A classic liberal, and also a conservative.
Conservativism among some Catholics has become practically their religion so much so they could not understand how one can be a classical liberal and also a conservative.
A conservative believes in conserving tradition, custom, traditional identity, national identity, traditional biblical, natural law morality, the family, and the central role of Church and religion in public society.
A classical liberal is one who champions the rights of individuals and families, especially those most vulnerable, the truly oppressed, poor, uneducated, sick, disabled, elderly, children, and any ordinary man in so far as his dignity and rights have been trampled upon by those in power or with higher social status.
The Democratic Party once was authentically the party for the vulnerable and oppressed. In fact, if the pre-1960’s version of the Democratic Party still existed, I’d be a member of it,
This is why I am not a Republican nor a Democrat. I cannot be a Democrat because that party today promotes secularism, abortion, socialistic approaches to government, LGBTQ ideology, and in general post-modernism and cultural Marxism.
But I cannot be a Republican because it favors monopoly, liberal, crony capitalism, which creates a culture that oppresses the vulnerable, and imposes a dark, rigid, materialist system of values.
And odds are if you’re reading this, you probably fit more into the category of the vulnerable than that of the elites.
The popes long before Vatican II were classical liberals, by the way, such as Pope Leo XIII.
I also share some culturally liberal, that is progressive, values. I belief in a modest amount of free expression and diversity of approaches to things like dress, hairstyle, music, or lifestyle, as long as they are in accord with the moral law and uphold the tradition of Western, Christian civilization. I reject 1950sism that would have all of us conforming to the American lifestyle of the 1950’s, much different than traditionally Catholic cultures of Europe and colonized parts of the world, that are more moderate, colorful, and expressive. Wearing a dark suit and tie, with a short style haircut, or Victorian/British attitudes towards etiquette, does not equate to a proper, mandatory Catholic lifestyle. When done authentically it is legitimate; when imposed it amounts to social tyranny.
So when I go to a TLM and see a man wearing a light blue suit, I applaud him for being himself .
I believe in a modest degree of freedom. If you want to just wear a polo shirt to Mass, practice more of a traditionally European approach to money, property, and lifestyle, verses the standard Americanist, liberal capitalist approach, which is really more Protestant than Catholic, or if you want to exercise your right to respectfully use freedom of speech to speak out about modernist corruption in the hierarchy, in so far as that ultimately degrades the dignity of Catholics to practice the Faith in an unadulterated way, then I defend those legitimate rights.
Those are the rights rightfully promoted by classical liberalism.
Every good Catholic should at least in principle be a classical liberal and shun Americanist, Puritanical values that are fundamentally Protestant.
Happy Sunday.