Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:It's weird cause most Catholic countries and people are secular/liberal but the church leadership is strict and conservative? doesn't make sense.
Actually there are hundreds of millions of Catholics in Africa and Asia who are extremely conservative, because there are conservative continents regardless of faith. Africa is where the Catholic faith is growing the fastest. But historically and culturally, Europe has an outsized influence in the Church, hence why it was possible for a "liberal" Pope to be elected (as Popes go).
So they stay conservative for their conservative followers?
Well, the Church was always conservative, PP. As the western developed world has become more liberal, it has found itself at odds with the Church. And the Church found followers more to its liking in less developed areas of the world, which are also more conservative. You see a pattern then? The poor and less educated populations are usually more entrenched in patriarchal cultures. It takes multiple generations of achieving both middle class status and higher education to develop progressive views in a population, and that evolution usually tracks with women's ability to graduate from university and occupy professional positions of expertise, which makes them more confident in advocating for themselves, their economic freedoms and their reproductive health.
The Church has had to grapple with traditionalist and progressive factions within its own ranks, knowing that certain liberal views on abortion, gays and women in the church would never be accepted by millions of conservative clerics and followers, but that advocates for tolerance and outreach would always push for more openness. And when all is said and done, the Church is an economic and political body: where does the money come from now? And where is the Church likely to grow in the future? Those two answers are at odds with each other.