You know... I discovered when I started reading Catholic sites and forums that there are a lot of Conservative Catholics on the Internet. I really shouldn't be using Conservative as a descriptor, but it seems to be the most common term in use. I'm not trying to use it like in the political sense, but in some ways they seem to go hand in hand. Perhaps, I just haven't figured it out yet.
Maybe they're just really fervent? Incredibly orthodox? Traditional. There are definitely those out there, (SSPX, the Mel Gibson type Catholics, etc.) Then there are the liberal Catholic churches who are also break aways from Rome. We have one here.
What am I? Maybe a little bit of both.
I like Tradition. I like ritual. I like the New Mass. I don't mind altar girls, but I don't want to see women ordained. I think Latin Rite Catholic priests should remain celibate, but I like the involvement of married, permanent deacons and don't have a problem with the pastoral privilege for priests coming from the Lutheran or Episcopal churches. I think there's room for the Tridentine Mass and the New Mass. For the record, I don't like clown masses for little kids, puppet masses, sappy music either.
I hate to see qualified men, who have a genuine call and vocation to the priesthood, who might be gay, driven out of seminaries because they aren't straight. Why would God have called them, if He didn't want them? I like seeing nuns and sisters and other religious wear habits, but do I think any less of them for not wearing them? No. Some orders don't have habits anymore or never did. It doesn't make them any less holy.
I really can't put a label on the kind of Catholic that I am. So do labels matter? Shouldn't those of us who are Catholic just be Catholic?
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