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In the short term absolutely. The average age of ordination is 33 years old which means that for priests below the age of 47 social conservatism is the norm. The boomer liberals will continue to hold the high offices but these really liberal age groups are now well into their 60s. In 20 years the super conservative generations will be pusing 70 while the liberals will be dead. The next two decades are going to be tumultuous within the church.
The norm, but not universal. There've got to be at least some liberal priests among the younger generation. So then, just kick out enough of the young conservatives out of the Catholic church so that those liberals become the majority of those left.
Some, yes. But you have to identify them from the careerists who will mirror the current pope's opinions (cf. president choosing a judge to nominate). This was a problem the previous popes faced with their appointments.
And with the dire shortage of priests, kicking anyone out is something a bishop has to be very careful about. You can't just kick out everyone who prays the rosary, because then you'd have to shut down almost every parish in the diocese. Closing or merging parishes massively upsets people.
For example, many bishops have slow-walked suppressing the TLM, not because they're fans of it, but because they don't want to piss off even a small number of people in their diocese. Closing even a single parish is a much bigger headache.
And why is that a problem?
So what? Let them be upset. Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus. They can suck it up, or they can choose to leave the One True Church, and thereby condemn themselves to eternal hellfire.
For several reasons. Bishops are not progressive robots dealing with constant complaints is not enjoyable. All the people complaining won't be sending in any checks. And finally what makes you think progressive's believe in Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus or even hell for that matter.
Bishops have been importing priests from Africa/India/Etc. because of the shortage for a while now and those guys are not progressives. Bishops are already revealed they prefer keeping the parishes open over progressive ideological purity.
They're not doctrinaire conservatives, either. The very conservative priests in the USA are European-Americans, very often strongly ethnic European-Americans.
Is this way some of the Trads are into the Byzantine rite - which is one half step away from just going Greek/Russian/Ukrainian Orthodox or, at the least, one of the fully in communion Eastern Catholic churches.
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This kind of goes to show it isn't about following any real strictures that will make the difference between salvation and damnation. It fits in with my view of even the "serious adherents" not taking any of it too seriously. I'm sure the faithful can spend a hundred thousand words splitting hairs etc to justify it all, but from the outside it just looks like what it is.
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Catholic bishops are selected from a shortlist that originates while they’re still in seminary, and nobody knows or cares about the ideological lean of seminarians.
The seminarians selected as future bishops twenty years ago are sufficiently right leaning that Francis’s progressive allies in the committee which chooses new bishops would rather leave an oddly large number of dioceses vacant than appoint them.
Yes, a bunch of this could theoretically change, but legitimacy matters. The Catholic Church can’t function without the cooperation of its right.
Not saying this is definitely wrong, but also a third of priests asked to become bishops refuse:
https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/the-catholic-churchs-bishop-elect
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How does that work?
The most promising seminarians are sent to Rome to go study and, if they do well, go onto the future bishops career track which gives them somewhat different jobs in the diocese(more administration, less parish work) and usually get sent for an advanced degree(commonly in canon law) over the course of a couple of decades before they’re offered a bishop spot. In theory ‘most promising’ and ‘do well’ are about grades, but schmoozing, family connections, etc are very important.
It’s very easy for these priests to drop out of the bishop track, by, say, being the subject of a news article, or irritating their bishop/archbishop sufficiently severely. It is quite rare for even very accomplished priests to get on the bishop track when they weren’t there to begin with.
This system has flaws, but it does curtail the power of regional corruption.
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