Who is more Catholic than whom?

[rug]

Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta speaks to members of the media outside Clinton's home in Washington on Oct. 5. (Andrew Harnik/ASSOCIATED PRESS)

By E.J. Dionne Jr. Opinion writer October 16 at 7:59 PM

To hear the many howls of protest from conservatives, you’d think that a handful of emails released by WikiLeaks demonstrates that Hillary Clinton’s campaign is a nest of anti-Catholics. Fortunately for her, the emails, which are four to five years old, tell a far more interesting tale about the struggles inside the Catholic Church in the period before the ascendancy of Pope Francis.

All journalism relying on WikiLeaks should note our government has accused Russia of trying to influence the American election (and that the Clinton campaign has not authenticated the emails). Voters need to be wary of Vladimir Putin’s apparent preference for Donald Trump.

But given the storm the Catholic emails have provoked, readers might want to make up their own minds by consulting the full texts.

In one 2012 exchange between John Podesta, the founding president of the Center for American Progress and now Clinton’s campaign chairman, and Sandy Newman, president of a group called Voices for Progress, Newman expressed the anger of many liberals at the time that conservative Catholic bishops were making the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate central to a critique of President Obama.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/who-is-more-catholic-than-whom/2016/10/16/f9e3c012-9252-11e6-9c85-ac42097b8cc0_story.html?utm_term=.273768ac36e8