Liberalism always seeks to subordinate the individual in the name of the group. Conservatism seeks to free the individual and only have the state exercise it's power to protect those freedoms.
But even Conservatism realizes that the best way to protect individual freedoms is NOT a loose-knit agglomeration of small groups but something more federal, with local interests in tension with federation interests. It seems to be that subsidiarity provides that kind of thing in the RC Church and that it also explains the otherwise inexplicable toleration of some bishops.
Being supreme authority does not, cannot mean having control over every little thing. And it would be a foolish autocrat who would try to micro-manage a group of 1 billion souls spread all over the world.
All of which is to suggest that perhaps there is some misunderstanding of what a Pope MAY control and of what Pope CAN control.
Good observation, WM. The hierarchy of the Church teaches that it has a Divine right to lead all Christians. Therefore, all Christians should submit. That is liberalism, just as you said.
So I disagree with the imprecision of this statement, as I see it, as well as with it's loose relationship with reality on the ground.
The Pope may, after the bulk of Protestant Christendom has changed its mind, persist in asserting that the use of artificial Birth control is wrong. The Pope may also know that a lot of US clergy (to their shame) do not comport with this teaching, and some even use the rejected notion of "the fundamental option" to encourage those who come to them for permission uh, I mean, counsel to use birth control.
When a bishop hereabouts started sounding too much like an Episcopalian around 15 years ago, the then Pope read him the riot act and then sent him an "assistant" bishop for a few years. If he had the control some of you seem to suggest that bishop would just have disappeared quietly into the cellars of the Vatican.
As I suggested to someone, check out the history of the astonishing Catherine of Siena. I bet at least one Pope had some fantasies about what he would do if he had absolute power. But St. Catherine, while maybe not politically tactful, seriously yanked the papal chain, and in so doing gave the rest of us permission to do the same and gave wise Popes warning that foolish exercises of power are simply NOT a good idea.
It may make sense to use derogatory neologisms to describe the Catholic Church, and sometimes it does seem like a bureaucracy with the wait-time meter set to "stun". But it really is far more like a barely functional family with daddy down at the See City and Big Daddy up in the big house in the Vatican, and us kids out here running wild.
YES, many bishops, being innerleckshuals, are liberals. And NO I don't think the Vatican really "gets" the idea of the United States or has freed itself from European "big-state" liberalism. So the RC Church, sociologically speaking, has some pressure toward what I would consider 'Statist' paradigms, in which the state is sovereign, as opposed to the original (but imperilled) US paradigm in which the individual is sovereign and the state are our ministers and street sweepers. But there's enough room even in the explicitly social doctrine for me to be able to say with the vigor of a clear conscience, "No, Father," or "No, Bishop, I do NOT agree that the state needs to do the things you think it should do." He may harrumph at me, but I'm within my rights as a Catholic to do so.
“Liberalism always seeks to subordinate the individual in the name of the group.”
Classic liberalism was individualistic, stressing individual freedom and limited government. It elevated individual freedom over the group, whether it be the government or the church. It championed freedom of thought.
You did give me recently a couple of examples where the clergyman was not explicitly followed. However, when decrees from the Vatican are handed down, what is a body supposed to do if he disagrees? I'm not aware that there is the option to say "no". It might be ignored anyway, but that's not the way it is supposed to work. For example, in my church any big-deal change, and most small-deal changes have to be voted on by the membership.
I really don't mean to blow this out of proportion, since it is not a hobby-horse of mine. I am looking at our respective religious governments comparatively, and I see one as being more centralized with a consolidation of supreme power, and the other as being locally autonomous. From there we have been drawing political comparisons to world governments and political ideologies.