By Vice President Kamala Harris has sparked backlash from American Catholics after opting not to attend Thursday night’s Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, a prestigious charity event that raises funds for Catholic organizations traditionally attended by both major presidential candidates.
The event usually sees both candidates make jokes and roast each other, but Kamala Harris did not have the confidence to take a ribbing.
Brian Burch, president of the Catholic Vote organization, spoke to The Daily Caller. “Kamala Harris’ snub of the Al Smith dinner is insulting, though unsurprising, considering her track record of hostility towards Catholics and people of faith,” Burch said.
Harris became the first major-party candidate to skip the event since Democrat Walter Mondale in 1984, a fact highlighted by former President Donald Trump during his remarks at the dinner. “The last Democrat not to attend this important event was Walter Mondale, and it did not go very well for him. He lost 49 states and he won one—Minnesota,” Trump quipped.
Rather than attending in person, Harris sent a pre-recorded video featuring her alongside former Saturday Night Live star Molly Shannon. In the video, Shannon reprised her popular Catholic schoolgirl character, Mary Katherine Gallagher, a move that some critics viewed as tone-deaf.
🚨🚨Kamala Harris releases her prerecorded video for the Al Smith dinner in New York that she didn’t show up for.
Comedian Jim Gaffigan made fun of the Vice President after the crowd gave a dismal applause once it ended.
Cringe. pic.twitter.com/2im59f3mfj
— SYMBOL OF HOPE🫡 (@Chipropro) October 18, 2024
The decision comes as Harris faces slipping support among Catholic voters and saw her campaign co-chairman, Gretchen Whitmer, receive fierce criticism after a podcaster posted a bizarre video of the Michigan governor mocking of the Eucharist.
EDITORIAL: Whitmer’s Weird “Eucharist” Doritos Video Goes Viral
Social media users were quick to notice the uncomfortable symbolism, suggesting Whitmer was mocking Catholics by mimicking a sacred ritual.https://t.co/IV0jYAZrLu pic.twitter.com/VuPd8wD0l0
— Michigan News Source (@MINewsSource) October 11, 2024
The Catholic League criticized Whitmer wrote The Hill.
“Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer insulted Catholics nationwide when she intentionally ridiculed the Eucharist in a video,” Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, wrote in a statement.
“There is no way to understand this stunt other than as an expression of vintage anti-Catholic bigotry. Whitmer’s team, and her allies in the media, are trying to distort what she did,” he said.
A September Pew Research Center poll revealed that over half of registered Catholic voters said they would vote for Trump, compared to just 47 percent for Harris.
“Her snub of the traditional dinner was a risky move, considering Harris’ faltering poll numbers among Catholic voters,” noted Burch. Critics like Regner, a Catholic commentator, added, “I’d be hard pressed to say that any Catholic that attempts to keep the faith and is well educated on Catholic teaching would be swayed to vote for Kamala after seeing the video.”
Harris has a history of attacking Catholics. During a judicial confirmation hearing, for example, then Senator Harris attacked the Knights of Columbus, a charitable men’s organization connected to the church.
The New York Post noted in 2018 that “Senators Kamala Harris and Mazie Hirono (Democrats of California and Hawaii, respectively) are challenging the nomination of Brian Buescher to the US District Court for Nebraska because he belongs to a religious organization that takes positions they describe as ‘extreme.’ Which organization?
The Knights of Columbus.
KOC, a philanthropic social group founded in 1882, is the world’s largest Catholic fraternal organization. It has 2 million members who have raised more than $1.5 billion for charity in the past decade.”
Sen. Harris, in a wondrous display of utter ignorance, demanded of Buescher: ‘Were you aware that the Knights of Columbus opposed a woman’s right to choose when you joined the organization?’ Buescher deserves credit for declining to respond, ‘Is the pope Catholic?'”
Even Democrats have been baffled by the Harris campaign’s apparently deliberate antagonism towards Catholics.
First, Harris does not attend the speech of Netanyahu and then bypasses Shapiro as VP.
Then, she is advised not to attend the Catholic Al Smith dinner and sends in a video.
Catholics and Jews have been some of the most reliable Democratic votes. So what is the campaign thinking?— Mark Penn (@Mark_Penn) October 19, 2024
A recent poll in swing states revealed that Catholics had moved toward Trump over the recent months.
[Read More: Dems Abandoning Kamala In Swing States]
