Quick Link: Fr Z Tells It Like It Is--What is "Pastoral"

First of all, good for the bishops in general and Bishop Zubic in particular for continuing to stand against the tyrannical HHS mandate. I'm not necessarily expecting the good guys to win on this one, at least not in the short term. Perhaps it will be another nail in the coffin of civilization, another step closer to the abyss, another stumble into the outer darkness. I am expecting this to occur in my lifetime, so it's not merely an abstraction.

Second, Fr John Zuhlsdorf is spot on with this:

For liberals, being “pastoral” means compromising the Church’s teachings and lying to people. For liberals, being “pastoral” is like being “prophetic”. They proclaim themselves “prophetic” and then claim that their prophetic voice trumps what the “hierarchical” or “official” Church says and does....

Of course secularists and catholic liberals who run along with them don’t care that the Church will be driven out of providing health care for the poor.  They want more big government.

I've known a handful of liberals who honestly did care for the poor, and even a few who actually did more than caring in the abstract sense. Good for them. However, the tendency is often exactly as Fr Z calls it: clamoring for more government, even when big government is precisely the problem. And I have scarcely known a liberal catholic who can honestly claim to be really faithful as a Catholic. Doctrines matter. Morals matter. They aren't the whole of Catholicism; they aren't the only thing to Christianity. But neither are they irrelevant, and neither can they be discarded in favor of "social justice" or "being pastoral" or whatever euphemism they may concoct for the abandonment of the Faith.