Health care reform

In 2010, Catholic Democrats president Dr. Patrick Whelan published a study^[19] that appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine and asserted that the number of abortions in Massachusetts decreased after the 2006 passage of universal health care there. Additionally, national director Steve Krueger wrote a policy paper on health care and abortion. Catholic Democrats also sent a letter to all Catholic members of the U.S. Congress asking them to give up divisive partisan rhetoric for Lent and to pass health care reform by Easter. Additionally, the organization asked Catholics to sign a petition that called on Congress to pass health care reform.

Activism on poverty and wealth disparity

For the 2010 midterm elections, Catholic Democrats issued A Catholic Pledge to America,^[20] which called on Catholic voters to support candidates whose policies reflect Catholic social justice. Additionally, the organization issued a voter's guide^[21] that contrasted the accomplishments of the Democratic Congress with the Republican Pledge to America. National director Steve Krueger and board member Kathleen Kennedy Townsend appeared on the PBS program Religion & Ethics Newsweekly.^[22] In July 2011, Mr. Krueger became president of Catholic Democrats.

In the fall of 2011 as the presidential primaries approached, Catholic Democrats sent a letter^[23] to then-Archbishop Timothy Dolan, president of the USCCB, detailing the theological flaws in arguments by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) in favor of a federal austerity budget that proposed drastic cuts in healthcare, food stamps, and other services for the poor. The organization asked the U.S. bishops to vigorously address the challenges of increased poverty, unemployment and income inequality, and to reaffirm the principles that the U.S. bishops unambiguously laid out in the 1980s and again in the 1990s in their pastoral letter, Economic Justice for All. Archbishop Dolan replied^[24] in a letter to the leaders of Catholic Democrats, “One of the reasons defense of religious liberty is such a high priority is because this is necessary to protect our efforts in the promotion of charity, justice, peace, service, and advocacy. Likewise, I worry when any attempt to dialogue with Republicans is interpreted as turning one’s back on the poor. Nevertheless, I very much welcome your comments and have taken them seriously.”

In part because all the Republican presidential candidates opposed the administration's job creation and anti-poverty proposals, and chose to attack expanded healthcare access, Catholic Democrats became deeply involved in the 2012 presidential election. According to Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia, responding to a question from Dr. Whelan at a public forum at Assumption College in Worcester, the US bishops did not have time at their upcoming November 2011 meeting to discuss the plight of the poor and the state of the national economy. But the bishops did spend the majority of that meeting planning and launching a campaign against the Obama administration centered on the idea that the government was responsible for an attack on religious liberty.

That campaign focused on gay marriage, and later on whether employees of Catholic hospitals and universities should have insurance coverage for contraception. In a February 2012 interview on C-SPAN,^[25] Catholic Democrats Board member Kathleen Kennedy Townsend strongly supported the administration's efforts to provide wider access to contraceptives, with their potential for decreasing the number of abortions. But in an opinion piece the same week in the Philadelphia Inquirer,^[26] Archbishop Chaput said that the administration was motivated by “a seemingly deep distrust of the formative role religious faith has on personal and social conduct, and a deep distaste for religion's moral influence on public affairs.” The Inquirer subsequently interviewed Catholic Democrats’ president Steve Krueger, and reported this exchange of views with Archbishop Chaput:^[27] “While there's nothing wrong with a Catholic bishop being a Republican or a Democrat,” Krueger said, “there's something eerily unsettling when the archbishop's political affiliation and the teaching authority he rightfully claims conflate, so that he becomes more of a partisan political figure than a shepherd." Told of Krueger's criticism, Chaput became visibly annoyed and leaned forward in his chair. "Can a group that calls itself 'Catholic Democrats' talk about politicizing things? That's absolutely ridiculous." Asked if he had a preferred candidate in the presidential elections, Chaput allowed a small smile and shook his head. "I don't talk about candidates," he said. "I just talk about the issues.”

Catholic Democrats took to the air on Public Radio, syndicated Spanish-language radio, and the mainstream print media to support the United States Department of Health and Human Services decision to provide broader access to contraception. Columnist Bill Press, citing Catholic Democrats’ concerns about the bishops’ neglect for poverty-related issues,^[28] wrote in April 2012, “When I was growing up a Catholic, the nuns had a phrase for those who obeyed some tenets of the Church but not others: ‘Cafeteria Catholics.’ Today, the biggest ‘Cafeteria Catholics’ are Catholic bishops.”

Catholic Democrats opposed the use of churches to support the Republican presidential ticket. In a study of the matter, Catholic Democrats estimated that the commercial communications value of the USCCB's unprecedented "religious liberty" campaign in 2012 was likely to fall between $60 million and $100 million, based on the estimated percentage of partisan homilies heard by the 26 million Catholics attending mass each week. “If the USCCB were a Super PAC, the value of its campaign would likely top the list of independent expenditure organizations,” said Mr. Krueger in the Huffington Post.^[29]

Also in 2012, Catholic Democrats opposed efforts to politicize Catholic parishes by reaching out directly to all the parishes in Governor Romney's home state of Massachusetts and in the battleground state of Virginia, outlining for pastors the USCCB's own guidelines forbidding electioneering by political parties in Catholic parishes.

Gov. Romney chose U.S. Representative Paul Ryan, a Catholic, as his running mate in August 2012. Catholic Democrats pointed out the inconsistencies between Rep Ryan's previous budget proposals and the Catholic “preferential option for the poor,”^[30] citing opposition from a wide array of Catholic theologians and other professors,^[31] Catholic nuns, and Bishops Stephen Blaire and Howard Hubbard.^[32] “The selection of U.S. Representative Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney’s running mate puts the Ryan budget, the role of the Catholic Social Justice Tradition, and the ways we as a society can help the poor at the center of this campaign,” said Professor Nick Cafardi, a member of the board of Catholic Democrats.^[33]

When Rep. Ryan met Vice President Joseph Biden in a historic televised debate between two Catholic vice presidential candidates, Catholic Democrats hosted debate watch parties across the country preceded by a roundtable conference call discussion featuring Sr. Simone Campbell of Network, Dean Cafardi, and Dr. Whelan from Catholic Democrats. The focus of that discussion was rising poverty and the differences between the two campaigns on strategies to accelerate the recovery of the U.S. economy.

Racial justice efforts

In August 2013, Catholic Democrats teamed up^[38] with leaders from the US Bishops’ Office of African American Affairs, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, and other Catholic organizations to host an event in conjunction with the 50th commemoration^[39] of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech "I Have a Dream". An opening mass of celebration featured the Gospel Choir of Holy Redeemer Parish in Washington DC, with a homily by Fr. David Bava surveying the history of Catholic efforts related to slavery and civil rights. A wide-ranging discussion entitled, “A Catholic Conversation on Race, Religion and the March on Washington” was moderated by Ralph McCloud, the director of the USCCB's Catholic Campaign for Human Development. The discussants included United States Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez, National Pax Christi USA President Sr. Patricia Chappell, John Carr (Director of the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought & Public Life at Georgetown University), and USCCB Assistant Director for African American Affairs Donna Toliver Grimes. The event filled Holy Redeemer Church, and was well-received as the only public celebration of the role of Catholics in the Civil Rights Movement.^[40] Catholic Democrats President Krueger, who conceived the event, was quoted in the National Catholic Reporter, saying it "was intended to be a bridge between Catholic involvement in the civil rights movement of the 1960s and the unfinished business of the 1963 march today based on the Catholic social justice tradition. It is a 'next first step' on a journey that we hope may serve as an impetus for a national conversation on racial justice in parishes, dioceses and faith-based communities across our land."^[41]

2014 midterm elections

In 2014, Catholic Democrats conducted a Get Out the Vote (GOTV) campaign asking Catholic voters to consider the moral messages of Pope Francis, and his focus on poverty, as they were preparing to vote in the 2014 midterm elections. The organization produced radio advertisements featuring James Roosevelt, Jr., the grandson of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt, and Martin Sheen. The radio ads were played on Pandora Internet radio in the states of Kentucky and New Hampshire. The radio ads were a part of Catholic Democrats' 2014 "Be Connected" campaign.^[42] Pandora rated these advertisements as among the highest rated political ads for 2014 in terms of listener engagement.

2015 conference call

Catholic Democrats hosted a national conference call on the eve of Pope Francis's visit to the United States in September 2015, featuring Sr. Mary Johnson, SND, PhD, Distinguished Prof. of Sociology and Religious Studies at Trinity Washington University, and Fr. Tom Reese SJ, of the National Catholic Reporter. The group launched a prayer petition for the pope,^[43] and President Steve Krueger represented the organization at the White House reception for Pope Francis.

Further health care efforts

Because Catholic Democrats has long championed greater access to health care as a right advocated by Pope Francis and the Catholic Social Justice tradition, the group mobilized its members^[47] in opposition to Republican efforts to overturn the Affordable Care Act. The American Health Care Act (AHCA, Ryan healthcare bill) was withdrawn from consideration in the House of Representatives on March 24, 2017, preserving health insurance for 25 million people who otherwise would have lost it, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

2017 special Senate election in Alabama

Responding to the child abuse allegations made against Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore, Catholic Democrats undertook an advertising campaign appealing to Catholics in Alabama to respond forcefully to the lessons learned from the Catholic clergy abuse crisis, and to support Moore's opponent Democrat Doug Jones. On December 12, 2017, former US Attorney Doug Jones won an upset victory over Moore in the special election to fill the seat vacated by US Attorney General Jeff Sessions. ^{[citation needed]}