Archdiocese Paper Highlights Gap Between Buchanan, Bishops

Signaling possible trouble on the religious front for Republican presidential hopeful Patrick J. Buchanan, the newspaper of the Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese declares that a Buchanan victory would confuse his fellow Catholics as to who speaks for them--Buchanan or the bishops who mostly differ with his positions.

While Buchanan did well among Catholic voters in New Hampshire and is expected to attract many votes from blue-collar Catholics elsewhere, the archdiocese’s weekly, the Tidings, noted in a recent editorial that U.S. Catholic bishops disagree with Buchanan on almost everything but his antiabortion views. For instance, they hold contrary stands on welfare reform, immigration, health care and affirmative action.

Add to those differences the trend of individual Catholics rejecting church social teachings and “a Patrick Buchanan presidency holds the potential to sow seeds of confusion among Catholics over who legitimately speaks for the Catholic Church in this country,” said the newspaper.

The Feb. 16 editorial was written by Tod Tamberg of Studio City, the newspaper’s editor since 1992. The circulation of the 100-year-old Tidings is about 25,000, but it is the official publication of the 3.6-million-member archdiocese, the most populous in the country.

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Not all Catholics see Buchanan’s differences with the church’s social teachings as a problem in voting for him, however. In fact, some analysts see Buchanan drawing an extra boost from conservative Catholics in addition to the support of evangelical Protestants who have long been recognized as among his strongest backers.

In Tuesday’s New Hampshire Republican primary, Buchanan edged Kansas Sen. Robert Dole, a Protestant, 28% to 27% in voting, but Times exit polls showed that Buchanan received 36% of the Catholic vote to 23% for Dole.

Dole won the Protestant vote in New Hampshire 29% to 25% over Buchanan, but the New England states in general have few evangelical Christians. But the 10% in New Hampshire who identified themselves as born-again Christians or evangelicals favored Buchanan by 53%.

Jesuit Father Thomas Reese of Georgetown University’s Woodstock Theological Center said Friday he does not believe most Catholics will be “confused” by the disparity in the views of Buchanan and the Catholic bishops.

“That theory makes Catholics look like dumb sheep,” Reese said. “I think bishops like Cardinal [Roger] Mahony articulate Catholic teachings very well. No one would think that Buchanan speaks for the Catholic Church, but he probably does appeal to the blue-collar Catholic concerned about job security.”

Echoing liberal Catholics who decades ago objected that church bans on artificial birth control should be considered a matter of individual conscience, some conservative Catholics are saying that their conscientious views on the issues also may differ from the bishops’ interpretation of church social teachings.

“The bishops have lost their credibility as teachers” on such issues as affirmative action, said a letter published by the Tidings in Friday’s) issue from a reader opposed to the practice.

“Rational American Catholics know better,” he said. “Most believe it is sinful to discriminate. I do.”

To the extent that American Catholics look to the church’s social teachings for guidance, however, Buchanan will be seen as bucking the bishops, said theologian Thomas Rausch of Loyola Marymount University.

“Buchanan’s strong antiabortion stance and support of family values seems in step with the bishops, but he differs with them on other significant issues,” said Rausch, a Jesuit, citing the church’s opposition to capital punishment, backing of legislation to protect poor families and support for international economic ties.

“Respect for diversity--one never hears that in the Buchanan campaign,” Rausch said.

A different viewpoint was expressed by Richard Glasow, a Catholic who is chief staff executive for the Tarzana-based California Christian Coalition, the state affiliate of Pat Robertson’s predominantly Protestant organization.

“Catholics have a right to form their own consciences,” said Glasow. “There can be differences of opinion on what’s moral and what’s feasible in achieving the same humanitarian goals,” he said, citing debates over welfare reform and illegal immigration.

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Anglo Catholics demonstrated their disagreement with bishops in the state in 1994. The Times exit polls showed that by 58% to 42%, they favored the anti-illegal-immigration Proposition 187, which passed with 59% of the vote. The bishops lobbied against the proposition energetically.

Noting that the religious affiliations of Buchanan and other Republican candidates have drawn little attention so far, Glasow said that after 13 years as an official with the National Right to Life Committee in Washington, he learned that candidates’ religious identities are no guides to where they stand on social issues.

“For example, Sen. Ted Kennedy is a Catholic and President Clinton is a Southern Baptist, but, unlike their churches, they are pro-abortion,” said Glasow.

The Democrats once were the party of preference for Catholics, but in the last 15 years Catholics have made up about one-quarter of the Republican Party--roughly equal to the proportion of the U.S. Catholic population. In the 1992 presidential election, Clinton received 42% of the Catholic vote, George Bush got 36% and Ross Perot garnered 22%, according to Times polling.

In 1960, John F. Kennedy was the first Catholic elected to the White House, but he had made a point of assuring Protestant critics that his decisions would not be influenced by the Vatican or the U.S. church leadership.

But 36 years later, Tamberg said, news stories on the Republican primaries have had “very little comment regarding the religious background of Patrick Buchanan, Alan Keyes and Robert Dornan,” all Catholics.

“That may be a further sign that Catholicism is no longer viewed as an issue in a presidential race,” he observed.

But Buchanan apparently has no intention of avoiding discussion of his religion’s impact on his politics. He told the Catholic News Service recently that his views were shaped by his parochial school education.

“I cannot separate my religious convictions from my political beliefs,” Buchanan said. “They overlap.”