Dan

Calabrese

Read Dan's bio and previous columns here

December 7, 2007

Mitt Romney Addresses JFK’s Issues, But Not His Own

Mitt Romney has delivered his JFK speech, and delivered it well. The question is whether a JFK speech was the message America needed to hear from Romney.

In 1960, John F. Kennedy effectively eased a nation’s concerns about the prospect of putting a Catholic in the White House for the first time. He boldly and convincingly told the people that the Vatican would have no authority over his governing decisions. It effectively neutralized the issue.

Romney, facing voter unease over his Mormon faith, clearly decided to follow the Kennedy mantra. He repeated many of the same themes, including the assurance that officials of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints would have no say in his governing decisions if he becomes president.

“Let me assure you that no authorities of my church, or of any other church for that matter, will ever exert influence on presidential decisions,” Romney said. “Their authority is theirs, within the province of church affairs, and it ends where the affairs of the nation begin.”

But Romney’s religious challenge is not the same as JFK’s – and I’m not sure he entirely calmed the waters by approaching the issue as if it were the same.

Unlike Mormonism, Catholicism is not that big a mystery to Americans, nor was it in 1960. Most people were used to seeing the local parish priest around the neighborhood. Most people had friends and neighbors who were Catholic. Most people had been to a Catholic wedding or funeral a time or two.

And just about everyone in the world knows who the pope is, which is why Kennedy faced resistance as one of the first serious Catholic contenders for the White House. Catholic doctrine declares the teachings of the pope to be infallible whenever he speaks ex cathedra, which means that he intends to speak as God’s inerrant spokesman on a religious matter. When the pope makes an ex cathedra declaration, Catholics are expected to comply with it. No compromises.

Many non-Catholics were understandably troubled by the notion that a man in Italy would have the authority to tell Kennedy “Jump!” and that he would have to ask, “How high?” That was the primary issue Kennedy needed to address – not whether bread and wine turns into the body and blood of Christ.

The issue for Romney is different. There is no Mormon pope. There is no widely recognized, global authority who could presume to tell Romney what to do as president. So while his assurance that he would not be given orders by church officials was welcome – and eminently believable – it wasn’t really the issue.

The real discomfort with Mormonism is the notion that it is cult-like and outside the mainstream. Early in Romney’s speech, he said he would explain how his faith would inform his presidency. But he did not really do so in a way that addressed any Mormon distinctives. He talked of the value of compassion, of voluntarism, of his father having marched with Martin Luther King. All good stuff, but also well within the bounds of mainstream Christianity and Judaism.

Romney specifically declined to explain the distinctive doctrines of his church, arguing that to do so would put in effect the very kind of religious test the founders rightly rejected. That’s fair enough, but by choosing not to go there, Romney left in play the operative question for many voters: “What is Mormonism all about?”

Evangelical Christians (including this columnist) believe in the inerrancy and completeness of the Old and New Testaments, which leads many to serious discomfort with the Mormon teaching that Jesus Christ returned to Earth after his ascension and appeared to inhabitants of North America. Many are aware of Mormonism’s history with polygamy, and while it is unfair to hold present-day Mormons responsible for their predecessors’ sins, the fact remains that public perception of Mormons suffers because of this history. Many Americans have had Jehovah’s Witness-like visits from shirt-and-tie-clad, 22-year-old young men with name tags reading “Elder Joe.”

By not exploring the tenets and practices of his faith – and it was certainly his right not to – Romney left all of these questions in play. Maybe that was the smartest thing to do. Had he explained Mormon doctrine, he would have signed off on the notion that it is a legitimate issue, and invited far more scrutiny than either he or his fellow Mormons probably want. Mainstream media rarely does a responsible or accurate job of explaining religion. The typical religion reporter refers to members of Baptist churches as “parishioners” – a very distinctly Catholic term. One can only imagine how they would “explain” Mormonism.

This evangelical Christian does not fear a Romney presidency on the grounds of his Mormonism. I don’t think he is motivated by a secret desire to impose Mormonism on the nation, and the limits of his Constitutional powers would not permit him to do so at any rate. But his big speech on religion, while it effectively addressed the issues facing John F. Kennedy, really did nothing to change the religious conundrum facing Mitt Romney.

Most voters still find Mormonism mysterious. Romney just has to hope that’s not a deciding factor when they make their choice.

This is Column # DC132.  Request permission to publish here.