Roman Catholics vs Mainline Protestants: Difference politically?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

BRTD, you seem to be implying that all people who self identify as mainline or evangelical etc. actually go to church and follow their church's teachings as well.  Once again when proved wrong you change the argument.

For evangelical this is usually the case. People raised in evangelical homes that no longer follow it are usually some of the quickest to no longer identify with them and declare themselves as "none" if they haven't converted to something else.

Mainline Protestants that aren't exactly practicing might still identify as vaguely Lutheran, Methodist, Episcoplian or whatever, but I doubt they'd actually seize the "mainline Protestant" label or even Protestant. I mean I suppose I did when this applied to me for the longest time, but I'm a demographics nerd. And even I have never heard of an "atheist Lutheran" unlike "atheist Catholic".

My big issue here is that if you don't believe in anything that separates Catholicism from the rest of Christianity, then there is really nothing making you Catholic. I mean hell if you believe the basics of Christianity but don't believe in Eucharistic theology, Catholic sacraments, the Pope, etc., how does that make you any different from Episcopalians? And just attending a Catholic church when you do go I don't consider much of a reason either, by that standard I'd be an evangelical, remember when Harry called me a "Pentecostal-type Christian"? These labels become effectively meaningless if defined in such loose ways.

[7,052,770]

You're forgetting the "identity" element that comes from being part of a group.  Being a Catholic is part of my self identity, and it always will be, regardless of how many times per month I attend church.

[patrick1]

I have no idea why some people choose to self identify or not. However, you seem to only want to apply a doctrinal test to Catholics when it comes to demographics- which I find rather ironic.
There are millions of people Catholic and Protestant who go to church and really don't believe in any of it.  Some can go to socialize, some for business contacts.  A questions is, how many are 100% in line with their churches stated beliefs?  I think there is some minimum standard of belief for someone to be consistent but what are you going to do inquire at the door?  The Bible teaches that Christ's offers us all salvation and you are supposed to preach to all.

Now If we were to apply your tests to others how many protestants would fail to live up to their church's teachings?  Surely Obama have would been a "fake" member of the Trinity church. President Obama is also seldom seen at services these days: is he a fake Protestant.

You seem to be ceding that being a Catholic is special and calls for a stricter, more active practice of belief.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

You're forgetting the "identity" element that comes from being part of a group.  Being a Catholic is part of my self identity, and it always will be, regardless of how many times per month I attend church.

See I'm really just not a fan of this type of attitude at all. Mostly because I think it's disrespectful to those raised Catholic who'd prefer not to affiliate with it at all anymore and don't consider it part of their identity in any way.

You seem to be ceding that being a Catholic is special and calls for a stricter, more active practice of belief.

Because that is basically the case. The Catholic Church itself has doctrines it deems infallible and binding upon all members. My church says that they're open to anyone who believes in Jesus, it's a much less strict standard.

[RI]

Because that is basically the case. The Catholic Church itself has doctrines it deems infallible and binding upon all members. My church says that they're open to anyone who believes in Jesus, it's a much less strict standard.

You have no idea what you're talking about. There are so many things wrong with even just this section of this post.

[7,052,770]

You're forgetting the "identity" element that comes from being part of a group.  Being a Catholic is part of my self identity, and it always will be, regardless of how many times per month I attend church.

See I'm really just not a fan of this type of attitude at all. Mostly because I think it's disrespectful to those raised Catholic who'd prefer not to affiliate with it at all anymore and don't consider it part of their identity in any way.

What??   I'm not trying to make you refer to people who were raised Catholic but no longer consider themselves that anything.  I'm trying to say that you can't call me "not really Catholic" based on how often I attend mass, confession, etc.

I am Catholic.  I identify culturally and spiritually as Catholic, despite the silly things the church does from time to time.  You cannot just handwave my Catholicism away in order to portray Catholics are more right-wing than they really are.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I guess the big factor for me is there are certain things that do distinguish Catholicism from the Protestant churches and if you don't accept them then on what grounds can you claim to be Catholic? Yes you can be a Catholic and think the Pope is an asshole, or disagree with teachings on birth control and things like that, but if you reject the Immaculate Conception, you're rejecting something that is considered infallible. No not everything the Pope says is considered infallible, but that is an example of papa infallibility. And since a lot of the Mariology is based off that, you've removed a lot of very distinctly Catholic things. (By the way this is the main reason I couldn't ever be Catholic even if they evolved on sex and started ordaining women, because I don't even believe in Original Sin, thus making the basis of that teaching moot.) Similar with Eucharistic theology, this is a big deal to Catholics, it's why they don't even "allow" their members to take communion in Protestant churches. But like I've said, my "Catholic" neighbors who went to my family's Lutheran church just because it was closer did often take communion. So what makes them closer to the Catholic church than Lutheranism? What makes someone who rejects that Mariology and papal infallibility more of a Catholic than an Episcopalian? That's my key point really.

Since a lot of people on the Catholic side of my family thought the same way and then did leave the church and many are mainline Protestants now, this clearly played into my thinking.

[Smash255]

I guess the big factor for me is there are certain things that do distinguish Catholicism from the Protestant churches and if you don't accept them then on what grounds can you claim to be Catholic? Yes you can be a Catholic and think the Pope is an asshole, or disagree with teachings on birth control and things like that, but if you reject the Immaculate Conception, you're rejecting something that is considered infallible. No not everything the Pope says is considered infallible, but that is an example of papa infallibility. And since a lot of the Mariology is based off that, you've removed a lot of very distinctly Catholic things. (By the way this is the main reason I couldn't ever be Catholic even if they evolved on sex and started ordaining women, because I don't even believe in Original Sin, thus making the basis of that teaching moot.) Similar with Eucharistic theology, this is a big deal to Catholics, it's why they don't even "allow" their members to take communion in Protestant churches. But like I've said, my "Catholic" neighbors who went to my family's Lutheran church just because it was closer did often take communion. So what makes them closer to the Catholic church than Lutheranism? What makes someone who rejects that Mariology and papal infallibility more of a Catholic than an Episcopalian? That's my key point really.

Since a lot of people on the Catholic side of my family thought the same way and then did leave the church and many are mainline Protestants now, this clearly played into my thinking.

Just because people disagree with many aspects of Catholic teaching doesn't make them non-Catholic.  Someone isn't a Catholic because BRTD says they aren't.   You seem to just be fishing for a way to say Catholics are more conservative than Mainline Protestants, and yes that is likely true if you look at the more religious Catholics, but plenty of Catholics aren't that religious, disagrees with the Church on many things including basic ones, but that doesn't make them non-Catholic, and they tend to be quite socially liberal.  Cuomo would be a perfect example, and his viewpoint is shared by many Catholics.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Cuomo was going against some core Catholic teaching there. I see it kind of like if someone claimed to be a Mormon but believed Joseph Smith was full of crap and rejected the Book of Mormon. That's not a "cafeteria Mormon", that's a non-Mormon.

[Smash255]

Cuomo was going against some core Catholic teaching there. I see it kind of like if someone claimed to be a Mormon but believed Joseph Smith was full of crap and rejected the Book of Mormon. That's not a "cafeteria Mormon", that's a non-Mormon.

Going against Catholic teaching does not make someone not a Catholic.  There are many more Cuomo type Catholics than Santorum type Catholics, especially around here.  Most Catholics disagree with the church on many key issues.  You seem to have one set definition of what a Catholic is which is basically what the far right does when they question someones religion because they don't hate gay people.

[patrick1]

I once again affirm my belief that BRTD would have been a great Grand Inquisitor.  I like BRTD but man he is really a stickler for the authenticity. Fake emo, Fake Catholic, false church et al.

[Smash255]

I once again affirm my belief that BRTD would have been a great Grand Inquisitor.  I like BRTD but man he is really a stickler for the authenticity. Fake emo, Fake Catholic, false church et al.

Agreed.  To be fair I would personally consider myself more of a lapsed Catholic than anything else, but he just doesn't seem to get the concept you can disagree with many teachings and still be Catholic.  He is taking a page out of the hard right playbook in how they question someones Christianity if that person doesn't view things the same way they do.  The most liberal part of the country tends to be the most Catholic part and that has to do with a bunch of liberal Catholics,  he just can't grasp that idea.

[TeePee4Prez]

I once again affirm my belief that BRTD would have been a great Grand Inquisitor.  I like BRTD but man he is really a stickler for the authenticity. Fake emo, Fake Catholic, false church et al.

Agreed.  To be fair I would personally consider myself more of a lapsed Catholic than anything else, but he just doesn't seem to get the concept you can disagree with many teachings and still be Catholic.  He is taking a page out of the hard right playbook in how they question someones Christianity if that person doesn't view things the same way they do.  The most liberal part of the country tends to be the most Catholic part and that has to do with a bunch of liberal Catholics,  he just can't grasp that idea.

NY is probably the same as PA.  The more Protestant parts of our states are the most conservative barring the African American Protestants.  BRTD just can't get his head out of Minnesota for a second.  In his mind Catholic means agreeing with Santoomey or David Vitter rather than Cuomo, Pat Murphy, or Nancy Pelosi.

[All Along The Watchtower]

So my thread turned into a BRTD "No True Catholic" thread. Fantastic.

[TJ in Oregon]

So my thread turned into a BRTD "No True Catholic" thread. Fantastic.

If you're looking for a voting based answer, white Catholics voted slightly more for George Bush in '04 than white mainline Protestants and slightly more Democratic in '08.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'm not saying that to be a real Catholic you have to be like Rick Santorum or Pat Toomey or disagreeing with them is un-Catholic. However I don't see how you can argue that disagreeing with the Catholic leadership is un-Catholic. Take a look at what Archbishop Timothy Dolan said about Cuomo's push for gay marriage.

Also a key difference between being a Catholic and an evangelical or mainline Protestant is the latter two are not churches, just designations, so even if one disagrees with their specific church that doesn't exactly mean they are unable to be mainline or evangelical altogether, in fact these are pretty open to simply personal affiliation, Bush was often spoken of as being an evangelical but he was a Methodist, a clearly mainline denomination. But that's not entirely true with Catholicism which has some pretty distinct teachings that separate it from Protestantism. I have a laundry list of reasons why I could never be Catholic even past things like priest celibacy, female ordination and position on abortion/birth control/homosexuality, even though those don't help:

-Immaculate Conception (I reject the premise of Original Sin altogether, so this doctrine makes no sense from my point of view.)
-Pope and the hierarchy (I'm not even supportive of having a "priesthood".)
-Confession to a priest.
-Justification for infant baptism (I'm not a fan of infant baptism overall, but I can tolerate the reasoning in the Protestant churches that do it more than the Catholic reasoning, which I actually find pretty offensive.)
-Eucharistic theology.

Just for starters. Now here's the thing: I'm sure many of these liberal "Catholics" share the exact same views on these things that I do.

[milhouse24]

People may say they are RC or Protestant, but it basically means they are a certain ethnicity.  So bascially Catholics are either Hispanic, Irish or Italian, and live in urban areas and Northern states.  Catholics are also new immigrants of the past 50 or so years.  Kennedy-Catholics lean Democrat. 

Protestants are more rural and suburban and WASPy.