Someone who is Jewish and not a convert is usually Jewish by blood, usually Ashkenazi or Sephardi. Even many atheists identify with the bloodlines. They don't identify as "German" or "Russian" because they wern't exactly recognized as such by the leaders in those countries in much of history.
Among Catholics, you'll have otherwise agnostic or "non religious God believers" identify as "Catholic" because of family. It's almost like an "ethnic" Catholic in a way. How many of those damn politicians who are supposedly "Catholic" often are Irish, Italian, Mexican, or less often German. Kennedy, Pelosi, Dodd, Schauer, Leahy.
From what I've seen, many Protestants outside of Lutherans aren't tied to a particular denominations as much as the local church itself.
But when you look at the numbers - the majority of the people you are counting are only Catholic via family and not belief or practice - and those who are ACTUALLY Catholic and are observant and religious - they vote WITH your party.
It would make me question the motivations and assumptions of the person trying to tie to to Catholicism to me.
Great observation. In many European countries, they even have “official” religions, and you even see the church supported by the government. In those countries, you will find beautiful cathedrals which still hold weekly services ... and only a small handful of people (usually the old) attend.
I went to Denmark a decade ago, and a church that was magnificent, and would cost close to 100 million to build today, which could easily hold over 1000 per service had thier attendance boards up showing each service over the last week, and the number of attendees per service was less than 30. Yet my host (who was a “member” of that church) had not gone to a service in the last 25 years.