COMMENTARY: Politics and the Catholic-Evangelical Alliance

c. 2000 Religion News Service (Robert Parham is executive director of the Nashville, Tenn.-based Baptist Center for Ethics.) (UNDATED) Not since the 1960 presidential election, when John F. Kennedy went to Houston to reassure Protestant ministers the Vatican would not dictate his policies, has there been a series of sharper exchanges in the public square […]

c. 2000 Religion News Service

(Robert Parham is executive director of the Nashville, Tenn.-based Baptist

Center for Ethics.)


(UNDATED) Not since the 1960 presidential election, when John F. Kennedy went to Houston to reassure Protestant ministers the Vatican would not dictate his policies, has there been a series of sharper exchanges in the public square between Catholics and evangelicals.

An early scrimmage surfaced when the House Republican leadership selected a Presbyterian minister over a Roman Catholic priest as the new House chaplain, even though the priest had received more votes from a House search committee.

The president of the Catholic League, William Donohue, charged: “What they want to do is keep the chaplain post in Protestant hands. There is a residue of anti-Catholicism embedded in the evangelical community.” He lamented that during a 210-year period no Catholic priest ever had held the position of House chaplain.

The uproar intensified when an aide to the speaker of the House alleged Billy Graham, a noted evangelical leader, had called the speaker, supporting the choice of the Presbyterian minister.

Now, dozens of Catholic House Republicans have criticized their leadership for letting the problem fester, making the issue more than a straightforward partisan conflict.

On a parallel track in mid-December, George W. Bush said Jesus was his favorite political philosopher “because he changed my heart.”

Given an opportunity to tell viewers more about Christ’s influence, Bush replied, “Well, if they don’t know, it’s going to be hard to explain.”

Catholics objected. Columnist E.J. Dionne wrote, “As a Catholic, I found these words exclusionary and condescending that if you didn’t have his specific kind of religious experience, he couldn’t possibly explain to you what you couldn’t understand.”

Prominent evangelicals applauded Bush’s statement, because his comment proved he was “one of us.”

Following a primary defeat in New Hampshire, Bush went straight to Bob Jones University, seeking the support of the religious right at a school known for its racism and anti-Catholicism.


Once the Republican campaign moved to Michigan, Bob Jones University turned from being an asset to a liability for Bush. Catholic voters received a phone message accusing Bush of “seeking the support of Southern fundamentalists who have expressed anti-Catholic views.”

John McCain then accused Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, two religious-right leaders, of being “agents of intolerance” and an “evil influence” over the Republican Party.

To date the conflict between or over Catholics and evangelicals has been largely confined to the Republican Party. Ironically, conservative Catholics and evangelical fundamentalists share common ground, beginning with membership in the Reagan coalition. Both are anti-abortion and anti-Disney. Both perceive the larger culture as hostile to their values and practices.

These points of agreement are not enough, however, to avoid brutal exchanges when secular politicians use religion as a dividing wedge and religious leaders use politics as a battering ram for their agendas. No wonder the nation’s wise founders wanted a wall of separation between church and state.

DEA END PARHAM

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