
AMERICA
ELECTION DAY
November 7, 2012:
“Every kingdom divided against itself
shall be made desolate: and every city or house divided against
itself shall not stand.”
(Saint Matthew
12.25)
As Catholics,
What is our Way Forward after Obama's
Re-Election?
What
we have encountered in the
recent presidential election on November 6, 2012, is not simply troubling,
but ominous. And yet it should not be so. We have seen it coming.
It is the culmination of the deterioration of the spiritual, moral,
and social fabric of American society and culture that began 50 years
ago in the opiated and licentious “Age of Aquarius” that began in the
1960’s and the 1970’s — the purulence of which continues to suppurate
in the now necrotic body politic and cultural fabric of America. It
has become a quilt of many patches of many colors loosely stitched —
no longer interwoven — along racial, ethnic, and linguistic lines that
now define us not as who we are, but who we are not. We are not “the
other”. The “other” is not your neighbor, but your competitor for a
politically conferred dignity that should be equally accorded all, but
which has devolved — by policy — into enclaves of self-interest, identity-politics,
enclaves clearly delineated by complexion, ethnicity, and most absurdly
of all, gender.
The
Metamorphosis
We are arguably a more
divided country than we have ever been — ever. And we have just
elected the greatest Lever of Division to the highest political office,
together with a greater multiplicity of fulcrums used to his advantage
and at his disposal in Congress. We have gone from “E pluribus
unum”, to “E unum pluribus”, from “the many to one”, to “the
one to many”, from unity to division among the most execrable
lines. It is literally the dissolution of America, the devolution
of unity into multiplicity — it is the fulfillment of the liberal dream
and mantra of the long discredited notion of multiculturalism; a country
no longer at one with itself because it has eschewed the cooperative
selfless unity of one for the self-interested plurality of the competing
many. This is how Obama won. Divide and conquer. Pit the one against
the other and the other against all, and in this sense the “Great Communicator”,
Obama, has become the “Great Facilitator” — of the demise of America
as we have known it, even as it was becoming less and less recognizable
to us in the slow but inexorable mutation we had witnessed with growing
uneasiness for the last 50 years. The metamorphosis is now
complete.
What
is at Stake for Catholics?
What is at stake for the
half of the country that did not vote for Obama and his Democratic fulcrums
in Congress — more to the point, what is at stake for American Catholics
(apart from the many “Catholics” who approve of, and agitate for issues
distinctly contra Fide — that is to say, against the Faith —
the legalization of infanticide (abortion), same-sex “marriages”, the
promotion of the homosexuality in our schools and places of employment
(and the concurrent prohibition of religion in our schools and places
of employment), the criminalization of the word God — and most especially
Jesus Christ — in public discourse, the freedom of conscience itself,
the freedom of the Church from government intrusion and coercion, the
freedom to express ones religious convictions without fear of reprisal
or jail time … you are familiar with the litany).
The most fundamental
values that we hold as Catholics have been attacked remorselessly by
a hostile and militantly secular culture, society, and government …
that is intolerant of Jesus Christ and those who take up their Cross
daily and follow Him.
Take
Heart, Christian!
“If they have persecuted
Me, they will persecute you”,
our Blessed Lord told His followers (St. John 15.20). Christ Himself
promised us persecution — and it has come to pass. So what are
we to do as Catholics who cleave to Christ and His Church?
In a country that has no tolerance for, and stridently rejects God,
His Holy Catholic Church, and Christianity in general we must recognize
more clearly than ever, what Saint Augustine famously said, “Here we
have no lasting home.”
No home — and now no longer a refuge from persecution in a country
founded as a refuge from persecution. We are now confronted with
a question, a vital question, more existential then we have ever confronted
in our lives before November 6, 2012: of what “polity” are we really
the citizens? Of Heaven! (Philippians 3:20) — not of a world ... and
now an America ... that rejects Christ, His teachings, His Church, and
the very value of human life and dignity. Do you doubt it? Here in Massachusetts
a referendum on Physician Assisted Suicide was defeated in this same
election only by a narrow margin. In Boston, it is clearly Planned Parenthood
at the beginning and Physician Assisted Suicide at the end. Such a lust
for death!
To Whom, then, is our first and utmost obligation? To the State or to
God? To God, of course!
Hold fast to Him, then, and do not be discouraged by the November 6,
2012 elections that enthroned Obama as the savior of the decadent secular
world.
Remember
the Third Temptation!
Remember the Third Temptation
where the evil one says:
“To thee will I give all this power, and the glory
of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give
them.” (Saint Luke 4.6).
And look now to our present American government
— to the very highest level …
Take heart, Christian, and remember something
far greater still: “These things I have
spoken to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you shall
have distress: but have confidence, I have overcome the world.”
(Saint John 16.33)
Fight
the good fight
To the very end, against
all odds, at every peril, no matter the cost, knowing that we are
“surrounded by
a cloud of witnesses” — not those who would
perjure themselves for their gain, or bring us to the courts of men
because we will not compromise and will not disavow Christ — but witnesses
in Heaven itself! (Heb. 12.1)
Keep to our holy Faith more strongly than ever, with the greatest tenacity
ever; to our Holy Mother the Church who baptized us and will one day
bury us; to Jesus Christ Himself Who is the Beginning and the End, the
Alpha and the Omega. The empires and kingdoms of evil men have fallen
as a concatenation of so many dominoes throughout history. Only God
remains.
A Kingdom
Divided — and a House within a House
“Every kingdom divided
against itself shall be made desolate”,
our Blessed Lord warned us.
This present election
does not bode well for us. Obama won by a mere 1.05% of the popular
vote.1 One percent! If that does
not constitute a divide nation, nothing does. Fractionally, as
many people voted against Obama and his divisive and destructive
policies as voted for him — 1%! Many of them were nominally “Catholic”
women and men (by far, more women), both laity and Religious. In fact,
51 %. 2 That is to say, as many “Catholics” voted for
Obama, as against him. In other words, another house within a house
was equally divided: Fully 1/2 of all Catholics voted for Obama,
despite his well known animosity toward the Church and Her teachings,
especially concerning abortion, the dignity of human life, homosexual
“marriages”, freedom of conscience, and the deference of the Catholic
will to God rather than to the state. American Catholics by half turned
to Obama and against the Church and God. Half of all Catholics chose
the Civitas Mundi over the Civitas Dei. 3
Half! What does that tell us about the primary allegiance
of the Catholic Church in America? A completely split allegiance between
the State and God, however much liberal Catholics would speciously conflate
the two, insisting that the one is the nuanced articulation of the other.
It is not. Christ is very clear about this: “Who is not with
Me is against Me. Who does not gather with Me, scatters”.
(St. Matthew 12.30)
When Israel turned away
from God too, God gave it into the hands of its enemies, sent it into
captivity and exile and not a stone was left standing in Jerusalem.
Do you think America will fare better? Who denies God, Christ Himself
will deny before His Father and the Holy Angels in Heaven. (St. Luke
12.9) It is a hard saying. But Christ Himself promised it.
This life passes in a breath — and with it the petty powers and the
perpetual arrogance it presumes to hold. What will you answer to God
Who accepts no excuses? That it was expedient, when it was not? That
you did not know better when you did? That you were not clear about
His most holy will, when you were —and like the angels who became demons
chose to rebel against it? For or against God, you have pronounced your
allegiance at the polls on November 6, 2012. Remember this year well,
and your complicity in all that follows. “The Buck” does not stop in
the Oval Office. It stopped in the vestibule of your own free will where
you chose, without constraint, on November 6th, whom you will henceforth
follow.
For the “other half" of the Church Militant
on Earth — who chose the promises of God over the blandishments of politicians
— your duty is clear. You became a Soldier of Christ in your Holy Confirmation.
Soldier on! Nothing has changed in your duties, and your
orders still stand. Follow Christ — not the world. The world passes
away, but not the Word (St. Mat. 24.35) You know what is expected of
you. In case you are confused, Mary, the Most Holy Mother of God, put
it most succinctly: “Quodcumque dixerit
vobis, facite” — “Whatever
He tells you, do.”
Whom we serve has already conquered,
and the Company of the Holy Martyrs surrounds us, to testify to things
to come.
_________________________
1
http://boston.com/news/special/politics/2012/general/us-president-election-results-2012.html
2
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/08/us-usa-campaign-religion-idUSBRE8A71M420121108
3
The
City of the World over the City of God (St. Augustine’s
famous treatise, De Civitate Dei,
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf102.toc.html
)
Editor
Boston Catholic Journal

Totally Faithful to the Sacred
Deposit of Faith entrusted to the Holy See in Rome
“Scio
opera tua ... quia modicum habes virtutem, et servasti verbum
Meum, nec non negasti Nomen Meum”
“I
know your works ... that you have but little power, and
yet you have kept My word, and have not denied My Name.”
(Apocalypse
3.8)
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