National Review Has No Idea What American Catholics Believe, Comments Nonetheless
By Jesse Singal - Aug 19th, 2008 at 12:43 pmNational Review Online has a really, really poorly thought-out article on Catholics and abortion written by Carl A. Anderson, the head of the Knights of Columbus. The “Catholic vote” has decided the winner of the last nine presidential contests and has influenced countless other races, writes Anderson, so Catholics can and should use their influence to only vote for politicians who are against abortion.
It takes Anderson forever to get to his point, but here it is:
It’s time Catholics stop accommodating pro-abortion-rights politicians and it’s time to start demanding that they accommodate us. This is the only decision that offers the real chance for real change, because no candidate or political party can withstand the loss of millions of Catholic voters in this — or any other — election. In this election, if a Catholic cannot vote for the pro-life candidate, then not voting for that office may be the sincerest expression of faithful citizenship.
This year, Catholic voters have the power to transform politics. As faithful citizens, Catholics can build a new politics — a politics that is not satisfied with the status quo, but one that is dedicated to building up a culture of life. If they stand together and demand better from politicians, Catholics can transform politics, and that would be real change. [emphasis his]
Right. Except none of this actually applies, because American Catholics are famously recalcitrant when it comes to accepting the strictures of the Church’s higher-ups, particularly with regard to abortion.
From a 2005 survey in which the National Catholic Reporter asked American Catholics about abortion and the death penalty:
There is a distinct gap between church teachings and American Catholics’ views on these important issues. The percentage of Catholics saying that one can be a good Catholic without agreeing with the church on abortion has risen from only 39 percent in 1987 (the year of our first survey) to 58 percent in 2005. There also are striking generational differences among our 2005 respondents. Only 44 percent of pre-Vatican II Catholics say you can be a good Catholic without agreeing with the church’s opposition to abortion. That figure rises to 56 percent among Vatican II Catholics, 59 percent among post-Vatican II Catholics, and 89 percent among Millennials. Clearly, Catholics do not feel as bound by the church’s pro-life stance on abortion as they once did.
So, given that at least 58 percent of American Catholics think they can be good Catholics without being anti-choice (the number is probably higher by now), Anderson’s point is remarkably ill-conceived. Only about four in ten American Catholics think it’s necessary for them to agree with the Church’s teachings on abortion–is that a strong foundation for a nationwide, single-issue Catholic movement? What about the majority?
It’s clear that Anderson is quite out of touch (he’s the head of a major Catholic organization–shouldn’t he have his finger on the pulse of what Catholics actually believe?), and he actually gives away this fact much earlier in the piece, when he quotes a statement put out by the bishops of the United States to back up his assertion that abortion should be a top issue. But American Catholics don’t get their beliefs from bishops; in general, the moral and political beliefs of non-fundamentalist religious groups don’t tend to come from the groups’ elites (see: American Jews, Israel).
I know we’re talking about National Review here, a publication that has a vested interest in constructing from scratch the myth of a vast, anti-choice majority that will dictate numerous elections this fall, but a few very simple Google searches completely demolished the foundation of Anderson’s argument. Shouldn’t a major magazines have higher standards?
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