As we wait to digest the final numbers, Ohio which was the decisive state and ground zero, gave Bush the Catholic vote 55-45. I have to confess, Ohio was not on my Catholic radar, PA, MI, IA, and WI were. For some reason, I saw the gun issue and economy issue as the key to Ohio, but not Catholicism.

Now, here's a study in contrasts, New Mexico, in which the Catholic vote was 32% of the vote, higher than the national average, gave Kerry 61% of the vote to Bush's 38%. Kerry got about 45% of weekly attendees. Obviously, it was more of a Latino and Native vote.

In PA, Catholics were 35% of the electorate, and Kerry won in 51% to 49%, in an electorate with only 3% Latinos. So those were mostly White Catholics. Even more interesting is that Kerry gets 45% of weekly church attendess and 38% of more than once a week church attendees. Looking for silver linings, those are interesting numbers.

But then, here's a good one: Maryland is a Blue state and Catholics are 24% of the electorate. Well, Bush trounces Kerry in the Catholic vote, 57%-41%, that is a stunning number. No easy explanation for that (I offer one later).

As for Minnesota, Kerry won the Catholic vote and got 41% of weekly Church attendees. Bush won the Catholic vote in Missouri by one point, which is interesting since St Louis was ground zero for Archbishop Burke's interventions. Kerry won IA Catholics 53-46, that's awesome! (I'm grasping for silver linings here!)He also got 45% of the Catholic weekly attendees.

The Catholic vote overall was 27% which is far higher than the percentage in the general population. I think one reason is that all the political talk keyed Catholics into the process and led to a higher Catholic turnout. We can say defintely that the Catholic swing vote is not dead by a long shot. 2004 shows that the Catholic vote is still crucial and can be decisive. Although, at this point, it is still not clear how to manipulate it. The Catholic vote was a factor in OH, it is not clear why and why not PA or MO, or WI or MN, which were all battleground, hotly contested states with Catholic emphasis. I happen to think that wherever there was focus by Kerry and Kerry Catholics, we muted the Catholic right and Kerry did well among White Catholics. But where we did not turn up the heat, we lost. Like I said earlier, I don't think we targetted OH in a Catholic sense and that was costly.

So what does it all mean? Not much, we lost.

On the other hand, it says that when we make our case as Kerry Catholics, U.S. Catholics are listening and accepting and that is something we can take out of all this.

Part of me believes that the Bishops have created another 1968 Humanae Vitae moment. They definitely crossed the line and it is clear that Catholics responded positively to Kerry when presented with an articulation of the Kerry Catholic view-IA, WI, MO, PA, MI, NM. (I say MD's numbers are the way they are because we weren't a swing state and the case for Kerry Catholics was never made to MD Catholics).

I'm still working on my seven stages of grief, I just can't figure where the heck I am in the process. I think I'm passed denial even though I believe that 250,000 votes will be found lurking in Diebold machines later this evening (Just kidding). But if we have the energy to go on after this, I think we can make some progress in creating a more progressive Catholicism in the U.S. Simply stated, the Pope-is-God, same-sex marriage-more-important-than-100,000-war-dead, doesn't work with U.S. Catholics.

The nation has definitely caught a conservative wave and it is not a good thing. But c'est la vie. I believe, like Paul says in Rom. 8, "All things work together for good with those who love God and are called according to His purpose."

There is still the issue of dialog between lib/mods and conservatives. I'm not a believer in that. Dialogue with pragmatic conservatives is possible, but not with ideological conservatives which is where the Catholic/Christian Right activists are coming from.

Anyway, as Paul says, "In all things, give thanks."