• Faith: Christian - Catholic
• Career: Politician
• Birthday:  May 10, 1958

Rick Santorum Sr. is a politician, author, attorney, and political commentator who represented Pennsylvania in the United States Senate from 1995 to 2007. He was the Senate’s third-ranking Republican during the final six years of his tenure. He also ran unsuccessfully for President of the United States in the 2012 Republican primaries, finishing second to Mitt Romney. Santorum was elected to the United States Senate from Pennsylvania in 1994, serving two terms until losing his 2006 reelection bid.

Santorum is a social conservative who opposes abortion and same-sex marriage and embraces a cultural warrior image during his Senate tenure. While serving as a senator, he authored the Santorum Amendment, which would have promoted the teaching of intelligent design. He was a leading sponsor of the 2003 federal law known as the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. In the years after his departure from the Senate, Santorum has worked as a consultant, private practice lawyer, and news contributor. He ran for the Republican nomination in the 2012 U.S. presidential election. Before suspending his campaign, he exceeded expectations by winning 11 primaries and caucuses and receiving almost four million votes, making him the runner-up to eventual nominee Mitt Romney.

He ran for president again in 2016 but ended his campaign in February 2016 after a poor showing in the Iowa caucuses. In January 2017, he became a CNN senior political commentator. However, he was terminated from his contract with CNN in May 2021 due to comments he made about Native Americans a few weeks prior, which were deemed “dismissive.” Rick Santorum was born in Virginia, the second of three children to Aldo and Catherine Santorum. He grew up in Berkeley County, West Virginia and Butler County, Pennsylvania. He attended elementary school at Butler Catholic School and then went to Butler Senior High School. Santorum was nicknamed “Rooster,” supposedly for both a cowlick strand of hair and an assertive nature, particularly on important political issues.

After his parents transferred to the Naval Station Great Lakes in northern Illinois, Santorum attended the Roman Catholic Carmel High School in Mundelein, Illinois, for one year, graduating in 1976. He attended Pennsylvania State University for his undergraduate studies, serving as chairman of the university’s College Republicans chapter and graduating with a B.A. degree with honors in political science in 1980. He then completed a one-year M.B.A. program at the University of Pittsburgh’s Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business, graduating in 1981. In 1986, he received a J.D. degree with honors from Dickinson School of Law.

What religion is Rick Santorum?

Rick Santorum identifies as a Catholic. Although he was raised in a nominally Catholic household, Santorum’s faith began to deepen when he met his future wife, Karen. By his account, discussions with her father, Kenneth Garver, a staunch Catholic and abortion opponent, solidified his understanding and opposition to abortion. He and his wife have since become increasingly religious. Santorum now considers himself a devout Catholic and acknowledges his faith as the source of his politics and worldview. He attends Mass almost daily and organized a Catholic study group for lawmakers while in Congress.