06/17/2025 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 06/17/2025 09:34
WASHINGTON - In case you missed it, U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) joined Jesuitical, a podcast from America Media hosted by Ashley McKinless and Zac Davis, for an in-depth interview on Friday. Senator Coons reflected on his Protestant upbringing, expressed his belief that Democrats should be more open about sharing their faith in public life, and shared his thoughts on the election of the first American pope.
You can listen here.
Key excerpts:
Early faith and upbringing
McKinless: You went to do relief work in Kenya when you were younger, you ended up going to Yale Divinity School. So what was the movement within you that led you to really own your own faith and want it to inform your professional life?
Senator Coons: As a junior in college, I went to Kenya, and it was a program run by St. Lawrence University. The man who ran it… was the son of missionaries in Kenya, had grown up in Kenya. And the most powerful experience for me was the hospitality of the families I lived with. I lived with several different families in different parts of Kenya, who by our estimation, by an American estimation, were desperately poor. And by their estimation, were blessed and were rich, and really showed me in their prayer. And we went to church together.
I still remember being at a church service in Ngong, a suburb of Nairobi. And it went on for four hours with great enthusiasm and great jubilation and parading and marching through town and music.
…. And so I'd have to say the time that I spent, first in Kenya, then in South Africa… set me to questioning and thinking about my priorities and my values.
Why Democrats aren't open about their faith
Davis: Wanna move a little bit to some of the writing you've done about the need for Democrats to talk more openly about their faith. Forty percent, according to a Pew study of Democrats or people who lean democratic, are religiously unaffiliated. And I think most people, in the - at least in the popular imagination, sort of see the Republican Party having sort of a, they're much more comfortable talking about their faith openly.
Why do you think that is?
Senator Coons: … I do think that Pew study about people who are unaffiliated, I think there is a much higher percentage of people I serve with who are Democrats, who are spiritual, who were raised in a specific faith tradition, but who do not publicly affiliate with it, but for whom the reason they went into elected service in the first place, was the view of neighbor, of service, of the importance of humility, of the urgency of acting for others and with others. Many of them, and I'm not going to start naming specific colleagues, but when I told them that tomorrow, this Tuesday, there's a Pentecost witness, a moral witness against the consequences of the budget, the bill that the Republican majority is trying to move through, number of them said, 'oh, that's really good, that's really interesting, I really support that.'
I'm also a member of two different prayer groups here. One is explicitly bipartisan, the chaplain convenes and runs it, and it's about equal numbers, Democrat and Republican. And the other is just Democrats, and it's mostly focused on racial justice and inequality issues. But there's many more elected Democrats in the Senate who are regular participants in a prayer breakfast or a reflection group or a spirituality group than you might imagine, given the popular understanding.
How faith informs Democratic values
McKinless: One thing that as Catholics we often say is that neither party can hold the fullness of Catholic teaching and to oversimplify things a bit, the Republican Party has been the one that embodies the church's teaching on life issues and the Democratic Party on economic justice issues. And it seems like often one of those is seen as like optional in the national conversations of that being economic justice because there are different ways to pursue that and then life issues are more cut and dry. I'm curious how you think about that divide?
Senator Coons: Pope Francis, when he came and addressed Congress, laid that out as clearly as one could have. I thought that was a remarkable address. It was powerful.
… But he also talked about climate change, welcoming the migrant, the immigrant, economic injustice, wealth and poverty, the importance of organized labor, if I remember correctly. You know, I mean, he really spoke across the entire arc of the church's teachings. And I often say that the gospels are neither a Democrat nor a Republican document. There's no clear, thou shalt cut taxes, thou shalt give healthcare to all. I mean, it doesn't say anything like that.