Monday, December 03, 2007

Romney's Big Mistake

I have a lot of regard for Mitt Romney as a man and politician.

So it's with professional disinterestedness that I have to say that I think this idea that has gripped first the media and now the Romney campaign - that he ought to give a big speech in the manner of John F. Kennedy, answering questions about the connection between his religion and his politics - is a big and possibly disastrous error.

To understand why, it helps to reread John Kennedy's famous 1960 speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association. The link to the full address is here, but I'll quote the key passages.

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute—where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishoners for whom to vote—where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference—and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish—where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source—where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials—and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

These answers resonated so powerfully because they directly and forthrightly responded to the actual questions that the Americans of 1960 were asking about the possibility of a Roman Catholic president:

a) Would a President Kennedy take political direction from the Roman Catholic hierarchy?

b) Would a President Kennedy undermine the separation of church and state and seek some kind of preferred position for the Roman Catholic church?

These questions might seem to Roman Catholics harsh or hostile. But they were the questions in the air in 1960 - and (to be fair to those who posed them) they had considerable basis in the long history of the church. Less than a hundred years previously, for example, Pope Pius IX had issued a Syllabus of Errors. On the pope's list of "errors":

#77: In the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship.

And:

#27: The sacred ministers of the Church and the Roman pontiff are to be absolutely excluded from every charge and dominion over temporal affairs

So the Americans of 1960 had reasons for concern.

But notice what it was they were concerned about: not the Roman Catholic faith, but the relationship between that faith and America's civic institutions.

Nobody expected Kennedy to defend the Catholic understanding of the Eucharist, or the idea of intercession by saints, or the use of images in Catholic places of worship. He spoke in Houston as a politician, explaining his understanding of the boundaries between religion and politics.

Romney faces a very different problem - and a very different set of questions. Nobody doubts that Mormons as a community and as individuals honor and respect the rules of the American constitutional system. But precisely because nobody does doubt it, Romney will get nowhere by explaining that Mormons do.

Romney rather faces much more purely religious questions - and any attempt to respond to them must draw him into a purely religious answer that will almost certainly do him more harm than good. Is Mormonism a Christian faith? Is it a plausible system of belief? What does it say about you that you accept as true something that most Americans regard as blatantly false?

These are the questions that lurk about the Romney candidacy. In my opinion, they are not appropriate questions to ask - and so they are not questions it is possible to answer. But if Romney does answer them, he is going to have to answer them all the way. Evasive tactics will buy him nothing. Yes, he can give a speech about how Mormons are good citizens. Or that stresses the commonalities between the Church of Latter Day Saints and the more established denominations. But those responses will not satisfy anybody for very long. He will have opened the door to the question: "Is it OK for somebody who believes what you believe to be president?" And he will not find that door so easy to shut.

Let me say for the record: If Romney emerges as the Republican nominee, I will support him without qualm. He has proven himself a superbly successful public executive, a first-rate intellect, and an operational conservative. And speaking as an adherent of a religion that teaches that God forbids the mixing of wool and linen in the same garment, I do not feel myself well positioned to cast aspersions on whatever absurdities may be found in anyone else's faith.

But if I'd been asked for my advice on this suggested speech, I would have said: Governor, do not touch this subject. You are running for president on the strength of your record, your accomplishments, and your analytic intelligence. If you allow your critics to draw you into a debate over the Book of Mormon ... that is a debate that can profit you nothing. And if you must give a speech, say only this:

"America has had presidents of many different faith traditions. Yet the man we regard as our greatest president, Abraham Lincoln, said in 1854 that we had only one national faith: the faith that all men - all human beings - are created equal,. This is the faith that I share, as do all my opponents in this race.

"Each of us holds our own individual understanding of the ultimate truths of human existence. We are imperfect beings, so our understandings must be imperfect too. Given the shortness of human life, we will know the full truth more than soon enough.

"As president, however, my actions will be governed by only one consideration: my understanding of the Constitution of the United States and the best interests and most enduring principles of the American people. That is my highest commitment, and no candidate for any office can or should promise more."

12/03 09:50 AM