Is the Twice-Divorced Newt Gingrich Converting to Catholicism for a 2012 Run?

By Max Blumenthal, The Daily Beast. Posted March 31, 2009.

“I believe you to be a confessing Christian and you and I have prayed together,” Dobson reminded Gingrich, “but when I heard you talk about this dark side of your life when we were in Washington, you spoke about it with a great deal of pain and anguish, but you didn't speak about repentance. Do you understand the meaning of repentance?”

With Dobson’s questioning of Gingrich’s faith, the sinner turned reflective. “They say when you're younger you want justice and when you're older you want mercy,” Gingrich said. “I also believe there are things in my own life that I have turned to God and got on my knees and prayed to God and asked for forgiveness. I don't know how you could live with yourself without breaking down and trying to find some way to deal with your own weaknesses and to go to God about them.”

Dobson seemed pleased with Gingrich’s confession and especially the image of the sorry politician on his knees before the Lord. Meanwhile, Hudson listened intently to the confessional interview. He was richly gratified. “Whether he is going to run for president or not, he has done the right thing for himself and the country,” Hudson wrote on his personal blog. “Gingrich will endure the predictable brickbats, but I admire his willingness to put this on the table, saying in effect to the country, ‘Here is who I am, and what I have done, if you still want me to run for president, I am ready.’”

After some early feints, Gingrich stayed out of the presidential race in 2008, observing it as a commentator for Fox News. (“[T]here is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us,” Gingrich warned during an on-air discussion of California’s anti-gay-marriage Proposition 8.) He would not be ready to consider running until his absolution was granted by Father Milton Jordan, the senior priest at St. Joseph’s Church in Washington.

With this act and Gingrich's subsequent conversion, Hudson said Gingrich has ratified his devotion to the “theocon” agenda. “Newt’s conversion represents about as radical a rejection of secularism and relativism as you can make,” Hudson told me.

With more than $5 million from right-wing casino baron Sheldon Adelson, Gingrich recently founded a conservative nonprofit called Renewing American Leadership. Among the group’s planned activities, which appear coordinated with a who’s who of the Christian right, are a series of “tea party”-style protests against Obama’s economic plan, and the production of a film about Pope John Paul II’s role in bringing down the Soviet Union.

According to Hudson, Gingrich’s outrage over Obama’s speech at Notre Dame was his first act as a Catholic politician. “When I learned he was about to convert, I understood his concern,” Hudson said. “He was worried about the Church he was about to enter.”

With his sins officially expunged, Gingrich appears poised to play a decisive role in the 2012 Republican presidential sweepstakes. Whether or not Gingrich declares his candidacy, Hudson, who advised John McCain in 2008 and plans to participate in the next campaign, says he believes Gingrich has consolidated his influence in the party. “[Gingrich] has gone through a change in his life through his third marriage and he has decided to settle down,” Hudson said. “You’re never too old to settle down.”

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Max Blumenthal is a senior writer for The Daily Beast and writing fellow at The Nation Institute, whose book, Republican Gomorrah (Basic/Nation Books), is forthcoming in Spring 2009. Contact him at maxblumenthal3000@yahoo.com.

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