We’ve learned by now to apply a certain hermeneutic to the Holy Father’s proclamations, and that includes one given to a congress of Catholic lawmakers in Rome in late August: As long as the contribution of the Church to the great questions of society in our time can be put into discussion,” he said, “it … Read more
One year ago, Salon ran a rather breathless piece by an anti-Catholic writer named Patricia Miller who danced on the graves of Cardinal Raymond Burke, Father Frank Pavone, the Catholic…
Not all religious people are conservatives; and not all conservatives are religious people. Christianity prescribes no especial form of politics. There have been famous radicals who were devout Christians—though most radicals have been nothing of the sort. All the same, there could be no conservatism without a religious foundation, and it is conservative people, by … Read more
Michael Tanner, senior fellow at the Cato Institute and author of the excellent Leviathan on the Right: How Big-Government Conservatism Brought Down the Republican Revolution, has some advice for the GOP on the upcoming elections. Stop me if you’ve heard this before… Despite their repeated threats to stay home if Republicans deviated from a commitment … Read more
“I’ve gotten more phone calls in the last two days than I received the entire two months I’ve been working for McCain.” J. R. Sanchez, head of McCain’s Catholic outreach in Florida, isn’t the only one experiencing this among religious and social conservatives. One Catholic activist from San Francisco told me she was offering to … Read more
When Ralph Reed told me he was writing a political novel, I had my doubts. That Reed is a multi-talented man is beyond doubt — he is in the top rank of political strategists. Furthermore, his work as executive director of the Christian Coalition between 1989 and 1997 changed American politics by bringing the voice … Read more
“Evangelicals feel like they have been served their divorce papers,” said one major Evangelical leader in an interview on Saturday. “They don’t know exactly what they are going to do,” he told me, adding, “There are going to be meetings all over the country in the next few weeks to decide our strategy.” Events of … Read more
On May 22, 2008, a new era began in the history of what is called the Religious Right. Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain rejected the endorsements of two of the leading Evangelical pastors in the United States, Rev. John Hagee and Rev. Rod Parsley. The impact of McCain publicly disavowing these two major figures … Read more
Gov. Mike Huckabee will be a major player in the run for the GOP presidential nomination regardless of whether he finishes first or second in the Iowa Caucus. As in Iowa, Evangelical voters will undergird his efforts in Michigan (Jan 18), South Carolina (Jan 26), and Florida (Jan 29). Huckabee, however, will need Catholic voters … Read more
Mitt Romney, by his own admission, was a pro-abortion governor of Massachusetts. That changed on November 8, 2004 in his second term during a conversation with Dr. Douglas Melton from the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. According to Romney, Dr. Melton dismissed the “moral issue” of cloning embryos for stem cells “because we kill the embryos … Read more
Two dramas are unfolding this political season. First, can Barak Obama defeat Hillary Clinton? Now that Oprah Winfrey is on his stage, evidently he can. Second, will the pro-life party nominate Rudy Giuliani and break its promise to the religious and social conservatives who came into the party over the last thirty years? The plotlines … Read more