WP: Kerry Talks of Loss, Renewal of His Catholic Faith

[DeepModem Mom]

Kerry Talks of Loss, Renewal of His Catholic Faith
By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 19, 2006; Page A04

In a speech he said he wishes he had given before the 2004 presidential election, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) yesterday described his religious life in greater candor and detail than ever before.

Kerry said in Malibu, Calif., that he "wandered in the wilderness" after the Vietnam War but came back to the Roman Catholic Church after a sudden and moving revelation in the late 1980s.

Kerry expressed regret over his reluctance to talk publicly about his faith during his failed presidential campaign. "I learned that if I didn't fill in the picture myself, others would draw the caricature for me. I will never let that happen again -- and neither should you," he told students at Pepperdine University.

Kerry is the third high-profile Democrat to give a reflective, deeply personal speech on religion and politics in recent weeks, following Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) and Robert P. Casey Jr., the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania.

The addresses fit into a broader effort by liberal religious groups and Democratic candidates to appeal to religiously motivated voters in November's midterm elections....Yesterday, a new group called Red Letter Christians, named for the colored type that highlights the words of Jesus in popular editions of the Bible, called for Christians to "vote their values" by considering the war in Iraq, torture, environmental degradation and helping the poor to be vital religious issues....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/18/AR2006091801149.html