Mr. Santorum’s religious beliefs would come to infuse every aspect of his political life — not just his views on social issues like abortion, but also his work to overhaul the welfare system, increase financing to fight AIDS in Africa and promote religious freedom.
While that maybe be true as far as it goes, the Times certainly is not familiar with the natural law teachings that are also a part of the Catholic Church, which does not depend on sectarian belief or faith for the truth of its arguments. Here is Hadley Arkes with more:
What has been strangely lost among certain Catholic jurists and lawyers is that the natural law finds its ground in “the laws of reason,” not in appeals to faith or “belief” or woolly sentiment. Anyone tutored in those laws of reason may be able to explain then that, from a person’s height or weight or color, or from his disabilities, such as deafness, we cannot draw any moral inferences as to whether we are dealing with a good or a bad man, who should be welcomed or shunned.
On Santorum's rigid adherence to his traditional conservative Catholic faith:
Unlike Catholics who believe that church doctrine should adapt to changing times and needs, the Santorums believe in a highly traditional Catholicism that adheres fully to what scholars call “the teaching authority” of the pope and his bishops.
I wonder if the Times would ever put something like this in a story about Barack Obama--positing contrary views first and then describing Obama's views at the end of the sentence which infers that those views are out of the mainstream and probably wrongheaded. But if a wrong is a wrong--which Santorum thinks abortion falls into that category--then the changing times do not at all alter the wrongness of that thing. This is simply a confusion of applying principles to changing times and the principles themselves.
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