WHAT IS GOD’S MESSAGE TO US AS AMERICANS, AS CATHOLICS, AND AS PRO-LIFERS FROM THE ELECTION?
Let’s face it, this Article, by nature of the results of the election, is not a rah! rah! congratulations on a job well done, good and faithful servant. It’s more like Our Lord’s lesson in Ezekiel 33:7-9, which concludes with: “But if you warn the wicked, trying to turn him from his way, he shall die for his guilt, but you shall save yourself.” Doesn’t there have to be some question whether we did enough to warn the wicked?
COULD THE CATHOLIC CHURCH HAVE DONE MORE?
Did we as Americans deserve what we got from the election: Barrack Obama, five more anti-life senators, and over a dozen more anti-life pro-choice representatives to our national government? I believe that answer is a resounding YES because a society who calls upon God for His blessing while permitting the slaughter of 50 million innocent babies deserves a radical extremist community organizer, the devil’s handmaiden of the culture of death, from a corrupt political machine on the south side of Chicago. Does anyone believe we deserve better?
As Catholics, did we do all God expected us to do? Could the Catholic Church have done more to save 35 million unborn babies from destruction? Aren’t those two answers NO and YES respectively? Don’t we, the Catholic Church and all other respect-for-life citizens, now have to find another way to stop the killing before our whole world becomes culture #23 in its history destroyed by God for its decadence? According to some historians, we’re already more decadent than 16 of them and so, the real question to examine now is: How long does the United States have? That’s the subject of our next Article.
Were our bishops’ efforts to educate our electorate about their moral obligations in voting sufficient to meet God’s expectations? If they expected to prevent further deterioration of respect for life in our culture, why didn’t they begin that process immediately following the 2004 election when nearly 50% of our Catholic voters voted democrat (pro-abortion)? Instead, except for publishing Faithful Citizenship last November, which, as it turns out now did more harm than good, our bishops didn’t get serious about Barrack Obama until five weeks before this election and a major gaffe by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Joe Biden.
DID THE CATHOLIC VOTE MAKE A DIFFERENCE?
The last New York Times/CBS nationwide poll of Catholic voters before the election showed Obama with a 59% to 31% edge over McCain. According to newsweek.washingtonpost.com, “Catholic voters ignored the instructions of a group of vocal bishops and delivered 54% of their vote nationwide for Obama. Hispanic Catholics…voted overwhelmingly for Obama and white Catholics split their vote between the two candidates. The laity reputiated Archbishop Burke’s description of the Democratic Party as a Party of death.” This, of course is the truth. ”They clearly agree with what the bishops said in Faithful Citizenship: ‘Church leaders are to avoid endorsing or opposing candidates or telling people how to vote.’” Should this statement even appear in Faithful Citizenship?
Isn’t this the reason why not? The right-to-life has been a basic value of the Catholic Church since the first century. Does anyone with an IQ above 50 not know that the Catholic Church and its leaders are expected to oppose any candidate who supports abortion. The federal government and its IRS acknowledge, notwithstanding their perverted use of the concept of “separation of Chuch and State,” that every religion in the U.S. has a right to publicly express its beliefs and values and can not restrict them from instructing their congregations on which candidates agree with their teaching and which ones don’t, and therefore, what the consequences are if they disobey that teaching?
In fact, for the last five weeks of the campaign, many Catholic bishops specifically opposed Obama because of the extreme nature of his anti-life positions, as they should have. Our Bishops Farrell and Vann here in Dallas and Fort Worth issued a needed sectarian Joint Statement that stated it is morally impermissible to vote for a pro-choice candidate. This got the attention of the secular news media. One of the ABC local news anchors, after reporting this, was heard to accuse the bishops of telling Catholics it’s a mortal sin to vote for Obama as she was jumping up to break for a commercial. It seems she was willing to say what our bishops were implying, and should have said, and she was right on target with the truth. Continuing the Newsweek quotes: “Others (bishops) simply repeated what Faithful Citizenship said, that abortion ‘is not just one issue among many.’ and… also said, ‘As Catholics we are not single-issue voters.’“ These are conflicting statements to be sure, but they totally miss the point in the first place. The truth is that the right-to-life is not even an issue, it’s a human right and therefore encompasses and pre-empts all other rights and issues. But note the confusion these two statements cause.
There are other examples of ambiguous and conflicting statements in Faithful Citizenship, but those above give us an idea of the lack of clarity, integrity, and cohesiveness of this document and why Catholic voters, and the public at large, were confused about the teaching of the Church when some of our clergy did in fact speak out. Without on-going unifying, clear, and comprehensive weekly education of our parishioners from the pulpit on issues that affect our daily lives every week of the year and every year of the decade, the Church will never restore its leadership position as the standard for Christian morality in this country. And, could it be that is one of the messages God is sending to us, the laity, and especially our clergy, with the results of this election?
To make a difference, the Catholic Church would have to have been on a united pro-life Church-wide crusade since 2004 to educate our people, especially Hispanics, on God’s and the Church’s teaching on the respect-for-life issues, their pre-eminence, and the impact to a Catholic’s eternal salvation for violating that teaching as was so eloquently explained by Bishop Finn in an election eve press interview. Weren’t too many of our bishops around the country in 2004, too concerned, as they are now, with the political correctness of pandering to the moral relativist lifestyle of many of their parishioners, in order to unite with those who would lead such a crusade for the salvation of their parishioners? That’s why Faithful Citizenship, with diametrically opposing statements, could be and was used against us in this election. There was no unity among our clergy then and their is none now, so our Church’s testimony against FOCA will likely be discounted because of it.
SHOULD THE CHURCH NOW UNITE BEHIND THE NEW GOVERNMENT?
Is God’s message to us that we got what we deserve? Yes, but it certainly is much more. Now, of course, the cry from the democrats is and will consistently be “Bi-Partisanship.” We all have to unite behind the new uniter, Barrack Obama. And the first one to say it on November 5th was John McCain. Is that God’s message to us? Of course not! Does God want us to unite behind Obama’s pledge to Planned Parenthood to pass the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA)? I don’t think so and that answer includes more of the American population than just Catholics. God’s message to all Christians is and always has been to automatically reject any and all illicit laws, that it is our responsibility to disobey them, and actively seek to beat, change or eliminate them. Therefore, many Catholics, especially pro-lifers, will not be willing to give up our moral beliefs and values to support Barrack Obama’s immoral secular government that we know to be founded on lies and deceit. Does anyone believe these liberal politicians who will now be taking over our government will ever abandon their pro-abortion anti-life base unless the public or the courts force them to?
After gaining power with lies, deceit, personal attacks, denial of facts and truth, there are two major tenants of liberal ideology to maintain that power: 1) Proclaim the need for tolerance, but give no quarter, and 2) proclaim the need for bi-partisanship, but unite with our political opposition only on our own liberal premise. These are their major weapons because they can’t maintain their power with their liberal socialistic ideas. Do you remember Obama saying during the campaign that infanticide of a baby who survived an abortion was necessary in order to avoid undermining Roe v Wade which still allows the mother her right-to-choose. He gives no quarter. How does one have that kind of a cold, heartless disrespect for life unless he has serious moral flaws in his character that disable his judgment and performance in making all other decisions?
BARRACK OBAMA CONDUCTS HIMSELF AS AN ENEMY OF GOD.
How will he reconcile his morally deficient beliefs and his pledge to Planned Parenthood on passage of the Freedom of Choice Act with the huge number of Americans, including Blacks and Hispanics who support the morally conservative victories of the Marriage Amendment in the three states of California, Florida, and Arizona where Christians had a great day. Shouldn’t Obama and his new liberal establishment unite with us 57 million Republican voters on FOCA now and show their good faith to their call for bi-partisanship? There is no way Christians can accept his premise for the passage of that law, so, shouldn’t our Church start uniting now to fight it.
SO, WHAT DOES GOD EXPECT OF HIS CHURCH NOW?
1) Give up, accept the new government, wait for the next election, & prayer?
2) Support the new president and his government and prayer?
3) Continue our political correctness as in the past and prayer?
4) Prayer and dissent — mobilize our Church to accomplish two goals:
a) Prevent the passage of the Freedom of Choice Act.
b) Close down the abortion clinics by saturating them with sidewalk
prayers and counselors.
Anyone of the first three will simply affirm the actions of the people we must oppose to prevent the passage of FOCA. Number 4 is the only one that has a chance. There will be thousands of subtle liberal maneuvers and precedural schemes behind the scenes by the new administration to quietly get their way. For example, we will wake up one day a month from now or so and find that two or three of the three senate races subject to recounts will end up stolen by the democrats in order to secure a filibuster-proof majority. We have already lost the fourth one that existed on election day. They have to know that we know they will cheat, lie, and deceive.
It will probably be impossible for them to achieve passage of the Freedom of Choice Act in this manner, especially if the Catholic Church and all other Christian organizations begin immediately to oppose that legislation even before Obama takes office. Silence now will be deadly because that’s exactly what they are watching for to plan their strategy for quick passage of that bill to fulfill his pledge. Obama’s Saul Alinsky training in black liberation theology combined with the Pelosi/Reid most leftist liberal congressional leadership ever will require vastly higher levels of activism by Christian conservatives than we’ve been accustomed to in the past. Our great progress on restricting abortion over the last 35 years that has brought us to the brink of total success is over and totally lost if FOCA becomes law. We must now revert to an all out defensive posture to prevent its passage. It means our pro-lifers need visible and active support from our clergy at the pulpits to get much larger numbers of pray-ers out in front of the abortion clinics during every daily killing hour.
It means, to be credible, our bishops at the USCCB must unite on a plan to lead and mobilize all Catholics and other Americans who want to acomplish this same goal. We can’t have some of our bishops supporting us at the clinics by helping us recruit more people in our parishes and other bishops still maintaining their politically correct relationships with liberals in government when it comes to the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA). Obama has to know immediately, before inauguration, that the Catholic Church is united in unalterable opposition to FOCA and there is no compromise position regardless of the fact that 54% of our so called “Catholic” voters voted for him. He needs to be informed that the percentage of practicing Catholics who voted pro-life in past elections has been 12 to 15% higher than the national average, which includes nominal Catholics, some of whom don’t attend church, don’t practice the sacraments, and others who have actually excommunicated themselves because they voted pro-choice in the past and received communion without confession. So, if the national Catholic pro-life vote this year was 46%, the practicing Catholic pro-life vote was about 60%. He also needs to be reminded that over 70% of the American public reject abortion on demand as it is practiced today.
Here’s what Quin Hillyer, a respected columnist for American Spectator, says in his ”Saul Alinsky Takes the White House” on 11/06/08:
“These new Alinskyites…will not let us play by the same rules under which conservstives recovered from those earlier debacles. They will try to drastically tilt the playing field,…and to rig the process to make it next to impossible for the political right, or Republicans, to recover.
“Watch for an assault on the filibuster itself…how they use as precedent the GOP ‘nuclear/constitutional option’…except instead of just using it for judges, watch them use it against all filibusters.
“Watch a cheerleading establishment media…as a veritable Fifth Column — actually back these lefty maneuvers. The filibuster…as a vestige of Southern ‘massive resistance’ to integration…is now being used for massive resistance to the first black president, which invalidates it (suddenly) as a legitimate tool.
“Watch the left use these tactics and others to pass even more liberalized voting laws–an open invitation to even more fraud that is more creative, easier to hide, and less changeable in court.
“Watch what Michael Barone called Obama ‘thugocracy’ use of the Justice Department to stifle dissent….Likewise, anybody who peacefully protests abortion clinics or the use of state-sponsored racial quotas will be charged with a civil rights violation. And the accused won’t be able to look to the Supreme Court for help: Anthony Kennedy’s ‘evolving standards’ of justice will evolve to match the new zeitgeist (spirit of the age), providing a 5-4 majority for the administration.
“And, only when the time is right and the ground (or air) is well prepared, will come the grand-daddy of all fights, the re-enactment of the misnamed ‘Fairness Doctrine.’“ This refers to the expected Fifth Column attack on conservative talk radio or “hate radio” as they already call it. If that carries, our major voice of dissent against liberal government will be gone.
What are the chances our Catholic leadership will recognize the deteriating conditions that exist now for Christian freedoms in the United States, give up their political correctness relationships for a united Church leadership to defeat FOCA? Surely, they know a good politically incorrect lobbist in Washington who can influence lawmakers on the Christian position.
If not, then God’s message to us probably more closely resembles the scenario in our next Article #17.
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