Posted on 03/05/2008 10:26:06 AM PST by Alex Murphy
[snip]
Today, one in four Americans is a Roman Catholic. What makes all this particularly significant in this political year is that exit polls across the country show that Catholics are casting 25% of all the primary votes -- mirroring, in other words, their percentage of the general population.
The importance of that turnout is amplified by the fact that Catholics now constitute the only true "swing vote" among discrete electoral groups followed by pollsters and social scientists. Though they no longer march in quite so precise a lock step, evangelicals still tend overwhelmingly to vote for the GOP candidate. African Americans and Latinos remain reliably Democratic, as do nine out of 10 Jews.
[snip]
Unlike evangelicals, Catholics have a long tradition of theologically nuanced social thought on which to draw: the church's so-called social gospel. The Catholic bishops, for example, have been demanding national health insurance longer than Clinton has been alive, and the term "living wage" was introduced into the American conversation by Catholic commentators. Similarly, the church's support for unions and opposition to restrictive immigration policies are well-articulated. More recently, both the Vatican and the American bishops have opposed capital punishment and preemptive warfare.
Now, the typical Catholic probably doesn't know an encyclical from an insecticide, but this sort of social thinking and preoccupation with social solidarity and a "preferential option for the poor" are woven into the fabric of even casual parish life. It's this background that has tended to make Catholics swing voters: uncomfortable with the sort of litmus-test left that once kept Pennsylvania's pro-life Democratic governor, Bob Casey, from speaking at a national convention, as well as the talk-show right that assumes opposition to abortion means approving the war in Iraq.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
"CNN noted that of the 10 states in the country with the highest percentage of Catholics, Obama has only won one state overall, Connecticut."
You have no idea how I was hoping that the Dems would run another pro-choice Catholic - I think Kerry’s the only Dem who has NOT gotten my devout-Catholic best friend’s vote. She doesn’t expect Protestants to be pro-life, and I’m sure she’s not the only Catholic who thinks that way. She couldn’t quite bring herself to vote for Bush, so she went third-party.
Hillary’s pro-choice Catholics are not Catholics.
To paint such a broad brush for so-called “Catholic Voters” is ridiculous. How many self-professed Catholics actually attend Mass on a weekly basis? I am sure there is a huge difference in voting patterns between “cafeteria” Catholics and those who are active in the Church.
Right On!!
This article is by a liberal who wants to believe that the positions of the Democratic Party are more consistent with Catholic social teaching than are Republican positions. That is simply not the case. In the first place, BOTH Parties accept the need for SOME amount of social welfare spending. It is question of how much and how it is spent. The Church has no teaching on such detailed questions, which are matters of prudential judgment. Similarly, BOTH Parties contain pro- and anti-death penalty people. And while the bishops would like to see the death penalty’s use severely restricted, the question of how much it should be restricted is also a matter of prudential judgment, and both the Pope and the bishops have said that Catholics can have differing views on the death penalty and remain Catholics in good standing. The same goes for war and peace. While lots of bishops don’t approve the war in Iraq, that does not make opposition to this particular war a matter of authoritative Catholic social teaching. The bishops, the Pope, the Catechism all emphasize that decisions about particular wars also lie in the area of prudential judgment on which Catholics can have legitimate disagreements. Moreover, while some bishops and the Pope spoke out against the original decision to invade Iraq, they do not take the position NOW that an immediate withdrawal is called for. In fact, they have said that a precipitous withdrawal that would leave Iraq in chaos would be wrong.
On embryonic stem cell research, it is true McCain has a bad position, but Clinton and Obama have the same bad position or worse. And the fact is that opposition to embryonic stem cell research is far higher among Republican politicians than Democratic ones. So this issue certainly breaks FOR the Republicans. As do, of course, the other life issues of abortion and euthanasia. The bishops have also said that the issues of abortion, euthanasia, and embryonic stem cell research, since they involve matters of “intrinsically evil” acts, are of greater weight in making political choices.
The liberal Catholic Joe Feuerherd, who wrote an article in the Washington Post about a week ago saying that the U.S. bishops had taken a “lurch toward the right” politically, idiot though he is, at least has a more realistic grasp of the political-theological landscape than this guy.
And Jesus said, “No man can serve two masters. He will either love one and hate the other.”
It is also called “double-mindedness” or lack of stability which St. James wrote in his first epistle.
The big flaw in this reporter’s analysis is that only 25% of Catholics in this country actually practice their faith. Therefore, this voting bloc of Catholics, which constitutes 25% of voters, is for the most part, no different than non-Catholic voters. In other words, 75% of Catholic voters are not influenced at all by Church teachings when they vote, which explains why so many of them vote for liberals and pro-choicers.
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