So...are most Catholics today, Republicans?

I went to private, Catholic schools and practiced Catholicism until I left home in the early 1980's.

Then I lapsed and now I'm totally out of the Catholic loop.

What's it like inside the Catholic religion today? Is it true that most Catholics are Republicans? Are Dems a minority in the Catholic faith?

I remember many Democratic families in my Catholic high school. There was a time when Democrat and Catholic were almost synonymous.

What it is like in today's Catholic church? Are Catholics growing or decreasing in numbers? I remember hearing mass while the church was packed to the gills. Many people had to stand. My brother told me that less than half of the seats are filled most Sundays.

What's it like today?

and it was mainly Dems when I was still there. My mom's church really took a hit a few years ago when their pastor was accused of being a pedophile and was removed from his post. The accuser later retracted but the membership went way down. The Sunday collection went down by over 50%. So they must be all repukes, since they are stingy, right?

most Catholics I know are Dems. But that is not to say they all are. The most vocal among them are Bush supporters, although I don't know their party affiliation ... but I suspect it is still Dem.

They are the only Catholics I know besides my RW/fundie Louisiana in-laws.

Alterboy, 4 years Jesuit HS and 4 years Jesuit College. Practicing non-religious person. Why? I can't pain myself enough to pretend I'm religious.

That doesn't mean I don't believe in God. But my God wants us to do 3 things:

(1) Get along with each other.
(2) Life one's life in a most god-like manner.
(3) (2) Means....have at it. God wants to experience whatever it is to be human. Just do it with (1) in mind.


Here's a better question to explore.....how many people go to confession? I gurantee that for every 100 communicants, only 1 goes to confession.

When I went back to the church (I was born Catholic but my parents did not have us attend church regularly) and took RCIA before my marriage, they never specifically stressed that oyu had to go to confession. They did discuss it and one of the 2 teachers was very high on it as a good tool for analysis of yourself.

Recently, I've been thinking about starting to go to confession. We have a priest whom I really like at our church and I would like to find a way to discuss with him certain issues that the church says are wrong (i.e. support for gay marriage, being pro-choice) in a way that at first would provide me with the confidentiality I need to see where he stands on these issues and whether what I beleive about my faith still allows me conciously remain part of it.

But one thing I have noticed is that a lot of us will say like: I'm a Franciscan Catholic or Roman Catholic etc...

The right wants you to think that Catholics are part of their crowd and some are but those who believe in such things as liberation theology and social justice are not repukes. They may appose abortion and gay marriage but they believe in the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament.

From that, I can tell what is religious views are.

He should be ex-commmunicated for his heretical postion.

How else to justify for Kerry?

Bunch of right-wing Catholic business people influencing communities across the country.

Wrong on little boys, wrong on birth control, wrong on gender issues.

The ones who still show up are rarely Democrats.

And the new nomination of Pope Benedict The Nazi sure makes me proud to say I am no longer a Catholic.

(ugly) world - I say most are rethugs.

it seems to be split--but with a slight majority--60-65% Democrats.

From what I have heard, it used to be more like 80% of Catholics were Democrats--but many defected to the Republican party during the Reagan years. If this is true, it is probably because that is when the Republicans started using abortion as a wedge issue to divide us.

Not really once you get past it.

Work buddy is Catholic RW, but in reality its because of taxes and money.

Another is Catholic and RW, but its because she is racist and bigoted.

Brother in law is also but I haven't fully figured him out yet as I generally avoid the subject to not cause bad feelings.

and I'd estimate that 75% of the people here who care about politics (some don't) are Dems.

:evilgrin:

In 2000, Gore got the majority of the Catholic vote, but W. won them in 2004 by a little bit. The ones that go to church most often are now Republicans, but the ones who go less or are just nominal Catholics are mostly Dems.

I can't believe any Catholic would vote Republican considering the people in charge of the GOP. The hard-core evangelical theocrats hate Catholics.

Even though a larger number of Democrats in congress are Catholics, the most funny thing being that half are what I would consider progressive in their politics, but they could be non-practicing ones like myself. When It comes questions about the church, I have no idea, I am Catholic If getting baptized the religion counts, though I NEVER attend church and I don't really practice the religion, and I'm not a big fan of the Church, yet I'm not a big fan of any Church.

Catholics were Democrats. I know my very Catholic family is (with two exceptions: my ex-military brothers consider themselves Republicans and not Catholics anymore).

- something like only 1/4 of the people who list Catholic as a religion and/or are registered with a church attend mass regularly.

You can really see this apparant during Christmas and Easter when churches overflow with what many call C&E Catholics.

At my own church we seem to have good attendence relative to the size of the church, but they just built a Methodist church next door and it dwarfs ours.

Financially, our church is very strapped for money to do anything other then run our most basic programs. In December they made an appeal for people to contribute more if they could to help out with the operating funds.

The reality I think is that the Catholic church is growing in the Third World while it may be be slightly shrinking in the US and Europe. I would postulate that this is because of the religions appeal to people who have little in the way of wealth particularly through outreach programs that focus on providing people with basic needs. Unfortunately, my understanding is that the brand of Catholicism that is growing is much more conservative then most Catholics consider themselves.

This could explain why their was not much of an issue with the election of the current Pope (Benedict) as opposed to a Cardinal from a third world country. In some ways his views allign well with what the majority of Catholics in these countries believe.

I was only making an observation.

However, I did note the following from this study:

Finally, note that the Barna survey data report the proportion of self-identified adherents who reported church attendance. This is not necessarily the same as the attendance rate as a proportion of official church membership. A religious body's membership estimate may be more or less than the number of people who actually identify themselves as members. For example, in 2001, 3.5 million American adults said they were Episcopalians. But in 2000 the Episcopal Church reported a total constituency of 2,317,794 people, including fully-commited members and inclusive adherents. This signifies a gap between those who are affiliated with the church (on membership rolls), versus those who self-identify with a particular denominational label but in most cases have no practical connection to the denomination and do not attend services.

This is a important point, in particular I think in regards to Catholics. My parents did not go to Church regularly yet would, if asked, self-identify themselves as Catholics. However, they really had no presence in the Catholic community per se, since they never were part of it. What makes one a Catholic, how they self-identify, or how they practice their faith (that's really just a rhetorical question, I'm not implying theres a right or wrong answer)? If there were no churches, would there be a Catholic church? Hard to say.

When I was six years old, a nun at my school told me I was a traitor because my parents were voting for Goldwater. Now she was completely wrong to say such a thing to a child, or to anybody, for that matter, but it says a lot about how strong the Democratic Party's power was with Roman Catholics then.

From what I understand, the Catholic vote split 52-47 in the Bush-Kerry race in 2004. I believe Al Gore and Joe Lieberman won a slightly higher percentage of the Catholic vote in 2000. I do not have statistics at the ready, however.

I blame the discussion of stem cell research and abortion for the voting situation in 2004. My own parish is relatively tolerant and published notices in the church bulletin saying that the church does not advocate for or against a candidate, but when I went to Scranton, PA, I saw a Catholic church bulletin that more or less came down on the side of Bush. :puke: Truly inappropriate.

It's dangerous, however, to make vast, sweeping generalizations about the Catholic population and the church in general. My experience with priests and nuns suggests that many of them are more open-minded and tolerant than many of the laity.

And even the insanely conservative Catholic parish I used to attend comes down on the progressive side when it comes to, say, immigrant rights or insurance coverage for workers. Please keep the dialogue going with Catholics and don't jump to any conclusions.

Being the good works crowd, things like curing the sick and feeding the hungry go over pretty well with them.

Worked on Mother-in-law

democratic and very Catholic

Are now atheists. Or at least don't believe in the church anymore.