Bush will attend funeral; it’s not about the Pope

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It appears President Bush will indeed go beyond hubris and impropriety when he attends the Pope's funeral - he is about to take his use of religion as a political tool to new levels.

Let’s be clear from the onset: Bush is no Catholic. It’s a large and diverse church that contains within its teachings philosophical support for a wide range of political views from conservative to radical left activism. There are a limited number of issues which church leaders and the President agree, but the heart of the church is the parish and the Beatitudes that are practiced there daily. I don’t believe that even Bush’s supporters would argue that this describes his personal or political philosophy. This is not a man who will join the Catholic Worker Movement when he leaves office.

Indeed, as we learned during the South Carolina primary in 2000, when it suited his political aims Bush was perfectly willing to use anti-Catholic bigotry by courting votes through Bob Jones University, whose founder Bob Jones III called Pope John Paul II the ''Antichrist'' and characterized the Catholic Church as a ''satanic cult.'' Later, Bush skillfully distanced himself from those statements, but never criticized the radical fundamentalist clerics who uttered or supported those statements.

So what’s changed in five years? Has Bush suddenly come to understand Catholicism? Has he come to accept the Pope’s criticisms and repent his war or use of capital punishment? Current pundit- think is that he’s courting Catholic conservatives and shoring up sagging approval ratings. Consider this from the Los Angeles Times:

“Bush Hasn't Won All of Pope's Flock”
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-politics4apr04,1,4340686.story?coll=la-headlines-world&ctrack=1&cset=true

“For decades, Catholics voted reliably for Democrats. But starting in 1972, although remaining predominantly Democratic in registration, many backed Republicans in presidential races. In recent presidential elections, Catholics split roughly in half. In 1996, Bill Clinton took 60% of the vote, but in the 2000 election Al Gore won just 50%. By contrast, Bush won 47% of the Catholic vote in 2000, then 52% in November.”

Catholic support has slipped since the election, small wonder, but this seems to suggest that only a marginal increase in support is recoverable. Presumably, Bush is not running for office again, and this doesn’t seem like the kind of base that will be unthinkingly loyal to the next Republican presidential candidate. At the same time Bush’s play of the “Catholic Card” runs the risk of again agitating the radical Christian clerics, plus the xenophobic supporters of that other Catholic, Pat Buchanan.

Does Bush expect conservative Catholic support in the mid-term elections to make a critical difference? Those in DU who are familiar with each race will have to answer that in detail, but statistically it seems improbable. Why would he risk so much for such marginal gain?

What I’m suggesting is that Bush is looking for support for his candidates in other elections, in Europe: German voters, Spanish voters, Italian voters. Standing next to the church in Venezuela wouldn't hurt either. In other words, it’s not about Boston Catholics, it’s about Bavarian Catholics.

Bush met with CDU Chair Angela Merkel in Mainz in February; his plan for a more public viewing of the Gutenberg Bible and tour of the Catholic Dom of St. Martin were derailed when public outrage threatened to spoil the illusion of a harmonious visit. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger met with CSU’s Bavarian Prime Minister Edmund Stoiber in March in California. Clearly the Bush administration would like nothing better that an alliance with a friendly government in Berlin that would not stand in the way of its agenda.

Bush is still despised by Europeans, but if he can identify himself with a mainstream church he can remove some of the stigma, perhaps just enough to give the closely allied conservative CDU/CSU coalition the margin they need for next year’s federal elections in Germany. It also prepares a longer term Republican/CDU/CSU coalition, in the heart of the EU, and sets up a socially conservative government with an agenda quite familiar to those with a memory of the Reagan years: higher deficits, concentrated media, lowered taxes for the wealthy, reduced regulation of business, reduction of social benefits, and in general, even more compliant to the wishes and goals of the American neocons and their corporate friends. We all know where that story goes.

This is hardly the first time religion has been used for the manipulation of a political outcome in Europe, and Europeans are hardly naïve about such things. Ironically, it was Pope John Paul II who pushed the Polish communists past the tipping point in their downfall. But never before has an American President risked being called a “Papist”, or so cynically used religion to further his aims in foreign elections.