions who do little more than simply identify with the clerical power establishment, like the American Bishops Conference, to establish their supposed sanctity. They act like a bunch of latter-day Pharisee concubines, and little else.

It's very simple: there's a difference between the Faith and its truths, and those who operate the Church. Many of those who lead the Church are faithful, though Scripture warns of being like the Pharisees, who represented the pinnacle of the religious establishment.

It's interesting how Voris mentions men's and women's conferences, that took place in March, as having been venues for certain speakers trashing him and defending the gay priest underworld as being largely non-existent. No doubt, such conferences promote the "New Feminism," which is bent on advancing a hybrid of Victorian-sounding pieties about women, combined with tightly-defined gender roles (50s style), and Andrea Dworkin-sounding condemnations of men's sexuality, all rolled together. On the sexuality front, it's really only men who do the sinning in what is now the post-sexual revolution era, as younger women are constantly "being objectified."

It's all about innate hypocrisy built upon other hypocrisies. Of course, "we'll lose the culture war if we go against other 'faithful.'" NEWSFLASH: They've already been lost.

It's past high time to gut the house and re-built from the bottom up.

Francis: keeping it real in his early days

The papacy of Francis, Bishop of Rome, has caught many off-guard in its debut. In particular, the way he has quickly filled the papal "shoes," as exemplified by his approach to Holy Week celebrations.

From The Wall Street Journal:

Observers have noted, for example, that Pope Francis, the first pontiff from the Americas, still wears the cross he wore as archbishop of Buenos Aires, rather than the golden one customary for popes, and that he has declined to wear the papal red shoes and other fancy vestments favored by past pontiffs.

Earlier this week, the pope indicated he wouldn't move into the pontiff's gilded official quarters in the Apostolic Palace any time soon, instead planning to stay at a modest Vatican guesthouse....

In his first general audience Wednesday, Francis said that Catholics needed to "be the first to move towards our brothers and sisters, especially those who are most distant, those who are forgotten, those who are most in need of understanding, consolation and help"...That contrasted with his predecessor, who viewed the church's relationship with the secular world as largely adversarial, and responded by defending the church's fundamental beliefs and rituals.

Until Pope Francis, no pontiff had ever washed the feet of a woman or a Muslim on Holy Thursday, which marks two of the most important institutions in Roman Catholicism, the Eucharist and the priesthood...For Pope Francis, in a Holy Thursday Mass, to clean the feet of two women, including a Muslim from Serbia, left some speechless...

If Rome has a McDonald's, it won't be long until Francis will be found, with his ecclesial cadre, having a post-audience happy meal.

People look at this with raised eyebrows to say the very least. Some are thrilled with his down-to-earthness, while others are simply appalled. These 'others' include American neoconservatives, along with the return-to-all-Latin traditionalists. The former, of course, is most concerned with strengthening the authority and influence of the papal and episcopal (i.e., bishops) offices over the Church and the world. The latter fixates on reviving traditional expressions, both in papal pageantry and liturgy in general. So far, it's not going so well, as so noted.

One of the most-read traditionalist blogs, "Rorate Caeli," reacted to the foot-washing ceremony by declaring the death of Benedict's eight-year project to correct what he considered the botched interpretations of the Second Vatican Council's modernizing reforms.

"The official end of the reform of the reform — by example," ''Rorate Caeli" lamented in its report on Francis' Holy Thursday ritual.

A like-minded commentator in Francis' native Argentina, Marcelo Gonzalez at International Catholic Panorama, reacted to Francis' election with this phrase: "The Horror." Gonzalez's beef? While serving as the archbishop of Buenos Aires, the then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio's efforts to revive the old Latin Mass so dear to Benedict and traditionalists were "non-existent."

Virtually everything he has done since being elected pope, every gesture, every decision, has rankled traditionalists in one way or another.

I think it's important to underscore this fact: he's a Jesuit. Jesuits, of course, are regarded, on balance, as being part of the liberal wing of the Church. Though dogmatically, that's not always true at all. Bergoglio was a no-nonsense, hard-liner among major South American prelates, especially when it came down to major doctrinal and social concerns on the national stage: abortion and contraception, preserving opposite-sex marriage, opposing euthanasia, opposing Communist liberation theology, and so on. Unlike in 90 percent of Europe, where all previous popes hailed from, abortion is ILLEGAL in Argentina. Might that owe somewhat to Bergoglio?

In the last dozen or so years, I visited a number of Jesuit order churches, from the east coast to as far as San Francisco. Four were parishes, one was a college campus church. While I am a fan of the Jesuits (yet no real liberal), and do adore the more solemn, formal liturgies, these places of worship defied category.

Compared with most other modern-day, large parishes, these churches offered distinct liturgical variety among their weekend Masses. Spanish Masses, contemporary guitar Masses, even liturgical dance Masses. But they all held, as central, a very rubric-heavy, solemn Sunday Mass with many traditional trappings (among them, incense and polyphonic music, large pipe organs with a trained choir). And I do mean beautiful and reverential, much of what would appeal to conservative-minded churchgoers. Yet, to some degree, it also appeals to what and who largely remains the Jesuit "clientele": the more affluent and educated.

The solemn masses at the Jesuit parishes were far better done, and more "high church" than at the average parish, including most supposedly conservative parishes I've been to. Better sacred music, nicer church buildings, and far better preaching.

For certain, the parishes are very social justice oriented. But there were also rosary societies, frequent Eucharistic devotions, and certainly Ignatian activities and retreats.

But the more profound differences were also more subtle. Some of the Jesuit priests, though wearing the proper vestments during Mass, were otherwise in civilian clothes, not the standard clerical black outfits. Some were on a first-name basis with parishioners, or introduced themselves using a first name, sans the prefix "Father." In other words, they were less clericalist. Writes Russell Shaw:

Clericalism, however, is...a caricature. It fosters an ecclesiastical caste system in which clerics comprise the dominant elite, with lay people serving as a passive, inert mass of spear-carriers tasked with receiving clerical tutelage and doing what they're told. This upstairs-downstairs way of understanding relationships and roles in the Church extends even to the spiritual life: priests are called to be saints, lay people are called to satisfy the legalistic minimum of Christian life and scrape by into purgatory...

Of course, where I differ with Shaw is on John Paul II. No pope in modern times has done more to re-characterize and caricature the clericalist state than the great saint pontiff himself. Note the results, you know, the ones that sank the Benedict XVI papacy.

Some neoconservatives, who tend to go along with whatever the Vatican says and does on most things on the basis of authority, are catching on. Writing in the mother of all clericalist, neocon rags, The National Catholic Register, Father Roger Landry makes no bones about what Pope Francis is all about, and what's on the horizon:

One of the most urgent reforms facing him is the restoration of the moral credibility of the hierarchy, and especially of the priesthood. The scandals of clerical sex abuse and tales of Vatican corruption have not only severely undermined the Church’s moral authority, but given the impression that living by the Church’s teachings forms freaks and moral monsters rather than saints.

In his first couple of weeks as Pope, as well as his 14 years in Buenos Aires, Francis has been charting out the trajectory of priestly reshaping...Diocesan priests do not take a vow of poverty, but commit themselves to a simple lifestyle. In many places, this principle is given lip service, as members of the clergy drive fancy cars, frequent the finest restaurants and live in exquisite digs...Second, throughout his time as archbishop, the future Pope spoke out forcefully against priests’ living a “double-life.” When he was asked in a 2010 book-length interview, El Jesuita, about the common saying in Argentina, “I believe in God, but I don’t believe in priests,” he replied, “Many of us priests do not deserve to have them believe in us.”

In Buenos Aires, if the priests found themselves in difficult circumstances, he would help them address their situation, even if it meant their deciding to leave the priesthood. What he absolutely wouldn’t tolerate, however, was priests’ living incoherent lives, because he knew how much that harms and scandalizes God’s people (blogger's note: JPII put a moratorium on men leaving the priesthood, or being laicized, expecting them to work out their double lives).

...Like the Good Shepherd, the priest must seek to be the servant, not the lord, of the rest. This is the exact opposite of the haughty clericalism that in many places has hurt many and wounded the Church.

This is very profound, coming from Father Landry, a noted grad of North American College in Rome. I guess he knows a few of his classmates well when he writes "haughty clericalism." He certainly isn't talking of the Spencer Tracy-era priests he never encountered. Believe me. For the younger ordinands who view themselves as only about sharing in divinity, as entitled to deference and comfort, this will be a shock. It WILL drive a good many of them out of the priesthood. Good riddance.

The substance of the Church is true and real. The culture of the Church can change, and change it will. These changes won't be to everyone's liking, perhaps not always to mine. But here we have a shepherd-leader who is a Vatican outsider, who will reform the curia and the hierarchy. I believe the changes are coming, and they're coming fast!

It seems that, all at once, the old order that dominated the last quarter of the 20th century, and ushered in the 2000s, has dissolved. Not only am I speaking of a papacy bent on political power (instead of tending to internal Church matters), but also a Republican Party in the U.S. bent on state, military, and corporate power.

The True Ideological Divisions of Catholicism

In light of the raging debate over the Vatican's "crackdown" of the religious sisters of the LCWR (Leadership Conference of Women Religious), which represents the high majority of women's vowed communities in the U.S., misunderstandings about the political nature of the modern Church have re-emerged. I love writing lists and breakdowns, so here it goes once more. .

As I see it, there are essentially three broad, notable divisions in practicing Catholicism today. It's hard to get a clear read on the exact distribution of how many belong to each group, as many surveys conflate the beliefs of both practicing and non-practicing. This pretty much represents the practicing distribution:

Progressives

This includes the LCWR and its surrogates, groups like Call to Action and elements of Voice of the Faithful. Whether or not activist, these are the Church's change agents: they wish for official Church teaching to be altered on birth control, women's ordination, certainly mandatory celibacy, certain "patriarchal" elements of liturgy, with far more lay involvement in Church governance. To them, abortion is just one among a host of issues and by itself does not take precedence, as there are scores of other social justice concerns, much aligned to secular progressivism.

Traditional

These folks are well-fractured, but hold out that the modernizing Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) was either entirely unnecessary, or simply turned out very badly for the Church. Think Pat Buchanan for starters: They point to the moral turpitude in the pews (e.g. the progressives themselves) and declining numbers of Mass attendance and religious vocations to illustrate the point. Most of the hierarchy has been either inept in this struggle, aligned with progressives in thought, or themselves morally corrupt no matter what they call themselves.

They love the traditional "Tridentine" Latin Mass, either viewing it as the exclusive rite of worship, the favored rite, or even close to how the new rite should basically look, sound, and smell. In all, these are people who readily admit they want the Church of the 1950s restored.

Neo-conservative

Often conflated by the press with the aforementioned traditionalists, this is an ecclesiology unto itself. It represents a sort of middle ground, but should not be confused with being "moderate" in terms of dogmatic rigor.

To these folks, the institutional establishment comes first. That is, the authority structure, as is, takes precedence in their minds. So, while Vatican II presented the Church universal with a bumpy ride in the decades out with plenty of progressivist dissent, Pope John Paul II pretty much straightened it all out (with the exception of notable bits of Western Europe).

The Latin Mass can be nice (even very nice) at times, but is surely not exclusive, for that wouldn't be true in thinking with the Church (and its Vatican II reforms). Most Masses today are in the are vernacular (with pretty crummy music, admittedly to some) but really shouldn't change, because that's the status quo, and since the establishment is beyond reproach, we really don't question it.

While we despise liturgical violations (they're against what the bishops say), we still welcome charismatic expressions (that often thrive on liturgical violations) because John Paul II did, since it presumably brought more folks into the institutional fold, and that's what really matters most.

We talk about those we'd love excommunicated, but we won't do it, as that would lessen the reach of the institutional establishment and make it all the more unpopular. Otherwise, the Church is in wonderful shape; we don't see many problems in the institution beyond a few public dissenters. The Church is growing worldwide, more priests are being ordained than in the past several decades in America (though how many imported?). Dissent was largely solved by JPII through his episcopal (bishop) appointments, and the priestly sex abuse problem is mostly a delusionary fiat of a hostile secular press.

So, how do these broad factions interact?

It's all rather counterintuitive, actually. Progressives and traditionalists both see the Roman Catholic Church as being screwed up...in major ways. And some of their lists actually overlap:

BOTH view the Church as being in a state of measurable decline, even worldwide overall, with no end in visible sight. BOTH view the hierarchy as being chock-full of disingenuous and power-hungry elites. BOTH consider sex abuse as still being a huge, largely under-addressed crisis. While there's a "one-strike" policy in the U.S. against priests, bishops are inconsistent in publicizing those who have been credibly accused and when. Bishops themselves are not personally held to account when they are accused of misconduct personally. BOTH admit to there being a somewhat widespread gay subculture throughout seminaries and the priesthood in the West. BOTH see the ineptitude of the hierarchy in addressing these notable hypocrisies.

YET, both have VASTLY OPPOSING solutions to these honest diagnoses. Progressives want "progress" through vast doctrinal changes and revisions. Traditionalists want a revival of bygone discipline through tradition to stave off further damage, or for a complete revival.

Though neocons have a different view: they want to crack down on "dissent," but this is often pitched popularly as liberal detraction from the ecclesial party line on such things as birth control. But other times, it is right wing, traditional dissent, that is, anyone who harshly criticizes the sitting pontiff, who doesn't "think with the Church" and "uphold the Office." Yet, their crackdowns can be notably tepid: for instance, threatening or suggesting withholding the Host from only the most virulent of pro-choice politicians, suggesting sanctions against the very most progressive (and often elite) of Church-affiliated institutions of higher learning (usually over invitations to secular-progressive notables for commencements); this is when most U.S. Catholic universities have long been mainstreamed into society. In the final analysis, it's all about preserving institutional cohesion. and prestige People being excommunicated will only trigger an exodus from this institution on their part and by their supporters, which in turn will serve to weaken the "big tent" that is today's Catholicism, thereby lowering the prestige and influence of the pontifical and episcopal offices. I shit you not, this is truly the cliff's notes synopsis of how they think.

While the outside world is rotting away, corruption inside the Church is not an issue for neocons. We should just celebrate John Paul II (JPII), who "revitalized" the Church, instead, and not really question the Church's establishment authority structure, lest we be "proud."

So WHO are these Catholo-neocons exactly? Think the late Father Richard John Neuhaus, who edited the conservative First Things project; or George Weigel, papal biographer, or Mary Ann Glendon, Harvard Law Professor, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia, most of the cast and producers of EWTN (Eternal Word Television Network) and their print outfit, the National Catholic Register. Occasionally this crew will call upon the hierarchy to be more aggressive in dealing with the afore-defined notable "public" doctrinal dissenters, but will stop short of promoting anything that will cause real "division," otherwise known as schism. In reality, many progressive dissenters FLOURISH within modern U.S. and European Catholicism, usually in the lay apparatus of Catholic institutions (oftentimes charities), the LCWR (yes!) which is connected to its own vast expanse of Catholic education and charity, and especially within the broader higher education ivory towers (and not just Jesuit schools). In truth, the whole house may fall if this status quo is disrupted, which is why the neocons hope progressives just shut up or be converted to orthodoxy; otherwise they wish to leave them mostly intact.

Then, there's neocon clericalism, which is defined as over-emphasizing the separateness and apartness of the clergy from the laity, to the point of noting only their "specialness." No doubt, this DOES mean ignoring or minimizing the sometimes notable personal faults of individual priests, including those that interfere with their effective ministering. JPII was big on this (as he was big on restoring institutional cohesion, which indeed WAS coming apart at the seams during the 1970s and threatening schism) as are most neocon laity and hierarchy. A great example is New York Cardinal Archbishop Timothy Dolan: he's OK with Cardinal Bernard Law receiving his prestigious basilica appointment in Rome from JPII AFTER being removed for the horrendous cover-up crisis in the Boston archdiocese. You'll rarely hear a sitting bishop criticize another bishop, sitting or retired, for any reason. Laity who resist criticizing priests "because he's a priest!" are likewise of this mindless mold. The other two groupings almost love excoriating clergy who do not fit the respective bent these folks represent.

Yet, note how Pope Benedict XVI has called for a smaller, more cohesive Church, one without "filth" and dissent that, though reduced in worldly presence, is far more true and meaningful. Many on all sides minimize some of the astounding course-corrections undertaken during his reign, broadly conflating his policies with JPII's in order to serve whatever their talking points may be.

Trads can be found reading The Latin Mass, while progressives usually read Commonweal and National Catholic Reporter.

I don't readily identify with any of these divisions, actually. Though my emphasis herein should demonstrate wherein lies the true problem.