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Eh, yes and no.
Catholic doctrine is largely in line with Republican ideology when it comes to abortion and reproductive rights (or lack thereof), but they are diametrically opposed on a lot of other key issues like immigration and the death penalty.
Republicans certainly didn’t make any effort to hide their disgust of Pope Francis when he called for Christians to “build bridges, not walls” in response to Trump’s immigration proposals.
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The evangelicals have decided that they’re happy to receive the support of these other groups (it’s just not going to be reciprocated).
There’s also quite a gap between conservative Catholics and the social justice wing of the faith… which makes sense since it’s as much a culture as a religion. (But yeah, that history means people who might get pulled over into the Republican camp because of the abortion issue alone, often aren’t.)
Though I am specifically speaking of conservative Catholics, where they’re closer to the evangelicals than left wing Catholics in a lot of ways.
It was weird to see (conservative) Catholics attacking the Pope…
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I think it really comes down to “poor catholics” vote democrat, “wealthy catholics” vote republican at least in my experiences growing up and going to parochial school.
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Yup. Economics.
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I think it’s more a matter of “conservative Catholics vote really conservative” and “liberal Catholics vote really liberal” and “regardless of religion or denomination, people who are up in arms about abortion vote accordingly.”
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I really don’t care. Do you?
Compared to Catholics in other countries, American ones seem to be more conservative across the board. But the wealthy ones are definitely more conservative, and a small cadre of them have (perhaps inspired by Jesuit teachers) have become the intellectual shock troops trying to twist the American legal system toward extreme right-wing positiond.
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And that’s true of other religious demographics, too, I’d think (except maybe, I don’t, like Quakers and the Black church?).
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Yeah… it seems to me that the MAGA idea here is to create a state religion that is a sort of a Pan-Christian White Nationalist Tribal thing that can be used to make the population reflect the whims of whomever holds state power.
My family has had Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox members in it. From my limited observation, these worldviews are barely compatible and require a lot of effort to bridge the social and cultural differences. People who openly pine for a Theocracy terrify me.
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Yeah, but they will certainly turn on those who refuse to support the new faith. And of course, a driving force within this movement already have a coherent version of protestant Christianity that they seek to impose on all of us. Some who’ve supported them will be surprised at how they’re not going to be accepted by the new religious overlords if they manage to get power (the people Johnson are aligned with).
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I just don’t understand people who are like “I’m ok with a totalitarian dictatorship as long as it’s cool ranch flavored” about the whole thing.
I’ve met so many people with that attitude. Almost none of them are actually from families that would be accepted in the worldview they’ve been voting for. But…It’s like, “well it says Christian on it so it’s good!”
Just because a fascist dictatorship calls itself Christian doesn’t mean it actually has your best interests at heart!
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Me neither, but some people would much rather those they fear be eliminated or hurt rather than live in freedom. It’s a fucked up worldview, but it’s one that some people do have… 
It’s maddening.
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The fact that Christians can overcome all these seemingly insurmountable differences, but only in order to band together through sadism, hate, entitlement, self-victimization, and the constant hunt for common enemies over whom they need absolute bodily control from cradle to grave in order to feel secure in their existence… that hasn’t really sold it to me as a great method of leadership.
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Yeah, the history is not great. (The text is tiny, but it’s the “Gott mit uns” motto. Bad vibes all around.)
ETA: Also, in keeping with my frequently cited “got a song for everything” rep.
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Compared to Catholics in other countries, American ones seem to be more conservative across the board
Unfortunately could just be:
Compared to people in other countries, Americans seem to be more conservative across the board
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A lot of those “Catholics” think the Pope and Jesus Christ are too “woke”.
They don’t have a camel’s chance in a needle’s eye of getting into Heaven; they have a blue whale’s chance!
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It really feels like Christians overtly rejecting the teachings of Jesus as “woke nonsense” is a real turning point for conservative Christianity. Previously they gave lip service - or at least quietly ignored - the bits they didn’t like (while doing the opposite, causing some cognitive dissonance).
Now we have this combination of things going on that’s not really new, but is so much more extreme that it’s created a new dynamic. Ignorance of their own faith isn’t new - most rely on clergy to interpret the texts, and clergy always presented a culturally-tailored version of the faith, with generations of Americans part of a pro-bigotry, pro-capitalism faith - but now about half of even evangelicals don’t go to church. There’s not even the chance of accidentally being exposed to some aspect of the religion that doesn’t neatly align with their culture, with what they want to believe. Then we have the increasingly hyper-partisan echo chamber that conservative culture has become. It reflexively vilifies “outside” positions, but that now includes a lot of things they didn’t realize were part of their own (ostensible) faith. Conservative American Christianity increasingly doesn’t even have the cognitive dissonance anymore because they’re getting rid of the bits that conflict with how they want to behave (which is pretty awful).
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