Fundamentalist Protestant/Traditionalist Catholic Alliance?

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Master_Pedant
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22 Feb 2012, 12:36 am

Newt Gingrich, a Catholic convert, is doing well in the Southern United States. Catholic Rick Santorum has done quite well with Iowan evangelicals. Is this evidence that the traditional divide between Protestant Fundamentalists and Traditionalists Catholics has eroded as both are striking up a political alliance against the common enemy of ascendant modernists, cultural reformers and social progressives?


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91
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22 Feb 2012, 12:51 am

Catholics are traditionally swing voters. They voted for Obama in droves at the last election. It is probably a bit early to declare a new alliance.


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22 Feb 2012, 1:02 am

91 wrote:
Catholics are traditionally swing voters. They voted for Obama in droves at the last election. It is probably a bit early to declare a new alliance.


Did you bother to read the title? If not, then....

Fundamentalist Protestant/Traditionalist Catholic Alliance?

Most Catholic laity are not traditionalist Catholics - the small minority of Catholics who agree with the out of touch Church hierarchy. Regardless, doing some brief Google searches, I've discovered that I'm not the only person to note the alliance.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/politi ... 035518.php

Quote:
As a Roman Catholic, of course, Rick Santorum doesn’t follow a theology that is based strictly on the Bible, either, but on centuries of (selectively applied) Church teachings that happen to coincide with those of conservative evangelical Protestants. Catholic “traditionalists” are engaged in their own parallel war with “liberal Catholics” whom they accuse of “betraying” their Church by supporting legalized contraception and/or abortion or same-sex marriage or the ordination of women.

The political alliance of Protestant fundamentalists and Catholic “traditionalists” has become a familiar part of the landscape in this country, odd as it may seem to old-timers who remember the conservative Protestant hostility to JFK’s presidential candidacy on grounds that no Catholic could conscientiously support strict separation of church and state (a position conservative evangelicals have themselves now emphatically abandoned.) But it’s important to understand that all the thundering about “secularism” we hear from the religio-political Right these days represents in no small part an intra-Christian civil war by conservatives on those in every faith tradition who do not accept their elevation of “traditional” cultural values to the level of religious absolutes.


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22 Feb 2012, 1:48 am

Master_Pedant wrote:
Traditionalist Catholic


If the distinction is so important, then please elaborate on your definition here.

For myself, the Catholics used to support democrats in droves, because evangelicals did not really like them all that much. What has changed is that evangelicals now see Catholics in a less negative light. As a result, the doors are now open to Catholics in both parties. I see no real reason to regard this a negative thing, unless of course you think a Catholic is not entitled to have a political voice as a Catholic. If that is the case, then by all means give back all those Catholic votes that sustain so many progressive governments.


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22 Feb 2012, 2:24 am

I don't think it's so much an alliance, it's just that they, first off, I don't know if Santorum's traditional Catholic-ness is terribly well known really, among average folks. But, being Catholic is better than being Mormon to Fundamentalists. In some ways, they're much more willing to write off his Catholicism as a "North Dakota/South Dakota" kinda thing, especially as his views besides views on Catholic specific issues that'd never be political (ie, Mariology or something) are the exact same as Fundies. That, and Catholics aren't as weird as Mormons, everyone pretty much has Catholics in their family somewhere, so even if you disagree, you might just go "oh, well, they're not so bad."

But, I don't think religiously, it's really an alliance, it's just something that people are willing to overlook for what they see as the common good.



Master_Pedant
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22 Feb 2012, 2:29 am

91 wrote:
Master_Pedant wrote:
Traditionalist Catholic


If the distinction is so important, then please elaborate on your definition here.


"Traditionalist Catholics" are Catholics with socially conservative views on sexual and social matters, generally more in line with the Catholic Hierarchy on said issues than the average lay Catholics. They're also more in line with the Catholic Hierarchy on issues of internal Church reform - such as the Ordination of women. The term is also sometimes used to indicate those who want to return to pre-Second Vatican Council mass, but not in the sense used in the OP or the cited article.


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Master_Pedant
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22 Feb 2012, 2:43 am

Quote:
TRADITIONAL AND LIBERAL CATHOLIC MOVEMENT ORGANIZATIONS

While Wuthnow did not necessarily highlight them (and the subsequent focus on
evangelical groups has largely ignored them), there exist a number of movement groups
that are distinctively Catholic. In fact, several scholars of religion have recently
highlighted liberal and traditional Catholic movement organizations in exploring
contemporary divisions among Catholics (D’Antonio and Pogorelc 2007, Dillon 1999,
5
Weaver 1999, Weaver and Appleby 1995). According to Weaver and Appleby (1995),
many organizations within the Catholic community (e.g., Catholics United for the Faith,
Women for Faith and Family, Fellowship of Catholic Scholars, etc.) support and expound
a traditionalist perspective, though movement members may dislike added labels such as
“traditional” and may assert themselves to be just plain Catholics. In making this claim,
members of such groups often emphasize that those who dissent and disagree with the
Church are “not really Catholic.” Thus, doctrinal orthodoxy and submission to Church
authority are of central importance to these groups. Regardless, members of these groups
often find it necessary to distinguish themselves from Catholics who hold dissenting
views, and most prefer to be called traditional or orthodox Catholics as opposed to
fundamentalist or conservative (Weaver and Appleby 1995, p. x).

There are also numerous movement groups (e.g., Call to Action, Dignity/USA,
Catholics For a Free Choice, etc.) that support a liberal Catholic viewpoint (Dillon 1999,
Weaver 1999). Again, there is sometimes disagreement among their members over the
appropriate moniker to use, with some calling themselves progressive or leftist, rather
than liberal (Weaver, 1999). Even so, among these movement groups there is a strong
desire for the Church to change and relate more positively to the modern world, along
with repeated references to the importance of personal conscience, as opposed to Church
authority, in making moral decisions (Dillon 1999). These basic orientations are
accompanied by a general discourse of egalitarianism/inclusiveness and the subsequent
highlighting of particular “problems” within the Church (e.g., hierarchical power, male-
only ordination, compulsory celibacy).


www.sociology.fsu.edu/people/starks/Sta ... lDraft.pdf


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22 Feb 2012, 2:48 am

1000Knives wrote:

But, I don't think religiously, it's really an alliance, it's just something that people are willing to overlook for what they see as the common good.


Errr ... I do sorta think that various key organizations of the religious right are decreasingly "Protestants only" clubs. A lot of the hissy fits that the GOP & religious right got in over Catholic institutional employers having to provide health coverage that covers contraception sorta indicates a more cooperative relationship between conservative Catholics and fundamentalist Protestants.


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22 Feb 2012, 2:59 am

Master_Pedant wrote:
"Traditionalist Catholics" are Catholics with socially conservative views on sexual and social matters, generally more in line with the Catholic Hierarchy on said issues than the average lay Catholics. They're also more in line with the Catholic Hierarchy on issues of internal Church reform - such as the Ordination of women. The term is also sometimes used to indicate those who want to return to pre-Second Vatican Council mass, but not in the sense used in the OP or the cited article.


I dispute the use of the term 'traditionalist', they are just 'orthodox'; highly 'traditionalist' Catholics do not sit at all well with evangelicals.

I am socially conservative, but I also support health care, universal access to free education, gun control etc. Those values are also generally held by Catholics. Those values have not really changed all that much. Generally speaking Catholics in the US have gone along with amounts of social progressive policy, but the Democrats have picked fights with the Church (mainly recently) and republicans have become more welcoming to the idea of having Catholic candidates; mostly because the protestant/catholic ecumenism of the last fifty odd years. As a result, a Catholic could conceivably vote for either side. An orthodox Catholic like myself, who looks at people like Katherine Sebelius and the recent mandate, someone who is pro-life and has watch the present administration export their pro-choice ideology. I could not vote for Obama; especially given the commitment to religious conscience exception he made during the campaign and then later at Notre Dame; a commitment that he has now forgotten. That does not mean that my opinions have changed, just that the Administration has changed; there still are many Democrats out there who are not signed up to those policies and who support health care etc; therefor there are orthodox Catholics who will vote for them. As a result there is no grand alliance between evangelicals and Catholics, just a more ecumenical Republican Party and a particularly activist administration.

In Australia we have an Evangelical Party in Family First, they have many opinions that set them apart from Catholics and as such Catholics usually vote either for the Labor Party or the DLP. The present leader of the Liberal (named that, but actually the conservative party) is a Catholic, but generally speaking there is no alliance between orthodox Catholics and the liberals, most still support the ALP.


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naturalplastic
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22 Feb 2012, 11:03 pm

They both hate Mormons more than they hate each other.

Kinda like Sunnies and Shiites both hate the Druze more than they hate each other.

And then there is secular progessive threat as well.



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23 Feb 2012, 2:53 am

naturalplastic wrote:
They both hate Mormons more than they hate each other.

Kinda like Sunnies and Shiites both hate the Druze more than they hate each other.

And then there is secular progessive threat as well.


And don't forget, their shared homophobia!
After all, if gays were to marry, the sky will fall!

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Jacoby
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23 Feb 2012, 7:15 am

It appears to be so. 3 of the 4 candidates that catered to evangelical voters themselves were not even evangelical.(Santorum and Gingrich are Catholic and Bachmann is a Lutheran)

From a strategic standpoint, it's a pretty smart move from the Religious Right to be more inclusive of Catholics given that they traditionally vote democrat, and it's role in the fast growing Hispanic demographic.

Hopefully it's not a partnership that lasts.



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23 Feb 2012, 12:51 pm

Jacoby wrote:
It appears to be so. 3 of the 4 candidates that catered to evangelical voters themselves were not even evangelical.(Santorum and Gingrich are Catholic and Bachmann is a Lutheran)

From a strategic standpoint, it's a pretty smart move from the Religious Right to be more inclusive of Catholics given that they traditionally vote democrat, and it's role in the fast growing Hispanic demographic.

Hopefully it's not a partnership that lasts.


In all fairness, Bachmann had left her Lutheran church after someone questioned her Wisconsin Synod's alleged Anti-Catholic theology, and so feared she'd lose the Catholic vote (real moral courage there). But even before that, she had been so personally involved with born again evangelical Christianity for years, that it can be argued that spiritually, she had left Lutheranism a long time ago.

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HDLMatchette
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21 Mar 2016, 8:38 pm

ok, first of all, traditionalist catholics are NOT people that wholly agree with the church, but they (also called "tradcats") "are Roman Catholics who believe that there should be a restoration of many or all of the customs, traditions, liturgical forms, public and private devotions and presentations of teaching of the Church before the Second Vatican Council (1962–65)." second, 50% of all tradcats actually ACCEPTED homosexuality as a valid way of life all the way back in 2007.