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If they do, like the Catholics in Poland, US Catholics will have saved their Republic

Will Catholics Save the Republic?



Writing in the American Thinker, Jim Yardley claims, "Taking on the Catholic Church over contraception mandates in his health care bill has to be one of the biggest "oops" moments in the District of Columbia."
Perhaps Yardley is right about the mistake, but will this mistake cost Obama the election? Will the war on Catholics mean that many more Catholics will vote Republican in 2012 than they did in 2008? According to Slena Zito in TribLiveNews, "’Catholic voters are a critical and crucial part of winning the election,’ said Burns Strider, a Washington-based strategist the Democrats brought on to hold Catholic and evangelical voters after the 2004 election. Then, he said, 'We were adrift...in our mooring with a lot of our traditional constituencies.'"

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In spite of the Democrats being adrift, Phil Lawyers asks the more important question that needs to be asked of all Catholics nation wide, "...why have Catholic voters remained doggedly loyal to a party that has come, in the early 21st century, to be wholly allied with the 'culture of death' on issues such as abortion, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, and embryonic stem-cell research?" As of July 29, the RealClearPolitics.com poll shows us that the National President Gallup Tracking has Obama (D) at 46 and Romney (R) at 46. The race is so far a tie. The National President Rasmussen Tracking Poll has Obama (D) at 45, and Romney (R) at 47. In that poll Romney is up +2.0. Let's look at the role Catholics could play in the bluest of the blue states: New York, Illinois and California. According to RealClearPolitics.com, Obama is ahead by a wide margin in all of these states with significant Catholic voters. (New York: RCP Average, Obama 58.3, Romney, 32.8, Obama up +25.5), (Illinois: Chicago Tribune, Obama 56, Romney 35, Obama up by +21), (California: RCP Average, Obama 54.5, Romney 37.3, Obama up by +17.2). Catholic voters in these three states make up a large part of the voters. In New York (37.1%), in Illinois (30.1%), and to move from percentages to raw numbers, California has the highest number of Catholics (10,463,330). Some political analysts believe that voters are Democrats first and Catholics second. The vote for Obama in the last election seems to bear that out. Likewise, Democrat voters and politicians who claim to be Catholic are the best example we have in the United States of political schizophrenics. How could a politician with the most drastic views on abortion gain the support of a majority of Catholics if these voters did not let their faith take second place to their politics? It would be interesting to know what goes on in private when Catholic officials and Democrat politicians confer. Right now, the contradictions between being a Catholic and a Democrat couldn’t be more public. Cardinal Francis George of Chicago once said, "I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square." Maybe this scenario doesn't have to happen. Maybe both cardinals and laymen can peacefully die in their beds as good Catholics. If the Catholic Church hierarchy in Chicago and elsewhere actually told its Democrat parishioners and local politicians that the political party they belong to is a structure of sin, and they have to choose either being a Catholic or a Democrat, then the vote in November may be very different from the 20 point lead Obama now has in Illinois. It would be quite an accomplishment if the Catholic hierarchy in Chicago and elsewhere could turn the tide and help elect a Republican President. Will Catholics in New York, Illinois and California vote for a Republican over a Marxist? If they do, like the Catholics in Poland, US Catholics will have saved their Republic."


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Robert Klein Engler -- Bio and Archives

Robert Klein Engler lives in Omaha, Nebraska and sometimes New Orleans. Mr. Engler holds degrees from the University of Illinois in Urbana and The University of Chicago Divinity School. Many of Robert’s poems, stories, and paintings are set in the Crescent City. His long poem, “The Accomplishment of Metaphor and the Necessity of Suffering,” set partially in New Orleans, is published by Headwaters Press, Medusa, New York, 2004. He has received an Illinois Arts Council award for his “Three Poems for Kabbalah.” Link with him at Facebook.com to see examples of his recent work. Some of Mr. Engler’s books are available at amazon.com..


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