Religion and the Presidency
Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani is a Catholic, although—as this column by Richard Cohen points out—his marital history isn’t precisely what the Catholic church would consider ideal.
Cohen compares Giuliani’s recent answer to a question about his Catholicism with that of a man widely known as “the first Catholic President,” JFK. Giuliani told reporters his religion was his own private affair; JFK said it would not influence his policy decisions as President.
I remember hearing a lot about JFK’s Catholicism during the 1960 campaign. It’s hard to believe now, but his religion really was an issue for many people, who entertained the notion that his election might mean the Pope would be running the country by proxy.
Those sorts of ideas are way behind us. Or are they?
Think about it: JFK was indeed the first Catholic President, but so far he has also been the only Catholic President. A great many years have elapsed since 1960 and till now it’s been all WASPS (and male ones, at that), all the way.
Last June a Bloomberg/LA Times poll indicated that only 9% of respondents would be reluctant to vote for a Catholic, but it also revealed that 35% wouldn’t vote for a Mormon, with 14% unwilling to vote for a Jew, 22% for an evangelical Christian, and a whopping 53% for a Muslim.
On the face of it, this seems to be about bigotry. And no doubt for some it is. But there’s another angle to it, one touched on tangentially (and not very cogently) by Cohen in his column, and that is this question: how do religious beliefs inform decisions of conscience for a public leader? Can they be separated, and should they be?
Cohen characterizes JFK’s speech on the subject this way:
Kennedy’s speech was an affirmation of rational thought—a promise to deal with the great issues of state in a secular manner. Nowhere in the speech did JFK renounce his Catholicism or say it didn’t matter to him. But he did make clear that as president he would make decisions in “accordance with what my conscience tells me to be the national interest.”
As is often the case, what Kennedy actually said was a bit more complex than that. Much of his speech was devoted to a description of how he supported the traditional separation of church and state and freedom of religion, and how the Pope would not be ordering national policy if he were to be elected. He asked that voters judge him on his Congressional record. And indeed, he did say:
Whatever issue may come before me as President, if I should be elected, on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject, I will make my decision in accordance with these views—in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be in the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressure or dictates. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise.
But JFK doesn’t seem to have been as naive as Cohen in thinking that those decisions can be totally separated from religion if a person is a believer. After all, religion does both proceed (at least partly) from moral beliefs and inform moral beliefs, and these things can influence what an individual thinks is in the national interest. As Giuliani points out, our religious beliefs are private, it’s true. But they are not utterly separate from our decision-making process, not walled-off in some ivory tower. There is feedback between the two.
In his speech, JFK added:
But if the time should ever come—and I do not concede any conflict to be remotely possible—when my office would require me to either violate my conscience or violate the national interest, then I would resign the office; and I hope any conscientious public servant would do likewise.
So he is not throwing away his religious beliefs—what he refers to here as his “conscience,” although he is imagining that there is almost no possibility of conflict between them and the public interest (after all, he’s running for office here). If the two happen to be in synch, very well and good; that’s what he imagines will always be the case. But if they were to happen to disagree, he would be willing to go with “conscience” and resign the office.
Cohen writes:
For a lawmaker, gay marriage is and ought to be a policy matter: good policy or bad policy, fair to gays or unfair to gays. Once this or any other issue becomes a matter of religious conviction, it’s removed from the arena of public debate.
Yes indeed, it ought to be. But when a person decides whether something is “good policy or bad policy,” the decision is based on a host of things, most of which are intangible. After all, social science research can be spun and used by either side in matters such as gay marriage and almost everything else of a policy nature. Whether something is “good policy or bad policy” often does come down, in subtle ways, to a matter of opinion: whether a given person—and that means any person, including those who are atheists—happens to think it so, based on an entire belief system which may or may not be supported by convincing and objective evidence.
It’s not just the religious who have irrational beliefs, or who make decisions based on what we might call faith. No, that’s an equal-opportunity (and a human) phenomenon.
[NOTE: A fascinating book on how liberals and the Left might be considered a sort of faith-based community is Thomas Sowell’s The Vision of the Anointed.]
Free will exists – including free will to interpret particular religious doctrine differently from one’s chosen church’s interpretation. Church is about worship. In general, people worship side by side without being in lockstep agreement with each other about religious doctrine. It’s a fallacy to view religious persons as automatons, marching to the beat of identical beliefs. As neo (loosely) said: religion does inform moral beliefs; yet individual decisions (both religious and political) depend on a whole host of factors which are particular to the decision-maker.
Accomplished persons pick and choose what they agree with inside particular religions. I worship at a Baptist Church, yet I do not agree with every position of the Southern Baptist Convention, nor even with every position of my own church’s Pastor. Overall, my Baptist Church suits me better than other local churches. I am NOT Baptist because I am 100% simpatico with Baptist doctrine.
Because most educated Americans make up their own minds about their beliefs, and do not allow their beliefs to be dictated by their religious leaders(pace Rudy Giuliani and divorce), it seems silly to electorally punish someone for their chosen religion. An accomplished person is going to make up their own mind independently – regardless of what their religion’s leadership advocates.
Something else: people oftentimes choose specific churches for reasons other than religious doctrine. I do. Were I in living in another town, I might attend a Presbyterian Church. Attending church is about worshiping together. There are social and community considerations – and I see nothing wrong with that. People can genuinely worship together without sharing every single identical religious opinion. In fact, probably no one ever shares identical religious opinion with the person worshiping next to them. If I had grown up in Rudy’s childhood neighborhood, I might have been Catholic – as most of my family and friends might also have been. If I had grown up in Mitt Romney’s neighborhood, I might have been Mormon. As an adult, I might disagree with various Mormon doctrine, yet still identify myself as Mormon.
Neo,
Most Christian people I know, who are aware of Roman Catholic teaching — might object to the idea of the Commander in Chief being required to “confess” his sins to a priest. This un-Biblical teaching could open the Commander to blackmail, etc. Who knows what may have happened in the Kennedy confession years?
How can a Catholic President or anyone expect a man, who happens to be a priest, to be above corruption and bribery, given all the recent reported corruption in the priesthood.
ExP(Jack)
Preacher:
Actually I can think of NO historical example of a priest revealing anything said to him during Reconciliation (Confession). My cousin (happens to be a RC priest) could think of no example either.
Also, I point out that legally what occurs between an individual and their priest/minister/rabbi is considered a privileged communication and cannot be legally coerced. Same for lawyer/defendant and physician/patient…
In all these cases, a mighty weight of precedent, legal and social, reinforces this argument.
As an indication of how times have changed, consider that my Okie yellow-dog Democrat grandmother voted for Hoover in 1928 instead of Al Smith because of Al Smith’s Catholic faith. After the Depression hit, she prayed to her Creator for forgiveness for having voted Republican!
Environmentalism is a religion, complete with its own Grand Inquistitor, Al Gore. What’s more, it expects to be allowed to dictate to elected officials. Traditional religions with the exception of Islam give us nothing to fear compared to liberalism, progressivism, environmentalism, pacifism, gay activism and most other forms of activism. Most of the dangerous activists on the right are militants who don’t expect to be listened to so much as to take over by force of arms. Those are far less dangerous, because they aren’t protected by the First Amendment.
A late comment, but I have always been struck by the bigottry inherent in the assumption that simply because a moral position (e.g. abortion) is based upon one’s religious conviction that the position itself is lessened or compromised. If a Christian and an Athiest arrive at the same position through different logical/moral paths, why should one be given more weight than the other?
I think this is the stupidest argument I’ve every heard. It made me laugh so much I sent it to many friends –
” AST Says:
August 15th, 2007 at 5:33 pm
Environmentalism is a religion, complete with its own Grand Inquistitor, Al Gore. What’s more, it expects to be allowed to dictate to elected officials. Traditional religions with the exception of Islam give us nothing to fear compared to liberalism, progressivism, environmentalism, pacifism, gay activism and most other forms of activism. Most of the dangerous activists on the right are militants who don’t expect to be listened to so much as to take over by force of arms. Those are far less dangerous, because they aren’t protected by the First Amendment.”