by Ben Whedon
Traditionally a Democratic-leaning group, Catholics have increasingly shifted toward the GOP in recent years and that constituency appears likely to prove critical in the key battleground of Pennsylvania, where they constitute nearly a quarter of the population in the narrowly divided state.
Catholics represent roughly 24% of Pennsylvanians, according to the Pew Research Center. With former President Donald Trump currently trailing Vice President Kamala Harris in the Keystone State by just 1.0% on average, bolstering support among Catholics could conceivably hand the state and the White House to Trump. The Senate race, meanwhile, loosely favors incumbent Sen. Bob Casey, D, who leads Republican David McCormick by 4.5% on average.
In 2020, Pennsylvania broke for President Joe Biden, a Catholic, over Trump. It previously backed the Republican in 2016 over Clinton. Now, with the state so narrowly divided, both the Trump campaign and conservative groups seem to see the value in courting Catholic voters.
Taking aim at Dems over faith issues
Frontiers of Freedom Action this week staged an ad blitz in Pennsylvania and Ohio, focusing on the records of Casey and Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, in dealing with issues of importance to Catholic voters. The ads, run in English and Spanish, cover an array of issues, including healthcare mandates that run afoul of Catholic teaching, federal law enforcement’s handling of Catholic activists, and myriad comments from Democratic lawmakers.
“There are 60,000 Hispanics in Columbus, where we are advertising in Ohio, and half a million in Philadelphia, where we are on Spanish TV,” FFA President George Landrith said in a press release. “Brown is particularly vulnerable because he’s trying to separate himself from the extremist left-wing record he has established and trying to say he’s not going to do that anymore.”
“Meanwhile, Casey, who was once pro-life and is [sic] has long identified as a Catholic, has all the same problems that Brown and the other candidates have with their party’s record of anti-Catholic bigotry and his failure to stand up to it or denounce it,” he added.
Bob Casey is a Catholic and, for years, described himself as “pro-life,” though he has recently taken to attacking McCormick as a threat to abortion access in a notable about-face on the issue. As recently as 2018, Casey expressed disagreement with the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision establishing a constitutional right to an abortion, according to Politico. But its being reversed in the Dobbs v. Jackson decision has shaken the foundations of the abortion debate and Casey has taken a different tack.
Pro or anti Catholic?
In 1960, John F. Kennedy, a professed Catholic, was subjected to a wide range of ads and whispering campaigns alleging that his “primary” allegiance was to the Pope, and not the Constitution. The issue became so heated that he found it necessary to give a speech where he declared he was “not the Catholic candidate for president” but in fact “the Democratic Party’s candidate for president who happens to be Catholic.”
The FFA ad targeting Casey, however, focuses less on the abortion issue and instead paints him as a supporter of myriad actions the Biden-Harris administration perceived as anti-Catholic. Among the first of the group’s grievances was Casey’s vote to confirm Xavier Becerra as the secretary of Health and Human Services. As California attorney general, Becerra was a leading figure in litigation over religious exemptions to federal contraceptive mandates.
“The Little Sisters of the Poor give up their lives to care for the elderly, but Bob Casey joined the Democratic Party’s cruel war against them by giving the winning vote to the leader of the 23 attorney generals trying to force the sisters to violate their faith and pay for abortion pills,” the ad stated.
It further argued that Casey “went along” with a so-called “unconstitutional religious test” for Catholics to become federal judges. The ad featured a New York Post headline discussing late Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s, D-Calif., questioning of then-Judge Amy Coney Barrett during her nomination to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. Feinstein attracted scrutiny for her comment that Catholic “dogma lives loudly within” Barrett.
Other issues over which the ad accuses Casey of complicity with the administration include federal transgender sports initiatives, an FBI memo characterizing attendees of the traditional Latin mass as potential extremists, the use of SWAT teams when jailing anti-abortion activists, and myriad symbolic gestures from the White House.
“Bob Casey stayed silent, even as the Harris-Biden White House mocked Catholics and all Christians by replacing the traditional Easter Sunday proclamation with the offensive Transgender Day of visibility, he never went on the record about the Harris-Biden administration’s initial refusal to allow the Knights of Columbus to celebrate a Catholic mass on Memorial Day in a clear act of religious bigotry and an assault on all veterans,” the ad continued.
Catholics for Trump
At the national level, there are no Catholics at the top of either party’s presidential ticket, though the Republican vice presidential nominee, JD Vance, converted to Catholicism in 2019 and has publicly discussed the influence of his faith on his political views.
Trump, for his part, is expected to visit Pennsylvania on Sunday and will reportedly stop at The National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa in New Britain, the same day as Polish President Andrzej Duda, according to local news.
Earlier this month, the Trump campaign launched its “Catholics for Trump” coalition, featuring prominent Republican Catholics asserting that the Republican platform is more in line with Catholic values. Among them was former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., who said that “[l]ike all Catholics who follow the teachings of the church, it guides every decision I make.”
“There has never been a time when those values and the freedom to practice them have been in greater peril,” he continued. “With such high stakes, we are blessed to have the easiest decision in modern history as to which candidate for president has a record in public office more consistent with those teachings. That’s why I will vote for and support Donald Trump and encourage my fellow Catholics to likewise.”
A grudge against the Catholic church
The attack ads against Casey and the Trump campaign’s efforts to harness Catholic discontent with the Biden administration’s policies are not new to Pennsylvania politics. Such a line of attack made an appearance during the 2022 gubernatorial elections, when then-state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, D, ran against Republican Doug Mastriano.
The Republican told David Brody of Real America’s Voice that Shapiro “has a real grudge against the Catholic Church.” As state attorney general, Shapiro pursued a rigorous investigation into the Catholic Church’s handling of sex abuse cases. “As Attorney General, I uncovered a systematic cover-up in the Catholic Church that stretched from dioceses in Pennsylvania to the Vatican,” Shapiro stated in 2022. “We gave victims of sexual abuse a voice and put predator priests behind bars — and I’ll continue fighting for justice until it’s done.”
Shapiro ultimately won the 2022 contest by almost 15 points.
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Ben Whedon is a reporter for Just the News.
