Monday, April 18, 2005
The GOP and the Catholic vote
I'm back. An April 15 Cato Institute commentary by Patrick Basham examines the role of conservative Catholics in President Bush’s support base. Surprise, surprise: according to Basham, it’s all about values.
You (like I) might know conventionally of the Catholic Democratic vote: that is, for Democrats’ traditional stances in labor, welfare, civil rights, and social programs. (You can find a brief history of the Democratic Party here.)
- A terribly cryptic assertion that “the American population is trending toward less religious observance, not more”? Any enlightenment on this would be appreciated, since it’s counter-intuitive at best.
- Catholics are influential because a) they are concentrated in the electoral ‘swing’ zones and b) they are engaging in more activism on a short list of issues—social issues.
- The GOP’s largest gains in the Republican vote? Young males who like the fiscal conservatism.
But what seems to be going on is a rift in how these various issues are ranked. Remember that the Vatican opposed the invasion of Iraq; so, too, did many Catholics. Some consider abortion a front-and-center issue; Catholics seem to differ in terms of how central.
The PBS story really hit home the importance of Catholic location in swing states. Said Ralph Reed of the Bush-Cheney campaign, "And if you look at the states that will decide the outcome of this election--particularly the Great Lakes states of Wisconsin and Minnesota and Michigan and Ohio--those states, they're high-percentage Catholic states."
Also crucial, reports this April 8 CNN story, is the distinction between Catholic churchgoers and less observant Catholics. (Liberals go to church less often than conservatives, said Basham.) Among regular Catholic churchgoers, Bush topped Kerry by 13%, but among less observant Catholics, Kerry topped Bush by 1%.
I think that these numbers fit into my own larger understanding of American politics: that the left's best-case scenario is self-preservation (not growth) and its worst-case scenario is decline. Wisconsin and Minnesota as swing states, California voting in a Republican governor, a popular Republican mayor in New York, and the decreasing importance of policy issues (social programs, spending etc.) with the rise of 'moral majority' issues (gay marriage, abortion) suggest to me that conservatism has found a way to be fundamentally more attractive than its antithesis.
I should conclude this haphazard expose with the following link: in September 2004, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now a favorite for the papacy) said that anti-abortion Catholics can vote for a pro-choice candidate if they agree with that candidate on non-abortion issues. I take this statement to mean that the Vatican disavows single-issue voting, but how do you think it fits in with all this?
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This guy makes the claim that Bush’s plan for Social Security will actually increase benefits: “Personal accounts are part of Social Security, not separate. If history is any indication, using the most conservative assumptions, personal accounts containing stock, bond and money-market mutual funds will grow over the years. The mix of benefits will change, but Social Security benefits including personal accounts will go up, not down.”
Mr. Crane also thinks it ironic “that the people who appear so concerned over the growing wealth gap inComments: If this first claim is a real possibility, why isn’t the administration milking the heck out of it?...But the idea of note is the second: that it is a sort of economic oppression not to embrace private accounts for Social Security. How can we live with ourselves, knowing that poor people’s retirement benefits have been locked out of the American cash machine?
Ay dios mio. Is this disingenuous? A part of me cannot square the demographics of fiscal conservatism and free-marketism (white, wealthy, male) with the demographics of state beneficiaries (racial, gender, and economic minorities). I, for one, can’t possibly believe that the Bush administration values private accounts even partly for its benefits to the poor. But if it’s genuine: there you have it, a free-market anti-poverty argument.
Comments:
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Just to clarify that it isn’t as simple as “Catholics can vote for a pro-choice candidate if they agree with that candidate on non-abortion issues”.
A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate’s permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia. When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favour of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation , which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons .
http://www.priestsforlife.org/magisterium/bishops/04-07ratzingerommunion.htm
Material cooperation is when the cooperator performs an action that itself is not evil, but in so doing helps the actor perform another evil action. The moral quality of material cooperation depends upon how close the act of the cooperator is to the evil action, and whether there is a proportionate reason for performing the action.
Material cooperation is considered remote if it is not so closely connected with the evil action. For example, an employee who cleans the operating rooms of the hospital where abortions are performed (along with many other surgeries) would be remotely cooperating with evil. He provides a service that is good in itself but is remotely related to the evil act of abortion. If this employee was opposed to abortion, but worked at this general hospital because he needed employment, then he would not be guilty of sin for this remote degree of cooperation. (His cooperation would change to proximate if he worked at an abortion clinic; then he would be guilty of sin for his proximate material cooperation.)
In this area of material cooperation, one does have to ask, "Is there a proportionate reason for cooperating with this evil action?" Oftentimes, duress enters the decision making, meaning a person fears that unless he cooperates with the action, although a sinful one, he may face dire consequences. Remember duress impedes a person’s free will in decision making. Keep in mind that in material cooperation, the cooperator is not performing an evil action itself; rather his action only helps an actor perform an evil action.
For example, a nurse may never directly participate in an abortion, like handing the abortionist instruments; such an action is formal cooperation. However, a nurse may work at a general hospital where abortions may be performed; he or she may provide nursing care to other patients or even patients who have had abortions, and are recovering in the general surgical care area. However, a nurse in such a position ought to weigh the circumstances and ask questions like, "Is this the only employment I can obtain?" or "Are my actions primarily helping innocent people recover and return to health?" For anyone in a similar kind of predicament, questions may include, "What is the amount of evil my cooperation helps others do? What is the amount of evil that will happen to me if I refuse to cooperate? How close is my act to the other's evil act?" In considering the frequency of the material cooperation and the more necessary it is to the evil action, the reason to justify the cooperation must be proportionately stronger.
http://www.catholicherald.com/saunders/02ws/ws020905.htm
A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate’s permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia. When a Catholic does not share a candidate’s stand in favour of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation , which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons .
http://www.priestsforlife.org/magisterium/bishops/04-07ratzingerommunion.htm
Material cooperation is when the cooperator performs an action that itself is not evil, but in so doing helps the actor perform another evil action. The moral quality of material cooperation depends upon how close the act of the cooperator is to the evil action, and whether there is a proportionate reason for performing the action.
Material cooperation is considered remote if it is not so closely connected with the evil action. For example, an employee who cleans the operating rooms of the hospital where abortions are performed (along with many other surgeries) would be remotely cooperating with evil. He provides a service that is good in itself but is remotely related to the evil act of abortion. If this employee was opposed to abortion, but worked at this general hospital because he needed employment, then he would not be guilty of sin for this remote degree of cooperation. (His cooperation would change to proximate if he worked at an abortion clinic; then he would be guilty of sin for his proximate material cooperation.)
In this area of material cooperation, one does have to ask, "Is there a proportionate reason for cooperating with this evil action?" Oftentimes, duress enters the decision making, meaning a person fears that unless he cooperates with the action, although a sinful one, he may face dire consequences. Remember duress impedes a person’s free will in decision making. Keep in mind that in material cooperation, the cooperator is not performing an evil action itself; rather his action only helps an actor perform an evil action.
For example, a nurse may never directly participate in an abortion, like handing the abortionist instruments; such an action is formal cooperation. However, a nurse may work at a general hospital where abortions may be performed; he or she may provide nursing care to other patients or even patients who have had abortions, and are recovering in the general surgical care area. However, a nurse in such a position ought to weigh the circumstances and ask questions like, "Is this the only employment I can obtain?" or "Are my actions primarily helping innocent people recover and return to health?" For anyone in a similar kind of predicament, questions may include, "What is the amount of evil my cooperation helps others do? What is the amount of evil that will happen to me if I refuse to cooperate? How close is my act to the other's evil act?" In considering the frequency of the material cooperation and the more necessary it is to the evil action, the reason to justify the cooperation must be proportionately stronger.
http://www.catholicherald.com/saunders/02ws/ws020905.htm
# posted by 
: 4/21/2005 11:21:00 PM
: 4/21/2005 11:21:00 PM
That is definitely more complex than what the Detroit Free Press story said (which I paraphrased).
Helen lays out (what I presume to be) a doctrine-based map for a Catholic's evaluation of voting choice.
As for this map's implications for the Catholic vote:
-Do common Catholics actually engage in this reflection?
-To what extent are Catholics party to other voting considerations, e.g. heuristics ("Candidate is son of a mill worker; I am son of a mill worker, ergo he has my vote"), political ads, and social environment? Are the votes decided in a vacuum?
Which questions, of course, aren't your point--which was that Catholic doctrine does have precepts that can participate in the voting process. My questions simply inquire as to whether they actually do.
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Helen lays out (what I presume to be) a doctrine-based map for a Catholic's evaluation of voting choice.
As for this map's implications for the Catholic vote:
-Do common Catholics actually engage in this reflection?
-To what extent are Catholics party to other voting considerations, e.g. heuristics ("Candidate is son of a mill worker; I am son of a mill worker, ergo he has my vote"), political ads, and social environment? Are the votes decided in a vacuum?
Which questions, of course, aren't your point--which was that Catholic doctrine does have precepts that can participate in the voting process. My questions simply inquire as to whether they actually do.
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