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Newt Gingrich on Catholicism and JPII

E-mail|Link|Comments () Posted by Michael Paulson October 9, 2009 04:16 PM

Newt Gingrich came to town yesterday. In the morning, he spoke to a breakfast gathering in Boston hosted by Catholic Citizenship; in the evening, he was at Harvard to speak at the Kennedy School. Gingrich, of course, is an interesting figure for a lot of reasons; I wanted to talk with him about his recent conversion to Catholicism, and the film he is now making about Pope John Paul II's 1979 visit to Poland. The interview was pretty limited -- I had seven minutes with him at the venerable Union Club on Beacon Hill -- but here's what he had to say in that period of time:

Q: Can you first tell me why you wanted to become a Catholic?
A: I don't know that I wanted to become a Catholic so much as I became a Catholic. I don't know that it was volitional in that sense. Having gone to the basilica (The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, in Washington) with my wife, who sings in the choir there, for about a decade, I think it gradually grew on me. And when Pope Benedict came to the basilica for vespers with the bishops, and my wife and the choir were singing, and I was allowed to come as a spouse -- I had been talking with Monsignor Rossi, who is the rector of the basilica, for about five years, just about faith, and secularism, the challenges we have in the modern world with our civilization, and that afternoon seeing Pope Benedict XVI fairly close up, and both really believing in his central theme of 'Christ Our Hope,' and seeing the joy in his eyes, fundamentally different than the news media portrait of a severe German intellectual, something in me just was triggered. And I said to Monsignor Rossi that night that I wanted to convert. And we spent the following six or eight months studying with Monsignor Rossi, and it was more a process of becoming more and more comfortable that this was -- this is -- the place that I belong, and the taking of the Eucharist is the experience that enriches my life.

Q: How did you think about Catholicism, growing up among Protestants?
A: I grew up all over the world. I was born in Pennsylvania, and was raised originally as a Lutheran, and then was, my dad was in the Army, so I was whatever the Protestant chaplain was. I was at one point a Presbyterian acolyte. And I think, as a professional historian, you can't study modern European history without some sense of the church, and the sense of the depth and the history of the church. I think, probably from the time I was a child, when my dad was stationed in France…this sense of the -- I may use the word wrong -- but the sense of the magisterium of the church, the sense of the power and majesty of the church, the fact that you're dealing with 2,000 years of history. My dad had studied Augustine in college, and had a copy of Augustine's 'City of God' when I was a child, and you just had this sense of, that you are encountering a continuum of effort to understand God and to explain God to humans, that is pretty overwhelming.

Q: Tell me about how you decided to make a film about a pope as one of your first public acts as a Catholic?
A: Well, we had made a movie, called 'Rediscovering God in America,' which really contextualized American history, in terms of the Washington monuments. Then, we made a film about Reagan, called 'Rendezvous with Destiny,' and in filming the Reagan movie, we had gone to Gdansk, and interviewed Lech Walesa, and we had gone to Prague, and interviewed Vaclav Havel, and both said in their interviews that the decisive moment in the breaking of the Soviet Union was June of 1979, and the pope's 9-day visit. As we thought about that, and began to put it in context, I'd been reading Weigel, starting with 'The Cube and the Cathedral,' and then 'The Final Revolution' and then his biography of the pope, and if you read 'The Final Revolution,' Weigel really argues that the central role of religious belief and the central role of religious organization was at the center of what was happening in Eastern Europe. And then when you interview Lech Walesa, he says, 'You can't understand what happened with Solidarity if you don't understand what the church was doing, if you don't understand what the pope was doing.' And even Vaclav Havel, who is a playwright, was saying – he's not Polish, but he's saying, 'As a neighboring Czech, let me tell you what it meant to us to have a Slavic pope and to have somebody who understood tyranny' and so forth. So I dug into all of that. And then you get to this extraordinary story of the pope, who is born about a year and a half after Poland becomes a country again for the first time since 1793; as a teenager, sees Poland destroyed again by Germany and the Soviet Union; participates in the Rhapsodic Theater at a time when it means a death penalty, in order to sustain Polish culture; enters the seminary for the priesthood at a time when there's a death penalty; becomes a priest under the emerging Communist dictatorship; serves all of his priesthood under the Communists; knew many Jews, understood Auschwitz, has a childhood friend who is Jewish; and this is the man who, in 1978, becomes pope. I mean it is an extraordinary moment in history. And he is an athletic energetic actor who is a charismatic leader. And he has the key underlying insight that you defeat Communism at a cultural level, that you pit the cross against the Soviet emblem, and that the cross ultimately will defeat atheism.

Q: Do you see this as a personal film in any way, or is this purely an academic, documentary exercise?
A: No, I think this which will be -- if we can do it right, and this is a big challenge -- this is a film which I hope will be personal, immediate, people won't walk out and say, 'Gee, that was interesting 30 years ago,' they'll walk out and say, 'What does this mean for my life in my country today.' We hope to translate the film into Mandarin, and we've been asked to translate it now into Vietnamese because there are 5 million Vietnamese Catholics; we hope to translate it into Polish, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, because we see this as a universal film that has an impact for people everywhere on the planet.

Q: So do you still have political aspirations, or is filmmaking now your mission?
A: I think I have a public citizen aspiration. Whether it goes beyond that, we'll find out over the next few years.

(Photos, by David L. Ryan of the Globe staff, show Newt Gingrich at the Union Club in Boston on Oct. 8, 2009.)

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13 comments so far...

Search "Newt Gingrich/Sun Myung Moon" and see where this turkey is really coming from. His association with a fascist megalomaniac who believes himself to be the rightful successor of Jesus, sent to correct the mistakes made by Christ, should have Newt pounding the pavement begging for quarters, not being interviewed on his so called conversion.

Posted by David Long October 9, 09 10:11 PM

Recommend that Mr. Gingrich read Malachi Martin's "The Keys of this Blood." (Simon and Schuster--1990)

It will open his eyes to the reality that the "cold war era"--capitalism vs. communism--has been replaced by the "cultural war era"--capitalism vs. christianity.

Posted by Joe Magaratz October 10, 09 03:41 AM

I'm very surprised and happy to read something so great about Newt. I would have thought that he would have credited President Reagan with a much greater influence in "the Tearing Down of this "Wall". I look forward to seeing and hearing news of his projects in the future.
There's hope for you too, David.

Posted by Charlie Mc October 11, 09 10:31 AM

David is a classic narcissist.

Narcissism is categorized as a personality disorder by the mental health profession. It is referred to as NPD or Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Few are ever diagnosed because few go to therapy. Narcissism is not high self-esteem, but a condition where the typical narcissist suffers from

* Preoccupation with hiding real or perceived flaws
* Overestimation of importance, achievements, talents and skills
* Maladaptive attention seeking behavior
* Inability to empathize with others
* Excessive anger and shame in response to criticism often resulting in rage

You're in good company, David, the last two democratic presidents share your condition.

Posted by KJR October 11, 09 04:03 PM

KJR - So much for psycho-babble from someone who believes truth comes from handed down myths and superstitions, which have been amassed, dogmatized, institutionalized and then handed down from ancestors who thought the world was flat and disease was caused by demons. I'm sure you have impressed only the people infected with your same lack of reality.

Charlie Mc - Newt Gingrich, a man so callously self centered that he started divorce proceedings against his wife while she was painfully dying of cancer, so he could take up with his staffer (current wife), would embrace the devil (if such a creature existed) if he thought he could derive some benefit from the association. Newt is now positioning himself for a seizure of the crumbling remnants of the Republican party, which he plans to use to put the corporatist Neocons back into power, so they can again loot the economy with impunity. His close association, both financial and political, with Cultist fascist Sun Myung Moon, owner of "The Washington Times" propaganda rag, is well documented and he is the last person (after the screech-owl from Alaska) who belongs sitting in The White House.

Posted by David Long October 11, 09 09:35 PM

David, Gingrich's wife was not dying of cancer, she had cancer. She is alive and fine today. Moreover, Gingrich and his wife had been separated for sometime and he had met someone else. As he intended to remarry, he filed for divorce. Then his wife was diagnosed with cancer. He held off the divorce for about a year and a half (as I remember), and when his wife was in remission, he went through with the divorce.

Gingrich's conversion to Catholicism is something that should be celebrated. Good for him.

Posted by Jim October 12, 09 11:34 AM

Jim - I stand corrected, she is still alive, but his sleazy nature and bad timing is illustrated by this quote from a cite called Newt Gingrich's Skeleton Closet, which states, "Newt pressed his first wife to sign divorce papers while she was still in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery. He also graciously said "She isn't young enough or pretty enough to be the President's wife." But his second marriage hasn't been that smooth either. Newt and Marianne have been separated - "frankly", she told the Washington Post in June 1989, "it's been on and off for some time.".

As to his embracing any superstitonally derived religion, that is never a good thing. I'm sure he has good political reasons to do so, or else, as a colossal hypocrite, he wouldn't bother. His association with fascist cultist megalomaniac self-styled new messiah, Sun Myung Moon, is not to be denied

Posted by David Long October 12, 09 02:06 PM

KJR - how does a personal attack (classic narcissist) against another poster add anything constructive to the discussion? That was a mean statement. Worse, it is nothing less than a club made of words. We have an opportunity to engage each other, to disagree in a safe forum, but your words were simply a blunt instrument to put a person down. To shut the person down, to push them out. To force them into a silent submission.

Attacking others with insults and offense diminishes the attackers credibility.

Posted by Movingforwardsorbackwards October 20, 09 03:02 PM

Movingforward... you are obviously new to this Board. David has personally attacked everyone and everyone on this Board as delusional, fantasy-laden, idiots for weeks. I was merely pointing out the classic symptoms that he has displayed for those weeks of a narcissist. Don't worry, he has the shield of ego on him... he is not going anywhere.

Posted by KJR October 22, 09 05:17 PM

Movingforwardorbackwards - KJR doesn't care, he is the possessor of the beneficence of "Ultimate truth" from his make-believe deities. In his world, we are all anathema.

Posted by David Long October 22, 09 07:05 PM

Thanks Mike, ALL,
Back for one note on my favorite unChristian

ST: Newt not Good in my knowledge

I am glad that one of you DavidLong pulled up this item from my memory. I remember this one when it was first published. I mean Newt was a busy, powerful man. I watched him close down all those new Republicans elected in the Great Turn Over and I saw him prevent debate and public displayed investigations.

"but his sleazy nature and bad timing is illustrated by this quote from a cite called Newt Gingrich's Skeleton Closet, which states, "Newt pressed his first wife to sign divorce papers while she was still in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery."

I saw Newt recently on CSPan at a Big Republican get together. I won't give the link yet I am sure you can find it. I mean the lies those people were telling each other was beyond Christianity and several Catholic commandments.

Mike only had a few minutes so he had to let Newt be the commander of those few moments. Newt likes it that way, and if you talked to Tony Blair he would probably do the same.

Back in one bit.

Posted by MANY_MrDave October 24, 09 09:35 AM

Thanks Again Mike,

ST: Newt the ??? / Probably Manipulator

Jesus spoke about the cleaning of your house from devils, and how once it is cleaned 7 devils come back. Clean it again and they search out even more devils to clean your house. Newt might be that house cleaner.

Q1: Power People and ?? GOD People
"And I said to Monsignor Rossi that night that I wanted to convert. And we spent the following six or eight months studying with Monsignor Rossi,"

Wow most of us had to have a journeyman first train us. I guess Newt needs the top guy. I remember a glowing interview of Bush-II (P43) and how he walked the beach with Billy Graham and learned of GOD. Bush-II (W-Man) brought us Hate, War and a devisive world so what did he learn on those private beach walks.

Q2: Augustine
Yet did he read it. Did he also read the Illiad?

Q3: Movie Mogul Newt
So why is he still such a devisive figure. Why doesn't he "CALL OUT" Fox and the Fascist-GOP

Q4:
Q5: Political Aspirations
Yep, he probably wants to run against Huck and needs to seem reborn and build a different base

Posted by MANY_MrDave October 24, 09 09:51 AM

Once Again,

ST: Newt if he Wants to Be Christian

Lots of good stories exist in the Bible of power people who history recorded as failures. The Book of Kings, with it's Judges companion, is one such book that is very sobering. These were men of long term power yet later despised.

Now my man Zeke is scary yet if you read him and a few others you will see that Newt is taking the easy road. Newt, Call Out Fox - - - Call Out the Fascist Wing of the GOP _ _. Bring back the GOP from the Skin Heads and Haters

Posted by MANY_MrDave October 24, 09 10:04 AM

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Michael Paulson covers religion for The Boston Globe. He shared in the Pulitzer Prize in 2003, won the Mike Berger, Templeton and Supple awards in 2008, and is a four-time winner of the Wilbur Award.
E-mail mpaulson@globe.com.

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Harvey Cox, the Hollis professor of divinity at Harvard University, marks his retirement by asserting a little-used right of his professorship -- to graze a cow in Harvard Yard. Photo, by Barry Chin of the Globe staff, taken on Sept. 10, 2009 in Cambridge, Mass.