As you imply, all of this makes no difference whatsoever to the rational Catholic voter. I recall language somewhere (I think in a magisterial document) that we cannot assign fault to people born and raised in non-Catholic Christian traditions. Palin falls into that category because she was a child who simply followed her parents' lead. What is important is that Sarah Palin is indeed a Christian who takes the sanctity of life seriously. I recently read a quote somewhere (I do not recall where; I think possibly the Ignatius Insight blog) to the effect that some Protestants are in practice "Catholic," while some "Catholics" are not really Catholic in substance. All of us have seen that phenomenon. I would make a similar observation: there are many Protestants who are deeply Christian, yet there is a significant number of Catholics who are not deeply Christian at all.
Michael Sean Winters sounds particularly desperate here:
For the rest of us, it is beyond hypocritical for certain conservative Catholics to denounce Joe Biden because he is Catholic and does not support making abortion illegal while applauding a self-described "hockey Mom" who is skating close to apostasy. The Church's sacramental traditions and beliefs are as worthy of respect and defense as our moral traditions and beliefs.Too bad the bishops don't agree.
Newsflash, fellow Catholics. Evangelicals hate us. They are anti-Catholic bigots. They think we are going to hell. Try learning more about the attitudes of Pentecostal, other born agains and Sarah Palin's pastor. Try raising your kids in one of these communities and watch them ensure the taunts of their evangelical classmates. Meanwhile, John McCain has actively courted the endorsements of rabidly anti-Catholic "pastors." WAKE UP. You are being used!
DevotedCatholic -- take it from a convert: 'Evangelicals' are too broad a subset of Christianity for that charge to hold water. In some cases yes, there are segments which are anti-Catholic. In other cases, they've worked hand-in-hand with Catholics (a prominent example would be Chuck Colson's 'Catholics and Evangelicals Together' project). I'd count Sarah Palin among the latter.
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