Pew poll: Obama opens up lead over Romney among Catholics

[rug]

September 27th, 2012
11:24 AM ET

Washington (CNN) - President Barack Obama has opened up a significant lead among Catholic voters, a crucial swing voting bloc, according to a recent Pew poll.

Obama leads opponent Mitt Romney among Catholic voters by 54% to 39%, according to the survey, conducted from September 12 to 16 by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

Obama’s lead in the Pew survey comes despite outspoken recent criticism of the Obama administration from America’s Catholic bishops and despite Mitt Romney’s selection of a Catholic running mate, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan.

The survey was released last week, but the findings on Catholic voters were highlighted this week by the Religion News Service, which notes that Obama held a much tighter 49-47% lead over Romney among Catholics in a June Pew poll.

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/27/pew-poll-obama-opens-up-lead-over-romney-among-catholics/

[regnaD kciN]

1. Not surprising...

Roman Catholics may be conservative on a lot of issues, but they're generally on the left on social-justice issues, and place a lot of emphasis on them. I can assure you that Rmoney's 47% diatribe would definitely NOT sit well with the average Roman Catholic voter.

[MADem]

2. I guess those assorted admonitions are finally easing across the Catholic spectrum....

"Unjustified and wrong" ---those are the words going forth....

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/08/13/683291/why-religious-leaders-have-condemned-the-ryan-romney-budget/

...Catholic nuns, priests, and friars have called the Ryan budget “immoral,” a “severe failure,” and the “height of hypocrisy.” Sister Simone Campbell led a 17-city “Nuns on the Bus” tour this summer to visit faith-based social service programs that would be hurt by cuts proposed in the Ryan budget. Last week her organization, NETWORK, and the Franciscan Action Network invited Mitt Romney to spend a day with them visiting the poor in order to meet the people who’d be affected by their budget cuts. NETWORK issued a statement after the Ryan-VP announcement saying, “We agree with Catholic Bishops that Paul Ryan’s budget fails the test of Catholic Social Teaching since it deliberately harms people at the economic margins.”


– Catholic bishops have called the Ryan budget “unjustified and wrong” and failing a moral test. In April the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops sent a public letter to the House of Representatives saying that the federal budget must “protect poor, vulnerable people.”