ABSTRACT
Innovative Catholics, who in finding themselves marginalised, commonly experience grief and isolation; they feel deeply the dissonance between their espoused values and those of the hierarchical Church. Innovative Catholics have been expected by society to create nuclear families constituted in revised notions of partnership and parenthood. The priority which Innovative Catholics give to compassion also has a consequence in their scrutiny of the emphasis on individual autonomy in secular society. Innovative Catholics were inspired by the Second Vatican Council to exercise their consciences when making decisions about their lives. Their recourse to tools of critical thinking and new social arrangements made it difficult for Popes John Paul and Benedict to restore in Innovative Catholics a belief in the value of the collective person. In prioritising these concepts, they can scrutinise the ideal of absolute truth and reposition it as a product of mutual relationship.
