Gingrich: Reboot 2
Front page of The New York Times print edition: “On the Stump, Gingrich Puts Focus on Faith”.
“…as he travels the country, he is striking two related notes: that the nation faces not just a fiscal crisis but also a loss of its moral foundation, and that his conversion to Catholicism two years ago is part of an evolution that has given him a deeper appreciation for the role of faith in public life.
“On a recent winter night here, Mr. Gingrich, 67, stood on stage at a Catholic school with his wife, Callista, and introduced a film they produced about the role Pope John Paul II played in the fall of Communism in Poland. As Mr. Gingrich looked out over a crowd of 1,300 people, he warned that the United States had become too secular a society.
“To a surprising degree, we are in a situation similar to Poland’s in 1979,” he told the audience, which had gathered at a banquet for Ohio Right to Life, one of the nation’s oldest anti-abortion groups. “In America, religious belief is being challenged by a cultural elite trying to create a secularized America, in which God is driven out of public life.”
Poland? Guess this must be part of the get-out-the-Catholic vote.
Politico looks at where Mr. Gingrich get his money.
Claiming that the country is facing a fiscal and moral crisis is becoming a tired way of implying that those who disagree with your fiscal policies are part of the moral problem.
Newt Gingrich has always had a knack for clearly (if somewhat glibly) articulating the fiscally conservative POV. Certainly, we need people who will question the wisdom of current spending patterns and to suggest reasonable alternatives.
However, while charity requires that I assume Gingrich’s philandering days are over and that he has embraced the Church’s notions of marital fidelity, it does not require me to accept Gingrich as the most credible arbiter of public morality.
Oh dear. I hope part of his formation was in the social teaching of the Church. Alas, and sadly, I imagine that for him (like for Eric Prince, of Blackwater), it was not.
One of the curiosities of the story is that he seems to be saying that in 1979 Poland was secularized by a cultural elite. If so, how did JPII manage to rally the Poles on the basis of their shared faith.
And then, after 1990 the pope and others began to lament the secularization of Poland by Western values and capitalism.
You can’t have it both ways. Or can you, if you’re the New Newt Gingrich???
Maria, I’m not a conservative myself, but I think that conservatives see the social teachings of the Church as best achieved by providing jobs for people, which involves cutting biz taxes, spending money on social programs, and making people live up to their familial obligations by taking care of Granny themselves instead of foisting her off on other people.
I don’t think it’s useful to pose social justice teachings in political terms. Some social programs, however well-intentioned, have backfired (project housing), and conservatives who are truly concerned with the welfare of the poor are right to point this out.
However, I tend to be skeptical of conservatives who tout concern for the poor when they themselves would benefit from getting rid of safety nets for others.
Funny thing is, Newt is seen as a serious intellectual in the GOP. Hmmm….
His historical reading seems pretty weak, especially when the historical parallel would seem to be between Republicans like Newt and Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, as Gerald Beyer of St. Joseph’s in Philadelphia wrote here:
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2011/02/24/poland-in-1980-and-wisconsin-2011-history-rhymes/
And Solidarity agreed:
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2011/02/25/wisconsin-workers-get-support-from-polands-solidarity-trade-uni/
Look for the bishops to get on the Newt bandwagon soon. Just call it the hypocrisy ticket.
Without being as cynical as Bill M., I think it’s pretty clear that the Catholic right loves JPII wjo they continue to style as ‘the Great” and his strength in the solidarity movement is self perceived by them as standing fast against the liberal forces of government.
I find myeself in (deep) disagreemnet for a change iwth jean as I think social justice notions are deeply embedded in political issues as this past week’sa confenc eof social justice ministers in DC would affirm. I wish Fr. Kammer’s speech could be reproduced (here as well.)
On the other hand, I thought Jean’s first post about Newt was right on track. though more than charitable put.
Newt will not get any of the evangelical vote IMO because the Catholic ‘thing’ is still a bugaboo to them. He gets 2% in Iowa if he keeps his trap shut and then will have to hitch-hikes to NH.
Imagine the head-spinning of certain partisan Democrat commentators should the Republicans end up with a Gingrich/Palin ticket…
That’s not a ticket; that’s a caged death match.
Besides, I don’t think you’ve ever had a ticket with TWO candidates at the top.
Hello All,
I agree with David G. I think it quite unlikely that Gingrich and Palin could easily work together.
I’m a philosophy professor, which I suppose makes me part of the “cultural elite” that Mr. Gringrich thinks is trying to create a more secularized society. So he probably would not be interested in my opinion, but I was thinking a far more likely scenario for Republicans in 2012 would be a Grigrich/Santorum ticket. Of course, a lot can happen between now and 2012.
All politics aside, Newt’s film on JPII and Poland is very good. It has some excellent footage and research about the pope’s great influence on events during that time. The religious side of how the coldwar was ended has been often been ignored by the press and contemporary historiography.
And who can really argue that Newt is wrong on this point? We have become too secularized: the result – 1.2M abortions a year, and a society in which religious dialogue has all but been expunged from the national discussion.
Who besides me has seen the movie?
After only two years since his conversion to Roman Catholicism, Newt Gingrich is now going to try to peddle himself to the American electorate as he runs for president as a family man imbued with gospel values. Yeah, right?!?
Call me cynical, but I’m not buying it. Now that “he’s got religion,” Gingrich will pick and choose, just like the rest of us, from the Catholic tradition those things that support his own political ideology and world view.
Are you really surprised that Gingrich finds inspiration in Wojtyla’s fervent anti-Communism? Do you think that Gingrich even knows, or cares, that JP2 presided over the greatest scandal and calamity to befall the church since the crusades and the Inquisition – and did NOTHING to stop it???
As my sainted sixth grade teacher, Sister Mary Adelaide, warned us: “Beware of converts in their first fervor!”
BTW @ Dennis DiMauro: What’s wrong with being “secularized” when the alternative is being subservient to a spent, corrupt, political ideology that maintains a sinful patriarchy by the world’s oldest all-male celibate oligarchy?
For myself, I don’t believe that abortions are an artifact of social secularization, but the inevitable exertion of women’s rights over their own persons and bodies. Nor, as an American, do I regret that there is a strict separation of church and state which has bless our culture with a diversity of religious belief and practice that is the envy of the world.
Hello Dennis (and All),
I have not seen the film. I’d be interested since I would like to know more about JPII’s true influence on the fall of communism in Poland and elsewhere. (Like practically everybody I’ve heard various conflicting stories about this and I haven’t the time to research it in depth.)
As for Mr. Gingrich being right, I’m tempted to say that if so then he’s voicing his opinion nearly forty years after the fact. We’ve had roughly this many legal abortions in the United States since the early 1970′s. And I cannot remember a time when I could perceive religion having a greater influence in public life. My impression is that Mr. Gingrich thinks we in America arrived at what he might call a “1979 Polish moment” rather recently, but I’m simply not sure this has happened recently if at all.
I think all this is somewhat in the eyes of the beholder. I’ve been hearing for many years various politicians, church officials and political pundits complaining about the supposed increased secularization of American culture, but I also routinely hear some of my colleagues complain about what they think is the excessive and increasing influence of religion in American culture. (It’s an occupational hazard.)
About the Church in Poland and JP II’s role in the fall of Communism. And Gingerich.
I think that there can be no doubt that JP II 1) supported the people of Poland mightily in their resistance to Communism both as a bishop in Poland and as pope (ask Lech Walesa) and that 2) he also opened up diplomatic channels of communication with the Russian power structure (ask Gorbachev). The latter, it seems to me, was the mark of a truly great man, because he was willing to at least talk seriously with people he disagreed with profoundly. And it worked. This is all the more remarkable because he was a Catholic bishop. (No, I’m not trying to be nasty. Catholic bishops are not noted for talking seriously with people they oppose.)
On the other hand, in dealing with the problems of the Catholic Church, he was less successful. He spoke wonderfully well to crowds about generalities, but didn’t listen well to individuals of his flock, This has become most apparent since the revelations about Maciel, et al. But even when he was bishop in Poland there were priests who were snitches — they spied for the Communists (they reported who was doing what), and now many of the Polish people are bitterly resentful about it. (This information came to light publicly only in recent years.) Further, the Poles are also objecting to the Church’s sexual teachings. The e upshot is that Poles have started leaving the Church in large numbers too.
My point is that the appeal of JP II was strong at a particular point in history, but that point has passed, so I don’t think Gingerich is going to get a lot of political mileage out of his devotion to JP II. (I have no reason to doubt his devotion, and neither do I doubt the sincerity of his conversion. Only God knows if he is sincere, and why shouldn’t he be sincere?).
Yes, there are undoubtedly many American Catholics for whom JP II is a spiritual hero. But they aren’t going to vote Democrat anyway. So I just don’t see that the JP II connection will get Newt any closer to the White House.