You wrote: “I also think it’s pretty safe to say that the era of it mattering if the candidate is Catholic has long since passed (i.e. I don’t think any sizable number of non-Catholics would refuse to vote for a Catholic and John Kerry showed that Catholics are not willing to vote for someone just because they are Catholic).”
There would certainly be a problem if the Presidential candidate was a practicing Catholic... Look what they did to Bush for practicing his Faith!!
Everyone knew that John Kerry was only a self-identified Catholic ... not a practicing Catholic.
Good point.