Santorum Defends Satan Speech: I Believe in Good and Evil

Rick Santorum continued to defend comments from his past on Tuesday, this time from a 2008 speech about Satan attacking America.

According CNN and ABC, the GOP presidential said he would defend everything I say and called himself a person of faith.

I believe in good and evil, Santorum told CNN.

The former Pennsylvania senator's speech at the Catholic Ave Maria University in Florida in 2008 went viral Tuesday after it was quoted on the conservative-leaning aggregation site Drudge Report. Santorum praised Catholic Bishop Samuel Aquila for vowing to deny communion to pro-choice politicians.

Satan has his sights on the United States of America! Santorum said in the speech, according to Drudge.

Satan is attacking the great institutions of America, using those great vices of pride, vanity, and sensuality as the root to attack all of the strong plants that has so deeply rooted in the American tradition ... This is a spiritual war. And the Father of Lies has his sights on: a good, decent, powerful, influential country - the United States of America.

Santorum told CNN he thought the Drudge report article absurd. According to ABC, he called the speech not relevant to the election.

If they want to go ahead and dig up old speeches to a religious group they can go right ahead and do so. I'm going to stay on message. I'm going to talk about the things Americans want to talk about, he told CNN.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Mitt Romney surrogate who has been eyed as a potential vice president by political insiders, argued that the Pennsylvania Republican's Satan comments were very relevant indeed.

Listen, I think anything you say as a presidential candidate is relevant. It is by definition relevant. You're asking to be president of the United States, Christie said on ABC's Good Morning America Wednesday. I don't think [Santorum's] right about that. I think it is relevant what he says. I think people want to make an evaluation a complete evaluation of anyone who asks to sit in the Oval Office.

Santorum's defense is the latest in a long string of comments that continue to haunt the presidential candidate. Over, the weekend, Santorum found himself telling reporters he did not mean to compare President Barack Obama to Hitler in a recent speech as well as dealing with spokesperson who called the president Islamic radical (she said she misspoke.)

The Pennsylvania Republican will likely be defending himself again at a scheduled CNN presidential debate in Arizona Wednesday night, just a week before the Michigan and Arizona primaries. National polls currently put Santorum in a narrow lead ahead of current front-runner Mitt Romney.