Is the pope too liberal?

Headnote

Some conservative quarters say John Paul goes too far in embrace of modernity

Is John Paul II too liberal?

The question cuts against most conventional wisdom. If the man who said no to women's ordination, gay marriage and decentralization of power isn't a conservative, many people would insist, then there's no such animal.

But what if one has in mind not the sense in which Ted Kennedy is "liberal," but in which virtually all Westerners are "liberals," that is, the classic notion of liberalism as belief in democracy, human rights and free markets? If that's the standard, then John Paul, though not uncritically, stacks up as a basically "liberal" pope.

Witness his proud claim in his Aug. 17 Angelus address that Christianity actually shaped the core tenets of liberalism: "The Christian faith gave form [to Europe], and some of its fundamental values in turn inspired 'the democratic ideal and the human rights' of European modernity," the pope said.

Not everyone in the Catholic world approves. Although the movement has largely flown under media radar, John Paul faces a growing conservative opposition to this embrace of liberalism, understood in the classic sense.

"I wish the pope were right," said Catholic thinker Robert Kraynak of Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y. "But I don't think it's working out the way he expected. Human rights are not being used to serve the whole truth about God and man, despite the pope's continuous reminders."

Who are these critics? In addition to Kraynak, they include influential Anglo-Saxon Catholic intellectuals such as Alasdair MacIntyre, David Schindler and Tracey Rowland, whose works are fast becoming required reading in conservative Catholic circles, even if they represent, for now, a minority view. Most Anglo-Saxon Catholics, as creatures of Western culture, tend to take its compatibility with their religious beliefs for granted. MacIntyre is a Scottish-born philosopher. Schindler, an American, is the editor of Communio, an international theological journal that serves as a platform...