Father Bill, Spiritual Guidance Please!

IRL and on the I-net, I have felt quasi-attacked for calling myself a liberal Catholic. I went to Father Bill, my favorite Priest, for spiritual guidance via email.

My Questions:

I like Catholic Church, I think the Mass is beautiful and I do love Jesus. However, I am very liberal (pro-choic, pro-sex, pro-gay marriage, pro-birth control...) So can I hold my beliefs and still call myself a Catholic?

Father Bills Reply (excerpts, as the email was very long):

catholic beliefs are generally found in the creed we say at mass. it is an official church teaching that all people can go to heaven, of any or no religion, based on biblical teaching that the law of God is written in people's hearts... the catholic church officially teaches that you must follow your conscience as to what you stand for and do morally;therefore , you can call yourself catholic.

the official Vatican line changes through circumstances and socialization in history. at this time in history, the church would like you to drop your liberal views and join their present conservative views (not agreed to by the majority of catholics, nor the majority of priests). the church tries to insinuate that they have better insight into determining what an informed conscience should look like, hence you should follow their views each time they change them; that, however is not the official teaching of the church.

the second Vatican council of the sixties promulgated, again, that people must follow their own conscience, even over the teaching of church leaders. this has never changed. also of interest is that no moral position has ever been proclaimed as an infallible teaching by the church. the things we are stuck with are the bible and the creed, which of course, are open to a bit of interpretation.

one pope wrote that the greatest saint after bible times was saint francis of assissi. he was wild, and wildly in love with the ideal of Jesus, and very humble. he kept struggling with how to love people as Jesus would want him to. ..that is being a catholic.

at this point in history i think we have a good parallel between bishops and politicians. few are humble, few think their constituents can have more valid opinions than they, few are more concerned with doing what is best for others than maintaining their own position and their own positions of power and control. this is not about theology, its about the basic psychology being out of whack and about the weaknesses of being a person. it took francis of assissi a lifetime to realize he had to let go and couldn't control where his followers, numbering in the thousands of Franciscans, were going and deviating from his vision of living the love of jesus. his order, in the past 500 years, has gone through a few revolutions and splits over the same issue. jefferson said we would need revolutions to get our country back on track to its first ideals. some theologians think we need the same in the church which is also a concentrated power.