Replies

I respect the fact that you went to the trouble of joining FR, responding in a reasoned way and acknowledging that your original comments were over the top.

I can't agree with your notion that most liberals don't hate freedom. At the least I'd say they have an aversion to it. Whereas conservatives believe in limiting the power of the state and preserving maximum freedom for the individual, liberals want to empower the state, and that can only come at the expense of individul freedom.

As to your disagreements with PB's policy stands and your view that he wasn't the best man for the job: since I'm not a Catholic, I don't have any particular stake in his policy positions.

But as an intellectual matter, as a question of logic, I don't understand how you can expect a church which sees itself as the purveyor of eternal, unchangeable truths to pull a Roseanne Rosannadanna and suddenly proclaim: "all that stuff about abortion and homosexuality - never mind."

I'm assuming you didn't vote for Bush in November, then? Because I don't understand how a true conservative, one who believes in "limiting the power of the state" and "preserving maximum freedom for the individual" could possibly find that in this administration. I myself used to be Republican, but I figured if I was going to have to vote for a big government candidate, I should at least vote for the side that didn't hate gay people.

I certainly don't want the Catholic Church to endorse abortion any time soon (I'm pro-life), but their position on homosexuality has changed just in the last 25 years (JP2 acknowledged it as being something that we don't choose), though I don't expect the Church to endorse gay marriage, either. But as Andrew Sullivan has noted, the Church has gone a long way in the last few years to stifle debate on any policies or doctrines, and I just don't think that's healthy for an institution, especially not one that claims over a billion followers and is seen as the very public face of Christianity.

All institutions evolve and change, and the Catholic Church has been no exception. And I agree with you that there are certain "eternal truths" that shouldn't be changed (pretty much anything from the Nicene Creed, for example). But I think many of the institutional processes that have been tied to those truths are just daffy, like the ban on contraception.

Nice Roseanne Roseannadanna reference, though.