Contemporary Church History Quarterly
Volume 31, Number 3 (Fall 2025)
The Catholic Vote in Times of Turmoil
By Antonius Liedhegener, University of Lucerne
It was the Italian philosopher, diplomat, and early expert on political power, Niccolò Machiavelli, who concluded that in politics, no one can successfully stave off the tide of time. The Catholic vote in the late Weimar Republic and in the 2024 US presidential election illustrates Macchiavelli’s maxim.
In both cases, Catholics committed to liberal democracy were running against time. The Catholic Center Party (“Zentrum”) of the Weimar Republic was – despite its internal rifts – a stronghold of democracy. Yet even it lost many voters to the up-and-coming Nazi-party. In the United States, the Catholic vote shifted decisively in favor of President Donald Trump, even as his critics warned that he would destroy democracy as we know it. In both cases, Catholic politicians and voters loyal to democratic principles of constitutional government were confronted with the pressing question of how to withstand the fact that many younger voters, especially men, were turning against them.
