Micheal Burke

While Roman Catholic Jamaicans are less than five per cent of Jamaica's population, Roman Catholic Americans are over 20 per cent of the USA's population. This is why the Catholic vote is always a major factor in US national elections, especially as Roman Catholic Americans tend to vote as a bloc in US elections. And the outcome of the US presidential elections is always of major significance to Jamaica, if only because the US is Jamaica's greatest trading partner.

Where do most of our tourists come from, even in these days when tourists literally come from all parts of the world? And to whom do we sell most of our bauxite? For that matter, to whom do we sell most of our coffee, citrus and other fruits? Then, there is the matter of Jamaicans resident in the USA who send remittances (read "foreign exchange") to their relatives and ultimately to Jamaica

The Roman Catholic Church implores its members to vote with their conscience. Well do I recall the late Archbishop Samuel Carter stating publicly that it is not for any priest to stand up in any pulpit and tell anyone whom to vote for. Of course, many Roman Catholics, especially the lapsed ones who are perhaps the majority of Roman Catholic Americans, will not allow the teachings of the church to guide them as to how to vote.

The Pope has come out against the US war in Iraq, initiated by the Republican President George W Bush. The Roman Catholic Church is pro-life, and this has guided its position on matters like war, the death penalty and abortion. But modern-day Democrat John Kerry, himself a baptised Roman Catholic who does not follow his church, is pro-choice on abortion, which is totally against the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.

So both Bush and Kerry are pushing anti-life positions, Bush with the war in Iraq and Kerry with his pro-choice stance. And this is the major part of the "rock-and-a-hard-place" choice facing Roman Catholic Americans, come next Tuesday.

Then there is the matter of jobs for the poor. The Democrats have traditionally had a better programme for the poor. This is in line with the Roman Catholic Church, which teaches that the church must have a preferential option for the poor. Indeed, Roman Catholic Americans have traditionally voted Democrat.

Most Roman Catholic Americans are of Irish descent where the Protestants are the ruling class and the Roman Catholics are the working class. In 1830 in Ireland, the potato famine hit the poorest people there, all of whom were Roman Catholics. And whoever could immigrate to the United States did so, including the ancestors of the late John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the only Roman Catholic US president up to now.

It was also the poor Italians that fled to the United States about a hundred years ago as well as the poorest Polish and the poorest from South and Central America, all Roman Catholic countries. The Democrats traditionally had a greater appeal to the poor, especially when former US President Franklin Roosevelt had his New Deal Programme.

But the Democrats are for the decriminalisation of homosexual acts between consenting adults. Despite the scandals among a relatively few priests in the US where the media blew it out of all proportions, Roman Catholic doctrine is against homosexual practice (Catechism of the Catholic Church, article 2357).

Pope John Paul had to endure protests from the gay community every time he visited the US because of his stance on the matter. And when the homosexual group OutRage protested in England following the death of Brian Williamson this year, many of the banners were against the Roman Catholic Church which teaches that homosexual acts are "intrinsically disordered".

And the fact that today the Democrats are in solidarity with the powerful gay community in the US as a vote-catcher forms a dilemma for Roman Catholics who traditionally vote Democrat. As you know the Republicans have traditionally represented big businesses, as also the very conservative white-skinned Americans who have never liked the new arrivals, especially those of a darker skin-even if those darker skins are still white by Jamaican standards.

And the Republicans, who for the most part are hard-line Protestant and Fundamentalist Christians, voted Republican because the Irish and Italian American Roman Catholics, who they did not like, were supporting the Democrats en bloc. Indeed, the Ku Klux Klan, who have Protestant roots, have traditionally been violently hostile to blacks, Jews and Roman Catholics.

With Republican George Bush being firmly in the anti-abortion and anti-gay camp, some Roman Catholics feel they should vote for him. But to do this along with the hard-line Fundamentalist Protestants, who have traditionally been hostile to Roman Catholics, some to the point of violence, is difficult. It is really a tough choice indeed for Roman Catholic Americans, come next Tuesday!

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