One of the most uncomfortable political shifts I observed in the nineties...

[Baitball Blogger]

was how American Catholics and Protestants began to find common ground on issues that involved private religious school funding and anti-abortion. As this convergence continued, in conversations with America Catholics who were close to me, I began to hear them picking up the same beliefs as Protestants, and less regarding Catholic principles of good will and charity.

I always wondered how it was that Catholics forgot how much they were despised by Protestants. And then, here we are today. It's as if someone turned on a switch.

Frankly, I don't know if it will take hold, but, at least some are beginning to recognize the disregard that this president has for our Catholic pope, which also transfers unto those who believe in what he promotes: Charity to all and peaceful solutions.

I don't think the Right will recover fast enough to recover from this collapse, but also from the betrayal they have to deal with from what they have done to American latinos and latinas.

It will be interesting to see if they win any ethnic demographic this coming election.

[Orrex]

1. I am confident that a large majority of Republicans will remain loyal to the KKKult

Racism, bigotry and misogyny supersede mere religious faith 99 times out of 100

[Joinfortmill]

2. Catholic grammar schools were common in the 1950s

I went to first and second grade at a Catholic grammar school. When we moved, I started third grade at a public school. I had already had in second grade what they were teaching in third grade in public schools. I thought public schools were more fun.

[rampartd]

3. my father ran out of tuition when i was a junior in a catholic high school

i finished at the public school, but it was so easy that i developed some very loose attendance standards .

[Joinfortmill]

4. Haha

[Miguelito Loveless]

5. They united in their hatred

and the hatred was stoked by the leadership to get people in the door.

As AM radio learned in the 90s, the money was in right-wing hate talk. It draws an audience of rubes who can be fleeced repeatedly. Televangelists have known this for decades.

[Tbone421]

6. I tend to agree....

I was born in 71.....raised southern baptist......taught that Catholics were all going to hell. (literally....not exaggerating).....But by the mid to late 90s, my parents were attending a lot of prolife events with more and more Catholics in attendance. And and wouldn't say that my folks changed their tune about Catholics completely, but they absolutely toned it way down once they saw this common cause between them.

[regnaD kciN]

7. It wasn't by accident...

Everything changed when JPII became Pope in late 1978. He came from Poland, where the Church was the only force countering the Communist government, and where one of the greatest demands on that Church was holding strictly to traditional principles – any liberalism was seen as a concession to the Soviet-backed government and its hard-line atheism.

So, when JPII came to the Vatican, he brought that same mindset with him, and made it his goal to stamp out both liberalism and diversity of belief – and the U.S. Church, along with that of Central America, was the main target of his crusade. This took the form of making sure that any new bishops were of his same hardline beliefs, and that any deviation among the clergy would lead to them spending their lives tending to a tiny parish somewhere in Bumfuck, Iowa or the like. As an understandable reaction to this, the number of young men pursuing a vocation to the priesthood dropped dramatically, and those spaces were taken by a new wave of “rad-trads” eager to return the Church to pre-Vatican II days, right down to the Latin Mass. Over decades, this policy, which was continued by BXVI, percolated through the U.S. Church, making sure that the official teaching on social justice being proclaimed from the pulpit was restricted to “the sanctity of life” (no abortion) and “the sanctity of the family” (no LGBTQ). Furthermore, during that time, the hierarchy of the U.S. Church (the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops), having been filled with ultraconservatives through the Vatican’s policies, became a close backer of the Republican Party, and formed a tacit alliance with the leaders of the “religious right” (evangelicals/fundamentalists – not, as you imply, Protestants as a whole, as the mainstream denominations shifted toward the left during that same time period) to work together – the latter would help Rome outlaw abortion if Catholics helped them do the same with same-sex marriage and reestablishing “traditional family values.”

This policy only really came to an end with the election of Francis…but it’s obviously going to take some time to reverse the situation caused by almost four decades of effort from Rome to establish an ultraconservative hegemony.

[Baitball Blogger]

10. That's a nice synopsis of what caused the historical shift.

I just know that as I grew up and found the Catholic church to grow more and more traditional, I found less reason to attend. I see myself more like the goat tender up on the mountain that has a special work compensation the absence of church attendance.

[Prairie Gates]

8. Agreed

I've often said that US Catholicism today is by and large doctrinal Protestantism.

[harumph]

9. I saw it too. Non-practicing Catholic here.

Back then I told my very conservative BIL that Catholics would rue the day they jumped in bed with evangelicals. Mass in the 90s became more about abortion than anything else, and homilies were dumbed down. I was like okay.., if you are opposed to abortion - don't have one - but refrain from judgement. Despite the very generous and kind people in the parish - at some point enough was enough.

[PCB66]

11. As a Lutheran

Back in the day (decades ago) we literally had a "hate the Catholics" service once a year on Reformation Day.

However, nowadays we are doing joint Communion with Catholics.

Big turnaround.