It seems to me that the staunch Catholics of the past would not have been seen as “conservative” or “progressive” but simply “Catholic”, sharing some of the policies of each side. Philosophically, I think we are far closer to conservatism than progressivism. That assumes you can disgard the excesses of particular elements, and the false accusations, such as “conservatives don’t care about the poor”.

Perhaps a self-described progressive Catholic could tell us more about his philosophy, it honestly appears to be a dichotomy to me.

God Bless,

Matt

I’ve been slowly working on a post on this topic, so mostly I’ll beg your patience till I have a chance to fully lay out my case, but a couple quick clarifications of what I’m trying to describe here:

- When I say conservatives “fear” disruption I don’t necessarily mean that fear is irrational or panicked, just that as conservatives we lean heavily towards being warry of the disruptions (including unforseen disruptions that are nonetheless probably out there) resulting from sudden change.

- I would tend to argue that “conservative” and “progressive” are relative terms to a great extent. The cultural and political values which a conservative like William F. Buckley or Fr. Neuhaus wants to see “preserved” in the modern US are values which 100 years or more ago would have been seen as fairly progressive in their liberality compared to the institutions which ancien regime adherants wanted to preserve.

- The progressive instinct in a given time and place is heavily guided by the spirit of the age. So for instance, while in 1900 both votes for women and racist eugenics were seen as “progressive”, today feminism is seen as progressive but racism is seen as “retrograde” — because the social values which drive progressivism have changed. In this sense, I’d say one of the reasons why so many progressives are urging things which we as Christians see as wrong in this day and age is because the wider culture has strayed so far from Christianity. To the extent that Christian values are seen as a relic of the past on topics like abortion, marriage, family, etc. at this time in the US, it’s mostly conservatives who want to preserve them while secular progressives want to “move on” from them.

fear of the disruption of sudden change versus desire to right a wrong immediately

I’m not really sure that this fear is a tenet of conservatism, only that it is attributed to conservatives because they are resistant to many changes. I suggest they are resistant to changes because they are bad more than they are afraid of change in general.

I think that the homosexual lobby uses a similar approach, calling us “homophobic” for opposing indoctrination of the culture.

Now even changes for the good sometimes need to be moved slowly to avoid causing more harm than good, but that’s not necessarily fear but is quite reasonable, although in some cases it could be and could certainly appear to be the case.

I’m also not sure that the “progressive” instinct is strictly an embrace of change but of particular types of changes.

My perspectives could be based on our current situation where I believe that the perceived middle is so far to the left that what we perceive as conservative is really the middle of a more balanced perspective. Looking at the Catholic hierarchy, I doubt any pontiff before John XXIII would consider Benedict conservative, but relative to the US bishops, he’s pretty hard right. In that sense, I think bishops like Bruskewitz and Burke are the solid middle in an authentic view.

While I’m rambling, I might suggest that we who are considered conservative are not trying to make the mistakes of the past, but simply reverse the mistaken innovations of the last 60 years.

God Bless,

Matt

I found especially interesting your discussion of the white moderates whom King addressed, and the pro-life analogy that you made. In a sense, it’s a prototypical conservative/progressive dichotomy: fear of the disruption of sudden change versus desire to right a wrong immediately. And it’s an example of how to a great extent many Christian “liberals” have started deploying a conservative argument for keeping abortion legal: Sure it may be wrong, but it would cause all sorts of trouble both to our party and disruptions in our country as a whole if we were to roll back Roe, so we’d better take things slow and get things to the point where no one wants an abortion anyway (which at least to my understanding of a fallen world would be: never) before we move to restrict it.

In that sense, it’s an example of how the conservative instinct and the progressive instinct both have appropriate places — being one or the other all the time will often result in doing the wrong thing some of the time.

Or to badly paraphrase Chesterton: “Conservatives insist that we continue to make the mistakes of the past, while progressives urge us to make new ones.”

Frankly, I have no desire to see you become Republican. You’ve done an excellent job in challenging my viewpoint and helping me see the larger picture. Keep at it, and from well within the trenches of the party of FDR.

God bless President Barack Obama. My He give our new leader the graces he needs to serve this nation well and fully; to respect life in all forms from conception to natural death; to work towards peace; it be intelligent, diligent, honest, forthcoming, and responsible; to love and cherish his family and raise them with strong, unswerving Christian values.