Here's another hilarious example of this. I went to grad school at a Catholic university surrounded by Catholic intellectuals. If you don't have much experience with American Catholic philosophers, I'll just briefly explain that they tend to be either irritating-as-fuck hyperconservative Thomists or left-leaning (on economic issues, at least) phenomenologists. Anyway the Thomists (all recognizable by their haircuts) are fond of decrying everybody who is not as conservative as them as being wishy-washy cafeteria Catholics.
Until the Pope said that the Iraq War was an abomination in the eyes of God. Then, they started complaining about the pacifists in the Vatican.
--- On Tue, 4/21/09, Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> From: Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] papal logic
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Tuesday, April 21, 2009, 2:56 AM
>
>
> It actually works the other way as well. For instance, I
> have met large numbers of American and European Catholics
> who believe that the Church's position is anti-theory of
> evolution, because their priest is anti-evolution. When I
> point out that the Vatican hasn't had a problem with the
> theory of evolution since around 1950, they don't believe
> me.
>