The next president of the United States could be a Mormon whose faith requires
him to believe that Jesus visited America after the Resurrection and will
return one day to rule the world from Jackson County, Missouri.
However, Mitt Romney insists that, in the meantime, that would not affect how
he leads the free world.
He has an abundance of charm and personal wealth, improbable good looks for a
man of 60 and a spotless private life – one wife, five well-adjusted boys –
for which some other contenders for the 2008 Republican nomination might
mortgage their souls.
In an interview with The Times he appears ill at ease only when talking
about the religion that he says did so much to make him such a cut-glass
candidate.
“I don’t think my foreign policy has anything to do with my faith,” he
replies, when asked if the peculiarly American-centric nature and origins of
his Mormon doctrines would reinforce global resentment towards the United
States. “I believe that America is a stronger nation when we stand with our
friends. We must make more of an effort in reaching out to other nations.”
He promises to work together on “common objectives America can share with the
rest of the world” such as defeating “radical jihad”, global warming,
poverty and Aids. “We should listen as well as tell,” he says.
Just to be clear about this, do you believe that Jesus Christ came to America
and will come back to Missouri? “I’m not going to separate myself from my
faith,” Mr Romney says quietly. “I accept the doctrines of my Church and do
my best to live by them.”
Adherents of the Church believe the Book of Mormon was engraved in the 4th
century AD by a prophet of the same name. It is considered a successor to
the New Testament and details the preaching of Christ in the Americas.
Followers of the Church have long been victimised. Joseph Smith, its
founder, was killed by a mob in 1844 after he announced his own bid for the
presidency and Mormons eventually fled to Utah to escape persecution.
The debate about Mr Romney’s Mormonism continues to bubble through a
presidential campaign where many evangelical Christians, who carry such
weight in the Republican primaries, have profound doubts about putting a
member of “a cult” in the White House.
Mr Romney has variously tried to deflect or play down the differences with
more mainstream faiths, pointing out that Mormonism shares with them
ostensibly improbable beliefs such as Noah’s Ark.
In one interview he claimed that Jesus would return to the Mount of Olives in
Jerusalem, “the same as the other Christian tradition”. This got him into
trouble with some of his brethren in the Church of the LatterDay Saints,
whose official position is that the Saviour will rule from twin capitals of
the new Jerusalem in Missouri and the old one in the Middle East.
On other occasions Mr Romney has made clear his abhorrence of past Mormon
practices such as polygamy and racial discrimination – the Church allowed
the ordination of African Americans only in 1978. According to some polls,
more people say that they would not vote for him because he is a Mormon than
those who would refuse to support Barack Obama because he his black.
Does he ever feel like a victim of prejudice himself? “No, I’m the beneficiary
of a great number of advantages in my life. I recognise that the American
people will look at whatever they like but I don’t think they’ll decide the
presidency on what church I go to.”
Mr Romney cites another recent survey that found that his “faith was far less
weighty than either divorce or age”. He then referred to Republican rivals,
the thrice-married Rudy Giuliani and the 71-year-old John McCain, saying
that “neither of these things are going to hold [them] back”.
He is nonetheless considering making a big speech, addressing the issue
head-on, as John F. Kennedy did in 1960 when there were similar doubts about
electing a Catholic president. “I don’t know if it’s necessary,” Mr Romney
says. “I may do it, but just to talk about the topic.”
Can he make the same pledge as JFK to maintain a strict separation of Church
and State when so many conservative Republicans want a bigger role for
religion in public life? “I’m not sure I would be wise to repeat his line. I
would have to update the principles,” Mr Romney says. He suggests that the
speech would build on Kennedy’s view that “you don’t impose the doctrines of
your religion on anyone but perhaps yourself”.
Although he refuses to resile from his faith when it might be politically
expedient to do so, Mr Romney’s acute sensitivity on the subject chimes with
the other persistent charge against him, namely that he has “flip-flopped”
on a range of social issues to attract support for the Republican
nomination.
“The one place of significance where I changed my view was in respect to
abortion,” he says. When he ran for office in liberal Massachusetts, he
promised to maintain pro-choice laws and reinforced this impression by
telling the story of a close family relative who died in a botched abortion.
After being elected Governor of the state, he was confronted by an effort to
clone human embryos and realised, Mr Romney says, “I just could not go along
with that. It became very clear that I was not only personally pro-life but
politically pro-life.”
Other apparent shifts are a matter of emphasis, or “learning from experience”.
Whereas he once took on the powerful gun lobby, he more recently joined the
National Rifle Association as a life member. Elected in Massachusetts as a
strong supporter of gay rights, he now proclaims himself as a fierce
opponent of same-sex marriage.
Asked if he adjusts the tone of a message to suit his audience, Mr Romney
pleads guilty: “If you’re talking to an African-American audience you may
put more emphasis on civil rights than if you’re talking to a Republican
audience in Iowa. My guess is that is probably true of any leader – you
speak about the subjects they find interesting.”
This was clearly evident on Tuesday in Florida, where, within minutes of
telling this British newspaper about the need for American foreign policy to
reach out and listen to friends in Europe, he is up on his feet in front of
an audience of Republican voters.
“This is a unique nation,” he says. “It’s essential for the planet that this
nation remains strong.” Hillary Clinton, he gives warning, is inspired by
failed European polices of “big tax, Big Brother”.
Mr Romney has deep pockets and a stronger nuts-and-bolts campaign organisation
than his rivals. Although lagging in national polls behind Mr Giuliani, Fred
Thompson and Mr McCain, he leads in four of the first five states to hold
primaries – including Iowa and New Hampshire, where he has done no less than
462 campaign events this year.
He says that he still lacks the household-name status of “an actor” like Mr
Thompson, or the “aura that surrounds” Mr Giuliani, the former New York
Mayor. “So we have been focusing on doing well and picking up steam in the
early states, and that’s working better than I would have expected.”
The trend of the polls is upwards for Mr Romney, and aides say that he is “on
track” for the White House. He has raised more money than his Republican
rivals so far and made additional multimillion-dollar contributions from his
personal fortune, amassed during a 25-year business career that included
saving the Winter Olympics in the Mormon home state of Utah from bankruptcy.
At the same time he has hit rivals such as Mr McCain hard with an
uncompromising message against illegal immigration and is subtly chipping
away at the character issues surrounding Mr Giuliani.
“A lot has gone wrong with the Republican Party,” he says, during the time that
it had control of Congress and the White House between 2000 and 2006. It
failed to restrain spending, deal competently with crises such as Katrina
and Iraq – “where we did not do a superb job” – or practise the personal
values that it preached.
For someone promising to restore the “highest ethical and moral standards”
expected of Republicans, however, there is a lingering suspicion that he
carries the burden of his political and religious beliefs rather lightly.
Roots of a religion
— The Church of the LatterDay Saints, which has 12 million members, was
founded in 1830 by Joseph Smith, a New Yorker
— God, he said, told him to restore the true Christian Church. An angel told
him of a buried holy book in an ancient Native American tongue
— Many believe that Mormon scripture identifies Missouri as the site of the
Garden of Eden
— Followers of the Church fled to Utah to escape persecution
Source: Times archive
