As much as I identify as a "conservative" in politics, that term has become relatavistic. The late Senator Robert A Taft was known as "Mr. Conservative" as recently as 1952. He was a superb man and, for his time, a very fine conservative, though scarcely infallible. The operative words are "for his time."
Taft's major heresy had been his pre-Pearl Harbor isolationism, cured by the dive bombers of the Imperial Japanese Navy. After the war, he adopted a far more sensible policy that Europe was dead because it had enjoyed and rejected capitalism but tat the US should look to build alliances in Asia, Africa and Latin America where capitalism had never been tried.
Twelve years later, Senator Barry Goldwater was "Mr. Conservative." Unlike Taft, Goldwater advocated an aggressive interventionist foreign policy on which he was right as Taft had been wrong. Unfortunately, Goldwater was also devoted to social revolutionary ideas like abortion on demand and permissive sexual perversion policies.
Twelve years after that (and, in truth from his election eve 1964 speech A Time for Choosing), Ronald Reagan became "Mr. Conservative." A foreign policy as aggressive as necessary to deter the soviets and other enemies, bringing them down without a shot being fired. Domestic tax cuts. A positive promotion of economic freedom and jobs and an optimistic restoration of American values.
For me and a LOT of my contemporaries, Ronaldus Maximus will ALWAYS be Mr. Conservative.
Catholicism does not easily lend itself to terms like liberal or conservative. There is simply Catholicism and heresy. Catholicism is the orthodox adherence to the Magisterium. This is not a reference to Eastern Orthodoxy.
I go with conservative, moderate, liberal, but that is me. I see Orthodox as more to refer to the eastern churches. I will also use the words traditional and modern as well.
Goldwater never embraced sodomy or abortion until he was out of office.