[analog31]

True, but if they all went Democratic, it would tip the scales considerably. The margins in many regions are a tiny number of percentage points, and the Senate is 50-50 right now. A small percentage, not even a nationwide majority, have given us a heavily biased supreme court.

That's what I mean by decisive support. The Bishops could tip the scales if they were told to. This is about how the Pope could influence the situation.

I don't know how any individual Catholic votes, and both party allegiances and voting patterns are merely crude attempts at getting a statistical foothold on the question.

[dragonwriter]

> The Bishops could tip the scales if they were told to

No, they couldn't. This is pretty evident on the political issue that the Bishops have most aggressively tried to tell people what stance to take, abortion, where Catholic attitudes are nonetheless split just like the broader country.

[mbg721]

The split is different (but apparently not as different as I thought [1]) if you filter for Catholics who attend Mass regularly. Surveys of people who merely identify as Catholic also show that a large percentage do not believe in transubstantiation, one of the most fundamental beliefs of the Church. The Bishops have lots of problems to deal with besides just politics.

[1] https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/religious...

[FredPret]

Ah, the good old halcyon days when the pope dictated the politics of other nations. Let’s go back to that

[ArchStanton]

>True, but if they all went Democratic, it would tip the scales considerably.

It would be a tricky thing. You'd have to convince Catholics that Oregon-style abortion law (legal right up until birth) was reasonable and that the normalization of mental illness was desirable (the current rage for transsexuals).

OTOH, as a trans-national organization, I could see shifting the Catholic hierarchy into thinking that unlimited mass immigration to Western countries was desirable. More membership, more souls to save and all that.

[Zababa]

> OTOH, as a trans-national organization, I could see shifting the Catholic hierarchy into thinking that unlimited mass immigration to Western countries was desirable. More membership, more souls to save and all that.

I don't think that's how it works. Churches are usually very "local", and "local" stuff is usually the ones that resists the most immigration.

[Bobylonian]

>Churches are usually very "local", and "local" stuff is usually the ones that resists the most immigration.

This is not how churches should work and how they work. Religion can't be non-inclusive and accepting poor souls of migrants, regardless of their religion is humanitarian trait which is also considered equivalent of being Christian, according to how Christians are taught. Islam takes inclusion to even higher level and development of non-Arabic identity is considered corruption of religion(exception is to Arabic, because Quran is written in it). They do not take migrants, because migration is another sham and if rich nonIslamic countries have decided to take care of them without requirements to receive this support, then they are only bringing problems upon themselves.

Also, lets not forget that Christianity birthed revolutionaries of Europe(at least in eastern part), as it is impossible to make global terrorists from local minded people, it takes Large idea to start to kill other people in the name of one happy united brotherhood of mankind.

For those who have a hard time understanding what I am refering to - Stalin was studying to be a priest, his comrades of that time and 20 years prior mostly came from very religious Christian families, who were more religious and who shunned local "pagan" traditions more than other people. When people lose roots that are string together with traditions, they start to participate in crazy experiments with themselves and other people.

[ArchStanton]

It doesn't seem to me that local populations or organizations have much say in the matter.