KIM LAWTON: At Lulus's Bar in Washington, D.C. this
fall, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese has been sponsoring
a series of discussions about applying the Catholic faith
to modern life. It's called "Theology on Tap." On this night,
the topic was Catholic identity. LAWTON: Not long ago, Democratic Party affiliation was among the factors tightly bound into Catholic identity. But times have changed. Many of these young Catholics say they are moving away from their family's traditional support of the Democratic Party.
SALLI MCCRAY: There is a big division. It is not a division that causes family fights. It is a division that you are like, "I can't believe politics has really come to this that in order to vote my conscience, I have to become a Republican."
LAWTON: According to a new study by Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, CARA, 37 percent of Catholics think of themselves as Democrats, while 28 percent think of themselves as Republicans. That's a big change from just 30 years ago, when most Catholics were staunch Democrats.
Peter Steinfels worked on the CARA study.
PETER STEINFELS (Georgetown University and NEW YORK TIMES columnist): Catholics have loosened their link to the Democratic Party without really forging a link to the Republican Party. That's why they are considered a somewhat volatile vote, a swing vote.
LAWTON: While Catholics still do lean slightly more Democratic, there's no longer any one Catholic voting bloc. With more than 60 million Catholics in the United States, that's a lot of votes up for grabs, particularly in key electoral states. Which is why the candidates have been paying special attention to the Catholic community.
JOHN GREEN (Ray C. Bliss Inst. Of Applied Politics):
These campaigns understand that in many states, Catholic
swing voters may be critical, so they are trying to appeal
to them in distinctive ways.LAWTON: Like other immigrant communities, many American Catholics gravitated early on to the Democratic Party. The relationship was strengthened after the first Catholic run at the presidency, by Al Smith, in 1928, and then with Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal in the 1930s. Roughly 80 percent of Catholics voted for John F. Kennedy; but since then, there's been a gradual pulling away from the party.
Father Robert Drinan, a Democratic Congressman from 1971 to 1981, says there are several possible reasons for the change.
Father ROBERT DRINAN (Former Democratic Congressman):
One is abortion. Reagan said, "I will re-criminalize abortion."
Some, maybe five or seven percent of the Catholics moved
because of that. Likewise, he promised there would be some
assistance to church-related schools. Another group of Catholics
moved toward the Republicans. And third, they became rich
and moved to the suburbs. But I think in a vast, decentralized
country like this, you are bound to get more pluralism and
diversity.
LAWTON: And as an old Democratic hand, how do you
feel about that?
Father DRINAN: Well, the Democrats have to go with
the flow and do things that are better.
LAWTON: CRISIS MAGAZINE, which has a large conservative
Catholic readership, has done its own study of Catholic
voting patterns.
STEINFELS: We're not sure to what extent the distinctive
patterns of Catholic voting arise from church teaching specifically
or something in the Catholic religious life, or to the extent
that they arise from movements into the middle class, the
breakdown of ethnic communities and ethnic identities.
HUDSON: It is good news for the Catholic community
because for the first time in my memory, Catholics are being
taken seriously as a group that have specific concerns.
They have specific concerns they want addressed by candidates
on both sides of the aisle, and they are being addressed.
