Too many just don't get it, or are unwilling to understand what it is they are doing.
Agreed. It is impossible to be a Christian and a Democrat. You’re either one or the other—not both.
Past opinion surveys have shown that the more likely a Catholic is to attend Mass on at least a weekly basis, the more probable will be his vote for the Republicans and to be conservative politically. The same holds true for mainline Protestants.
First, because of the emphasis on social conservative issues, the Republican Party has become very competitive for the Catholic vote, and in the last two presidential elections, actually obtained a majority of the Catholic vote.
But keep in mind not all Catholics are pro-life, sadly. Especially non-devout Catholics. A majority of Catholics who are not devout are pro-abortion. That’s a bit unsurprising. These are folks who have already declared, implicitly or explicitly, that the Church holds little sway in how they run their lives, in what they believe.
Yes, they're still Catholics. They still count as Catholics. But these are folks who aren't making much of an effort to live particularly Catholic lives.
A majority of these folks vote Democrat.
Devout Catholics tend to vote more for Republicans, primarily due to the social conservative agenda of the party.
But even among these, some devout Catholics are pro-abortion, and are more socially liberal. This is the fault of the bishops, who proclaim the Gospel of Life, but don’t do much where the rubber meets the road in terms of disciplining prominent wayward Catholics.
I’ve asked pro-abortion Catholics (folks who may think it’s morally wrong to procure an abortion, but who believe that it should nonetheless be legal) how they could defy the Church’s teaching on this matter. They point to the bishops’ treatment (or lack thereof) of folks like Chappaquiddick Ted. If the bishops don’t do anything to major pro-abort Catholic politicians, they reason, then they don’t really mean that I, Miss Catholic-in-the-Pew, must think that abortion should be banned.
And then, when you ask a critter like Chappaquiddick Ted (and he has been asked for the record), he’s actually said stuff like, “It’s the bishops’ problem, and they haven’t done anything to me to date, so why should I change?”
Another thing to keep in mind is that Catholics, even devout Catholics, are not ideologically conservative, as currently defined. We don’t view low taxes, less government regulation, more capitalism as obtaining to the level of the moral law. For devout Catholics, being a Conservative with a capital “C” or a Capitalist with a capital “C,” or for that matter, a Liberal with a capital “L” is tantamount to idolatry.
Some Catholics favor the war in Iraq, some don’t. Even the pope acknowledges that there is legitimate room for difference on this question within the Church. There is no direct teaching that socialized medicine is intrinsically evil. There is no “right” level of taxation, or government intrusion into markets. These are all legitimate issues of debate for Catholics as persons who engage in the political sphere.
Thus, you’ll find that reasonably devout Catholics (folks who go to Mass each Sunday and Holyday, which is part of a minimum obligation to be a devout Catholic), we vote mostly Republican these days, most of the time, mainly because of the social issues. Most devout Catholics ARE pro-life, ARE pro-family, DO come down on the conservative side of things in terms of using the law to enforce minimal standards of morality.
But we’re not wedded to the Republican Party. We’re wedded to Catholic Faith, which we believe was given to us by Jesus through the Apostles, and preserved in the Holy Catholic Church.
As well, devout Catholics are more likely to be Catholics who know a little more of their own history here in the United States. We remember how virulently anti-Catholic the Republican Party once was (and to some degree, still is). “Rum, Romanism and Rebellion” and all that. We remember how Republicans and freemasons passed anti-Catholic constitutional amendments to state constitutions to prevent any sort of public aid reaching children in our parochial schools. We remember their attempts to SHUT DOWN Catholic parochial school systems, to force our children in to their “public” schools, to indoctrinate our children against our faith, in the effort to eradicate our faith, and by so doing, to “Americanize” us.
So, for many, there may be lingering feelings of unwelcome. I personally feel that in the Religion Forum almost everyday from the swarm of anti-Catholic bigots who post here.
Finally, the current effort by some in the party to de-emphasize, or even vitiate, the social conservative agenda will not draw less devout Catholics to the party in any large numbers, but will manage (is managing) to send large waves of devout Catholics right out of the party.
sitetest
Actually, its pretty simple.
Irish Catholics are overwhelmingly Democrat, and they make up a huge portion of the Church. And they’ve been Democrats since the 1820’s when the Whigs and Know-Nothings, who later became the Republicans, were bitterly against them.
Catholics of Italian, German, Polish, Ukranian, Lithuanian, Lebanese, and French heritage are no more inclined to vote Democrat than any other group of white Americans, generally going about 5 to 3 for the Republicans. This split is readily apparent when you look at the voting habits of ethnic neighborhoods and suburbs in the northeast, Chicago, etc., or if you look at the surnames of Catholic candidates from the two parties.
The same split is apparent among the Orthodox, with Greeks and Serbs leaning Democrat, while Arabs and Ukranians and American converts lean Republican.
The Democrat party is a simple coalition of the overwhelming majority of Irish Catholics, Jews, Blacks, irreligious/amoral Americans, and self-loathing guilty feeling rich WASP’s.
I can only theorize the Irish Catholics remain there, and vote for pro-abortion/pro-homosexual politicians because they are really good at holding grudges.
It’s simple, many North American Catholics are “cafeteria Catholics” who don’t really accept the Church’s teachings when it conflicts with their “American middle-class” values. How they still think they are Catholic is beyond me, but there they are.
I think the Catholic-Democrat link has a lot to do with unionized labor. Traditionally Catholics lived in the industrialized northeast through to the rust belt where labor was strongest. Democrats were seen as the party that supported the unions and thus helped put food on the table. Republicans backed management and were thus the enemy.
It will be interesting to see how this holds up as the unions have largely fallen by the wayside and Catholics are increasingly moving south and west.