Nope, Ed. Read what I said again. The Catholic Church is not a democracy at all, Ed. Democracies are ruled by mere majority votes. The Catholic Church is ruled by consensus. People influence the direction of the church in different degrees, according to their level of credibility. And I will admit that the Pope has an incredible amount of credibility, if you will forgive my play on words. Throughout history, there have been saints in the church who have had more credibility than the Pope - people like Paul and Brigid and Francis of Assisi and Thomas Aquinas and Luther and Theresa of Avila. People like thse have had the avility to affect profound changes in the Church.

About conservatism and youth - Actually, I'm not so sure there ARE large numbers of "liberal" youth, other than a few ideological liberals who don't really think for themselves. Someplace between the ages of twenty and forty, religious faith changes from indoctrination to spirituality - usually with a period of agnosticism or atheism in between. People who don't go through that in-between stage ("crisis of faith") usually end up spending their lives in a stage of spiritual rigidity, desperately hanging onto what they've been taught without ever having made the faith their own.

Until the advent of neoconservatism in about 1980, Catholic seminary students were pushed to go through this crisis of faith before ordination, so they would be reasonably mature in their spirituality by the time they were ordained - this happened even before Vatican II. You still see this level of spiritual maturity in newly-ordained priests in many of the traditional religious orders, but not so often in diocesan priests or in members of the neoconservative orders like the Legionaries of Christ, that have sprung up in recent years.

As for other young people, the ones who should grow up to be "liberals," I'm not sure the current generation has much interest in spirituality. True spirituality has an aspect of altruism and discipline and sacrifice that aren't a very popular part of our culture just now. I expect things will swing back and I do see signs of altruism in many young people, but the popular current trends in religion seem to be either rigid conservatism or "self-help" feelgood pop psychology. I think that's part of the reason for the decline in membership in the "mainline" churches like Lutherans and Episcopalians and Methodists that have turned toward social justice and tolerance. Lately, though, I've seen evangelical and selfhelp churches (Unity, for example) showing interest in social justice, and I see that as a very positive sign. I think younger people are finally starting to see that there is no depth of satisfaction in materialism, in frightened conservatism, or in imitation "feelgood selfhelp" spirituality.

-Joe-