Global Breaking News - Tuesday, May 14, 2024

The Pope’s Encyclical and His Power at the Polls
When he ran for president 55 years ago, John F. Kennedy had to reassure voters that he would not “accept instructions on public policy from the pope.” Liberal Catholic politicians later faced threats of excommunication for opposing the church’s position on abortion rights. Now, some conservative Catholic politicians have sidestepped the Pope Francis’s call for action on climate change, or have said he should stick to religion. But on many issues, Catholic voters don’t diverge greatly from the average voter. How much influence does the pope have on Catholic politicians and voters? Is there still a “Catholic vote”?
* encyclical = (로마 교황이 주교들에게 보내는) 회칙(回勅)/ run for president = 대통령에 출마하다/ reassure = 안심시키다/ instructions(주로 복수로) = 설명, 지시/ public policy = 공공 정책/ excommunication = (종교상의 형벌로의) 파문 (선언), 제명/ abortion right = 낙태의 권리/ sidestep = (대답, 문제 처리를) 회피하다/ stick to ~ = ~을 굳게 지키다, 방침을 고수하다/ diverge = 나뉘다, 갈리다, 분기하다

  카톨릭 정치인과 유권자에게 교황은 얼마만큼의 영향을 갖고 있으며, 카톨릭(종교/신도)표가 여전이 있나요? 

1. No Catholic Vote, But Tens of Millions of Catholic Voters
2016’s political candidates should expect to encounter Catholic voters who have been energized by Pope Francis, especially when he comes the U.S. in the fall.

2. Watch How Countercultural Catholics React
The biggest political impact will be among right-leaning, pro-life Catholics who prioritize social issues over economic or environmental ones.

3. There Is No Homogenous Latino Catholic Vote
But the pope does speak to a number of issues American Latino Catholics hold very dear, and a politician that agreed could persuade them at the polls.

4. The Pope Speaks to Every Voter’s Experience
We know what he means when he says that our world is moving faster, and this speed is degrading our common home.


Sample Essay

Countercultural Catholics May Identify With the Pope’s Words

The pope's latest encyclical, Laudato Si', will not prompt any mass realignments among Catholic voters or revolts against conservative Catholic politicians.

The Catholic label has long been less important in voting patterns than the frequency of Mass attendance. Mitt Romney won weekly Catholic churchgoers by double-digit margins in 2012, owing largely to his pro-life stance, while Barack Obama narrowly won the overall Catholic vote.

That pattern will hold, particularly on the left: Socially liberal Catholics who have spent years ignoring the church’s teaching on abortion or marriage aren’t likely to change their minds on those topics, even if this encyclical also affirms their concern for conservation.

Where Laudato Si’ may make its biggest political impact is among right-leaning, pro-life Catholics who prioritize social issues over economic or environmental ones. This crowd has paid scant attention to ecological concerns in the past because they were turned off by the misanthropic tendencies, social liberalism and sanctimonious trendiness of the modern environmental movement. To read in a papal encyclical that protection of the environment “is not an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience,” could have a significant influence on their personal behavior and political interest in the issue.

Many of these Catholics are, like Francis, profoundly countercultural. They are dissatisfied with their political choices — uncomfortable with the libertarian tendencies of the G.O.P. but unwilling to align with a Democratic Party so unyielding in its support of abortion rights. Nothing in Pope Francis’s encyclical will change their minds about their fundamental priority at the ballot box: His repeated insistence on the right to life and primacy of the human person in the natural order only affirms their pro-life commitments. But his call to show more reverence and humility in the face of God’s creation will resonate deeply with them. So will his argument that we cannot claim to care about the poor while disregarding how environmental destruction impacts them.

These Catholics — who are often young, and more countercultural than conservative — will listen to Francis, wrestle with his words, and take the entirety of his message into account. A candidate who marries concern for the poor and vulnerable at every stage of life, with growing awareness of the vulnerability of our environment, is one who would, in their view, be genuinely Catholic — and worthy of their passionate support.