“Peace Be With You” from the New York Times
Why is the New York Times so interested in Jeb Bush’s Catholicism? It’s creepy.
He arrived a few minutes early — no entourage, just his wife and daughter — and, sweating through a polo shirt in the hot morning sun, settled quietly into the 14th row at the Church of the Little Flower.
A bit of a murmur, and the occasional “Morning, Governor,” passed through the Spanish Renaissance-style church, with its manicured grounds and towering palms, as worshipers recognized their most famous neighbor, Jeb Bush. He held hands with the other worshipers during the Lord’s Prayer, sang along to “I Am the Bread of Life” and knelt after receiving communion.
“It gives me a serenity, and allows me to think clearer,” Mr. Bush said as he exited the tile-roof church here on a recent Sunday, exchanging greetings and, with the ease of a longtime politician, acquiescing to the occasional photo. “It’s made me a better person.”
Does this sound Catholic to you yet, or is this Zen?
Twenty years after Mr. Bush converted to Catholicism, the religion of his wife, following a difficult and unsuccessful political campaign that had put a strain on his marriage, his faith has become a central element of the way he shapes his life and frames his views on public policy. And now, as he explores a bid for the presidency, his religion has become a focal point of early appeals to evangelical activists, who are particularly important in a Republican primary that is often dominated by religious voters.
Many of his priorities during his two terms as governor of Florida aligned with those of the Catholic Church — including his extraordinary, and unsuccessful, effort to force a hospital to keep Terri Schiavo on life support, as well as less well-known, and also unsuccessful, efforts to appoint a guardian for the fetus of a developmentally disabled rape victim and to prevent a 13-year-old girl from having an abortion. He even, during his first year in office in 1999, signed a law creating a “Choose Life” license plate.
He differed from his church, significantly and openly, over capital punishment; the state executed 21 prisoners on his watch, the most under any Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. But he has won praise from Catholic officials for his welcoming tone toward immigrants and his relatively centrist positions on education — two issues in which he is at odds with the right wing of his party.
Now I’m confused. Is he Catholic or is he Republican or is he a Conservative or is he a Democrat? At least he made the bishops’ happy most of the time?
“As a public leader, one’s faith should guide you,” Mr. Bush said in Italy in 2009, explaining his attitude about the relationship between religion and politics at a conference associated with Communion and Liberation, a conservative Catholic lay movement.
For a ‘conservative’ Catholic movement, Pope Francis sure seems to honor Communion and Liberation’s leading lights, especially those that help them “rediscover a no-moralizing way of being Christians.”
“In the United States, many people think you need to keep your faith, put it in a security box, if you’re an elected official — put it in a safety deposit box until you finish your service as a public servant and then you can go get it back,” he added. “I never felt that was appropriate.”
For a man who likes to wear his faith on his sleeve, so to speak, he sure seems to agree with the Catholic Bishops a lot on politics. What’s so Catholic about that? What’s conservative about it? What’s even Republican about it?
Don’t worry though. At least he might seem a bit more Catholic than Pope Francis. He knows when to go to Holy Communion.
D. Michael McCarron, who at the time was the executive director of the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops, recalled seeing Mr. Bush with his wife during a Mass in Tallahassee in the late 1980s, when Mr. Bush was Florida’s secretary of commerce. “At the time he was not a Catholic, and I was struck by the fact that he would not take communion, which is appropriate, and I just observed him kneeling and praying,” Mr. McCarron said.
Look at that! He still became Catholic anyway after being unmercifully rejected and denied by lawmakers who destroy.
“I love the sacraments of the Catholic Church, the timeless nature of the message of the Catholic Church, the fact that the Catholic Church believes in, and acts on, absolute truth as its foundational principle and doesn’t move with the tides of modern times, as my former religion did,” he said in the speech in Italy in 2009. (Asked by email recently what his concerns were, he said only: “I loved the absolute nature of the Catholic Church. It resonated with me.”)
That was then. This is now. It’s a whole new Catholic world apparently. Will Jeb stick or move?
As Florida Governor Bush heard from the bishops occasionally, but they had much in common. He even crossed notorious St. Petersburg Bishop Robert Lynch, if only just a bit.
“I appreciate the Catholic Conference’s sincere commitment to advancing public policy that complies with the teachings of our Lord,” the governor wrote in an email to Bishop Robert N. Lynch of St. Petersburg. “I hope you know that I try to do the same. When we seldom disagree, it makes me very, very uncomfortable. Having said that, I will continue to do what I think is right.”
For the most part however, Jeb Bush seems to be a presidential candidate the U.S. Bishops can stand behind. For that matter, perhaps so can the Times.
I’d watch my back, Mr. Bush.
Those disputes notwithstanding, Mr. Bush has received praise from Catholic leaders. Last year, he visited New York to help raise money for Catholic schools, attended Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral and won plaudits from Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, who interviewed Mr. Bush on his radio program and then talked about him on “Face the Nation” on CBS
“I like Jeb Bush a lot,” Cardinal Dolan said in the television appearance. “I especially appreciate the priority he gives to education and immigration.”
There’s a ringing endorsement!