Daniel Burke at the Washington Post thinks that President Bush might be pulling a Tony Blair. Burke tells of the Catholic based culture that rules the west wing and some other lingering suspicions.
Shortly after Pope Benedict XVI’s election in 2005, President Bush met with a small circle of advisers in the Oval Office. As some mentioned their own religious backgrounds, the president remarked that he had read one of the new pontiff’s books about faith and culture in Western Europe.
Save for one other soul, Bush was the only non-Catholic in the room. But his interest in the pope’s writings was no surprise to those around him. As the White House prepares to welcome Benedict on Tuesday, many in Bush’s inner circle expect the pontiff to find a kindred spirit in the president. Because if Bill Clinton can be called America’s first black president, some say, then George W. Bush could well be the nation’s first Catholic president.
***“I don’t think there’s any question about it,” says Rick Santorum, former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania and a devout Catholic, who was the first to give Bush the “Catholic president” label. “He’s certainly much more Catholic than Kennedy.”
While this concept of a Catholic run White House may be humorous to some, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus says that it is not so far fetched.
Bush has also placed Catholics in prominent roles in the federal government and relied on Catholic tradition to make a public case for everything from his faith-based initiative to antiabortion legislation. He has wedded Catholic intellectualism with evangelical political savvy to forge a powerful electoral coalition.
“There is an awareness in the White House that the rich Catholic intellectual tradition is a resource for making the links between Christian faith, religiously grounded moral judgments and public policy,” says Richard John Neuhaus, a Catholic priest and editor of the journal First Things who has tutored Bush in the church’s social doctrines for nearly a decade.
Finally, Burke hints that some close to the President might not be suprised if he pulled a Tony Blair one day by converting after leaving office.
Moreover, people close to Bush say that he has professed a not-so-secret admiration for the church’s discipline and is personally attracted to the breadth and unity of its teachings. A New York priest who has befriended the president said that Bush respects the way Catholicism starts at the foundation — with the notion that the papacy is willed by God and that the pope is Peter’s successor. “I think what fascinates him about Catholicism is its historical plausibility,” says this priest. “He does appreciate the systematic theology of the church, its intellectual cogency and stability.” The priest also says that Bush “is not unaware of how evangelicalism — by comparison with Catholicism — may seem more limited both theologically and historically.”
Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson, another evangelical with an affinity for Catholic teaching, says that the key to understanding Bush’s domestic policy is to view it through the lens of Rome. Others go a step further.
Paul Weyrich, an architect of the religious right, detects in Bush shades of former British prime minister Tony Blair, who converted to Catholicism last year. “I think he is a secret believer,” Weyrich says of Bush. Similarly, John DiIulio, Bush’s first director of faith-based initiatives, has called the president a “closet Catholic.” And he was only half-kidding.
Color me skeptical, but I don’t think so.
April 15, 2008 at 8:42 am
“Because if Bill Clinton can be called America’s first black president, some say, then George W. Bush could well be the nation’s first Catholic president.”
This is utterly nonsensical.
Bush may be “more Catholic” than Kennedy, God rest his soul, but that surely makes him merely “the first more Catholic President than Kennedy”.
Bill Clinton’s designation as ‘the first black President’ made whatever ironic sense it did because there were no black presidents before him. If there had been no one would have thought of designating him as such because being utterly illogical it wouldn’t have worked even as the metaphor it was.
April 15, 2008 at 12:16 pm
It is interesting to note, however, that Jeb Bush is a convert….
April 15, 2008 at 2:56 pm
The “first Catholic President” line is silly but, if he were to convert that would be great. Hopefully, he would be a better Catholic than Mr. Blair.
April 15, 2008 at 5:13 pm
It’s a little silly to call Bush Jr. the first Catholic president, or even the “first Catholic president who wasn’t actually Catholic”. Reagan, and Bush Sr. (and even Jimmy Carter in some ways) were just as Catholic, in that sense.
As for Bush Sr., both judges he has nominated are Catholic. His brother is a convert to the Church. Let’s face it – evangelical Protestantism has a lot of enthusiasm and energy, but as a mature outlook on the world and history, “you can walk through its deepest thoughts without getting your feet wet.” It’s essentially an individualistic religion – it has very little to say about cultures, nations, peoples, etc… The papacy has witnessed the fall of Rome, the rise of Islam, the discovery of the new world, the rise of Europe, the fall of Islam, the fall of Europe, and onwards. Bush’s brand of Methodism has seen…. the rise of the automobile and the telephone maybe?
April 15, 2008 at 5:46 pm
Tony Blair and Jeb Bush both have Catholic wives. I truly doubt W’s Catholic leanings go as far as conversion. After all, that same article said the Carl Rove had had his office blessed and I don’t think that ‘took’!
April 15, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Mr. Bush is a big fan of staying courses. If he’s looking around the evangelical mishmash for traditions that have stayed courses, he’s going to be looking for a while.
I think the POTUS looks up to Pope Benedict because he sees in him an example of what it looks like not to capitulate. And Bush has been known to do similar things, like try to make it look like he’s not capitulating. Sincerity is awfully appealing, especially when it’s connected with Truth…
April 15, 2008 at 8:31 pm
President Bush would be a much better Catholic than Tony Blair! I think he is a sincerely Christian man who says what he means and means what he says. God bless him! Padre Steve
April 15, 2008 at 9:42 pm
It’s obvious that President Bush has a deep respect for the Catholic Church. His interview with Raymond Arroyo was very nice. He was very gracious and was not shy about showing his respect and affection for the Pope. I wouldn’t call him eloquent, but he is definitely not the blubbering idiot that Jon Stewart wants you to believe he is. I doubt he is considering a conversion because he at least twice referred to the Pope as “His Holy Father” (rather than “The Holy Father” or “His Holiness”). To me, that betrayed a true familiarity with Catholicism, or maybe I’m reading too much into it. Who knows, maybe in his retirement, he and Jeb will hang out more and eventually win him over?
And, I desperately do NOT want to believe this, but it did occur to me that he might have just been playing nice for the cameras in an election year. His choice of EWTN may have been somewhat of a calculated decision, but I am inclined to believe his motives are true. He went above and beyond in actually picking the Pope up the airport and pulling out all the stops for his White House reception. I think the president really is looking forward to spending some one-on-one time with the Holy Father, he seems genuinely excited it about it, just like any of us would be. So I am praying that Benedict will make the most of that opportunity to influence him and guide him and pray with him.