Quite unexpectedly, I found myself in a very interesting situation Sunday morning: listening to an overtly political sermon at church. Based on the reaction I saw in the congregation, I think it might be a very big deal. It was absolutely the talk of the congregation on the way out of the building when church let out.

Now, I grew up in a unabashedly milquetoast Methodist church. My grandfather was the pastor when I was a boy, and my uncle wast the pastor when I was older, and I cannot remember either of them ever giving an even remotely political sermon. These days — despite more or less subscribing to an agnostic Quakerism in my personal beliefs about theology and church institutions — I go to a suburban Catholic church, since my wife is part of the One True Church and, only God knows how, my kids ended up part of it too. On average, pretty much any Catholic priest will tend to be slightly more political in his homilies than some pastor at a  liberal Methodist outfit in upstate New York, but your odds of running into what I ran into yesterday — an all-out political assault from the pulpit that you might associate with conservative evangelicals or fundamentalists — are extremely low at a Catholic mass at a not-particularly-conservative Catholic church. So part of the reaction and buzz was probably due to the unusual nature of the message.

It definitely took me aback. I was out in the hallway walking around with Abigail, who had gotten restless in the pews, and we were listening over the PA system as the homily started. And right out the gates, the normally-restrained priest — whom I had never really heard give a political sermon of any sort — just started going to town on the Obama administration, over the HHS decision to leave in place the rule requiring church-affiliated institutions to offer birth control services as part of employee health packages. And he didn’t let up. He talked about church and state, the founders, the role of Catholics in building this country, and even, if I remember correctly, called the decision a “slap in the face.” Abigail and I nearly ran back into the pews at that point, because I wasn’t going to miss this rest. When I sat down,  I leaned over to Sarah and said, “Can you believe this? I’ve never heard anything like this here,” and she was in complete agreement.

Now, I’m not particularly interested in the substance of the debate. I’m personally very supportive of birth control access, particularly to the degree it lowers the abortion rate. And I know only a few Catholics (and no Protestants) who are absolutely against artificial birth control. As a libertarian, I’m not a huge fan of government dictates over health policy like this, but that’s a general complaint and has nothing to do with the church’s particular issue here. What I am interested in, however, is the political power of the church to swing voters over things like this. Like I said, the vast majority of Catholics I know are probably happy that birth control can be part of their health care plan, and while many of them probably have reservations about forcing Catholic hospitals and schools to offer it to their employees, I don’t think it’s a big enough issue to affect the vote of very many.

On the other hand, if you can convince a lot of Catholics to vaguely understand themselves as catholic voters, and then convince them that the Obama administration is anti-catholic, that strikes me as potentially a very big deal. For both ideological and socio-cultural reasons, Catholics have long been a strong part of the Democratic coalition. And definitely have (in the past) supported Democratic candidates at a greater rate than the rest of their demographic backgrounds would suggest. It’s also true that Catholics in America — particularly older Catholics outside of the northeast — still identify with past anti-Catholicism and the group solidarity that came with such discrimination. Yes, Kennedy was elected 50 years ago; but he’s still the only one who made it, in a nation that’s about 1/4 Catholic. In effect, I think it’s probably easier to get Catholics to think of themselves as religious group members for the purposes of voting, in comparison to, say, Methodists or whatever.

Now, that’s just conjecture. But if it’s true, what I saw on Sunday is not good news for the Obama administration. Walking out of the church, all people were talking about was the homily. I heard one man say, “Obama had to choose between the Catholics and his other supporters. And he didn’t choose us.” I overheard someone else say, “It’s like he’s doing this just to spite us.” I heard a lot of people — including my wife — express complete surprise that the new rules might force Catholic hospitals to make tough choices, or even shut down if they didn’t want to bend their beliefs. Put it this way: I’m fairly confident 80% of the people in that church on a given Sunday couldn’t even tell you what the homily was about. But yesterday, it was pretty clear that all of them got the message. And the message was “Obama is making unnecessary and unprecedented decisions that hurt the Catholic church’s ability to help people.”

That’s exactly the attitude that Obama can’t afford to foster. Now, I don’t want to make too big a deal out of this. In part because I’m obviously dealing with one anecdotal account of one mass on one Sunday a year before the election. And also because who knows how much mileage Obama will get from other groups who are happy about the decision. And maybe this will all fade by the election anyway.  But it sure seems like something that might cause an unexpected problem for the President. Like I said, I’ve never seen a political discussion at this particular church before. But what I did see on Sunday was not a good sign for the Democrats.