The Power of Political Communion
Sister Simone Campbell, the director of a national Catholic social justice organization, at the Democratic convention.
By MOLLY WORTHEN
Published: September 15, 2012
As the 2012 presidential race enters the homestretch, both parties vow that this election is not just a choice between different policies. It is a cosmic decision between two different visions, two different value sets, as Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. told delegates at the Democratic National Convention. Behind the competing catchphrases lurks another contest, one that illuminates this war of worldviews. It is a tale of two Catholicisms.
In Charlotte, N.C., the Democrats challenged the altar-boy-cum-vice-presidential-nominee Paul D. Ryans bid for the office of Catholic in chief. They invited Sister Simone Campbell, a social activist and one of the nuns on the bus who toured the country protesting Mr. Ryans budget, to assure voters that Republican fiscal proposals violate Catholic teachings as well as our nations values. The crowd roared who doesnt love a feisty nun? Yet her appearance seemed largely symbolic. Mr. Biden, the most prominent Catholic on the convention roster, made no mention of his faith. While Republicans have celebrated Mr. Ryans religion ever since Mitt Romney chose his faithful Catholic running mate last month, the Democrats werent sure that they wanted God in the campaign at all, let alone the Church of Rome.
Allowing Republicans to claim the mantle of Catholicism might cost the Democrats the election. As commentators have noted, Catholics may be the nations most numerous swing voters. Over the past few decades, Democratic leaders have alienated voters in one of the partys historically strong constituencies. Through a series of ideological moves and cultural misjudgments, they have also cut themselves off from a rich tradition of liberal Catholic thought at a time when American culture requires politicians to articulate a mission that inspires religious and secular voters alike.
The Catholicism of Sister Campbell and Mr. Biden is a natural fit for Democrats. It is the faith of social justice activists like Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton, the church whose pope pleaded for relief of the misery and wretchedness pressing so unjustly on the majority of the working class in an 1891 encyclical.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/opinion/sunday/catholics-and-the-power-of-political-communion.html?_r=0