"Rev. Falwell's Moral Majority: How it changed politics and religion" - Catholic News Service, 5/18/07
Hindsight suggests the Moral Majority's call to get evangelical Christians involved in politics worked out better for the politicians than it did for the church.
Weyrich, a deacon in the Melkite Catholic Church, told Catholic News Service that one success of the Moral Majority was the change it fostered in how Catholics and evangelical Protestants worked with each other.
Weyrich said he saw that as "a change in the atmosphere from the time where Catholics and evangelical Protestants almost could not be in the same room with each other."
[Richard Viguerie] said Rev. Falwell always was ecumenical, working with Mormons, Catholics and Jews as well as the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church, sometimes to harsh criticism from other evangelicals.
But the Moral Majority was not always on the side of the leaders of the Catholic Church, Viguerie said.
"Jerry was always on the same side as the conservative Catholics," Viguerie said.
Viguerie said Rev. Falwell believed that "we have to establish priorities, to fight our common enemies -- communism, big government, liberals -- then when that fight is won we can disagree about theology."
[Deacon Keith Fournier of Richmond, Va.] told CNS that when it came to Catholic social teaching the Moral Majority only got part of the picture, primarily the one dealing with championing the right to life at all stages.
Weyrich said when it comes to the advantages gained by tying itself to one party the alliance between evangelical Christians and the Republican Party has "probably helped the party. I don't think it has helped the faith."
[John Carr, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' secretary for social development and world peace,] lauded Rev. Falwell's ability to persuade a generation of evangelical Christians that their faith had public implications, particularly bringing their conviction to the pro-life arena at a time when it was almost exclusively a Catholic movement.
But, Carr said, as an evangelical acquaintance put it, the movement learned the hard way that "identifying with one party on one issue has political and spiritual costs."