The trend in both America and in the Catholic church has been toward pro-life. The pro-life movement is winning this argument slowly but steadily.
Also, you must remember that the Democratic Party turned pro-abortion in fairly recent memory. It was only after it was hijacked by the anti-war crowd of John Kerry’s ilk that the Dem Party went south on abortion. I believe I read something recently about John Kennedy being solidly anti-abortion.
That is one reason so many democrats have only slowly come to realize it’s not the same pro-worker party of their grandparents.
Quite right on all those points. Another issue is the phenomenon of “cultural Catholics.” They self-identify as Catholics in polls, and somewhat skew the results. And, yes, the Democrat party didn’t used to be be the liberal party. It became that over the years starting really with Woodrow Wilson.
That’s not to say there aren’t big challenges in the Catholic Church with significant numbers of people voting for liberals; there is. But, it’s gradually changing. The sixties did a lot of damage throughout society, and the Catholic Church was no exception.
"White" Catholics have slowly been voting a little more Republican (52% voted rep in 2008, while 48% of Hispanic Protestants voted rep. In 2004, white Catholics and Hispanic Protestants both supported Bush by 56%), but Catholic immigration will more than make up for that. I think that we are in a period of the best that it is going to get for the Catholic vote, unless we come up with some dramatic strategy to make Catholic Hispanics conservative.
Obama got 54% of the Catholic vote, that isn't due to Catholics not knowing what they are voting for, they do know and Republicans at this point do not look likely to be winning more of their votes as time passes. In twenty years it will be worse, not better. We need some earth shattering way to change that future, and conservative Catholics need to figure something out, putting their heads in the sand and fighting to keep the truth from being known is not a winning strategy.
Look at that California, 2004 vote breakdown in post 41, we don't want all of America becoming like California.