Catholic Review of: Can a Catholic Be a Democrat?

Lest anyone think this is an apologetic for the Republican Party, I should clarify that the author does not call all Catholics to be Republicans. Becoming Republican is not the proposed solution to the problem explored in this work. Rather, David Carlin leaves the solution to his readers. Carlin himself has not switched parties and states clearly in the introduction, "I expect to die a Democrat, albeit a very unhappy one." He writes not as a hostile outsider, but rather—as one reader observed—as a wounded lover betrayed by his beloved.

A lifelong Democrat, Carlin entered professional politics and became the majority leader of the Rhode Island State Senate. Born in 1938 into an Irish Catholic working-class family, Carlin remembers his father telling him, "We’re Democrats because Democrats are the party of the poor people; the Republicans are the party of the rich." He believes no political party in modern times has had a program and practice more congruent with the social teachings of the Catholic Church than the American Democratic Party of the 1930s and ’40s. The party stood for patriotism, the family, and, especially, the workingman.

As the increasingly corrupt and ineffectual urban political machines of the party began to collapse following the end of World War II, three distinct kinds of liberals emerged, each shaping the agenda of the Democratic Party. The "New Deal" liberals stood for the rights of the working class, and for unions in particular. The "civil rights" liberals focused on the shameful American heritage of anti-black racism and saw its undoing as the most pressing issue of the day. This group won great victories in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 due largely to the efforts of Lyndon Johnson and Martin Luther King, Jr. The "moral" or "cultural" liberals came of age during the cultural and sexual revolution of the 1960s. These were primarily concerned with issues of individual freedom and, especially, sexual freedom. According to their ideology, the legal and moral right to abortion is absolutely essential. Sexual freedom could not be complete without abortion as a backup when "mistakes" were made.

Moral liberals were out to free themselves and others from the bonds of conventional morality, much as blacks had been freed from the bonds of slavery. More than a few prominent blacks, including the widow of Martin Luther King, Jr., have embraced this comparison. They are also semi-pacifist, viewing any kind of coercion as an attack on personal liberty. They generally view hierarchical organizations, like the military and the Catholic Church, as "bad" for the restrictions they seem to place on individual freedom.

Another unique aspect of the moral/cultural liberals is that they generally came from a higher rung on the socioeconomic ladder than the ranks of the other two groups; their adherents came from the media, academia, and the entertainment industry. It is this third group—wealthy, secular, and ideological—that would come to define the Democratic Party. Their great victory was the landmark 1973 Supreme Court case of Roe v. Wade, which struck down nearly every restriction on abortion.

In this well-written, reader-friendly work, Carlin analyzes the historical, sociological, and philosophical developments that shaped the American Democratic Party’s transformation from its origins as the party of the poor and working class to the party of anti-Christian secularism. He also examines and rebuts many of the common excuses used by Catholic politicians for supporting legislation that opposes and undermines Catholic faith and morals.

The book includes five appendices that illuminate and expand themes explored in the main body of the text. There are essays on the nature and history of American secularism, the development of liberal Christianity and its relationship with secularism, and a discussion on American Jews and the culture war. Also included is a critical analysis of Mario Cuomo’s infamous defense of pro-abortion Catholic politicians in his 1984 speech at the University of Notre Dame.

This book is a fast, easy read and an insightful analysis of how today’s Democratic Party has come to embrace a social and political agenda that is at odds with its own roots and with traditional Christianity and Catholicism. I highly recommend this balanced and well-researched work to all who wish to understand the evolution of the ideology that pervades today’s Democratic Party.

- Pete Balbirnie (from Lay Witness magazine. www.cuf.org)

You can purchase this title here.