House Divided? Evangelical Catholics, Mainstream Catholics, and Attitudes toward Immigration and Life Policies

Abstract

AbstractThis article seeks to contribute to the scholarly understanding of both Catholicism and Latino religious beliefs. Our approach is to look within the Catholic category to test whether differing theological approaches have political implications. Using a recent Texas survey with a range of religious questions and an oversample of Latino respondents, we test whether intra-Catholic religious orientations help to structure attitudes toward immigration and life policies for Latinos and Anglos. For each group, we compare two kinds of Catholics – “Evangelical Catholics” (those who report evangelical-charismatic-literalist beliefs) and “Mainstream Catholics” (those who do not). This builds on McDaniel and Ellison’s findings by asking whether ostensibly similar religious beliefs may have different effects by race and ethnicity. Our aggregate data provide some evidence that intra-Catholic differences can influence policy opinions, and that race-ethnicity can play a mediating role.