An Excellent Essay on what is the difference between political and catholic conservatives and liberals

This is a most excellent essay I came across that succintly defines what is the difference between a political conservative or liberal and that of a catholic conservative or liberal. It doesn't even require any thought to read it as it is common sense!!

Our faith is a complex faith not easily categorized into neat labels.

Mark
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Liberals, Conservatives, Catholics
By Cyril Jones-Kellett, Editor of the Southern Cross

Is there a culture war? It is increasingly common to say so. Pat Buchanan nearly got hooted out of the Republican Party for using the words "culture war" at the 1992 convention, but now few people seem disturbed by the term.

There is certainly a profound spirit of contention over issues of profound moral import - human life, human sexuality, the role of government, and the roles of major institutions such as universities and media.

The talk is of liberals and conservatives, red states and blue. There is some danger, today, of the Church in many places being torn by the increasing potency of these political and philosophical labels.

Even in Catholic parishes, for example, one knows when one is in a liberal parish and one knows when one is in a conservative parish - usually before the entrance hymn.

Thank God most parishes have not yet become one or the other, but even in otherwise tranquil parishes there is often tension between political and philosophical factions.

We are human, after all, and when our entire society is in a contentious mood it would be super-human if such contention were not felt in our religious communities.

I am asked sometimes whether I am a liberal or a conservative. Perhaps you have had this experience, too.

One gets the sense that people don't really feel they know who they're dealing with until they know which label applies.

I say I'm a Catholic. Ah, but what kind of Catholic? I have a ready answer - a bad Catholic.

One problem with political labels is that they mean different things in different times and places, but Catholic always means the same thing (though it is a very big and magnanimous thing).

John Adams, one of the greatest liberals in our history, would today probably be called a conservative. Martin Luther King, who was profoundly conservative in his approach to many social issues, is today thought of as a great liberal hero.

John Kennedy fought for lower taxes, selling the idea that "a rising tide lifts all boats," but today's liberals embrace him as their spiritual father even as they reject his taxation policies. And the leaders of China who struggle to maintain the status quo are often called conservatives in the American press, but you can't get more left-wing than a communist leader, can you?

Some people like to label themselves liberal Catholics or conservative Catholics but this is another problem. Catholicism is both profoundly liberal and profoundly conservative.

The classical meaning of the word liberal - the meaning that John Adams attached to it - is to be in favor of the liberation of the human person from oppressive political and social forces. This is a very good thing, one the Church cannot oppose.

The literal meaning of conservative is one who seeks to conserve the goods that have been built up. Also a very good thing.

When liberalism turns into libertinism, however, it becomes a destroyer of human liberty. If I am free to do any damn thing I please, then civil society is impossible.

Unrestrained humanity is not liberated humanity but humanity enslaved by its own bad behavior.

When conservatism turns to ossification, likewise, it becomes a destroyer of the good it seeks to maintain. In other words, when we become so obsessive in our conservatism that we prefer doing what has always been done to doing what is just, then we have become maniacs of the status quo, unable to act as true humans.

Catholics must be liberals in the sense that we ever seek the good of true human liberty, a liberty bestowed not by men or laws but by the God who made us. We must also be conservatives in protecting the goods that have been received from God and the goods that have been built up by humanity.

We must be liberal because we are pilgrims. God is working for the full liberation of all humanity; we should be working with him.

But we must also be conservative because God has already accomplished his great work of salvation. We must protect what has been handed on to us and what has been built up for the good of humanity. We must protect the sacraments and the teaching of the Church because they are goods that must be handed on to the next generations. It is our duty to conserve them.
Equally, we must not be liberals when liberalism means the abandonment of morality. When liberalism becomes defense of pornography, agitation for human cloning or advocacy of suicide, then it has become false liberalism, a liberalism not devoted to liberation but to selfishness. This kind of "liberalism" is self-defeating because it destroys civil society, a necessary condition for truly human liberty.

We must also not be conservatives when conservatism means ultra-nationalism or xenophobia or oppression of women.

True conservatism seeks to conserve the good, but when it becomes merely avoidance of change because change is uncomfortable, then it can easily become a mask for injustice.

And beyond all of this, we should be careful not to take our politics more seriously than we take our faith. If we find ourselves so polarized that we cannot love one another with joy then we have lost the Gospel - the one thing that can truly liberate us and the one thing truly worth conserving.