From The Believe It Or Not Department:

Mario Cuomo (Yeah, I wasn't sure he was still alive, either. Thanks to Best of the Web Today for clearing that up.) once sounded like a Catholic.

When Cuomo Made Sense

Yesterday we noted that the Roberts nomination had Mario Cuomo, on "Meet the Press" Sunday, talking like a Know Nothing, demanding to know if John Roberts would do what "the pope says." During the same show, Cuomo's interlocutor, constitutional scholar Douglas Kmiec, praised a speech Cuomo gave in 1984 at Notre Dame in which the then-governor of New York discussed the role of religion in politics. "It was eloquent," Kmiec said. "It was a wonderful presentation."

We thought Kmiec was just being polite, but when we found the speech online, we actually found a lot to agree with. Here's the 1984 Cuomo:

The same amendment of the Constitution that forbids the establishment of a State Church affirms my legal right to argue that my religious belief would serve well as an article of our universal public morality. I may use the prescribed processes of government--the legislative and executive and judicial processes--to convince my fellow citizens--Jews and Protestants and Buddhists and non-believers--that what I propose is as beneficial for them as I believe it is for me; that it is not just parochial or narrowly sectarian but fulfills a human desire for order, peace, justice, kindness, love, any of the values most of us agree are desirable even apart from their specific religious base or context. . . .

I can, if I wish, argue that the State should not fund the use of contraceptive devices not because the Pope demands it but because I think that the whole community--for the good of the whole community--should not sever sex from an openness to the creation of life.

And surely, I can, if so inclined, demand some kind of law against abortion not because my Bishops say it is wrong but because I think that the whole community, regardless of its religious beliefs, should agree on the importance of protecting life--including life in the womb, which is at the very least potentially human and should not be extinguished casually.
No law prevents us from advocating any of these things: I am free to do so.
So are the Bishops. And so is Reverend [Jerry] Falwell [a 1980s "religious right" figure].

This sounds a lot like our Wall Street Journal article from May, "Why I'm Rooting for the Religious Right." Actually, we'd add that Cuomo or anyone else is perfectly free to advocate the policies he cites on strictly sectarian grounds as well. Making the case this way is foolish, though, since America is a highly pluralistic society, and "because the pope says so" will be sufficient to persuade only some Catholics and virtually no non-Catholics.
In any case, Cuomo's position then seems at odds with the prevailing liberal position today, which is that religiously informed arguments are essentially illegitimate, at least when they lead to conservative conclusions.