Letter

Giao duc | summer school registration |

American Catholics can be distinguished as practicing or nonpracticing, usual distinctions including weekly attendance at Mass and differing attitudes toward abortion.

Santorum and Catholics

Published: April 4, 2012

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To the Editor:

Re " Despite Shared Faith, Catholic Voters Haven't Been Thronging to Santorum " (news article, March 27):

But Rick Santorum has engaged neither group, both because of his effective rejection of Catholic social teaching and his embrace of practices like home schooling, which, partly because of the church's teaching function (the magisterium), has not been a Catholic practice except when necessary.

The widely held belief that "there is no Catholic voter, per se" needs to be inflected by these distinctions, particularly, perhaps, in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and California — and not only in the Republican primaries.

JOHN C. HIRSH
Washington, March 27, 2012

The writer is a professor of English at Georgetown University.

Theo www.nytimes.com