The Lockhorns' marriage is like a "Don't Sweat the Details" Catholic's spirituality.
Posted on 04/07/2009 1:21:32 PM PDT by NYer
This “Get Religion” writer calls a recent Gallup Poll further confirmation that there are four Catholic voter blocs. He identifies them this way:
—“Ex-Catholics. Solid for the Democrats.”
—“Cultural Catholics who may go to church a few times a year. This may be an undecided voter, but this vote leans to Democrats.”
—“Sunday-morning American Catholics. This voter is a regular in the pew and may even play some leadership role in the parish. This is the true Catholic swing vote.”
—“The ‘sweats the details’ Roman Catholic who goes to confession, is active in the full sacramental life of the parish and almost always backs the Vatican on doctrinal matters. This group is a small slice of the American Catholic pie.”
Let’s rename and redefine that last category. Instead of “sweats the details” Catholics, let’s call them:
“Bare minimum Catholics. Catholics who at least follow the ‘indispensable minimum’: the precepts of the Church.”
They are, says the Catechism:
1) to attend Mass on Sundays and other holy days of obligation and to refrain from work and activities which could impede the sanctification of those days;
2) to confess one’s sins, receiving the sacrament of Reconciliation at least once each year;
3) to receive the sacrament of the Eucharist at least during the Easter Season;
4) to abstain from eating meat and to observe the days of fasting established by the Church; and
5) to help to provide for the material needs of the Church, each according to his own ability.”
The precepts of the Church aren’t a legalistic thing: They are the minimum you have to do to maintain your relationship with God.
If we made a list of “the minimum you have to do to live in peace with your spouse,” the list would be the same:
1) Spend significant time with her every week (the Mass attendance obligation);
2) apologize when you offend her (confession);
3) participate in marital relations (communion obligation);
4) acknowledge her birthday and anniversary (the days of fasting and abstinence); and
5) support your spouse (the obligation to give according to ability).
Continuing the comparison: People who insist on calling themselves Catholics but don’t follow the precepts of the Church are like wives who won’t talk to their husbands, husbands who hurt their wives and refuse to apologize, wives who refuse sexual relations, husbands who are too cheap to spring for flowers or a card on those important dates, or a spouse who maintains a separate bank account and refuses to share it.
If it truly is a small group that follows the precepts of the Church, then Catholics have important work to do: It’s our duty to return as many people as possible to bare-minimum Catholicism.
The group to start with first would be the “Sunday-morning crowd.” Win them over and we’ll be able to grow that category exponentially, because it will transform our churches.
It’s not a tough sell, in the end. Find tools to help sell it here.
We’ve met them all, haven’t we ;-)
well i am a Catholic but a terrible one i guess
i go to church like twice a year and feel bad about it but with my commute, was working three jobs and a young family i never remember what day it is never mind anything else.
however i am a solid Conservative Repubican
so there ;)
Oh, indeed! Sometimes they even help run parish functions. ;-)
So, the first two groups are basically Democrats and the third group of the four has their heads up their butts, walking the right way one day and the wrong day the next, and this guy thinks these are the idiots to “target” with a conservative message from a conservative politician?
It looks like three out of four main groups of Catholics are lost causes.
My daughter did that when she was working a job that required working on Sundays . . . .
(I try to do that during Lent but heaven knows I forget!)
xx% McCain, 68% Obama - Don't attend church4 **
—“Cultural Catholics who may go to church a few times a year. This may be an undecided voter, but this vote leans to Democrats.”
37% McCain, 61% Obama - Non-weekly-mass-attending Catholics6,12 > 45% McCain, 54% Obama - Catholics1,4,6,8,9,10,11,12
—“Sunday-morning American Catholics. This voter is a regular in the pew and may even play some leadership role in the parish. This is the true Catholic swing vote.”
55% McCain, 43% Obama - Weekly mass-attending Catholics 6,9
—“The ‘sweats the details’ Roman Catholic who goes to confession, is active in the full sacramental life of the parish and almost always backs the Vatican on doctrinal matters. This group is a small slice of the American Catholic pie.”
Exit poll numbers from the 2008 Presidential Election demographics, footnoted and annotated on my profile page.
When I was in college, between classes, homework and the job I held to put myself through college, I was working 120-130 hours a week. Week after week.
At first I thought that I couldn't spare the extra hour to go to church. So I skipped church. It really made little difference.
When I returned to church, I discovered that the 1 hour in church was MY time. No school or jobs to worry about for one hour. Just me and God, and a lot of other people needing me-God time.
It did wonders to 'recharge my batteries'. Church became something I looked forward to.
Just my story. Yours may be different.
There's no separate poll number for only the "sweats the details" Catholics.
The "sweats the details" people are a small number, but they voted overwhelmingly McCain. (Anecdotally, I know maybe 30-40 of them here, and none of them were Obama supporters.)
Very powerful reminder to ALL of us as to what’s REALLY important! Thanks.
reminds me of the old Borscht Belt comics’ line about non-observant Jews. They like the culture and the identity of being Jewish....but they just don’t want to be bothered having God hanging around....
I disagree. I had originally aligned "weekly mass" with "sweat the details", but "Sunday morning crowd" is defined by the article as the true Catholic swing vote. Let's look at the top three conservative-voting Catholic groups again:
55% McCain, 43% Obama - Weekly mass-attending Catholics
52% McCain, 47% Obama - White "regular-mass-attending" Catholics
51% McCain, 49% Obama - White Catholics
In each of the last three Presidential elections, the Catholic vote was consistently split about 55/45 between the main candidates. And all of the above groups demonstrate a "swing vote" kind of split. I don't define a 55/45 split as an overwhelming vote for one candidate, and that's why I don't associate "weekly Mass attending" (nor does the article) with "sweat the details", but instead why I chose to leave that last section blank. The article says the "sweat the details" group (and I quote) almost always backs the Vatican on doctrinal matters. I don't equate 55/45 with "almost always".
FWIW, I am likely to concede that there's a conservative Catholic demographic - possibly the "sweat the details" Catholic - who voted overwhelmingly for McCain, but as you rightly point out, there are simply no polling numbers that capture it. As this article states (and I'm forced to agree), it must be a "small slice of the American Catholic pie."
Amazing that you can find the time to post cheesecake photos on Free Republic.
That means that the Sunday morning only folks are somewhat more pro-Obama than your 55-45 McCain split, but only slightly, since the sweat the details people are a much smaller faction. If you assume that the weekly mass attendees are 90% sunday morning only and 10% sweat the details, and the StD people went 90% for McCain, that means that the sunday-morning only people went 51% for McCain.
The Jewish vote goes Democrat, the Protestant to the Republican. Catholics are the flip-floppers picking Republicans five times and Democrats four since 1972
I invite you to ponder the hierarchy of things:
God
Family
Work/job
Other
Since God comes first in everyone’s life (otherwise, I would not be here, I follow this in setting my priorities.
God bless you in your striving for your faith.
Actually, 53% of the Protestant vote went to Obama.
Wow - just look how your numbers dovetail so neatly into mine! Thank you for contibuting an additional chart and source to my polling statistics - especially one that provide stats for 2000 and 2004 in addition to 2008! And as your own chart shows, only a subset of the "Protestant" vote went to Obama. All Pew Forum entries have been given their own row, and are colored green for emphasis:
xx% McCain, 23% Obama - White Evangelicals age 30-6411
75% McCain, 25% Obama - White7,10 Born Again5,10,12 Evangelicals1,8,10,12
73% McCain, 26% Obama - Evangelical/Born-again Protestant14
xx% McCain, 32% Obama - White Evangelicals age 18-2911
65% McCain, xx% Obama - Weekly church-attending Protestants7
65% McCain, 34% Obama - White Protestants7,8
65% McCain, 34% Obama - White Protestant/Other Christian14
62% McCain, 35% Obama - State of Utah3
59% McCain, 40% Obama - Working-class whites13
57% McCain, 41% Obama - White men13
55% McCain, 43% Obama - Weekly mass-attending Catholics 6,9
55% McCain, 43% Obama - "White voters" 13
55% McCain, 44% Obama - Non-evangelical Protestant14
54% McCain, 44% Obama - Weekly church-goers1,4,7,12
54% McCain, 45% Obama - Protestants6,8
53% McCain, 46% Obama - White women 13
52% McCain, 47% Obama - White "regular-mass-attending" Catholics12
52% McCain, 47% Obama - White Catholic14
51% McCain, 47% Obama - White college graduates13
xx% McCain, 47% Obama - White independent voters13
51% McCain, 49% Obama - White Catholics1,7,11
46% McCain, 52% Obama - Non-Evangelical Protestants 12
46% McCain, 53% Obama - Protestant/Other Christian14
xx% McCain, 53% Obama - Monthly church-goers 4**
44% McCain, 54% Obama - "Young whites"13
45% McCain, 54% Obama - Catholics1,4,6,8,9,10,11,12
45% McCain, 54% Obama - Catholic14
xx% McCain, 59% Obama - Semi-annual church-goers4**
38% McCain, 61% Obama - Occasional churchgoers1
37% McCain, 61% Obama - Non-weekly-mass-attending Catholics6,12
28% McCain, 62% Obama - Other faiths14
30% McCain, 67% Obama - Hispanics13****
xx% McCain, 67% Obama - Hispanic Catholics8,11**,***, ****
xx% McCain, 67% Obama - Hispanic Protestants and other Christians11**, ****
xx% McCain, 68% Obama - Don't attend church4 **
22% McCain, 73% Obama - Other faiths14
23% McCain, 75% Obama - Unaffliliated with any religion11
23% McCain, 75% Obama - Unaffliliated14
21% McCain, 78% Obama - American Jews2,8,12 and other faiths12
21% McCain, 78% Obama - Jewish14**
xx% McCain, 94% Obama - Black Protestants11,13**,****
xx% McCain, 96% Obama - Blacks13**,****
** No source provided voting percentages for the other party.
*** Associated Press (citation #11) reports this number as 72%, instead of the 67% other media gave it.
**** Note that some media are reporting the same numbers for the Hispanic and Black vote in general, as well as for those same groups with Catholic or Protestant affiliation.
Citations:
1 The Awesome Blue God -- How Obama Forged A New Faith Coalition
2 Exit polls: 78% of Jews voted for Obama
3 Utah's red loses some of its luster
4 Obama's Religious Appeal: Still Missing Evangelicals - which TIME renamed as Obama: Bringing (Some) Evangelicals In
5 The Evangelical Electoral Map
6 What's wrong with Catholic voters? What's wrong with Catholics?
7 Evangelical Voters Favor McCain by Wide Margins
8 Catholic voters heavily favored Obama, analysis shows
9 What Happened to the Catholic Vote?
10 Loyal to the End: Evangelicals Stay the Course
11 Obama results show gains in key religious voters
12 How the faithful voted
13 Exit polls: How Obama won
14 Pew Forum - How The Faithful Voted
All numbers cited above are the earliest ones reported in the press. In cases of multiple reports, some percentages cited were not exact. However, the numbers above are within 2% of all sources cited, lending credence to the general number & placement overall.
Other resources:
With the Help of Catholics…Obama’s Victory
Results! Evangelicals
Mainline Protestants and Latino evangelicals surge toward Obama [pre-election article]
Poll: Latino Protestants switching back to Democrats this election [pre-election article]
The Hispanic Protestant swing vote [pre-election article]
America spoke
Believers in the Pews--and the Polling Booth
McCain Beats Bush on Evangelical Vote
“Amazing that you can find the time to post cheesecake photos on Free Republic. “
well there are priorities ;)
“Noon Mass near your workplace, on your lunch hour.”
would be wonderful if i had a lunch hour
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