Past subjunctive

Despite my continuing interest in and appreciation for Catholicism, I gave up practicing it many years ago, for reasons that still make sense. But had I not --past subjunctive--, I sometimes muse how things would be with me now. In all the ebbs and flows of both personal and Church life, I think I usually wanted to be a classical Catholic. Liberal on some things, conservative on others. Most of my friends and colleagues were liberals and those who were my friends I liked --naturally-- and those who were my colleagues I both did and didn't. And thought I had a couple of real conservative connections, older men who were very very smart and quite the characters, I did not like the run of most conservative Catholics. They seemed very tense and angry all the time.

Well, just let me say that were I still involved in the Church, I would still be having migraines over the endless schlock that passes for Catholic worship. Although fiddleback chasubles look like ornate sandwich boards, I would be very sympathetic to the Latin liturgy.

And what would really irk me would be the Catholic take on social issues (and the greying but still angry army of nuns who'd be pumping it out). I say the following with no authority and little but impressions to back me up: Catholic social doctrine was invented out of whole cloth in the 19th century to chart some kind of middle ground between capitalism and the various forms of socialism. In its current incarnation, it is pretty socialist. And the crowd who holds sway in the RC "Justice and Peace" industry --now an unquestioned "essential part of the Gospel"--are all lefties. That would be really hard for me to tolerate, seeing as how I am in favor of hunting, corporal punishment and the death penalty. And the active complicity of the American RC bishops in the invasions from Mexico...well, maybe that's a place to practice the three aforegoing activities. My humble opinion is that if you want information, solid and reliable, about the Chalcedonian doctrine of the two natures of Christ, the RC Church is the place to go. If you want some direction on how to respond to the Gaza blockade...please. Stick to what you know.

So my decision back in the mid 80's still seems right. It's kinder to both sides that I remain an interested alumnus.