The poll, conducted September 12-19, shows Biden continues to face challenges in garnering support among Catholic voters in the run-up to Election Day on November 8. In particular, the poll indicates waning support for the president among Hispanic Catholic voters, traditionally a strong source of support for the Democratic Party.

Among other highlights of the poll, Catholic voters rank inflation and the economy as the most critical issues facing the country. Most say they are very concerned about the state of education, especially after the lockdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

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I didn't want that kind of bias to seep into a column I like to think strives in most part to be relatively objective analysis.

The second reason I didn't write about so important a subject as a presidential election, however, was far more complex, far more frustrating than the first: This election, it seemed to me, was a tiger that was impossible to ride.

Chaos, name-calling, dark accusations and groundless exaggerations claimed the day. What else was there to say about it that would do more than add to the rising tide of frustration and rage? Data, plans, platform and decency had all left the field.

Instead, this election was about decency. But indecency was its very essence.

Its language was indecent. The American public heard not a word about the substance that lay behind the untested promises. In fact, the few times policies became part of the conversation, pundits apologized for the distraction and made sarcastic references to substance, called it "wonky," in fact. (Cue laugh or sneer.)

So now we have a new president but little or no specific awareness of exactly how this president intends to do what she or he said they'll do. No idea whether such things are really doable or not. Very little assurance that what was promised can actually be delivered. Or, indeed, should be delivered.

Its media was indecent. Unlike elections past, no popular news programs sponsored a series of tutorials designed to explain to the American people exactly what was implied by such a series of vague promises. Continue reading

• Benedictine Sr. Joan Chittister is a frequent NCR contributor.

In an essay published by the National Review said Trump is "manifestly unfit to be president of the United States."

The essay, "An Appeal to Our Fellow Catholics," was co-written by Princeton professor Robert P. George and St. John Paul II biographer George Weigel.

The call has been supported by about three dozen lay Catholics, many of whom are active in conservative academic and nonprofit circles.

The group called on Catholics "to reject [Trump's] candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination by supporting a genuinely reformist candidate."

The article criticized Trump's "appeals to racial and ethnic fears and prejudice" that are "offensive to any genuinely Catholic sensibility" and his promise to kill the families of terrorism suspects.

"There is nothing in his campaign or his previous record that gives us ground for confidence that he genuinely shares our commitments to the right to life, to religious freedom and the rights of conscience, to rebuilding the marriage culture, or to subsidiarity and the principle of limited constitutional government," read the article.

After a visit to the US-Mexico border last month, Pope Francis said politicians who advocate building border walls aren't Christian. Trump then lashed out at the pope, saying it was offensive for the pontiff to question anyone's religious beliefs.

Several US bishops have condemned Trump's rhetoric on immigration, suggesting the candidate is engaging in modern-day nativism, resurrecting the kind of bigotry once directed at Catholics.

Sources

• National Review
• Christian Today
• The Washington Times
• Breitbart.Com
• Crux
• Image: AP/The Washington Times

"As a practicing Catholic like many of you, I was raised in a household where there was absolutely no distinction between the values my mom and dad drilled into us and what I learned from the nuns and priests who educated me," Biden explains as the camera focuses on a crucifix and a Bible. "We call it Catholic social doctrine: 'Whatever you do to the least of these, you do for me.'"

Biden explains that Obama fulfills that doctrine through his health care bill and by "lifting the cloud of deportation" off of the children of illegal immigrants.

Source: Washington Examiner

"We're Catholics before we're Democrats. We're Catholics before we're Republicans. We're even Catholics before we're Americans because we know that God has a demand on us prior to any government demand on us," Chaput was quoted as saying.

"And this has been the story of the martyrs through the centuries," he added.

He said Church teaching against abortion "requires absolute adherence" on the part of Catholic voters, who must "stand united" in opposition to the practice regardless of party affiliation.

"(Abortion) really is a big issue today, and I think what it requires of Catholics is a loyalty to the church prior to their political party," Chaput told Catholic News Service Oct. 20 in Rome.

"If we don't stand united on this issue, we're bound to failure, not only in the area of protecting unborn human life but in maintaining our religious freedom," he said.

Archbishop Chaput echoed the calls of other American bishops to have their flocks consider their faith in the voting booth.

"We do believe in the separation of church and state, but we don't believe in the separation of faith from our political life," he said.

"It's very important for Catholics to make distinctions when voting that they never support intrinsic evils like abortion, which is evil in all circumstances. That's a lot different from different economic policies" that people can reasonably disagree on, the archbishop said in another interview with the Catholic News Agency.

His remarks come as an Oct. 22 Gallup poll shows the "economy in general" is the issue rated most important by Americans as the election nears.

"But people who are practicing Catholics cannot have alternate views on abortion," he said. "Such foundational issues have a huge impact and it's important that Catholics make those distinctions."

Sources

• Catholic News Service
• Catholic News Agency
• The Washington Post
• Image: Catholic Vote

For years, of course, American leadership has been dominated by white Anglo-Saxon protestants. According to the Times' chart, there was not a non-Protestant or non-white Speaker of the House until 1961. The Supreme Court was dominated by white Protestants until 1994, when for the first time five of the nine justices were non-Protestant or non-white. And while there have been candidates from various backgrounds (namely Catholic) for president and vice president for decades, the number of non-whites or non-Protestants who've actually held those two jobs are still very few: Charles Curtis, Herbert Hoover's vice president, was part Native American; John F. Kennedy was Catholic; Vice President Joe Biden is Catholic; and Barack Obama is African American. (Notably, this is the first year since 1964 that there has been a non-white or non-Protestant on the Republican party ticket.)

Some of these numbers, of course, are simply reflective of politics. George W. Bush, for instance, named three Supreme Court justices, all conservative Catholics, to their post. But surely, some of it is also a sign of progress that we as a country are more accepting of other faiths and other ethnicities. For the first time in history, none of the men at the top of either ticket, Democratic or Republican, are both white and Protestant. Read more

Sources

• Washington Post
• Image: MPRNews