Catholic Chips

I would like to respond to Oliver's post on the Ever Dividing catholic Church of Christ. Of course, this is one of the topics that is most interesting to me (and most personal), but I will try to be as objective as possible.

First, I will not disagree that the Catholic Church's attempts to bring different religions together under Pope John Paul II could cause a split in the church. However, I would like to point out a few things. Oliver says, "the addition of more commentary slowly chips off sections of the conservative base of a religion." In this class we have been constructing our idea of religion as always-changing…the "conservative base" is always changing. I don't think you can say that the base is always conservative—it is simply a base. In the case of the Catholic Church, it may be richer in formal tradition, but that is different from conservatism. People often confuse the strong traditions—which are simply actions—for a conservative philosophy. While I realize that John Paul II was new in bringing different traditions together, I hardly think his impact was small on the "base" of the church (the Vatican). Therefore, the description of the base of a religion as "conservative" is not always accurate.

Also, Oliver indicated that the "chips," or minority in religious splits are always not conservative—in other words, the minority is liberal. In the case of the Vatican today, it is hard to tell which way it will go. However, John Paul II was an extremely popular pope, so I doubt that only a small portion will agree with him on this issue. (This opinion also comes, in part, from my personal contact with the Catholic community, so…) In any case, I would like to caution against stereotypes that strongly traditional religions are always conservative, and that splits always leave a majority of conservatives in the "base" of the religion. However, that is not to say the Oliver is not correct that this "warming" to other religions in the Catholic Church will not cause a major split.