As a Catholic, I apologize. For what? Tim Kaine.
At a recent Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, the Virginia senator and former vice-presidential candidate said, "The notion that rights don't come from laws and don't come from the government, but come from the creator -- that's what the Iranian government believes."
In Iran, Kaine says, the government oppresses its citizens "because they believe that they understand what natural rights are from their creator."
Kaine's now-viral rant came as the Senate committee was considering the nomination of an assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor. Riley Barnes, the nominee before the committee, had made a bold move. He quoted the current Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who recently emphasized "that all men are created equal because our rights come from God, our creator; not from our laws, not from our governments."
Sen. Kaine probably doesn't even believe his implicit comparison between devout Christians and Iranian government oppression. He does, however, know that opposing the Trump administration is the way to future power in his party.
Oh, and what a gift this was to Ted Cruz, the Republican senator from Texas who sits on the same committee. What Kaine considers a "radical and dangerous notion," Cruz said, "is literally the founding principle upon which the United States of America was created." He went on to quote Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
That Kaine was lying is a likely scenario given that in July, he called cuts to government spending on Catholic charities and other faith-based organizations getting federal money for immigration work as an "attack on the religious organizations so that they cannot do the work that their faith in their creator compels them to do."
How convenient. Oppose our founding principles when it means being anti-Trump, and then embrace them for the same reason. And in recent years, what have some of our most contentious religious-liberty debates been about? Values from the sexual revolution. We already knew Kaine considered himself a pro-abortion (legal and on-demand) Catholic. And this, by the way, is what I want to apologize to you about.
As young people have been noticing, the sexual morality of the Catholic Church offers mercy and healing. I go to confession. Tim Kaine might go to confession; he is certainly free to. But not only are we supposed to believe certain things -- and stand up for them in our public lives as well as private ones -- we are supposed to share them. Good news and all. But in recent decades, far too many Catholics have dismissed that which is inconvenient. In this most recent case, even that which is fundamental for more than just Catholics.
Sen. Kaine, revisit your remarks from the summer. The United States has a good thing going in its rootedness to God. Our identity can't be in hating -- or loving -- President Trump. There's more to life. And thanks be to God for that!
(Kathryn Jean Lopez is senior fellow at the National Review Institute, editor-at-large of National Review magazine and author of the new book "A Year With the Mystics: Visionary Wisdom for Daily Living." She is also chair of Cardinal Dolan's pro-life commission in New York, and is on the board of the University of Mary. She can be contacted at klopez@nationalreview.com.)
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