Why be a Progressive Catholic?

If you believe that the Catholic Church is totally wrong about:

• Women’s ordination
• Abortion and contraception
• Divorce and remarriage
• Homosexuality
• Teachings will change in relations to these when the old fuddy-duddy Pope
  dies

Then shouldn’t you also believe

• That the Holy Sprit does not guide the Catholic Church.

If the Church can be so wrong about the most basic teaching in
morality that touch upon family life and sexuality then why should it be trusted
on anything.
To believe in same-sex marriage is to deny the procreative part of the Church’s
teaching on marriage. To believe that the active homosexual lifestyle is OK
is to deny both the sins of fornication and adultery. To believe in divorce
and remarriage is to warp Jesus’ own words into something malleable and convenient
to the individual.

Now you often hear argued that in these cases where the Pope
has written about them that he wasn’t declaring them Ex
Cathedra, while that may be true in some cases it is only because the Pope
saw them as already having been infallibly taught by scripture and/or apostolic
tradition. Not everything we believe has been stated in infallible declaration,
the church has not made an infallible declaration on murder since it has already
been constantly taught through both scripture and apostolic tradition.

As I have posted before I don’t like hyphenated words attached
to Catholic like, Conservative, Orthodox or Progressive, I identify myself
only as a Catholic. Since one of the meanings of Catholic is universal, to
then place a modifier in front of it makes it not universal, but reduced to
a viewpoint
of a group.

The very Council that self-identified progressives allude to
(but not normally by chapter/paragraph)
said:

Dogmatic Constitution on the Church
(Lumen Gentium)

LG 25:"Religious submission of mind and of will
must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman
Pontiff even when he is not defining,
in such a way, namely, that the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered
to according to his manifested mind and will, which is clear either from the
nature of the documents, or from the repeated presentation of the same doctrine,
or from the manner of speaking."

To go on arguing about these issues is to show that you believe
that you don’t have to follow documents issued by a council and approved by
the Pope. If you
believe that you can pick and choose what parts of a council you agree with
then you are saying that Bishops in union with the Pope can and are teaching
profound moral errors.

Why do progressives want to stay in a church that is so fundamentally flawed?
A church that goes on teaching things against their enlightened intellect.
There are plenty of Protestant Churches out there that believe what the progressives
believe, why not go there – or start your own church that matches your own
beliefs. Just because the Catholic Church is 2,000 years old? – by their opinion
it has
been
teaching
error
all
that time. Maybe these progressive are Tribal Catholics as Mark
Shea has used the term. Or maybe they have seen all of the shrinking,
disappearing, and ever fragmenting groups that broke off in times past
and want to enlighten the church from
within instead.

When Dietrich von Hildebrand was preparing to enter the Church,
the priest that was teaching him told him about the churches position on contraception.
At that point he basically said that he couldn’t understand this doctrine and
thought it was silly. The priest then told him that he wouldn’t be allowed
to enter the church unless he assented to this teaching. He immediately assented
to this teaching not because he understood it, but because he believed the
Church
was guided by the Holy Spirit and taught the truth in its doctrines. Later
he became a great teacher and advocate on the Church’s belief of the sin of
contraception.

As I was working my way though Church doctrines as I was preparing
to enter the Church I started with the idea of "Why doesn’t the church agree
with me on this question" and ended up thinking "Where am I mistaken in not
agreeing with Church on this question." Funny thing was that my infallible
self was so often wrong on these questions and with further understanding of
the Church’s teachings, that she was correct. If I had continued to think that
the Church was wrong on moral issues I would not have joined it, what good
is it to stand on a rock that provides a questionable foundation?

Saint Peter when faced with a doctrine taught by Jesus that he
didn’t understand did not say that Jesus was mistaken, or was caught up in
cultural influences of that time period, but said.

"Lord, to whom shall we go? You have
the words of eternal life;" –John 6:68