The Catholic Vote

Surveys and polling by the Catholic Advocate provide powerful insight on the Catholic vote in America:

Here are the five things we know about the Catholic vote:

1. Candidates and parties should focus on the religiously active Catholic voters, not those who are only self-identified. Those Catholics who attend Mass regularly are the voters most likely to be motivated by their Catholic values and worldview. Without this distinction, the Catholic vote will not appear much different from the general electorate. When Jody Bottum, former editor of First Things, argues there is Catholic vote that’s because he ignores this basic distinction.

2. Active Catholic voters care about social issues and what appears to them the steady moral decline of our nation. This is true, regardless of the state of the economy. Candidates who want to win Catholic voters should not dismiss social issues impacting the family, raising children, and education.

3. Catholics want candidates to address social and moral issues but in a compassionate way. Catholic voters don’t respond well to a tone of angry moral indignation or denunciation.

4. Catholics are pro-military, patriotic, and they view the United States as possessing a unique historical role. Thus, Catholic voters are extremely sensitive to gestures, symbolic or otherwise, that show disrespect to our country or its military. Two reasons for this are the immigrant background of many Catholic families and the fact that Catholics have served in disproportionate numbers in the military since World War II.

5. Catholics care about the disadvantaged, such as those living in poverty, those children who receive substandard nutrition and education, or the elderly who can no longer take care of themselves.

>>>Whatever you do, vote tomorrow and as a Catholic vote with a properly formed conscience and candidates who promote pro-life!