Poll: Minority of Catholics Oppose Notre Dame's Obama Invite

By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

A just released Pew poll on the Obama/Notre Dame controversy finds that about half of Roman Catholics support the university's invitation to the president, while only 25 percent oppose it. Among white, weekly attending Catholics, however—among whom Obama did much better than expected last November—about half oppose Notre Dame's invite, while just a third support it.

This poll speaks to the importance of seeing Catholics, who constitute about a quarter of the country, as a population that is a part of multiple political constituencies, rather than as a single voting bloc.

Here are the complete numbers (note that half of Catholics haven't even heard about the controversy):

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