He has seven children, attends a Latin Mass and has driven issues of reproductive rights back into the center of American politics. In 2002, he traveled to Rome to express his support for the founder of the ultra-conservative Catholic lay movement called Opus Dei. With these boxes on his religious resume checked, Rick Santorum has convinced Americans, even those who disagree […]
Rick Santorum, cafeteria Catholic? Read More
It’s impossible for some of us to understand why and how former senator Rick Santorum, who has zero qualifications to be president of the United States and whose positions on family and social issues are prehistoric, continues to survive and even thrive this Republican primary season. His victories in Alabama and Mississippi this week only further our astonishment. This is not purely the
Rick Santorum’s religious time machine Read More
Between them, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum have as many children — 12 — as there were tribes of Israel. Ron Paul has five of his own, and in an early debate, perhaps unwilling to be outdone by Michele Bachmann’s fostering of dozens, Paul boasted that when he worked as a physician he delivered “4,000 babies.” There’s nothing wrong with
Romney, Santorum and archaic ideas on fertility Read More
Last week, the Christianity police, in the persons of Rick Santorum and Franklin Graham, came forward to discredit the president’s religious beliefs. First, Santorum called President Obama’s theology “phony”; then, on “Morning Joe,” Graham refused to accept Obama into his Christian band of brothers: “He has said he’s a Christian, so I just have to assume that he is.” With rhetoric like this,
The religion and politics of division Read More
Haunting the political landscape is the ghost (or soul or spirit or memory or image, depending on how you see these things) of Gabriel Michael Santorum. Born at 19 gestational weeks, too young to live outside the uterus, Gabriel died within two hours. The story is well known. In October 1996, Karen Santorum underwent surgery to try to fix a
For Santorums, personal tragedy turned political Read More
White evangelical voters just aren’t as predictable as they used to be. That’s the news out of Iowa – and it’s bound to be reflected in Republican primary results all over the country. The most interesting poll data from the Iowa caucuses are these: Mitt Romney won in the cities. Rick Santorum won in the rural areas. In Iowa, where the vast majority of voters qualify
The new evangelical vote Read More