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Etiquette makes conversation about religion and politics difficult if not taboo in American society. But an American politician who speaks publically about both religion and politics in the same speech defies not only etiquette, but conventional political wisdom. Practicing politicians rarely entertain the risk.
New York Governor Mario Cuomo accepts this risk in his address, "Religious Belief and Public Morality: A Catholic Governor's Perspective." On September 13, 1984, in the wake of his sudden rise to prominence as the keynote speaker at the 1984 Democratic National Convention, Cuomo delivered the speech at Notre Dame University (Henry, 1988, pp. 105, 117). In the Notre Dame speech, Cuomo defends his complex position as a Roman Catholic and national leader of the Democratic party.(1) The discourse displays Cuomo's rhetorical agility in negotiating a situation marked by contradiction, paradox, and ambivalence between personal religious convictions and public policy.
The Notre Dame speech also registers Cuomo as a contemporary voice in the American debate over how religion and politics interact in a pluralistic, democratic society. From before the American revolution, the issue of separation of church and state has produced an ongoing battle between the power of religion to promote public virtue and the counteracting resistance to any form of establishment (Wood, 1969, pp. 427-429). Among a cacophony of voices speaking on church/state relations in American society, Cuomo's is conspicuous by its association with two other politicians of national prominence who, like Cuomo, felt compelled to address the relationship between their political and religious professions as American Catholics: Alfred E. Smith and John F. Kennedy.(2)
Cuomo's address must be heard within this historical stream of American Catholic politicians. The following review will present, in sharper relief, the very different rhetorical problem facing Cuomo. In this context the Notre Dame speech reveals and contributes to the shape of Church-State relations in America. When state policy and religious principles coincide, how does one who stands at the center of that conjunction evoke a response that is fitting for the occasion? In what follows, I will examine Cuomo's response to this rhetorical challenge. I will argue that, with respect to the nature and style of religious rhetoric that relates to public issues, his response promotes a chilling environment for religious rhetoric in public...