Your basic assumption of an “us versus them” may be the first point of departure. Rather than people sitting on different sides of an isle, it is more like a continuum of people from ultra conservaitve to ultra liberal, with the great majority simply in the middle.
Sentiments run the gamut, often based on and limited by particular experience. Many simply have no opinion; they go to Mass, for example, at a certain time not so much because they are in a parish that has some sort of range of Masses (no singing, singing “traditional hymns”, singing contemporary hymns, minimal choir, larger choir, singing traditional music, youth Mass, etc.), but because they want an “early Mass”, or don’t want to get up early on Sunday, or want the whole day free, or can’t get orgainzed until the late afternoon Mass. In short, they don’t much care about the liturgy & music per se, but go to Mass at a time that is specific to other issues.
Many of those same people - a majority, from my observations of a number of parishes - don’t really read anything; they don’t know what Commonweal is; they probably have never looked at **National Catholic Reporter **or the Wanderer; they probably have never seen National Catholic Register, and they might have read one or two issues out of Our Sunday Visitor once in the last several years. They don’t know what is going on in the Church except for the sex abuse issues in their diocese, which they read about or heard about in the secular press.
In short, they are not on the other side of the isle, but simply in one of the seats, with no particular knowledge of or interest in “the other side of the isle”, whether that is the left side or the right side. They just sit in the middle and muddle.
