Francis Mortyn

Anglicanism, which is defined by the OED as the authentic representation of the Catholic Church, has been "freethinking from the beginning" according to the official publications of the movement titled Affirming Anglican Catholicism.
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Amos

And they were good Catholics. It is easy to be a good Catholic because none claim to be righteous, none will judge, and each will be chastised by God in Gods time.

In the old Baltimore Cathechism is a picture of a Catholic church and it shows a stairway to heaven at the back of the church. The significance of this is that our stairway to heaven in exactly opposite to what we pretend to be.

HumanisTim

My Wife considers herself Catholic. But doesn't really follow or seem to believe in the majority of the doctrines. I think alot of it has to do with, her catholicism being a cultural thing as much as it is a religious thing. Just like there's people who view themselves as cultural Jews. I think there are those who we could call Cultural Catholics.

Godless Sodomite

Most of my family consider themselves Catholic. I don't understand why either--none of them think highly of the Pope; they all think the church is completely wrongheaded about gay issues, pro choice and contraception issues, divorce, mixing Jesus and politics; they have nothing but the harshest condemnation of how the church is handling its sexual scandals; some of them find 'mediums' like John Edward credible; some, like my mom, have belief in reincarnation. In short, they all have religions of their own design and the god they worship has nearly nothing whatsoever to do with the monster of the bible, yet they call themselves Catholic.

-Jerry

Psycho Economist

Well, if you want to talk about a truly geologic scale of liberal v. conservative Catholics: a "liberal Catholic" is one who supports the changes brought by the second ecumenical council, Vatican II(tm)... expanded roles for the leity, non-latin mass, an age limit on how old archbishops may be and still vote for a Pope, some non-Catholic Christians may actually be saved...

A "conservative Catholic" is of the opinion that those changes are unbiblical pandering to the leity and a wordly dillution of Catholic doctrine.

Of course, as the number of people who believe eating meat on a Friday requires a trip to the confessional declines, the practical battle lines get moved further left, but a particularly blunt instrument (like a book) is still likely to divide liberal and conservative Catholics along Vatican II's lines.

Ab_Normal

I spent Thanksgiving with my Catholic family members, who would seem to be liberal Catholics by the definition we're deriving. Examples:
* My sister uses birth control
* In private conversation, my mother expressed doubts of the existence of the soul (boggle!)

It got very interesting because my sister had just received a letter from the local bishop about what the diocese is doing about pedophile priests, and my brother-in-law was quite open about his disappointment with the church hierarchy. Seems that our current bishop was quite high up in the diocesan hierarchy during the administration of the previous two bishops, who did most of the covering up; my b-i-l firmly believes that the current bishop was therefore involved in the cover-ups.

But nothing will stop them from going to church every week. Weird.

Ab_Normal

Re: Catholic schools. Make sure you check them out first. I went to a craptacular Catholic elementary and middle school. (My mom actually told me last week that she wanted me to go to the local public school, but I wouldn't take her hints. I was change-averse even as a child. )

ImGod

There's a guy in my office that's Catholic (actually quite a few). The only way you know it is by the many, many, Holy Mary Mother of crap trinkets in his work area, and the picture of his 10 children. Other than that, he dogs church (good religious jokes) and must spend plenty time in confession based on his actions toward others.

Most of the Catholics around here are benign. The baptist guy next to me is a little annoying. Always bragging about how much he does for his church or how much they do for others.

echidna

Just a quick note for Arrowman. I just checked the results of my eldest’s Year 10 Religious Education exam (Catholic School).

Actually I quite approve !!

Examples :

Definition of an iman, who was the first pope, 4 noble truths of Hinduism, name the creation spirit of the Aboriginal people, Jewish name for God, identify a menorah, describe a moral dilemma & how one would deal with it. No requirement for the perceived “correctness” of religion.

OK, maybe a little Catholic-biased, maybe theistically biased towards the major religions, definitely not critical enough of the problems, but AFAICS it’s largely a non-denominational study of religion, with good time allocated to each of Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam & Judaism. I suppose I could gripe that atheism doesn’t seem to get a mention, but that doesn’t terribly concern me given that atheism seems to be almost an inherent part of adolescence (& often later life) anyway. Altogether quite surprising given my reservations about Catholicism, but quite a welcome syllabus IMO.

Actually I think that some form of objective study of religion is not a bad thing thing.

Heh, she got a C, her lowest mark.

Arrowman

Thanks echidna; I trust I will be able to say the same thing when I have seen the full syllabus. All I have seen so far is the one-para summary in the school handbook, and it seems to be exclusively about learning Christian/Catholic practices. But I am hopeful; after all, one would hardly expect the summary to mention all that other stuff, eh?

Heh, that's what bothers me! My daughter is so far pretty much an "A" student but bored by church/religion; I fear she will have trouble passing the RE subject, unless perhaps I can help her along. Oh, the IRONY!!!