My thoughts on the Year of Faith have taken a whole new turn with the re-election of President Obama. I”ve avoided discussing political issues up until now, because, frankly, I don”t understand a lot of them. But with the re-election of President Obama, I’m recognizing that I”m going to have to cling to my Faith, to beg God to strengthen my Faith and to stand up for my Faith.
The President”s re-election means that Catholics are going to suffer. Maybe we aren”t feeling the pinch yet; but it will come. And when it does come, due to our free will, we will have a choice to make. We can choose to stand with our God, our Church, our Faith, and our conscience (always a well-formed conscience) and to seem to the world to go “backwards” by following Him Who said “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life” (Jn. 14:6). Or—God forbid!—we have the horrifying ability to choose to turn our backs on Him as Lucifer did and go “forward” in the eyes of the world by following a President who increasingly shows himself to be anti-God, anti-life, and anti-Catholic.
As for the hullabaloo about bishops telling their people not to vote for Obama, the Catholic Church teaches that cooperation in evil is a sin. Voting for a president who publicly espouses and funds abortion, contraception, euthanasia, and same-sex “marriage”, and other acts which are intrinsically contrary to the natural law is the same as agreeing to those things, and thus, is cooperation in evil.
Some of us might be asking “Why? Why did God let the most anti-God, anti-life, anti-Catholic President in our country’s history be re-elected? Do we really deserve four more years of what will be increasing persecution of the Catholic Church?”
God cannot cause evil. God does not will evil. But somehow, in His Providence, we’ve gotten what we deserve. If Catholics in America deserve to be persecuted, if that persecution is a fitting punishment for the failure of American Catholics to go to Mass on Sunday, , to obey the Holy Father, to follow the teachings of the Church on contraception, abortion, sterilization, divorce, euthanasia, etc.—then we”ve gotten what we deserved. If four more years of a God-less President will mean four more years of anti-Catholic legislation, then Catholics in America deserve those four years. And, please God, the persecution will bring those who are only nominally “Catholic” back to the Faith.
Obama could not have been re-elected without our cooperation. According to The Pew”s preliminary exit poll, 50% of Catholics voted for Pres. Obama, with an astonishing 75% of Hispanic Catholics voting for him. That fact alone shows the desperate need of the American Catholic Church to grow in faith. How fitting, then, that the Holy Father has called us all to a closer relationship with Christ during the recently-proclaimed Year of Faith.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Obama’s re-election occurred during the recently-proclaimed Year of Faith. Our Holy Father has called us during this time to strengthen our faith by focusing on Christ, not looking to any mere human being to save us:
During this time we will need to keep our gaze fixed upon Jesus Christ, the “pioneer and perfecter of our faith” (Heb 12:2): in [H]im, all the anguish and all the longing of the human heart finds fulfilment. The joy of love, the answer to the drama of suffering and pain, the power of forgiveness in the face of an offence received and the victory of life over the emptiness of death: all this finds fulfilment in the mystery of [H]is Incarnation, in [H]is becoming man, in [H]is sharing our human weakness so as to transform it by the power of his resurrection. In [H]im Who died and rose again for our salvation, the examples of faith that have marked these two thousand years of our salvation history are brought into the fullness of light. (Porta Fidei, 13)
The above-quoted paragraph also has special relevance considering the outcome of the election. It is especially “[d]uring this time”—the next four years of Obama”s Presidency—that Catholics in America “need to keep our gaze fixed upon Jesus Christ.” We should not—indeed, we cannot—take our eyes off of Him, because like Peter, who took his eyes off Christ and allowed the waves to loom up before his consciousness, we will only sink (cf. Mt. 14:30). We should not look to any man as our “Hope”; we should not look to any one human being to “fix” our country. Christ is the One in Whom we place our trust. Christ is the only One Who can “fix” the mess this country is in. But He”s not going to change America just “like that,” just as—had he been elected—Governor Romney would not have been able to “fix” this country without the support and free will of the American people. God cannot force our free will; He needs our cooperation.
If our country is going to turn back to the God-based principles on which it was founded, it will not be through God reaching down and forcing us to change. We will have to cooperate with Him, and encourage our fellow Catholics—especially those nominal “Catholics” who voted for Obama—to learn more about their Faith, to study the teachings of the Church, to read the documents of Vatican II—to read what they actually say, not to read others” interpretations of them. We will have to strengthen our own Faith, to read about the Faith (I recommend the Catechism of the Catholic Church and anything by Venerable Fulton Sheen), to practice our Faith by prayer and acts of charity to our neighbor, and especially to pray for our country.
Let us, with St. Thomas More, be “[America”s] good servants, but God”s first.”
God Love you!
7 thoughts on “The Year of Faith, America, and the Election”
“According to The Pew’s preliminary exit poll, 50% of Catholics voted for Pres. Obama, with an astonishing 75% of Hispanic Catholics voting for him.”
This should not be astonishing to anyone.
I recently had a conversation with a Catholic who voted for Obama. She is quite well instructed in the faith and consulted a Priest before voting.
Her reasoning:
1. The HHS Mandate will be struck down by the courts. The Supreme Court has six Catholics who take religious freedom very seriously–as do the three Jews who make up the rest of the court.
2. The Republicans have not overturned Roe v. Wade and it is unlikely they will. If they do, it just goes back to the states, most of which will not criminalize abortion. Contraception is not really an issue.
3. Our immigration laws are far more anti-marriage than pro-gay marriage laws. She also talked with the pastor of a parish with a large Latino community. He told her that he has several couples who want to get married, but can’t because they can’t get a marriage license because they don’t have ID because one or the other or both are undocumented.
4. She supports universal health care, just like the Pope. http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1004736.htm
White Catholics think that Latino Catholics are ignorant of life issues, but I would say that white Catholics are far more ignorant of immigration issues.
She was very disappointed in Obama and thought his campaign was crude, demeaning to women, and that he was buying votes. But she found the Republicans scary and hateful, especially the people she knew on facebook who liked to use racial slurs to refer to the President.
It was a vote against the GOP not for Obama
She saw the election as one between the Secular Party and the Fundamentalist Protestant Party (Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan’s religion notwithstanding), both of which are long standing enemies of Catholicism.
All of this only proves that Catholics should stop voting altogether as long as the faulty US voting system (which makes one often choose not between a greater and a lesser evil but between two different evils) is changed for a better (i.e., multi-party and direct) one. Having said that, we must remember that even such a change does not always guarantee the presence of a viable choice for Catholics. I live in Canada where there are three major political parties (plus several smaller ones), the vote is direct (albeit neutered by the unjust “first-past-the-post” rule) and I still refuse to vote because the seeming “choice” is no choice at all, what with all the parties supporting directly or indirectly abortion, homosexuality and euthanasia (the Conservatives don’t support euthanasia but they are completely opportunistic about the first two.)
Apart from the inherent faults of the voting systems, the most important factor is – as always – the fallen human nature. It requires heroic virtues not to vote for someone who promises you direct benefits (for example, reforming the immigration laws) while subverting Catholic truths. The Hispanic vote is certainly opportunistic but the Hispanics are only human. The fact that they endanger their hope for salvation does not bother them very much (if at all). Catholic heroes and martyrs have always been in short supply and this is not going to change. Expect more and more accommodations with the system, more and more self-absolving casuistry (as outlined by waywardson) and less and less true faith. And this is as it should be, according to Jesus Christ Himself.
By the way, this is an excellent article on this topic:
http://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/articles.cfm?id=555
Obama was groomed by Brzesinski and was raised by his Catholic grandmother. Rome, Italy, May 20, 2009 / 06:24 pm (CNA).- The Editor-in-chief of the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano explained today to Paulo Rodari, a Vatican analyst for the daily “Il Riformista,” that President Barack Obama’s speech to graduates of Notre Dame was very respectful and that he “is not a pro-abortion president.”
Yes, this only proves again that the worst enemies of the Church are inside her.
Obama is “not pro-abortion”? Well, Ano Nymous, he certainly is not pro-life. According to he supported several pro-abortion laws during his time in the Illinois Senate.
According to http://2012.candidate-comparison.org/?compare=Romney&vs=Obama&on=Abortion, the President had this to say on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade:
“As we mark the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we must remember that this Supreme Court decision not only protects a woman’s health and reproductive freedom, but also affirms a broader principle: that government should not intrude on private family matters. I remain committed to protecting a woman’s right to choose and this fundamental constitutional right. While this is a sensitive and often divisive issue—no matter what our views, we must stay united in our determination to prevent unintended pregnancies, support pregnant woman and mothers, reduce the need for abortion, encourage healthy relationships, and promote adoption. And as we remember this historic anniversary, we must also continue our efforts to ensure that our daughters have the same rights, freedoms, and opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams.”
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