Favorite liberal Catholics?

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I will try to give you some suggestions, OP.

There’s a book edited by Mary Jo Weaver dealing with modern liberal Catholicism called “What’s Left” that is a counterpoint to her book edited with Scott Appleby called “Being Right” that was about conservative Catholicism. You might check it out. I’m sure it’s full of liberal Catholic thinkers’ writings.

The late Fr. Robert Drinan of Georgetown wrote a lot of liberal stuff on human rights that is pretty good. Just be aware that he got in trouble with the Vatican for being “pro-choice”.

The Berrigan brothers were quite famous “liberal Catholics”.

The most famous “liberal Catholic” running around today is probably Fr. James Martin, who started by writing books about saints but now writes about Catholics building bridges with gay people and gets picketed every time he gives a speech and gets criticized on this forum regularly.

Hey, all the above guys are Jesuits…seeing a pattern here?

Our Pope’s a Jesuit too. Hmmm, he might be one of those lib’rals too!

Liberals also really like St. Oscar Romero, although I’ve read articles saying that unfairly puts him in a bad light.

Servant of God Dorothy Day was pretty liberal, although she was anti-abortion, having had one that she was not happy about.

Some people think Thomas Merton was a liberal.

Hopefully all that is enough to get you started.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
Hopefully all that is enough to get you started.
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Thank you. Yes this is helpful and just what I’m looking for. I’m only familiar with Fr Martin. I figured there’d be more support for those like him here… But I see your point.

And yes I’m understanding more of the conservative vs liberal church split. Some in my family for example, believe the Pope is a liberal heretic, that Church decline is a rebellion against this liberal shift, and have even moved to Ave Maria Fl (to “escape” liberal Catholicism).
 
I’m sorry your family feel so extreme. I’m not particularly liberal in either Catholicism or politics. I’m a moderate. I do my best to follow the Church teaching because in most cases I agree with it, and where I don’t I figure maybe the Lord wants it for reasons I in my stupidity don’t understand and I pray that he helps my understanding and that of whoever else needs it.

I don’t think Fr. Martin is so terrible, so far. There is always a chance that he could go too far. I went to see him speak so I could see for myself if he was saying or doing anything untoward. Didn’t hear anything that contradicted Catholic teaching to me. He stated in the middle of his speech that the Church teaches that homosexual relations are a sin. Didn’t try to hide that, deny it or suggest they should teach anything else. But on this forum, he is definitely not popular, and most of us are trying to avoid arguments, flags, suspensions, angry private messages in our boxes, etc. So he’s not exactly a popular discussion topic. Most of these other people aren’t either.
 
How about liberal Internet forums? I’m gathering this is a generally conservative space, but are there equivalent Catholic-liberal spaces?
 
Some of my views are classical liberal, though, I think such labels are useless and mostly consider myself “Catholic”
(Not to mention, many Classical liberal views, would, oddly, nowadays, be considered Conservative). My alliance is to the Church Christ founded, not a political affiliation. Or…do you mean liberal like Hans Kung?
 
adamhovey1988 said:
Some of my views are classical liberal, though, I think such labels are useless and mostly consider myself “Catholic”
(Not to mention, many Classical liberal views, would, oddly, nowadays, be considered Conservative). My alliance is to the Church Christ founded, not a political affiliation. Or…do you mean liberal like Hans Kung?
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Not classical but common/currant usage (in America in particular). It’s a spectrum of course but surely you view some catholic news outlets/blogs/forums as more liberal vs conservative. I’m looking for which are which? And specifically those who wouldn’t identify themselves as conservative.
 
What do the terms liberal, progressive, and traditional mean? What is the metric?
 
I’d say groups of people (ie their beliefs) who identify using these labels. So for Catholics, who embrace the label “liberal Catholic” or “progressive Catholic”, which writiers/teachers/leaders do they follow?
 
I’ve been a priest 23 years abd still do no know what those terms mean, nor who would determine such labels. One would hope they follow the founders of the creed and the apostolic succession of Popes and the Magisterium (teaching authority) of the Church…
 
I agree, there’s no objective authority on definitions. My interest is in those who identify as such (lots of surveys for example and even many groups using these terms). I think their meanings are what people make of them.

Perhaps I should update my post to say, “Catholic teachers/writers who self-identify as liberal”.
 
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