Rick’s religious concerns

Everyone knows about Mitt Romney’s Mormonism — and that his religion might freak voters out — but what about Rick Santorum’s connection to Opus Dei? Santorum is not, he says, a member of ‘the work’. But he is close to it. His parish in Virginia has Opus Dei links, and, as The New Republic reports:

‘In 2002, he travelled to Rome with high-profile American members for the 100th birthday of Opus Dei’s founder, Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer. (The five-day event is where Santorum first criticized John F. Kennedy’s “separation of church and state” speech, speaking to a reporter.) He has also sent two of his sons to the Heights School, a Washington, D.C. school with ties to Opus Dei.’

The trouble for Rick is that, among the literate and semi-literate masses, an association with Opus Dei is political poison. Thanks to the mega success of Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code — which portrayed OD as a sinister conspiracy cult — the personal prelature is widely seen as a force for ill. And that’s among secularists, agnostics, evangelicals, Muslims, whatever.

In fact, many Catholics feel uneasy about Opus Dei, possibly for similar reasons to those which make them uneasy about Mormons. OD members tend to be secretive about the prelature, which, combined with the fact that they are often highly successful, can make them seem creepy.

Whether that’s fair is not the point. The point is that if voters start to think that Santorum is close to a group that’s into self-flagellation and running the world on the sly, he hasn’t a prayer — even against Mormon Mitt.