Richard Cohen is often wrong about a great number of things, but this is just silly.
In this already dismal presidential campaign, where nary an original idea has been broached, Rudy Giuliani said something remarkable the other day. When asked if he is a “traditional, practicing, Roman Catholic,” the former mayor of New York essentially told the questioner to shove off. His religion, he said, was his own private affair.
This bold statement, as old as thought but as modern as today, was downright refreshing in its reverent plea for spiritual privacy. “My religious affiliation, my religious practices and the degree to which I am a good or not so good Catholic, I prefer to leave to the priests,” Giuliani said. […]
Whether Giuliani knew it or not, he was echoing something John F. Kennedy said back in 1960. Kennedy, only the second Roman Catholic presidential nominee — Al Smith of New York had been the first — gave an oft-cited speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in which he declared that he was not, as he put it, “the Catholic candidate for president” but the “Democratic Party’s candidate for president who happens also to be a Catholic.” In this way, Kennedy was attempting to rebut the bigoted smear that he would, if president, be taking orders from the Vatican.
JFK’s 1960 speech was a beautiful piece of work. Though it seems odd in retrospect, there was a genuine national discussion at the time about the whether a Roman Catholic could be an effective president, free of undue influence (or threats) from the Vatican. Kennedy articulated a forceful and uncompromising defense for the separation of church and state, and vowed that his presidential decisions would be “in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates, and no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise.”
Giuliani’s response, which Cohen is so fond of, was a political dodge, meant to divert attention from a scandalous personal life and evidence of a weak character. Nothing more, nothing less.
There was nothing “bold” about it. Republican primary voters routinely take an active interest in their leaders’ religious beliefs, and Giuliani has been subtly inserting more religious language into his stump speeches and debate responses.
Asked, however, if he is a “traditional, practicing, Roman Catholic,” Giuliani was uncomfortable, so he steered clear of the topic altogether. To answer the question would be to acknowledge Giuliani’s multiple marriages, adultery, and his general disinterest in matters of faith. It would, in other words, run counter to GOP orthodoxy.
To consider this Kennedy-esque is rather silly. In 1960, JFK’s point was that he, as president, would put religious interests aside and act in the nation’s (secular) interests. In 2007, Giuliani’s point was he, as a candidate, doesn’t want to talk about his Achilles’ heel. Cohen sees these perspectives as practically identical. They’re not.
Let’s put it this way: if Giuliani could have answered the question about being a “traditional, practicing, Roman Catholic” in the affirmative, wouldn’t he? Or does anyone seriously belief his response was based solely on a deeply-held principle about separating religion and politics?