Who is the most anti-Catholic Democratic candidate?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

If being pro-choice = "anti-Catholic", then Sinn Fein are more anti-Catholic than the DUP.

The idea that being opposed to a particular doctrine of a faith automatically makes you prejudiced against that faith is ridiculous. If true that would make e.g. devout Catholics anti-semites by definition, or, hell, make the majority of US Catholics who disagree with making divorce illegal anti-Catholic too.

It's usually Catholics who make this allegation. Look at the Catholic League. They even attacked the movie Spotlight as anti-Catholic.

[Simfan34]

If being pro-choice = "anti-Catholic", then Sinn Fein are more anti-Catholic than the DUP.

The idea that being opposed to a particular doctrine of a faith automatically makes you prejudiced against that faith is ridiculous. If true that would make e.g. devout Catholics anti-semites by definition, or, hell, make the majority of US Catholics who disagree with making divorce illegal anti-Catholic too.

It's usually Catholics who make this allegation. Look at the Catholic League. They even attacked the movie Spotlight as anti-Catholic.

The Catholic League is hardly representative of the "mainstream" of the American Catholic episcopate, let alone American Catholics in general.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Plus he was in a band for f[inks] sake.

So was Dolores O'Riordan.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Plus he was in a band for f[inks] sake.

So was Dolores O'Riordan.

Not a band that descended from Revolution Summer though. Catholicism's patriatchial structures, sexuality morality and gender roles runs completely contradictory to the values of that scene, and Beto's record on abortion, LGBT issues and marijuana in his political career indicate he stuck with those values.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Plus he was in a band for f[inks] sake.

So was Dolores O'Riordan.

Not a band that descended from Revolution Summer though. Catholicism's patriatchial structures, sexuality morality and gender roles runs completely contradictory to the values of that scene, and Beto's record on abortion, LGBT issues and marijuana in his political career indicate he stuck with those values.

Again, disagreeing with Catholic doctrine on these, or any other, issues is not tantamount to anti-Catholic bigotry.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Plus he was in a band for f[inks] sake.

So was Dolores O'Riordan.

Not a band that descended from Revolution Summer though. Catholicism's patriatchial structures, sexuality morality and gender roles runs completely contradictory to the values of that scene, and Beto's record on abortion, LGBT issues and marijuana in his political career indicate he stuck with those values.

Again, disagreeing with Catholic doctrine on these, or any other, issues is not tantamount to anti-Catholic bigotry.

My point is that it's pretty clear he's not a real Catholic. He doesn't even pretend to attend Mass or anything like that.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

If being pro-choice = "anti-Catholic", then Sinn Fein are more anti-Catholic than the DUP.

The idea that being opposed to a particular doctrine of a faith automatically makes you prejudiced against that faith is ridiculous. If true that would make e.g. devout Catholics anti-semites by definition, or, hell, make the majority of US Catholics who disagree with making divorce illegal anti-Catholic too.

I'll also note that DUP-style anti-Catholic identity politics doesn't really exist in the US and hasn't for decades.

Yes you can find the occasional fire and brimstone preacher of some small podunk church saying things about the Catholic Church being the Whore of Babylon or whatever and some kooky fundamentalist tracts at rest stops, but that stuff is pretty fringe amongst mainstream conservatism, even evangelicals. They have no problem voting for Catholics. For example just look at how they rallied around Rick Santorum in 2012 or Marco Rubio to a large extent in 2016. Mike Pence is an ex-Catholic, but his brother is still Catholic, and he got elected to the House last year largely based on Pence's support, showing there's no bad blood. And when's the last time ANYWHERE a GOP candidate lost a primary due to being Catholic? In fact it doesn't even seem to hurt conservadems in such areas, Joe Manchin was never dogged by being Catholic.

[Famous Mortimer]

None of them are anti-Catholic, and Beto is literally a Catholic lol.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/deaconsbench/2019/03/tbt-that-time-beto-orourke-berated-a-catholic-priest/

Pretty pathetic of that article not to give the name of that "priest" so that readers can't Google him and learn that he was disciplined by his own Catholic diocese (!) for his outrageous anti-gay bigotry (!). No Democratic Catholic is going to disagree with the Beto/official Catholic position on this creep, and no Republican Catholic should either.

And pretty pathetic of you to post something that's been widely discussed and debunked on this forum before.

Look at Beto's words. He was attacking the Catholic church as a whole ("the church you represent"), and even criticized the Pope.  Don't pretend Beto was following some official Catholic position here.

Pointing out that the Church has moral failings is not anti-Catholic, and if criticizing the Pope were (ipso facto) anti-Catholic then we'd have to say that several prominent conservative cardinals today are anti-Catholic.

Anyway, the answer is almost certainly Harris. Gillibrand has said some things that evidence a profound cluelessness about how Catholic doctrine works that's astonishing in someone who was raised Catholic and still nominally identifies as Catholic, but I don't think she's hostile to Catholicism as such.

What argument is there that Buttigieg is anti-Catholic? Is it just that he used to be Catholic and no longer is? The same is true of John Kasich and for that matter Mike Pence; that doesn't in and of itself make them anti-Catholic any more than I'm anti-Anglican.

It's not just pointing out the Catholic Church has moral failings, it's using that as an ad hominem to say that a representative of the Church deserves to be ignored on a different issue.

But, according to the Catholic Church itself, this "priest" does deserve to be ignored on the issue of gay marriage. Virtually all Catholic Democrats will find nothing wrong with what Beto said to this creep.

Beto was explicitly treating the priest (he was still a priest at this time) as a representative of the Catholic Church, and saying he deserves to be ignored for that reason!

I don't know what else to tell you. Any Catholic truly offended by what Beto said was never going to vote for Beto or any other Democratic candidate anyway.

Both liberal Catholics and conservative Catholics tend to be unoffended by strongly worded criticism of the Church when they agree with the criticism. Democratic Catholics don't care when the Church is criticized for its views on abortion and gay equality, and Republican Catholics don't care when the Church is criticized for its views on climate change, capital punishment and #BuildTheWall.

Exactly why it makes no sense to be Catholic, why belong to a church that's guaranteed to piss you off around half the time?

Yeah, I kinda agree with this sentence on a personal level, but most people don't think like us.

For example, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a devout Catholic

You need to look up the word "devout"

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

None of them are anti-Catholic, and Beto is literally a Catholic lol.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/deaconsbench/2019/03/tbt-that-time-beto-orourke-berated-a-catholic-priest/

Pretty pathetic of that article not to give the name of that "priest" so that readers can't Google him and learn that he was disciplined by his own Catholic diocese (!) for his outrageous anti-gay bigotry (!). No Democratic Catholic is going to disagree with the Beto/official Catholic position on this creep, and no Republican Catholic should either.

And pretty pathetic of you to post something that's been widely discussed and debunked on this forum before.

Look at Beto's words. He was attacking the Catholic church as a whole ("the church you represent"), and even criticized the Pope.  Don't pretend Beto was following some official Catholic position here.

Pointing out that the Church has moral failings is not anti-Catholic, and if criticizing the Pope were (ipso facto) anti-Catholic then we'd have to say that several prominent conservative cardinals today are anti-Catholic.

Anyway, the answer is almost certainly Harris. Gillibrand has said some things that evidence a profound cluelessness about how Catholic doctrine works that's astonishing in someone who was raised Catholic and still nominally identifies as Catholic, but I don't think she's hostile to Catholicism as such.

What argument is there that Buttigieg is anti-Catholic? Is it just that he used to be Catholic and no longer is? The same is true of John Kasich and for that matter Mike Pence; that doesn't in and of itself make them anti-Catholic any more than I'm anti-Anglican.

It's not just pointing out the Catholic Church has moral failings, it's using that as an ad hominem to say that a representative of the Church deserves to be ignored on a different issue.

But, according to the Catholic Church itself, this "priest" does deserve to be ignored on the issue of gay marriage. Virtually all Catholic Democrats will find nothing wrong with what Beto said to this creep.

Beto was explicitly treating the priest (he was still a priest at this time) as a representative of the Catholic Church, and saying he deserves to be ignored for that reason!

I don't know what else to tell you. Any Catholic truly offended by what Beto said was never going to vote for Beto or any other Democratic candidate anyway.

Both liberal Catholics and conservative Catholics tend to be unoffended by strongly worded criticism of the Church when they agree with the criticism. Democratic Catholics don't care when the Church is criticized for its views on abortion and gay equality, and Republican Catholics don't care when the Church is criticized for its views on climate change, capital punishment and #BuildTheWall.

Exactly why it makes no sense to be Catholic, why belong to a church that's guaranteed to piss you off around half the time?

Yeah, I kinda agree with this sentence on a personal level, but most people don't think like us.

For example, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a devout Catholic

You need to look up the word "devout"

She's serious enough about her Catholicism that she's written at least one op-ed for a specifically Catholic periodical. Being devout and being orthodox aren't the same thing.

[Mr. Illini]

Harris and Hirono's handling of the KoC judge deeply concerned me. Voted for Harris in the poll.

I don't consider Beto or Buttigieg to be anti-Catholic.

[One Term Floridian]

Wait wat, is this 1928 again? Gosh we'd nominate anything to keep the Deep South!

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

If being pro-choice = "anti-Catholic", then Sinn Fein are more anti-Catholic than the DUP.

The idea that being opposed to a particular doctrine of a faith automatically makes you prejudiced against that faith is ridiculous. If true that would make e.g. devout Catholics anti-semites by definition, or, hell, make the majority of US Catholics who disagree with making divorce illegal anti-Catholic too.

For all practical purposes Sinn Fein are more anti-Catholic than the DUP.  They are active participants in the Quiet Revolution to diminish the role of the Catholic church in Irish society.

[NYSforKennedy2024]

I wouldn't call any candidate directly "anti-Catholic", but in terms of worst appeal to Catholics, I'd say Bernie Sanders or Kamala Harris.

[Wazza [INACTIVE]]

Kamala Harris

[Illiniwek]

Harris and Hirono's handling of the KoC judge deeply concerned me. Voted for Harris in the poll.

I don't consider Beto or Buttigieg to be anti-Catholic.

This x1000.

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

The whole Catholic judge controversy is what makes me concerned about Harris. She could lose easily winnable votes in places we need. Working Class Places like Portage county WI, Lackawanna county, PA and South Texas that are heavily catholic and swung R in 2016 are scaring me there. I'm not saying catholics won't vote D but i'm afraid they'll swing further to the right

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Kemalist Harris is winning.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

It's hilarious how much Atlas doesn't know about the KoC to be labelling Kamala as anti-catholic for being concerned about the group. It's old, it's white, it's conservative, and super religious (duh) I would be concerned about it as well because it may affect their votes on abortion and other social issues. Oh btw, I'm catholic.

To answer this stupid and pointless question: none of them.

#AtlasGreatestHits

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

If being pro-choice = "anti-Catholic", then Sinn Fein are more anti-Catholic than the DUP.

The idea that being opposed to a particular doctrine of a faith automatically makes you prejudiced against that faith is ridiculous. If true that would make e.g. devout Catholics anti-semites by definition, or, hell, make the majority of US Catholics who disagree with making divorce illegal anti-Catholic too.

For all practical purposes Sinn Fein are more anti-Catholic than the DUP.  They are active participants in the Quiet Revolution to diminish the role of the Catholic church in Irish society.

Anti-Catholicism as a bigotry only makes sense if it's understood as prejudice against rank-and-file Catholics or irrationally deprecatory views of traditionally Catholic cultures, both of which the DUP and its base traditionally do hold and at least one of which I think it's entirely possible that Kamala Harris (but probably not any of the other Democratic candidates) holds. A project of dismantling the Church hierarchy's influence on a country's civil society is certainly anticlerical, and you and I might disagree with it (in at least some cases), but it's ridiculous to suggest that it constitutes anti-Catholic bigotry. More generally, the idea that it's bigoted to dislike the Catholic hierarchy is as silly as the idea that it's bigoted to dislike dentists or lawyers or cops.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

If being pro-choice = "anti-Catholic", then Sinn Fein are more anti-Catholic than the DUP.

The idea that being opposed to a particular doctrine of a faith automatically makes you prejudiced against that faith is ridiculous. If true that would make e.g. devout Catholics anti-semites by definition, or, hell, make the majority of US Catholics who disagree with making divorce illegal anti-Catholic too.

For all practical purposes Sinn Fein are more anti-Catholic than the DUP.  They are active participants in the Quiet Revolution to diminish the role of the Catholic church in Irish society.

Anti-Catholicism as a bigotry only makes sense if it's understood as prejudice against rank-and-file Catholics or irrationally deprecatory views of traditionally Catholic cultures, both of which the DUP and its base traditionally do hold and at least one of which I think it's entirely possible that Kamala Harris (but probably not any of the other Democratic candidates) holds. A project of dismantling the Church hierarchy's influence on a country's civil society is certainly anticlerical, and you and I might disagree with it (in at least some cases), but it's ridiculous to suggest that it constitutes anti-Catholic bigotry. More generally, the idea that it's bigoted to dislike the Catholic hierarchy is as silly as the idea that it's bigoted to dislike dentists or lawyers or cops.

I didn't call it bigoted or irrational, however one wants to define that. I called it anti-Catholic.  Not as in they mind if anyone is baptized Catholic or goes there on Sunday, as some of the more hostile DUP members still do.  But that they don't want it to make much difference outside of that.  Closing Catholic schools and hospitals and forcing doctors to perform abortions is a much more substantial attack on Catholicism than someone parading around wearing orange.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

If being pro-choice = "anti-Catholic", then Sinn Fein are more anti-Catholic than the DUP.

The idea that being opposed to a particular doctrine of a faith automatically makes you prejudiced against that faith is ridiculous. If true that would make e.g. devout Catholics anti-semites by definition, or, hell, make the majority of US Catholics who disagree with making divorce illegal anti-Catholic too.

For all practical purposes Sinn Fein are more anti-Catholic than the DUP.  They are active participants in the Quiet Revolution to diminish the role of the Catholic church in Irish society.

Anti-Catholicism as a bigotry only makes sense if it's understood as prejudice against rank-and-file Catholics or irrationally deprecatory views of traditionally Catholic cultures, both of which the DUP and its base traditionally do hold and at least one of which I think it's entirely possible that Kamala Harris (but probably not any of the other Democratic candidates) holds. A project of dismantling the Church hierarchy's influence on a country's civil society is certainly anticlerical, and you and I might disagree with it (in at least some cases), but it's ridiculous to suggest that it constitutes anti-Catholic bigotry. More generally, the idea that it's bigoted to dislike the Catholic hierarchy is as silly as the idea that it's bigoted to dislike dentists or lawyers or cops.

I didn't call it bigoted or irrational, however one wants to define that. I called it anti-Catholic.  Not as in they mind if anyone is baptized Catholic or goes there on Sunday, as some of the more hostile DUP members still do.  But that they don't want it to make much difference outside of that.  Closing Catholic schools and hospitals and forcing doctors to perform abortions is a much more substantial attack on Catholicism than someone parading around wearing orange.

It appears you and I disagree on what exactly the problem with anti-Catholicism as a political bias is. I'm entirely in agreement with you that many of the attacks on Catholic institutions that Irish secularists are making these days are dangerous to the practice of the faith in Ireland and sometimes even excessive on their own terms, but I'd still prefer to parse those attacks as anticlerical rather than anti-Catholic in nature. It's a definitions thing.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'm going to make a bit of a hot take here and say that not only is trying to apply the religious identity politics of a place like Northern Ireland to the US is not only very very stupid (and the stubbornness of a few non-American posters to do this is a big factor in the stubbornness I developed about the fluidity of American religious identity), it's on the same level of stupid as "Western Ukraine is fiscally conservative, Eastern Ukraine is socially conservative."

[Senator Incitatus]

While we can't know what's in any candidate's heart, Harris clearly has the worst record and will have the hardest time picking up Catholic votes. I think her (and Hirono's) KoC fiasco permanently spikes her chances of winning the Midwest in a close race.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

I really have to say that Atlas screaming about the KoC really is its peak. You people don't even know what the organization is about and you're overblowing how much influence they really have. Again, it's predominately old, white, male, and conservative. Harris and Hirono are fine. Their concerns were well meaning and the organization deserves scrutiny. You're all out of your minds.  

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I really have to say that Atlas screaming about the KoC really is its peak. You people don't even know what the organization is about and you're overblowing how much influence they really have. Again, it's predominately old, white, male, and conservative. Harris and Hirono are fine. Their concerns were well meaning and the organization deserves scrutiny. You're all out of your minds.  

Being against the Knights of Columbus is a little like being against the Freemasons in that there are perfectly good reasons why one might have problems with what the organization stands for but something feels off about focusing on the organization itself.