The one-time GOP presidential candidate’s LDS credentials are well established.
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Mitt Romney speaks at the Hinckley Institute of Politics in Salt Lake City in 2024. The former senator has acknowledged that he misread a Tribune commentary.
Those inside and outside of Mormonism should know that Mitt Romney is a sincere, believing, churchgoing, temple-attending member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
After all, the former Utah senator and one-time Republican presidential nominee has hardly hid his faith under a bushel.
He defended his beliefs in December 2007 during his first run for the White House when others wondered if a Latter-day Saint could or should be president. He tapped several members of his Boston congregation to describe his church service during the Republican National Convention in 2012. Romney also pointed to his faith — which he said he takes “very seriously” — for propelling him to convict Donald Trump in 2020 on impeachment charges. And, since leaving office, he even traveled earlier this year with the famed Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square to Peru.
Imagine his surprise, then, to read this italicized line — “I heard Mitt Romney hasn’t gone to church since about 2005?” — above his photo in this weekend’s Salt Lake Tribune.
He quickly posted on social media, saying, “I am a true-blue member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Ann [his wife] and I attend sacrament meeting every Sunday and enjoy service in the temple. We love our church and the callings we have received in our home ward.”
The most controversial line in the post, though, was this one:
“A poorly sourced article in the @sltrib that said otherwise is laughable.”
Laughable is actually a good word in this context.
The piece that carried that line was in a humor commentary by Tribune guest columnist Eli McCann, who was gently poking fun at the very real tendency for those in any camp to point to famous folks to push their views, even if they are not true. It was clear that that applied to the Romney line.
McCann even stated in the article this was “untrue gossip, probably not meant to be taken seriously.”
“I wrote a satirical humor piece about how often we spread false rumors about celebrities and their religious and political beliefs,” McCann replied on social media, “and perhaps it’s human nature to do this because we hope people we admire are like us. Apparently Mitt did not understand.”
(Eli McCann) Tribune humor columnist Eli McCann says Mitt Romney misread — or didn’t fully read — his commentary.
Or perhaps the famous Latter-day Saint politician didn’t actually read the entire piece. Now he has.
Romney, who rarely posts on social media, offered this self-deprecating response Monday to The Tribune: “Ah, satire: 1. Me: 0.”
For those who might continue to doubt his Latter-day Saint bona fides, though, Romney ended his post with a pointed missionary pitch: “If you’d like to learn more about my religion, I’d be happy to help you meet with our missionaries — including some of my grandchildren.”
For his part, McCann would love to see the more than 337,000 people who read Romney’s post to “be a little less quick to take offense where none was ever intended and a little more quick to laugh at themselves.”
Yes, the columnist says, “and continue to find humor in and around people of faith.”