Why Do Many Pro-Life Catholics Vote Democrat?

Christian Post ^ | 09/03/2014 | Napp Nazworth

[SeekAndFind]

Why do Catholics who are aligned with Democrats on social welfare and Republicans on abortion usually vote Democrat? Recent political science research suggests an answer.

Some Catholics who vote for Democratic candidates incorrectly assume those candidates are pro-life.

Catholics are often used as an example of "cross-pressured voters" due to the political party positions on abortion and welfare. Laura Hussey, associate professor of American public policy and administration at University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and Geoffrey Layman, professor of political science at University of Notre Dame, however, found that a minority of Catholics were both pro-life and pro-welfare, and those that were showed little ambivalence in their vote choice.

Their research, "Coping with Cross-Pressures: Electoral Choice and Political Perceptions among American Catholics," was presented Friday at the American Political Science Association Annual Meeting.

About 14 percent of all Catholics hold policy views consistent with the view of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops — they favor increasing government social welfare programs and they are opposed to abortion. And these Catholics, by far, prefer Democrats when they vote. Only about 24 percent vote Republican.

Committed Catholics were more likely to hold the pro-welfare/pro-life (PW/PL) views. While only 14 percent of all Catholics were PW/PL, 25 percent of committed Catholics held those views. Among non-Catholics, religious commitment made less of a difference: 14 percent of all non-Catholics and 17 percent of non-Catholics with religious commitment were PW/PL. Hussey and Laymen also found that being a committed Catholic increased the likelihood of being PW/PL even when controlling for other factors, which suggests that being a committed Catholic makes a unique contribution to being PW/PL.

[Wyrd bið ful aræd]

The Catholic Church isn’t about control. It just seems that way to the moral-relativism, make-your-bible, be-your-own-pope crowd.

[TexasGator]

“I can’t remember who it was on FR that has said that, in their opinion, the churches have relinquished much of the responsibility that they felt in the past to provide aid, “

The church took their money. The mafia protected them. The gov’t is the substitute for their ‘protector’.

[wardaddy]

Lol

I can only envision the carnage downthread

[Albion Wilde]

That was on a sign outside an Catholic parish not that long ago. Since Jesus, Mary, and Joseph fled to Egypt, that makes them illegal immigrants.

) ) ) ) Eye roll ( ( ( (

[wardaddy]

Its that way even in on main street Franklin TN now

St Phillips

Same thing....mostly Hispanics.....90%

I have a doctor friend who left the church over it....said he felt like a foreigner

In his own n church and complained the priests incessantly pandered to them

The social justice and immigration thing

Not sure what folks can do

Of courses Freepers in low illegals areas wouldn’t know

This is a complex issue

In old days white catholics voted left

Now they do not nearly as much

Now its race based

The good works emphasis is part of it too....like tikkun olam for Jews

Creed