What Makes Catholics Different?
Here is an interesting piece from Tuesday’s Washington post:
Catholic Republicans’ political beliefs challenged by their faith
I’d like to contrast my favorite two paragraphs from the piece with a response given to that paragraph over at America magazine’s In All Things blog.
First Michael Gerson, whom I understand to be a Republican himself:
What influence is this shift [towards more Republican Catholic representatives] likely to have? Judging from the broader behavior of Catholics in American politics, not much. A century ago, many Catholics voted Democratic out of ethnic solidarity. Today, most Catholics vote almost exactly like their suburban neighbors. Catholics are often swing voters in elections precisely because they are so typical. So it was a sign of the times when last year a poll found 58 percent of Catholics sympathetic to Tea Party protests. [link original to quote]
There is something vaguely disturbing about the precise symmetry of any religious group with other voters of their same class and background. One would hope that an ancient, demanding faith would leave some distinctive mark. A reflection may move and smile, but it lacks substance and will.
And now Tom Maher in the America comboxes:
Gerson understanding of what “Catholic Republicans sympathetic to the Tea party movement” is all about is a very narrow personal vision of Catholics, Republicans and Tea party members are all about. He shoudl [sic] begin with political realities rather than his own personal preconceptions. The reason Catholics are not differenciated from non-Catholics is that there is no basis for being different. The facts unite many people to the same conclusion on immigration, poverty , health care and foriegn policy. All people do not come to the same political concluions as Gerson or the author. [emphasis added]
So, should we be concerned that Catholics look and act too much like everyone else? What are our options? A third party?
Brett Salkeld is a doctoral student in theology at Regis College in Toronto. He is a father of two (so far) and husband of one.
Comments are closed.
Brett, We should be concerned about being members of the herd, it means we are living according to the ways of the world in which we look out for our self-interests in a materialistic sense. It doesn’t matter if we are right or left, each side is limited in the spiritual insight.
If we have more than we need, then we are to share it with those who have less than they need. A culture of life is built upon that. We seem resistant to doing that.
Catholics are not different and that is disappointing.
Yes it matters. Take for example a herd moving in one direction together. Now imagine they are moving toward a cliff.
All of these interests balance each other in Catholic social thought: anti-individualism of course, and in the same sense anti-overarching government in deference to local institutions most fundamentally the family. All of them balance–except for killing innocent people, changing what marriage and family means, and religious freedom. So it’s just a little odd to say, hey conservative Catholics seems like a contradiction in terms–when what we HAD which these conservative Catholics REPLACED was pro-murder anti-marriage Catholics. Those people weren’t in tension with the Church’s social teaching–they were in hostility at the most fundamental level possible. This is not a move in the DIRECTION of *more* tension with Catholic beliefs. It actually ratchets down the tension level massively. Sure there’s still some balancing and tension with any partisan system–this is a messy world, and on paper libertarianism has as much tension with Catholicism as statism. But to say golly maybe there’s tension here is to ignore the elephant in the room.
On paper it looks balanced. However, the reality of the past is different. Abortion has always been around and no matter what we have attempted to do to stop it we have failed. Catholics are too comfortable and lazy to address the real issues that cause abortion. It is easier to address the intrinsic evil than to address the causes of it. Why? We are spiritually shallow. We are myopic in our vision. We cannot see the whole and we focus on the obvious. We will fight for those who agree with us or who as yet have no voice and are unseen. We will not fight for those who carry the unseen. We will develop pregnancy centers that have great intentions but little resources to meet the needs of those who are in crisis. Why? It is easier to go to a rally on a weekend or do the 40 Days for Life and call it a day. Or it is easier to challenge the law and feel good about challenging the law because that is what we are conditioned to do.
Are you ready to go out on the road and walk from one coast to the other, praying the Rosary, and confront each and every catholic church and raise $50,000,000 as a start to address the needs of single mother.
How can society change the definition of marriage for a catholic? Do you want to join that kind of pilgrimage instead of going on these catholic cruises with the greatest apologists in the world wasting everybody’s time and money? Do you want to make this a holy land?
Catholicism is supposed to be radical. We are too afraid to be radical and peaceful at the same time.
Arguments are cathartic. If I get on a blog and try and convince people that my perspective is correct, then I can feel better that I’ve made an impact, because maybe someone else who reads what I’ve said might actually go and do something, and I can take the credit.
Sound and fury….
I guess you don’t want to do it.
Sarcasm
Dan, It is not sarcasm it is disappointment because I was given this idea during a Rosary Run three years ago and proposed it to EWTN and all of their hosts as a way of gaining a positive spiritual momentum through the sacrifice of leaving home and comfort to join spiritually with those who suffer with the decision to have an abortion.
The response was not as harsh as yours. Their response was that they would pray about it. They lied. At least you didn’t lie. Yours was an attempt to demean. Why?
No, you misunderstand me. I am agreeing with you. I was being sarcastic.
The words, “The facts unite many people to the same conclusion on immigration, poverty…” reveal the basic problem with our political discourse. Glittering generalities, biased or limited statistics which make up most political debate and most thirty-second sound bites will hide the real distinctions that will appear when people have informed discussions based on principles. How can we Catholics present our distinctive beliefs in ways that are easily undrstood and compelling?
I have asked a number of times whether anyone can fill in the blank in this statement. I think of myself politically as (liberal/conservative), and as such, my inclination is to take the position that ____________. However, as a Catholic, I feel duty bound not to take that position.
A few people have said that they feel obliged to oppose the death penalty even though their personal political ideology would lead them to support it. But other than that, so far no one has ever pointed out that, were it not for some teaching of the Catholic Church, their political ideology would dictate they take a position that is not in accord with their ideology.
Of course, conservatives can point out how they think liberals are out of sync with Church teachings, and liberals can point out how they think conservatives are out of sync with Church teachings, but both liberals and conservatives seem to believe that their ideology is perfectly compatible with Church teachings.
I would say that I think of myself as politically liberal, and that I would support gay marriage if it were not for Church teachings. I voted for California Proposition 8 in 2008 and it was actually quite difficult for me to do so.
I am mentioning this not to disagree with your basic point (which I believe is correct), but merely to add a data point to your polling research.
David,
Torture and same sex marriage would be two other examples.
For the most part, though, if a given political ideology says that you should take a lot of positions that you think are contrary to your faith, chances are you are not going to subscribe to that ideology. So it’s not surprising that people have trouble thinking of examples.
David,
FWIW, I thought your question was probably easier to answer, after a fashion, with a full post:
http://the-american-catholic.com/2011/02/11/if-i-werent-catholic-i-would/
If one of my beliefs is demonstrated to be wrong, I’ll change it. I have in the past. The required extent of demonstration varies, but I have no intention of maintaining a belief in something I think has been demonstrated to be wrong. Applying this to the question you asked, I’d have to say that if the teaching of the Church was that my political stance was wrong, I’d change stances.
I don’t much care what people expect me to believe. I’m not bound to any political ideology. I respect the ease with which a person can short-hand his ideology with a certain word, but that in no way compels me to follow a crowd that would use the same word.
Before someone else mentions it, Gerson isn’t generally thought of highly in Republican circles. He is considered too moderate.
As far as options, there are no good ones. As I have been trying to impart in one way or another, one cannot have one culture on Sunday and another culture the other days of the week. Catholic culture is a lot of things, but one of the big ones is family-centric, and I am not referring to the nuclear one. The Catholic community today is no longer family-centric. Catholicism can be an accretion to a culture, but it can’t be an accretion to individuality. Any strategy proposing to do that is bound to failure by its very nature.
I would agree that one would expect being Catholic to make people different — though it’s worth pointing out that when we look at surveys of people who identify as Catholic we are getting a great many people who may not go the mass, believe in the Real Presence, or even believe that Christ rose from the dead.
I’m not clear that this necessarily indicates that a third party forged around Catholic principles would be at all tenable, however.
Let us, for instance, take it as an assumption that Mornings Minion and I are both strongly motivated by our Catholic faiths in the political stands that we take, or at least think that our political policy positions are compatible with our Catholic beliefs. What policies could the Catholic party that we are both members of endorse?
Anything?
Sure, we’re both against abortion, for instance. But when we came to actual policies I would suggest a party plank banning abortion, and insist that we never put forward a candidate who supported legalized abortion, while MM would insist that because we’re against abortion we must have a more progressive income tax, greater welfare payments, mandatory maternity leave, and universal single payer health care.
The only major thing I can think of that we’d both agree to put on the party platform is a significant liberalization of immigration policy — but I’m sure that someone else would chime in that this is only because we’re both educated, upper middle class professionals and thus are blind to the effects of immigration on unskilled workers.
Now, I suppose one can take the position that on each individual issue one of us is clearly right when it comes to what policy Catholic teaching requires and the other is clearly wrong, and that a Catholic political party could obviously take the right policy in each of these cases. But if two Catholics whom we assume for the sake of argument are both well-intentioned and mean to be obedient to Catholic teaching can disagree on practically every single political issue of the day, it seems to me that we have a knowledge problem as far as the ability to turn the Catholic faith into obvious and widely agreed upon policy pronouncements.
No sir, there is no policy divide. That policy has been set for you by the Vatican. As I have already pointed out to you on the “Is Abortion a Violation of the 5th or the 6th Commandment?” thread, you have demonstrated that you are not up to date on what is the current policy of the RCC.
You sir do not set policy, you are free to discuss it, but to avoid possibly embarrassing yourself further I suggest you take some downtime from commenting on threads and spend some time refreshing yourself on official Church Doctrine.
The Vatican has a wonderful website which is easy to navigate and I am sure if you have any questions the exceeleant staff of Vox Nova will be standing by ready to assist you.
[I'm gonna let this go with a warning. Please tone down the snark. Thanks. BS]
Perhaps I should let MM speak for himself here, but I have always been under the impression that he would support a party plank banning abortion.
My read of him is not that he thinks the Republican stance against abortion is wrong, but that it is insincere and ineffective. I think he genuinely wishes the Democrats would put in a plank against abortion, though he probably doubts that they ever will.
MM?
I think you and he could probably agree on the abortion plank of the party platform. Tax policy might take a little more work. But with tax policy there is middle ground to work towards. Abortion? Not so much.
I should be fair — It’s not that I think MM would oppose a party plank legally banning abortion on principle, but that one of the things on which it seems we’ve found it impossible to agree in the past is that I myself find it unacceptable to vote for a pro-choice candidate even if I agree with him on everything else (unless one imagines some highly unlikely situation in which everyone else is so much worse and so likely to succeed that one can somehow consider the validation of the pro-choice position acceptable “collateral damage” for supporting a candidate) whereas MM is more comfortable supporting a candidate he otherwise likes but who is pro-choice.
Thus, if we had a Catholic party and Rudy Giuliani and Ted Kennedy both tried to run for nomination, my understanding is that MM would be willing to support Kennedy, while I would oppose both.
Or if the candidates were Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner, I would consider Boehner the only acceptable candidate because of Pelosi’s pro-abortion stance, while MM would consider her better because of her stance on other issues. (Though my understanding is that MM is not a Pelosi fan by any measure.)
Maybe I’m overly cynical, but given how many people of variant views there are who claim to be motivated by their Catholic beliefs, it seems to me that a Catholic third party would pretty quickly split into a progressive and a conservative party which would both looks fairly similar in most respects to the existing political parties.
Most voters are not swing voters. Certainly most demographic groups aren’t swing blocks. Being a swing group is what makes Catholics atypical.
BA,
I noticed that too when I read the piece, though I didn’t comment because I am not too knowledgeable about American politics.
Gerson is a very thoughtful man and his article contributes positively to civil discussion.
Side matters, but a couple of corrections. Contrary to the poll he cited from National Review, almost all other polling shows a remarkable absence of Catholics from the Tea Party Movement. Protestant and secular Americans make up a disproportionate share of those affiliated with the Tea Party, while Catholic support is as low as half of our presence in society in general.
Second, Gerson is a little inaccurate in saying “A century ago, many Catholics voted Democratic out of ethnic solidarity.” The Catholic allegiance to the Democratic Party came largely from FDR and the CIO (so maybe 80 years ago). But in 1911? Not so much. In the 1908 Presidential election Taft (R) was the Catholic favorite.* One hundred years ago, the great waves of Eastern and Southern European Catholic immigration was just getting its start. Most Catholics were German and Irish. Germans showed no strong party loyalty though somewhat leaned Republican. The Irish often became attached to local political machines, certainly Democratic in New York and Boston, but Republican in Philadelphia. Among the newer immigrants, Italians leaned Republican where the Irish dominated the Democratic Party and in some locales had a sympathy for the Socialist Party (NY and VT). Prior to Mayor Cermak’s 1931 election and takeover of the Cook Country Democratic Organization, the Chicago Democratic Party was the home of lace-curtain Irish to the exclusion of all other Catholic ethnic groups as well as the poor Irish.
In this era before industrial unionization, factory workers (in this case, Catholic Slavs in Pennsylvania) often voted Republican as their factory bosses told them.
* Taft was thought to have treated the Catholic Church well as Governor of the Phillipines. He was also attacked by some conservative Protestants for his membership in the Unitarian Church, resulting in Catholic sympathy for an inappropriate religious test for the Presidency.
There is also the complication of the KKK in the south and mid-west, which seemed to be more anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish than anti-black for a few decades. This in turn is not unrelated to the question of the Dixicrats… the entire issue gets rather difficult to sort.
Catholics did certainly shift to being FDR supporters, which is interesting given that FDR was not particularly keen on Catholics, and certainly not at all a fan of the various Catholic dominated political machines. In many ways he was perhaps the last and the greatest of the true WASP presidents.
smf,
Catholics did pretty well under FDR. Excluded from hig appointments, FDR invent the “Catholic seat” on the S.C., had Tommy “The Cork” Corcoran has a key advisor, Jim Farley as Postmaster General/DNC Chairman, Joe Kennedy as first SEC Chairman and generally opened the doors to Catholics for high government posts. He took great political risk by appointing a “Personal Representative” to the Vatican (diplomatic recognition being out of the question).
Of course, Bishop Bernie Sheil was only in theory Auxiliary fo Chicago. He was the de facto head of the “Catholic desk” at the Democratic National Committee.
FDR carefully balanced reform and regular organization Democrats. It would be an overstatement to say Catholics were always on the side of the Regular Organization. In NYC, for example, the Irish were and the Italians and Germans were not.
As a sometimes student of history and politics I find FDR rather an interesting subject. I am certainly no expert on him, but I do know a bit. I greatly admire is political skill, staying popular through both depression and war. There are certain of his actions and policies I would question on grounds of prudence, others on grounds of law, and still others on morality; but never the less it can not be denied that he achieved much.