Historically in the US mostly left leaning I would think, owing to being somewhat of an oppressed minority for most of our history and being disproportionately poor and working class(Irish, Italian, Polish). Seems being poor would make Catholics in general focus more on social justice. Being a minority tends to make a demographic more liberal while conservative beliefs they might hold tend to take a back seat, cases in point being hispanics(pro life, vote liberal) and blacks(oppose same sex marriage, overwhelmingly vote liberal).
Vatican II and the vernacular mass helped take away some of the “otherness.” Kennedy helped tremendously. I think this accelerated assimilation over the last 50 years plus rising social class has helped more WASPy conservatives of the Bill Oreilly ilk grow out of this historically lower class minority demographic.
I’m in the U.S., and I think of Catholics as leaning left, except on the abortion issue. In my experience, the political leanings of individual Catholics tend to depend on the strength of their feelings on the abortion issue. If they see abortion as one issue among many, they tend to lean left in keeping with their other views. If they consider abortion to be the most important issue, and have very strong pro-life views, they tend to lean right.
Left-leaning except (and I know this is a big exception) abortion (where in general walk = talk) and to a lesser extent contraception (where walk very much not = talk).
And I think Francis is going to be hitting the social justice stuff pretty hard, so it will likely stay that way.
See, what I was taught in Catholic grade school was that “Pro-Life” is defined as anti-abortion, anti-euthanasia, and anti-capital punishment. So, to have “very strong pro-life views” would put a Catholic on the right on the issue of abortion but would put them on the left on the issue of capital punishment.
My wife and I are Catholic and are pretty liberal. We have Catholic friends who are very conservative. Even though all call myself a liberal Catholic I don’t think myself as one. I consider myself as just Catholic.
It’s pretty interesting seeing social issues and social justice compete and are viewed differently.
I was using pro-life in the sense of “opposed to abortion rights,” but my point stands. Someone who saw abortion as the issue would lean right, someone who considered the anti-euthanasia and anti-capital punishment views to be of equal importance might lean left even if they were anti-abortion.
Not to mention Vice President Joe Biden [edit: As a Catholic Dem, not from Boston].
I took a quick look and, in the US Senate, there’s 18 Democratic Catholics and 9 Republican Catholics. I don’t think the ratio means a ton but left leaning Catholics aren’t all that rare an animal.
In my experience, I would definitely say lean right. It does depend on the parish, though. But most practicing Catholics I know tend to be socially conservative, and certainly most of the clergy and homilies I hear are very much warning of the evils of liberal pop culture and all that kind of stuff. There have been a few times I’ve been at mass where the homily just made me very uncomfortable or even angry. (I attend with my family or my wife or my wife’s family at times, although I’m one of those “ex-Catholics”)
Then again, I’ve been to more liberal parishes that don’t bring out the anti-gay marriage, evils-of-liberal-society, and thinly veiled “vote Republican” crap ceaselessly, so my impression may be skewed.
You’d think right based on social issues, but the Catholics I know are mostly left-leaning. I was raised Catholic. My parents lean slightly left, my Catholic grandparents are hardcore democrats. My impression of other Catholics in our community was in line with my parents.
My SIL is Catholic and still attends church but she is left.
Her parents attend Catholic church 2-3x more, friends with bishops and stuff, and they are right. But they are like, William F. Buckley right not Fox-right. And they are to the left side of right.
My mom was raised Catholic and was left, then raised her kids Protestant and was still left, and she is going back to Catholic church now and I don’t think it’s made her more right. I think her age and my dad’s propensity to have conservative media on in the house has made her more right.
Mostly right.
Where I grew up was a republican stronghold (still is) and where I live now most noticeable politically active Catholics are conservative Hispanic or Vietnamese immigrants/first generations.
Australian Catholics have generally been left leaning (Irish Catholic/anti-establishment forebears) but lately have been much more right-wing. Our current PM is Catholic and at one time was a seminarian. I won’t politicise this thread, since this isn’t the place for it but there’s nothing left about him at all.
I doubt if there is any particular correlation between Catholicism and general political orientation. In some particular regions of the world the Catholic community may skew to the left or the right of other members of the population, but that is probably because of other factors, such as racial or economic ones, associated with the local Catholic community, rather than Catholicism per se.
My gut reaction is to say they lean Right (and I grew up catholic).
However, when I lived in salt lake, I have to admit that the Catholics I knew were, by comparison, flaming liberals, leaning Left. This isn’t just because the Mormons, as a group, tend to be even more riggtward-leaning than catholics, but also because I was among the young catholics at the University, so they would tend to be more liberal.
