Bush- The Most "Catholic" President in American History?

The Washington Post has a interesting story up that will be in their Sunday edition. It is called the A Catholic Wind in the White House. Before I get into the meat of this post and article let me highlight the last very two intriguing paragraphs of this article.

Moreover, people close to Bush say that he has professed a not-so-secret admiration for the church's discipline and is personally attracted to the breadth and unity of its teachings. A New York priest who has befriended the president said that Bush respects the way Catholicism starts at the foundation -- with the notion that the papacy is willed by God and that the pope is Peter's successor. "I think what fascinates him about Catholicism is its historical plausibility," says this priest. "He does appreciate the systematic theology of the church, its intellectual cogency and stability." The priest also says that Bush "is not unaware of how evangelicalism -- by comparison with Catholicism -- may seem more limited both theologically and historically."
Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson, another evangelical with an affinity for Catholic teaching, says that the key to understanding Bush's domestic policy is to view it through the lens of Rome. Others go a step further.
Paul Weyrich, an architect of the religious right, detects in Bush shades of former British prime minister Tony Blair, who converted to Catholicism last year. "I think he is a secret believer," Weyrich says of Bush. Similarly, John DiIulio, Bush's first director of faith-based initiatives, has called the president a "closet Catholic." And he was only half-kidding.

Catholics that observe Bush often see not his admiration for Catholicism but indeed that it has effects in real concrete ways. I have stated for the past couple of years that he has been the United States most Catholic Presidents. No matter what Peggy Noonan might thing as I pointed out here yesterday at Peggy Noonan on Pope Benedict and Her Slight Slam on Bush

Here is another part:
"I don't think there's any question about it," says Rick Santorum, former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania and a devout Catholic, who was the first to give Bush the "Catholic president" label. "He's certainly much more Catholic than Kennedy."
Bush attends an Episcopal church in Washington and belongs to a Methodist church in Texas, and his political base is solidly evangelical. Yet this Protestant president has surrounded himself with Roman Catholic intellectuals, speechwriters, professors, priests, bishops and politicians. These Catholics -- and thus Catholic social teaching -- have for the past eight years been shaping Bush's speeches, policies and legacy to a degree perhaps unprecedented in U.S. history.
"I used to say that there are more Catholics on President Bush's speechwriting team than on any Notre Dame starting lineup in the past half-century," said former Bush scribe -- and Catholic -- William McGurn.

More Catholic than Kennedy they say? I would agree. Many people of faith , whether Catholic or otherwise would be a tad shocked to read Kennedy's famous speech to Protestant and Evangelical leaders in Houston. Despite what the popular history tells us that all folks were thrilled. Including many Protestants leaders. In fact many people again , whether Catholic or Protestant wonder at what cost did that speech come. Go see The Enduring Costs of John F. Kennedy's Compromise

Protestant reaction, meanwhile, ran the gamut. Some were reassured by Kennedy's statements. Others – including some mainline Protestants who had initially defended him – were alarmed. Episcopalian Bishop James Pike said, "… far from posing the threat of ecclesiastical tyranny, [Kennedy's statement] would seem rather to represent the point of view of a thoroughgoing secularist, who really believes that a man's religion and his decision-making can be kept in two watertight compartments." Presbyterian Robert McAfee Brown surmised that Kennedy was "a rather irregular Christian." And Lutheran Martin Marty opined that Kennedy was "spiritually rootless and politically almost disturbingly secular." ........

Bush has a very annoying quality of never fighting back. At times I just want to scream at the tv and go shake up the White House Press Office Attacks come from the left and the right , many are baseless, and yet Bush just absorbs these political punches. In many ways it will take years before Catholics on the right and left realize that in large part they squandered an opportunity. I keep hearing fro many Catholics "what has he had done for this lately". The problem is that they are not aware of what he has done at all.

The Catholic pro-life movements seems to find his efforts at times insufficient. I keep hearing well Roe V Wade has not been overturned so there. They are not aware that Bush put one of the best Catholic Orthodox Legal minds as the envoy to the Vatican. They are not aware of how often the Bush White House has been on the Vatican side as to life issues in the international square and the UN. They are not even aware of the vast amount of executive orders that keep the unborn and others safe. The first day of an Obama or Clinton White House will have them tragically aware however.

The American Catholic political "left" has also been out to lunch. The Vatican notes Bush's efforts as to poverty and trade, HIV in Africa. The Catholic Progressives and left do not. It amazes me to no end that Catholic liberals and progressives don't even give Bush kudos on immigration reform. This caused Bush to pretty much play out the rest of his political capital. He did this not only once but twice!!!! The Vatican and Catholic leaders took note. Many American Catholic did not.

The question at the end of the Bushes White House years will be who failed whom. In the realities of White House politics, much of the Presidents power to shape the public agenda comes from the bully pulpit. We had a President talking subsidiarity and engaging Catholic thought all over the place. At some point we as Catholics(both on the left and right) had an obligation to take advantage of the opportunity to do something with the opening this Methodist President was giving us. I fear that history will show that we failed to take advantage as we should.