David Carlin - Can a Catholic Be a Democrat?

Can a Catholic Be a Democrat?

How the Party I Loved Became the Enemy of My Religion

David R. Carlin

SOPHIA INSTITUTE PRESS
Manchester, New Hampshire

Copyright 2006 David R. Carlin

Printed in the United States of America

All rights reserved

Cover design by Theodore Schluenderfritz

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Carlin, David (David R.)
Can a Catholic be a Democrat? : how the Party I loved became the enemy of my religion / David R. Carlin.
p. cm.Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-13: 978-1-933184-19-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Christianity and politics Catholic Church. 2. Christianity and politics United States. 3. Democratic Party (U.S.) I. Title.BX1793.C32 2006
324.2736 dc22200601907506 07 08 09 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Also from Sophia Institute Press by David R. Carlin:

The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in America

This book is dedicated to:

David R. Carlin, Sr. (1909-1980)
Marion McGetrick Carlin (1911-1989)
Maureen Carlin Fitzgerald (1945-2003)

Publishers Note

A few months ago, I mentioned to a conservative Catholic friend that we planned to entitle this book Can a Catholic Be a Democrat?

My friend shot back, Can a Catholic be a Republican?

Thats a fair question, but its the subject of a different book. For our purpose here is not to endorse particular candidates, affect elections, or even support a particular party. (Like most Catholics today, we dont agree completely with any of them and we dont even agree with all of our authors political assumptions.)

Our effort transcends prudential judgments about war and peace, wealth and taxes, and the persons vying for office today; its deeper than any particular issue, contest, or political philosophy.

In a word, in publishing this book our purpose is Catholic. We hope by means of it to help Catholics see clearly the political choices they face, so that they can prudently work for policies consistent with the fundamental truths of the Catholic Faith.

As this book goes to press, we hear reports of shifts in the electorate. Stalwart conservatives and even many Republican moderates have begun to question their allegiance to the GOP; lifelong Democrats find it ever harder to vote Democratic. Catholics in both parties have wandering eyes and are open to being courted by political parties they might never have supported before.

To help them choose, and to help the parties themselves understand Catholics better and win their votes, author David Carlin here shows what it means to be Catholic in the public square. He explains the fundamental policies that Catholics must support and identifies ones that Catholics will never abide.

His arguments might not lead you to a more Catholic party, but they will help you make your party less hostile to the beliefs of Catholics.

And whether youre Catholic or not if you seek to win elections, you need to do just that. For in many elections, Catholics are the swing voters who determine the outcome.

The party that hears Carlins voice today will win elections tomorrow.

Acknowledgments

In writing this book I have been aided by many people. First of all, thanks to Todd Aglialoro, my remarkably talented editor at Sophia Institute Press, who worked on both this book and my previous book (The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in America) . Thanks to Professor John Quinn of Salve Regina University, who read an earlier draft of this book and supplied many helpful comments. Thanks to former Rhode Island state Representative Spencer Dickinson, who also read an earlier draft and was the first to suggest an autobiographical framework. Thanks to the late Bill Kinnaman, a teaching colleague of mine who was both a professor of philosophy and an Evangelical minister. A month or two before his death Bill made a number of helpful comments on my Liberal Christianity appendix. And thanks above all to the woman who was my earliest political partner and has been the great love of my life: my wife, Maureen.

Preface

We love our friends, but we love the truth more.

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

This book is a complaint from a disappointed lover. Its possible to love institutions as well as persons, and I once loved the Democratic Party the party of Franklin Roosevelt and his New Deal liberals, the party that once upon a time did wonderful things for blue-collar Americans like my parents, the party that helped immigrant Catholics and their children (my parents again) become real Americans. Later on Ill tell the story of my love affair with the party and my gradual disillusionment, but for now let me simply record the fact that Im writing with the political equivalent of a broken heart.

I havent taken up with another party; that is to say, I havent become a Republican. In fact, I havent yet left the Democratic house: Im still a registered Democratic voter, I always vote in Democratic primaries here in Rhode Island, and I continue to participate actively in Democratic politics at the local level. But at the national level, and to a limited extent even at the state level, I find less and less to love in my party as it is today, and sometimes I have no choice but to vote for Republican candidates for high office. I think, or at least I hope, that someday the Democratic Party will once again become a loveable thing. But it takes a long, long time for a political party to change its orientation, and since Im now in my late sixties, I doubt that the change I look for will take place in my lifetime. I expect to die a Democrat, albeit a very unhappy one.

The reasons for my unhappiness and not just mine but the unhappiness of millions I will explain in detail in the following pages. But a short way of putting the thing is to say that in the great Culture War currently going on between old-fashioned Christians and anti-Christian secularists, over issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage, euthanasia, and the role of religion in society, my Democratic Party has opted to side with the secularists.

I write this book as a Catholic who fears for the future of Christianity in America, but also as a Democrat who fears for the future of the Democratic Party. Already it has experienced a great decline, a decline that first became clear in the election of 1980, when Ronald Reagan, with great help from religious conservatives (many of them Democrats), won the White House and the Republicans gained control of the U.S. Senate.

True, since that time the Democrats have experienced episodes of prosperity, Bill Clintons presidency being the most notable, but the long-term trend is clear. The Democrats used to be Americas number-one party; theyre now the number-two party; and if they continue to alienate religious and moral-conservative voters, theyre likely to remain number two for a long time to come.

As the Civil War approached, the Democrats took the wrong position on slavery, and they found themselves, except for a few brief episodes of prosperity, Americas minority party from the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 until the election of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932. At the time of the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Republicans took the wrong position on the social and economic welfare responsibilities of the federal government, and they remained Americas number-two party until the coming of Reagan and Newt Gingrich in the 1980s and 90s. Today the Democrats are taking the wrong position on morality and religion, which may doom them to remain Americas minority party until well into the twenty-first century.

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