Catholic Mary
| ⛪ | |
| Era | The Sixties |
|---|---|
| Age | 35-50 |
| Home | South Boston, MA |
| Demographic | urban, white, Irish-American |
| Lean | labour_left |
| Race | white |
An Irish-American Catholic housewife in South Boston in her forties, and the urban ethnic Democrat of the big-city political machines. She sees Kennedy's presidency as her family's arrival in American public life, and her loyalty to the Democratic Party runs through her parish.
Who they stand for
White ethnic Catholics, including Irish, Italian and Polish voters, were about a quarter of the electorate in 1960 and the core of the Democratic vote in every Northern city. Kennedy took roughly four in five Catholic votes that year. Boston, Providence and the mill towns of New England gave him his safest margins. Rhode Island and Massachusetts, this voter's strongest states, were the two most Catholic in the country.
Her political concerns were the concerns of her parish. She wanted federal aid extended to parochial schools, which Kennedy refused on church-state grounds, frustrating her. She supported anti-communism partly because the Pope also opposed communism, and she cared about the protection of the family as a Catholic value. The Second Vatican Council, held between 1962 and 1965, and the debate over birth control unsettled her church during this decade, while changes in her own neighbourhood were unsettling her daily life. She remained a Democrat on wages and union issues, but she was becoming more conservative about crime and disorder in her neighbourhood. By 1968, both Nixon and Wallace were courting voters like her. Boston's school busing conflict, beginning just after this era, would have her as one of its central figures.
Playing to them
She responds to a president who honours the Catholic Church and the Kennedy family, which for her are almost the same thing. She wants a Catholic president, or a Democrat who visits her parish, who shows respect for the Pope internationally, and who directs federal money to parochial schools. She is a New Deal Democrat on wages, unions and pensions, and shares those political tendencies with Union Hall Frank. What she does not forgive is contempt for her Catholic faith, a president who treats Catholics with suspicion, or government involvement in personal matters such as contraception. A government contraception programme offends her, while it leaves Faculty Eleanor unmoved. Anti-communism is a safe position with her and with Teamster Sal alike.
The labour policies that win her support also win Union Hall Frank, so she adds little additional cost there. But the Bible Belt Reverend regards a president who is close to the Catholic Church as too influenced by Rome. Prairie Ruth distrusts the political machine that Catholic voters belong to. Campus David finds her parish's atmosphere stifling.
Where they live
The five states where Catholic Mary makes up the largest share of the electorate in the sixties:
- Rhode Island
- Massachusetts
- PR
- New Jersey
- Connecticut