{"id":270,"date":"2008-11-07T09:20:45","date_gmt":"2008-11-07T09:20:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2008\/11\/catholic-and-politics-what-now.html"},"modified":"2008-11-07T09:20:45","modified_gmt":"2008-11-07T09:20:45","slug":"catholic-and-politics-what-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/11\/catholic-and-politics-what-now.html","title":{"rendered":"Catholic and Politics: What now?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Judging by the headlines this campaign, you might have thought the shepherds were headed one way and the flock in another direction. That’s not quite the case, as reports of 50 or 60 or even 100 bishops promoting a “McCain-or-be-damned” approach to abortion and the civil sacrament of voting don’t hold up under scrutiny. Still, there’s no doubt many more bishops than usual want a more forceful approach to political activity, and that will be an interesting (closed-door) discussion next week when they gather in Baltimore.<\/p>\n

The “flock”–some 65 million or so of us lay folk and ordinary religious–also didn’t go en masse over the cliff for Obama, though it’s pretty clear the bishops didn’t have much sway, or if they did, it may have been to push Catholics the other direction. Catholics as a whole went for Obama 54-45, a major swing from 2004, when they went for Bush over (Catholic) John Kerry. But break it down by ethnicity and white Catholics went for McCain 52-47–although, as Mark Silk points out in an excellent analysis<\/a> (complete with regional breakdowns), Obama did better than Kerry with white Catholics by 8 points. White Catholics also tend to be marginally more Democratic than whites as a whole. (I’d also highly recommend the Mark Silk-Andrew Walsh piece<\/a> in the Nov. 3 edition of America<\/em>, on the past and future of the Catholic vote.)<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Latinos, who are the future of the church in many respects, went strong for Obama. That’s an internal fault line as critical as that within the hierarchy. But, lay people are united in not factoring the abortion issue into their vote very much, as against the advice of the bishops. The economy, war, health care, energy, etc all rated high while “life” issues barely appeared on the radar. That is consistent with past elections. What is also consistent–and what is reflected in the ballot results–is that the bishops get more traction with Catholics (and the public) on gay marriage than on overturning Roe v. Wade. Ballot proposal to limit abortion were defeated in three states, while proposals barring gay marriage and adoption by gay parents passed.<\/p>\n

Another warning sign: Young Catholics clearly do not support the political positions of the bishops and others on abortion and gay marriage. It’s tough to have a political strategy without voters behind you.<\/p>\n

So what now? How does the Catholic Church recover a voice and presence and, to dream, influence, in the public square? Phil Lawler of Catholic World News says, as usual, the problem is dissent, and he vows a “crusade”<\/a> that he hopes will be joined by outspoken bishops. Tom Reese has a comprehensive analysis<\/a> at The Washington Post, ending with this:<\/p>\n

\n

“A closer look at the exit polls should be as discouraging for left-wing Catholics as for right-wing Catholics. Catholic voters did not embrace either the conservative non-negotiables or the church’s preferential option for the poor. They were concerned about themselves and their families. Will the abortion debate rise up again in four years at the next presidential election? A lot depends on President Obama and the Democratic Congress. If they push through the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), then they will have betrayed their pro-life Catholic supporters. This will make it nearly impossible for these people to support them again. On the other hand, if they make a priority the enactment of an abortion reduction bill, then it will be more difficult for the bishops and the Republicans to portray the Democrats as the pro-abortion party.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Another danger for the bishops, however, was pointed out by Al Mohler, a leading voice of Southern Baptists<\/a> and the “religious right”:<\/p>\n

\n

“Will the Republican Party decide that conservative Christians are just too troublesome for the party and see the pro-life movement as a liability?  There is the real danger that the Republicans, stung by this defeat, will adopt a libertarian approach to divisive moral issues and show conservative Christians the door.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

That seems to me to be the true risk inherent in the pro-lifers’ strategy, in that it is so tied to the GOP that if the party moves toward a more moderate position–that debate is underway–the Catholic leadership could be left without a prayer (not to mention the unborn). “Put not your trust in princes,” the Psalmist says. But if you are going to get involved in politics, he might have added, hedge your bets by keeping ties to both parties.<\/p>\n

There is much to be said for the thesis that Catholics are “politically homeless.” No party will ever represent Catholic teaching completely, of course. But that can also be something of a cop-out. Catholics are in many respects just living in separate houses (or chanceries, as the case may be). Besides, people make politics. So what now?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Judging by the headlines this campaign, you might have thought the shepherds were headed one way and the flock in another direction. That’s not quite the case, as reports of 50 or 60 or even 100 bishops promoting a “McCain-or-be-damned” approach to abortion and the civil sacrament of voting don’t hold up under scrutiny. Still,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,12,10,1,51,9,3],"tags":[37,116,275,138,284],"class_list":["post-270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion","category-catholics","category-economy","category-election-08","category-media","category-religion-in-the-public-square","category-u-s-constitution","tag-abortion-2","tag-bishops","tag-catholic-vote","tag-gay-marriage","tag-presidential-politics-2008"],"yoast_head":"\nCatholic and Politics: What now? - Progressive Revival<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/11\/catholic-and-politics-what-now.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Catholic and Politics: What now? - Progressive Revival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Judging by the headlines this campaign, you might have thought the shepherds were headed one way and the flock in another direction. That’s not quite the case, as reports of 50 or 60 or even 100 bishops promoting a “McCain-or-be-damned” approach to abortion and the civil sacrament of voting don’t hold up under scrutiny. Still,…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/11\/catholic-and-politics-what-now.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Progressive Revival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-11-07T09:20:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"David Gibson\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Catholic and Politics: What now? - Progressive Revival","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/11\/catholic-and-politics-what-now.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Catholic and Politics: What now? - Progressive Revival","og_description":"Judging by the headlines this campaign, you might have thought the shepherds were headed one way and the flock in another direction. That’s not quite the case, as reports of 50 or 60 or even 100 bishops promoting a “McCain-or-be-damned” approach to abortion and the civil sacrament of voting don’t hold up under scrutiny. Still,…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/11\/catholic-and-politics-what-now.html","og_site_name":"Progressive Revival","article_published_time":"2008-11-07T09:20:45+00:00","author":"David Gibson","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/11\/catholic-and-politics-what-now.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/11\/catholic-and-politics-what-now.html","name":"Catholic and Politics: What now? - Progressive Revival","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-11-07T09:20:45+00:00","dateModified":"2008-11-07T09:20:45+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#\/schema\/person\/122b0877ab87552bb8f14c366dd43e71"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/11\/catholic-and-politics-what-now.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/11\/catholic-and-politics-what-now.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/11\/catholic-and-politics-what-now.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Catholic and Politics: What now?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/","name":"Progressive Revival","description":"Politics from the New Religious Progressives","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#\/schema\/person\/122b0877ab87552bb8f14c366dd43e71","name":"David Gibson","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/19b\/19bb39c535cd2d776c73c7941f42622cx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/19b\/19bb39c535cd2d776c73c7941f42622cx96.jpg","caption":"David Gibson"},"description":"DAVID GIBSON is an award-winning religion journalist, author, filmmaker, and a convert to Catholicism. He came by all those vocations by accident, or Providence, during a longer-than-expected sojourn in Rome in the 1980s. Gibson began his journalistic career as a walk-on sports editor and columnist at The International Courier, a small daily in Rome serving Italy's English-language community. He then found a job as a newscaster and writer across the Tiber at the English Programme at Vatican Radio, an entity he describes as a cross between NPR and Armed Forces Radio for the pope. The Jesuits who ran the radio were charitable enough to hire Gibson even though he had no radio background, could not pronounce the name \"Karol Wojtyla,\" and wasn't Catholic. Time and experience overcame all those challenges, and Gibson went on to cover dozens of John Paul II's overseas trips, including papal visits to Africa, Europe, Latin America and the United States. When Gibson returned to the United States in 1990 he returned to print journalism to cover the religion beat in his native New Jersey for two dailies. He worked first for The Record of Hackensack, and then for The Star-Ledger of New Jersey, winning the nation's top awards in religion writing at both places. In 1999 he won the Supple Religion Writer of the Year contest, and in 2000 he was chosen as the Templeton Religion Reporter of the Year. Gibson is a longtime board member of the Religion Newswriters Association and he is a contributor to ReligionLink, a service of the Religion Newswriters Foundation. Since 2003, David Gibson has been an independent writer specializing in Catholicism, religion in contemporary America, and early Christian history. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Boston Magazine, Commonweal, America, The New York Observer, Beliefnet and Religion News Service. He has produced documentaries on early Christianity for CNN and other networks and has traveled on assignment to dozens of countries, with an emphasis on reporting from Europe and the Middle East. He is a frequent television commentator and has appeared on the major cable and broadcast networks. He is also a regular speaker at conferences and seminars on Catholicism, religion in America, and journalism. Gibson's first book, The Coming Catholic Church: How the Faithful are Shaping a New American Catholicism (HarperSanFrancisco), was published in 2003 and deals with the church-wide crisis revealed by the clergy sexual abuse crisis. The book was widely hailed as a \"powerful\" and \"first-rate\" treatment of the crisis from \"an academically informed journalist of the highest caliber.\" His second book, The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World (HarperSanFrancisco), came out in 2006 and is the first full-scale treatment of the Ratzinger papacy--how it happened, who he is, and what it means for the Catholic Church. The Rule of Benedict has been praised as \"an exceptionally interesting and illuminating book\" from \"a master storyeller.\" Born and raised in New Jersey, David Gibson studied European history at Furman University in South Carolina and spent a year working on Capitol Hill before moving to Italy. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter and is working on a book about conversion, and on several film and television projects.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/author\/dgibson"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}