Catholics have always voted Democrat, since Van Buren got the machines humming for Jackson. That has been gradually changing, to the point where Romney's Catholic haul beat Bush's, despite Bush doing massively better amongst Hispanics; Republicans winning white Catholics is not how these things used to work.

Although Mitt did better than most (observant Catholics were a serious part of his base in the primaries, and Ryan's a good deal more publicly Catholic than Biden) the GOP in general is doing well with Catholics. The problem is that large demographics change their allegiances slowly. We could still mess it up, but it seems likely to me that any competent candidate in 2016 should be able to build on the Bush/ Romney Catholic base; so long as they're pro-life, not offensively protestant, and not Newt or Sanford, we should be solid.

If it is the "Romney got fewer votes than McCain because SoCons didn't vote for him" ridiculousness then it's quick to research the numbers, and AmSpec is doubly wrong.  Romney's voters were more socially conservative than Bush or McCain's as well as more numerous.

While I agree that Romney's support for trade was probably a net vote loser, this is an absurd heuristic; abiding by this principle, Republicans should abandon every single one of their policies, as if those policies were winners, Romney would be President.  You know full well that free trading politicians regularly win at all levels. They lose sometimes, too, but the Senate and the House both support most FTAs and other trade freeing measures.

The dishonesty was the claim that the majority of the world was getting poorer and more violent. Did you read it?

It's true that I favor more government intervention than you in support of humanitarian and security aims, but I believe you want more protectionism; I should have been clear what intervention I meant.

While you agree with the Pope about greater governmental intervention (and that view comprises the great bulk of comments I see you post), so I understand your non-offense, I'm surprised that you're not bothered by the dishonesty or the heresy. Do you think that the income of the majority of the world's population has been "crumbling", that poverty has become more apparent, or that violence has been increasing? I get that you're less interested in the welfare of non-Americans than I am, but I'm under the impression that you're not totally apathetic regarding them.

Alternatively, do you think of material equality as a Christian ideal?

There are three kinds of problems I have with his statements: the dishonest bits, which have nothing to do with ideological preferences (he is dishonest in support of his preferred ideology, but even informed subscribers to that ideology do not generally rely on such false data in that way); the implied heresy that inequality is a Christian wrong, which is an argument I've most often had defending deeply statist absolute monarchies rather than markets; and his attacks on markets, which I've devoted the least attention to directly (the tariff and related discussions were not really about Francis).

I do not feel it anti-Catholic to prefer JPII.

My objections to Francis were chiefly the manifest and repeated dishonesty, the implied heresy, and the terrible economics. There's a hint of the problems with economics in JPII's, but nothing so extreme, as Stephen points out. There's nothing of the heresy or dishonesty. We've had Social Democratic popes for a very long time now, but they have generally been decent Social Democrats with a keen awareness of the significance of their words and a love for the truth. It's the difference between Santorum's leftism (his manufacturing plan, for instance) and Michael Moore's.

How many nations do you believe have no environmental or worker health and safety regulations in place? Honestly, that's the sort of hyperbole I expect from the Pope, not a member of Ricochet!

Seriously, I agree with you that we should place sanctions on our enemies. Today, I'm not sure that there are totalitarian regimes that are not our enemies; do you mean China?

I don't think that tariffs are an effective equivalent to sanctions. Are you talking about a 1-5% sort of a nationwide tariff or a 200-500% sort of nationwide tariff? Both have problems, but they're different sorts of problems (other than having to exit the current form of the global trading system, which would be a consequence of either approach).

Yes, really. If you look at the details of more or less any FTA or other trade agreement (not MFN since, if you'll permit a simplification, the WTO doesn't permit sectoral discrimination), you'll find that the overwhelming majority of the debates are about specific industries; cars and rice in the Korean FTA, for instance.

Unilateral measures, too, are about individual industries; Bush's steel tariffs or Obama's tires. There's a reason that "protectionism" has its name. You might find this interesting:

The House ..... 1,300 proposed limited tariff bills under consideration for inclusion in legislation.....

...the vast majority of the proposals benefit 10 or fewer companies, making them banned “earmarks” under House rules, according to an analysis by Heritage.....

For many advocates of tariffs, the whole point is that protected industries get to increase their prices above the natural market level.  This means that the cost to the consumer is split, with part of the increase going to the government, part to the decreased efficiency of the market, and part to the protected industry.

Like the obamacare mandate, it is a form of subsidy that the government can use without the costs to taxpayers being listed as a tax (if you pay the mandate/ purchase imported goods, that is a tax, but if you buy health insurance/ domestic goods you subsidize the government's beneficiaries without appearing in the government's budgets).

How many industries do you favor increased subsidies to in forms other than tariffs, Joseph?

I agree that Cumberbatch is good; how is one meant to pull of "top of the genetic pile" without a crisp English accent?

I didn't like their failure to prevent the killing half of San Francisco without consequence. In my understanding of psychology, people get more upset about having tens of thousands killed than pleased by having many more survive.

I think that this is true. You have to keep in mind that pre-revolution Judea was an unbelievably angry place, with multiple sects of what the Romans considered to be Jews keen to annihilate each other; being  considered a fellow Jew didn't imply friendship, merely that you were a monotheist in the area, and a racial tie, with the latter becoming ever weaker.

Still, "early" Christianity was definitely considered "Jewish" by some; as late as the closing of the Jewish canon (maybe 135AD), when Jews tried to write up the anti-Christian canon that Luther later adopted as more Christian than the Christian canon, there was still a sense of overlap. The error was extending "early" to Constantine. It's like saying "early Canadians until Trudeau believed that the First Nations were descended from the lost tribes of Israel".

Just to be clear, that bit was accurate, but the reason for the gap is that the rich are getting richer faster than the rest. The lie is that the income of the non-rich is "crumbling".

If you heretically believe that inequality qua inequality is a Christian wrong, that would be as good a reason for Francis' words as profound ignorance or a desire to throw ought red meat in the style of the  Argentinian politicians he grew up under.

If he had said "for those purposes, it's just a speech", would you have been fine with it?

I think that Joseph's right that it's just a speech within the narrow limits of that comment. He was responding to charges of church involvement in politics. Saying that Francis was not violating establishment clause like issues seems very much true. Like Nazis in Skokie, you can inflict harm without crossing First Amendment lines.

I agree. I think that Joseph goes too far in minimizing the impact of the Pope claiming that poverty and violence are increasing because of our overly free market; that seems important and unfortunate. Still, our disagreement there seems to be one of substance. I never got the impression that he was claiming authority without knowledge or that he was saying things that strained credulity or good manners.

I agree that Joseph's record is impeccable.