Now that Catholics represent a critical
swing-voting group, some Catholics cannot resist exploiting faith to push their
political agenda.
We hear a lot of complaints about “cafeteria
Catholics.” But every election cycle brings another kind of Catholic into
public view: the kind ready to exploit our faith for political gain. I call them “Self-serve Catholics”.
In our time, this has mainly happened on the
conservative side of the political spectrum.
The original Self-serve Catholics were Goldwater Republicans,
chronically irked by the steadfast support of Catholics (80%) for John F.
Kennedy. Such Catholics were delighted when
Lyndon Johnson’s civil rights leadership (1964, 1965) undermined the “Dixiecrats”
(conservative southern Democrats) and turned the south over to the Republicans. They were equally delighted when Roe v. Wade
(1973) polarized the Catholic vote.
Catholics had been block Democratic voters since the days of Al Smith
(1928), but by 1980 many were “Reagan Democrats” and over the last 30 years
Catholics have become the largest swing vote in the nation.
The results delighted Self-servers: from 1968 to 2004,
every President elected came from the south or California, far from the
traditional Catholic liberal bedrocks of northeast urban centers. And in 2004, even Catholic candidate John
Kerry managed to get only 47% of the Catholic vote, largely because a caucus of
conservative American bishops labeled him a bad Catholic.
But then, in 2008, Barack Obama regained the Catholic
majority, and became the first northern liberal elected since John
Kennedy. This has left Self-servers doubling
their efforts to regain conservative control of the Catholic vote.
I have repeatedly demonstrated that neither major
party platform conforms to Catholic Social Teaching (CST), so neither party can
lay claim to the Catholic vote as a right.
But Self-serve Catholics, undaunted by facts, continue trying to
manipulate the Catholic vote using two main tactics. First, they argue that only one issue should determine Catholic
votes. Second, they demonize one party (the Democrats) as immoral, anti-Catholic, even
godless.
1. Single Issue
Crusades. In the 1960s, Self-serve Catholics struggled
to find a Catholic litmus test for Democrats to fail: prayer in schools, sex
education, birth control. But after Roe v.
Wade, the struggle shifted to attacking anyone who did not agree that legal
prohibition of abortion was the best way to stop abortions. In the last 10 years, gay rights and especially
same-sex marriage have become new “single issue” options, but this year Self-serve
Catholics have gone back to birth control, like this argument by columnist
George Weigel:
Over the past
four years, the Federal government has made unprecedented efforts to erode
religious freedom. The gravest assault
was the “contraceptive mandate” issued earlier this year by the U.S. Dept of Health
and Human Services: an offense to conscientious Catholic employers who believe
what the church believes about the morality of human love and the ethics of the
right to life, and a frontal attack on the institutional integrity of the Church. For with the HHS mandate, the Federal
government seeks nothing less than to turn the Catholic Church’s charitable and
medical facilities into state agencies that facilitate practices the Catholic
Church believes are gravely evil.
I have already explained why “offense to conscience”
is a bogus argument against the HHS mandate (see CrossCurrents #350). In America, the issue of religious freedom is
already guaranteed by the First Amendment—and enforcing it is the
responsibility of our courts, not our elected officials. In fact, the matter is already in court. If the courts decide this mandate does
infringe on the Church’s religious freedom, then the mandate will go. If not, the mandate will remain and
Self-serve Catholics will continue to fight it, but they will lose any
legitimate claim that it violates our rights.
Either way, the outcome has nothing to do with elections.
But facts are no deterrent to Self-serve Catholics.
2. Demonizing Democrats.
George Weigel leads the crusade with relatively moderate rhetoric that
nonetheless crosses the line. He says “The
Catholic Church is under assault of the United States today.” He argues that
this assault violates the principle that “the state respect the sanctuary of
conscience, so that the Church’s people are not required by law to do things
the Church teaches are immoral.”
I confessed this dangerous-sounding language baffles
me. I picture federal police
force-feeding birth control pills to Catholics citizens. I wonder: precisely what immoral action will
the government require people to do?
Will it require anyone to use contraceptives? No. Will it require anyone to buy them? No. Will
it require Catholics to prescribe them?
No. Will it require Catholics to pay
for them? Possibly, indirectly, by
subsidizing the coverage of contraceptives by insurance companies--but then, we
Catholics already subsidize the pharmaceutical companies that sell
contraceptives all the time. I have already
explained why participating in the marketing of contraceptives cannot reasonably
be called immoral (see CrossCurrents #350).
Yet Self-servers like Weigel persist in charging their political
adversaries with immoral assault.
Such talk inspires others Self-servers to more inflammatory
rhetoric. Consider these examples, taken
from the “Letters to the Editor” section of the very same issue of the Catholic
newspaper in which Weigel’s column appeared.
One reader wrote:
We are
already witnessing an attack on our freedom of religion by government edict…As
Catholics it is our responsibility to fight against this evil…We should gather…in
our churches for prayers to end the assault on our morality by the present
administration in Washington and replace it with people with values like our
own.
The writer is perfectly justified, of course, in wanting
leaders with values like his own. But he
is not justified in invoking his Catholic faith to demonize political opponents
as “evil.” Once again, there was no recognition that freedom of religion is
already a constitutional right, to be protected by the courts, not politicians.
Another self serving reader made his demonizing even
more personal:
The Obama
administration’s war on religious freedom launched another attack with help
from inside the Church. Aided by every Catholic
heretic in the Massachusetts congressional delegation, the Democrats are
attempting to force religious institutions, especially the Catholic Church, to
provide immoral medical procedures in violation of God’s law… They’re trying to
limit our practice of our faith and to exclude us from the public arena. Our
love for Jesus Christ tells us that we cannot allow this. We must resist and
disobey these immoral laws and regulations.
Notice two things here. First, the reference to “Catholic heretics”
is an explicit claim that Catholics with contrary opinions on policy somehow
violate their faith. Second, these
heretics are “attempting to force” the Church to participate in
immorality. In other words, these are
not only bad Catholics, but they commit deliberate, premeditated evil on
others. And finally, in that writer’s
view, not only do they “support immoral actions” but they even “refuse to
recant publicly”!
There is no attempt by any of these writers to debate
the issues at stake. To them, the moral
questions are black and white, the policy implications are self evident and
beyond dispute, and the deliberate malice of their opponents renders all dialogue
futile. These assumptions trump both the
facts and our faith.
And there is more.
Amid these demonizing attacks there is no corresponding description of
“people with values like our own.” Since the context of these attacks is the
election, we can presume the writers mean Republicans. In other words, these electoral appeals
presume that Republican policies are Catholic-friendly. This begs the question: do Republicans have
“values like our own“?
To me, this means asking whether Republican values
conform to Catholic Social Teaching (CST).
Posing this question exposes the hypocrisy of Self-serve Catholics. The truth
is that CST teaching clashes with Republican values and policies on many
issues. Let me cite two examples: “big
government” and “human rights.”
Big Government. Clearly a
major policy priority for Republicans is the promotion of smaller government,
less regulation, less taxation, less public spending. This is built on the classic belief “that
which governs least governs best,” and is rooted in a narrow concept of
“freedom” as personal economy. That is,
we are free to the extent the government does not intrude in our lives.
I have already explained (CrossCurrents #83) that
freedom means much more in our Catholic tradition, but the simpler objection is
this: CST teaching places no value on the size of government. It focuses instead on the role government
plays in promoting “the common good” - - which is the prime value of CST. If the common good is served by a larger
government, CST supports that. CST even recommends using taxation to fight inequality
by redistributing wealth. Do Republicans?
Human Rights. Politics aside,
most Americans agree that securing human rights for the citizenry is the job of
government. But many Americans, even
American Catholics--and especially Self-servers--embrace a list of human rights
that is much shorter than the human rights recognized by CST. This allows them to assume--wrongly--that the
Republican Party is Catholic-friendly.
How often do Republicans acknowledge that “illegals”
are actually exercising the human right to migrate, as Catholicism does?
How often do Republicans acknowledge that healthcare
is a human right, to be guaranteed by government, as Catholicism does?
How often do Republicans call housing, education, and employment
human rights, as Catholicism does?
In my view, both parties, Democratic and Republican, fail to consistently
support CST. Yet I feel no need to
demonize either party, or to claim they’re attacking me or my faith. For me, it is enough to say that CST sets a
standard they both fail to reach.
But that is not enough for Self-serve Catholics. They insist on demonizing Democrats as
deliberately imposing evil, while blithely giving Republicans a pass on their
own failures. What else can I think but
this: these Self-serve Catholics begin with a particular political bias, filter
their Catholic faith through that bias, and then invoke that distorted version
of Catholicism to attack their political opponents and advance their own
political agenda? And how can I not
think that such an exploitation of our faith is self-serving?
I am open to dialogue with those who want to explain how
demonizing Democrats, while absolving Republicans, is a reasonable application
of our faith. But until that happens, I
will stand by this: these Catholics offend me with their Self-serving political
exploitation of our faith.
© Bernard F. Swain PhD 2012
