"American Catholic leaders have pledged to “pull out all the stops” in expressing support of a proposed overhaul of U.S. immigration laws, according to Kevin Appleby, director of migration policy for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. As one part of the drive, Catholic bishops and priests in major dioceses plan to preach this Sunday in favor of immigration policy changes. [...] At first glance, it appears that there are significant differences of opinion among religious groups on this question. However, these apparent differences are largely the result of underlying differences between religious groups in race, ethnicity, political ideology and party identification. After accounting for these factors, the independent impact of religion is minimal. For example, while Catholics are more likely than Protestants to say that immigrants strengthen society (53% vs. 42%), much of this difference can be attributed to the larger share of Catholics who are Hispanic. About a third of U.S. Catholics (32%) are Hispanic, compared with just 7% of Protestants. Hispanic Catholics – a majority of whom are, themselves, foreign-born – are much more likely to say immigrants strengthen the country (73%) than to say immigrants are a burden (16%), much like Hispanics overall (72% vs. 18%). By comparison, white non-Hispanic Catholics are divided on this question (44% vs. 44%), similar to whites overall (42% vs. 45%)."
Posted on: Sat, 07 Sep 2013 03:25:57 +0000
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