Distinctly Catholic

One of the most frustrating things for me about politics is that the need to reduce every issue to the straightjacket of a 30-second television spot – and now to 140 characters on a Twitter account – tends to eliminate all the things that those of us trained in Clio’s craft most relish: The sense of historical contingency, the interplay of ideas and events, the usually complicated relationship, especially in a democracy, between leaders and the led, the sheer complicatedness of human culture. All this gets lost when issues must be reduced to soundbites.

Another frustrating dynamic in politics is the way a given narrative takes root which may or may not have made sense at an earlier time, in different circumstances, but which fails to take account of new facts and, even more, proves itself barren of new policy approaches. It is easy to arm oneself with statistics to bolster almost any claim, and soon you go on Fox News or MSNBC and the narrative is reinforced instead of questioned, its adherents dig in rather than re-evaluate, and the potential for anything like a new and fecund idea breaking forth seems ever more remote.

I attended Congressman Paul Ryan’s lecture at Georgetown this morning. One of the words you often hear about Ryan is that he is very bright, and he was certainly quick on his feet during the Q & A. He mentioned that his copy of the Compendium of Catholic Social Teaching is well dog-eared. But, while he may be bright, there was nothing in his speech that suggested much in the way of depth.

New numbers from the Gallup poll show that Mitt Romney leads Barack Obama by 17 points among those who identify themselves as "very religious." Curiously, his lead among "very religious" Catholics is only 4 percent and among all Catholics, Romney trails Obama by 6 points. In 2008, Obama won the catholic vote over John McCain by 8 points.

The numbers show that both campaigns have their work cut out for them - Obama will need to hold his lead among all Catholics, or even increase it slightly, if he hopes to hang on to states that were close four years ago. And, Romney needs to work on attracting those who describe themselves as "moderately religious."

A final point. The numbers indicate to me that by "very religious," many Americans mean "very concerned about sexual morality." Having watched Mr. Romney essentially deny the essential humanity of immigrants, pay homage at the pagan altar of libertarian economics, and beat the drums of war in the Mideast, I would have a hard time characterizing those positions as the kinds of positions one would associate with such "very religious" figures as Mother Teresa, Pope John Paul II, etc.

In the Washington Post's "On Faith" blog, Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez has an article on the Arizona immigration law, which comes before the Supreme Court today. In previous posts on immigration, several commentators have suggested that Catholics can, and should, support efforts like the one in Arizona to enforce our nation's broken immigration laws. Archbishop Gomez's article demonstrates why Catholics must oppose such laws. Additionally his treatment of the issue demonstrates not only a pastor's heart, it shows, as does his entire career, how immigration strengthens America. Archbishop Gomez, after all, was not born north of the border, but how blest we are that he crossed it.

At Politico, Joe Scarborough writes: "Since Jerry Falwell founded The Moral Majority in 1979, few things have unified American liberals as much as their contempt for self-righteous types who pushed a political agenda by attacking the faith of partisan opponents." Alas, whatever one's objections to Falwell's politics, I do not once recall him "attacking the faith of partisan opponents." Yes, he criticized their moral reasonings. Yes, he felt betrayed especially by Jimmy Carter, the first "born again" president who, in Falwell's eyes, gave Baptists a bad name. But, he never denounced Carter's faith, or Ted Kennedy's, or any other politician. He was highly critical of other evangelists, especially Pentecostals, on religious grounds but those criticisms had nothing to do with politics.

The habit of some rightwing zealots today have adopted of impugning President Obama's faith, or some leftwing zealots today have of impugning Mitt Romney;s faith, is truly ugly. It is not truly Falwellian.