What does it mean to be a Catholic voter in the United States?
During this election year, some politicians appear convinced that denominational loyalty is a tool of political manipulation. The mobilization of a "Catholic bloc vote" is increasingly viewed as politically necessary as political candidates strive to forge constituencies in preparation for the November election.
In John McCain's abortive attempt to seize the Republican nomination, he appealed for the "Catholic vote." George W. Bush, after his address at anti-Catholic Bob Jones University, had to explain his decision to speak there in the face of a feared Catholic backlash. House Speaker Dennis Hastert's refusal and subsequent capitulation over the appointment of the House's first Catholic chaplain clearly indicates that the Republican Party remains anxious about Catholic voters' perception of the GOP. On the Democratic front, Al Gore, intent on shoring up what has been a core constituency for his party since the mid-nineteenth century, has curried favor with Catholics.
In spite of the fact that politicians have seen Catholics as a political force either to be feared or wooed in this century, a Catholic bloc vote simply does not exist. Throughout the twentieth century, Catholics have proved far too politically and socially diverse and sophisticated to constitute a cohesive unit.
While the McCain campaign tried to mobilize an anti-Bush Catholic vote in Republican primaries, so leading Catholics in the 1930s worked to forge such a bloc against Franklin Roosevelt. The issue at hand was Roosevelt's friendly approach to Mexico within the context of the Mexican Revolution's persecution of Catholics. To Catholics in the United States, the anticlerical revolution in Mexico presented a challenge to a dearly held value in America — the right to worship freely.
One source of Catholic activism in the past two months was George W. Bush's justification for his Bob Jones University address. While Bush claimed that he did not support the school's anti-Catholic heritage, he refused to distance himself from the institution or its positions until after he had won the South Carolina primary.
Such a double standard by the Roosevelt administration lay at the foundation of Catholic activism in the 1930s. Under Roosevelt's new "Good Neighbor Policy," the United States refused to intervene in the Mexican Revolution. Many Catholics, however, observed that since the government had intervened previously on behalf of persecuted Jews in Russia, inaction in Mexico justified calls for the mobilization of a bloc vote against Roosevelt's 1936 reelection bid.
Baltimore's Cardinal James Curley assured Roosevelt that 30 million Catholic votes were his, if he supported a pro-Catholic agenda in Mexico. Unfortunately for Curley, the Catholic bloc never materialized on election day. Catholics in the United States were far more concerned with making it through the Depression than they were about international affairs.
John McCain's efforts to attract Catholic support were as well-worn as his goals. McCain's telephone canvassing in the Michigan primary used a pre-recorded "Catholic Voter Alert" to paint Bush as anti-Catholic. This recalls the 1936 presidential campaign, when leading Catholic clergymen encouraged priests to use the pulpit to apply that same paint to Roosevelt.
These tactics, then and now, have drawn criticism from within the church itself. Detroit's Cardinal Adam J. Maida censured the politicization of religion by McCain's Michigan canvass. In 1936, Chicago's Cardinal George Mundelein both condemned Curley's effort and provided support for Roosevelt when he arranged for Notre Dame University to grant the president an honorary doctorate for his dedication to religious liberty and his efforts to end the economic emergency of the Depression.
Ironically, not economic crisis but a distinct lack of economic problems is likely to prevent the formation of a Catholic bloc vote this year. Prosperity promises to lay an ax at the root of bloc mobilization as effectively as Depression did 65 years ago.
Catholic support of Roosevelt in the 1930s arose out of confidence in the president's ability to continue America's economic recovery. Catholics in 2000 are economically comfortable, and will probably not care about George Bush's gaffes and perceived lack of good judgment.
This is a lesson today's politicians might well heed. Whenever a political candidate strives to mobilize a Catholic vote — or the vote of any private interest group — it would be wise to remember that such groups have demonstrated remarkable diversity. They simply cannot be categorized into narrowly proscribed electoral categories. This must have been as clear to John McCain after the Republican primaries as it was to Archbishop Curley in November 1936.
As always, Catholics remain divided over the basic issues with which political candidates strive to manipulate them today. Forging a Catholic bloc vote didn't work in 1936, and it simply will not work in 2000.
Matthew Alan Redinger is an assistant professor of history at Montana State University-Billings, and a writer for the History News Service.
