Catholics Not Swayed by Pope’s Criticism of Harris and Trump
It’s hardly a secret that each of the two major-party presidential candidates are campaigning intensively on policy positions that are at odds with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. Kamala Harris is championing reproductive rights (not really a concept the Church recognizes) generally and the right to abortion specifically (which the Church deplores as enabling mass homicide). Meanwhile Donald Trump’s signature issue now more than ever is violent revulsion toward the undocumented immigrants (typically economic and human-rights refugees) he blames for virtually every social malady in increasingly dehumanizing terms. Recognizing this problem, Pope Francis candidly advised U.S. Catholics they had to rely on their consciences to make a voting choice, as CNN reported last month:
Pope Francis on Friday described the choice US voters must make in the presidential election as one between the “lesser of two evils,” deeming former President Donald Trump’s anti-migrant policies and Vice President Kamala Harris’ support of abortion rights as both being “against life.”
“One must choose the lesser of two evils. Who is the lesser of two evils? That lady or that gentleman? I don’t know,” Francis said during a press conference on the papal plane, referring to Harris and Trump. “Everyone with a conscience should think on this and do it.”
An extensive new survey of self-identified U.S. Catholics by the National Catholic Reporter showed this category of voters as usual reflecting national partisan divisions fairly closely, though the topline findings that got headlines suggested that Trump has a small but significant advantage among Catholics in the seven battleground states. And the general feeling that Harris might have less appeal to Catholics than her Catholic boss, Joe Biden, has been an abiding source of worry for Democrats, with Harris’s failure to attend (she did send a video) the hyper-Catholic (and notably conservative-leaning) Al Smith dinner in New York this week exacerbating these fears.
Deep in the NCR poll is a set of findings that should distress Pope Francis and the Catholic hierarchy more than either candidate’s camp. Citing Francis’s “lesser of two evils” statement, the pollsters asked supporters of each candidate how the positions the Church anathemized affected their candidate choice. Among Kamala Harris supporters, only 15 percent said “I support Harris in spite of her position on abortion,” while 52 percent said “I support Harris because of her position on abortion.” The disdain for Church teachings was even more evident with Trump-supporting Catholics, among whom a remarkable 76 percent said “I support Trump because of his stance on immigration,” while a mere 8 percent said “I support Trump in spite of his stance on immigration.”
To look at it more generally, the 2024 presidential election is being fought out to a considerable extent over which evil (from the Church’s point of view) Catholic voters more avidly embrace. It’s not a lesser-of-two-evils choice so much as a favorite-evil choice. That’s less than ideal news for a Church that already feels embattled in the 21st century.