President Barack Obama uses his faith “as a convenience” when it serves him, while at the same time being the most anti-religion president in history, Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum charged in an exclusive Newsmax interview.



And by saying that Jesus would have called for higher taxes, Obama was completely misreading the Bible, touted the staunch Roman Catholic father of seven.



“Over the last few weeks, he has done more to assault religion in this country than any president, certainly in recent history, maybe even in history,” said Santorum.



The former senator was talking a day after Obama used the National Prayer Breakfast to quote St. Luke’s Gospel that Jesus’ teaching of “Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required,” should be interpreted to mean that Christ would have wanted the rich to pay higher tax rates.



“Jesus wasn’t talking to the government,” Santorum said. “He wasn’t talking that the government should take more from you.



“He was talking about your responsibility to your fellow man, your responsibility to God to provide for the least among us and not your responsibility to fund Caesar.



“That is a complete misinterpretation of the Bible.”



Santorum said this week’s Supreme Court decision that found unanimously against the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s view that religious ministers should be covered by sex discrimination laws, coupled with the government’s decision that Catholic healthcare providers should be required to offer contraceptive services, proved that Obama is anti-church.



“Even Elena Kagan was amazed by the claims the Obama administration was making,” he said, referring to the Supreme Court justice who formerly was Obama’s solicitor general.



“In essence, [the administration] said that the Catholic Church had to hire women priests — otherwise, it was discrimination; ultra-Orthodox Jews had to have women rabbis.



“This kind of assault on religion continued just this past week with him imposing on the Catholic Church and Catholic institutions a requirement that, in order to participate in Obamacare, they would have to offer services in their church which are expressly against the teachings of that church,” Santorum said.



“This is a president who uses religion when it’s convenient to get people to pay more money and more tribute to government and then uses government to strike down religion.”



Santorum said his views on wider social issues made him a more attractive candidate for the Republicans than front-runner Mitt Romney, whom he called “a one-issue candidate,” focused solely on job creation.



“He doesn’t want to go out and talk about anything else,” said the Pennsylvanian. “If you’re going to rally the Republican base, if you’re going to get the people of America excited, you’ve got to paint a picture other than ‘I can be an economic development guy for the United States.’ We offer a lot more and we offer a better contrast to Barack Obama than Mitt Romney ever could.”



If unemployment continues to fall, Romney’s focus on jobs will start to look weak, he said. “That’s one of many, many issues we should be talking about with President Obama and his failures with this country.



“That’s why we provide the better alternative, somebody who can go after President Obama on national security and someone who can go after him on what he is doing to undermine freedom in this country.



Santorum said if Romney ends up battling Obama for the White House in November, Republicans will have turned one of their strongest positives – opposition to Obama’s healthcare reforms – into a negative.



“Mitt Romney is completely compromised,” he said. “Barack Obama will talk about Mitt Romney and how they have basically adopted his plan from Massachusetts.”



Santorum accepted that he has little hope of success in Saturday’s Nevada caucuses. “Las Vegas is not exactly what you think about when you think of Rick Santorum territory,” he said jokingly.



But he said he has high hopes in next week’s contests in Colorado, Missouri, and Minnesota.



“Those are states where we think we can do better and maybe get into second place or maybe even do better than that.”



Santorum also told Newsmax that his 3-year-old daughter, Bella, who was hospitalized this week with pneumonia, is making a strong recovery after being released from the hospital.



“She is dramatically improved,” he said. “I just want to say to everybody, thank you, and to continue to pray for Bella and our family. This is a tough time being out on the road and being away from family and we certainly need that extra protection that prayer gives us.”









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