Civility and Mutual Respect among "Conservative" and "Progressive" Catholics

The initial spark for the current ongoing discussion about "conservative" and "progressive' Catholics was a concern over the tone of a particular post.  One of the historical strengths of this site has always been out ability to disagree - sometimes forcefully - without personal attack and insult.  At least some of us have been concerned in recent months that that is less true now than it once was.  While I appreciate that perceptions as to whether a post is unacceptably offensive will vary, it is good to remind ourselves periodically of our need as Christians to maintain a tone and stance of civility, mutual respect and brotherly/sisterly love as we conduct our conversations.  In that vein, I think Amy's  post yesterday is particuarly welcome both regarding how one ought to react to another's post and how one ought to frame one's own response.

As to the direction we've veered in the discussion, I think a number of the posts demonstrate the difficulty of characterzing people.  Part of that is that there are different things going on: political conservatism or liberalism (or progressivism), degree of adherence to the Magisterium, differences in interpretation of the Magisterium, and many people don't fall neatly into one category or another.  So I've been very nervous at various people's attempts (either in posts or private e-mails over the past few days) to count up how many people are one one side or another, totally apart form the presumption involved in the characterization.

In any event, I trust we all agree that however one measures it, the site can not perform its function unless there is a broad diversity of views being actually expressed in our posts.