Nuns kick off a cross-country bus tour in Philly to steer Catholics from being single-issue voters

PHILADELPHIA — Polls give Vice President Kamala Harris a slight edge in Pennsylvania over former President Donald Trump, which means the election could hinge on turnout. And in a race this tight, Philadelphia’s large Catholic base could make the statewide difference.

That’s why Nuns On the Bus & Friends, or NOTB, kicked off its Vote Our Future 2024 cross-country tour in Philly on Monday. Their goal is to motivate the electorate not only to vote, but to vote based on their values and to refrain from electing candidates based on a single issue.

“The Catholic vote is important. All the issues are connected,” said Mary DiVito, a lifelong Philadelphian and volunteer for NETWORK Advocates for Catholic Social Justice, the Washington-based advocacy group that organizes NOTB.

NOTB is urging voters to challenge the country’s current polarization by voting for the common good, which will mean taking issues such as health care, immigration, childcare, treatment of the LGBTQ community, and climate change into consideration.

On the road

From its launch in Philadelphia, where 25% of the population identifies as Catholic, the bus will take 15 Catholic sisters and 15 multifaith and secular partners to 20 cities in 11 states before ending Oct. 18 in San Francisco. At each event, NOTB is distributing a “guiding document” called the Equally Sacred Checklist alongside a voting day action plan. Their basic message: Democracy and freedom are in peril, and voting is not only a sacred right but should especially benefit the marginalized.

“I’m excited to be here and kick off the bus tour. The Holy Spirit has shown up, and the Holy Spirit is permeating,” said Sister Erin McDonald of the Sisters of Saint Joseph in Detroit. She added that values-based voting “can transcend just our Catholic faith.”

NETWORK has also created a comparison of the two presidential candidates’ positions on health, the economy, safety, civic engagement, environmental issues, and immigration. While the bus trip is being billed as a nonpartisan voter education tour, it’s clear that Harris has the participants’ preferred platform.

“The No. 1 priority for Donald Trump, the one thing he spent all of 2017 on, was attempting to repeal Obamacare,” said U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle (D., Pa.), a Catholic and one of the few speakers who referred to Trump by name at the bus-tour kickoff event. “The only major piece of legislation he passed was a $2 trillion tax cut where most went to the 1%.”

Avoiding the ‘A’ word

But what remained unspoken during the hour-long rally was any mention of abortion.

Long the third rail of Catholic politics, since the overturn of Roe v. Wade in June 2022, abortion has become a critical voting issue, especially for suburban women in battleground states. NETWORK has broadened its definition of pro-life to include policies like the Child Tax Credit, and aligned it with the Catholic values of caring for the poor and dispossessed throughout their lifespan, not just during pregnancy.

NETWORK has never formally spoken on abortion, according to Grassroots Education and Organizing Specialist Sister Eilis McCulloh. “We’ve been around for 52 years, and in the entire time we’ve never been involved in the abortion issue,” she said.

Abortion is primarily a state issue, McCulloh said, and NETWORK deals only with federal concerns, focusing on policies that help poor people thrive.

The Catholic vote

However, for some of the country’s 52 million Catholics, a conservative-leaning group, NETWORK’s stance is controversial. They believe that to be devout precludes voting for a pro-choice candidate like Harris over Trump, who takes credit for appointing the three Supreme Court justices who made the overturn of Roe v. Wade possible.

The Catholic Accountability Project provides report cards on Catholic politicians — failing those like Sen. Robert Casey and criticizing President Joe Biden for his “loose relationship to his professed Catholicism” — based on whether their votes reflect a faithful witness or strict adherence to Catholic doctrine.

In 2020, Trump carried the state’s Catholic vote by a 13-point margin. Last month, a Pew Research Center poll found Trump leading Harris by five points among the nation’s Catholic voters but trailing Harris by almost 30 points among Hispanic Catholics.

And Pope Francis recently urged Catholics in the United States to vote in the November election despite having concerns about both presidential candidates.

“Both are against life, be it the one who kicks out migrants, or be it the one who kills babies,″ Francis said in response to a question about American Catholic voters. “Not voting is ugly. It is not good. You must vote. You must choose the lesser evil. Who is the lesser evil? That lady or that gentleman? I don’t know.”

Boyle reminded the crowd on Monday of the tight stakes in both 2020, when Biden won the state by only 81,660 votes, and 2016, when Trump won it by less than a percentage point.

Other speakers drove home the point that this election is about more than one issue.

“I am a multi-issue woman. I live a multi-issue life,” said the Rev. Cassandra Gould, one of the bus riders and a senior strategist for Faith in Action. “So I am a multi-issue voter.”