The Optional Preference? American Catholic Economic Advocacy and the Culture Wars

Many thanks to Ryan Allison for research assistance with this piece.

Quoted in Kevin Clarke. “Revolt of the Bishops? Statement on the Economy Voted Down,” America: The National Catholic Review, November 13, 2012.

A. Stepan, “Religion, Democracy, and the ‘Twin Tolerations’,” Journal of Democracy 11, no. 4 (2004).

J. Casanova, “Civil Society and Religion: Retrospective Reflections on Catholicism and Prospective Reflections on Islam,” Social Research 68, no. 4 (2001).

Jeffrey Stout, Blessed Are the Organized: Grassroots Democracy in America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010); Richard L. Wood, Faith in Action: Religion, Race, and Democratic Organizing in America, Morality and Society Series (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2002).

J. Matthew Wilson, “Religion and American Public Opinion: Economic Issues,” in The Oxford Handbook of Religion and American Politics, ed. Corwin Smidt et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 191–192.

Mary T. Hanna, Catholics and American Politics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979); George Gallup and Jim Castelli, The American Catholic People: Their Beliefs, Practices, and Values, 1st ed. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1987); Andrew M. Greeley, The Catholic Myth: The Behavior and Beliefs of American Catholics (New York: Scribner, 1990).

Robert Jones et al., Do Americans Believe Capitalism & Government are Working?: Religious Left, Religious Right & the Future of the Economic Debate (Washington, DC: Public Religion Research Institute and Brookings Institution, 2013).

“Minimum Wage: Would You Like a Raise with that?” Public Religion Research Institute, Accessed December 5, 2013, http://publicreligion.org/research/graphic-of-the-week/minimum-wage/.

Wilson, “Religion and American Public Opinion,” 202.

Robert Wuthnow, The Restructuring of American Religion: Society and Faith since World War Ii, Studies in Church and State (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988).

Campbell, David E., John C. Green, and Geoffrey C. Layman. 2013. “The Politics of Irreligion: the Political Causes of Growing Secularism in America.” Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago. Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell, American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us, 1st Simon & Schuster hardcover ed. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011).

John T. McGreevy, Catholicism and American Freedom: A History, 1st ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 2003).

David Yamane, The Catholic Church in State Politics: Negotiating Prophetic Demands and Political Realities (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2005).

E. J. Dionne, Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics after the Religious Right (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), 56.

Stepan, “Religion, Democracy, and the ‘Twin Tolerations’.”

José Casanova, Public Religions in the Modern World (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 73.

George Weigel, “The End of the Bernardin Era,” First Things, February 2011.

David Gibson, The Coming Catholic Church: How the Faithful Are Shaping a New American Catholicism, 1st ed. (San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 2003), 273–285.

John Paul II, Apostolos Suos: On the Theological and Juridical Nature of Episcopal Conferences, May 21, 1998.

Gibson, The Coming Catholic Church, 281.

For extended discussion of changes within the American hierarchy in the past quarter century, see Gibson, The Coming Catholic Church, 273–292.

For particular bishops tied to social justice advocacy who never advanced to the highest levels of the American hierarchy, see Richard McBrien, “Auxiliary bishops frozen in place,” National Catholic Reporter, August 2, 1010.

For the authoritative treatment of the bishop selection process, see Thomas Reese, Archbishop: Inside the Power Structure of the American Catholic Church (San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row, 1989).

Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan, “The Bishops in Council,” First Things, April 2005.

Gerard O’Connel, “Can the Catholic Church in the USA be a ‘Church of the Poor?’” La Stampa Vatican Insider, http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/the-vatican/detail/articolo/church-chiesa-iglesia-mcelroy-28939/ (accessed December 13, 2013).

On staffing shifts in the USCCB, see Bryan Cones, “Good-bye John Carr. Good-bye social justice at USCCB?” US Catholic, http://www.uscatholic.org/blog/2012/06/good-bye-john-carr-good-bye-social-justice-usccb (accessed December 8, 2013). On Carr’s retirement and his replacement, see Michael Sean Winters, “The Reyes Appointment,” National Catholic Reporter, http://ncronline.org/blogs/distinctly-catholic/reyes-appointment (accessed December 8, 2013).

John Gehring, “CCHD: Putting the Gospel into Practice,” America: The National Catholic Review, November 20, 2013.

Archbishop Jerome Listecki, “Statement Regarding the Rights of Workers and the Value of Unions,” February 16, 2011, http://www.archmil.org/News/StatementRegardingtheRightsofW.htm (accessed December 8, 2013).

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, “Homily for the Mass for the Election of the Roman Pontiff,” April 18, 2005, http://www.vatican.va/gpII/documents/homily-pro-eligendo-pontifice_20050418_en.html (accessed December 8, 2013).

Pope Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate, June 29, 2009.

Ibid., 28.

Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, “Towards Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of Global Public Authority,” October 24, 2011.

“Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” US Conference of Catholic Bishops,http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/faithful-citizenship/ (accessed December 8, 2013).

Bishop Stephen Blaire, “Federal Budget Reconciliation Letter to the House,” US Conference of Catholic Bishops, http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/human-life-and-dignity/federal-budget/upload/reconciliation-letter-to-house-2012-05-08.pdf (accessed December 8, 2013).

Bishop Robert Morlino, “Subsidiarity, Solidarity, and the Lay Mission,” Madison Catholic Herald, August 16, 2012.

Archbishop Samuel Aquila, “In defense of Christian responsibility,” Catholic News Agency, August 20, 2012.

“Bishop Criticizes USCCB Committee’s Reaction to Ryan Budget,” Catholic World News, June 14, 2012.

Richard Wood et al., “Getting Organized: Catholics and Community Activism,” Commonweal, November 15, 2013.

Michael D. Schaffer, “Bishops are Disputed by Catholic lay group,” Philadelphia Inquirer, November 5, 1986.

“The Catholicity of Paul Ryan’s Budget,” Catholic Advocate, http://www.catholicadvocate.com/2011/05/the-catholicity-of-paul-ryan%E2%80%99s-budget/ (accessed December 8, 2013). Patrick Archbold, “The Bishops were wrong on the Ryan budget,” Crisis Magazine, August 14, 2012.

“Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience,” http://manhattandeclaration.org/man_dec_resources/Manhattan_Declaration_full_text.pdf (accessed December 8, 2013).

“CCHD 2010–2011,” Reform CCHD Now, http://reformcchdnow.com/ (accessed December 8, 2013).

“Be Not Afraid: Guilt by Association, Catholic McCarthyism and Growing Threats to the US Bishops Anti-Poverty Mission,” Faith in Public Life, June 2013.

Richard Wood et al., “Getting Organized.”

Data documenting Catholic approval of religious leaders speaking out on political topics comes from the Pew Research Group’s studies of religion-state relations conducted since 2001. Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, “Pew Research Center Poll: March 2012 Political Survey,” Princeton Survey Research Associates International, March 7–11, 2012. Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, “PSRA/Pew Poll 03:2001 Religion and Public Life Survey,” Princeton Survey Research Associates, March 23–25, 2001.

The survey experiment draws on original data collected in conjunction with Anzalone, Lizst Grove Research. The experiment’s sample is representative of white Catholics in several 2012 battleground states where budget debates featured heavily in public debates: Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Regrettably, the Pew data from 2001 does not contain any information on abortion opinion, which makes it impossible to trace change within these catholic subgroups over time. The 2012 survey does not include the “standard” four category question on abortion attitudes, but does contain a question asking “Which party could do a better job of representing your views on abortion.”

David T. Buckley and John Clifford Green, “God′s Economy?: Effects of Progressive Religious Messaging on White Evangelical, Which Catholic and Unaffiliated Voters,” in American Political Science Association (New Orleans, LA, 2012).

Bishop Robert W. McElroy, “A Church for the Poor,” America, October 21, 2013.

David Gibson, “Catholic Bishops’ New President can Help Hierarchy Pivot Toward Pope Francis,” Religion News Service, November 13, 2013.

Patrick Deneen, “Would Someone Just Shut that Pope up?,” The American Conservative, December 5, 2013.

Samuel Gregg, “Pope Francis and Poverty,” National Review Online, http://m.nationalreview.com/corner/365004/pope-francis-and-poverty-samuel-gregg (accessed December 8, 2013).

Pew Research Religion and Public Life Project, “US Catholics Express Favorable View of Pope Francis,” Pew Research Group, April 3, 2013.

“Fact Sheet: American Catholics in 2013,” Public Religion Research Institute, http://publicreligion.org/research/2013/02/fact-sheet-american-catholics-in-2013/ (accessed December 8, 2013).