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GOP presidential aspirant Tim Pawlenty, the former Governor of Minnesota, has posted a video in which he explains how his faith informs all that he does. Unsurprisingly, he repeats the idea that the Separation of Church & State was designed to protect the Church from the State, which is only half the story: The founders clearly also wanted government free from ecclesiastical interference. And, in speaking of traditional marriage, he notes that the Bible teaches the centrality of marriage between one man and one woman, neglecting the fact that the Hebrew Scriptures are also filled with instances of polygamy.
But, as an RC, I was especially interested in the almost breezy way he described the way he left the Catholic Church to join his wife's evangelical church. I am just enough of a stiff-necked Catholic to miss the days when it was virtually assumed that a mixed-marriage would result in the non-Catholic becoming Catholic. I can understand why a person would leave the Catholic Church and become an atheist or an agnostic, but I simply cannot understand how someone would leave the Catholic Church to join a Protestant denomination. I will never understand it.
Here is the video:
