In secular terms, it is commonplace to hear some dissatisfaction with each candidate in the American primaries. Politics being the art of compromise, seldom is a single candidate perfect in policy.
Remarkably, it is in religious terms that a far more positive and encouraging assessment can be given.
I had not planned to write about politics in this column. This restraint is especially appropriate since former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney named me along with Harvard's Mary Ann Glendon (until her recent appointment as U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican) as volunteer legal advisers to his campaign.
But these words transcend partisanship. There is simply too much evidence of the gifts of the Holy Spirit afoot in our public deliberations not to make thankful notice of it.
Some years ago before his papal election, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger commented: "The church will have to develop a great deal of imagination to help the Gospel remain a force in public life."
It's unclear whether we have consciously taken up this challenge, but listening to both parties' candidates suggests that the Holy Spirit is indeed imaginatively raising our spiritual voice so that the Gospel may be a greater force in our public life.
Let me give just a few bipartisan examples, submitted neither with favoritism nor endorsement. Indeed, because of the ethically troubling positions some candidates take with respect to matters of unborn life or the treatment of immigrants or anticipated deployment of military force, a sensitively attuned Catholic conscience has a difficult terrain to navigate.
But as serious as the shortcomings are, acknowledgment is due the remarkable presence of a religious theme in the campaigns overall.
Take, for instance, Sen. Barack Obama's victory address in Iowa. It has been characterized as a landmark moment in American history. A talented, inspirational black man is given affirmation by those not of his race without either contrived preference or undue racial emphasis on his or anyone's part --- save, possibly, Oprah.
Said the senator: "We are choosing hope over fear. We're choosing unity over division."
This is a very Catholic sentiment. The catechism celebrates the diversity of races, cultures, languages and traditions within the church, and we take it beyond "held together by the gifts of love from the Holy Spirit."
On the Republican side, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee also won support in Iowa. That was easy given his shared evangelical base with Hawkeye voters. More impressive was his willingness to articulate moral concerns in places where it would give him no political advantage.
Said Huckabee: "One of [the] positions of moral clarity for me is to believe that every single human being has intrinsic worth and value. I'm not sure that it's as important an issue -- some say it isn't in New Hampshire -- but I want you to know it is important for me."
Sen. Hillary Clinton is sadly pro-choice, but her candidacy too has given occasion to reflect upon the nature of servant leadership. By definition, if she shatters the gender ceiling, she affirms more completely than the Declaration of Independence that "men and women are created equal."
Insisting that there is a right and a wrong lying ahead of us, Sen. Clinton explained her desire to serve: "It's really about all of us together. You know some of us put ourselves out there and do this against some pretty difficult odds. And we do it, each one of us, because we care about our country."
The importance of religion to American civic life was squarely affirmed in Gov. Romney's reflection upon his Mormon faith and faith in general. Said Romney: "Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone."
That statement deserves approbation for affirming how faith intimately guides the interior of a person while law and politics can only touch the exterior.
The candidates, like us, are not always the model of their religious themes. Here witness the testy and unhelpful recent exchanges between the senators from Illinois and New York. Yet, when the candidates are their better selves, they manifest what the Holy Father has said is intriguingly unique about "the American way of life."
Said Pope Benedict XVI: "In the American sphere people are taking up Catholicism as a whole and trying to relate it anew to the modern world." Even primary campaigns, it seems, can be ecumenical moments guided by the Spirit.
Douglas W. Kmiec is Caruso Chair and Professor of Constitutional Law at Pepperdine University, Malibu.
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