The more progressive ones want to help the poor by giving them housing, food, health care, education, all paid for by the state. The more conservative ones are horrified at abortion.
The Church is pushing both groups, and they are on opposite sides of the political fence. The two groups see themselves as being true to their beliefs, and are getting pushed into a situation where they are supporting a party they don't agree with to advance part of what they see as the most important tenant of their faith.
It will be interesting to see if a pro life but liberal party forms as a result.
"The more progressive ones" are in a perilous (from their POV) state of decline.
The surprise election of Timothy Cardinal Dolan of New York (whose brother in their hometown of St. Louis, MO, is said to be a conservative radio talk show host) as president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops over the left radical Bishop Kicanas of Tucson (one of the late and unlamented Joseph Cardinal Bernardin's boys) was the first upset in the history of USCCB in which an insurgent nomination came off the floor to defeat the incumbent vice-president and stopping his ascendancy to the presidency of USCCB.
75 year old Francis Cardinal George of Chicago (former president of USCCB) recently wrote in his archdiocesan newspaper (in protest of Obozocare and the HHS regs) that he expects to die in bed, that he expects his successor to die in prison and he expects the successor of the one who dies in prison to be slain in the public square. Cardinal George has heretofore been notable for being a faithful Catholic but one who is modest and somewhat moderate in his choice of language in his communications to his flock.
The Vatican, through attrition, is systematically cleansing the worst cesspool states where the bishops have previously been trendy liberals: Texas, California, Illinois and soon New York. Actual Catholics are being appointed to each diocese that falls vacant by age or death or transfer.
B-XVI has now issued a directive for dealing with the political and ecclesiastical revolutionaries, new agers, enneagram fanatics, "centering prayer" occultists and all purpose heathens who run the major orders of nuns in the United States as a permanent ongoing revolution against their ecclesiastical superiors and, well, God.
God is not finished with us yet and, if the recent trends and policies continue, you may be positively impressed by the improvements in what used to be reviled as "AmChurch." A lot more Catholics than you may imagine are politically conservative as well as pro-life, pro-family religious conservatives. That includes many of us who come from the old private sector labor union families of yesteryear. My parents were both factory workers until my mother took a pay cut from her garment workers' job to be a clerical worker at Yale.
Virtually every older relative of mine was a labor union liberal (on private sector labor matters) in the 1950s. Virtually none of my relatives are Democrats today since they have all chosen Republican politics because they are pro-life and pro-family as actual Catholics. Many are Knights of Columbus and members of Ladies' Eucharistic Leagues. They recognize "progressivism" as the source of the moral evils in our society. We (my extended family members) are not hostile to generous care of the elderly, of the deserving poor, or of the physically crippled. We can remember so many of our own family who had fallen into such categories in the past. It has been our privilege to do our part privately. Nonetheless, even fifty years ago, NONE of them sympathized with the welfare state or welfare dependency as a way of life, even when they were still Democrats.
Finally, recognizing you as a non-Catholic serious Christian of good will and good faith, may I suggest that you take a look at the execrable National (anti-)Catholic Reporter which you may access at ncronline.com to witness the rage of the seriously aging and dying "progressive" crowd who falsely claim Catholicism. Today's issue is particularly filled with anti-Vatican venom. Pay particular attention to the reams of responses to their articles from their handful of readers. It is like reading the New York Times' readers responses to Maureen Dowd or David Brooks or Paul Krugman. As their pagan predecessors used to say: Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad!
I read NCR to know the dwindling enemy within and to do unofficial penance for my sins. And to indulge in a bit of schadenfreude.
God bless you and yours!