Back in August, I posted about Newt Gingrich, his conversion to Catholicism, and his pontificating on various moral issues of the day even Gingrichas he battles questions about his own moral failings.

The New York Times yestrday offered a profile on Gingrich’s faith and politicking, which is receiving renewed scrutiny as the former Speaker of the House is expected to announce a bid for the presidency, perhaps as early as this week.

From the article:

So as he travels the country, he is striking two related notes: that the nation faces not just a fiscal crisis but also a loss of its moral foundation, and that his conversion to Catholicism two years ago is part of an evolution that has given him a deeper appreciation for the role of faith in public life.

On a recent winter night here, Mr. Gingrich, 67, stood on stage at a Catholic school with his wife, Callista, and introduced a film they produced about the role Pope John Paul II played in the fall of Communism in Poland. As Mr. Gingrich looked out over a crowd of 1,300 people, he warned that the United States had become too secular a society.

“To a surprising degree, we are in a situation similar to Poland’s in 1979,” he told the audience, which had gathered at a banquet for Ohio Right to Life, one of the nation’s oldest anti-abortion groups. “In America, religious belief is being challenged by a cultural elite trying to create a secularized America, in which God is driven out of public life.”

Read the full article here.

Michael J. O’Loughlin is national correspondent at America and author of Hidden Mercy: AIDS, Catholics, and the Untold Stories of Compassion in the Face of Fear.