c. 2005 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ The 109th Congress that opened this week contains not only solid Republican majorities in both the House and Senate, but also a record number of Catholic lawmakers, especially Republican Catholics.

There are 154 Catholics in the new Congress _ an all-time high _ including 87 Democrats and 67 Republicans. While Democrats hold their traditional lead among Catholics, Republicans are gaining, with two-thirds of new Catholic members coming from the GOP.

Political observers say party and ideology usually trump religious affiliation in casting votes, but they agree the numbers reflect a Catholic drift toward the Republican Party _ a trend that could impact debate on hot-button social issues like abortion, stem-cell research and gay marriage.

They are members like Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, a Nebraska Republican who holds a theology degree from the Franciscan University of Steubenville (Ohio), and Rep. Bobby Jindal, a Louisiana convert from Hinduism who is also the second Indian-American member of Congress.

“The church is bigger than any one political movement or party,” said Jindal, who succeeded Republican David Vitter, a Catholic who moved to the Senate. “It’s a healthy thing that there are Catholics on both sides of the aisle.”

The religious makeup of Congress is based on an analysis by Al Menendez, research director for the Washington-based Americans for Religious Liberty, who has crunched the numbers for each Congress since 1972.

Menendez’s survey shows a relatively stable religious makeup since 2002, with Catholics solidifying their status as the largest single faith group, followed by Baptists (72), Methodists (61), Presbyterians (50), Episcopalians (42), Jews (37), non-denominational Protestants (24), Lutherans (20), Mormons (15) and non-denominational “Christians” (14) rounding out the top 10.

The Catholic figures are significant after a presidential campaign in which both parties heavily courted Catholic voters. President Bush, a Methodist, won the Catholic vote _ 52-47 percent _ against Sen. John Kerry, the first Catholic nominee since John F. Kennedy.

As Democrats struggle to maintain their longtime allegiance among U.S. Catholics, their lead among Capitol Hill Catholics is also falling. During the 1990s, Catholics were about 60 percent Democratic; now, that number has slipped to about 56 percent.

About one-quarter of Republican members are Catholic, compared to about one-third of Democrats. Nationally, Catholics are roughly evenly split three ways between independents and the two parties.

The new Catholics are coming from places like North Carolina, which a generation ago was the domain of Baptists and Methodists. Of the 15-member North Carolina delegation, all three Catholics are Republican.

“I think it’s a question of values, and which party embodies the values we hold dear as Bible-believing Christians,” said Rep. Patrick McHenry, a new Catholic Republican from North Carolina. “I think what you see is a Republican Party in sync, in terms of values, with Catholic faith as well as all strong Bible-believing Christians.”

Conservative Catholics said Bush did more to motivate Catholics than having one of their own on the ballot. They credit Bush’s open embrace of religious faith as the main reason Catholics are turning to the GOP, and say Democrats are losing Catholics over the party’s embrace of abortion rights.

“I think there’s definitely a realignment from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party because the Republican Party has embraced the culture of life and a number of other issues that are so important to Catholics,” said Leonard Leo, a member of the “Catholic Working Group” that advised the White House and the Bush campaign on Catholic issues.

Many Catholics, Leo said, were unimpressed by Kerry’s attempts to highlight his Catholic faith on some issues and run from it on others.

“He tried to say, `I’m a Catholic, you’re a Catholic, we ought to vote together,”’ Leo said. “That doesn’t work anymore. People aren’t impressed with labels. They care more about what you do.”

Not so fast, say some Democrats. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., has emerged as the voice of liberal Catholic strongholds in the Northeast. Last year she conducted a survey that showed Democrats vote more in line with church teaching than Republicans. Democrats, she said, need to do a better job of showing that religious faith can be bipartisan.

“The fact is, there are many of us in the Democratic Party who are people of faith, and we need to be more explicit, more public, about the convictions of our faith,” she said.

MO/PH END ECKSTROM