05-14-2011, 04:33 AM
"The Ratzinger intervention and the bishops' statement did little, ultimately, to quell the hierarchical attacks on Kerry, which had a real impact on the race. As Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg noted recently in a memo designed in-part as guidance to pro-choice Catholic politicians: \"Conflict with the bishops on abortion or on Communion is not particularly helpful.\
In the general election, Bush and Kerry essentially split the Catholic vote. But in heavily Catholic Ohio -- the state that decided the contest -- Bush carried 53 percent of the Catholic vote to Kerry's 46 percent.
The Ratzinger effect? Parochially speaking, there's no doubt about it wrote:
from Freep no less
How does this concerted attack launched during a US Presidential election not cross the line established for non-profit charitable institutions? I'm old enough to remember when the Church bent over backwards during the Kennedy election to assure the American public that there would be no such interference by Rome, sans that pledge Nixon wins.
Seems their word carries as much weight as that of a local ward alderman or other politician. All this and tax exempt too!