What if the liberal Catholics got what they wanted?

More on this subject which seems to be everywhere today. This is from Fr. James V. Schall, SJ:

The first consequence would be that anyone with a half a mind will realize that the Church has contradicted its own solemnly sworn and defined principles. In other words, on its own grounds, it is not worth believing. It has rejected its one claim to credibility, that is, its adherence to the stated deposit of faith and the teachings that flowed from this. In fact, it now agrees that what was wrong in one era is right in another.

Who would really rejoice at this reversal? Those who think that these practices are the solution to modern problems would not change, nor would they any longer have any reason to question their own presuppositions about such matters. Those who thought the teachings of the Church were solid and theologically grounded, however, will be logical enough to realize that a Church that approves such modern practices, after insisting for so long that they were wrong, is not worth its salt. Such a Church would have absolutely no credibility.

If the Church, over its long history, insists that some thing is wrong, then it suddenly decides that what is wrong is right, what follows? What follows is simply that no one, believer or non-believer, should ever again give such a Church second thought. It cannot, on these premises, be true.

So what those who advocate abortion, birth control, gay life, euthanasia, cloning, and what not really are seeking is the undermining of the one authority in the world that says these practices and those who choose them are wrong–wrong before God and before themselves. The Church did not itself concoct these theories as if it could fashion what it wanted, as those who want it to radically change think it can.

Yeppers, that about sums it up, for me. I touched on this back here but Schall says it better, and you’ll want to read it all, though.

And then check out more popestuff, some of it is pretty cute.

UPDATE: Julie at Happy Catholic has yet another piece by Fr. Schall, wherein he wonders about the division in the world of every issue now becoming conservative or liberal. It’s good. Now that I am feeling better, and less cranky, I am going to have to try to shape up and stop looking at everything through my own prisms, too.