"It's Crap," says Mark Shea, and he rejects it. And so do I.

Mark Shea throws down the hammer on those who impugn Catholics (such as Karl Keating, myself, and others) as "Neo-Catholics," pointing out that this epithet is simply a thought-stopping term used by some against those who, as Mark pegs it, are not "sufficiently bitter" toward Pope John Paul and Vatican II.

While Mark and I may disagree on a variety of issues, I think he's right on target in his analysis of the connotations implicit in the snarky "neo-Catholic" put down. Frankly, his push-back on this particular issue is overdue, and I am happy to see it. Thanks, Mark. You said it better than I could have.

(See also my post on Catholic name-calling [with audio clip])

Sorry, but no deal. "Neo-Catholic" remains a swear word designed to impute the odor of heresy to faithful Catholics who are docile to the Church, to Vatican II, and to the papacy of JPII. To say that such people are not Catholic is a smear. And to say that calling them "Catholic" means that people with Traditionalist sensibilities are not Catholic is a lie. The Church is the home of many kinds of piety and many schools of opinion. Traditionalists are Catholic. So are people who think the Council was a good thing and JPII a good Pope. Indeed, sometimes those two classes of people overlap. All "neo-Catholic" does is provide Traditionalists who would like to reduce the Faith to their particular cultural obsessions with a tribal label designed to traduce the good faith of Catholics docile to the Church. It's crap. And I reject it.