Catholics and Politics: The Dynamic Tension Between Faith and Power

3. One Church, Many Messages: The Politics of the U.S. Catholic Clergy

43 3 ONE CHURCH, MANY MESSAGES The Politics of the U.S.Catholic Clergy Gregory A. Smith Roughly one in four adults in the United States is Catholic, making this group a vitally important segment of the American electorate.Accordingly, an important part of the burgeoning research on religion and politics has focused on understanding the political attitudes and voting decisions of American Catholics, which has shed a great deal of light on the religion-politics connection within this group. But while much has been learned in recent years about how their Catholicism shapes the politics of American Catholics, one topic that has been somewhat underexplored is the question of the role played by Catholic religious leaders in influencing the politics of the American Catholic laity. There are several potential sources of religious authority within the Church that might plausibly be expected to wield political influence with American Catholics. Most obviously, the Church hierarchy might be looked to as a source of political guidance. Surveys show, however, that many Catholics hold political opinions that diverge from Church teaching on a number of important issues. And the influence of the institutional Church is also limited by the fact that its political positions do not map well onto American politics. The argument here is that parish priests, by contrast , represent a more promising source of Church authority to which to look for evidence of political influence wielded by religious elites. Given their potential influence with such a large segment of the American electorate, it is vitally important to examine the nature and the tone of the political messages emanating from parish priests. Drawing on structured interviews with a sample of nine Catholic pastors conducted during the 2004 election season, this chapter demonstrates that the political messages emanating from religious leaders to which Catholics are exposed vary considerably from parish to parish. Priests at some parishes consistently deliver homilies with politically liberal overtones, while priests at other parishes regularly deliver sermons with politically conservative overtones, and still other pastors fall somewhere in between . The varying content and tone of these priestly messages have potentially large implications for American politics and electoral outcomes. BACKGROUND AND THEORY As mentioned, much research in recent years has focused on the changing politics of American Catholics. Since the 1960s the Catholic vote has become less monolithically Democratic, and a substantial amount of evidence indicates that this change is due in part to simple changes in Catholic demographics.1 Earlier in the twentieth century, Catholics were poorer, less educated, and more recently immigrants as compared to the rest of the population, and as such were much more likely to vote Democratic. Over time, however, as Catholics caught up with the rest of the population in terms of wealth and education, so too did Catholic voting patterns come to resemble more closely those of the rest of the country. But Catholic politics cannot be explained solely by reference to the sociodemographics of the group. For Catholics, much as for Americans of other religious traditions , religious identity, beliefs, and behavior each play an important role in forming and shaping political attitudes. Clyde Wilcox, Ted G. Jelen, and David C. Leege, for example, determined that knowing the “specific identity of a Catholic” (for example, whether one is a traditional, ethnic, charismatic, or post–Vatican II Catholic) can provide important additional insight into Catholics’political attitudes over and above that gained from simply knowing whether one is Catholic.2 Just as religious identity is important for shaping the religion and politics connection among Catholics, so too is religious behavior. Kenneth D.Wald, Lyman A. Kellstedt , and Leege, for instance, determined that for Catholics, as with those of other religions, involvement in church activities was a key predictor of certain political attitudes. Specifically, they found that although Catholics“were significantly more prochoice than the nonreligious,” they “turned against liberal abortion laws as a consequence of high levels of church involvement,”confirming that“the message transmitted by the church was apparently perceived and internalized by the strongly involved congregant.”3 In addition to involvement in Church activities, evangelicalism has been shown to play an important role in shaping Catholic politics. According to Michael R.Welch and Leege,“Catholics who practice evangelical-style patterns of devotion take more ‘conservative’ positions on issues relating to abortion, premarital cohabitation, and the male’s role as sole ‘breadwinner’ for the family.”4 Finally, religious beliefs play an important role in...