In a new article about Louisiana’s Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal, Newsweek characterizes him as the GOP’s “Own Obama.”

That could be accurate, if one focuses primarily on the fact that like the president-elect, Jindal is young, articulate and a member of a minority.

But if the focus is on where the pair stand on life issues, the Catholic Jindal can be more accurately described as the anti-Obama.

The Newsweek article reports on the political buzz that Jindal, 37, is a leading candidate for the Republican nomination in 2012. Jindal insists he won’t run and instead will concentrate on winning reelection as Louisiana governor in 2011, an assurance Newsweek concludes is probably authentic.

But further down the road, Newsweek predicts, a presidential run could be a real possibility, given that Jindal is generating the same kind of enthusiasm among GOP leaders and Republican rank and file as Obama did among Democrats after his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004.

“Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich recently called him ‘the most transformative young governor in America,’” Newsweek reports. “Radio host Rush Limbaugh refers to him as ‘the next Ronald Reagan.’ John McCain eyed Jindal as a running mate, and Steve Schmidt, McCain’s chief strategist, told The Washington Post in November that ‘the question is not whether he’ll be president, but when he’ll be president — because he will be elected someday.’”

But when it comes to abortion, Jindal stands in stark contrast to Obama’s extreme pro-abortion advocacy. Raised a Hindu but introduced to the Bible by an evangelical friend at the age of 12, Jindal ultimately converted to Catholicism as a university student after concluding Protestantism lacks “spiritual cogency.”

And Jindal is no cafeteria Catholic, Newsweek notes. The article dwells at length on the depth of the Louisiana governor’s commitment to his faith, and according to the magazine, “his deeply Catholic views, including a ‘100 percent’ opposition to abortion ‘with no exceptions’ for rape, incest or health of the mother, undoubtedly anger more voters than they attract.”

Newsweek’s assessment that Jindal’s uncompromising pro-life commitment is a political liability is highly debatable. But there’s no debating Jindal’s fearlessness in supporting Church teachings, whether or not they play well politically or with the national media.

And it’s just about impossible to imagine Obama ever saying something similar to this comment of Jindal’s, as quoted by Newsweek: “If I wanted the aesthetics without the inconvenient morality,” he wrote in 1998, “I could become Episcopalian.”

— Tom McFeely