Reply #2: The article makes an excellent point about powerful women in the Church

[theredpen]

As far as punditry goes, this prediction may end up turned on its head like most of the others. We'll see.

I did like the point that Catholics are already accustomed to thinking of women in leadership positions. It always gets under my skin when people bash the Catholic church for excluding women from the priesthood because that is hardly the be-all-end-all of Catholic veneration. There are more women who are Saints than men. Furthermore, there are female Saint who were scientists, doctors, warriors and all sorts of "traditionally male" roles. I can't think of an institution with a greater wealth of role models for girls and women than the Catholic Church — the alleged bane of egalitarianism.

I strongly suspect that the people who claim that they could never be Catholic because of its "sexist stance" on the clergy wouldn't be Catholic even if that were reversed. (I do know gay Episcopalians who would gladly return to the Church if they felt welcome, but that's a whole different story.)

Anyway, one of the "plus" points for Clinton (really, the Clintons) was Bill's involvement in resolving the ongoing strife in Northern Ireland. That was a great achievement that benefited both Catholics and their close Anglican cousins (aka "the Protestants"). Still, the Catholics in my state (Texas) are Hispanic. Senator Clinton has been doing well with Hispanics, but I'm starting to suspect that it is because many Hispanics have been apolitical and just weren't familiar with Senator Obama. That has certainly changed at this point. The racist "anti-immigrant" campaign of the right has politicized the Hispanic demographic and Barack Obama has enjoyed a great deal of exposure recently. We'll have to see if this results a change in Hispanic voting.

For my part, I'm not foolish enough to make any predictions in this election.