Newt Gingrich: Why I Became Catholic

I am often asked when I chose to become Catholic. However, it is more truthful to say that over the course of several years I gradually became Catholic and then decided one day to accept the faith I had already come to embrace.

My wife, Callista, is a lifelong Catholic and has been a member of the choir of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., for 15 years. Although I was Southern Baptist, I had attended Mass with Callista every Sunday at the basilica to watch her sing with the choir.

I accompanied Callista to Rome in 2005, when the choir was invited to sing at St. Peter’s Basilica. While there, I had the opportunity to talk at length with Msgr. Walter Rossi, rector of the basilica in D.C., about faith, history and many of the cultural challenges, including secularism, facing our country. Our conversations were enlightening and intriguing.

During that trip, I experienced my first visit to St. Peter’s Basilica, and I recall marveling at being in the presence of the historic truth of the Church that day.

At the same time, I was being influenced by several books I was reading, including George Weigel’s The Cube and the Cathedral, about the crisis of secularism in Europe, and his book The Final Revolution, about the role of Christianity in freeing Eastern Europe from an atheistic dictatorship.

I was also moved by Pope Benedict’s reflection in his book Jesus of Nazareth that, “God is the issue: Is he real, reality itself, or isn’t he? Is he good, or do we have to invent the good ourselves?”

Newt’s first wife died before he became Catholic. In fact, I think she may have died before he married Callista. So, that marriage had no effect upon the Catholic perspective of marriage.

Re: Newt’s second marriage to Marianne, it occurred while Newt’s first wife was still living, and the Catholic Church does recognize marriage between 2 Protestants as a valid Christian marriage. So, Newt’s first marriage was an impediment to his second marriage in the eyes of the church.

I think I am correct on this, but perhaps someone else knows more about the sequence of the marriages. Based on the above, if I am correct, Newt was free to marry Callista because his first wife died, and the second marriage was invalid in the church’s eyes.

"After a decade-long — perhaps lifelong — faith journey, I was finally home" ~ Newt Gingrich

Would you buy a used religion from this man?

Since his conversion, what I have seen from him is grotesque chutzpah as he has denied his despicable treatment of his ex-wife and even tried to paint serial adultery as a consequence of his intense love of country.
“There’s no question that at times in my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard, and that things happened in my life that were not appropriate.”
For the sake of argument, let’s completely check our brains at the door and believe this disgusting excuse for his double treason toward his family. What conclusion should we draw from it? My conclusion is, “For the sake of his soul, never let this man near power again just as I would never reassign a pedophile priest to work with children again.” But according to Newt, the solution to the corrupting effects of power that, by his own admission, led to his downfall is to make him the most powerful man on earth....
....I remember the Gingrich conservatives who said of the phonily contrite Bill Clinton, “If a man will lie to and betray his own wife, why should you think he will tell the truth to his constituents?”
-- excerpted from Mark Shea's 11/24 blog entry titled Why I Will No More Vote for Gingrich Than Obama

....when he spoke on Dobson's radio show in 2007, Gingrich refused to say that he was actually repentant. The evangelical leader repeatedly pressed him on that point: "When I hear you talk about this dark side of your life...you didn't mention repentance. Do you understand that word repentance?"
-- from the thread Newt and Evangelicals: Not a Match Made in Heaven

"Mrs. Gingrich #2 was dumped after her husband had carried on an extramarital affair with a fetching, blond congressional staffer named Callista Bisek, who went on to become the present Mrs. Gingrich #3. This Family Values paradigm was complicated by the fact that whilst Mr. Gingrich was filibustering Ms. Bisek over the Speaker’s desk, he was simultaneously leading the impeachment charge against a naughty president of the United States....The much-married Newt Gingrich converts to Catholicism this weekend—and I’d pay a year’s salary to have been a bug on the wall during his religious instruction."
-- Christopher Buckley, from the thread The Audacity of Poping

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