Political campaigns are ugly. No two ways about it. Mud-slinging, name-calling, fighting words, attack-ads: they are all there. And, although it is not pretty, this article is not going to go so far as to call for an end to the heated rhetoric. I get it. Candidates are trying to win a fight to the finish. They have to use vitriolic, controversial language to spur attention and get their messages across.  

But it is never okay to use racist words. This would seem an obvious statement in light of it being 2012, but apparently the Republican field of presidential hopefuls did not get the memo.

Particularly, I would like to draw attention to the two Catholic candidates in the field: Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. These two candidates have toted their religious faith as a guiding beacon in their lives.

Despite the banner of religious piety, these two candidates repeatedly go against the fundamentals of Catholic teaching in their words and deeds, especially in reference to racist speech.

For example: On the Sunday before the Iowa caucus, while on a campaign stop in Sioux City, Santorum addressed a mostly white audience and stated that he does not want to "make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money."

Can someone please remind Santorum, as CBS pointed out, that nationally 39 percent of welfare recipients are white, 37 percent are black and 17 percent are Hispanic? Why single out a sole minority when it is clear that receiving benefits is not limited to any particular group?

Gingrich can be found just as guilty. An editorial in the Baltimore Sun put it perfectly, stating that in the Monday night debate prior to the South Carolina primary, in response to a question from Juan Williams of Fox News, who asked whether Gingrich had been belittling African-Americans by implying they had no work ethic, Gingrich responded with a bout of under-handed bigotry: He referred to President Obama as "the food stamp president." As stated by the Sun, "In a single phrase, Mr. Gingrich managed to conflate poverty, welfare dependency and a supposed unwillingness to work among the poor and unemployed with the most bigoted assumptions about African-Americans."

Moreover, Gingrich's rhetoric seems to have a theme of racist undertones. According to the Huffington Post, while Speaker of the House in 1993, Gingrich intended to make a speech that would have included the following line: "For poor minorities, entrepreneurship in small business is the key to future wealth. This is understood thoroughly by most of the Asians, partially by Latinos, and to a tragically small degree, by much of the American black community." Fortunately, this line was edited out before the speech was delivered.

Recently, in response to this disparaging tone echoing from the mouths of our two Catholic candidates, 40 respected Catholic leaders and theologians produced a letter calling on the candidates to end their racist banter.

The open letter "urge[s] Mr. Gingrich, Mr. Santorum and all presidential candidates to reject the politics of racial division, refrain from offensive rhetoric and unite behind an agenda that promotes racial and economic justice."

Three of the signatories of this open letter are professors here at Fordham: Professor Terrence W. Tilley, Professor Michael Lee and Professor Jeannine Hill Fletcher. While Professor Lee could not be reached for comment, Professor Tilley and Fletcher were both able to provide insight into their reasoning for signing the letter, as well as into the hypocrisy of Gingrich and Santorum.

"While these politicians are donning the mantle of Catholicism, they are either refusing to recognize or are oblivious to crucial strands of Catholic social teaching," Tilley said. "These Catholics in the presidential race seem to both be making racist remarks and wanting to return to laissez-faire politics and economics which is consistently rejected by papal and other teaching." 

"The comments that they [Gingrich and Santorum] have made don't seem to reflect a very critical and sophisticated way that race functions [in our society]," Fletcher said.

The line between church and state is often so heavily blurred that its very existence comes into question repeatedly. In this case, however, with two candidates clearly using religion as a political tool (as stated in the open letter, "courting ‘values voters'"), it is quite appropriate and necessary for respected theologians to come out and make a statement condemning the bigotry and hypocrisy on display. They need to make clear, as is done by this group, that Santorum and Gingrich do not speak for the Church, no matter how much they wear their religion on their sleeves.

As a Catholic, but more importantly, as an American, I am deeply disturbed by the racist remarks that have seeped into political campaign rhetoric. And if this is the way that these gentlemen believe they can govern a country, they will not see my vote.

Danielle Solinski, FCRH ‘14, is an undeclared major. She hails from White Plains, NY.