CD: Do you find yourself hearing this a lot as you travel the country?

BROWNBACK: He put it as good as I’ve heard it recently, because what we’ve seen most lately is a lot of people of faith drawn into the public square because they felt like their values were being pushed out. But what we haven’t seen as much are people that weren’t particularly motivated by faith but see the value of that ethic, and I think you’re going to start seeing more and more of that, as they say, ‘Well, what’s the other choice?’ And the other choice is a less well-developed ethic that moves more situational, that’s less anchored in moral truth. Yes it’s an ethic, but its more situational and its more malleable and it’s less secure.

CD: And have you found that your role as a senator has influenced your own faith life?

BROWNBACK: The eternal truths don’t change, situations change. I think a lot of what I try to do is just take eternal truths and apply them into the situations of the day. People like Martin Luther King Jr. and Lincoln — and I am certainly not in the league of people like them — but I think that’s what they brought in their era and time — eternal truths applied to the situation of their day. I think that’s a good place to be.

CD: Do you think that there is only one right candidate for Catholics trying to apply eternal truths to the political situation today?

BROWNBACK: I think there’s one that best fits Catholic theology in practice on the current issues of the day, and I think that’s John. I don’t think it’s a perfect fit. The joke is that since I’ve dropped out there’s not a perfect candidate — but that’s a joke, because I got beat by everybody in the field, so I obviously wasn’t a perfect fit. You aren’t going to find perfect fit, and there’s nobody that’s perfect. If angels governed men we’d have perfect leadership. We don’t, so you’ve got what you can work with. And I think this is a guy who, as far as tough issues of the day — life, and a number of others — has done a good job applying these Catholic ethics to the situation.

CD: Do you find yourself frustrated at no longer being in the race yourself?

BROWNBACK: I do. We spent a lot of time and effort, and I care about these topics a great deal. I wish to be out there and bringing it forward, but it wasn’t to be and we’re doing fine. In God’s economy there are no losses. He just uses each experience to shape you and form you for something down the road. A couple of years or 5 years from now, I say, ‘Oh wasn’t that a good thing that I did that, because that then prepared me for this.’

CD: So your faith has helped you with that as well.

BROWNBACK: Absolutely.

CD: And what do you see yourself being prepared for now? Is another run for president in your future?

BROWNBACK: Could be. The beauty about God is that most of the time He doesn’t give you real clear guidance about what’s going to happen in the future, but He gives you a real clear way to handle it, and that’s a big part of the faith journey. You don’t know what’s going to be out there, but you have the faith that He’s going to be there with you. CD

Kerry Weber is associate editor of Catholic Digest.