1. We'll have a President named "Barack". It's not exactly the most popular name you've ever heard. But let's look at the bigger picture: When it comes to Presidents, we've had a Millard, a Ulysses, a Rutherford, a Chester, a Grover (he was so nice they elected him twice), a Woodrow, a Calvin, a Herbert, a Dwight, and a Lyndon. Life goes on. We'll adapt.
2. We'll have a Catholic Vice President who is not exactly the poster boy for orthodoxy. Is he the first Catholic who thought he could treat doctrine like a "build your own sundae" bar? Chances are we can all fire off the names of at least five people we see every day who do the same. So is he the first high profile Roman Catholic in public office to think that? Can anyone say Kennedy, Pelosi, or in New Jersey, McGreevey? But as Catholics, we also believe that there's always hope for the sinner to come home. I mean, really, one good confession and Biden is back, baby!
3. Catholics have crept one step closer to thinking that we can decide doctrine by popular vote. This morning at daily Masses around the country, some Catholics are coming in with big grins on their faces like they snuck in after curfew without their parents' knowledge. Other Catholics are coming in with faces that look like their puppy got run over. Both may slip into feeling that this election somehow decided the fact that abortion is now somehow acceptable or permissible; It still is not. Truth does not get determined by a popularity contest. This election may have been about who gets to sit in the Oval Office as well as about five thousand other government agencies for the next four years, but it wasn't about who gets to say what's right and what's wrong. That job was never on the table.
There might be more of these as the day goes on. Stay tuned.
6 comments:
AMEN Fr. Jay! Why is everyone acting like the election of this guy is suddenly signaling America's "sellout" to abortion? The USA as a nation jumped on the culture of death bandwagon a LOT longer ago than this. Why, also, does everyone think electing the Republican candidate would have been so good? For 20 of the last 28 years there have been Republicans in the white house and for much of that time they also had Republican majorities in Congress. And they did absolutely NOTHING to end abortion in this country. When are Americans going to wake up to the fact that the Republican party has duped them into thinking they really care about the plight of the unborn child?
Since, yes, my puppy was run over...
I can think of only one good thing about this election season. For the first time in my memory, a good number of our bishops have started speaking out, loud and clear, to their flocks, about the responsibility of Catholics to have a properly formed conscience and to vote that way.
It didn't seem to work, at least not yet, if you believe polls about how "catholics" vote...but I hope and pray they continue to speak up loud and clear. I think our nation will need their voices, more and more, in the future.
I remember all the outrage from Dem's when Pres Bush got in....twice....
Too bad we will now endure this but endure we will.
Fear is not an option!
I was joking with my SIL this morning, she is Christian, not Catholic, and she exclaimed "What if Obama is killed and Biden becomes president? I laughed and said not to worry, the Catholics would probably get him first! all joking aside, it is sobering and sad when we were really close to reversing RvW. It will just be more difficult now.
Father Jay - I think you said two really important things; "Truth does not get determined by a popularitiy contest," and "This election...wasn't about who gets to say what's right and what's wrong." It helps keep things in the "We may have lost this battle, but He has already won the war" mode. Also, CA voted in a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, as did AZ and FL. We have to keep praying to learn what the Lord is trying to teach us and how He wants us to be Him in this world.
Fr. Selvester makes good points. Has anyone else noticed that we have steadily been falling for less and less from the Republican Party? First there were Reagan and Bush I, who promised a Constitutional amendment; then there was Bush II, who supported a federal ban with the rape/incest exception; and now there's McCain, who believes that the issue should be left to the states. I saw another Catholic blogger defend McCain's position by saying that while he supported the federalist approach,he would urge states to ban abortion; however, I don't see much difference between this and the typical, "Well, I want women to choose life, but I think they should have the right not to." In short, both McCain and Obama are pro-choice; they simply disagree about the level at which the "choice" to deprive unborn infants of their rights should be made. And yet for some reason so many of my fellow pro-lifers were acting like Senator McCain was the Messiah.
Folks, we've got to go back to square one if we want to end abortion. Our culture is sick, and we need to heal it. Until we can do that, we'll never have a truly pro-life candidate; we'll only have people who take our "sucker votes" and then proceed to ignore us until the next election rolls around. Until we can change people's hearts and minds, it won't even matter if Roe is overturned, since the majority of Americans still think unborn children have no rights and would therefore oppose any attempt to legally codify those rights. The depth and breadth of what we need to do and haven't is simply astounding. Relying on politicians to do it for us is nothing more than a cop-out. The truth is that Republicans only care about abortion in election years, and Democrats have sold out their once-proud roots to NARAL and Planned Parenthood. It's up to us.
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