Comatose Catholics

From the e-mail file -- comments, dated March 7, on an article entitled "Hillary's Secret Weapon: Catholics", the notion being that "Catholics vote for Democratic candidates by substantial margins, and this year exit polls showed that Hillary has won the Catholic vote in every Democratic primary but that in Connecticut." Another point was that "the Catholic vote today in America, particularly Democratic Catholics, is dominated by older women", and that such women are key to Hillary's success among Catholics. My comments:

_This_ is the real scandal in the Catholic Church today. Forget about "pedophile priests". Problem is -- there is a kind of cultural/political hangover from the old days when the Democrats were supposedly the "friend of the working man" -- and when -- the legality of the New Deal aside -- it actually was possible to, on occasion, vote for a "good" Catholic politician. Pittsburgh is probably just about the last major holdout of this point of view. Needless to say, the last "good" Catholic poltician left the scene a while back... so now all we're left with is totalitarians, hacks, Stalinists, con artists, extortionists, and collectivists. But that won't stop people who swore to their aging father -- a lifetime union member -- on his deathbed! -- that they would never, never vote Republican.

What I find amusing is that Southern whites managed to make the transition -- but Northern, urban, working class whites just can't manage it. Anyone care to start doing some IQ testing around here?

[My correspondent replied: "I wondered if you would argue that these are "modern" Catholics. I wouldn't know, of course, except for assuming that number of traditionalists is small in comparison."] My response:

OK, good question. These are not "modern" Catholics "in the spirit of Vatican II", with clown Masses, "Womynchurch", liberation theology, angry dyke nuns, and all that crap. These are more likely to be the daughters of decent, working-class and sworn Democrat families that may, in fact, have actually benefited at some time in the past from legislation favorable to unions, social programs, e.g. Call them "legacy New Dealers". But now that the Democrats are an equal-opportunity party that, basically, treats everyone like shit except the elite and the insiders, they reallly have no reason to vote Democratic except for sheer habit. Now, this is not to say that there aren't "modern" Catholics among their number, but I'd be willing to be the majority are of the type I just described. (For one thing, any woman who embraces radical feminism of the type that dictates she must vote for Hillary no matter what is not likely to even identify herself as Catholic.)

Now, having said that, the number of traditionalists is indeed small by comparison, and you can count on that group to have made a complete transition from the Democrats to the Republicans, albeit there is currently a split, within their ranks, between the Neocon sympathizers and the Paleocons. All you have to do is check out the parking lot of my Latin Mass church on Sunday morning, with a mix of Ron Paul and McCain bumper stickers. (On the other hand, my "regular" parish church would have some Democrat stickers but none for Ron Paul.) (Amazing what you can learn about a church by just wandering around their parking lot!) (And once you see what's in the tract rack, you can say "case closed".)

I would have to add that traditionalist Catholics are easily won over by patriotic arguments. Part of this is that old business of "proving that we're just as good Americans as anyone else", i.e. loyal to the US vs. to the Vatican, a la JFK. (Funny how Jews don't have to prove that they're more loyal to the US than to Israel -- but I digress.) Part of it is the realization that, as much anti-Catholicism as there is in the US, and has always been, a Catholic is, over time, generally better off here than in most places (including "traditionally Catholic" countries like Spain and Mexico, e.g.). In any case, Catholics of our time have been duped, to some extent, by the Neocons into believing that they must show their patriotism by supporting the administration, the war, Wilsonism, etc. even though the Vatican has come out firmly against all of these.

And I guarantee that, even among traditionalist Catholics, the Paleocons are in the minority -- but gaining strength, from what I can tell. These are the people whose parents may have been Catholics, but who rightfully feel betrayed by Democratic socialism and amoralism, and who more recently feel betrayed by Republican militarism and "defend Israel at any cost"-ism. So they were perfectly willing to support Ron Paul, even thought they would have felt like the Whore of Babylon voting for a libertarian.