Has Obama Lost the Catholic Left?

The Cardinal Newman Society | 01/22/12 | CNS Staff

[Brian Kopp DPM]

Has Obama Lost the Catholic Left?

Lyndon B. Johnson, after watching Walter Cronkite conclude a special broadcast which was heavily critical of the Tet offensive, said, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America.”

Well, this story isn’t exactly on the same level as that, but President Barack Obama may be losing the Catholic Left, with obvious implications for entrenched faculty on many Catholic college campuses. Michael Sean Winters, a lead writer for the National Catholic Reporter and vocal defender of the University of Notre Dame’s 2009 commencement honors for President Obama, wrote yesterday that he can’t see how he could ever support President Obama again after the administration’s ruling on religious exemptions for the contraceptive mandate.

Winters wrote:

President Barack Obama lost my vote yesterday when he declined to expand the exceedingly narrow conscience exemptions proposed by the Department of Health and Human Services. The issue of conscience protections is so foundational, I do not see how I ever could, in good conscience, vote for this man again.

One must wonder if President Obama might just be saying that if he’s lost the National Catholic Reporter, he’s lost the liberal Catholic vote. As you might remember, Obama won over the majority of Catholics in 2008, albeit mostly wayward Catholics.

Winters makes it clear he does not come at this issue as “an anti-contraception zealot.” In fact, he says plainly he comes at his decision “as a liberal and a Democrat” who defended the University of Notre Dame’s decision to honor the President.

That’s what makes this criticism sting a little more.

I accuse you, Mr. President, of dishonoring your own vision by this shameful decision.

I accuse you, Mr. President, of failing to live out the respect for diversity that you so properly and beautifully proclaimed as a cardinal virtue at Notre Dame. Or, are we to believe that diversity is only to be lauded when it advances the interests of those with whom we agree? That’s not diversity. That’s misuse of a noble principle for ignoble ends.

I accuse you, Mr. President, of betraying philosophic liberalism, which began, lest we forget, as a defense of the rights of conscience. As Catholics, we need to be honest and admit that, three hundred years ago, the defense of conscience was not high on the agenda of Holy Mother Church. But, we Catholics learned to embrace the idea that the coercion of conscience is a violation of human dignity. This is a lesson, Mr. President, that you and too many of your fellow liberals have apparently unlearned.

I accuse you, Mr. President, who argued that your experience as a constitutional scholar commended you for the high office you hold, of ignoring the Constitution.

Besides thinking Obama is constitutionally and morally wrong on this issue, Winters also complains that this action by Obama is just plain ol’ politically stupid and could imperil his presidency and destroy the progressive movement.

Winters seems to think Obama took this action to appease Planned Parenthood and NARAL. Winters wonders if Obama could have actually thought that these folks were going to vote Republican unless he did this? In short, Winters seems to believe that Obama took this action to gain the votes of those who were already voting for him.

Winters seems to feel spurned by Obama as well, saying:

I accuse you, Mr. President, of treating shamefully those Catholics who went out on a limb to support you. Do tell, Mr. President, how many bullets have the people at Planned Parenthood taken for you? Sr. Carol Keehan, Father Larry Snyder, Father John Jenkins, these people have scars to show for their willingness to work with you, to support you on your tough political fights. Is this the way you treat people who went to the mat for you?

Winters makes it clear he won’t be joining the GOP anytime soon but says he won’t be supporting President Obama either.

…as soon as I learned of this decision, I knew instantly that I also could not, in good conscience, ever vote for Mr. Obama again. I once had great faith in Mr. Obama’s judgment and leadership. I do not retract a single word I have written supporting him on issues like health care reform, or bringing the troops home from Iraq, or taking aggressive steps to halt the recession and turn the economy around. I will continue to advocate for those policies. But, I can never convince myself that a person capable of making such a dreadful decision is worthy of my respect or my vote.

We wonder, what does Notre Dame’s Father Jenkins think of all of this?

[ansel12]

Mexico is a Catholic country and the great majority of them moving here are Catholic, the ones who convert to Protestant churches are not much of a problem because they then become more conservative, Bush got 56% of their vote in 2004, for instance, they appear to be about a 50/50 vote.

[ansel12]

I disagree with your history, the actual history of the black vote is that it reversed itself in 1936, not the 1960s.

Blacks were solidly Republican, always, in 1932 everything was normal and Roosevelt got 23% of the black vote, then suddenly in 1936, the Democrats got 71% of the black vote, and it has been the same ever since.

Whatever happened, happened between 1932, and 1936.

[ansel12]

Been thinking the same thing. Newt is a Catholic convert and is not ashamed of his faith. That might help us in the General Election, with the Catholic vote. I’m thinking that Marco Rubio is Catholic also. Does anyone know?

I don't know whether we have any conservatives who fit the bill, but a Hispanic Catholic as Newt's Veep, and then as the later Presidential candidate could be the thing that breaks this Catholic Hispanic problem.

Rubio is Catholic, the Governor of New Mexico is Catholic, are they the right choice for conservatives? I don't know, I am only aware of them, I don't know their particulars, but the theory sure excites me.

[ansel12]

By all means they align with Republican values.

Clearly they don't, we have more than a hundred years of history on this, Catholics are voting for the party and the issues that they support.

We have to figure out some way to seduce them into voting Republican, without becoming so moderate that we become Democrats ourselves, we will never make true right wingers out of the Catholic vote.

[darrellmaurina]

82 posted on Monday, January 23, 2012 12:01:41 PM by ansel12: “I disagree with your history, the actual history of the black vote is that it reversed itself in 1936, not the 1960s. Blacks were solidly Republican, always, in 1932 everything was normal and Roosevelt got 23% of the black vote, then suddenly in 1936, the Democrats got 71% of the black vote, and it has been the same ever since. Whatever happened, happened between 1932, and 1936.”

My understanding is there were two large waves of movement of black voters from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party, one under FDR and the other under LBJ.

The first move involved mostly Northern blacks simply because few Southern blacks were able to vote. I would need to do some research since I'm going by memory, but I understand a key part of the move involved a black Chicago Republican congressman who decided to jump ship from the Republican Party after the mobsters lost control of the Chicago mayor's post and control of both the mayor's seat and the aldermen turned to Democrats, with the beginning of what became the Chicago Machine.

Otherwise, the earlier shift was largely based on economics under FDR, who didn't particularly do much for black civil rights but provided money for poor people through social programs and had a wife who was well-known for being sympathetic to civil rights.

A significant portion of blacks remained Republicans until the 1950s and 1960s, but Nixon's Southern strategy pretty much ended a process that began with the period between the 1960 and 1964 elections.

[rmlew]

The only Southern Strategy I've seen a lie or projection by the left. Wallace was the candidate of white racist in 1968. Democrats declared war on the JAcksonians with the unConstitutional 1964 Civil Rights act, which ended all pretense of individual rights in America. That was a choice by the Democrats to choose socialism over rights. Johnson killed previous Civil Rights legislation, holding out for the socialist version. Sending welfare to the people burning their own cities was a choice of the Democrats. Coddling the hippies was a choice by the left. This led traditional blue collar Democrats to flee their party all over the US.

LBJ understood this and countered it with the Immigration Reform Act of 1965, to elect a new people.

[rmlew]

Black America choose the chains of socialism and the promise of government jobs for the few iun the 1960s. They wanted to be subserviant instead of free, so they became Democrats.

[ansel12]

Some Northern blacks did not reverse a roughly 71% Republican national black vote in 1932, to a 71% national Democrat vote in 1936, and then keep the national black vote there ever since.

Party registration lagged some, but that is meaningless. Also, black militancy, black power, and aggressive racism in campaigning by Democrats, did take the 70 and 80% black vote to the 80 and 90% numbers, but that was also a part of simple trajectory and momentum, or modern black culture as created by the left.

[hinckley buzzard]

Here's the real reason this hypocrite Winters is upset:

Winters also complains that this action by Obama is just plain ol’ politically stupid and could imperil his presidency and destroy the progressive movement.

Leftists are leftists and this simpering wincing clod is still a baby killer calling himself a Catholic.

[hinckley buzzard]

Well, you probably mean George Mason because he was the patriot who framed the Bill of Rights.

[RobbyS]

Madison was the leader of the House in he First Congress and he submitted a list of Amendments. It was sent to committee,modified, and then sent to the Senate, came back was further details, and then passed by both houses. I don’t have a source right now, Just remembering.

[taildragger]

I did some research a while back, here is what I found...

* In 2006 Schumer and Emanuel engineered the House and Senate Takeover.
* Schumer noted in an interview, that they went from PA west and picked off districts all the way to IL ( and beyond)
* I found a map on the web (Wish I kept it), of these districts by religion.
* Many they picked off, the highest percentage were Catholic.
* Many were probably tired of "Bushes Wars" and may have been of the liberation theology wing of the church.

Fast forward to Obamacare and a small group of Nuns ( not really a voice of the church ) who gave their go ahead to Obamacare. Also at the time, I could smell it that it was a done deal and the Church needed the Stupak exemption to keep their Hospitals running. Well it looks like the Obamaton's didn't keep their words now did they..

However, now we have two Catholics running, Santorum and Mr. Newt, both Pro Life.

At this point, many Catholics, their kids and grand kids are hurting and can't find work. They know in their gut something is wrong with this guy and the country.

FWIW, I feel many of my Catholic friends are reasonable people. But what "he" has done to our country is unreasonable in fact might remind them of the horrors of Communism they learned in Catechism, it defies common sense and they finally see it.

Let hope they feel it in their heart when they go in the voting booth and vote like they did in Macomb County Michigan for Reagan, home of the Reagan Democrats, many who were Catholic. Let us hope lightning strikes twice..

[RobbyS]

You are saying that the Levite priests dressed like Babylonian? Because a bishop’s miter is very like that of the Jewish high priest. As for the gowns, well, the Lord prescribed their dress and it sounds a lot like that worn by a Catholic bishop.

But as for the rest, just old-fashioned Guy Fawkes claptrap.

[RobbyS]

American anti-Catholicism has its roots in the Protestantism of the settlers of the English colonies. Catholicism was proscribed in almost all the colonies, excepting Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.

[RobbyS]

The bishops have as a matter of record favored big government intervention in social care. Now they are reaping what they sowed. They ignored the significance of the appointment of a pro-choice zealot as secretary of HHS and giving her the power to define the conscience exemption. He has predictably used that power to try to force Catholic institutions to submit to the dictates of her conscience. The bishops ought to have protested her appointment, but they wanted that federal funding too much. Now they are going to have to choose between their faith and the money.

[re_nortex]

...Nixon's Southern strategy...

It is my understanding (and I might be mistaken) is that the Southern Strategy didn't actually exist. One such article refuting it recently appeared here on Free Republic:

ANOTHER LIBERAL LIE EXPOSED: The Myth of the Southern Strategy.

[taildragger]

Thanks for the reminder on the Bishops Rob. I brought it up in a verablly ham handed fashion that they sold us out during the Stupak debate here and got my head handed to me.

What strikes me is..

* 501c3's have an excellent record, ie Credit Unions and Faith based Organizations and Churches.
* They are natural groups.
* Natural Groups can offer insurance.
* Why they are not offering a low cost high deductible HSA type plan for un-ininsured in their flock is beyond me.

Yes it is not everything under their umbrella of "social care" but they probably would do a better job than anything Fedzilla touches.

They blew their chance to change America, for the better in not even thinking of this as an alternative to Obamacare. ( ditto that Congress, especially my critter who I shared the idea with, at least a staffer)...

[RobbyS]

To be fair, the bishops are dependment on lay staff, a majority of whom are liberal, are what they call “social justice” Catholics, who have slight respect for traditional Catholic sexual morality.

Way back when, I was what they called a Commonweal Catholic, a supporter of guys like Gene McCarthy et al. I didn’t see what was going on, which was a veritable anti-Roman revolt. Oh, they didn’t attack the pope. They approved of his move toward the socialists and even the Communist powers, but when Humanae Vitae came out, they went ape. Rejected it out of hand. Laity, priests, even bishops. Refused to preach it, refused to take adequate action against open dissenters. Fact is that many priests had been telling women for years that the Church was about to change its stance on birth control.Liberal priests were sitting down with Planned Parenthood types, agreeing that the pill probably would solve the problems of illegitimacy, abortion, and poverty, if only widely distributed. ETC.

An alarm went off in my head, though, when John Cogley, the editor of Commonweal resigned and announced he was joining the Episcopal Church. At least he was honest. But many other Catholics just said non serviam to Rome and continued to carry on as if they were still Catholics. The rituals were changed, the old catechisms were thrown out, and replaced by wooley-minded new-agey stuff. All of this change was ignored by the bishops who saw their whole ship taking on water and the crew jumping overboard. It was then that the social-justice people provided them with a way to save face. Such people have dominated the chanceries ever since.

[LomanBill]

>>Catholicism was proscribed

Uhuh. By falible and uninspired me who had assumed dominion over the faith of others - just as other theocratic/occult tyrant eunuchs had been doing for 3000 plus years in various empirical plumage.

>>the Lord prescribed their dress

Did the Lord prescribe their Ity Bity pointee hats as well? Mormonism, America’s Islam, is full of bee shyte too. Bzzzzzzz.

https://www.google.com/#hl=en&sclient=psy-ab&q=Bity+Sedge+Bee

Here comes the sun, doo doo doo doo.