A Roman Catholic woman responds to Donald Trump

"Trump has significantly damaged the GOP, as he confirms Hispanics’ suspicions that the Republican party is fully embracing a strong anti-immigration — and perhaps anti-immigrant — policy...," Alexandra DeSanctis National Review

Roman Catholics, especially women (me among them), are appalled by Donald Trump's anti-immigration and bigotry driven rhetoric. He sounds dangerously like the warning by Niemöller, at least to me*.

Dear Donald Trump (and vicariously this message extends to your limited number of surrogates including Kellyanne Conway aka Cruella di Vil),

As a practicing Roman Catholic woman, I want to chime in about your lack of support from my religious voter demographic.  

We can't support Donald Trump or Governor Mike Pence while knowing how our faith is based on building bridges with all other religious groups.  All are welcome into our Roman Catholic communities without regard for any segregating demographic and especially not exclusive to those with particular immigrant status. In other words, Roman Catholics can't abide by Donald Trump's opposition to immigration reform and his support for mass expulsion of immigrants.

Likewise, with Governor Mike Pence, who claims to be a former Roman Catholic, now an Evangelical Christian. No practicing Christian turns anyone away from the Gospel, based on their race, ethnicity, social status, religious affiliation or immigrant status.
Governor Mike Pence isn't speaking like a Christian when he supports the exclusive and harmful social policies spewed by Donald Trump.

The National Review reports:
Polls show Donald Trump is struggling to appeal to Catholic voters, a longtime swing demographic. A central theme of this year’s presidential election has been Donald Trump’s failure to capture the support of key voting groups such as women, African Americans, and Hispanics. Now, he's also losing by an unrecoverable margin in another key voting bloc, one that has swung between the two major political parties for over half a century: Catholics. A poll from the Public Religion Research Institute shows Trump trailing Clinton among Catholic voters by 23 points, 55–32. Meanwhile, a Washington Post-ABC News poll from early August has Trump down by 27 points, 61–34. Neither of these statistics is promising for the Republican nominee, especially given the central role Catholic voters historically have played in presidential elections. In fact, Catholics account for around one-quarter of the overall electorate, and they are typically split about evenly between the Republican and Democratic parties. The majority of Catholics have supported the winning presidential candidate in nearly every election since 1948, the most recent exception being in 2000, when they narrowly swung for Al Gore over George W. Bush.

The Catholic voting bloc is rightly described as a swing group, but obviously not every Catholic voter is up for grabs in every election cycle. Among Catholics, certain subgroups tend to vote in a more predictable way; white, conservative Catholics usually vote Republican, while white liberal Catholics and Hispanic Catholics almost always vote Democrat. It is the Catholic moderates, the largest plurality among Catholic voters at about 33 percent, who account for much of the group’s swinging between parties.

While Trump’s strong anti-immigration stances have contributed to his problems with Catholic voters, particularly Hispanics, this alone does not explain the huge decline in Trump’s Catholic support. 

The PRC reports that Hispanic Catholics already have been largely supporting Democrats, at least since 2000, likely due to the Republican party’s immigration policy. Nor can Trump’s shaky support for the pro-life cause and uninspiring stances on religious liberty and same-sex marriage be held solely to blame. 

According to the PRC, most Catholics have other areas of concern. This year, their top five issues of concern are, in order of importance: The economy, terrorism, health care, immigration, and foreign policy. Abortion and “treatment of LGBT people” (a somewhat ambiguous category) rank at the very bottom of the 14 issues under consideration. Additionally, white Catholic moderates tend to align more closely with liberal Catholics than conservative Catholics on social issues.

In other words, it seems plausible that Trump’s lack of Catholic support is the result of voters abandoning him on both sides of the spectrum: moderates swinging in the liberal direction toward Hillary as the result of his “toxic” rhetoric, and conservatives avoiding him for fear that he is not a real conservative. 

Nevetheless, Catholic discontent isn't limited to Trump. The PRC reports that 57 percent of Catholics as a whole, 53 percent of Hispanic Catholics, and 59 percent of white Catholics are dissatisfied with both major-party candidates. That the majority of Catholics support Clinton seems to be the product of their much stronger dislike for Trump, rather than of any great affinity for Clinton per se.

This enormous rise in Catholic support for the Democratic nominee over the Republican indicates another area in which Trump has significantly damaged the GOP, as he confirms Hispanics’ suspicions that the Republican party is fully embracing a strong anti-immigration — and perhaps anti-immigrant — policy, and his rhetoric affirms liberal Catholics’ belief that the GOP tolerates “bigotry.” It is worth remembering that the Republican party secured a majority of the Catholic vote as recently as 2004, and Mitt Romney lost it by only two percentage points in 2012.

Given Catholics’ dissatisfaction with Clinton in this election cycle, one wonders whether a different GOP nominee — perhaps a fellow Catholic such as Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio — might have galvanized historic Catholic support. 

For now, however, it is not to be. — 

Alexandra DeSanctis is a William F. Buckley Fellow in Political Journalism at the National Review Institute. 

* First They Came Pastor Niemöller (1892-1984)might help explain the Catholic opposition to Donald Trump:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.