What "liberal" dissenting Catholics don't realize as they go on about "dialogue" on Church teaching which has been settled, is that the West is hurtling towards tyranny through a door that has been opened by leftist/liberal thought.
I seldom use the terms "liberal" and "conservative" in a religious context, preferring the more accurate theological terms, heterodox and orthodox. But we are discussing what has become the ideology of liberalism in our present day which is extreme in its demands in comparison to most of the last 2000 years. There indeed has been an Orwellian inversion where "wrong is right, right is wrong."
"Liberal" Catholics seem to be living in a bubble of post-councilor euphoria, and blame the Church hierarchy for bursting their bubble. Dreams of their utopian Church which would gain acceptance and "credibility" to the secular world die hard.
You can see this in their writing, especially in the reaction to the allegedly forced resignation of Jesuit Father Thomas Reese as editor of America magazine. In the remarks of commentators from the liberal publications, Commonweal magazine and the National Catholic Reporter, the impression is given that, in their eyes, only dissident Catholics can be considered "thinking" Catholics.
One who accepts, believes and agrees with the Magisterium of the Church is thus stereotyped as an uncritical thinker, perhaps even a "blind follower," fearing discussion—a peasant, obedient out of cowering servile fear of punishment.
Thus, these so-called "Progressives" of dissent show themselves to be in a bubble where the oxygen is running out, but also in a time warp (rendering the term "Progressive" an oxymoron).
It is though they missed the entire papacy of John Paul II the Great. You can still catch them grumbling sometimes about how "the Church needs to get into the 20th Century."
They missed it. They missed a glorious moment in the history of the world and the Church. because the Church moved into the 21st Century leaving them behind in the 1960s with their grumbling. Some of them even gripe that the Church needs to address issues of sex.
Huh? Theology of the Body anyone? Have they even read John Paul II?
They missed out on a quarter century of genius and what some are calling one of the greatest papacies in history because they were so fixated on their narrow agenda of ordaining women, contraception and now acceptance of homosexual activity.
How sad.
All issues closed to discussion in the Church. Pronouncing these actions licit in the Church is a metaphysical impossibility.
The post-councilor period is over. It ended during John Paul's pontificate which proclaimed The New Evangelization. While the misnamed "Progressives" still rattle the dry bones of their issues, they fail to see that the Catholic Church is the leading force in the world speaking for human dignity and the dignity of life itself.
Life and human dignity are under assault from all sides as the Culture of Death operates on an international scale, avoiding democratic processes, via organizations such as the United Nations Population Fund, and efforts to push through the CEDAW Treaty (Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women).
This latter, benignly named organization, has sought to implement policies designed to bring the major religions of the world to heel under their very radical ideology. For example, by discussing policies to require world religions to alter their sacred texts to conform to the radical CEDAW agenda which includes abortion as a universal human right.
Having witnessed Catholic dissenters supporting these evils with my own eyes at international venues I will say as I have said before, Catholic dissent is the religious arm of the Culture of Death.
The ensuing tyranny, should these radical agencies get their way, will eventually, if unchecked, rival anything wrought by the Nazis or Communism. Forty-five million have already been killed by abortion in the United States alone since 1973, and many people think there is nothing wrong with this, and would even like to see it declared a "human right." This is how tyrannies get their start: "Wrong is right. Right is wrong."
Still, "Liberal" Catholics do not see this. They continue to take their cues from so-called "rights-based" ideologies condemned by Catholic teaching. Some are even on board with these ideologies. By pledging their allegiance to these ideologies, or by placing divinely revealed truths subordinate to the Zeitgeist, they are in effect committing idolatry.
Catholics take their cues from the Magisterium of the Church interpreting Scripture and Tradition, a process which Catholics believe is divinely protected from all error in matters of faith and morals. The items under attack by the Culture of Death are precisely matters of faith and morals.
By continuing to fight battles they have lost in the Church, they fail to see what decade it is—or even what millennium it is—and the enormity of what is at stake, demonstrate that they are on the wrong side of the battle for human life and human dignity, and on the wrong side of history.