Of course that conclusion demands a massive qualification. Church-going Catholics tend to be more pro-life than non-church-going Catholics. More pro-life but not completely or overwhelmingly so. Most Catholic parishioners are more likely to vote for pro-life candidates than their non-churchgoing, nominal co-religionists. Somewhat.

What to make of it? We might ask how we should expect things to be otherwise. Consider the fact that in most parishes, the congregation gets little more than a twenty-minute homily, once-a-week, possibly related to the scriptural readings for the week. How can anyone realistically expect the congregation to be formed in Catholic social teaching when the homily is almost the only regular religious or spiritual instruction it gets? Then there are those Catholics, sometimes even in leadership positions, who downplay the abortion issue. And there are some self-styled Catholics who even reject Catholic teaching on the subject altogether.

Probably most pastors avoid addressing the issue of abortion from the pulpit, and in any case very few know how to talk about the issue in political terms. Indeed, even some pastors who would otherwise be inclined to discussion abortion and Catholic voting are frightened by the mistaken idea that doing so is unconstitutional and — more to the point in many pastors’ minds — risks losing their parish’s tax-exempt status.

Obviously, then, there is a massive disconnect between what the Church teaches about human life and abortion, and how most Catholics vote. Nor is the problem limited to abortion, as bad as that would be if it were. Unfortunately, it is increasingly the case that Catholic teaching about family life, about what constitutes marriage, about euthanasia and a host of other topics doesn’t necessarily inform the typical Catholic voter, not even the typical church-going Catholic voter.

“Catholic America has essentially failed,” writes sociologist Joseph A. Varacalli, “in any significant way, to shape the American Republic.” Varacalli’s book, Bright Promise, Failed Community, Catholics and the American Public Order, offers an explanation for why this is so, but it’s not one likely to please at least some of those grumbling bishops. Varacalli doesn’t blame non-Catholics or even anti-Catholics for our problems. “The main reason for the current situation,” he contends, “lies in the ‘failed community’ of Catholic America, that is, an ineffective and dissent-ridden set of organizational arrangements that has not succeeded in adequately carrying and institutionalizing the Church’s social doctrine both among the Catholic American populace and into the key idea-generating sectors of American life.”

The failure of Catholic Americans is not for any want of opportunity or wherewithal. As Varacalli shows, nowadays Catholics equal or surpass their Protestant neighbors in education, professional qualifications, political clout and wealth. By those measures, the Catholic story in America is a “success story.” And therein lies a profound irony.

A hundred years ago, Catholics in America lacked all of those things vis-à-vis Protestant America, but in many respects they had, even as a largely immigrant community, a more unified sense of Catholic social teaching and practice. At the very least, they had a clearer vision than most Catholics today of what a society influenced by Catholic social teaching ought to look like. What Catholics then lacked was full access to the mainstream of American public life — full access to the political, social and economic means of actually helping to shape the public life of the commonweal. Today, Catholics are a hefty part of the mainstream, yet they no longer have a common vision of what they should be about. They now have the means to present a Catholic vision but no longer agree about the vision to present.

Varacalli looks at Catholic successes in American culture, institutional life and in the life of the individual Catholic. He cites two examples of how Catholics in America have failed to shape the culture: the family and the economic life of America. Far from being a beacon of hope, the Catholic family today is plagued by the same sort of difficulties as non-Catholic families: a high level of divorce, contraception and other domestic problems. As for American economic life, Varacalli argues that Catholics have failed to provide a viable alternative to socialism on the one hand and laissez faire capitalism on the other.

Catholic institutional life hasn’t fared much better than American culture when it comes to being shaped by Catholic teaching and influence. Nineteen and early twentieth century Catholics managed to erect a vast network of Catholic institutions — from parishes, schools, colleges and universities to seminaries, orphanages, hospitals, and nursing homes. Yet, according to Varacalli, many of these institutions have been compromised by leaders who no longer operate from a consistently Catholic vision. In many cases, the vision is more secular than Catholic.

What about achievements by individual Catholics? Surely the sixty million or so Catholic individuals in America have made and do make a substantial difference in American public life. If so, it isn’t clear how, argues Varacalli. Consider the political arena. Catholics are more than a substantial voting block; they are significantly represented in Congress and in other political offices throughout the land. Yet, contends Varacalli, “Catholics have been anything but successful politically, if one defines success in terms of the ability to bring Catholic social thought into the public square from which national social policy is forged. The social scientific evidence is that Catholic politicians have not voted either consistently from a Catholic perspective or as a discernible bloc.”

Here Varacalli draws on Mary Hanna’s 1979 study Catholics and American Politics. Some Catholic politicians are only nominally identified with the Catholic faith. Others closely identify with Catholicism but “internal pluralism” and confusion over what being a Catholic means eliminate a common vision or united action. Finally, some Catholic politicians are bowled over by ideas of church-state separation, which inhibit a more energetic understanding of Catholicism in the public square.

Varacalli presents John F. Kennedy as the poster-boy for worldly political gain winning out over Catholic principle and practice. Pace many analysts who see Kennedy’s election as a political coming-of-age for American Catholics, Varacalli holds that Kennedy “suggested to all aspiring Catholic politicians . . . that no office or honor was beyond reach assuming that one make clear to the non-Catholic world that one’s Catholic heritage would be inoperative in any important aspect of public life.”

The Catholic electorate isn’t much better, letting “Catholic politicians . . . get away with their infidelity to, and ignorance of, the faith.” We need only ask how many times has the militantly pro-abortion “Catholic” senior senator from Massachusetts been re-elected to see the point. How many Catholics have voted for pro-abortion “Catholic” politicians? The problem is, ideologies such as socialism, or capitalism or feminism or whatever, inform the voting of many Catholics far more than Catholic social teaching. And that is largely the rest of a generation of Catholics whose motto was “go along to get along.” In short, both the Catholic politician and the Catholic voting public simply fail to fulfill one of their primary responsibilities, according to Vatican II: “to impress on the temporal order the divine law” (Gaudium et Spes, no. 43).

A major reason for Catholic problems these days, according to Varacalli, is the decline of the Catholic “plausibility structure.” “Plausibility structure” refers to a set of institutions and social arrangements that reaffirm the plausibility or cogency of a belief system. Catholics, no less than non-Catholics, benefit from social arrangements and institutions that tend to make their worldview more believable. As Catholic institutions spend their Catholic capital to buy worldly approval, the extent to which they reinforce Catholic credibility diminishes and the degree they undercut Catholicism’s credibility increases.

On this point Varacalli quotes historian James Hitchcock, who notes, “Almost all knowledge is socially constructed, in the sense that very few individuals possess the security and courage to continue affirming ideas and apprehensions which society continuously denies, even if these apprehensions seem very real to the individual. The decline of religious faith, in a sense of the reality of God, is therefore a necessary result of the decline of the institutional Church. For the Church is a numerous, venerable, visible, and respected community of persons who publicly affirm, in a variety of ways, beliefs which in this culture are inherently improbable — God and the whole dimension of transcendence. As the institution shows itself vulnerable, as the individuals within it show themselves uncertain and groping, as many of its leaders abandon it, the beliefs and values which it has specifically affirmed become increasingly incredible. Those who are indifferent to the fate of the institution are, knowingly or unknowingly, also indifferent to the fate of religious belief, of historic Christianity.”

Who to blame for this present state of affairs? The answer is complex. But Varacalli isn’t bashful about holding Catholic leadership accountable — including Catholic bishops — for their failures to guarantee the Catholic identity of institutions over which they have authority. Varacalli is no bishop-basher. Yet he is sympathetic to the criticism made by Cardinal Francis Seper, then-prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, who said less than a decade after Vatican II:

“The bishops, who obtained many powers for themselves at the [Second Vatican] Council, are often to blame because in this crisis they are not exercising their powers as they should. Rome is too far away to cope with every scandal — and Rome is not well obeyed. If all the bishops would deal decisively with these aberrations as they occur, the situation would be different. It is very difficult for us in Rome if we get no cooperation from the bishops.”

Notwithstanding his blunt assessment of Catholicism in America, Varacalli ends on an upbeat note. He doesn’t think this is the “Catholic moment” — to use Father Richard John Neuhaus’ term. But it may be two moments removed from the Catholic moment, a time of preparation for the authentic renewal of American life that Catholicism can greatly facilitate. Varacalli points to “Catholic restorationists,” a term he says “is neither completely accurate [n]or fair insofar as it is used to imply that the goal of the restorationists is to bring into being some form of a Catholic theocracy or the alleged good old days of a medieval Catholicism.” The term is useful, though, “in pointing out the restorationist goals of institutionalizing a strong Catholic/ Christian presence in the public square and co-opting and strengthening whatever is useful in modern life to promote Catholic/Christian goals . . .”

Which brings us to what Varacalli regards as Catholicism’s contribution to American life. The author stresses the fact that the Church’s primary mission is spiritual — “the salvation of souls.” Even so, that spiritual mission has a social dimension and consequently the Church has a social apostolate. Varacalli sees two main contributions the Church’s social mission can make to American culture. First, her natural law tradition, which provides an objective, non-relativistic, even ecumenical undergirding for America law and cultural norms. Second, Catholic social teaching, which, as Varacalli notes, overlaps the natural law. Central to this teaching is the proper understanding of the family — its place and purpose in society. Also important are the notions that the purpose of government should be the common good and that the economy should avoid the extremes of socialism and capitalist consumerism.

In order to carry out the social aspect of her mission, the Church’s institutions must be revitalized. These operate as mediating structures between individuals and the State and the public sphere. Varacalli notes that “the Catholic community’s organizational network represents, potentially, the single greatest carrier of moral authority outside of the government and corporations, and provides protection, therefore, from the totalitarian potentialities inherent in socialism and the authoritarian leanings of capitalism.”

Not that the Church’s mission is merely a matter of adjusting her institutions. There is no mission to the larger culture unless the individual is transformed. As Varcalli write, “In order for the Church to more fully contribute [to society] as such, she must first be herself, faithful to her calling established and constantly reaffirmed by Jesus Christ. Therein lies the great challenge.”

Varacalli argues that solving the problem will require more than repairing America; it will take rebuilding it on a more reliable, Catholic foundation. He contends — along with a number of other Catholic scholars — that America was flawed from the beginning. He disagrees with the late John Courtney Murray and others, such as Richard Neuhaus, George Weigel and Michael Novak, that America was effectively grounded on natural law principles. Instead, he says, it was not natural law as such but natural law “diluted by Deist, Enlightenment influence.” Furthermore, a solid natural law foundation also requires a compatible mediating culture. American culture, he argues, has been either Protestant or secular. In either case, it has unduly stressed individualism, so that today America is threatened by an “autonomous individualism.”

In short, he argues that “the claim of a Catholic restorationist critique is that our present day run-amok individualism, relativism, hedonism, and narcissism are the logical result of the internal contradictions of Protestantism in American civilization working themselves out in history.”