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Article
When Church Teachings and Policy Commitments Collide: Perspectives on Catholics in the U.S. House of Representatives
Politics and Religion
  • William E. Hudson, Providence College
  • Elizabeth A. Oldmixon
Description

This article investigates the influence of religious values on domestic social policy-making, with a particular focus on Catholics. We analyze roll call votes in the 109th Congress and find that Catholic identification is associated with support for Catholic Social Teaching, but both younger Catholics and Republican Catholics are found less supportive. In followup interviews with a small sample of Catholic Republicans, we find that they justify voting contrary to Church teaching by seeing its application to domestic social issues as less authoritative than Church moral teachings on issues like abortion.

Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Publication Date
1-1-2008
Type
Article
Format
Text
None
.pdf
Identifier
DOI
None
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1755048308000060
Language
English
Citation Information
William E. Hudson and Elizabeth A. Oldmixon. "When Church Teachings and Policy Commitments Collide: Perspectives on Catholics in the U.S. House of Representatives" Politics and Religion Vol. 1 Iss. 1 (2008) ISSN: 17550483
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/william_e_hudson/5/