The New York Times is again promoting the shabby pretense that a liberal politician who rejects his church’s orthodoxy for Democratic Party orthodoxy can and should be described as “devout” in his faith. Jonathan Martin’s pre-debate story on Tuesday was headlined “With Tim Kaine and Mike Pence, Faith Is Back in the Mix.”
Kaine now represents a “different strand of Christianity,” the strand that somehow promotes Planned Parenthood and transgender privileges:
The two men who will face off, Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia and Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, share a deep religious faith that is central to their politics, but has been obscured by a more profane than holy race on top of the ticket.
While both men are devout, they represent different strands of Christianity in American life, a contrast that is likely to be on display as they discuss their positions on social issues and how religious beliefs would guide their approach to governing.
The very secular New York Times – whose orthodoxy insists that any bathroom limitations on transgenders constitute the modern version of unjust "Jim Crow” segregationism – also pretends that its own positions on social issues aren’t to be described as “hardline.” No, that’s only the Republican platform, which Mrs. Clinton isn’t attacking much in this cycle:
Hillary Clinton prefers to draw attention to Mr. Trump's statements on race and gender, painting him as an outlier from his own party rather than, in the fashion of most Democratic presidential candidates, linking him to the Republican Party's hard-line social platform.
The Democratic Party platform this year has expanded its abortion-promoting extremism to advocate for taxpayer-funded abortions – and yet the media can't seem to find that plank, nor describe it as “hard-line.” The difference between Pence and Kaine is that Pence isn't rejecting traditional Christianity to be viable in contemporary politics. The Times punishes a politician who prefers tradition to "progress."
Martin described Kaine as inspired by “liberation theology,” but can’t find any space to describe that philosophy as inspired by Marxism, not just “social justice”:
Mr. Kaine, who like Mr. Pence has Irish roots and was raised Catholic, had his faith forged when, during law school, he went to Honduras and served as a missionary for the Jesuits. It was there that he embraced a brand of liberation theology centered on social justice that would eventually be one of the forces propelling him into government.
Early in his political career, Mr. Kaine’s style of Catholicism made him uneasy with some elements of the Democratic Party, particularly on issues like abortion rights and same-sex marriage. While he has since shifted on those issues to accommodate his party — and his running mate — he remains unapologetic about how important his faith is to his career in public service.
Martin's last sentence is a beaut: While Kaine genuflected to the secular Left, he "remains unapologetic" about portraying himself as a "devout Catholic" after he rejected everything the church teaches about sexuality and the killing of the unborn.
The Times was more forthright on September 2, as Betsy Woodruff just recounted for The Daily Beast:
In a piece published Sept. 2 of this year, Kaine told the New York Times that he took a bus from Honduras to Nicaragua and then walked several miles to meet with Carney during his trip there. Kaine told the paper he spent an evening listening to the priest describe “both getting pushed around by the military and getting pushed around by the church.”
Woodruff added more (Red) color to that portrait:
In his autobiography, To Be a Revolutionary, Carney made the case for the possibility of partially reconciling Catholicism and Marxism through liberation theology. Carney repudiated the Marxist rejection of the existence of the transcendental. But he said Marx’s criticism of religion did some good.
“Thanks partially to the Marxist criticism of religion, the Holy Spirit has finally been able to lead many present-day Christians to an understanding of the gospel of Christ and the ‘good news for the poor’ about their liberation from the yoke of exploitation,” he wrote.
He described himself as “a good Marxist,” dedicated to helping fight “the guerilla war for the liberation of Honduras.” In 1973, he renounced his American citizenship and became a Honduran citizen. The Honduran government expelled him from the country in 1979, so he moved across the border to Nicaragua, and Kaine met with him shortly after that.
The Washington Post reported that in 1983, Carney traveled with a small unit of Cuban-trained guerilla fighters as their chaplain. The paper said the group’s leader, Jose Reyes Mata, was “considered Honduras’ leading Marxist” and an ally of Che Guevara. Their aim was to destabilize the country’s government. They weren’t successful.
Carney disappeared, and people differ on how he may have died. But Woodruff strangely concluded: “It remains to be seen if hobnobbing in Nicaragua with a guerilla priest will help or hurt Kaine with Catholic voters. At the least, it could add a bit of an edge to his squeaky clean image.”
