Kathryn Jean Lopez: Paul Ryan, JFK?
Kathryn Jean Lopez is editor-at-large of National Review Online and a nationally syndicated columnist. She speaks frequently on faith and public life and blogs on Catholic things at K-Lo@Large.
"We both agreed that we care passionately about the future of this country. So we did find some common ground."
At last, Sister Simone Campbell and I are seeing eye to eye on Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan! Sister Campbell, head of the social-justice lobby Network, commented on her meeting with Ryan after organizing a multi-state "Nuns on the Bus" tour to protest his budget plan. I’ve long been perplexed by why she doesn’t see what I see: The young, Catholic Ryan, House Budget Committee chairman and now vice-presidential running mate to presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, appears to take his faith seriously, including in discerning matters of public policy. What a great day for Catholics to have him on a national ticket, to have him at the forefront of policy and politics!
The prospect of Ryan as vice president is an important moment for Catholics — or, at least, it will be, if we take what he represents seriously in our own civic participation.
Kennedy’s ‘separation’: Sincere but wrong
The model for the Catholic in public life for far too long — for over 50 years now — has been John F. Kennedy, who asserted in his famous 1960 speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association that "the separation of Church and state is absolute." Kennedy thus established a model for the privatization of religious faith in public life...