Rick Santorum Loses Catholic Vote In 2012 Michigan, Arizona Primaries

Rick Santorum spent the past week adamantly sticking up for the Roman Catholic church in its showdown with the Obama administration over contraception insurance coverage. He said that talk of full separation of church and state made him want to puke and demanded that faith always play a role in guiding political decisions. He's also a very open practicing Catholic.

Which makes the fact that he lost the Catholic vote in Michigan and Arizona to Mitt Romney all the more surprising.

CBS's exit polls show 37 percent of Catholic voters in Michigan supporting the Pennsylvania Republican and 43 percent supporting the Massachusetts Republican. Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul won 8 percent and 9 percent respectively.

Meanwhile, CNN exit polls in Arizona show Romney besting Santorum among Catholic voters by a margin of 41 percent to 35 percent.

The Catholic vote was 30 percent of the voting population in Michigan and 18 percent in Arizona. But as the numbers show, Catholic voters don't cast ballots squarely for the candidate with the most public religiosity.