Rick Santorum has done it. Sarah Palin has done it. Mitt Romney has as well. They have critiqued the John F. Kennedy Houston speech about faith and public life. Paul Ryan joins Romney’s team as one who has given witness to this alternative model. I suggest he might be a JFK for what Catholics refer to as the New Evangelization: We’re at a different point in American history. We see how the JFK model has worked and where it has gotten us — the privatization of faith, the politicization of faith, that has got us to a point where religious liberty is now threatened — and by people who profess to be believers . . . or so I make the argument here.
Also, elsewhere, this may surprise you: Americans are still considered “puritanical”! Things are looking up! (Hi, Mr. Stuttaford!)