London, England, Nov 17, 2017 / 15:00 pm
For years now, I have bemoaned the growing number of so-called progressive Catholic figures, in academia, the media and the outer curial orbit, who fancy themselves to be the Pope's ideological vanguard, amidst what they have taken to calling their "intra-ecclesial battle."
The agenda they push is an obvious rehash of seventies liberalism: a "progressive" approach to sexual ethics, acceptance of divorce and remarriage, recognition of same-sex relationships, "creating a space" for those who disagree with the Church on life issues. This rather tired agenda has been dressed up in the language of woke university students and twitter social justice warriors, but its core premise remains the same as it ever was - to push the fallacy that Vatican II was part of the cultural revolution of the sixties, rather than the Church's answer to it. Their efforts are easy to spot, just look for the people endlessly invoking the council but never actually quoting a document from it.
Their main objective is to fracture the continuity and authority of the Church's essential teaching on the dignity and nature of the human person, relationships with God and other people, and society. In this fight, they have identified the key battleground, their greatest enemy, and their biggest opportunity: Pope Francis.
Pope Francis, from the moment of his election, has been a gigantic figure on the global stage. Through a combination of his personal charisma and the age of viral social media, his every soundbite gets attention and circulation that his predecessors couldn't have imagined. Being seen to be "with" the pope is more powerful than ever before.