Rick’s Religious Fanaticism

The New York Times ^ | 2/21/2012 | Maureen Dowd

[darrellmaurina]

Rick Santorum has been called a latter-day Savonarola.

That’s far too grand. He’s more like a small-town mullah.

“Satan has his sights on the United States of America,” the conservative presidential candidate warned in 2008. “Satan is attacking the great institutions of America, using those great vices of pride, vanity and sensuality as the root to attack all of the strong plants that has so deeply rooted in the American tradition.”

When, in heaven’s name, did sensuality become a vice? Next he’ll be banning Barry White.

Santorum is not merely engaged in a culture war, but “a spiritual war,” as he called it four years ago. “The Father of Lies has his sights on what you would think the Father of Lies would have his sights on: a good, decent, powerful, influential country — the United States of America,” he told students at Ave Maria University in Florida. He added that mainline Protestantism in this country “is in shambles. It is gone from the world of Christianity as I see it.”

Satan strikes, a Catholic exorcist told me, when there are “soul wounds.” Santorum, who is considered “too Catholic” even by my über-Catholic brothers, clearly believes that America’s soul wounds include men and women having sex for reasons other than procreation, people involved in same-sex relationships, women using contraception or having prenatal testing, environmentalists who elevate “the Earth above man,” women working outside the home, “anachronistic” public schools, Mormonism (which he said is considered “a dangerous cult” by some Christians), and President Obama (whom he obliquely and oddly compared to Hitler and accused of having “some phony theology”).

[Sun]

The leftist media digs up comments by Rick from several years ago, asks him about it, and when he answers, then ask why it’s all he talks about.

[Lauren BaRecall]

*standing ovation*

[steve8714]

Note that Rick did not comment on the parishoners at mainstream Protestant churches, but on the officialdom.
Anybody here go to an Episcopal church, perhaps with an openly gay minister whose partner cohabitates? ELCA? Any denomination in the WCC?

[steve8714]

Note that Rick did not comment on the parishoners at mainstream Protestant churches, but on the officialdom.
Anybody here go to an Episcopal church, perhaps with an openly gay minister whose partner cohabitates? ELCA? Any denomination in the WCC?

[steve8714]

Note that Rick did not comment on the parishoners at mainstream Protestant churches, but on the officialdom.
Anybody here go to an Episcopal church, perhaps with an openly gay minister whose partner cohabitates? ELCA? Any denomination in the WCC?

[steve8714]

Oops.
Twice for emphasis, thrice for dementia or clubby fingers.

[Jane Austen]

Dowd is just part of the media attacks on Santorum. Ever since he started picking up steam, but not before, Leno and Letterman have been mocking and attacking him (along with Romney and Newt) extensively with comments that are vicious and way over the top. The amount of time spent on the GOP candidates should qualify those two late night shows as political shows. Of course, Obama is dealt with respect.

[FourPeas]

Maureen Down is a good wordsmith.

Maureen Down is a pathetic political commentator.

The result: well worded pap.

[ExSoldier]

The last debate had a grand total of 5 million people. Shows about shopping with coupons do better.

LOL that was a good one! While I might agree with you on the numbers of viewers not being very significant I would also counter that those who do consistently watch tend to be the more hard core activists who will reach out to the folks they know in their networks and movement might come from that area.

[darrellmaurina]

24 posted on Thursday, February 23, 2012 3:38:56 AM by Bellflower: “I think freepers need to start plying the NYT with our comments. Almost every comment is hatefully leftist that I read through. I wonder if that is about all they let in. The comment ability is closed on this article or they would have heard from me.”

That would be a very good idea.

I am a regular reader of the New York Times and have been for many years. Our future at Fort Leonard Wood depends on federal government decisions so I have to read the national media to know what they are talking about and to understand how they think.

If we as conservatives are going to effectively participate in national politics we need to understand the way the other side thinks — not only what they do and why what they are doing is wrong, but the rationale and logic behind their thoughts and actions. These people are not stupid, they've largely taken over our universities and education system, and if we're going to take back our country we need to read what they write and understand it.

We already know that writers for the national media read Free Republic. They're doing the right thing to understand the other side. We need to be doing the same.

34 posted on Thursday, February 23, 2012 6:34:46 AM by Elsie: “Your last two paragraphs summed it up quite well. Thank you.”

42 posted on Thursday, February 23, 2012 9:18:32 AM by Lauren BaRecall: “*standing ovation*”

Thank you both, and anyone else I may have missed specifically thanking.

29 posted on Thursday, February 23, 2012 6:19:06 AM by don-o: “Excellent post! May your tribe increase.”

Thanks... though we're too old to have that increase naturally, we expect to bring most of our nieces and nephews from Korea to live in our home in the United States and will likely be adopting at least some of them. I guess that means there may be a “tribe” someday of Koreans with an Italian last name.

TMI, probably, but some on Free Republic know me and have made private jokes about how a short black-haired Italian is getting lots of short black-haired kids with yellow skin and almond eyes. At least we can say both Italians and Koreans love to eat lots of garlic ;-)

[caww]

I will stand with my previous post as written.

[melsec]

He knows that being a politcian means everytime you speak it is front of a national audience. I was not insinuating that Catholics were swine btw.

Mel

[RobbyS]

Yes.nowadays when a public figure speaks in public he will be recorded. But his audience was national but like -minded Catholics. You must know by this time that the Catholic Church consists of those who adhere closely to its teachings and those who dissent. Santorum belongs to the first group.

[darrellmaurina]

This analysis of the similarities between Rick Santorum’s speech in 2008 to a Roman Catholic audience at Ave Maria University and President Ronald Reagan's 1983 speech to the National Association of Evangelicals is interesting, and quite likely relevant to the current debate on the propriety of using such language:

http://spectator.org/archives/2012/02/22/satan-and-santorum/
The American Spectator
By Paul Kengor on 2.22.12 @ 6:08AM
Perspective from Reagan's Evil Empire speech.

Here's my take on Kengor’s article:

I remember the uproar against Reagan. I was not an evangelical Christian at the time and moved mostly in secular conservative and “blueblood GOP” circles, so my memories are not as sharp as they would be of a similar event today, but as I recall, the focus among people I knew was more on “good grief, how are we going to defend this new dumb thing Reagan said” than anything else.

Of course, I now realize that what Ronald Reagan said wasn't dumb at all — he was dead right.

If Paul Kengor of the American Spectator is right in his analysis, it looks like Santorum used essentially the same themes used by Reagan. The key difference, of course, is the attack on mainline Protestantism.

That difference is important. However, I think that is going to be understood by evangelicals not as an attack on us but on the old WASP mainstream Protestant consensus culture of pre-1960s America, which truly **WAS** anti-Catholic for a mix of legitimate and illegitimate reasons.

It's hard for us to remember it today considering the attitude of liberals toward multiculturalism, but old-school liberals before the rise of the Kennedy family were deeply concerned that the Roman Catholic Church would create a powerful Catholic threat to American freedoms, and combined with the older Protestant objections to Roman Catholic doctrine, made a powerful anti-Catholic force in America for most of our history. Many of the anti-immigrant complaints of the 1800s were directed specifically toward southern European immigrants (people like Santorum’s Italian ancestors, BTW) who were regarded as culturally inferior and meekly submissive to the authority of a dangerous and increasingly powerful Catholicism. Catholics were, of course, seen as theologically problematic people whose loyalties to America were questionable. More seriously from a practical political perspective, they were viewed as being largely controlled by Irish Catholic bishops who were perceived by WASP Protestants (in those days, largely Republican) as being ecclesiastical ward bosses whose power to control votes was far more dangerous than that of anyone in the local Democratic Party offices.

Today it's not the evangelicals yelling about “American Freedom and Catholic Power” (go google and you'll find what I'm alluding to) but rather secularists who are either liberal Protestants or atheists.

That may say a great deal about how evangelicals have come to understand that we have no choice but to make common cause with Roman Catholics if we're going to win the culture war. To convince an evangelical or fundamentalist Protestant to make common cause with a Roman Catholic is not an easy thing, but it was largely accomplished two generations ago by the theological groundwork of men like Francis Schaeffer and cemented a generation ago by men like D. James Kennedy.

If the liberals want to try to create a division between Santorum’s evangelical and Catholic supporters, I think they're going to have to do it over some issue other than access to birth control.

That dog won't hunt, and I don't think the attacks on this speech to Ave Maria University will hunt any better.

[melsec]

I have no doubt about that Robby!

Cheers

Mel

[caww]

That may say a great deal about how evangelicals have come to understand that we have no choice but to make common cause with Roman Catholics if we're going to win the culture war.

Well as an evangelical I do not agree nor would I ever come together as a "common cause" under the 'leadership' of the Catholic church.

The intent to have the visible church look and act united ignores the fact that all born-again Christians are already one....already united...and The true “body of Christ” the church.

So as individuals we can easily come together with other individuals as a people, and for whatever cause even those unaffiliated with any church who care to join the "cause"....and this without "uniting " a show of hands for the catholic church.

Besides it's always best to be very cautious when catholics attempt to do what they have for centuries..and that is to bring those of other faiths under the catholic leadership...which currently is sleeping with the Globalists attempting to "unite" religions into one "common cause"...that of a one world entity overseeing all religions.

[RobbyS]

Making common cause literally doesn’t mean under the leadership of the Catholics. Provided, of course, evangelicals have leaders of their own. That, I fear, is the problem. You are so afraid of Rome that you default to others who also fear Rome, but are very definitely your enemies as well. Ah, the sweet bitterness of division. I am reminded of the 4th Crusade where Catholics wrecked the Byzantine Empire that was the citadel against the Turks. Embittering the Greeks to the point where they refused to join us Latins in common cause against the Ottomans and so fell under the domination of Muslims who then marched on to threaten the very existence of Christian Europe. A Europe than further divided by wars between Catholics and Protestants. Yes, we do learn do we NOT!

[darrellmaurina]

I'm typing this while sitting at the clerk's desk of the local circuit court reviewing case records, so I don't have time to say much.

I do want to say that I am strongly opposed to the ecumenical movement. I've spent much of my adult life fighting church battles against liberalism, and I covered the Cambridge Declaration conference fighting against Chuck Colson’s “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” statement.

When I speak of cooperating with Roman Catholics, it is only and exclusively in the sphere of the civil magistrate. I affirm what Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 80 says about the Roman Catholic Mass. I assume that Rick Santorum affirms what the Council of Trent says about my Reformed theology.

Reformed Christians dating back to Abraham Kuyper have believed cooperation with Roman Catholics in the sphere of the civil magistrate is acceptable. In no way whatsoever do I support cooperation with Roman Catholics in ecclesiastical activities — and a consistent conservative Catholic will say the same to me.

Got to go... just don't want to leave the impression I am a closet ecumenist.

[caww]

Rick Santorum was speaking at Ave Maria University, a conservative Roman Catholic school, about why he believes Roman Catholicism has the answers to the modern American cultural collapse. That's not casting pearls before swine; he's doing what most of us would do before an audience that largely agreed with us already, basically “firing up the base.”

What he spoke still plays out in what he's speaking now.....and gives many the idea if you're not Catholic then you're not right with God and the moral dictates of the catholic denomination.

Santorum has not denyed what he spoke to the college and he might think he's completely correct in his comments, but that does not make him a smart campaigner.... He should know that the leftie media will chew him up and spit him out over these issues...and they are doing just that.

When running for office, there is wisdom in not saying things equally as much as what you say...because we’re talking about politics,.... and it's a jugular nasty business. Santorum feeds the animals and be assured though some of his faith might see this as "refreshing" to hear because they ARE of his faith....others do not agree and do not want candidates wearing their religion on their sleeves...let alone bombast those of the Christian faith he doesn't agree with.

Had i been supporting Santorum his remarks concerning Protestants would have immediately changed that equation and I would have moved to another....that statement alone means he will be divisive....and unable to bring congress together.

Eventually people will see this very thing about Santorum is yet another reason he was booted from Pa. and few that support him now. He's speaking reltively measured at this point but eventually he'll blow it and all will see the man behind the facade.

[CynicalBear]

One “common cause” ey? I agree with you caww. Extreme caution is required when “religions” want to come together.