Yes, immigrant Catholics found a political home in the demagogic Democratic party which did not challenge them to rethink their notion of government.
But since VATII in this country (and probably in Europe as well) a bunch of bishops, priests, and teachers just ignored those parts of the social teaching which they didn't like. I remember assisting at a class in which the deacon taught as a wonderful doctrine something explicitly rejected in Veritatis Splendor by JPII.
As a convert I came, so to speak, "cold" to the social encyclicals and found that they did NOT AT ALL favor the top-down government and delegated charity espoused by socialists (and too many Catholics.)
I'm seeing a shift. Mind you. I've only encountered a VERY small sample. But among the Dominican friars, those older than around 50-55 TEND to be pinkos. Those younger than 50 tend to be conservative.
Among the university students whom I encounter in parish work, including many "converts", there are a several who are members of the campus "Burke Club."
And I can say this. Those I see at Mass regularly -- on Sundays and weekdays, are far more conservative than the Easter and Xmas Catholics or the "converts" who give every impression of coming to our classes or Masses to get their ticket punched. That is, the Burke Club Catholics come to Mass. The pinko Catholics, not so much.
To restate that, the Catholics who are loyal to the Magisterium and committed to Catholic piety tend to be conservative politically. On the other hand, the socialista Catholics are so far from the teaching to the Church that they are frequently incoherent. It's not just that they don't know what "proximate material cooperation" in a sin is, they don't WANT to know and resent the very activity of careful analysis of ethical or theological issues.
The major problem is that even conservative catholics have one of two responses to the catholics voting democrat for 150 years, first is, ‘no they don’t’, and second is, ‘here is why’ ‘level of devotion’ ‘theological purity’, ‘racial purity’ ‘angels on the head of a pin’ etc, which ends up basically saying that ‘no they don’t’.
Catholics have always voted democrat, almost all catholic presence in America is from immigration after the 1840s, they were almost non-existent in 1780. So wherever they come from they are members of the catholic church and are part of the democrat voting block.
The first time that Catholics voted republican in history was either 1972, or 1956, depending on the source, after Vatican II catholics moved right and voted republican 5 times 1972, 1980, 1984, 1988, and 2004, and the white, assimilated catholics, started voting republican by small margins.
The catholic vote has probably returned to it’s historical place in regards to the democrat party, we just lived through the best window of catholic voting ever from 1972 through 2012, now things are back to normal.
I was predicting a 54% republican margin for the catholic vote in this election, I was way, way off.
“......the Catholics who are loyal to the Magisterium and commmitted to Catholic piety tend to be conservative politically.”
This is visibly true to me.
In my deanery there are 5 Catholic parishes. The daily Masses are full at all five of these parishes every morning, and at the one parish, which has an additional evening Mass for people who work, there are many who come to Mass daily after work.
These are families and individuals who I have been familiar with over the last 37 years.
They are politically conservative-—very much so-—and are out-spoken about it.
Yes, I acknowledge that what I’m posting here could be termed “anecdotal”.
But it is also a truth that I experience daily.
They are there as a vibrant, and growing “remnant”.