Friday, February 18, 2011

"...a liberal by any other name may smell so sweet..."

We Catholics use tags to describe each other according to where we stand in respect of the Church and I am probably more guilty than most. They used to say, in Northern Ireland during the peak of the terrorist activity, that, strangers sitting opposite one another on a train would commence a polite conversation whose sole purpose, in its early stages, was to determine whether they were speaking to a Tadhg (Catholic) or a Prod (Protestant). Once these facts had been established the conversation could take a more general note but always avoiding the possibility of broaching a subject that might have been offensive to one's travelling companion. It was a form of acute courtesy.

So how should we describe one another? Take a look at a few of the options on offer:-

Liberal, Traditionalist, Modernist, Orthodox, Right wing, Left wing, Conservative.....

...plus many more besides.

It would be good, I feel, if we had courtesy tags so that any potential for offence is removed. The trouble is...where does one start?
I am happy with Orthodox Catholic as being descriptive of where I stand in the faith. That is, totally true to the teachings of the faith and the Holy Father.

But what do you feel?  Do you have a tag that you would like to put forward?  (no abuse please).
Does the camp divide into just Liberal and Orthodox? Or are there more compartments that need tagging? Or perhaps we should chuck all current tags out of the window and go for something totally off the wall...like......mmm.....dangerous territory, any suggestions?

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