Sorry, Archangels...

Yesterday was the Feast Day of the Archangels.

Tobias and the Archangels Ease on Down the Road

Our perennial Catholic thought is that the angels are in a hierarchy of nine “choirs”.  

This goes back to the writings of St. Dionysius and of Gregory the Great.  St. Thomas Aquinas developed their foundational teachings.   According to the Angelic Doctor the choirs, which designate offices and roles, are

1. Seraphim
2. Cherubim
3. Thrones
4. Dominions
5. Virtues
6. Powers
7. Principalities
8. Archangels
9. Angels

Note that Archangels are second from the last.  That St. Michael seems to be the commander of the heavenly host shows that even among angels (who are created persons, but without bodies), so vastly above us in the order of creation, God chose the lowly for His own plans.

Looks like...

After More Than Three YEARS of "Islamic Outreach" On This Blog, We Get This

AFP) - Pope Francis on Saturday called for a "sincere dialogue" between Christians and Muslims as he met grieving relatives and survivors of France's Bastille Day attack, in which a jihadist ploughed his truck into a crowd.

The pope, who this week denounced violence in the name of religion, declaring "there is no God of war", met 180 people who were wounded or left traumatised or bereaved by the July 14 attack in Nice which claimed 86 lives.

"What About Me?"

We need to start a sincere dialogue and have fraternal relations between everybody, especially those who believe in a sole God who is merciful," he said, speaking in the Vatican's giant Paul VI audience hall, adding that this was "an urgent priority."

Father Kale (of Notre Dame?)

Just in time for the start of Fall, local hipster priest Fr. Kale Adams announced this morning that he has consecrated his first batch of Pumpkin Spice Eucharist.

Although the seasonal pumpkin flavor of Jesus’ body has been condemned by the Vatican, Fr. Adams has told his parishioners that they’re not sheep, but rather, “free souls that can’t be contained by the man or the Vatican.”

“Pumpkin Spice Eucharist allows me to express myself and my love for JC in ways you wouldn’t believe,” Adams told EOTT as he sat down to finish knitting a cover for his iPad. “And listen, to all those establishment bishops in Rome,  I was consecrating before it was cool. And that’s why my parishioners dig me and why so many of them have returned to the Church in the first place. You gotta give them what they want. And what they want is Jesus…Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity, with a flawless blend of cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, and ginger.”

At press time, Fr. Kale Adams is trying on his brand new hemp vestments.

The Trouble With Jesuits, Part 56

Even as Pope Francis seems to want to discard a core truth of the faith, there’s nowhere else to turn. I think Ross Douthat is clearly right. Pope Francis wants to let divorced and remarried Catholics take communion even if their first marriages were valid. Francis is taking a rather well-worn, and perhaps I could say Jesuitical, path for Catholics, in somehow wanting to keep the doctrine and abandon the discipline of indissolubility by suggesting to bishops and priests that they can privately readmit divorced-and-remarried Catholics to communion after a suitable amount of “accompaniment.”

The Formerly Catholic University of Notre Dame

Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia didn’t hold back in criticizing the University of Notre Dame’s honor of abortion and same-sex marriage advocate Vice President Joe Biden with the Laetare Medal earlier this year. He called the honor “a contradiction of Notre Dame’s identity” and “a baffling error of judgment” during a recent address on campus. “What the Church needs now is a university that radiates the glory of God in an age that no longer knows what it means to be human,” he added. “What the people of God need now is a university that fuses the joy of Francis with the brilliance of Benedict and the courage, fidelity and humanity of the great John Paul.”

The Airtraffic Controllers Union Feast of St. Pius of Pietreclina, September 24

Padre Pio to you and me.

The heart of Padre Pio, the sainted Italian priest and mystic who bore stigmata, will be on display on Sunday at a church in Vineland, the Press of Atlantic City reports.

The relic of the Capuchin friar, now known officially as St. Pio of Pietrelcina and whose feast day is today, will be at Our Lady of Pompeii Church as part of its 14th annual St. Padre Pio festival.

“It’s huge,” the Rev. Robert Sinatra, pastor of Our Lady of Pompeii and festival founder, told the Press. “This is really a once in a lifetime opportunity.” He's expecting 6,000 people.

Many Allied aviation pilots of various nationalities (English, American, Polish, Palestinian) and of varied religions (Catholic, Orthodox, Moslem, Protestant, Jewish) who during the Second World War, after September 8, 1943, were based in Bari to undertake missions on Italian territory, testified to an amazing occurrence.
Each time, while fulfilling their Italian military mission, they approached the zone of the Gargano, in the environs of San Giovanni Rotondo, they saw in the sky a Friar, who in stretching out his wounded hands, prevented them from dropping their bombs. Foggia and almost all of the centers of Puglia were subjected to repeated bombardment; on San Giovanni Rotondo not one bomb fell. 
This event, which is to say the least unheard of, was directly witnessed by the general of Aeronautica Italiana Bernardo Rosini, who at that time was part of the "United Air Command" operating out of Bari with the Allied air forces. "Each time that the pilots returned from their missions," General Rosini told me, "they spoke of this Friar that appeared in the sky and diverted their airplanes, making them turn back.  
Someone told the commanding general that in a convent at this little town of San Giovanni Rotondo, there lived a saintly man, a friar in the odor of sanctity. At war's end, the general wanted to go meet this person. "He was accompanied by several pilots," Rosini continued. "He went to the convent of the Capuchins. As soon as he crossed the threshold of the sacrisity he found himself in front of several friars, among whom he immediately recognized the one who had 'stopped' his planes. Padre Pio went forward to meet him, and putting his hand on his shoulder, he said, "So, you're the one who wanted to get rid of us all!" If there had been any doubt before....

I can't seem to imbed this video, but it's Pio related:

http://youtu.be/ux1qpLDVPcg

Formatting Posts

I have switched from a standard Windows desk top computer to a Kindle Fire tablet, which has changed the background formatting. If I figure out how to fix it you will be the first to know.

Which, after posting this, turns out to NOT be a problem if I manually type entries as opposed to copying and pasting items.

Anyway...did you notice that this is my second most prolific posting year since starting this 10 years ago?

Thankfully, Pope Francis Was Unavailable For Comment

I Think That is Mexican for "You Bastards".

Another Catholic priest in Mexico kidnapped, remains missing

Coming on the heels of the kidnapping and murder of two Catholic priests in Mexico over the weekend, a third one was reportedly taken from his church on Monday and remains missing.
Father José Alfredo López Guillen of the state of Michoacán, one of the most violent zones in the country, reportedly was taken on Monday by people who remain unknown. Items from the parochial house and his car are also missing.
The news about the kidnapping was shared by Cardinal Alberto Suárez Inda of the diocese of Morelia, the capital of Michoacán. His diocese published a video through YouTube and Twitter, where the cardinal says: “We ask God that his integrity, his life, are respected, so that he can soon go back to his ministry.”
Suárez Inda, created cardinal by Pope Francis in 2015, also prayed for peace, respect for life and the conversion of those who spend their lives doing wrong to others.
“This barbarity is in no way justified,” he said.
Michoacán has long suffered the consequences of organized crime and drug trade, and the disappearance of López Guillen is far from being an isolated case.
Fathers Alejo Nabor Jimenez Juarez and Jose Alfredo Suarez de la Cruz had been kidnapped last week in Veracruz, a region also marred by drug trade and organized crime, and found murdered on Monday, the same day the priest from Michoacán went missing.

The Trouble With Jesuits, Part 55

PIKESVILLE, Maryland, September 20, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) — One of the most prominent and well-known Jesuits in America is slated to accept an award from New Ways Ministry, a pro-homosexual group that rejects moral teachings of the Catholic Church, on October 30.

New Ways Ministry will honor Father James Martin, the editor at large of America magazine and the author of numerous books, with its Bridge Building Award, which “honors those individuals who by their scholarship, leadership, or witness have promoted discussion, understanding, and reconciliation between the LGBT community and the Catholic Church.”

The group chose Martin “as a recipient of our Bridge Building Award for his strong promotion of LGBT acceptance through his communication ministry.”

“With his hundreds of thousands of social media followers and as Editor at Large for ‘America’ magazine, Fr. Martin has initiated a dialogue on LGBT issues with Catholics across the political spectrum, opening minds and hearts to greater acceptance,” the award’s Facebook event page says.

In addition to promoting the “coming out” of “LGBT Catholics” for “the way God created them,” Martin supports a number of progressive political causes.

International Talk Like A Pirate Day, September 19

Who is the patron saint of pirates? NOBODY! They were scurvy dogs, the lot of them. But there are several patron saints of sailors, including:

 St. Nicholas - While yet a young man, Nicholas followed the example of his uncle, the abbot, by making a pilgrimage to the birthplace of Christianity—the Holy Land. Desiring a serene time of preparation, Nicholas set sail on an Egyptian ship where the other pilgrims did not know who he was. The first night he dreamed a storm would put them all at peril. When he awoke in the morning he warned the sailors that a severe storm was coming, but they need not fear, for "God will protect us." Almost immediately the sky darkened and strong winds roared round the ship. The wind and waves made it impossible to keep the ship under control. Even with lowered sails, the sailors feared for their very lives and begged Nicholas to pray for safety. One sailor climbed the main mast, tightening the ropes so the mast would not crash onto the deck. As he was coming back down, the sailor slipped, fell to the deck, and was killed. While Nicholas prayed, the storm did quiet, relieving the sailors. Their comfort, however, was dampened by grief over their comrade's death. As Nicholas prayed over the dead sailor, he was revived, "as if he had only been asleep." The man awakened without pain and the ship finished the journey to the Holy Land. Nicholas then embarked on his pilgrimage to the holy places, walking where Jesus had walked.

St. Brendan -Brendan the Navigator or Brénainn moccu Alti as he is often known in the medieval Irish tradition is the patron Saint of two Irish Dioceses, Kerry and Clonfert. He is also a patron saint of boatmen, mariners, travelers, elderly adventurers, and whales,and also of portaging canoes.

St. Elmo - Saint Erasmus of Formia, also known as Saint Elmo, was a Christian saint and martyr, according to Christian tradition, who died c. 303. He is venerated as the patron saint of sailors and abdominal pain. St Erasmus or Elmo is also one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, saintly figures of Christian tradition who were venerated especially as intercessors.

Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Amiens in France

 Wikipedia link here.

Back in the 1990s, there was a cleaning program underway on the exterior. Midway through the project, scientists discovered something pretty intriguing on the western facade: traces of paint. Further tests were done, and they were able to determine how the western facade was painted back in the 13th century! Then they figured out a way to project the light of the colors very precisely onto the building.

They Keep Saying He is Devout....

 I don't think it means what they think it means.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine is predicting that the Roman Catholic Church may eventually change its opposition to gay marriage.

Kaine is a devout Roman Catholic as well as a U.S. senator from Virginia and a former governor of that state. He told the Human Rights Campaign during its national dinner Saturday in Washington that he had changed his mind about gay marriage and that his church may follow suit one day.

"I think it's going to change because my church also teaches me about a creator who, in the first chapter of Genesis, surveyed the entire world, including mankind, and said, 'It is very good,'" Kaine said. He then recalled Pope Francis' remark that "who am I to judge?" in reference to gay people.

"I want to add: Who am I to challenge God for the beautiful diversity of the human family? I think we're supposed to celebrate it, not challenge it," Kaine said.

Chickens....Roost. Roost....Chickens.

Descendants of slaves who were sold by the Jesuit founders of Georgetown are asking the university to set up a $1 billion charitable foundation to promote reconciliation among the races in America.
The slaves’ descendants announced that they had raised $115,000 in seed money for the proposed institution, which would be set up in partnership with Georgetown. That sum matches the amount that the Jesuits received for the slaves they sold in 1838 to pay for the university’s expenses.
Writing in Crisis, Father Cornelius Buckley, SJ, observes that the Jesuit ownership of slaves in the 19th century was a clear violation of papal decrees condemning the practice. Thus he writes: “it is important to see that disobedience to papal teaching was the point of departure from which Georgetown and other Jesuit colleges in the United States plotted their course.”

Father Cornelius Buckley explains :

Slavery as an institution should be condemned. This was precisely the position of Pope Paul III, when in 1537, he outlawed slavery and condemned those who owned or sold slaves. Three years later he approved the rule of Ignatius of Loyola and his companions constituting them as a religious order. Of course, not many paid much attention to the pope’s strong statements against black slavery. It was too advantageous for black chiefs who sold their people and for white traders who purchased them and transported them to the New World. But then in 1639, at the insistence of the Jesuits in Paraguay, where the Spaniards where enslaving the indigenous peoples, Pope Urban VIII issued another bull confirming what Paul had decreed and adding strength to it. Then, less than fifty years later, the Jesuits in Maryland were slave owners. So, in order to put into its proper perspective the historical fact that the 1838 Georgetown Jesuits were owners and sellers of slaves, it is important to see that disobedience to papal teaching was the point of departure from which Georgetown and other Jesuit colleges in the United States plotted their course.

So what's they big deal? It's not as if they were denying someone contraceptives.

Sandra Fluke

How Did They Get "Mass" in Their Name?

On October 1, 2016, the nation's strictest LGBT non-discrimination laws will come into effect in Massachusetts. According to the "Gender Identity Guidance" released by the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD) last week, even churches must refer to transgender individuals by their chosen "gender identity," ignoring their biological sex. This effectively means churches must acknowledge transgender ideology or practice their doctrine on human sexuality in secret — putting Christianity in the closet.

The guidance specifically mentions churches as falling under the "public accommodation" restrictions against "discrimination" on the basis of gender identity: "Even a church could be seen as a place of public accommodation if it holds a secular event, such as a spaghetti supper, that is open to the general public," the MCAD explained.
The restrictions are massive. Any "public accommodation" must allow patrons to use men's or women's restrooms — and locker rooms and changing rooms — "consistent with their gender identity." Such places must also "use names, pronouns, and gender-related terms appropriate to employee's stated gender identity in communications with employee and with others."
These are not small asks for churches, Christian schools, and other organizations which operate on Christian principles.

Written By Kevin Williamson. Catholic.

The Catholic Church, and the principal figures in it, have a great talent for inspiring strong opinions, and the strength of those opinions is, generally speaking, converse to the knowledge that the person communicating them has about the Church and its teachings. Ignorant or otherwise, the intensity of global public interest in all things Catholic seems to me significant in and of itself. The people of the world do not gather around their television screens and Twitter feeds when (with apologies to my former church) the Methodists make a change in their institutional leadership. Very few people outside of those who exist in the imagination of Garrison Keillor are much bothered about the Lutheran view of this or that. The Church of England and its ongoing convulsions regarding homosexuality? That is of interest to a handful of oddball American Anglophiles and a couple of million Africans who are probably going to end up Roman Catholics. Pardon me if I sound like an ultramontane chauvinist, but those are the facts. What the world seems to intuit about the Catholic Church — what I intuited about it long before I became a member of it — is that there is something serious going on in it. Something true or something false, but something serious.

YES! DO!

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/439631/mother-teresa-canonization-sunday?target=author&tid=903320

Here's the wrap-up:

The poet Jay Parini, writing sympathetically at CNN.com, says he agrees that Mother Teresa deserves sainthood, which surely comes as a relief both to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints and to the choirs in Heaven, but he also says that she was, in his view, “less than perfect as a human being.” 

That, of course, is the point. If she hadn’t been less than perfect, Mother Teresa would have practiced virtue in the same way that planets orbit stars or that iron oxidizes in the presence of water. She was the same hot human mess as the rest of us, but chose to live as though she weren’t. 

Why did she do that?

Eye of the Tiber Strikes Again

San Francisco parishioner Colin Paekernick has been embroiled in fierce controversy after refusing to kneel for the consecration in protest of what he deemed “wrongdoings against women in the Catholic Church.”

His latest refusal to kneel came before his parish’s preadvent Mass last Sunday morning.
“I am not going to stand up to show pride for a church that oppresses people of the female gender,” Paekernick told EOTT in an exclusive interview after the Mass. “To me, this is bigger than Mass and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way.”

Noted Theologian Nancy Pelosi

The Archdiocese of San Francisco issued a statement about Paekernick’s decision, saying, “The consecration is and always will be a special part of the Mass. It is an opportunity to honor our Lord and reflect on the great liberties we are afforded as Christians. In respecting such Catholic principles as freedom of kneeling, or simply standing or sitting if your back hurts or if you’re a wussy, we recognize the right of an individual to choose and participate, or not, in showing reverence during the Consecration.”

Paekernick’s pastor Fr. Kip Chelly told reporters Sunday afternoon that Paekernick’s decision not to kneel during the consecration is “his right as a Catholic” and that “it’s not my right to tell him he’s a complete jackass.”

Somebody's Going To Get Fired...Right?

Nearly 25,000 people left Norway’s state Lutheran church in August after the ecclesial community allowed people the option of joining or leaving the church online.

Over 8,500 people left the Church of Norway between January and July, according to the Associated Press. Nearly 1,300 people joined the body in August.

73%  of Norway’s 5.2 million people are (were?) Lutheran; 3% are Catholic.

The Trouble With Jesuits, Part 54

Former University of Missouri professor Melissa Click has a new job at Gonzaga University           ( SHOCKA! A JESUIT school) in Spokane, Wash., according to the university’s website.  Click was a communications professor at the University of Missouri until she was fired in February after she was filmed calling for “some muscle” to eject a student videographer from protests at the Concerned Student 1950 camp on the Columbia campus.
The video posted afterward went viral. Faculty, students, alumni and others lambasted Click. At Gonzaga, Click is listed as a lecturer on the faculty page of the university’s website. 

 Dr. Melissa A. Click's research interests center on popular culture texts and audiences, particularly texts and audiences disdained in mainstream culture. Her work in this area is guided by audience studies, theories of gender and sexuality, and media literacy. Recent research projects involve romance readers, the impact of social media in fans’ relationship with celebrities, masculinity and male fans, and the inevitable changes fans experience in their fandom over time. Her scholarship has been published in Television & New Media, the International Journal of Cultural Studies, Men & Masculinities, Popular Communication, Popular Music & Society, and Transformative Works & Cultures. She is the co-editor of Bitten by Twilight and the Routledge Companion to Media Fandom (forthcoming). NYU Press will publish her forthcoming edited collection, Dislike, Hate, and Anti-fandom in the Digital Age.

Says The Catholic World Report:


 Is this the sort of amoral swill that students at a Catholic university should be enduring while paying top dollar? Then again, I've been told by people who have years of direct experience with GU that it is, simply put, no longer Catholic in any substantial sense. Yes, there are still some very fine Catholics working there, but the school as a whole has essentially abandoned any semblance of Catholic culture or mission.
Forget about getting some muscle. How about getting some grey matter? 

A Priest, a Minister and a Rabbi....

A priest, a minister, and a rabbi want to see who's best at his job. They each go into the woods, find a bear, and attempt to convert it. Later they get together to compare the results. The priest begins, "When I found the bear, I read to him from the Catechism and sprinkled him with holy water. Next week is his First Communion." "I found a bear by the stream," says the minister, "and preached God's holy word. The bear was so mesmerized that he let me baptize him." They both look down at the rabbi, who is lying on a gurney in a body cast. "Looking back," he says, "Maybe I shouldn't have started with the circumcision."

Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta Is Smarter Than Catholic Democrats

Barack Obama won a majority of the Catholic vote both in 2008 and 2012. Hillary Clinton, according to pollsters, is poised to do the same. She is leading Trump among Catholic voters by over twenty points. In an age of secularism and a secularized Catholic Church, Democrats have never found it easier to con Catholics. The more they promise to persecute them, the more they can count on their vote.
Trump says that he will lift Obama’s contraceptive mandate; she promises to enforce it. Trump says that he will appoint justices who would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade; she promises to protect it. Trump says that he won’t force taxpayers to pay for abortions; she promises to ensure that they do. She is implacably opposed to every tenet of the natural moral law. Yet it appears that Catholics stand ready to vote for her.

 At the convention, Hillary engineered the most extreme platform ever. Her representatives wrote into it a proposal to undo the Hyde Amendment: “We will continue to oppose — and seek to overturn — federal and state laws and policies that impede a woman’s access to abortion, including by repealing the Hyde Amendment.” “Access” is Hillary’s euphemism for forcing Americans to pay for abortion. If she wins, she will work to turn Obama’s contraceptive mandate into an abortion mandate. Her Catholic running mate, Tim Kaine, who symbolizes the secularization of the Catholic Church in America, has said that he is determined to get “comfortable” with Hillary’s position on the Hyde Amendment.




Saint Mother Theresa says

 But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself.

And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even His life to love us. So, the mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love, that is, to give until it hurts her plans, or her free time, to respect the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts.
By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems.
And, by abortion, the father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. That father is likely to put other women into the same trouble. So abortion just leads to more abortion.
Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.

As Father Z says:

 Putting aside what one might think about Trump, I cannot fathom how any even partially well-formed Catholic could stomach the thought of a Hillary Clinton presidency, much less voting for her.  I’ve been pretty clear about what my position is: I would vote for the corpse of Millard Filmore if someone ran it, if that meant keeping Clinton out of the White House.

Come Home, Catholics! We Will Save the Environment!

The latest campaign to bring back lapsed Catholics:



No mention of Jesus, the sacraments, eternal life...but we DEMAND SOCIAL JUSTICE! Oh...and DISCUSSIONS! About TOLERANCE!

If Seton Hall was a Jesuit School, He Would Be Named University President

A New Jersey priest has been suspended from public ministry because of his persistent homosexual advocacy.

Father Warren Hall revealed on Twitter that he had been suspended by Archbishop John Myers of Newark, because his public statements and actions are “confusing the faithful.” Last year Father Hall had been removed from his post as chaplain at Seton Hall University because of his outspoken support for homosexual causes.
Father Hall indicated that he thought his suspension showed that Archbishop Myers was out of step with Catholic thinking. He wrote on Twitter that “@Pontifex’s Reform are taking too long.”

Hall is no longer able to say Mass in public, or show himself as a priest.  He was repentant, naturally:

“The problem is that we have an archbishop who doesn’t believe you can be gay and Catholic,” Hall, who is on vacation, wrote in an email.

You Keep Using That Word. I Don't Think It Means What You Think It Means.

Vicars told ‘don’t wear dog collars in public’ over fears jihadists are planning attacks
Worries knife-wielding ISIS jihadists will target churches were raised by experts and revealed by churchmen.

Vicar Rose Hudson-Wilkin

  New counter-terrorism advice is being urgently issued to vicars and churches across the UK this week over fears an attack on British Christians is now likely.

By dog collar, they mean clerical collar. However, I found out that in England, the clerical collar has been called a "dog collar" for centuries. Apparently, changing the name led to the downfall of the British Empire.

The Trouble with Jesuits, Part 53

Georgetown University, the oldest Catholic (well, Jesuit) institution in the US, has become the first American college to engage a Hindu priest as a campus chaplain.

Brahmachari Vrajvihari Sharan has been appointed to provide spiritual leadership for the Hindus studying at the Jesuit university in Washington, DC. Father Greg Schenden, a Catholic chaplain, explained to the Washington Post that the school's goal is to encourage spiritual growth for all students, regardless of their religious faith.

The smugly satisfied "Father" Schenden

Either Way, The President Will Be Unlikable

Apparently,  most Catholics have VERY low standards.

Polls show Donald Trump is struggling to appeal to Catholic voters, a longtime swing demographic. A central theme of this year’s presidential election has been Donald Trump’s failure to capture the support of key voting groups such as women, African Americans, and Hispanics. Now, he is losing by an unrecoverable margin in another key voting bloc, one that has swung between the two major political parties for over half a century: Catholics. A poll from the Public Religion Research Institute shows Trump trailing Clinton among Catholic voters by 23 points, 55–32. Meanwhile, a Washington Post-ABC News poll from early August has Trump down by 27 points, 61–34. Neither of these statistics is promising for the Republican nominee, especially given the central role Catholic voters historically have played in presidential elections.

While Trump’s strong anti-immigration stances have contributed to his problems with Catholic voters, particularly Hispanics, this alone does not explain the huge decline in Trump’s Catholic support. The PRC reports that Hispanic Catholics already have been largely supporting Democrats, at least since 2000, likely due to the Republican party’s immigration policy. Nor can Trump’s shaky support for the pro-life cause and uninspiring stances on religious liberty and same-sex marriage be held solely to blame. According to the PRC, most Catholics have other areas of concern. This year, their top five issues of concern are, in order of importance: The economy, terrorism, health care, immigration, and foreign policy. Abortion and “treatment of LGBT people” (a somewhat ambiguous category) rank at the very bottom of the 14 issues under consideration. In addition, white Catholic moderates tend to align more closely with liberal Catholics than conservative Catholics on social issues.