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Heart and Soul: Catholic women and the US elections

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Catholic women and the US elections

13/11/2020 GMT

BBC World Service - Heart and Soul, Catholic women and the US elections

Catholic women explain how faith influenced their vote in the US Presidential election.

As the campaign in the 2020 US Election went on it became clearer that America’s Catholics were crucial to the result.
Here are two candidates, the Democrat Joe Biden, a practising Catholic, who represents a social justice interpretation of the faith, and the Republican, Donald Trump, with who now describes himself as ‘a non-denominational Christian’ but who appeals to the socially conservative Catholic pro-life agenda. It is a fascinating dynamic.  The rival campaigns targeted Catholics with fervent appeals to vote based on faith, especially on the issue of abortion.  

After a tense week, Joe Biden was called, and declared the next president of the United States, only the second Catholic to hold the presidency. As he steps up to lead, he faces the challenge of a divided America and it may take a lot more than just words to heal, and an awful lot of faith to fix the wounds inflicted by both sides. 

Angela Davis, in Minnesota, brings together four Catholic women across the US, to discuss issues that affected their vote, such as right to abortion and racism. Did they vote on faith or policy?  

In a divided America, what does the Catholic faith tell us about how democrats and republicans can now come together and heal?

Presented by:  Angela Davis
Produced by: Louise Clarke-Rowbotham

Photo: A pile of I voted stickers, November 2020 / Credit: Aimee Dilger/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images.

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