From the Daily Beast:
A small word of thanks to Cardinal Dolan, Robert George and K-Lo for helping shift the Catholic vote massively toward Obama with their summer campaign for religious liberty. And special thanks to Paul Ryan. No actual Catholic could ever find anything but puerile cruelty in the works of Ayn Rand, or rally to the idea that home-care for the elderly should be sacrificed to reduce tax rates for the super-rich. Paul Ryan believes that the basic principles of Rand can be compatible with Catholicism. American Catholics are just not that dumb or confused about their faith.
How does word get out? This is all getting into some heavy duty stuff that I don’t think I understand. Enlighten me. It sounds to me that most catholics want social justice as part of America and that faith without works is rather empty. That’s quite the opposite from what some would have us believe.
NOTICE: PERHAPS AN IMPORTANT PART OF THIS REPORT WAS OMITTED:
National Catholic Reporter finds something remarkable in a new poll from Pew:
On June 17, Obama held a slight edge over Mitt Romney among Catholics (49 percent to 47 percent), according to the Pew Research Center. Since then, Obama has surged ahead, and now leads 54 percent to 39 percent, according to a Pew poll conducted Sept. 16. Among all registered voters, Obama leads Romney 51 percent to 42 percent, according to Pew. Obama and Romney are essentially tied among white Catholics, which some pollsters call the ultimate swing group.
Ahhhh, another poll!
@SlowpokeRodriguez
Advocating a cut & paste religion – abandoning the judge in order to fit individual guilt and individual truth to ones own reality. And if there is no judge and there is no truth….you have a democrat’s sense of society.
@Blue, surely you aren’t saying that Ayn Rand fulfills the Catholic Church’s sense of how faith should function in a modern society?
Most Catholics I know have a strong belief in living faith…that it does no good to have faith if not put to good works.
Is that what is motivating the switch?
Polls come and go, the one that matters is in November. Yet it looks like I fall into the swing voter catagory according to Pew, white and RC. I am not voting for Obama, and I do not like Romney much at all. Either the wolf in wolf’s clothing or the wolf in sheep’s clothing, depending on one’s view. As the Good Book recommends, I am putting ‘no hope in princes.’ I am certainly still voting, but is it against Obama(ie, for Romney) or for someone else. Undecided. That may be some of what you are seeing in Pew’s poll.
Another Catholic’s thought on this: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2012/09/can-someone-explain-these-contradictions.html
What a super load of crap. Only a rag like the Daily Beast (interesting name in a religous context) would try to connect to a suspicious pro Obama poll by suggesting that Catholic voters – as a group- are moving to Obama because they support his modern no judgements dependency system as a substitute for individual good works and charity or – or because they reject Paul Ryan and his support of Ayn Rand’s economic views supporting liberty, free enterprise and the benefits of wealth creation on the middle class and the poor and because Ryan is in conflict with Catholic doctrine – eg, he’s not a genuine Catholic because he does not support the poor – greedy bastard. Its the old dirty air, dirty water, welfare reform is racism, throw grandma over the cliff BS again. This S#*t needs to stop. Neither is true. Even Ryan understands that Rand was an atheist.
Now , are you asking whether faith operates in its call for good works through the coercive force of Government. Seriously, is that what you are asking.
Seriously, are you addressing me in that tone? @Blue
Take it down a few notches.
My tolerance of bad manners today is at zero on this blog.
@blue
You also might want to look at who is interpreting the data. It isn’t your “beast.” (and I dont mean the one slouching towards Bethlehem)
@Moon-howler
In looking for the beast, perhaps you are confusing the National Catholic Reporter and the National Catholic Register.
I suggest you google it, but to paraphrase the Church’s view, The Reporter has deliberately opposed the the teaching of the Church, they deceive their Catholic readers and do a great disservice to ecumenism by being responsible for the false irenicism of watering down Catholic teachings.” Numerous conservative Catholic commentators have criticized the National Catholic Reporter for advocating positions contrary to Church doctrines.
@Blue, I asked the old Alter Boy instead and he said he doesn’t know. (That would be Mr. Howler) I am not confusing anything. I never knew in the first place.
I don’t look for the beast. The beast would have nothing to do with stuff like this. That is another topic for another day….I prefer single malt when I discuss such things.
So am guessing that is why Episcopalian priests can be “turned” and bring their wives with them as Roman Catholic priests? If I were an RC priest, that would really piss me off….but I digress.
It sounds like “good catholics” take their marching orders on how to vote from a higher authority. If that is the case, I am glad the Grand Poobah, my father, saved me from it all.
Have a good weekend Moon.
Woohoo! Catholics (like me) seem to be going for Obama. Looks like this things a lock. No need to even go out and vote (for Obama) as the pools show he’s got it locked up.
Awesome!!
marin, I am lauging over the Woohoo Catholic remark. May I quote you?
I think JFK would be turning over in his grave over all this. He worked so hard to establish that wall of separation between church and state.
BTW, thanks for the better manners today. I appreciate it.
Romney is going to get his butt kicked big time.
@Moon-howler
Yes of course. Quote me.
Better manners? I’m always well behaved. It’s that southern thang. I’ll bless your little heart while I stab it. 🙂
That’s what good southerners do. @marin
It would be bad manners to do otherwise.
@marin
How does a Woohoo catholic differ from a C & E Catholic?
It sounds like “good catholics” take their marching orders on how to vote from a higher authority. If that is the case, I am glad the Grand Poobah, my father, saved me from it all.
Absolutely ridiculous comment. I certainly hope this was sarcasm.
Just trying to fit in here with our blog guests. I am just trying to sift through what they are telling me. Things sure are different than what I thought.
If that is the only ridiculous comment you see here, then I am worried.
Don’t be worried.
I have no trouble believing that Obama is ahead at the moment, but a surge seems counter-intuitive. The media are breathlessly reporting “surges” of support for Obama in swing states, among Catholics, even “overnight”. There is no obvious reason for a surge: No bad news plagued Romney in the last few days, nor has Obama had good news. If anything, Obama had a spate of bad economic news and foreign policy setbacks.
I would not be surprised if the underlying models used by pollsters are unstable so that small differences produce large fluctuations.
I know a lot of Obamunists that are going to be sad little pandas on the day after the election when they discover that the electorate isn’t D+11.
@Lyssa
So interpret for me…what do all the mumbo jumbo comments mean? I don’t think I have a reading comprehension problem.
I asked a fairly simple question in the original post, about catholics acting pon their faith rather than it just being an abstract. I get a bunch of hooy in return that told me nothing.
What could have made these numbers shown switch? I would like to leave the Beast out of the discussion.
@Cato the Elder
So what will you be doing on that day, Cato? Will you be disappointed? I see that bird feathers chest trick going on as we speak. You know, what birds do …puff up so you think they are mightier than they really are?
I have no idea who is going to win. Neither do you.
Agree, Catholics believe salvation is gained through faith and good works. it doesn’t however make us martyrs or stupid or robots. We were taught to consciously form our conscious. Unfortunately that effort leaves a lot of people behind. Too hard and quite a bit of personal responsibility.
I’m glad you were “saved” from the likes of us. We’re doing just fine without ya 🙂
JV is actually a lot more fun. All the pomp, few of the rules.
I am very glad I was saved from some of the crap some of the guests were doling out. However, being a woman of free will, some of us would look at it as a conscious choice.
Lyssa said
I would say that some of the people who came on the blog to be obnoxious to me need to leave a far better impression of their religion. Fortunately, I have and have had enough thinking Catholics in my life to not fall for some of the bloggers rather opressive views.
Too bad everyone doesn’t view things as you do.
From what I understand, many Mormons will be voting for Mitt Romney because he is one of their own. I understand this.
Does that make them “racist?”
Do we have a tendency to vote for those who are most like us?
Some of the bloggers have suggested that blacks who vote for Obama just because he is black are racist. I disagree. I see it as identity. In fact, I feel that I have more in common with Obama than I do with Romney. It has to do with money, not religion.
As a Catholic, I find it disturbing that we are expected to blindly follow “established church doctrine.” The bishops that make this doctrine are all older, white, protected, cloistered men who do many good selfless things, but they have shown a shocking lack of judgement in recent years in a number of areas. To now take sides in political contests as they have done is the final straw in my mind, and it appears in many others…
@Middleman
Thanks for addressing this thread. Rather than finding answers, I have found more questions have arisen.
All the mumbo jumbo about this organization and that organizaton from a couple other posters left me more confused that I was in the first place. I don’t know all the dueling organizations within the religion.
I understand that there are conservative Catholics and a more liberal (or centrist) brand. What I don’t grasp is why there is shift. Why are the goal posts continually moving here.
Most religious groups of significant size or at least of significant enough size to be counted as a voting block don’t straddle the fence like this demographic.
To me it looks like a small percentage of conservative Catholics are aligned with the bishops, who are pushing a strict conservative line. The bishops have moved right over the past 30 years and are now way further right than the majority of Catholics, who are in favor of contraception according to polls, for example.
They are certainly farther right than the majority of American nuns, who are opposed to the extremist positions of the bishops and want to concentrate on teaching and ministering to the sick and poor, which the nuns do so well.
I think the shift we’ve seen from the bishops this year as far as getting directly involved in a presidential campaign is punishment for Obama because he has the nerve to govern in a common-sense manner and ignore religious dogma. He has shown this in relation to Catholics and in relationships with Israel. I think they want to see him gone, but it appears to have backfired on them so far…
I love the bus nuns! What a practical, down-to-earth bunch of with it women they are.
Someone said the other day that JKF would be rolling over in his grave. Most people I know really aren’t out of the “conservative corners’ of the church. In fact, most of the people I have known have been movers and shakers and fairly liberal. Faith and good works and all. The conservative corners were really making me think I was living in a time warp.
Thanks for the enlightenment. I hadn’t been able to figure out the blow-back.
Enlightenment- no pun intended?
I guess Paul Ryan was showing his compassionate Catholic side when he co-sponsored a bill with Todd Akin to force women to carry pregnancies to term even in cases of rape and incest and jail them along with their rapist if they don’t: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/how-bad-is-the-ryan-akin-anti-abortion-bill/2012/08/20/c7e37e04-eafe-11e1-9ddc-340d5efb1e9c_blog.html. This is why Akin scared the GOP so much- Ryan is an extremist just like he is. I’m guessing Joe Biden will mention this in the VP debate…
He should if he doesn’t. Thanks for that reminder, middleman.