By Patricia Zapor
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) – A small study to be reported in an upcoming book on the political influence of parish priests found huge differences in the types of political messages being emphasized from one parish to another, which may come as no surprise to anyone.

But whichever subjects their priests address, said author Gregory Smith, a fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, people clearly are being influenced in their political thinking by what they hear from the pulpit and read in their parish bulletins.

Smith spoke March 14 to a group of editors of U.S. and Canadian Catholic publications and staff members of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops at USCCB headquarters in Washington.

For his upcoming book, Politics in the Parish: The Political Influence of Catholic Priests, Smith conducted detailed case studies at nine parishes in adjacent dioceses in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, and analyzed data from the Notre Dame Study of Parish Life, which was conducted in the mid-1980s. The book, published by Georgetown University Press, is set for an April 15 release.

Smith said that although he studied only a small number of parishes in a relatively small geographic area, the type of political messages being heard varied radically from one parish to another, even within the same diocese. He gathered data in 2004, concluding shortly after the general election in November.

For instance, parishioners were more likely to describe themselves as politically conservative if they were in parishes where the priests regularly emphasized life issues, such as abortion and stem-cell research, but rarely brought up subjects such as poverty or the environment in a political context, Smith said.

Likewise, Catholics who described themselves as politically moderate or liberal were much more likely to be members of parishes that regularly emphasized political responsibilities toward the poor or immigrants.

The priests he interviewed don't mince words that might not be well received, he found.

"Across the board they all said they were willing to speak up even when they know the subject matter is going to be unpopular," he said.

Smith said his extensive interviews with priests and parishioners were designed to filter out people who choose their parish on the basis of whether it has a reputation for being politically liberal or conservative. By doing so, he explained, he believes he was able to link people's voting behavior to influences from their parishes.

In comparing the data from the Notre Dame study to his own recent interviews, Smith told Catholic News Service he found the link between people's political beliefs and the perspectives they hear at church to be more indirect than what the Notre Dame report showed.

The Notre Dame study found a strong correlation between how people voted and the political views of their priests. No comprehensive analysis of how Catholics are or are not influenced by what they hear at their churches has been conducted since that mid-1980s study, he said.

Besides questioning priests and parishioners, Smith over the course of the year also studied parish bulletins, as a source of information about what issues are emphasized in parish life, whether through activities or explicit voter guidance materials.

"There was a very close match between the information conveyed in the bulletins and the responses from priests about what they said they emphasize," Smith said.