Left at the Altar: How the Democrats Lost the Catholics and How the Catholics Can Save the Democrats [Hardcover]

Micheal Sean Winters (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 30, 2008

In 1960, Democrats and Catholics united to elect John F. Kennedy, America’s first Catholic president. As we approach the 2008 presidential election, the Democratic party is struggling to secure Catholic votes. For most of the twentieth-century, however, the Catholic vote was solidly Democratic. In Left at the Altar, Michael Sean Winters chronicles the rise and fall of this vital alliance, and offers compelling arguments for its revival. For the Democrats, the stakes could not be higher: The explosive growth of the Latino population will make the Catholic vote decisive in the twenty-first century. The stakes are high for Catholics, too: In their defection to the Republican party, Catholics have drifted from their traditional advocacy of core values including peace and social justice.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Few observers are as steeped as Winters is in the theory and practice of polities in both the Roman Catholic Church and the United States of America, and few are as passionately engaged in seeking a redemptive common ground." -- Hendrik Hertzberg

About the Author

Michael Sean Winters has worked as a speechwriter for top political candidates including General Wesley Clark (ret.), and is currently completing his doctorate in Church History at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He has written for The New Republic, the New York Times, Washington Post, Washingtonian, Dallas Morning News, Slate.com, and America, and has appeared as a commentator on “ABC News” and “Capital Sunday.” He lives in Washington, D.C.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; First Edition edition (June 30, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465091660
• ISBN-13: 978-0465091669
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 1 x 9.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,668,556 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars How Obama can win July 26, 2008

By Andre L. Foster

Format:Hardcover

This book is really smart. It goes all the way back to FDR and the New Deal to discuss how Catholics have been involved politically with the Democrats. I hope Obama and his campaign team read it - Obama did badly among Catholics in the primaries. Hillary beat him 70%-30% among Catholics in Pennsylvania. This book will give him ideas about how to win them back. The last chapter on Latinos is especially good.

23 of 29 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Well written book--but the thesis is wrong August 17, 2008

By Jeri Nevermind VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Winters is a good writer, and this is a thoughtful and engaging book, although it does slant left. Essentially, the bulk of the book is a history of Catholics and the Democratic party. This part is outstanding.

There is only a short chapter or two at the end which dealt with the future of the Democratic party and Catholics. This surprised me, given the title.

Winters suggests that the huge, new population of Catholic Hispanics in the United States will eventually create a solid majority of Democrats. "Hispanics may change America...The Catholic Left...can lead the way by making local parishes into effective melting pots" (p 220).

His sympathy for the new immigrants is touching, but I doubt he's right about their connection to the Democratic party.

How can practicing Catholics vote Democratic so long as Democrats insist on abortion on demand?

Winters says "the Left must challenge the Church to put less emphasis on changing the law and more emphasis on changing the culture. The Left must say that although the Church is free to try to persuade women not to abort, it cannot coerce them" (p 187).

There is nothing unclear about Catholic teaching and belief about abortion. You can pick up a Catechism of the church in any bookstore and it will tell you that Catholics believe abortion is a terrible moral wrong. It is the murder of a child. By allowing its legalization 40 million babies have been killed. Catholics cannot vote for anyone who supports abortion.

The Democratic party has tied itself to gay marriage and abortion.

So, what will happen to those millions and millions of Hispanics flooding the US? Right now, many vote Democratic because of immigration issues. Polling suggests many do not even know which party supports abortion.

But wait. Sooner or later these immigrants will reach the middle class, and once they do, if they remain Catholic, they know they can't vote for anyone who supports abortion.

So I believe Winters is simply wrong in his conclusion.

One thing his book did not emphasize was the history of anti-Catholicism in America. There are only a few pages and a very brief mention of the Know Nothing party whose party had only one plank: to stop Catholic immigration.

Nor does he mention the issue which has been the flash point for anti-Catholicism the last 150 years--public funding for Catholic schools.

Public schools originally taught Protestantism and anti-Catholicism. Simple as that. They used the King James bible and a curriculum which sometimes called the pope the anti-Christ.

As recently as 1971 the Supreme Court Justice William Douglas wrote, in regards to funding Catholic schools: "In the parochial schools Roman Catholic indoctrination is included in every subject. History, literature, geography, civics and science are given a Roman Catholic slant. The whole education of the child is filled with propaganda. That, of course, is the very purpose of such schools...That purpose is not so much to educate, but to indoctrinate and train, not to teach Scripture truths and Americanism, but to make loyal Roman Catholics."

Actually, things haven't changed that much. I believe many Democrats today would deny funding to Catholic schools for exactly the same reason.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Falwell Admirerer Gets Democrats Wrong December 18, 2010

By Peter P. Fuchs

Format:Hardcover

All you have to know to understand the odd point of view of this book, and its significant omissions, is that the writer has turned out to be an admirer and de facto defender of Jerry Falwell and a lot of his Republican exploits. This hardly seems to be based in any kind of analysis of day-to-day normality of everyday Catholics actually being more liberal than people understand. Rather it is based in the odd brew the author has cooked up in which the vastly reactionary positions of the Catholic Church nowadays can somehow be seen as less reactionary than they are. It is a rabbit-out-of-a-hat attempt, which has little to do with real Democratic Party thinking. All this from a scribbler who recently careened into the realm of cringe-worthy hyperbole by assailing President Obama with the words J'Accuse. Thus, the only meaning to "left at the altar" in this regard, is that the author feels like a jilted bride whose fabulous lace dress was disrespected, and hardly a modern day Dreyfusard.