“I think politicians who divorce themselves from their faith
are being hypocrites. I can’t see how one can do that. …We’re
taught that in business, that in raising our children, in how we
conduct ourselves with our family, in everything we do, our
religious principles need to be in the forefront of our minds. That
should apply to people who hold public office, to
politicians.”
—Rep. Paul Ryan, December
2004
A few weeks after the 2004 election, my brother and I
interviewed Rep. Paul Ryan for a TV series on Catholic political
figures and their faith. The role of faith in politics was at the
forefront of the political debate. Senator John Kerry’s narrow loss
in the presidential election was widely viewed as partly the result
of the former altar boy’s inability to credibly reconcile his
Catholic faith with his support for abortion and same-sex
marriage.
Our interview with Ryan, who had just won his fourth term in
Congress, never aired. I highlight parts of it that offer insight
into the faith of the only Catholic nominated for national office
since the culture wars erupted who does not disown the core moral
theological doctrine of his church.
Ryan’s abortion position has been much in the news. Ryan once
described himself as “as pro-life as a person gets.” Democrats are
labeling Ryan’s position — anti-abortion except when the mother’s
life is at risk — as extreme and making it a cornerstone of their
case against Republicans. But Ryan’s view reflects that of his
church. “I’ve always been pro-life. I believe life begins at
conception and ends at natural death,” Ryan explained.
I think the Pope’s (John Paul II) consistent leadership on this
issue has been very important. His unwavering support for life is
very important because the Pope is our rock in this. If he had not
advocated a consistent position on life throughout his pontificate,
I think the entire life movement would have been damaged.
For me as a politician, as a person who votes on those issues, I
just can’t see how one can separate themselves from your religious
principles and the laws we vote on, especially with respect to
life. We see politicians do that every day up here.
The last Catholic presidential nominee said that he personally
believed life begins at conception and ends at natural death, but
he wouldn’t want to impose those beliefs through public laws. I
just can’t conceive of how a person could make that statement. That
basically means you believe that abortion is a taking of a life
that ought to be protected but you’re not going to do anything to
protect it. I just can’t understand how someone could justify that
kind of position inside their mind let alone their conscience.
That’s why I think it’s very important that our church has been
very consistent on these issues. And it’s very important that when
we run for office, we tell people who we are, what we believe and
what we’re going to do in office. Then we’ll never have a position
or a situation where we are torn when we act on these convictions
while we are in office, while we are serving.
We asked Ryan whether his Catholic faith might sometimes put him
at odds with non-Catholic constituents. “I really don’t worry about
alienating non-Catholics because when I talk about how I, as a
Catholic politician, conduct myself in office, consistent with
Catholic principles, I talk about our founders, I talk about our
Constitution, I talk about the Declaration of Independence, the
fact that our country was founded on the belief that we are free to
express our religion in the public square,” he said.
The separation of church and state is not a phrase that is
contained in any of our founding documents. The concept that is
behind that phrase is one where the government won’t back one
singular denomination over another, but that we are free to
practice our faith in the public square, and I site constitutional
framers, and the principles of our country in defending what I do
in office. So non-Catholics and Catholics alike respect the
principles and the writings of our founding fathers. And those are
what I invoke when I talk about how and why I do what I do in
office.
We did not discuss fiscal issues with Ryan that day. But at
other times he has talked about how his faith informs his economic
views. “The work I do as a Catholic holding office conforms to the
social doctrine as best I can make of it,” Ryan told an audience at
Catholic Georgetown University in April. “The Holy Father, Pope
Benedict, has charged that governments, communities, and
individuals running up high debt levels are ‘living at the expense
of future generations’ and ‘living in untruth.’”
Ryan’s approach to fighting poverty, he explained at Georgetown,
is rooted in solidarity and subsidiarity, “virtues that, when taken
together, revitalize civil society instead of displacing it.… We
put our trust in people, not in government. Our budget incorporates
subsidiarity by returning power to individuals, to families and to
communities.”
Much has been made of Ayn Rand’s influence on Ryan. The atheist
philosopher, Ryan said in 2005, is “the reason I got involved in
public service.” But Rand’s objectivism is not what sustains Ryan.
“I reject her philosophy,” he said recently. “It’s an atheist
philosophy. It reduces human interactions down to mere contracts,
and it is antithetical to my worldview.”
Some pundits have suggested that Ryan is distancing himself from
Rand and emphasizing his faith in order to appear more
compassionate to a national audience. But from our interview, which
took place only a few months before Ryan’s Rand remark, it seems
clear that it’s Ryan’s faith that has always guided his
policymaking.
Instead of Rand, Ryan has offered Thomas Aquinas as a
fundamental influence. In our interview, Ryan talked about the
influence of another popular St. Thomas: St. Thomas More, English
martyr and patron of politicians:
We have a study group here in Washington among conservative
Catholic politicians called the St. Thomas More study group. We
have guest speakers who come in to meet with us about once or twice
a month.… So the example that St. Thomas More set is one that many
of us here in Congress are not only trying to emulate but try to
learn about… trying to respect, trying to study and trying to have
the example set out for us. So it’s something that many of us have
in the front of our minds as an example of how we ought to conduct
ourselves while serving in office.
We asked Ryan what he prays for. He said:
I pray for my family, to be a good husband to my wife to be a
good father to my children. And then I pray to keep my principles
intact. That in my daily life, as a member of Congress, that I
follow God will, and that I follow His consistent principles.
That’s what I pray for, and to have the strength to do that. There
are a lot of pressures in every job. There are tremendous pressures
in this job as a member of Congress, especially in these times. And
so I just pray for the strength to be consistent, to follow God’s
principles as I know them to be.
Ryan concluded our interview by distinguishing between the two
kinds of people who run for office. The primary dividing line, he
said, is not between Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and
liberals or Catholics and non-Catholics, but instead between what
he called “be-ers” and “do-ers.” Using a formulation that helps
explain Ryan’s subsequent political rise and offers a forecast of
Ryan’s future, win or lose, he said:
Some people run for office because they want to be a
congressman or be a senator, or to be a governor.
And then there are people who run for office because they want to
do something. And they want to act on certain convictions
and principles, and advance a cause.
We unfortunately have a lot of be-ers in Congress, a lot of
be-ers in government. Do-ers are the people who actually advance
society, make a difference. And that’s the covenant that we as
elected officials have with our constituents, where we tell our
constituents who we are, what we believe and what we will do.
That’s the covenant we have with our constituents. And when in
office, we have the obligation, the moral authority, to act on that
covenant.
