Concerns about Catholicism

[Bonaventure]

Bonaventure,
I was simply pointing out that with enough influence and enough time, a word can lose it's original meaning.  I wasn't trying to endorse liberalism in any of it's varied meanings.  It was an analogy.

For many years, while in 'conservative' circles, I would often hear others say "I'm a 'liberal' in the classical sense, and not the modern one," and then they would invariably state their (favorable) opinion of the founding fathers, etc. In that regard, I was left with impression that considering oneself a 'classical liberal' to mean a net positive, especially as an American. But even that is incorrect, from a Catholic perspective. So, while I understood your analogy (and had no intention to imply that you support liberalism in any form), I believe even the term 'classical liberalism' has been somewhat hijacked by 'conservatives', which is quite ironic considering, from an historical perspective, classical liberals were always at odds with conservatives.