Catholicism and the Election
Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden is a devout, church going, rosary praying Catholic. President Trump’s campaign is trying to portray him as the Anti-Christ.
Amy Coney Barrett is seeking a seat on the Supreme Court; she is a devout conservative Catholic and a member of a small group of charismatic Catholics, People of the Praise. Her GOP defenders are trying to portray any criticism of or opposition to her confirmation as being Anti-Catholic.
It gets confusing because the polarizing politics of Roe v. Wade are intertwined.
I grew up with a Catholic education, attending Catholic mass, and even serving as an altar boy. My mother’s family emigrated here from England to escape religious persecution and practice their faith in what is now the state of Maryland and have done so for over 450 years.
Biden is devoutly Catholic, but is not one to impose his religious beliefs on others of different faiths and persuasions; this was the same model as endorsed by President Kennedy in 1960, and most Catholics are with Biden. https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2020/08/17/joe-biden-catholic-faith-politics-american That was the standard with which I was raised – your faith is your personal business, you should not impose your personal morality on others of different faiths and political beliefs. The church that I grew up in was about love, forgiveness, redemption, and a concern for the poor and dispossessed. The Kennedy/Nixon and Johnson/Goldwater elections were defining moments of my political persuasion.
There has long been a distinct divide between Catholics and Protestants. This dates back to the Reformation and the centuries of religious wars that engulfed Europe thereafter, with anti-clerical echoes as late as the rise of Hitler and Mussolini. In Ireland, the English oppressed Irish Catholics for centuries and divided the nation by religion. In Spain, the Catholics tortured, killed and expelled all of different religious faiths. In France, the Netherlands, Great Britain and Germany, Catholics and Protestants slaughtered each other over their religious differences.
In the US, freedom of religion is enshrined in First Amendment of the US Constitution. That has not kept religion out of politics, but it has at least tried to keep the state from favoring one particular religion as the state religion. Catholics were the target of the nativist “Know Nothing” Party of the 1850s. Catholics were one of the prime targets of the Ku Klux Klan from the 1870s ‘til today. Democratic Presidential candidate Al Smith was the target of hateful anti-Catholicism during the 1928 Presidential campaign. https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2019/10/17/all-catholic-candidates-president-thank-al-smith Democratic Presidential candidate John Fitzgerald Kennedy faced and faced down the same hateful anti-Catholic bigotry during the 1960 political campaign. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/08/the-kennedy-speech-that-stoked-the-rise-of-the-christian-right-123369 The Protestant right wing ministers eventually reconciled with conservative Catholics, and together they fueled the rise of religiously based attacks on Democratic candidates as godless secularists.
The coalescing point between southern Christian conservatives and northern Catholic conservatives may have been the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade. According to the Catholic faith in which I was raised, sexual relations are to be confined to marriage, and the rhythm method is the only acceptable form of birth control. Thus when the Supreme Court decided in Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965 https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/381/479/ that an individual’s constitutionally protected right of privacy included the right to purchase contraceptive devices, a portion of the Catholic hierarchy was outraged. The Pope issued an encyclical condemning birth control in 1968. https://theconversation.com/how-the-catholic-church-came-to-oppose-birth-control-95694 The encyclical was widely ignored by Catholic women of child-bearing age. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/the-claim-that-98-percent-of-catholic-women-use-contraception-a-media-foul/2012/02/16/gIQAkPeqIR_blog.html It was not a hot button issue.
When the decision of Roe v. Wade permitted women to seek abortions during their first and second trimesters, the Catholic hierarchy was adamantly opposed and organized the pro-life movement which has since transformed the Republican and Democratic parties; it has become the defining hot button, wedge issue. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_abortion_politics Catholic women, however, seek abortion services at roughly the same rate as other US women. https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2018/01/24/catholics-are-just-likely-get-abortion-other-us-women-why Public opinion polling finds that most Catholics, most Protestants, and most Americans support retaining the right to abortion. https://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-abortion/
However, most white evangelicals and conservative Republicans strongly favor making all or nearly all abortions illegal. https://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-abortion/ Older voters are far more likely to support making abortions illegal than are younger voters, particularly those of child bearing age that are most directly impacted by the availability of reproductive services; there is no difference between men and women on this issue. https://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-abortion/
Pope Francis is just as adamantly opposed to abortion as his predecessors, but he has broadened the church’s message of what it means to be “pro-life” to include addressing climate change, economic inequality, racism and treatment of migrants and the poor – causing consternation among the most conservative Catholic bishops and parishioners. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/08/17/its-not-just-about-abortion-what-pro-life-means-catholics-2020-election/
Prepared by: Lucien Wulsin
Dated: 10/13/20