I was channel surfing and I came upon Paula Zahn Now on CNN and more specifically her discussion on Catholic voters in the upcoming US election. She presented some polls that showed that Catholics are split 50/50 for President Bush/Senator Kerry.
This in itself is very interesting considering President Bush is a Protestant and Senator Kerry is a Catholic. The poll can broken down futher (once they post the transcript I will quote exact numbers, but for now it is from memory). For Catholics who attend church infrequently, they favour Senator Kerry 60:40. For Catholics who attend church frequently it is 65:35 for President Bush.
The first question that comes to my mind is if you attend church infrequently (or in many cases never) do you really qualify as Catholic? Would you not be a Catholic in name only (CINO) or legacy Catholic?
Furthermore, if you do not agree with (or would believe, or even follow be a better word) all of the teachings of the Catholic church are you Catholic? Probably too strict a standard. If not there are a lot less Catholics in the world than a census would lead you to believe. So if that is not the case, how far can you stray in your thinking, and acting, and still qualify? I don't profess to have the answer to this one, so feel free to let me know.
But back to the poll, I wonder if Senator Kerry's Catholicism even enters the equation. Groups such as Catholics for Kerry and Catholics for a choice vote more on party lines than on their faith. Furthermore, I guess that Catholics against Kerry would vote for Senator Kerry if he was a pro-life Republican. As Senator Kerry has alluded to, it is deeds, not words. All in all, that is a good thing.
