“I don’t believe . . . that’s what we’re here to do,” Santorum said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “We’re not here to serve the Earth. The Earth is not the objective. Man is the objective.”
That argument seems to fit an older pattern in Santorum’s rhetoric. As a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Santorum blasted other politicians and Catholic universities for disregarding church doctrine.
The usual rules for talking about faith on the campaign trail call for candidates to speak about their religion in uplifting, accessible generalities. Now, Santorum seems to have cast himself as a candidate bold enough to tell others where they’re wrong.
“He has this internal tic, of wanting to get into what I call theological disputation. And theological disputation is a loser,” said Jacques Berlinerblau, a professor at Georgetown University who has studied the use of religion in U.S. politics. He meant that Santorum seeks to tell others how to behave and even what to believe, using his own specific beliefs as an unshakable guide.
Berlinerblau said the danger, even among other Catholics, was that Santorum would seem gratingly familiar. “They know Rick Santorums. They’ve met Rick Santorums their whole life,” he said. “It’s just, ‘Well, I know what that guy’s about, and I don’t want anything to do with it.’ ”
In an interview Sunday, a spokesman for Santorum’s campaign said the candidate was not judging Obama’s private religious beliefs. But, spokesman Hogan Gidley said, “theology” was still the right word for what Obama had wrong.
“Theology’s a worldview. And Obama sees the world differently. I mean, someone who apologizes for America’s greatness, and someone who thinks the government knows best on health care, I mean those are different theologies,” Gidley said. “Rick is separating the two. One’s own personal religious beliefs are different than a worldview or a theology as it relates to governing and the government.”
During the campaign, Santorum has focused extensively on three issues where his views align with Catholic bishops. He opposes abortion and same-sex marriage, and he fought against a government mandate for religiously affiliated institutions to provide contraceptive coverage in their health insurance.
In past campaigns, many candidates have limited themselves to broad statements about their belief in God, and their confidence that He has blessed America specially. The only Catholic president, John F. Kennedy, said on the campaign trail that “I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish.”
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