The Catholic Vote

John Dilulio served briefly in the Bush Administration as the director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. He has served on the domestic policy steering committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. In a recent article in Commonweal, the liberal Catholic journal, he talks about the political makeup of American Catholics, and what it means when the Catholic Bishops speak out on issues. Here is an excerpt:

Catholics are closer to the general public than are Evangelicals, Jews, and nonreligious citizens in agreeing that elected officials who are deeply religious should be willing to compromise with other elected officials whose views are different. Catholics also echo the general public regarding whether politicians mention their own faith or religion too much or too little (21 percent of Catholics and 20 percent of the general public say “too much,” while 37 percent of Catholics, and 41 percent of the general public, say “too little”), and whether churches should express views on political matters (55 percent of Catholics and 52 percent of the general public say they should, while 42 percent of Catholics and 44 percent of the general public say they should not).

Pro-Life/Pro-Poor

So, Catholics are less likely than other religious believers to deviate widely from national norms related to voting, public opinion, and political ideology. There are big political divides between Catholic bishops and their flocks on controversial issues. For instance, the Catechism of the Catholic Church condemns and forbids abortion. The first entry in the subject index says it all: “Abortion: condemnation in the early church; excommunication as penalty; inalienable right to life; protection of human life from the moment of conception.”

Yet, in a June 2004 survey of Catholics likely to cast votes in the November 2004 national elections, about 60 percent of Catholics agreed that abortion should be legal under some or all circumstances, and roughly three-quarters of Catholics denied that Catholics have a religious obligation to vote against prochoice candidates. Asked whether Communion should be denied to Catholic politicians who support abortionÂ’s legality under some or all circumstances, Catholics were more likely to disagree (78 percent) than the general public was (64 percent).

I don't have a bone to pick in this fight since I am not Catholic. But I think the Catholic Bishops have every right to speak publicly about Catholic teachings and to challenge their flock to live up to them. And while I differ with their position on abortion, I have appreciated the leadership Catholic Bishops have offered on the recent immigration debate. Cardinal Mahony of Los Angeles, for instance, has said that if the House version of the immigration bill is passed he will instruct his bishops to defy it.

I think, however, that ordering priests to deny communion to Catholics whose views differ from official Catholic teaching is way overboard. I suppose Bishops have this power in their "office." But it is a throwback to the days of the medieval church when the church could label people as heretics and deny them communion and thus salvation. There are probably some Catholics and Protestants who long for those "good old days" but its a sure recipe for emptying the churches of people and respect.

The days are over when churches could assume that everyone belonged and from that position of assumed authority in the community they could speak the "truth" of God and everyone would listen. Today churches need to assume that no one is listening and then give them a genuine reason to pay attention, like offering spiritual meat while at the same time respecting and expecting the exercise of individual conscience.