Hispanics are recent, the catholic vote is never changing.
Besides, it is a single denomination, a single church, all members of the same denomination.
All indications are that cultural, socio-economic and ethnic factors are more likely to predict voting patterns.
Besides, it is a single denomination…
The major correlations are across all religions and churches no matter what. If we found a church comprised of all white, married, older congregants, we could predict their votes more accurately than if we only knew what Church or denomination they were.
I should have added “where everyone attends church very regularly” to the previous example - since it involved a ‘church’ group.
If it were just a group of people, any group, the example would apply as stated.
I think there is a difference of opinion about what the whole single denomination thing means.
One the one hand, I am a pedal to the metal Catholic. And there are pedaler to the metal Catholics than I. I have a rule as a lay Dominican. I am ‘docile’ to the Magisterium. About the only reason I leave my house, in my dotage, is to go to church. All my errands and appointments are scheduled to fit my obligations in my volunteer work at church.
I’m not bragging. What I do is, for the most part, fun. Tonight, after Mass, I prayed Vespers, and then hauled out my Android phone on which I have a copy of the Te Deum, and I prayed it on my knees.
This weekend I will visit other members of my order and observe how they do business to see if there’s anything my chapter could learn from them.
Again this is fun for me. I meet people who think more or less as I do and who laugh at my jokes.
Other Catholics, as I like to say, assume the three point stance the minute the priest begins the final blessing. He gives the dismissal and they are out of there and in the parking lot — as we are singing the last verse of the final hymn.
They are a real group in that we’ve all been baptized and/or confirmed as Catholics, and we’ve all hauled our sorry behinds to Mass. But there are babes in the faith, cultural Catholics, converts who, though I don’t understand this, essentially lied when they made the declaration of conformity.
I know a Lesbian who converted but is not yet ready to give up acting like a Lesbian. I trust God to sort those things out. But she exemplifies for me the convert who is drawn, but who has not yet handed herself over.
It’s a little like when I was a clergyman and I was doing the pre-marital workup. I would tell the couple what Christians think marriage is. I would caution them that it was really not a good idea to say all this stuff and not mean it. What more could I do? I don’t read minds. If they’re going to lie to me, that’s really more between them and God than between them and me.
I know a guy, a life-long Catholic, who frankly doesn’t care what the Church teaches. I don’t get it. When I stopped believing the Episcopal Church was really a church, I left it, and my livelihood. I don’t see why he is still going to Mass.
But whatever you’ve been told or led to believe, it’s not that easy or common to excommunicate someone. Our canons leave a LOT to the individual believer.
To get all particular, if Nancy Pelosi presents herself before some random priest to receive Communion, he is not allowed to refuse her. Why? Because he doesn’t know that she didn’t just go to confession and recant all her pernicious nonsense. If she did, no one is more fit for the Sacrament. If she didn’t, she’s in BIG trouble with God.
And, of course, this leads to a demographic many, if not most, of whose members are jerks.
We’re fine with that. “This is a true saying and worthy of all men to be believed, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” We’re the Church. We haven’t saved ‘em yet. We’re working on it.