When Santorum speaks of "The Church," as he did last week in his criticism

[Johonny]

11. IDK in the broader sense I think it's just more empty Republican speak

You had a week ago a speech by Romney where he cranks out the word conservative 10+ times. Never does he define the word. After a while you realize when Republicans say they are conservative it isn't to define any policy bundle, it's now become just a buzz word to them that republican voters respond to. Convince them you are "conservative" and let the voter fill in the actual policies. Same goes for other conservative empty words like faith, faithbased, pro-family, environmentalism, radical feminist, American, right to work... they use buzz words that have no defined meaning and will not be defined within the context of their broader speech. They allow the listener to fill in the definition. It's pure marketing. It works to get you the buy laundry detergent, it works on so many people to buy really bad Republican policies. Santorum uses the empty word church so listeners will assume he is inclusive of their church. Santorums' policies certainly don't represent the catholic church accept on a very narrow band of issues. Theologically his views seem to differ from the broader church as well. He isn't trying to ram religion down peoples throats, he's trying to ram the image that because he openly speaks about religion in politics he is morally superior to Obama or Romney. This is because a lot of people assume christian's are naturally moral and those that speak in a religious way are somehow by default moral people. Even when what they say is often nothing but hatred of women and gays. It's amazing how often it works.