Guest columnist
The pope and the Gipper: A profound impact on Catholic voters

By Matt Zemek
Special to The Times

SCOTT STEWART / AP Pope John Paul II walks with President Ronald Reagan in Biscayne Bay, Fla. in this Sept. 10, 1987, file photo.

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Right until the end of his life, Ronald Wilson Reagan showed a flair for impeccably good timing. Now, in a presidential election year in which the Catholic vote is up for grabs, Reagan's death offers the perfect occasion to assess the electoral and political dynamics surrounding Catholic America today.

That the Reagan presidency co-existed with the beginning of Pope John Paul II's pontificate is no small link to understanding why the realities shaped by the late president in the 1980s underlie the ways in which the Catholic vote will be contested in November.

The presidency of Ronald Reagan and the pontificate of John Paul II were unified and defined by anti-communism more than anything else. But beyond that obvious connection, the two men also are joined in a Catholic context because they both did much to turn American Catholics from a straight Democratic Party line into a swing constituency.

It's no secret that the same Reagan Democrats of the industrial Upper Midwest will be a key voting bloc in the 2004 election. Understanding how Reagan — and the pope — won them over is vital to understanding the still-emerging realm of American Catholic politics.

Just how did Reagan and John Paul combine to turn the political tide in Catholic America? One thing stands out above all else: the "prophetic sunshine factor."

Being a prophet is thought of as a thankless task, reserved for those who challenge their own people, who tell hard truths that people don't want to hear (think Howard Dean). The necessary fierceness of a prophet's challenge to the citizenry has painted prophets in a negative cultural light.

But what gets forgotten in the culture's understanding of a prophet is that, from a Catholic Christian perspective, being prophetic is also supposed to offer hope and new life, by showing a new way of living. Blending reassurance along with challenge is the full measure of a prophet.

Simply put, Reagan and John Paul, in American politics and institutional Catholicism, both understood that need.

When you think about their tenures as president and pope, Reagan and John Paul are defined by their penchant for telling tough truths with a sunny disposition. Reagan called the Soviet Union "the evil empire," but only against the backdrop of his "Morning in America" presidency in a land he called "a shining city on a hill."

Reagan said many harsh things during a presidency whose policies, critics say, were extraordinarily harsh toward the poor. Yet, in the wake of his death, many Americans — transcending economic status to a surprising degree — still profess admiration for him. Reagan's prophetic sunshine, regardless of what you think about his policies, won over the country, particularly Upper Midwestern Catholics who became Reagan Democrats.

	Matt Zemek

Similarly, John Paul — like Reagan, a man who once trained in acting and, like Reagan, survived an assassination attempt — immediately understood the need to put a happy, joyful, optimistic, smiling face on Catholicism, much as Reagan needed to inspire confidence and happiness in Americans after the "days of malaise" associated with former President Jimmy Carter.

John Paul has spent his entire pontificate speaking against the Western world's materialistic and shallow "culture of death." His pontificate has not exactly provided the kind of message most Americans want to hear. However, the pope's evident frailty these days might obscure the fact that when elected pope in 1978, the man named Karol Wojtyla had an enormous stage presence that all the world's Catholics, including Americans, simply couldn't resist.

Upon his election as pope, he stepped onto the balcony in St. Peter's Square to greet the surprised Italian crowds who couldn't conceive of a non-Italian pontiff. Immediately, the Polish pope charmed them with his finest and most theatrical Italian.

On his tours to America in the 1980s (I was lucky enough to see John Paul when he visited my hometown of Phoenix in 1987), and everywhere he traveled in the first 15 years of his pontificate, a strong and vibrant pope continued to win over crowds with humor and big smiles. Even while he challenged American Catholics to change their ways of living — especially in the bedroom — John Paul nevertheless used his trips to the U.S. to convey an unmistakable sense of joy and pride among American Catholics.

The most traveled pope in history, when younger and healthier, never left American Catholics feeling threatened, grim or defensive: His appearances in this country were examples of prophetic sunshine. That's why so many liberal Catholics love John Paul completely, even while they certainly disagree with a number of his stances on issues. As Reagan was able to touch industrial-region Catholic Democrats politically, so John Paul II was able to touch liberal Catholic Democrats in the heart.

With the past as prelude, then, how are Reagan's and John Paul's legacies of prophetic sunshine affecting the politics of Catholic America today?

Simply put, there's no prophetic sunshine on the current landscape. That explains the climate of mortal political combat and bitter polarization that define the ideological divisions within American Catholicism and the country at large.

The multiple tensions within the U.S. Catholic community can all be viewed as flowing from a single, deeply entrenched division between the institutional church and the Democratic Party — over religious and secular values.

Once, Democrats used to have Catholic standard-bearers, such as presidential candidates Al Smith in 1928 and John F. Kennedy in 1960. But in those times, the institutional church got out of their way, lest the country get the impression that Smith or JFK would be slaves of the Vatican.

Today, the tide has turned 180 degrees, thanks to the enduring legacies of Reagan and John Paul, who never hesitated to put moral issues forcefully in the public spotlight.

Now, some leaders in the American institutional church are sticking their necks out to rebuke Democratic pro-choice politicians, specifically John Kerry, a Catholic who is meeting Republican opposition not because he's too Catholic, but because he's not Catholic enough — that he is failing to fully bring his faith into the public square.

A Democratic Party so closely associated with religious principles during the civil-rights movement in the 1960s is now dominated, culturally speaking, by secular values that do not sit well with many conservative Catholics.

This cultural switch, however, has occurred against the complicating backdrop of President Bush's war in Iraq, an issue — like many issues of global justice — where the Catholic Church and the Democratic Party are in sync.

Thus, when issues pertain to culture and sexuality, the Catholic Church's positions are more in step with the Republican Party; on matters of global justice, Catholic issues cut Democratic. One can see why Catholic voters are increasingly swing voters in America.

No issue has exposed the rifts in American Catholic politics as consistently as abortion. Despite tempering comments by Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, D.C., threats by bishops in Newark and Colorado Springs to deny Holy Communion to pro-choice Democratic politicians have been seen as representing the institutional church's moral and doctrinal challenge to the Democratic Party and liberal Catholics.

Kerry and other Catholic Democrats have responded by calling upon the church to condemn President Bush's war in Iraq with as much force as it has devoted to condemning abortion.

What is revealing in both the bishops' strong statements on abortion and the Democrats' equally strong response on the war is that neither side is providing the prophetic sunshine offered by Reagan and John Paul two decades ago. We are left with a grim confrontation in which conservative Catholic anger at dissident liberal Catholics on matters of sexuality is matched by liberal Catholic bitterness at Bush on matters of global justice.

Bush showed a glimmer of prophetic sunshine with his promise of "compassionate conservatism" in the 2000 election. Four years later, however, the administration's defensiveness on Iraq has wiped it away.

Similarly, the conservative Catholic bishops who have become the pope's messengers in America — at a time when the pope is old and feeble — have not talked about abortion with the prophetic sunshine that made John Paul's moral challenges still sing with joyful hope. The rigidity and anger of bishops has only turned liberal Catholics toward the Democratic Party, and further away from the institutional church.

Meanwhile, Kerry — who conveys stuffed-shirt cautiousness mixed with predictable stock criticisms of Bush — is hardly providing prophetic sunshine, either. Kerry fits the image conservatives like to attach to all major Democratic politicians these days: He can only say what he's against, not what he's for, a sour contrarian who lacks a positive vision for America.

Given the tightness of the 2004 race in the polls, it's clear that neither Bush nor Kerry has yet to inspire fence-sitting Catholic voters to any appreciable degree.

In a tight election where Catholics will be a core swing constituency, especially in Michigan and Pennsylvania, George Bush and John Kerry ought to look to Ronald Reagan, and also Pope John Paul II, for some prophetic sunshine.

The presidential candidate who can offer prophetic hope — in addition to prophetic challenge — will, you might say, win one for the Gipper.

Matt Zemek, a parishioner at St. James Cathedral in Seattle, is the author of "Liberalism the Right Way: A Liberal Vision for Christian Conservatives," published by BookLocker.com. E-mail: mzemek@hotmail.com