Bush Brought a Gift for the Pope: The Alliance Between Catholics and Evangelicals

It is an absolute novelty in the history of the United States, and has been consolidated with the present administration. The key role of Fr. Richard J. Neuhaus in the inner circle of the White House

ROMA – The June 4 meeting in the Vatican between George W. Bush and John Paul II brought together noticeably the positions of the two sides: even in the matter of Iraq, over which there was a serious division a year ago. The speech given by the pope is evidence of this.

But there is also underway a noticeable drawing together between Bush and Catholics in the United States. In the surveys for the November presidential elections, a majority of Catholics favor the reconfirmation of the incumbent president. And this in spite of the fact that he is a Methodist, while his opponent, the Democrat John Kerry, is a Catholic.

That’s not all. An even more relevant convergence is underway, the one taking place between Catholic Americans and their most heated religious rivals: the evangelical Protestants. This convergence is an absolute novelty in the history of the United States. And it has consolidated with the Bush presidency.

In the United States, Catholics make up a fifth of the electorate. Traditionally, they have always supported Democratic candidates rather than Republicans. And they have always had the evangelicals against them. In 1960, when the Catholic John F. Kennedy was running for the presidency, the evangelical preachers spouted fire and brimstone. For them, electing Kennedy was like handing over the White House to the Vatican, which they equated with the Antichrist.

Today, everything has changed. There are bishops who refuse to give communion to Kerry, because of the support he has given to abortion rights. At the same time, a growing number of Catholics are making common cause with the evangelicals, in support of the Republican, Bush.

There is an episode that gives a striking illustration of this proximity. Seven days before his meeting with the pope, Bush met in Washington a panel of religious thinkers brought together by “Christianity Today,” the magazine founded by the most famous of the evangelical preachers, Billy Graham. There were two highly influential Catholics among the group: the editor of “Crisis,” Deal Hudson, and the editor of “First Things,” Fr. Richard John Neuhaus (in the photo).

The interview lasted a few hours, and the complete transcript was posted to the online edition of “Christianity Today.” Bush was questioned on every topic: Iraq, Israel, the pope, Islam, Cuba, terrorism, torture, the family, school, prayer. And it emerges from his responses that he has a simple and consistent vision of things, with a strong religious imprint.

One of the interesting details is that the present convergence between Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism is reflected in Bush’s personal experience.

In the interview, Bush said that he reads each morning a page from the writings of Oswald Chambers (1874-1917), one of the most popular evangelical spiritual teachers of the past century. He said he is an assiduous reader of the writings of another evangelical, a former chaplain of the United States Senate, Lloyd Ogilvie. He said he is preparing to re-read the entire Bible in the span of a year, as he has done several times since he attended Donald Evans’ Bible school from 1985-1986.

Bush is himself a born-again Christian. Jimmy Carter was another one. But Bush is the first president who, in two key posts in his administration, wanted other evangelicals close to him: the attorney general, John Ashcroft, member of the pentecostalist Assemblies of God, and Condoleezza Rice, the daughter of a Baptist pastor.

The novelty is that, for some time now, the most inner circle of Bush’s collaborators has included a very authoritative Catholic priest. He is Fr. Neuhaus, a former Lutheran pastor, who converted to Catholicism in 1990 and was ordained a priest the following year by the archbishop of New York at the time, John Cardinal O’Connor.

Fr. Neuhaus is among the most respected theologians. Even better: he is both a theologian and a political analyst, a bit like Reinhold Niebuhr was for Protestant Americans during the mid-twentieth century. He directs “First Things,” the leading magazine for Catholic neoconservatives, whose regular writers include George Weigel, Michael Novak, and Avery Dulles, all three of whom are well-respected in the Vatican. Weigel is the author of a monumental biography of Karol Wojtyla, much appreciated by the pope himself. Novak studied theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University and still teaches in the theological faculties of Rome; last year, Bush sent him to the Vatican to illustrate the theological justifications for his decision to go to war in Iraq. And Dulles, a Jesuit, was made a cardinal in 2001; he is also a convert, and comes from a family of the WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) establishment: his father, John W. Foster Dulles, was secretary of state during the Eisenhower presidency, and his uncle, Allen W. Dulles, was head of the CIA.

During his interview for “Christianity Today,” Bush addresses only one of the eight panelists confidentially, and by name: Fr. Neuhaus. And he does this twice, to attest to his great respect for him.

On one occasion, Bush recalls being indebted to Fr. Neuhaus for everything regarding the battle over the valuing of marriage and the family, a central feature of his domestic policy.

And on another occasion he says of him: “I need Father Richard around more, he helps me articulate these things.” The “things” are the religious sense of his mission as president, and more particularly the nexus between his responsibility for the nation and the prayers that the citizens offer to God on his behalf.

The conjunction between evangelicals and Catholics, in the United States, began ten years ago with a joint document with an unequivocal title: “Evangelicals and Catholics together.” For the former, at the head of the dialogue there was Charles Colson, a former assistant to Nixon and destroyed with him by the Watergate scandal, then born again in the faith. For the Catholics, there was Fr. Neuhaus, with the support of cardinal O’Connor and the future cardinal Dulles.

A book by Neuhaus had made a great impression on the evangelicals: it was “The Naked Public Square,” an analysis of the growing disappearance of religion from public life. The book brought to light the fact that there are many traits common to both Catholic and evangelical thought, and that some of them can be put into practice.

Since then, the evangelicals have made great progress. They are the fastest-growing Christian group in the world. In the United States, they now make up 43 percent of the population, according to a survey by Gallup. Their influence has been decisive in many of the choices of the Bush presidency: from support of the family to the fight against abortion; from the defense of religious liberty in the world to the battle against the modern slave trade; from peace in Sudan to the war in Iraq and more decisive support than ever for Israel. In foreign policy, within the historic confrontation between the “realists” and the “idealists,” they have aligned themselves with the latter. The doctrine of the exportation of democracy is typically evangelical. And Bush is evangelical when he says, “I believe freedom is the Almighty God’s gift to each man and woman in this world.”

And so, slowly, the evangelicals have met and associated with the neocons, with Jews like Michael Horowitz, a great defender of persecuted Christians throughout the world, and with Catholics. Or better, with a current of Catholicism that was marginal at first, but is now more consistent and authoritative.

In an interview with Laurie Goodstein of the “New York Times,” on May 31, 2004, Fr. Neuhaus said: “It is an extraordinary realignment that if continues is going to create a very different kind of configuration of Christianity in America.”

Meanwhile, the pope of Rome is no longer the Antichrist for the evangelicals of the United States. In a recent survey of them, John Paul II won first place for popularity, with 59 percent saying they view him favorably, ahead of Pat Robertson, with 54, and Jerry Falwell, with 44 percent.

And the pope returns the affection, with an eye for the November presidential election. In the June 4 edition of “Corriere della Sera,” Luigi Accattoli, the Vatican journalist who most faithfully reports the views from the pontifical palazzo, wrote that the pope has already decided: he prefers the evangelical Bush to the Catholic Kerry. And “he wants to help him with the Catholic voters.”

The complete transcript of the interview in “Christianity Today” with the president of the United States, May 26, 2004:

Ummmm, the Protestant Reformation marked the break of some Western Christians with Roman Catholicism. So tracing roots into the Reformation, traces roots historiclally into Roman Catholicsm

Ok, I guess the way I worded that it does sound like I got my facts mixed up. But I still stand by what I said in that not all protestants came from RCC. There were christian bodies in existance since the time of Christ that had nothing to do with RCC. If I still had my book "The Protestant Reformation" I could fill you in on which groups those were. Unfortunately during all my traveling in the military I lost things along the way. That was one of them, and I cry every time I think about it. These groups, as I said, were in existance before the Reformation and came out and identified with the reformers when the movement started.

No, you are mistaken.

You have no real history backing you up. The facts are that the Ambrosian Rite (AKA Milanese Rite) was not a secret Church, just a litergical rite as distinguished from the Gregorian/Roman Rite; in fact there are some churches (mostly in Milan, but I think also in some of the Swiss Cantons) that are permitted to use the Ambrosian Rite litergy in the Mass. You don't seem to have the education to know what I'm talking about, but there have alwas been different liturgical rites used in the Church. It is true that in some areas Ambrosian Rite Christians resisted reforming to the standerdized liturgy of the Gregorian Rite, and this maybe where you are getting confused with the idea that they were a secret sect of the "true Church" surpressed by the Popes (not that it really was the Popes, the Christian princes of the west also wanted to standardize their liturgies; Charlemagne tried to abolish the Ambrosian Rite for instance), but this is not the case. The Ambrosian Rite Catholics were in communion with the Pope, just as the Greek churches were back then. And, as I said, if you really want to I'm sure you could go to Milan and see an Ambrosian Rite Mass for yourself (also there is some Ambrosian Rite chant you can buy on CD, I believe Ensemble Organum did a recording of it once).

As to the Waldensians, you will have to show me some evidince that the Waldensians can be historically traced to before Peter Waldo of Lyons c. 13th century. Preferably the evidence should be some primary sources combined with a scholarly analysis, not, I repeat, not simply sectarian polemics; if that's all you can give me you can stop right there. Otherwise you will have to admit that you only take it on faith that they existed before Peter Waldo :).

Your Sister (why does everyone think I am a guy, I'm starting to get a complex....lol)

Opps, me bad. I am so sorry. I'll be sure and not make that mistake again, at least until the next time I make that mistake again. Oy vey, now I know I'm getting old...:-((

P.S. I'm impressed at your knowledge, not every day I meet a lady with the knowledge you seem to possess.

Yeah, yeah, I know, the real Christians, hiding out in the northern Alps, hiding in caves, fearing the Romanist Church persecutions.

Where and why were they hiding before the Romanist persecutions? I haven't heard that one yet.

And, we're the ones re-writing history? That's a hoot. We didn't have to re-write history, we saved it. You can read it for yourself sometime.

I remember reading one Catholic publication that stated the next Pope would be apostate and allied with the anti-Christ (I thought Catholics were amillenial?), related to some prophecy given by a pope long ago.

I thought the antichrist was not supposed to be on the scene until after all the gentiles had heard the gospel, and the Jews as a nation convert too. I don't think either has happened yet. Most speculation I have read suggests an upcoming big chastisement followed by an era of peace, the conversions, then the apostacy, then the antichrist who would not be a pope but could very well be a false one. A lot of people have speculated that the real pope is run out and in exile at this point.

Opps, me bad. I am so sorry. I'll be sure and not make that mistake again, at least until the next time I make that mistake again. Oy vey, now I know I'm getting old...:-((

P.S. I'm impressed at your knowledge, not every day I meet a lady with the knowledge you seem to possess.

LOL I was only kidding, no need to apologize. And thanks for the p.s. Its hard to find people of like mind. I have learned over the years, that even with all the knowledge, one can't forget mercy. Alot of people think I am attacking them, but I am attacking the falsehood that holds them.....the systems. I always feel like I need to protect them and I guess you just can't. They have a right to their freedom too. BUT I still run my mouth and still hope....somewhere a light bulb will go off, they will see the forest....lol....you know can't see the forest for the trees...lol. Take care...God Bless.

LOL! Actually, it reminds me of my local conservative circle, where the Libertarians are ripping themselves into shreds while at the same time tearing apart the GOP which is busy fragmenting within itself and - well, you get the idea.

Hey, guys, let's keep our eyes on the prize and keep moving ahead. Otherwise, the wolf (Islam) is going to get us all, regardless of our positions on atonement, sola scriptura, or even the Bishop of Rome.

I'm pretty sure I'm right too.

Jesus built his Church on Peter, the Popes are descended through that line. That some Popes were evil and at odds with the teachings of Christ is a separate issue.

One thing I'm a little confused about though, or maybe just historically uneducated about, is the divergence from that lineage, if any, Catholicism took when it took on its Roman aspect.

Although I was of the opinion that Catholicism is handed down through Peter, oddly enough an Evangelical friend of mine brought it more forcefully to my attention.

What I'd like to know is more about the doctrine of infalliblilty. Is it a result of Christ's empowerment of Peter when he said 'whose sins you forgive will be forgiven, whose sins you hold bound will be held bound?'

I haven't done much research on this, but I thought maybe you might have some insight.

One thing I'm a little confused about though, or maybe just historically uneducated about, is the divergence from that lineage, if any, Catholicism took when it took on its Roman aspect.

That's where the schism with the orthodox comes in. At one time, the primary see was moved among five cities and Rome was one. They decided that as Rome was the See of Peter, Rome should be the primary See. There were other considerations, but this is the main one. "Roman" Catholicism only applies to the Latin Rite. There are 22 others, all of which follow the teachings of the Magisterium.

There is a book called "Triumph" by Crocker (I believe) which is a very good overview of the history.

Infallibility only applies to "Ex Cathedra" teaching. That means from the chair. And it only applies to matters of faith and morals. Since the canon was finalized, it's my understanding that's been invoked, like, once. I don't know that for sure though. It certainly isn't abused.

Is it a result of Christ's empowerment of Peter when he said 'whose sins you forgive will be forgiven, whose sins you hold bound will be held bound?'

This is one of many things that gave us the Sacrament of Penance (confession).

There is another book you might be interested in called "THis is the Faith" by Ripley. It lays out the basic Faith in very simple terms. Read it with a bible and a Catechism handy.

No exceptions were tolerated, and dissenters were physically wiped out (usually burned at the stake)....

Yes I know there are a few unlearned folks who try to claim otherwise (like somehow baptists go back to John the B...), however they don't have history on their side. Of course there were various cults that grew up in medieval times---but until Luther, every one of them was brutally surpressed and destroyed.

Not a glowing endorsment of Rome's authenticity, eh? You might say Rome was the "Christian" equivalent of the Taliban.

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