Catholics and the religious right.

There is a widespread assumption that the Christian Coalition and many of its allied far-right groups are Protestants of fundamentalist or evangelical persuasion. The Christian Coalition in December 1995 reinforced that assumption in public statements by its executive director, Ralph Reed, urging Catholics to unite with the coalition.

As a matter of fact, the religious right has always been deeply involved with Roman Catholics, who have played decisive roles in formulating its ideology and strategy The first of these leaders was conservative writer William F. Buckley, Jr., who founded Young Americans for Freedom at his Sharon, Connecticut, estate in 19.60. He was also very influential in the 1964 organization of the American Conservative Union, which was the forerunner of a number of existing rightist groups, such as the Conserve Caucus and the National Conservative Political Action Committee.

Another Roman Catholic, Father Paul Marx, founded Human Life Inter, national in 1981 and persuaded Dr. Jack Wilke, a lecturer on sex education, to become involved in anti-abortion work. Wilke later became president of the National Right to Life Committee and is also a member of the board of directors of the Catholic Campaign for America, which serves as a kind of central committee for Catholic Republicanism.

Probably the most influential of an the early Cathohc leaders is Paul Weyrich, whose Free Congress Foundation lent support to the "lengthy campaign" which led to the Vatican's disciplining of liberal Seattle Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen. It was Weyrich, together with Ed McAteer and Howard Phillips, who spent a day with Jerry Falwell persuading him to take on "the issue of abortion'" As Connie Paige notes in The Right to Lifers, out of that meeting also came the idea for the Moral Majority, the single most crucial entity since the Catholic church in making the right to life movement a dangerous force on the right."

At that meeting in Lynchburg, Virginia, in January 1979," Paige continues, "Paul Weynch was the one who articulated exactly what it was they all were trying to accomplish." Richard Viguerie, in his book The New Right, put it this way: "Paul Weyrich and Howard Phillips spent countless hours with electronic ministers like Jerry Falwell, James Robison, and Pat Robertson, urging them to get involved in conservative politics."

Jerry Falwell acknowledged his in, debtedness to the Catholic ultraright in an interview in the February 1988 San Francisco Focus: "I went to see some Catholic leaders and political people in Washington and then formed the Moral Majority." Falwell also indicated that at the time the Moral Majority had a membership of 30 percent Roman Catholic and 20 percent fundamentalist, evangelicals; the rest were Mormons, Jews, and others.

Richard Viguerie was himself a Roman Catholic political activist, influential in recruiting rightwing Protestants. Early in his career, Viguerie started his own direct-mail company, and in 1973 he began working for racist Governor George Wallace of Alabama. While doing his work for Wallace, Viguerie picked up mailing lists of Wallace's segregationist and fundamentalist following. By 1981, the Viguerie Company had 250 employees; in addition to fundraising, he was publishing the Conservative Digest and the New Right Report. Viguerie also raised money for Jesse Helmns' reelection to the Senate and accumulated more names and addresses of contributors to his list.

Another pair of right-wing Catholics, Paul and Judie Brown, were the ones who actually orgarized fundamentalist Protestants into their own version of the right-to-life movement. In addition to inviting them to meetings, the Browns offered to do the fundamental, ists' mailings--in the process, getting a percentage of the take, keeping an eye on what was being sent, and acquiring a whole new list of names for their own use. As Connie Paige reported in The Right to Lifers, the Browns also teamed up with key Mormon leaders to bring them into right-to-life-activities.

This litany of right-wing Catholics coopting Protestant fundamentalists is far from complete. However, it does reveal how clearly the Catholic right has led the Protestant fundamentalists. According to the report A New Rite: Conservative Catholic Organizations and Their Allies, prepared by Catholics for a Free Choice: "Many national committee members of the Catholic Campaign for America are long-time associates of Pat Robertson. In addition, the Catholic organizations in this directory often cooperate with groups such as the Family Research Council, the Christian Coalition, Operation Rescue, Focus on the Family, and the Traditional Values Coalition."

Key figures in the Catholic hierarchy, such as Cardinal John O'Connor, have cooperated in this endeavor. O'Connor, for example, introduced Pat Robertson to the pope during the pope's 1995 visit to New York City. According to A New Rite: "More than 100,000 voter guides produced by Pat Robert, son's coalition were distributed in Catholic parishes throughout New York City" in 1993 "to influence school board elections."

At the very highest level of the Roman church is "the most powerful fundamentalist of them all,' says Catholic journalist Penny Lernoux. And according to A New Rite: "Add the pope's anti-communist crusade to his conservative family agenda, fierce opposition to abortion and contraception, lack of recognition of women's rights, and authoritarian style of leadership, and one sees a perfect reflection of the agenda of the religious right. John Paul II, Jerry Falwell once declared, is 'the best hope we Baptists ever had.'"

Yet according to Catholics for a Free Choice, "Only a tiny fraction of US. Catholics-less than 200,000 out of a diverse community of more than 50 million-have deliberately and consciously aligned themselves with Catholic organizations on the `religious right.'" But several recent developments reveal that efforts are under way to further integrate the Catholic and Protestant right-wing movements. On March 29, 1995, Cardinal O'Connor, Pat Robertson, Catholic Bishop Francis George of Yakima, Washington, Archbishop Francis Stafford of Denver, Colorado, Bishop Carlos A. Sevilla of San Francisco, Harvard Professor Mary Ann Glendon, Father Richard John Neuhaus, convicted Watergate conspirator Charles Colson, and others signed and endorsed "Evangelicals and Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium " And on December 9, 1995, the Christian Coalition launched the Catholic Alliance, which Ralph Reed has described as "a fully owned subsidiary" or "auxiliary of the Christian Coalition." The Catholic Alliance was announced in a massive mailing to Roman Catholics which carried this message from Ralph Reed:

Christian Coalition launched the Catholic Alliance in 1995 because Catholics already make up 16.3 [percent] of Christian Coalition's 1.6 million members, and we need to expand Christian Coalition's Catholic representation.... Catholic Alliance is speaking out against the anti-Catholic bigotry we see every day in the news coverage, on university campuses, in the schools, in the political debate, and in other areas of American life where church leaders are vilified and ridiculed for their Christian beliefs.

A congressional scorecard included in the mailing claims that the Catholic Alliance "represents Catholics before the US. Congress, state legislatures, and local governing bodies" This, more than some other statements, undoubtedly led to the criticism by Catholic bishops and others in a fun-page discussion in the December 22, 1995, National Catholic Reporter.

The Catholic Alliance mailing also included a "1996 Pre-Election Presidential Ballot of Catholic Voters" designed to discover where each person returning the ballot stood on select "hot-button" issues. Needless to say, the mailing was also designed to raise funds.

In rebuttal, Father Paul McLaughlin, pastor of a suburban Boston church, was quoted in the National Catholic Reporter as saying that "Catholics don't need Pat Robertson to tell them how to vote." He pointed out that, "in most areas, the teaching of the church is in direct conflict with the agenda of Pat Robertson and his Catholic Alliance"

There is little doubt that millions of Catholics think for themselves, that neither the bishops nor various Catholic organizations can command their electoral allegiance, and that they, like their Protestant counterparts, will not vote as a bloc.

John Swomley is an emeritus professor of social ethics at St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Missouri. He is also presdent of Amemericans for Religious Liberty and serves on the national board of the American Civil Liberties Union.