Bergen Record: Abortion issue divides Catholic voters |
Site last published: 01/06/10
Bergen Record: Abortion issue divides Catholic voters
October 21,2008
By: John Chadwick
Sitting before a packed church hall in Glen Rock, a panel of four Catholics faced the inevitable question:
"Does this mean — above all other issues — we are obligated by Catholic conscience to choose a candidate that is pro-life and reject the pro-choice candidate?"
The responses were telling: The two male panelists essentially said abortion trumps all issues. The two women said it doesn't.
The discussion, which took place at St. Catharine Church during a parish program on election issues this month, reflected a divided American church. And with the election two weeks away, it suggests that neither Sen. John McCain nor Sen. Barack Obama has a lock on the Catholic vote, which represents about 25 percent of the electorate.
Indeed, Catholics, unlike almost every other major religious group, have become increasingly split down the middle in presidential politics — with abortion being a major reason for the divide.
Many Catholics vote for Republicans who support overturning Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. But other Catholics vote for Democrats because they agree with their positions on the economy, war and immigration.
Both sides say they are following the teachings of their church.
"There are many of us who don't agree one way or another about the way we cast our vote," parishioner Sylvia Picard Schmitt said at the start of the discussion. "But we do share a fundamental commitment to Gospel values and to working for the coming of the kingdom. It's the decisions we make about how that might best be implemented that differ."
Catholics once formed part of the base of the Democratic Party. But the emergence of abortion, among other issues, has helped change that political alignment.
The contrast between Catholic voting patterns and those of other religious groups was particularly pronounced in 2004. While Jews and Muslims decisively supported Democrat John Kerry, and Protestant evangelicals were a major force in reelecting George W. Bush, Catholics were much more closely divided: 52 percent for Bush and 47 percent for Kerry, according to exit polling data published by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
This year, a series of polls by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press showed the Catholic vote in flux, particularly among white Catholics.
The polls showed McCain leading Obama by seven percentage points in mid-September and widening his lead to 13 points by the end of the month. But in October, Obama was leading among white Catholics by 15 points and among all Catholics by 20 points.
John Green, a senior fellow with the Pew Forum, said the swings could be attributed to many factors, including statistical and technical issues.
But he noted that the level of engagement among lay Catholic groups in the election is considerable. Groups on both sides, including the Knights of Columbus and Catholics United, are working to sway Catholic voters.
"It's pretty intense," Green said. "It seems there is an effort by groups on both sides to mobilize Catholic voters."
That intensity was apparent at St. Catharine's, where organizers said they took pains to select four panelists who would represent the wide spectrum of views among contemporary Catholics.
It was a visceral lesson in how divergent views can coexist under one church roof.
"Abortion ... is the holocaust of our time, and we need to oppose it with every ounce of our being, our intellect, in any way we can," declared John Sarno, a parish deacon.
But Jacqueline Schramm said Catholics should be considering a range of issues when casting their ballots.
"Catholics must look at a candidate's position on other life issues," said Schramm, a lay minister for social justice at St. Mary's in Pompton Lakes. "Can one really claim to be pro-life and yet support the death penalty, turn a blind eye to poverty and not take steps to avoid war?
"Our church teaches that the answer to this question is no."
The Rev. Thomas Wisniewski, the parish priest, said the discussion was aimed at clarifying church teachings and bringing together Catholics of differing views.
"The thing that we do have to do, and I believe this, is to talk," Wisniewski said. "To do dialogue is much harder than just saying, 'Believe this.' "
The panelists included a lifelong Democrat who said he has voted Republican in recent elections precisely because of abortion.
"Where it gets tricky is, do all the other issues cumulatively add up to abortion?" Tom Garry asked during the discussion. "The way I voted in the last three or four presidential elections, for me personally, they have not."
But panelist Erma McCarthy argued for a broader definition of "pro-life."
"We have become a culture of greed and violence," she said. "And that is not pro-life for anyone."
The program was unusual for providing a forum for positions that run counter to church officials like Newark Archbishop John J. Myers.
Myers said in a recent interview that an antiabortion candidate would have to be supporting a plan of massive evil, such as genocide, to justify voting for the pro-choice candidate.
"Think germ warfare," Myers said. "Something that would kill millions of people."
Yet the political guide approved by the nation's bishops, Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, doesn't use such sweeping terms to frame the issue.
The document does dwell in large measure on abortion, saying it's "intrinsically evil" and must always be opposed.
But it also says that "there may be times when a Catholic who rejects a candidate's unacceptable position may decide to vote for that candidate for other morally grave reasons."
Sitting before a packed church hall in Glen Rock, a panel of four Catholics faced the inevitable question:
"Does this mean — above all other issues — we are obligated by Catholic conscience to choose a candidate that is pro-life and reject the pro-choice candidate?"
The responses were telling: The two male panelists essentially said abortion trumps all issues. The two women said it doesn't.
The discussion, which took place at St. Catharine Church during a parish program on election issues this month, reflected a divided American church. And with the election two weeks away, it suggests that neither Sen. John McCain nor Sen. Barack Obama has a lock on the Catholic vote, which represents about 25 percent of the electorate.
Indeed, Catholics, unlike almost every other major religious group, have become increasingly split down the middle in presidential politics — with abortion being a major reason for the divide.
Many Catholics vote for Republicans who support overturning Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. But other Catholics vote for Democrats because they agree with their positions on the economy, war and immigration.
Both sides say they are following the teachings of their church.
"There are many of us who don't agree one way or another about the way we cast our vote," parishioner Sylvia Picard Schmitt said at the start of the discussion. "But we do share a fundamental commitment to Gospel values and to working for the coming of the kingdom. It's the decisions we make about how that might best be implemented that differ."
Catholics once formed part of the base of the Democratic Party. But the emergence of abortion, among other issues, has helped change that political alignment.
The contrast between Catholic voting patterns and those of other religious groups was particularly pronounced in 2004. While Jews and Muslims decisively supported Democrat John Kerry, and Protestant evangelicals were a major force in reelecting George W. Bush, Catholics were much more closely divided: 52 percent for Bush and 47 percent for Kerry, according to exit polling data published by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
This year, a series of polls by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press showed the Catholic vote in flux, particularly among white Catholics.
The polls showed McCain leading Obama by seven percentage points in mid-September and widening his lead to 13 points by the end of the month. But in October, Obama was leading among white Catholics by 15 points and among all Catholics by 20 points.
John Green, a senior fellow with the Pew Forum, said the swings could be attributed to many factors, including statistical and technical issues.
But he noted that the level of engagement among lay Catholic groups in the election is considerable. Groups on both sides, including the Knights of Columbus and Catholics United, are working to sway Catholic voters.
"It's pretty intense," Green said. "It seems there is an effort by groups on both sides to mobilize Catholic voters."
That intensity was apparent at St. Catharine's, where organizers said they took pains to select four panelists who would represent the wide spectrum of views among contemporary Catholics.
It was a visceral lesson in how divergent views can coexist under one church roof.
"Abortion ... is the holocaust of our time, and we need to oppose it with every ounce of our being, our intellect, in any way we can," declared John Sarno, a parish deacon.
But Jacqueline Schramm said Catholics should be considering a range of issues when casting their ballots.
"Catholics must look at a candidate's position on other life issues," said Schramm, a lay minister for social justice at St. Mary's in Pompton Lakes. "Can one really claim to be pro-life and yet support the death penalty, turn a blind eye to poverty and not take steps to avoid war?
"Our church teaches that the answer to this question is no."
The Rev. Thomas Wisniewski, the parish priest, said the discussion was aimed at clarifying church teachings and bringing together Catholics of differing views.
"The thing that we do have to do, and I believe this, is to talk," Wisniewski said. "To do dialogue is much harder than just saying, 'Believe this.' "
The panelists included a lifelong Democrat who said he has voted Republican in recent elections precisely because of abortion.
"Where it gets tricky is, do all the other issues cumulatively add up to abortion?" Tom Garry asked during the discussion. "The way I voted in the last three or four presidential elections, for me personally, they have not."
But panelist Erma McCarthy argued for a broader definition of "pro-life."
"We have become a culture of greed and violence," she said. "And that is not pro-life for anyone."
The program was unusual for providing a forum for positions that run counter to church officials like Newark Archbishop John J. Myers.
Myers said in a recent interview that an antiabortion candidate would have to be supporting a plan of massive evil, such as genocide, to justify voting for the pro-choice candidate.
"Think germ warfare," Myers said. "Something that would kill millions of people."
Yet the political guide approved by the nation's bishops, Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, doesn't use such sweeping terms to frame the issue.
The document does dwell in large measure on abortion, saying it's "intrinsically evil" and must always be opposed.
But it also says that "there may be times when a Catholic who rejects a candidate's unacceptable position may decide to vote for that candidate for other morally grave reasons."