Where are the Catholic Voters?

It's time for Mass: do you know where the Catholic voters are?

This used to be an easy question. All but a few Catholics were found in pews in rock-solid Democratic parishes, part of a national political coalition that blended populist economics and working- class family values. Those days are gone.

"There's more than one Catholic vote now. All of the polls show that," said former Pennsylvania Gov. Robert Casey, a 30-year veteran of politics in a state in which 30 percent or more of the voters are Catholics. "Today you have to ask, `What kind of Catholic voters are we talking about?'"

Today, most researchers use labels such as rural, suburban, blue-collar or Hispanic when describing Catholics. But signs of another dividing line could be found buried in data gathered after 1994's political earthquake, when GOP candidates – for the first time – won a majority of Catholic votes. The best indicator of how someone voted in '94 was his or her "religiosity."

"Cultural issues were driving the nation's politics," said Casey, whose strong opposition to abortion has caused nasty clashes with other Democrats. "Average Americans seemed more concerned about the moral deficit than they were the fiscal deficit. ... My fellow Democrats may not want to talk about it, but the more voters go to church, the more likely they are to vote Republican."

Most researchers are focusing on the Religious Right. The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, for example, noted that white evangelical conservatives have become the most powerful religious force in American politics, making up 24 percent of registered voters, up from 19 percent in 1987. The number of registered Republicans in these pews rose 9 percent from 1978 to 1987 and another 7 percent between 1987 and 1995.

Populist Southern Protestants were another key piece of the old Democratic coalition. But ballot-box massacres of Southern Democrats in '94, and a string of retirements, showed that millions have switched parties or are poised to jump. The big question: What about frost-belt Catholics?

"There's much more to this than the Christian Coalition. That's too simplistic," said Casey. "The real story is an underlying restlessness out there among church-goers of all kinds. ... This is linked to the issue of moral decline and, I would say, to the (right to) life issue."

But while the 1994 elections demonstrated some Catholic restlessness, the Pew study made a crucial distinction when describing "Catholic voters." On the pivotal abortion issue, it noted that 70 percent of liberal Protestants, non-religious people and "progressive Catholics" support abortion rights, while "traditional Catholics," blacks and evangelicals are much more likely to be pro-life. Political leaders who covet the votes of America's 60 million Catholics must face this reality.

On a typical Sunday, millions of Catholics sleep late, read the newspaper, jog and enjoy the rituals that unite the unchurched. These cultural Catholics hold progressive views on both economic and moral issues. They identify themselves as Catholics, but most vote like secularists and liberal Protestants.

Millions of other Catholics go to church. They tend to be economic populists and moral conservatives. In the 1980s, many became "Reagan Democrats" and their loyalty to their old party remains strained. They are traditional Catholics and, more and more, they vote like evangelical Protestants.

Catholic voters – both kinds – still matter because millions vote in crucial "swing" states such as New Jersey, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Almost all of them reject the GOP's "economic elitism," said Casey. However, church-going Catholics have begun rejecting the "cultural elitism" of modern Democrats.

"Wags have been saying that the ideal presidential candidate right now would be a pro-life, New Deal Democrat who believes in school prayer," said Casey, whose fragile health canceled his plans to challenge Bill Clinton. "That kind of candidate would scare the Republicans, as well as many Democrats. But that candidate would be able to address the moral and economic concerns of millions of people – Catholics, evangelicals and a lot of others, too."

Is Your Pastor a 'Tame'?

They are the worker bees who cluster in ecclesiastical hives.

They are the faithful company men who thrive in the downsized world of denominational bureaucracies.

Call them what you will, but an anonymous Roman Catholic priest has written an insider's guide – a kind of "Primary Liturgical Colors" – to understanding many modern priests. According to "Father X," too many shepherds are quietly guiding their flocks toward major changes in how they live and worship.

The key word is "quietly," because he calls these priests and bishops the "tames."

"In most controversial situations tames hedge their bets by showing mild support for both sides, ... only declaring allegiance when it is clearly to their advantage to do so," writes the priest, an educator writing in The Latin Mass, a conservative quarterly. "Tames are capable of professing directly contrary opinions within a matter of hours. ... Tames are liberal in liberal dioceses and conservative in conservative ones, but are willing to sing the same song as whatever group they find themselves part of – whether it be a carload of fellow priests on the way to a beach house or a dozen older women at a communion breakfast."

The only thing the publisher would say about Father X is that he teaches in Europe and has had "quite a bit of exposure" to the American scene. The Latin Mass – based in Ridgefield, Conn. – has published a dozen or so previous anonymous articles by priests.

"I don't even tell my wife who half of these Father Xs are," said Roger McCaffrey. "In this case, it's a pretty delicate situation and I don't want to blow his cover."

• While the article focuses on Catholic priests, many of its details will apply to others. Tames are found wherever leaders stifle painful debates and promote gentle compromises. They make fine politicians and poor judges. So how does one detect a tame?
• Tames exhibit highly refined "people skills," yet, paradoxically, avoid the ties that bind, writes Father X. Why? Tames are, above all, ambitious and strong friendships "draw one apart from the crowd, and being out of the mainstream, on the margins, is something a tame cannot tolerate."
• It's impossible to discuss the priesthood without mentioning sexuality, since homosexual activists now claim that 50 percent or more of U.S. priests are gay. "Being tame is not itself a sexual orientation," stresses Father X. However, when gays and straights clash, tames dwell in an "emotional No Man's Land. This is not because tames waver between competing appetites like bisexuals, but because any definitive involvement risks isolation, and isolation terrifies them."
• Tames skillfully change their opinions and tastes to blend in. They may, for example, change clothes four or five times a day. But they are not true "chameleons, because in a sharply contrasted environment they will not adapt themselves to the majority if the minority clearly has greater power and prestige. Always and everywhere, tames will go with a winner."
• Because they are both energetic and highly flexible, tames easily slip into the ranks of diocesan management and often become bishops. In short, their single-minded emphasis on career gives them staying power. "If tames make up only 30% of a seminary entrance class, they may well compose 70% of those still working as priests 10 years after ordination," writes Father X.
• Tames may clash with loud liberals as well as traditionalists. But in an age in which orthodoxy is under cultural attack, the tame tendency to compromise usually produces incremental victories for progressives, writes Father X. When push comes to shove, tames act as if peace and quiet matter more than creeds and clarity.

"Tames have a morbid lack of curiosity about the first principles of things: metaphysics, the grounding of moral arguments, dogma," he concludes. "A tame may hold an office that obliges him to defend some moral or dogmatic principle as inviolable and he may do it competently, but always with an eye to the occasion; even defense of principle ... is itself not principled but simply a means to realize some practical good."

Rising Star on the Religious Right

SAN DIEGO – As Star Parker faced the Republican National Convention, she struggled to stay calm and focus on the tightly scripted version of her life flowing across the teleprompters.

"Thirteen years ago I was on welfare, an unwed mother doing drugs, going to the spa and collecting my welfare check," she said. "As a teen-ager when I got into trouble with the law my white guidance counselor told me it wasn't my fault. I was the victim of institutional racism. ... Sounded good to me."

Then she reached the words GOP stage managers used to describe the time when some "people of faith" told her to quit cheating. She briefly considered rebelling and editing in the dreaded phrase "born-again Christians."

"Maybe I should have done that," she said, after her brief speech. "My whole story turns on that born-again conversion experience. ... Some people love my story and they love the American dream and all that, but they want me to cut out the born- again part."

Parker's on the rise. True, she was one of the only platform speakers whose biography was missing in action at the convention press office and one official schedule called her "Star Porter." But out in the hallways, society matrons in red, white and blue swooped in to kiss her cheek. The timing was right for a young, black, female, pro-life, talk-radio populist who can belt out gospel hymns. The line to shake her hand started on the right.

"We need to be listening to real people, right now, and Star is clearly a star," said Sen. John Ashcroft of Missouri, before Parker drew waves of cheers during a GOPAC panel on welfare reform.

Parker grew up in an Air Force family, before a "joyride" with friends in New Jersey took her to Los Angeles. The arrival of a baby didn't stop her from careening through years of drugs and multiple abortions.

"I was reckless and promiscuous and I had a good time. I didn't cry about any of it," she said. "The culture told me that you were supposed to do whatever you wanted to do. I did. That's an approach to life that fits right in with welfare."

In addition to working odd jobs, she sold chunks of her government medical benefits "under the table" to round up more spending money. Finally, she tried to get a job with a company that frowned on that sort of thing.

"They said my lifestyle was unacceptable," she said, and began acting out the scene in multiple voices. "So I was rather obnoxious to them. I said, `Says who?' They said, `God.' I said, `What?' So they got out a Bible and showed me. For some reason, I listened."

A year later, she decided that welfare was a sinful crutch. So she wrote her social-worker and asked to be taken off the welfare rolls. Next, Parker found three other welfare mothers to share an apartment and child-care duties. Later, she started a magazine for single Christians, before the 1992 Los Angeles riots shut down many of her best advertisers. Then she turned to radio.

Now she's married to a priest in the Charismatic Episcopal Church and they have a second daughter. Lately, Parker's wit and fiery opinions have landed her television work, including appearances on "Oprah," ABC's "20/20," "Politically Incorrect" and GOP TV projects. The British Broadcasting Corporation called the other day, too. Things are looking up for her advocacy group, the Coalition for Urban Affairs, and she has finished an autobiography, tentatively entitled "Pimps, Whores and Welfare Brats."

Parker said she has no idea what will happen next, but she has no plans to stop speaking her mind.

"As a black, conservative, woman, there are things I can get away with saying that other people can't," she said, watching another round of convention speeches begin on a nearby television monitor. "I made some big changes in my life because I wanted to please God. It may not make people happy to hear me say that, but that's what happened. That's the truth."

'Broad Minded' Church Growth?

Visit all of the churches in an American city on the same Sunday and the experience would feel something like channel surfing on cable television.

Click. A lecture. Click. Stand-up comedy. Click. Self-esteem tips. Click. A stone vault with statues. Click. A high-tech arena. Click. Classical music. Click. Bouncy pop. Click. People in three- piece suits. Click. Folks who appear to be doing the wave.

The ratings for some of these churches are way down and their age demographics are way up. These facts are hard to avoid.

"Many times I have heard my colleagues say, as they look at the preponderance of people in their 50s, 60s and even 70s in major leadership positions in the church, `Where will my church be in 10 years?' This is a good question," wrote Father Christopher Chamberlin Moore, in a national Episcopal newsletter. "Where will the church be ... if we do not nurture future generations?"

This raises another question: Can churches make major stylistic changes without offending the faithful? Clergy fear – with good reason – that older members will stay home, or sit on their wallets, when drums appear in the sanctuary.

Perhaps the answer is "parallel development," a strategy that calls for adding the new without burying the old, said Moore, who served as communications director for the Diocese of New Jersey before moving to Holy Comforter Parish in Drexel Hill, Pa. One church might add a Mass targeting baby boomer families, another new self-help programs for its neighbors. A large church might even offer simultaneous Sunday services – formal rites in the sanctuary and another in the fellowship hall for "seekers."

These are not new ideas in church growth circles. Still, many oldline church leaders have declined to take these kinds of steps, in part because they do not want to be associated with methods used by conservatives. Moore is convinced that adopting some megachurch methods does not mean adopting their theology. For example, he noted that a recent Connecticut study found signs of growth in some "Broad Minded" as well as "Jesus Focused" parishes.

But this raises yet another question: If growing churches offer more rites and programs, why not go further and allow members to set their own theological agendas? Spiritualities 'R' Us?

In the study cited by Moore, the Rev. Peter A.R. Stebinger of Hartford Seminary said that "Jesus Focused" churches focus on traditional doctrine, while "Broad Minded" parishes assume that, beyond sharing a few core beliefs about God, members will take different stands on other issues.

"Growth in holiness is linked less to a specific doctrinal stance and more to a subjective sense of deepening connection to God," wrote Stebinger. In "Jesus Focused" churches "holiness is inextricably linked to the person of Jesus Christ. ... The Bible is the key source of authority, a marked contrast from the Broad Minded congregations, where the locus of authority is largely in the individual's experience."

Moore said he felt relieved to finally see some data about growth – even modest growth – in a circle of liberal churches.

"For so long, it seemed like we only had two choices," he said. "We could go the charismatic-fundamentalist route and see our churches grow. ... Well, that isn't a road many Episcopalians or other mainline people like us will want to take. The other choice was to take the mainline-liberal road and face numerical decline. That's not much of a choice."

Conservative churches tell people that "Jesus is the answer," said Moore. "Broad Minded" churches must find a way to be just as urgent while delivering a more nuanced message.

"Jesus is the answer, but we have to have tolerance for the many ways in which people come to grasp that and the ways in which they try to live that out," he said. "Broad Minded" churches that want to grow will "teach that there are different paths people can take to God, but the church is still where they should go to take that journey. ... If we don't get that last part of the message across, then we'll be in trouble."