Who Shot Willy, Brownback or Hudson?

Originally posted at Talk to Action.

I love it when Catholic Right ideologues condescend to say that if only we would all become more personally virtuous, many of our societal problems would disappear (I'm thinking of you Michael Novak!). Novak et al say that the road to virtue is paved with religious orthodoxy.

Now a game of "Who Shot Willy?" has erupted between Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Catholic Right activist Deal Hudson. Supposedly Brownback disparaged the Catholicism of some of fellow more liberal-minded co-religionists. Brownback denies making the statement but Hudson claims otherwise.

Either way, someone's virtue is - to say the least - questionable.

Diligence is one of the seven heavenly virtues. To be diligent is to be careful and zealous in one's works. We can assume that honesty is a natural component to this virtue. What then are we to make of two prominent Catholic Rightists in a public dispute concerning diligence?

The independent National Catholic Reporter reported the issue this way:

Kansas Republican Senator Sam Brownback, in a fundraising letter for a new Washington-based antiabortion group distributed under his signature, questioned whether six of his Democratic colleagues and the Speaker of the House are genuine Catholics.

"Real Catholics need a new voice - not the likes of Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi who have campaigned as Catholics while voting to undermine the values that we hold most dear," according to the undated Brownback letter.

NCR received the letter in the mail Feb. 17.

"The same can be said for the five 'Catholic' senators sponsoring the Freedom of Choice Act," continues the letter, which then specifically cites Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), John Kerry (D-Mass.), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD.), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) as among those who "openly and unabashedly claim to be Catholic - every year at election time" but who then "once in office ... willfully cast life-destroying votes at every turn."

The letter, carried in an envelope that bears Brownback's signature in a manner similar to official Congressional correspondence, was distributed on behalf of Catholic Advocate, a project of the Washington-based Morley Institute for Church and Culture, publisher of Inside Catholic, a conservative Catholic Web site.

Or did Senator Brownback have anything to do with the correspondence in question? As NCR further reported:

A spokeswoman for Catholic Advocate said the letter was sanctioned by Brownback. "Approval came from the senator's office," Brenda Steele said in a Feb. 20 e-mail provided in response to NCR's questions.

But Brownback spokesman Brian Hart said, "Our chief of staff ... had never seen, heard of, or approved it." Hart said Brownback's Senate staff has "reached out to both the organization responsible and the mail house [responsible for printing and distributing the letter] and directed them not to use Sam Brownback's name, signature, likeness or representation in any way moving forward and expressed that we are not pleased with the content of the letter."

Bill Donohue, head of the Catholic League once described Deal Hudson as "the ultimate networker," adding: "If you wanted to get something to the top inner circles of the [Bush] White House from a Catholic perspective, you could contact Deal Hudson and it was delivered."

Hudson, as I have previously reported, is a former Southern Baptist minister who converted to Catholicism. And like many other such converts, he practices a very stringent, ultra orthodox form of the faith. The former publisher of the uber-conservative Crisis magazine has written several books including How to Vote Catholic. In those writings, he rails about the evils of abortion, gay rights and what he perceives as contemporary society's lax morality.

Similarly, U.S. Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) is a convert from Methodism. Brownback is currently a neo-Carlist who rejects JFK's belief that Catholic elected officials should not to take orders from the Vatican. He is also a committed culture warrior who has long opposed women's reproductive rights, same-sex marriage and embryonic stem cell research -- even when a clear majority of Americans, including Catholics desire for it to be federally funded.

Thus is comes as no surprise that the well spring of his particular brand of authoritarian Catholicism is Opus Dei.  Brownback is also a member of The Fellowship, (or the Family) a secretive religious/political network about which Talk to Action contributor Jeff Sharlet wrote a New York Times best selling book, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power.

So, as the old saying goes, who shot Willy? Was it the over-zealous convert of a U.S. Senator who recklessly questions the consciences of fellow Catholic Senators because of their adherence to democratic pluralism?  Or was it the Catholic Right activist (who has a track record of less-than-stellar behavior) putting puts words in the mouth of a U.S. Senator?   Either way, it explodes the myth that unbending Catholic orthodoxy necessarily begets personal virtue.