Liberals, Conservatives, and the Church

There’s a natural inclination to put Catholic clergy, and particularly a new pope, in an ideological box. Some of those boxes do mean a great deal: There are contested questions of dogma, doctrine, liturgy, and pastoral practice within the church on which there are opposing poles. But even aside from the many parts of a pope’s jobs that are only indirectly connected to those internal divides, there’s another reason why it can be unduly reductive to classify clergy on a political spectrum. We should bear that in mind in assessing Pope Leo XIV, not only as he enters office but as he carries it out.

That reason is this: Christianity calls all of its adherents in both liberal and conservative directions. That doesn’t mean that a faithful Christian can’t be a consistent ideological conservative. It does mean that our instincts in one direction or the other must be tempered by the call of Christ.

About the Author

Dan McLaughlin

Dan McLaughlin is a senior writer at National Review Online and a fellow at National Review Institute.

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There’s a natural inclination to put Catholic clergy, and particularly a new pope, in an ideological box. Some of those boxes do mean a great deal: There are contested questions of dogma, doctrine, liturgy, and pastoral practice within the church on which there are opposing poles. But even aside from the many parts of a pope’s jobs that are only indirectly connected to those internal divides, there’s another reason why it can be unduly reductive to classify clergy on a political spectrum. We should bear that in mind in assessing Pope Leo XIV, not only as he enters office but as he carries it out.

That reason is this: Christianity calls all of its adherents in both liberal and conservative directions. That doesn’t mean that a faithful Christian can’t be a consistent ideological conservative. It does mean that our instincts in one direction or the other must be tempered by the call of Christ.