You wrote:
“Well 54% of those Catholic voters voted for Obama, it has always been the norm for Catholics to vote liberal, the exceptions have been rare.”
Actually no. Liberalism as a political force in America is truly less than 80 years old. Catholics have been voting longer than that.
Catholics have been supporting the left since Catholic immigration first started in the 1830s, but even in the last 80 years the Catholics have voted against the Republicans in all but 5 elections of the 20 elections since 1932. Protestants voted against the Democrats in all but 3 of those 20 races (1932,1936,1964), Even FDR had to count on the overwhelmingly liberal Catholic vote in 1940 and 1944 because Protestants were voting Republican.