Thread: Immigration reform splits Catholics, GOP

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Friday, April 21, 2006 · Last updated 4:47 p.m. PT

Immigration reform splits Catholics, GOP

By RACHEL ZOLL
AP RELIGION WRITER

The national immigration debate is muddying Republican relations with Roman Catholics - coveted swing voters who comprise about one-quarter of the electorate.

While Catholic bishops and many Republican politicians share opposition to abortion, they're often split over the specifics of immigration reform. Church leaders are challenging - and in some cases even vowing to defy - the tougher enforcement proposals by GOP lawmakers.

The issue highlights the roadblocks that the Catholic worldview creates for Republicans and Democrats. Catholics are generally conservative on personal issues such as marriage, but tend to be liberal on social justice problems, limiting the appeal of both major parties and leaving Catholics "politically homeless," said the Rev. James L. Heft, president of the Institute of Advanced Catholic Studies at the University of Southern California.

"I'd like to see more pro-life Democrats," Heft said, "and social justice Republicans."

Immigration is not the first issue to split GOP and Catholic leaders.

Pope John Paul II opposed the U.S.-led war on Iraq and the death penalty, for example. But these latest differences have emerged only months before much of the Republican-controlled Congress is up for re-election, and when the GOP and Catholics had seemed closer than ever.

"Right now, a higher proportion of Catholic voters (than in the past) would identify with the Republican Party, or some of the themes that the Republican candidates have been using," said David Leege, a professor emeritus at the University of Notre Dame and an expert on Catholics and politics.

But the impact of the immigration debate is unclear. "The jury is out on the Catholic vote in long run," Leege said.

Catholics, once solidly Democratic, have been moving toward the Republican Party for the last 25 years or so. When struggling Catholics established themselves financially, they started voting less according to religious ties and more according to economic interests. The Democrats' embrace of abortion rights also drew them to GOP candidates.

President Bush, a Methodist, won the 2004 Catholic vote 52 percent to 47 percent over Democratic nominee John F. Kerry, who is Catholic. Leading up to the election, bishops had warned Catholic lawmakers they risk "cooperating in evil" if they vote for candidates supporting abortion rights. Church leaders insisted their position was nonpartisan, yet the timing of their statements was clearly a boon to Republicans since Kerry backs abortion rights.

But now, many of these same bishops are accusing GOP lawmakers of lacking compassion for illegal migrants. St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke, who said in 2004 he would refuse to give Holy Communion to Kerry, was among many church leaders who organized recent rallies in favor of giving undocumented workers a chance at citizenship. Burke noted that American Catholics were immigrants themselves, and that by welcoming migrants, "we obey the command of Our Lord, who tells us that when we welcome the stranger, we welcome Christ Himself."

Rep. James Sensenbrenner, a Republican from Wisconsin, galvanized Catholic opposition by sponsoring legislation that the House passed in December that would make it a felony to be in the country illegally and making it a crime to help illegal immigrants.

Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony said his priests would disobey such a law. Successive popes, including John Paul II, have stressed that nations with the resources to accommodate people fleeing persecution or economic hardship have a moral obligation to do so - regardless of legal status. About 30 percent of the nearly 65 million U.S. Catholics are Hispanic, and the church has an extensive social service network for migrants.

Catholics in AP-Ipsos polling were more likely than Protestants and white evangelicals to support allowing immigrants to be temporary workers and to oppose making it a serious crime to be in this country without documentation.

Leonard Leo, the Republican National Committee's co-chairman for Catholic outreach, called Mahony's remarks overly harsh and argued that Bush "has done a very good job of describing where the Republican Party ought to be on the issue and I think that his vision is very consistent with where a lot of Catholics are." Bush most recently lobbied for compromise legislation that would offer eventual citizenship to millions of illegal immigrants, while providing for stronger border security.

"The problem is that the term `justice' is sometimes misconstrued to mean that we should basically disregard the law and provide whatever is viewed as the charitable solution," Leo said. "The immigration area is a lot more complicated than that."

There are a LOT of Catholics who are very upset with the church and think they should STAY out of politics. A church, any church, has no business interfering with the laws of the land. These are not new laws! These laws exist if they would just enforce them. Too many people think there are a bunch of NEW laws. The only real new thing is amnesty and all the associated ills attached to it!

I just don't understand how any relegious group can try and undermine the law. I'm not saying agree with it. But you try and change it BEFORE a crisis......not when a mob says so. If laws weren't important then why have the 10 commandments? And if humans were so perfect, why have the 7 deadly sins?