Clinton picks a Catholic as her running mate

Hillary Clinton selected Virginia Senator Tim Kaine (pictured) to be her running mate in the race for the White House, writes Michael Sean Winters.

Senator Kaine previously served as Governor of Virginia and mayor of Richmond. He is a devout Catholic who left Harvard Law School for a year to serve in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps in Honduras, where he learned Spanish. He is a regular communicant at a historically black church, St Elizabeth’s, Richmond.

At their first joint appearance on the Democratic ticket on Saturday, Kaine addressed a cheering Miami crowd in both English and Spanish, and he spoke extensively and passionately about how his faith has informed his life. “The motto of my [Jesuit secondary] school was ‘men for others’ and that is what we were taught,” he said. “That’s where my faith, which had been important to me because of my parents’ example, really grew into something more vibrant. It became like my North Star, the organising principle for what I wanted to do… I wanted to devote myself to something to do with social justice.

“I taught teenagers the basics of carpentry and welding and they taught me Spanish,” he said of his time in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. “Honduras changed my life in so many ways. Fe, familia y trabajo. Faith, family and work.”

In 2005, while running for Governor, Kaine supported some restrictions on abortion, such as a ban on partial-birth abortion. In the US Senate, however, his voting record earned him a 100 per cent rating from abortion rights groups. In an interview two weeks ago, Kaine said he “personally opposed” abortion but women had the right to choose.

The fact that Kaine is a Catholic played no role in his selection as a vice-presidential candidate. Over the past 20 years, the Catholic vote has split evenly between the two parties with each garnering about 46 per cent. However, Hispanic Catholic numbers are expanding while the number of white, non-Hispanic Catholics is shrinking. Catholic Latino voters, if swayed by Kaine, will vote Democrat because he speaks their language and appears on Spanish-language TV and radio, not because he is a co-religionist.