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Religious History Made with Romney-Ryan

In an event that one political scholars called “quietly dramatic,” Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has made history by choosing Paul Ryan, a Catholic, as his running-mate, creating the first major party ticket in modern times that doesn’t contain a Protestant Christian. Historians argue whether this is the first ever incidence of this; some say it is, some say it’s the first since Lincoln.

The CNN Belief Blog commented that “in choosing a running mate who is Catholic, Romney showed that he’s not worried about damaging support among Protestants.” A quarter of the U.S. identifies as Catholic, while half identifies as Protestant and 1.4 percent identify as Mormon.

William Galston, senior fellow with the Brookings Institution, reflected, “The old lines between Catholics and Protestants which were dominant in our politics as recently as the 1960 election have been replaced by new lines of division, not between denominations but within them. So you now have a coalition of evangelical protestants and traditionalist Catholics, and Orthodox Jews as well. … It is a very important fact about American politics today.”

Read the whole story at the CNN Belief Blog.