Sacred Ground

by Eboo Patel

  Ever the wily politician, Gingrich accurately predicted that the Cordoba House issue was likely to disappear as quickly as it had arrived, a phenomena produced by a 24/7 cable news machine seeking a controversy in the notoriously slow-news weeks of late summer. The anti-Muslim sentiment would continue to simmer, but would require a new hook to stay in the spotlight. It didn’t take Gingrich long to find it. In a policy speech at the American Enterprise Institute, he spoke darkly of the infiltration of sharia law into the United States. Gingrich claimed that any activity that facilitated sharia’s advance should be stopped. He chose to single out the growing industry of sharia financing: “Teaching about sharia financing is dangerous,” Gingrich claimed, “because it is the first step toward the normalization of sharia, and I believe sharia is a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States and in the world as we know it. I think it’s that straightforward and that real.”5

  Like his statements on Cordoba House, Gingrich’s comments about sharia were quoted repeatedly by the press and became a rallying point for the anti-Muslim movement across America. They were widely credited with the movement to ban sharia law in Oklahoma, a referendum that passed with 70 percent of the vote in a state where sharia law was never proposed and Muslims make up less than 1 percent of the population. Knowing that he’d struck political gold, Gingrich continued his campaign. At the Values Voter Summit, he received a standing ovation when he called for “a federal law that says sharia law cannot be recognized by any court in the United States.” To commemorate the ninth anniversary of 9/11, Gingrich wrote a piece in which he warned of the presence of stealth radical Islamists: “In addition to the violent Radical Islamists who would use force to destroy America, there are stealth Radical Islamists who use our political system and our commitment to free speech and liberty to undermine our democracy through infiltration, intimidation, and propaganda. Both the violent Radical Islamists and the stealth Radical Islamists represent a mortal threat to the American system of Constitutional Law and political freedom.”6

  The great scholar of religion Reinhold Niebuhr once wrote that the most useful lens through which to view the intersection of religion with politics in American history is irony. Irony allows you to look at situations that might be considered tragic and find the comedy, to view instances that might initially cause you to laugh out loud and pause to locate the deeper meaning. Irony can be defined as the “apparently fortuitous incongruities in life which are discovered, upon closer examination, to be not merely fortuitous.” It is at work when “virtue becomes vice through some hidden defect in the virtue.” And, above all, Niebuhr emphasized, “The ironic situation is distinguished from a pathetic one by the fact that the person involved bears in it some responsibility for it.”7

  When it comes to Gingrich and irony, it’s hard to know where to start. There are ample examples, both personal and political. As he was lecturing salt-of-the-earth Midwesterners on fiscal prudence, he maintained a half-million-dollar credit line at the jewelry store Tiffany’s. The extramarital affair that drove Gingrich from office in the late 1990s was in full (ahem) swing at the same time he was spearheading impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton for the president’s liaison with Monica Lewinsky. He publicly railed against the mortgage giant Freddie Mac for its role in the mortgage crisis but happily accepted over $1.5 million in consulting fees from it.8 But the ironies layered in Gingrich’s dealings with Islam take the cake, not just for what they say about the former Speaker, but about what they illustrate with respect to the intersection of religion and politics in America in the early days of the twenty-first century.

  As his conversation with Suhail Khan suggest, Newt Gingrich was a friend to Muslims long before he was a friend to Muslim haters. Not only did he provide Muslims a space to pray inside the US Capitol in the 1990s, in the early 2000s Gingrich attended meetings of the Islamic Free Market Institute, whose mission was to promote education about sharia-compliant banking and finance among Americans, supporting a practice that he called a mortal threat to freedom a few years later. But back then, Gingrich saw a political opportunity in the growing Muslim population. According to someone present at one of the meetings, Gingrich “was very positive, very supportive. His whole attitude was that Muslims are part of the American fabric and that Muslim Americans should be Republicans.” Gingrich’s overtures were well received by some segments of the American Muslim community. In 2007, a group called Muslims for America wrote in its newsletter that Gingrich should be nominated for president, stating that “unlike other politicians, Gingrich doesn’t see us at war with Islam.”9

  In his 2006 New York Times best seller Rediscovering God in America, Newt Gingrich wrote, “It is a testament to the genius of the Founding Fathers that they designed a practical form of government that allows religious groups the freedom to express their strong religious beliefs in the public square—a constitutional framework that avoids inter-religious conflict and discrimination.”10 He referenced the philosopher Michael Novak’s insight that reverence for God and fidelity to core principles had given rise to both remarkable religious diversity and inspiring religious tolerance in America. He quoted Alexis de Tocqueville’s observation that religion in America played a key role in supporting civic institutions. And he spoke proudly of the American tradition of according respect to all religions.

  This all makes Gingrich sound like the man Suhail Khan came to Washington to work for, Tom Campbell. Both were Republicans who viewed religious pluralism as a central element of American greatness, and who found ways to extend that respect in both their personal and professional lives. It was thanks to Campbell that Suhail had a space for his private prayers in the Capitol, and thanks to Gingrich that Muslim federal employees had a space for their congregational prayers. Suhail viewed these gestures as entirely consistent with Republican Party values—equal freedom for all groups and the welcoming of faith in the public square. In addition to party affiliation and agreement on the role faith should play in America, Gingrich and Campbell have, as of 2009, something else in common: a church.

  Newt Gingrich can be seen most Sundays sitting in a pew awaiting the noon mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, a Catholic church in northeast Washington, DC, watching his wife Callista sing in the choir. When they are on the road, whether they are in Des Moines or Costa Rica, he and Callista find a local Catholic church to attend. Gingrich has written about “the beautiful experience” of listening to “Amazing Grace” being sung in Chinese at Mass in Beijing, of “marveling . . . at the historic truth of the church” on his first visit to St. Peter’s Basilica, of the comfort he takes in being surrounded by two millennia of church history and teaching. He describes Pope Benedict XVI’s 2008 visit to Washington, DC, as a turning point for him. Gingrich attended the private vespers service Benedict presided over with the US Conference of American Bishops and found himself awed by the pope’s very presence: “Catching a glimpse of Pope Benedict that day, I was struck by the happiness and peacefulness he exuded. The joyful and radiating presence of the Holy Father.” It was the event, Gingrich said, that moved him to formally convert to the Catholic faith.11

  The Catholic leader Gingrich speaks most passionately about is Pope John Paul II, calling him “one of the most consequential figures of our lifetime.” He and Callista cohosted a film about John Paul II’s life and took it on tour around the country. The message of the film focuses on the impact of faith in the world, using the example of John Paul II’s role in liberating Poland and defeating communism through the power of freedom through faith. It’s a message that Gingrich believes America needs now more than ever. In Gingrich’s comparison, contemporary America, like Communist Poland, has banned school prayer, knocks crosses off public spaces, and considers it more acceptable to be an atheist than a Christian.12

  Gingrich rarely used his Catholic faith as a reason to bash Muslims. The Catholic Church, at least since the Second Vatican Council in the 196
0s, has been quite clear on its respect for other world religions, especially Islam and Judaism. In fact, the man Gingrich called “one of the most consequential figures of our lifetime” was also the man who built powerful bridges between the Catholic Church and Muslim communities around the world. When Pope John Paul II went to Morocco in 1985, he was the first Holy Father to visit an officially Islamic country. In his address to thousands of young Muslims in the stadium in Casablanca, he said, “We believe in the same God, the one God, the living God.”13 Six years later, John Paul II was the first pope to visit an Islamic house of worship, the Umayyad mosque in Syria, where he paused to pray before a memorial to John the Baptist, an event televised across much of the Muslim world. There were symbolic events like two World Peace Prayer Days held at Assisi, and there were scholarly bridges, like the ties between Catholic scholars at the Vatican and Muslim scholars at Al Azhar. In other words, it is Catholic theology to build bridges with Muslims.

  And it is a fact of American history that for much of our nation’s past, the Catholic Church was viewed as a seditious force and the Catholic masses were referred to as “the Catholic Menace.” As a former professor of history, Gingrich knows as well as anyone that we live in a unique time in America, a time when he can speak openly about the beauty he finds in Catholic ritual and the admiration he has for Catholic leaders, and feel confident that his faith will not only be accepted but will also be viewed as a political asset. In past eras, such statements would have earned Gingrich the reputation of being a stealth agent for the Catholic hierarchy, a tool of foreign elements, of using America’s freedom of speech and open political system to threaten that very system. “The deepest bias in the history of the American people” is how historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. referred to our nation’s history of anti-Catholic prejudice. In short, once Gingrich would have been accused of the very crimes he accuses Muslims of now.

  Had Gingrich been walking a village green in any city on the Eastern Seaboard during colonial times, he might have come across a “Pope’s Day” celebration where the effigy of the Holy Father was burned, children sang anti-Catholic songs, and adults toasted the overthrow of “the Beast” prophesied by the Book of Revelation. Gingrich could not have pursued a political career in those times, because in many of the colonies, Catholics were forbidden from holding public office, even from serving on juries. In fact, had Gingrich been searching for a place to celebrate Mass in Lower Manhattan through most of the eighteenth century, he would have come up empty. In the same area where Gingrich registered his opposition to Cordoba House, priests were subject to arrest and Catholics were effectively barred from practicing their faith. It wasn’t until the late 1700s that the first Catholic parish, St. Peter’s, was established, and even then Manhattan residents demanded that the church be built outside of the city limits. There were concerns that foreign money from the enemies of New York was involved, and indeed King Charles III, of Catholic Spain, made a $1,000 contribution, a royal sum two centuries ago. On Christmas Eve 1806, in one of the many demonstrations outside of St. Peter’s, the building was surrounded by people enraged by the service of “popish superstition” occurring inside, otherwise known as Christmas Mass. Dozens of people were injured and one died in the riot.

  In the nineteenth century, as Catholic immigration to America swelled, the anti-Catholic movement grew and got more organized. The best-selling books, the high-profile speakers, and the growing civil-society organizations like the American and Foreign Christian Union had a clear and compelling message: Catholicism was a foreign and seditious force on American soil whose purpose was to convert the masses to an evil, lustful religion. America is by nature free and open; Catholicism is inherently authoritarian and dominating. If allowed to grow, it would replace the American government with the Catholic hierarchy and plant the flag of the pope at the White House. The Catholic strategy of domination was to spread through its institutions—its schools, its churches, its hospitals—each one a Trojan horse carrying the hateful faith inside.

  There were slogans and campaigns, speakers and authors, organizations and networks, policy papers and that era’s version of websites—tracts. Had Gingrich been browsing in a bookstore at that time, he would have seen a best seller called The Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk on prominent display. The book chronicled the life of a Protestant teenage girl captured by Roman Catholic clergy and forced to do their bidding. The confessional was a place where priests raped nuns, the convent a place where the children of these unions were buried after they were baptized. The mother superior explained to poor Maria, “Their little souls would thank those who kill their bodies, if they had it in their power.”14 Awful Disclosures, along with Uncle Tom’s Cabin, was one of the best-selling books of antebellum culture.

  Lyman Beecher, one of the most respected Evangelical figures of his era, was also one of the most prominent speakers on the anti-Catholic circuit. On August 10, 1834, Beecher gave a series of sermons in Boston churches, claiming that “the principles of this corrupt church are adverse to our free institutions” and using as a prime example the Ursuline Convent in nearby Charlestown. Had Gingrich been in Charlestown twenty-four hours later, he would have watched the crowds burn the convent to the ground.

  By the mid-nineteenth century, a political party emerged to ride the wave of anti-Catholic sentiment that the civil-society movement had expertly cultivated. It was commonly called the Know Nothings because its members, when asked what they knew about the party’s workings, would say, “I know nothing.” In 1854, this party so dominated American politics that it elected seventy-five people to Congress, and legislatures in several states were composed almost entirely of Know Nothing politicians. Politicians who were running unopposed on the ballot would find themselves defeated by write-in candidates affiliated with the Know Nothings. Abraham Lincoln observed, “Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation we began by declaring that ‘all men are created equal.’ We now practically read it ‘all men are created equal, except negroes.’ When the Know Nothings get control, it will read, ‘all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.’ ”15

  The Know Nothings sought to prevent Catholics from establishing their institutions and influence in America. If they had won, it wouldn’t simply be Catholics who suffered. The 573 Catholic hospitals in the United States, which treat over 85 million patients a year, might not exist. Nor would the 231 Catholic colleges and the 7,000 Catholic elementary and secondary schools, which educate over 2 million students a year, a third of whom are members of racial and ethnic minorities. Catholic Charities USA provides social services for over 10 million people a year. Almost all of these institutions—hospitals, schools, colleges, social-service agencies—serve people beyond the Catholic community. In fact, that is part of how they understand their mission: Catholics for the common good. It is a system of service so large and impressive that, without it, American civil society would literally be unrecognizable.

  The Know Nothing Party, like the headlines around Cordoba House, faded as suddenly as it arrived. But anti-Catholic prejudice remained an American hallmark well into the twentieth century. There were the hateful hoods of the Ku Klux Klan and the bigotry that helped defeat a Catholic candidate for president, Al Smith, in 1928. Most famously, there was the movement against another presidential candidate who happened to be Catholic and faced a highly organized opposition largely from Evangelical Protestants in America: John F. Kennedy. I have no doubt that Gingrich studied that election closely. But unlike his fellow Republican Michael Bloomberg, Gingrich didn’t take away a deep sympathy for those who suffer religious prejudice. Instead, he learned the tactics of the perpetrators.16

  THE EVANGELICAL SHIFT

  In May 1959, George Gallup released a survey showing that over one-fourth of Americans said they would not vote for a Catholic for president. Gallup’s research showed that John F. Kennedy led Richard Nixon by 57 percent to 43 percent among likely vote
rs when religion was not called to their attention.1 The fear in the Kennedy camp was that those numbers would change markedly if faith was brought to the forefront.

  The Kennedy strategy was to distance him from the Catholic hierarchy as much as possible. He met in private settings with Protestant leaders who expressed concern about his faith, and submitted himself to their soft inquisition. For every possible issue in which there might be a concern about how Catholicism impacted public policies, Kennedy erected a wall between his faith and his politics: Were Catholics required to attend Catholic schools? No, he and his brothers had attended other schools. Would a Catholic politician hire only Catholic staff and appoint only Catholics to powerful positions? No, hiring and appointments would be based on merit—just look at his Senate office. What about federal funds for Catholic schools? The Supreme Court had ruled such funding unconstitutional, and Kennedy agreed with that. Would he appoint an ambassador to the Vatican? He would not.2

  Kennedy hoped that these private meetings would quiet the Catholic questions. They didn’t. During the campaign, Kennedy’s faith kept coming up, requiring him to do interviews and give major speeches on the subject. He told Look magazine in February 1959, “Whatever one’s religion in private life may be, for the officeholder, nothing takes precedence over his oath to uphold the Constitution in all parts—including the First Amendment and the strict separation of Church and State.”3 In April 1960, he told the American Association of Newspaper Editors, “I am not the Catholic candidate for President. I am the Democratic Party’s candidate for President who happens to be Catholic. I do not speak for the Catholic Church on issues of public policy, and no one in that Church speaks for me.”4 And, in one of the most memorable speeches made by a presidential candidate in recent American history, he told the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in September 1960, with just a few weeks to go until the election, “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute; where no Catholic prelate would tell the President—should he be Catholic—how to act. . . . I want a chief executive whose public acts . . . and whose fulfillment of his Presidential office [are] not limited or conditioned by any religious oath, ritual or obligation.”5