The Catholic Vote

Most Catholics who attend Mass regularly voted for Mitt Romney. Most nominal Catholics who rarely or never attend Mass voted for Barak Obama. Add them together and it's a near tie, advantage Obama. But let's think about this. About 40% of Mass regulars voted for a man who is so radically pro-abortion he opposes even requirements to provide palliative care for infants who survive a late term abortion, preferring they be allowed to die slowly of asphyxiation. Why would committed Catholics vote for such a man?

Some of them of course are what I would call Joe Biden Catholics, people for whom faith is little more that a public display of ashes on their foreheads at the beginning of Lent. But some of them, and I have some very dear friends in this category, are people who care deeply about their God, their Church, and their fellow man. Why would they vote for a man who supports gay marriage, would force Catholic institutions to pay for employees' birth control pills and abortifacients, attended a blatantly racist church for more than twenty years, has no apparent spiritual values, and has implemented policies that drove millions of Americans from the middle class into poverty? It is a question I hope our Bishops are asking themselves.

It wasn't the economy. Regardless of exit polls indicating the economy was the most important issue, people voted largely along ethnic lines. No one can credibly claim the President has been a good steward of the economy. It wasn't ignorance. A Catholic churchgoer would have to be deaf not to have heard the impassioned protests from the pulpit when the Obamacare birth control mandate was announced. So what was it?

I don't pretend to understand it all but I would posit that it is at least partly the result of the Magesterium's diminished and diminishing authority. We just don't listen the way we once did. We hear the Bishops but theirs is not necessarily the last word. We have been taught to challenge authority, even theirs. I would like to say we have learned to think for ourselves but that would be a stretch. I can say we have learned to listen to multiple sides of an argument. We have to be persuaded. We can no longer be told.

Many people, including many Catholics have concluded the Church has become so stridently focused on abortion it trumps everything else. No other social issue really matters. And she clings stubbornly to a quixotic war over birth control she lost half a century ago. Most Catholic couples of child bearing age practice birth control and don't see anything wrong with it. Most of us are strongly pro-life, or at least anti-abortion, but there isn't much we can do about it. Many of us think other issues do matter and see, mistakenly in my view, Democrats as the party that sides with the poor. It is as though Democrats now hold more moral authority for many than the Church.

I don't suggest the Magesterium realign its teaching to conform to popular culture but this isn't working. We might want to consider picking our battles more carefully. It is important that the Church be seen as the champion of the downtrodden, all of them. We aren't. It is crucial that Catholics understand the difference between a handout and true charity. Despite Pope Benedict XVI's best efforts in Caritas in Veritate many of us don't. It is vital that when US Bishops speak to politicians they do so as the heads of a solidly united Church. They don't.

Social justice is one of the Church's most powerful messages. It isn't sinking in. Why?