The Death of Liberal Catholicism
What lies behind progressive priests’ failure to secure a generation to replace themselves?
By: Joe Heschmeyer • 2/4/2025
After polling thousands of Catholic priests and engaging in in-depth interviews with one hundred of them, the Catholic Project at CUA released a report examining “polarization” and “generational dynamics” within the American Catholic priesthood. The results were striking. On both theological and political issues, there is a chasm separating the views of older and younger priests.
Back in 1972, Paul Simon could sing, “When the radical priest / come to get me released / we was all on the cover of Newsweek,” in an apparent reference to the pacifist activist Daniel Berrigan, S.J., who had been on the cover of Time (not Newsweek) the prior year. The lyric made sense: priests like Berrigan were beloved figures on the left, and they were hardly alone. The Catholic Project study found that a majority of priests ordained before 1970 self-describe both as “somewhat liberal” or “very liberal” politically and “somewhat progressive” or “very progressive” theologically. In contrast, only about 20 percent of priests from that era consider themselves either politically or theologically conservative.
But the “radical priests” of the sixties and early seventies gave way to a new type of priest . . . or, perhaps more accurately, new types of priests. As one of the surveyed priests describes it,
priests in their seventies and sixties now would be one cohort. And then you have the JPII-generation that would be very orthodox, but still have some, you know, free-flowing-liturgy-stuff. Then you get in the Benedict stuff, which is like, you know, the hard-on-everything kind of guys. And the young guys now, I’d say, you have a lot in common with those last few cohorts, but no one’s really—the super-progressive wing really didn’t replicate themselves.
That priest accurately describes what are really three distinguishable shifts within the priesthood: a trend toward theological orthodoxy, a trend toward more traditional forms of liturgical praxis, and a trend toward political conservativism. For the sake of clarity, I’ll use “progressive” and “orthodox” to refer to one’s theological leanings, and “liberal” and “conservative” to refer to one’s political orientation. (Apart from this priest’s comments, the survey largely ignored the accompanying liturgical shift, but it’s worth bearing in mind as we consider these questions.)
To me, what’s most striking isn’t any of these three shifts, but the utter collapse of theological progressivism within the priesthood. Saying that “the super-progressive wing really didn’t replicate themselves” is almost an understatement when you look at the data. As the report highlights,
a full 85 percent of the youngest cohort describes itself as “conservative/orthodox” or “very conservative/orthodox” theologically, with only 14 percent (the smallest percentage of any cohort) describing themselves as “middle-of-the-road.” Theologically ‘progressive’ and “very progressive” priests once made up 68 percent of new ordinands. Today, that number has dwindled almost to zero.
With 85 percent of the priests describing themselves as conservative/orthodox, and another 14 percent describing themselves as “middle-of-the-road,” that leaves only about 1 percent of new priests who would be considered “progressive.” And bear in mind: these are priests who spent most or all of their time in seminary during the pontificate of Pope Francis, yet they self-describe as more conservative (both politically and theologically) than their brother priests ordained under John Paul II and Benedict XVI.
Nor is this a fluke. As the study authors point out,
“self-described liberal or progressive priests, considered both politically and theologically, have been declining with every successive cohort for more than 50 years. Self-described liberal or progressive priests have all but disappeared from the youngest cohorts of priests.” Make no mistake: while there are plenty of gray- and white-haired progressive Catholic priests still making headlines in the U.S., there are hardly any younger Catholics following them (particularly into the priesthood). Unless some radical reversal occurs in the near term, we’re witnessing the virtual extinction of the progressive Catholic priest.
To read the rest of this artcle please refer to the source here: https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/the-death-of-liberal-catholicism
