Tornado Alley (PROG)

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St. Rick is all a trick
Santorum’s values at war with Catholic ideals

By Margery Eagan
Sunday, March 4, 2012

Just in time for Super Tuesday, the point must be made. Rick Santorum, who can’t stop telling us how his devout Catholicism shapes his every move, in fact disagrees with his church on almost every issue — save those connected to sex.

Amnesty for illegal immigrants: The church is for it. He’s against it.



The death penalty: They’re against it. He’s for it.

Torture: They’re against it. He’s for it.

So-called Obamacare: He’s against it. American bishops were for it before they were against it (having discovered the “intrinsic evil” birth control part). However, American nuns came out against the bishops. So have the nationwide Catholic Hospital Association, which is run by a nun, and numerous Catholic organizations. Meanwhile Pope Benedict XVI calls health care an “inalienable right” and says it’s “the moral responsibility of nations to guarantee access to health care for all of their citizens, regardless of social and economic status and their ability to pay.”

American bishops also want to raise the minimum wage for the working poor. As a senator, Santorum repeatedly opposed it. The bishops want welfare for all needy families. Santorum’s a welfare critic. The bishops are pro-union. Santorum was. No more.

Two weeks ago Santorum said Obama’s policies, particularly those on climate change, are based on some “phony theology.” But Pope Benedict just urged all nations to fight climate change. Will Santorum now accuse the pope of “phony theology,” too?

Santorum, a millionaire, is also pretty stingy toward the poor. His most recent tax returns show that he donates at the same rate (about 3 percent) as middle class Americans do. Mitt Romney, by contrast, donates about 16 percent of his wealth.

Conservative Catholics will tell you Santorum is in far better standing, church-wise, than, say, a married women practicing birth control because she’s doing an “intrinsic evil” outlawed in a 1968 encyclical (or letter) from Pope Paul VI. That’s questionable at best. Numerous encyclicals by other popes put Santorum seriously at odds with the church on war, torture, the death penalty and the poor.

But the bishops are not down on Santorum, as they were on pro-choice Catholic John Kerry in 2004, because they only enforce orthodoxy having to do with gays, women, and, once again, sex.

To many thinking Catholics, of course, this is hypocrisy writ large. The notion that a married woman practicing birth control is a bigger sinner than a torturer or executioner is, simply, insane. Such insanity is why millions of Catholics now practice their faith while largely ignoring the church hierarchy, including the pope.

But it seems to me we can’t constantly call Santorum a “devout Catholic” — and he can’t constantly tout his Catholic gold stars — unless we’ll do the same for practicing Catholics who are anti-war, torture and the death penalty but pro-immigration amnesty, fairness for workers, health care for all and — the biggie of campaign 2012 — contraception.

In other words, if a wife using birth control isn’t really a Catholic, Rick Santorum isn’t either.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view/20220304st_rick_is_all_a_trick_santorums_values_at_war_with_catholic_ideals/srvc=home&position=2