Mary Jo Weaver is an emeritus professor of religious studies at Indiana University, Bloomington. She has written on American Catholics in the 20th century, with a focus on the conservative strain among American Catholics.

Michael Horan is a theologian at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles who can relate Catholic beliefs to Catholic practice, particularly in the political realm. Horan believes hard-line tactics by bishops to deny communion to abortion rights politicians can backfire.

David J. O’Brien is a professor of Catholic studies at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. He has written and commented widely about Catholics and politics.

William V. D’Antonio is an associate researcher at The Catholic University of America and a fellow of the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies. He is a leading analyst of the changing roles of Catholic laity in society and politics.

See this transcript from May 22, 2006, event sponsored by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. White Catholics may be key for Democrats, according to William A. Galston, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

View the proceedings of a Feb. 27, 2006, panel at Boston College. The panel was convened under the auspices of the college’s Church in the 21st Century Center program and featured Tim Russert, managing editor and moderator of Meet the Press and political analyst for NBC Nightly News and the Today show; James Carville, CNN political commentator and former senior […]

Read the three-part Catholic Voter Project, which explores the mind of the Catholic voters and their votes in America. It was commissioned by Crisis Magazine and done by QEV Analytics, a Washington polling group. Crisis Magazine is representative of a politically conservative wing of Catholicism.

Read stories and analysis at Catholicvote.net, sponsored by Catholics for a Free Choice, an abortion rights group. Catholicvote.net is representative of a politically liberal wing of Catholicism.

The Rev. Richard A. Blake, a professor of film studies at Boston College, is a film historian and author of Afterimage: The Indelible Catholic Imagination of Six American Filmmakers. He reviews films for America magazine.