ABSTRACT
The Religious Right, as secular liberals define it, is usually understood to be obsessed with abortion, homosexuality, super-patriotism, and an unthinking commitment to capitalism and the Republican Party. But early in the twenty-first century cracks began to appear in the Catholic Right, one segment of which was so far removed from that stereotype that at certain points it almost merged with the secular left, a phenomenon that cannot be explained in conventional terms but requires following a tangled and eccentric thread. The year 2008 was perhaps the most disastrous for the pro-life movement since Roe v. Wade in 1973, and in that crisis some elements of the Catholic Right continued to play roles that ranged from deep ambivalence to outright betrayal. Conservative Catholic opposition to the Bush administration necessarily went to the point of rejecting important pro-life allies, notably the Neoconservatives who, to some on the Catholic Right, were uniquely evil people.
