THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES

The U.S. Catholic hierarchy, like all other sub-units of the Catholic Church, works in an environment limited by the worldwide Catholic Church and decisions made in Rome. In addition, the Church presence in each country is shaped by that country's political and religious history and traditions, as well as the membership and devotion of the population. Bishops represent the Church, but it is a Church bounded by specific secular environments, institutions, and institutional arrangements. It is within this environment — where religious doctrine, secular arrangements, and history interact — that Catholic bishops are attempting to shape political behavior.

The modern USCCB is the product of various transformations of Catholics in American society and shifting expectations from the Vatican. Starting as an advocacy organization to protect Catholics from social and political persecution in the late 1800s, national organizations of Catholic Bishops have since worked to address social and economic issues, respond to mandates from the worldwide Catholic Church (such as Vatican II), and interpret and apply canon law collectively (Jelen Reference Jelen, Manuel, Reardon and Wilcox2006). The national organizations do not function in isolation; beginning as early as 1916, with a dramatic growth in the 1960s and 1970s, individual states established state-level episcopal conferences, with significant variation from state to state (Yamane Reference Yamane2005; Cleary Reference Cleary2003). The authority of the USCCB far exceeds these state-level entities (and particularly around the power to interpret and apply canon law), but the state conferences engage in parallel actions to much of what the USCCB does (Yamane Reference Yamane2005, 10).

The combination of the USCCB and state conferences of bishops present both advantages in flexibility in dealing with the secular state and limitations in effectiveness. On the one hand, state conferences serve as institutional facilitators for greater participation of the Church in state political arenas; they also mobilize members on state and federal public policy. On the other hand, these institutions can potentially create a challenging institutional filter between the Vatican and the Catholic people at large (Yamane Reference Yamane2005). Thus, efficient institutional structures and an electorally powerful membership combined to allow the U.S. Catholic Church a growing position of influence over public policy. Yet, the very institutional organization that allows for doctrinal conformity, such as the centralized formulation of canon law, can serve as filtering mechanisms in terms of political messaging, a problem even further compounded by the ideological span of issues addressed by the USCCB.

Today, the Catholic Church engages with the political system through two primary mechanisms. First, American bishops lobby the national government on policies of central importance to the Catholic faith such as social justice, reproductive rights, and the more general notion of the dignity of life. Second, the Church seeks to influence the political process indirectly by offering guidelines to the Catholic population on “faithful citizenship” and by mobilizing Catholics on issues of political importance. At all levels of the church, from the Vatican's papal encyclicals, to the American bishops' pastoral letters, to weekly mass, publications, and prayers by priests, the Church tries to guide people in applying the doctrine and teachings of the Catholic Church to the pressing political issues (Smith Reference Smith2010, 31).

Parish priests play a key role in mobilizing Catholics to participate in politics (Yamane Reference Yamane2005; Byrnes Reference Byrnes1993; Adloff Reference Adloff2006). These priests engage in a variety of political actions and often emphasize a diverse set of political attitudes (Jelen Reference Jelen2003; Smith Reference Smith2005; Reference Smith2010). And, the political attitudes of American Catholics are influenced by their priest's attitudes and by actions and messages of the church hierarchy (Smith Reference Smith2005; Wald Reference Wald1992; Hofstetter, Ayers, and Perry Reference Hofstetter, Ayers and Perry2008; see, Djupe and Gilbert Reference Djupe and Gilbert2002; Owens Reference Owens2008 for other denominations). Yet, it is unknown how well Catholic Church fits into the model of other religious denominations where congregations can promote a uniform message on policy or politics, but often do not do so (Djupe and Olson Reference Djupe and Olson2010).

Research suggests that the Catholic Church will experience challenges in presenting a uniform message to congregants. The Catholic Church's international success has been dependent on “its capacity to maintain a core doctrinal system and authority structure while permitting adaptions to local cultures” (Wilcox, Jelen, and Leege Reference Wilcox, Jelen, Leege, Leege and Kellstedt1993, 74). Scholarship on the political activity of Catholic priests finds that messages coming from the local level vary from each other and from the hierarchical messages (Smith Reference Smith2010; Jelen Reference Jelen2003). And, even when homogeneity exists among priests on their political positions, variation emerges in the saliency of issues (Jelen Reference Jelen2003). Indeed, considerable variation among priests occurs both within and across election years, which Jelen (Reference Jelen2003) attributes to changes in local and national context. The priest's political attitudes and the pressures from “above and below” combine to produce a diversity in messages (Jelen Reference Jelen2003; Calfano, Oldmixon, and Suiter Reference Calfano, Oldmixon and Suiter2014), consistent with findings from other denominations (Calfano Reference Calfano2010). Catholic clergy in Ireland are responsive to the perceived preferences of both their congregation and their institutional superiors (Calfano and Oldmixon Reference Calfano and Oldmixon2015; Calfano, Oldmixon, and Suiter Reference Calfano, Oldmixon and Suiter2014). As such, “Catholic identity, political cues emanating from the Church hierarchy and local religious contexts are all likely to be relevant for a complete understanding of Catholics' political preferences” (Smith Reference Smith2010, 187).

There is also evidence that parishes may be more resistant to messages and commands from their state and national bishops' conferences than are pastors in other denominations. Calfano and Oldmixon (Reference Calfano and Oldmixon2016, 392) find that messages from bishops have “limited impact” on priests' political behavior and that this relationship relates to the need to address competing demands of their parishioners, parish management and the interests of the bishops. This is consistent with scholarship on times of conflict, such as when the Church struggled over how to address issues of racism in the mid-1900s, when parish priests were long-able to resist the demands of the hierarchy to integrate their flocks (McGreevy Reference McGreevy1998). And, parish priests seem particularly sensitive to the financial and political demands of their parish (Calfano, Oldmixon, and Gray Reference Calfano, Oldmixon and Gray2014). This would suggest that the USCCB and state-level conferences may have a hard time conveying uniform political information through parishes.

Yet, there is also evidence that the Catholic Church may be “better” at conveying a cohesive message from top to bottom (Bjarnason and Welch Reference Bjarnason and Welch2004) than other denominations. The U.S. Catholic Church has more religious control over its members, a more rigid institutional structure than dominant Protestant denominations, and more routine contact with the faithful through a higher number of administered services (Baggett Reference Baggett2006; Byrnes Reference Byrnes1993). The Church has also engaged more uniformly in political activism than other denominations in the United States, particularly at the national level. This hierarchical structure and political history point to a more effective organization for political activism than other denominations. Taken together, we are agnostic as to the degree that the parishes will comply with the political dictates of national and state organizations, but believe that there will be significant variation in the level and types of political information provided across parishes. To evaluate this question, we examine a set of political documents used in the 2012 election in the United States.

Beyond the degree to which political information passes through the hierarchy, we are also interested in the factors that dictate compliance at the local level. Local factors, such as resources and demand, play a large role in whether congregations follow denominational dictates (Cadge et al. Reference Cadge, Girouard, Olson and Lylerohr2012; Becker Reference Becker1999). Indeed, as Djupe and Olson (Reference Djupe and Olson2010, 275, emphasis in original) note, “While ministering to local concerns might simply involve a particular agenda construction, it also might entail identification with the particular values of the community first and the religious organization second.” Jelen (Reference Jelen2003) and Smith (Reference Smith2010) find that priests respond to local pressures in their political actions and congregations make active choices about how to respond to denominational calls for action (Cadge, Olson, and Wildeman Reference Cadge, Olson and Wildeman2008; Neiheisel and Djupe Reference Neiheisel and Djupe2008). We examine three separate factors that we believe will relate to the provision of political information overall and to the provision of hierarchically consistent information: resources and local and hierarchical demand. We detail how we measure these concepts in Table 1.

Table 1.

Expected effects of contextual variables on provision of political information

Note: * indicates variables where the effect of that particular variable is expected to be negative, given the coding of the variable.

FAITHFUL CITIZENSHIP AND THE 2012 ELECTION

The USCCB engages in a variety of actions relating to the political decisions of American Catholics. Much of this work relating to the 2012 election revolved around promoting Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship (Faithful Citizenship), a document designed to guide bishops, priests, and parishioners in navigating a polarized political environment and applying their Catholic faith to political decisions. The document detailed the Church's position on Catholic social teaching in the public square on several key themes, including the right to life and the dignity of the human person, rights and responsibilities, option for the poor and vulnerable, dignity of work and the rights of workers, and caring for God's creation. The USCCB made the full-length document, a shorter bulletin insert, and a parish guide available for download during the 2012 election, presenting the document as a supplement to the “teaching of bishops in our own dioceses and states.”

Faithful Citizenship recognized that “Catholics often face difficult choices about how to vote,” including issues with identifying a political party or candidate to support. How then does the USCCB suggest Catholics weigh issues? According to the Bishops, Catholics are to avoid evil and do good when making political decisions. Given that these instructions might steer a Catholic to multiple candidates, the document offers that a Catholic should never support a candidate who supports abortion specifically because of this position. Yet, at the same time, Faithful Citizenship states: “a voter should not use a candidate's opposition to an intrinsic evil to justify indifference or inattentiveness to other important moral issues involving human life and dignity” (U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops 2007, 11). Situations where a Catholic rejects a candidate's unacceptable position but still decides to vote for him/her “would be permissible only for truly grave moral reasons, not to advance narrow interests or partisan preferences or to ignore a fundamental moral evil” (U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops 2007, 11). In this way, Faithful Citizenship could lead America Catholics down many political paths.

Although the USCCB engaged in substantial political mobilization efforts around Faithful Citizenship in the 2008 and 2012 elections, evidence suggests that many Catholics remained unaware or uninterested in its contents. In 2011, 54% of Catholics were unaware of Faithful Citizenship in the 2008 election and less than 3% recalled reading the full document. Of those who had heard of the document, 68% indicated they did not have an impression one way or the other regarding the intent of the document (Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate 2011). Reflecting on the lack of awareness of the document, a lay staff member at the USCCB stated “I think we have a huge communications problem … I think the real communicators in our church are our pastors and what they said or what people heard them say about the responsibilities of Catholics in an election year” (The Fordham Center on Religion and Culture 2011).

THE CASE OF THE 2012 ELECTION IN FLORIDA

We evaluate the role of the hierarchy in the Catholic Church's encouragement of political behavior through a case study of parishes in Florida. We use Florida for several reasons. First, the Catholic Church is an important and popular religious organization in Florida. Over a quarter of Florida's population identifying as Catholics (Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life 2008). The Catholic population in the state is diverse, with a large Hispanic presence, in addition to Haitian, Korea, and Vietnamese language churches. Second, the structure of the Catholic Church within Florida allows for an evaluation of how variation in the middle-level of the Catholic hierarchy shapes the conveyance of information. The Florida Catholic Church has seven dioceses that vary in control exerted over their parishes, information exchange, and management style. And finally, the election was highly salient in Florida, for voters, the Florida Catholic Church, and the USCCB. Florida's important position in 2012 as a swing state with high levels of attention from presidential campaigns, the USCCB, and the national media focuses attention on politics in parishes across the state. As such, Florida provides a “best-case” scenario to evaluate if the church hierarchy could pierce its own institutional filters to reach American Catholics.

The FCCB also engaged in substantial activism in the 2012 election on local, state, and national issues. The FCCB focused on three primary areas: the passage of Amendments 6 and 8 on the state ballot, communicating the positions of Presidential, Congressional, and State Legislative candidates on key issues, and encouraging a Catholic responsibility to vote. To facilitate this, the FCCB distributed an information sheet entitled “Study, Discuss, Pray, and then Vote with an Informed Conscience on November 6” (Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops 2012) that outlined the basic points of the USCCB's Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship with recommendations for supporting both amendments, thus connecting the USCCB's political stances with the state level issues.

The Church dedicated significant resources toward the passage of Amendments 6 and 8 on the Florida Ballot. The USCCB, the FCCB, the Catholic Association of Latino Leaders, and Catholics Called 2 Witness all supported the amendments, including a message from Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York and president of the USCCB. The FCCB also published statements in support of Amendments 6 and 8 from the heads of the Diocese in the state, contributed money to supporting the amendments, and provided information sheets for distribution to parishioners and prayers to say for the passage of the amendments.

The FCCB's support of these amendments is not surprising, given their content. Amendment 6, entitled “Prohibition on Public Funding of Abortions; Construction of Abortion Rights,” sought to make the existing federal ban on government funded abortions a part of the state of Florida's constitution. The amendment failed, receiving support from 44.9% of the population. Amendment 8, entitled “Religious Freedom,” also appeared on the 2012 general ballot. Amendment 8 sought to include language in the state constitution of “neither the government nor any agent of the government may deny to any individual or entity the benefits of any program, funding, or other support on the basis of religious identity or belief.” The amendment also removed a provision from the constitution that barred the distribution of public funds to religious organizations. Amendment 8 also failed, with 55.47% of the public voting against it, as amendments require 60% support to pass in Florida.

The material evaluated in this article — the provision of electoral turnout information and messages about a Catholic responsibility to vote — is less controversial than other materials studied by scholars in the past. For example, while Calfano, Oldmixon, and Gray (Reference Calfano, Oldmixon and Gray2014) find that parish priests had to navigate their local community demands with those of the hierarchy when deciding on issue-based activism, they do not find a similar negotiation for general civic action. Thus, evaluating the effects of the 2012 efforts by the USCCB and the FCCB in Florida may represent a “best-case” scenario, where priests will not feel trapped between hierarchical and parish-level demands.

DATA AND METHODOLOGY

Church bulletins provide a means of communication between the church and parishioners (Vokurka, McDaniel, and Cooper Reference Vokurka, McDaniel and Cooper2002; Webb et al. Reference Webb, Joseph, Schimmel and Moberg1998; Robinson et al. Reference Robinson, Dennison, Wayman, Pronovost and Needham2007; Smith Reference Smith2010). Previous research articulates the persuasive nature of information in church bulletins; for example, church bulletins with a spiritual message resulted in changes in health behavior among church members (Campbell et al. Reference Campbell, Bernhardt, Waldmiller, Jackson, Potenziani, Weathers and Demissie1999). Bulletins are also considered evidence of the interests of the local parish (Manetta et al. Reference Manetta, Bryant, Cavanaugh and Gange2003). Smith's (Reference Smith2010) extensive work on political messages in Catholic parishes also utilized church bulletins, with a focus on issue-based information in the bulletins. In his analysis, Smith finds that bulletins represent the political emphasis of priests who focused more on either social justice or personal morality. Research also finds that parish messages about elections also vary significantly across the parishes and relate to the overall political conservatism or liberalism of the parish (Smith Reference Smith2010). Finally, it is worth noting that the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) considers information in church bulletins as a source of potentially inappropriate political information; for example, churches can violate IRS code if they place a candidate endorsement in a church bulletin (Halloran and Kearney Reference Halloran and Kearney1998).

We collected church bulletins through church websites and www.thecatholicdirectory.com, which posted, in 2012, bulletins for two or three week periods. We collected the election Sunday bulletin (November 4, 2012) and the prior Sunday (October 28, 2012). We collected bulletins from 235 parishes, or 60% of the 391 parishes in the state. A research assistant (blind to the hypotheses) and one of the authors initially coded bulletins, with a double code of a random set of 40 bulletins for inter-coder reliability. The results yielded a 98% perfect agreement (Pearson's r of 0.94). One of the authors later recoded the bulletins for additional information.

To evaluate our research questions, we coded the bulletins for both the quantity and type of political information. To start, we evaluate what — if any — political information appears in church bulletins. To examine this, we looked for general political information, including images or discussions of the elections in the bulletin, information about the presidential candidates or the amendments, political messages in the pastor's letter, prayers for the election, reminders of Catholic responsibility to vote, or any other political information, including political information from sources other than the USCCB or the FCCB. Details on the political information collected are available in the online appendix.

WHAT POLITICAL MESSAGES DO CATHOLICS RECEIVE FROM THEIR PARISHES?

We first examine what types of political information parishioners see in their church bulletins. Most bulletins (72%) contained some political reference. The most frequent political information provided related either to a Catholic responsibility to vote (with 39% of bulletins containing some reference to it), or to the positions of the presidential candidates (in 36% of the bulletins) from the FCCB, a pastor, or another organization like Priests for Life. A significant portion of the bulletins contained information on the state amendments (29%), images relating to the election (24%), information from a pastor on the election or voting (24%), or a prayer relating to the election (28%). Although the majority of the information on the amendments related to encouraging a “yes” vote on Amendments 6 and 8, other pastors offered advice about other amendments. Table 2 provides details on the types and levels of political information in the bulletins.

Table 2.

Political information type, source, and frequency

Note: N = 235. FCCB = Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops; USCCB = US Conference of Catholic Bishops. No parishes presented information from the FCCB without information from the local parish. Categories in the first two rows can overlap.

Election prayers represent a particularly interesting window into the variety of the political information presented. Some parishes offered prayers for voters, a patriotic prayer (“May God Bless America”), or a voter's prayer:

Prayers relating to abortion and pro-life messages were also common, such as a prayer to the Virgin Mary (with a request to “obtain for U.S. from the Most Holy Trinity a President and other political leaders who will support life, who will change the laws to make abortion in any form illegal, and who will protect the life of each individual at every stage”), or a pro-life prayer for “Our President and Public Officials” that included:

Many parishes referenced or printed a “Prayer Before an Election,” which combined elements of faithful citizenship, pro-life messages, oppression, and the “discernment so that we may choose leaders who hear your Word …” The prayers offered provide a conduit through which Catholics engage in personal reflection relating to political decisions.

A significant portion of the bulletins (38%) contained some reference to pro-life issues, including abortion, the right to life, 40 days for life, policies promoting adoption, or other politically related information about abortion. Bulletins were not considered as containing pro-life information if the information about abortion was not politicized; for example, bulletins referencing a retreat group for people recovering from abortions is not included in this summary statistics. Pro-life messages ranged from small images (for example, the message “Vote pro-life — there's a lot at stake”) to full letters on the issue from the pastor. One bulletin noted that, “It is certainly no exaggeration to say that this election is a “life or death issue” for many unborn children,” with consequences about “whether tax dollars should be used for abortions and to subsidize Planned Parenthood.” The message also focused on how the President appoints Supreme Court justices, which could determine whether the court was “pro-life or, pro-abortion.”

Ten other common issues also appear in bulletins, including Catholic Social Thought, marriage, religious liberties, protecting the needy (including helping the poor and addressing hunger and homelessness), worker's rights, immigration, discrimination, stem-cell research, human cloning, and war and peace. Nearly a quarter (23%) of the coded bulletins referenced one of these issues in connection to the election, but abortion was the most popular topic in the bulletins.

Efforts on the part of the FCCB and the USCCB to provide political information to Catholics in Florida was partially successful; over half (53%) of parish bulletins provided some information from the FCCB or the USCCB. Over half of the bulletins contain some information from USCCB and slightly less than 40% of the bulletins contained information directly from the FCCB, with a great deal of overlap between these two sources. Just over 18% of parishes provided some political information in its bulletins without reference or connect to information from the FCCB or USCCB. It is very rare (occurring less than 5% of the time) for one of the parishes to provide information from the Vatican on the responsibility to vote.

The breadth of the information from the USCCB varied dramatically; some bulletins included the full Faithful Citizenship insert (two full pages), while other parishes selected information from the guide and combined that information with alternate framing. For example, one parish included a page entitled “What the Church Has to Say about Our Political Responsibility,” which referenced several Encyclicals, the Catechism, as well as direct and indirect references to the full Faithful Citizenship guide. The bulletin noted the intrinsic evil of abortion, but other assaults on life, such as “genocide, torture, racism, and the targeting of noncombatants in acts of terror or war, can never be justified.”

The FCCB provided a variety of information for the parishes on the 2012 election, including a bulletin insert assessments of the presidential candidates on abortion, the death penalty, educational choice, stem-cell research, freedom of religion, healthcare access for the uninsured, immigration, international security, marriage, and poverty assistance. Parishes seemed to be selective in the information from the FCCB that they provided. For example, some parishes re-published the FCCB's candidate evaluation (14% of bulletins), information about the amendments (16% of bulletins), and the Candidate Questionnaire Project (11% of parishes).Footnote ² The FCCB also provided parishes with bulletin inserts of responses to the Candidate Questionnaire Project, which were tailored for the candidates in each diocese; from our analysis, few parishes (2%) took advantage of this information.

WHAT FACTORS ARE ASSOCIATED WITH THE DIVERSITY OF AMOUNT AND TYPE OF POLITICAL INFORMATION?

We next evaluate the factors associated with the diversity that exists in whether and how individual churches present political information. To this end, we generate a typology of local parishes. In doing so, we categorize them into three groups: (1) no political information, which we typology as the “non-actor,” which makes up 28% of the parishes and (2) the “compliant actors,” who provide some level of political information (72% of the churches). In further analysis, we look at those that provide low levels of political information (one or two pieces) and those that provide more substantial political information.Footnote ³ We then looked carefully at the political information contained in the bulletins and coded a separate category of (3) “independent actors,” who provide political information that was in contradiction to that information provided by the USCCB or the FCCB, which are one-fifth (21%) of parishes. Information from these independent actors took three general forms: first, some parishes provided information that was in direct contradiction to the USCCB's instructions. For example, one bulletin urged “Do our policies reflect the Declaration of Independence and Constitution? That is the most important thing.” or “when both candidates are unappealing choices, Catholics may stay home and not vote” (8% of all the parishes in our sample). Parishes also fell into this category if they provided information in contradiction to the FCCB, such as discouraging support for the amendments supported by the state Bishops (7% of all parishes). Finally, parishes were considered independent actors if they provided factually incorrect information about political participation, such as that members of the church could register and vote on the same day, which is not allowed in Florida (5% of all parishes).

Given our focus on the role that institutional filters play in the passage of information from the Church to U.S. Catholics, we next look at the political information provided by churches varies by diocese (see Table 3). Jelen (Reference Jelen2003) finds, in his analysis of priest's political activity and attitudes, that expectations from bishops play a “modest” role in influencing participation. The parishes in each diocese vary greatly in the level, type, and sources of political information provided through the bulletins. Parishes in the Palm Beach (92% of bulletins with political information) and St. Augustine (90% of bulletins with political information) dioceses provide large amounts of political information to their members, while only 42% of bulletins in Pensacola/Tallahassee contained political information. There is also a high degree of variability in the appearance of information from the FCCB, the USCCB, and issue-based information. For example, most parish bulletins in the Venice diocese (76%) contained information from the USCCB, compared to a low of 37% of bulletins in St. Petersburg. Thus, dioceses also serve a filter for the passage of information through the hierarchy. This reaffirms the idea of multiple choke points in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church that can limit, change, or pass on political information to the next level.

Table 3.

Political Information in Church Bulletins across Dioceses

Note: N = 235. ANOVA tests differences in each measure across the diocese. Average level of political information indicates the number of pieces of political information contained in the bulletins.

After categorizing the churches into our typology, we examine how each typology of the parishes is correlated with both local resources and local demand for political information, including whether the characteristics of the parishes and local areas influence the provision of political information and provides hierarchically consistent information, which

Modeling strategy: Given that the first dependent variable is a count of the number of political items in the bulletins, we use a Poisson multi-level model. The next dependent variables — if the parish provides no political information, low levels of political information, high levels of political information, or hierarchically inconsistent information — are all dichotomous. For each of these models, we utilize logit analysis with standardized coefficients post-estimate for data interpretation and presentation. The results of these models are presented in Table 4.

Table 4.

Local factors associated with the provision of information

Note: Model 1 (Count of level of political information) is a Poisson count regression model. All other models are logit models with standardized coefficients (except constant), standard errors (derived from the log-odds calculations) in parentheses. Log-odds available in appendix.

^p < 0.10, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.

Overall, there is little evidence that the provision of political information relates to the socio-economic resources of the local area. Indeed, none of the traditional indicator of social or economic resources relate to the overall level of political information, low or high levels of political information, or the provision of hierarchically inconsistent information. The only exception is the rate of Catholics in the county overall — here, those parishes in counties with a higher rate of Catholic adherence are more likely to provide hierarchically inconsistent information. This is consistent with the extant scholarship, which finds that pastors feel more able to engage in activism when they are confident in their religious base.

We also find little evidence that the provision of political information relates to local demand for that information, except a consistently significant effect across our models for the percentage of the county that voted for Obama in 2008. This suggests that liberal counties are providing higher levels of political information overall and information from the hierarchy. Although speculative, we believe that this result is from the opposition of the Church hierarchy to Obama's re-election; in this context, a robust level of support for Obama might cue pressure from the hierarchy on the individual parishes to provide political information. Interestingly, we see that the number of Catholic congregations in the county is negatively related to both the overall level of political information and the provision of high levels of political information. One possibility is that, consistent with the political economy view of religiosity, more churches means more choice for practicing Catholics. Many religious Americans view do not look positively at politicking in the church; thus, more fragmentation means that individuals are able to choose a church that does not practice politics. These cues may filter through to the parish priests, who are interested in pleasing parishioners and thus may adapt accordingly.

CONCLUSION: THE CHURCH IN AMERICAN POLITICS

Our findings reaffirm several important conclusions from the religion and politics scholarship. First, as scholars have found in the past, the Catholic Church is not a monolithic institution. The diversity in political information provided at the local level by parishes in Florida. Indeed, despite the efforts of the USCCB, the FCCB, and the diocese in the state — reaffirms that even in a denomination with more rigid doctrinal control, parishes deviated in how or whether they complied with hierarchical dictates. Our results also affirm that parish priests respond to both local and bishop demands — often by engaging in non-behavior. The limitations on the Church's influence say something not only about Catholicism in America but also more generally about religion and American politics. Because of the institutional organization of the Church and the multiple levels of the hierarchy, the overall influence of the Church on Catholic voting behavior is limited. As information cascades down from the national episcopal conference to state conferences to dioceses and finally to parishes, these messages are filtered as each layer of the Church hierarchy struggles to perform both its pastoral duty and to seek overall congruence between the Church's teachings and American government. The messages that Catholics ultimately receive at the parish level vary as priests, with their own specific worldview, frame and prime political information from the cues they have received from above (USCCB, state conferences, dioceses) and below (parishioners).

The filtering of political messages through the Church is a product of the religion itself, institutional organization, pastoral responsibilities, and the institutional, social, political, and economic realities of the United States, including a federal system, the division and overlap of federal and state powers, as well as a diverse population with a significant number of immigrants. The range of the Catholic agenda across the political spectrum further complicates the delivery of political messages. This is not to say that the Catholic Church or religion in general does not influence American politics. In fact, we argue quite the opposite. In many ways, the Church's messages and activities represent the very essence of democracy marked by participation and contestation. Catholic voters, as they struggle to form their own consciences take the multiple and at times conflicting cues provided by the Church and just as their Church calls them to do, become faithful citizens with well-formed consciences. Simply because the Catholic vote is not monolithic does not mean it is not important. Greater attention to the parish level and the role of priests in influencing political behavior could potentially reveal a more dynamic understanding of how Catholicism influences American politics, how American politics conditions Catholicism and how the Church's members behave politically.