I do think it’s more significant than just a small faction, though. Perhaps the phrase “American Catholic leadership” or “powerful interests among American Catholics” would be better, but it’s not some small fringe group that meet in a basement. It’s much if not all of the church’s clerical leadership and exceptionally powerful people in our political and social structure.
Personally, I’d say that the latter would be preferable, as it’s the most likely correct.
Nor is it the whole community of Catholics, though.
Like the President and Speaker? 
To be clear, I think part of the problem we run into with such all-encompassing language is alienating people who we’d otherwise be politically aligned with. I grew up in a place where one half of my family was looked down on for their faith (including by my own grandmother on the other side), so I do sort of take this personally. Plus, as I’ve said in other places on other issues, I will always take issue with this sort of framing, as it’s not remotely helpful in understanding what’s actually happening with the American electorate.
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Yes, but as it happened to go it was the archdiocese seriously considering witholding rites to the Speaker of the House over her politics. So not Biden or Pelosi trying to write their beliefs into law but being strongarmed into doing so by church leadership.
And that doesn’t seem to be working.
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Anyone who lives in and/or owns a Condo deals with an HOA. I don’t hate them. I mean sure they can be run irresponsibly has this post shows, but I would say most people who deal with them don’t have an opinion b/c when they do things properly you don’t think about them at all. It’s only when something crazy comes up that people freak out.
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Not all Catholics then. Easy peasy. Not all American Catholics even but certainly some of them?
You’re right. That totally justifies painting them ALL with the same broad brush. Let’s round them up and put them in camps! /s
Please don’t put words in my mouth, k.
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Agreed, but keep in mind this will apparently (or may? I’m not aware of any cases where membership is optional for a given home) lock you out of >80% of new homes and >50% of all owned (not rented) homes.
Not sure what part of the country you live in, but I wouldn’t say that was true, for example, in Indiana.
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Oh I agree there’s definitely lots of geographic variation. And I expect it’s much higher in regions with more condos, townhouses, and/or retirement communities. But at some level, all of the people have to live in all of the homes, and if half the old homes and most of the new homes are locked into HOAs, we can’t en masse just decide not to live in them. Not without a lot of difficulty.
Also: I was living in a (non-HOA) home in MA. Sold it, and my wife and I are full-time RVing now. No risk of an HOA for us!
A quick Google search says the 80% for new homes is accurate but only 25% of all homes in the US are in HOAs.
Our daughter and husband have been shopping, none of the homes are in HOAs, there all in plain old residential neighborhoods.
In other words if you don’t want an HOA you may have to walk away from a brand new house or build a house on a lot outside of an HOA community but it’s quite easy to avoid.
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Yes, I saw that, and assumed the 25% vs 50% distinction was about what counts as a home in terms of things like rented apartments. If not, then I’m very wrong.
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The majority of real estate in the U.S. is not encumbered with HOAs. It sounds like you’ve only ever owned a newly built house in an HOA subdivision and assumed your experience was universal. It isn’t.
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Nope! With the exception of one apartment, I’ve never lived in a home less than 50 years old, and never had an HOA. I was trying to reason based on data I could find and what I’d seen from my friends around the country. I very much appreciate the new info I’ve gotten in this thread.
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I’d love to see an archdiocese try that and have the IRS slap them with a big old tax bill because their political activities violated the restrictions in tax law that churches need to follow to be tax exempt.
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The IRS won’t go after any organization registered as a church. Otherwise the a,Erica’s evangelical churches would be paying millions every year, which must actually go to a useful end.
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