Scandalized integrists

Albert's post about the Church changing things made me think.  People who don't get the distinction between Sacred Tradition, i.e. de fide things that can't be changed by any authority (even the pope) and traditions that can be changed by the proper authority (because however venerable they come from men) usually fall into one of two camps: the "integrist," the "conservative" one, who tends thinks that everything, down to the nit-pickiest details of liturgy, is of equal importance and can't be changed, and the "progressivist," the "liberal" one, who tends toward thinking everything, even the core truths of the faith, are equally unimportant so as to be mutable.

It's a funny thing how in the Catholic world, extreme error positions which seem to be polar opposites often have more than a bit of similitude, in that both reject obedience to the Church in favor of trying to make the Church conform to one's own notions.  I don't think the two extremes here are as far removed as people think.  I'll bet that among older people especially, a fair number of the "liberal" or progressivist types you know are that way as a result of offense against integrist assumptions they hold or held. 

Being an integrist-type may seem to some like a "safe" position, but it sets one up for disaster.  The progressivist has his own problems, but he is not the one who will be gravely scandalized by how (for instance) it was once a sin to eat meat on Fridays, but now isn't.  The integral (not integrist) Catholic will observe that formerly the Church's shepherds, the bishops, once made it a point of obedience to do a certain penance each week, but that now they have abrogated it since it no longer seems helpful to have that practice.  A disciplinary practice has changed, not doctrine.   Believe it or not, there are people going around nursing a grudge against the Church because of this.

Comments

[PeterTerp]

Thomas, you're starting to sound like a Hegellian! :)