L.A. Times runs a boring story about Kerry and the Catholic vote. You have to look a bit to find the nuggets. The short of it is that 80% of Catholics voted for Kennedy, and 75% supported Johnson, the so-called Catholic vote is no longer that unified. Also, circa 30% of the Catholic vote is Hispanic. And, two-thirds of the 17 critical battleground states, more people identify themselves as Catholic than any other faith. Pennsylvania has a larger Catholic population than any of the other 16 hotly contested states. And Bush is ahead in Pennsylvania. Also, I think Rove once calculated that if Bush got only three or four percent more of the Hispanic vote, there wouldnt be a way a Demo could win. Kerry will have to struggle for the Catholic vote.
He wont have to struggle for my Catholic vote because he doesnt have it. His blatant disregard for human life/unmitigated support for abortion, disregard for the dictates of the hierarchy in taking the Eucharist, and Cafeteria Catholicism uninformed by Scripture or natural law, especially as an influential public figure, is a disgrace. He has clearly not examined his conscience in any meaningful way and not presented any reasoned defense of his actions and beliefs. He represents the individualism and relativism of the 1960s generation and their postmodern rejection of truth and authority.
His rejection of the authority of his own Church and unexamined conscience stand in stark contrast to figures such as Thomas More, whose letters have recently been published in a new edition. More stood for a true conscience in which he aligned himself with the authority of the Church and a rigorously examined conscience to oppose King Henrys oath. That is a true hero to emulate in his Catholicism.
Kerrys personal faith as demonstrated in his actions as well as his desire for complete separation of religion from civic life are dangerous to the Church as well as republican self-government and constitutionalism.
Kerry doesnt have my Catholic vote, either. I dont believe that I can improve on Mr. Williams reasoning as to why; hes pretty much summed it up. A point of interest on todays townhall.com is this op-ed by Robert Novak.
Quite a while back (before the primaries), some bloggers noted that most of the Dem websites hadnt translated their abortion-on-demand sections in Spanish. Anybody checked Kerrys site lately?