I find it interesting that the second link in your post is from Buzzfeed, which is a leftwing site, just like Politico is and I refuse to take anything serious from these sites
Irrelevant. BuzzFeed just slapped their name over video excerpted from ABC, another left-wing site, of Santorum explaining his stomach-turn to George Stephanopoulos, who used to work for Billy Jeff.
If you watch it, you will see that Santorum actually did about a good a job as could be expected making the case for a role for religion in public life. But not good enough to persuade the horse to return to the barn.