Neo-Catholicism - Theology

Theology

These writers represent Neo-Catholicism as the liberal thought that came as a result of the Second Vatican Council, while they represent as orthodox Catholicism those who want to return to pre-Vatican II roots. According to them, Neo-Catholics often support a "reform-of-the-reform" mentality which, they say, is the belief that there was nothing wrong with the Second Vatican Council or the changes to the Roman Missal stemming from that Council, but rather that small clarifications to the documents and an authentic interpretation or "hermeneutic of continuity" are all that is needed to retain orthodoxy.

They describe the theological approach that those they call Neo-Catholics take towards what they themselves perceive as lack of orthodoxy following the Second Vatican Council as "an attitude seemingly dedicated to obscuring common sense with elaborate explanations, selective citations".

One peculiarity of the term "Neo-Catholic" is that they often apply it to converts from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism. Two major Catholic apologists whom they often call Neo-Catholic, Scott Hahn and Jimmy Akin, are converts from Protestantism, and they have described EWTN, which they often call Neo-Catholic, as having a theological committee where "he majority of the committee's members at the time, none of them priests, consisted of recently converted Protestants, two of whom were former Protestant ministers” and also as having a staff of 40% Protestants.