Lawrence O’Donnell Rips Romney’s Faith
Rather strongly:
Romney felt politically forced to give the speech specifically because evangelical Christians seem to know a little too much about the faith of his fathers. Many evangelicals believe and have said publicly that Mormonism–contrary to Romney’s assertions–is not a Christian religion but an abomination of Christianity. Here’s a sampling of why: Mormons believe that the Garden of Eden was in Missouri; that Jews were the first people in America; that Indians descended from Jews and are a lost tribe of Israel; that Jesus came to America; that after the next coming of Christ (which will be the second or third, depending on how you count his trip to America), the world will be ruled for a thousand years from Jerusalem and Missouri; and to answer Mike Huckabee’s now famous question, yes, they believe “Jesus and Lucifer were brothers, in the sense of both being spiritually begotten by the Father.”
Mr. O’Donnell is not Mormon - he claims to be Catholic, and has this to say on the subject:
This week, I went on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show so Hugh could attack me for attacking his favorite candidate. It was a good conversation. Hugh began by asking if I am Catholic. I gave what sounded like a very Clintonian answer that depends on what you mean by the word Catholic. I explained that there are Catholics–very few–who, Romney style, adhere to everything their church says. Then there are American Catholics, most of whom believe the church is wrong about abortion and wrong about the death penalty and used to think the Pope was wrong about the war in Iraq being a mistake but have now switched back to the Pope’s side on that one. I don’t feel empowered to say Catholics like that are not Catholics. Once we got past that, Hugh asked if the Catholic Church is wrong to not allow women priests. I said, yes, the faith of my fathers is wrong about that. I then happily admitted to many failings and evils in the Catholic Church and in past Popes.
Very few who adhere to all of Church teaching? I don’t know how O’Donnell would know such a thing - but he would be correct if he stated that a lot of Catholics disagree with what they think is Church teaching. The universal about criticism (internal or external) of Catholic teaching is that the critics are uniformly ignorant of just what it is the Church teaches. Mr. O’Donnell, a nominal Catholic, clearly has not bothered to learn what his own faith teaches - and yet he presumes to tell us what the Mormon faith teaches, and how it is a bad bunch of teaching. I make no presumptions about Mormonism - I don’t know enough about it to render judgement. Given that I am perfectly at home in Catholicism, I’ve no great desire to find out about the particulars of the Mormon faith - whatever their particular beliefs are, what I can see in action is people who have strong families, a strong sense of community, obey the laws and generally don’t cause a fuss, except when those well dressed young men come ring my doorbell at an invariably inconvenient time to try and convert me (a forlorn hope - though one day I hope to have time to speak to them, as the Catholic Church is always looking for converts).
I’ll bet a lot of money that Mr. O’Donnell never bothered to ask an orthodox Catholic priest just why women can’t become Catholic priests. If he had, he’d either no longer disagree with it, or he’d definitively state that he’s no longer Catholic (one is free to disagree with Church teaching - but once one knows exactly why a certain thing is taught then it becomes clear that it is integral to the entirety of the faith, and you can’t pick and choose what parts to believe…at that point, it is either time to cease being prideful, or time to find another religion). I’ll also bet that Mr. O’Donnell never went to committed Mormon and asked why this or that belief is held (or, probably in a lot of cases, whether or not Mormons even believe some of the things non-Mormons say they believe). Until a person has learned about a faith from the strongest exponents of that faith, then condemning any aspect of that faith is foolhardy in the extreme - Mr. O’Donnell seems to have more of a problem with people of faith rather than a problem with Romney’s Mormon faith; he states that no Catholic politician would ever get up and state a complete acceptance of all Church teachings. Of course, there already are such out there - and if I do decide to run for office, I will be glad to assert that I accept 100% of Church teaching on matters of faith and morals; but for Mr. O’Donnell, his claim is helpful because it allows him to condemn Romney’s assertion of full faith in the Mormon creed as either a lie, or proof that he’s an idiot.
We should never get into the act of criticising another’s religion - the peace of our democratic republic requires a certain reticence about some matters. As a Catholic, I naturally believe that Romney’s faith has got it wrong (while I’m not too familiar with Mormonism, one thing I do know is that they don’t believe in the Trinity - that, in and of itself, is sufficient for my purposes to know that Mormonism, whatever else it may be, isn’t the religion for me) - to put it completely clearly, as a Catholic, I hold that all non-Catholics have it wrong at least to some degree. I fully understand that my non-Catholic brothers and sisters feel the same about my Catholicism; and its all ok. In the end, God will set everything to rights and it will all be made clear to us. Meanwhile, as long as a faith doesn’t make a public nusiance of itself, it should be just left alone in our political discourse. Mormons are good people - good Americans; leave them be on the matter of their faith.
20 comments December 15th, 2007
