The Catholic and Conservative Ramesh Ponnuru

“I aspire to put ‘Catholic’ before ‘conservative’ in my life,” explains Ramesh Ponnuru, interviewed in America. What this means for his politics he explains at another point in the interview:

I would say that Catholicism has made me a little softer in my politics. Since becoming Christian, I’ve tried harder to be charitable, deleting first drafts that aren’t charitable. I don’t know if I always succeed, but I didn’t do much of that at all before my conversion. I think Catholicism influences a lot of what I do. You know, I don’t think there’s a Catholic answer to the way tax policies should be. But I do think that the flourishing of families is a very important focus of my politics, and that does influence the way I come at everything from taxes and higher education to health care and the life issues

It has also changed my position on the death penalty. I do think opposition to the death penalty is rationally correct, but I don’t think it would be my position if I hadn’t become a Catholic. I was pro-life with respect to abortion before I became a Catholic, but I was not pro-life with respect to the death penalty. With that aside, I don’t think it’s changed many of my positions, but it’s changed the way I think about a number of issues.

There is some tension between American conservatives and Catholicism on the death penalty and immigration, he goes on to say. I think there’s a greater tension than that, especially as American conservatism has been infected by libertarianism, but that’s a subject for another time.