Who are the "progressives", "regressives", "liberals" and "conservatives"?

[Walking_Home]

The teaching was not held from the time of Christ. Most of that Christological definition didn’t occur until substantially after the early Church period and the definitions of what the Church definitively taught weren’t put into place until the fourth and fifth centuries, starting with the Council of Nicea and after. Creating those definitions was why the councils were called and there was substantial debate involved in those definitions. They weren’t pulled out of thin air but they certainly weren’t concretely defined before that either.

Even after the definitions were created it took a long time for the teaching to be spread through to all the people. Even at the time of the barbarian invasions they were still teaching people the correct definitions.

This is really all off topic though so I’ll stop there. I think we are in agreement on the topic of the OP.

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They were not define as far as being put on paper. From what I have read in these forums —a council also defines a teaching (what the Church has held for belief) that has come under attack.

 

[Orionthehunter]

Wow!

NCJohn and Walking Home: You guys are sure using alot of posts to say the same thing from different sides of the same coin. This being said, it was clarifying to understand the process/legalism of the matter.

 

[Ad_Deum]

How about faithful vs. unfaithful to the authentic Catholic magisteriums?

Pax
Laudater Jesus Christo
Instaurare omnia in Christo

 

[Brennan_Doherty]

How about faithful vs. unfaithful to the authentic Catholic magisteriums?

Pax
Laudater Jesus Christo
Instaurare omnia in Christo

I think in reality it breaks down into more categories than that. That can be a starting distinction but there are people who are all orthodox but who have quite different views regarding the liturgy and prudential decisions of the Church.

 

[scylla]

The teaching was not held from the time of Christ. Most of that Christological definition didn’t occur until substantially after the early Church period and the definitions of what the Church definitively taught weren’t put into place until the fourth and fifth centuries, starting with the Council of Nicea and after. Creating those definitions was why the councils were called and there was substantial debate involved in those definitions. They weren’t pulled out of thin air but they certainly weren’t concretely defined before that either.

Even after the definitions were created it took a long time for the teaching to be spread through to all the people. Even at the time of the barbarian invasions they were still teaching people the correct definitions.

This is really all off topic though so I’ll stop there. I think we are in agreement on the topic of the OP.

I am not sure you meant to say what it seems to me in the first sentence here…

Of course the Catholic Church held the belief that Christ was divine from the time of Christ. Maybe I misunderstood you, but plenty of people believed the truth from the beginning, there was just error being taught and misleading people, this required discussion to clear it up.

The true belief in Christ, the Trinity has always been believed it just might not have been clarified as a belief that had to be defended.
Kinda like if a heresy came up nowdays that Jesus was a robot. Then people start holding to the heresy and believing it, give it about 100 years and there is confusion that needs to be clarified at a council. (I am sure Christ as a robot sounds silly but I don’t have as much imagination for heresy as people in history)

Much in the same way about 100 years ago no one would probably dare to try to ordain women, nowdays it is even a common discussion in some dioceses. There are some who teach error and some who defend the truth.

As you said there are people teaching the truth these days and it might take councils later on to clear up the ambiguity and errors promoted in many places these days. It might take much more widespread heresy as it seems the Church takes it’s time and sometimes these kind of errors will just die out themselves.

In Christ
Scylla

 

[marchoi]

I think it’s just a bad idea overall to use those labels. While I can see where they come from (and used them on an occasion to be quickly reproved…), it comes down to - you either are an orthodox Catholic or not.

You can have traditionalist Catholics who prefer the Tridentine mass, receiving on tongue, wearing of chapel veils, etc. Likewise, you can have Catholics who prefer the Mass of Pope Paul VI, including receiving in the hands, mass in the vernacular, non-Gregorian chant music, etc.

Either way, that’s just a matter of liturgical preference. Liturgical preference does not and should not define your “Catholicity”. So yeah, the next time someone says “I’m a ____ Catholic,” ask them, “What does that mean? Are you orthodox or not?” At least that’s what I’d do…

 

[otjm]

The terms “liberal” and “conservative” don not come easily to a definition, as they are used loosely to all too often define “other than I and those who agree with me”.

Having been defined as both a liberal and a conservative (or to put a finer touch to it -to the left of Trotskey and to the right of Attila), I find that they almost always are labels that are more used to define the definer than those labeled.

In general, a conservative in the Church is going to be more concerned about rules and their implementation than is a liberal. In general, one will find a traditionalist to be a conservative, and a progressive to be a liberal. They cover broad ranges of the spectrum. However, in common parlance they tend to be less clear in terms of whether or not one is actually “orthodox”; in part because the one using the labels often has their own idea of what constitutes “orthodox” and what doesn’t.
Take, for example, the issue of Communion in the hand, or reception of the Cup; there are many who consider themselves “orthodox” and yet are at best dismissive of these two issues, regarding them as mere indults, or as something given to an unruly child to distract them but most definitely not something that is “good” for the child. In short, poor parenting.

The same could be said of those who see other issues in a similar light.

It comes as a great surprise to many that there are, for example, two ways within the Western world of looking at law: one is the Northern or Germanic approach - whatever is not explicitly permitted is prohibited; and the Mediterranian or Italian approach - whatever is not expressly prohibited is permitted.

The use of the terms “liberal” and “conservative” are often code words for agreement or disagreement within a cohesive group, but often do not provide much more than heat and agitation if the two in the discussion are not on the same “wavelength”.