From The Richmond Times-Dispatch:
Less than 24 hours after being introduced as Hillary Clinton’s running mate before several thousand people in Miami and millions more on television, Tim Kaine went to church. Kaine and his wife, Anne Holton, attended Mass at Saint Elizabeth Catholic Church in Highland Park early Sunday.
Kaine, who’s heading to Philadelphia this week for the Democratic National Convention before beginning to traverse the country in his and Clinton’s race for the White House, did not speak at the service but he did sing. Early and often, clapping along heartily and drumming on the pew in front of him as the church’s gospel choir belted out hymns.
A little later Kaine took center stage and sang a solo during the communion hymn “Oh Taste and See.”
Amy Williford-Brew, a choir member and family friend, got the idea to invite Kaine to join the choir after hearing him on television say that he planned to attend church Sunday morning.
So she sent him a text Saturday night to let him know “we signed him up to sing.”
“He responded, probably around 6 a.m., and accepted the invitation,” Williford-Brew said. “That solo, ‘Oh Taste and See,’ is one of the normal solos that he would sing when he was in the choir.”
Kaine and Holton, who have attended Saint Elizabeth for more than 30 years, were like every other married couple going to church on a Sunday morning if every other couple was met by reporters, people craning for a better look and a picture, and a standing ovation.
UPDATE: The story does not say whether Kaine received communion. Given his stance on abortion, that is no small matter. His public support for legal abortion violates Catholic teaching on a matter that the Church considers gravely sinful.
I’m not in a position to know what conversations have been conducted on this subject between him, his bishop or his pastor.
But pray for him. Pray for his heart, and his judgment, and his ongoing conversion—just as each of us needs to pray for our own.
And pray, please, for our country. Boy, do we need it.
Photo: P. Kevin Morley / Times-Dispatch