The full printable version can be found here.

Andrew Sullivan in his 30 April column "Is the Church Dying" in Time magazine joins the chorus of pundits criticizing the Catholic Church. For the intellectually stout, the article is worth a good look. The claims are typically unoriginal, and read like the half-hearted wishes of most American reformers of the Catholic Church.  In short, it is one more voice from the reformers within the laity asking "why can’t the Church be more like me".

What makes this article unique above all of the others is its attempt to mainstream the reformers’ agenda. Indeed, Sullivan makes the defense that he does not believe the Church should take a poll whenever it wishes to clarify a topic of faith or morals. But if one takes this as a bedrock statement, then where do any of his or any other reformist critiques of the Catholic Church gain any legitimacy?

The answer is none, and the liberals know it. The Catholic Church is not a democracy and should not be reduced to the wishes of the most vocal. Sullivan’s 13 June opinion piece may be the summary of those who claim to be both loyal to the Church while dissenting on virtually all of its teachings on faith and morals, but the summary falls flat on the weight of its own evidence.