“It’s actually tragic,” Rick Santorum told me on my radio show Friday, in response to my question about the criticisms of Tim Tebow’s faith. “You know,” Santorum continued, “here’s a great American story, but we have so conditioned our culture through the left just pounding away that people of faith should keep their faith private, that when anybody even publicly tries to display it, it’s now something that’s offensive and being shoved down our throat, when it is in fact freedom of expression.”

I then asked the former senator from Pennsylvania about the coming scrutiny of his very serious commitment to his Catholic faith. Just the day before, I noted, the New York Times had reported on the Opus Dei-run Catholic high school his oldest boys attend.