Many Kinds of Catholic
If Catholicism is measured by obeisance to the pope, his cardinals and the letter of Vatican law, then Rick Santorum is the best Catholic to ever get this far in presidential politics.
He doesn’t just oppose abortion as a private matter of personal conscience. He has made that position a defining crusade.
He hasn’t just been fruitful and multiplied. He has promulgated the church’s formal prohibition against artificial birth control, yanking this issue, too, into the public square.
On homosexuality, premarital sex, pornography and more, he doesn’t just take his cues from church dictums. He trumpets that alignment as a testament to the steadfastness of his devotion, the integrity of his faith.
And for this he has been rewarded with a truly noteworthy level of Catholic support.
Noteworthy because it’s so underwhelming.
Exit polling suggests that he lost the Catholic vote to Mitt Romney, a Mormon, by 7 percentage points in Michigan and by 13 in Ohio. These weren’t isolated cases. In primary after primary, more Catholics have gravitated to Romney than to Santorum (or, for that matter, to Newt Gingrich, a Catholic-come-lately who collaborated with his third wife to make a worshipful documentary about Pope John Paul II).
This is a hurdle that Santorum must overcome to win the primary in Illinois, whose population is about 30 percent Catholic. And it’s yet more proof of most American Catholics’ estrangement from an out-of-touch, self-consumed church hierarchy and its musty orthodoxies.
For months now the adjective Catholic has been affixed to the country’s strange contraception debate, which began when many Catholic leaders took offense at a federal mandate that Catholic institutions provide insurance coverage for artificial birth control.
But most American Catholics don’t share their appointed leaders’ qualms with the pill, condoms and such. These leaders have found traction largely among people — Catholic and otherwise — concerned about government overreach. And the whole discussion has opened the door to plaints about morality from evangelicals, who warm to Santorum more than Catholics do.
American Catholics have been merrily ignoring the church’s official position on contraception for many years, often with the blessing of lower-level clerics. When my mother dutifully mentioned her I.U.D. during confession back in the 1970s, the parish priest told her that she really needn’t apologize or bring it up again. Which was a good thing, since she had no intention of doing away with it. Four kids were joy and aggravation enough.