What gets described as “liberal” Catholicism is far more multifarious and complicated than that politicized label conveys. There is a form of liberal Catholicism that is simply a Catholicism that doesn’t want to vote Republican—or outside the American context, that’s skeptical of the excesses of late modern global capitalism—and that doesn’t see the social doctrine of the Church fully embodied in political conservatism. This sort of liberalism is fully compatible with doctrinal orthodoxy, and indeed, its flourishing should be regarded even by those who differ with its politics as a sign of a healthy Catholicism, one not imprisoned by partisanship and ideology.
Then there is a form of liberal Catholicism that doesn’t have a sweeping program of change for the Church, but just finds certain teachings either too challenging to live up to or too difficult to fully comprehend. This form is less a threat to orthodoxy than a necessary challenge to conservatives—a challenge to charity and generosity of spirit and also an intellectual and theological challenge. Some teachings fail to persuade or resonate because the case for them is made poorly, and needs to be reconceived and made anew. In other instances, liberal difficulties really can point the way either toward an authentic development of doctrine or a genuinely pastoral change in how the Church approaches an issue, a group, a situation.
But then, finally, there is a form of liberal Catholicism that envisions a Catholicism too much like the present Protestant Mainline or the deteriorating Anglican Communion to be recognized as Catholic. This form has revolutionary ambitions, it proceeds from premises that owe more to a brief era in twentieth-century theology than to the full inheritance of the Church, and its theological vision and Catholic orthodoxy are not ultimately compatible. Indeed, they are locked in a conflict that’s as serious as the Church’s struggle with Arianism or Gnosticism (and resembles those conflicts on specific theological points as well).
It may be that this conflict has only just begun. And it may be that as with previous conflicts in church history, it will eventually be serious enough to end in real schism, a permanent parting of the ways. – from A Crisis of Conservative Catholicism
