It has been a puzzle for many years for conservative pro life minded people to understand how a Catholic can vote for a political candidate who votes in favor of abortion. What is the underlying reason how this can happen? What is the root of this false and misdirected sense of compassion? How did it evolve?
There is no question that the Democratic or Republican party is not without spot or blemish and neither party gets it right on all accounts. But as the Greeks of ancient knew, politics is the art of compromise. But there is one area that should be without compromise and that is abortion. So, how is it such well intentioned people are so divided? How can a Catholic daily communicant vote for a candidate that consistently violates Scriptural principals that are so clear. How can a church going Southern Baptist do likewise?
What is the underlying root of the difference of how we vote? It boils down to education. People vote as they do based upon their ideology in life. It is the prism of how they act on a daily basis. Who do you serve and who is your master? When the Lord ceases to be God, you will get less than perfect all the time for when a person believes in nothing, they will do anything. As a whole Catholics have not been catechized for well over a generation and there is the root of our ills as families and a nation. So goes the family, so goes the nation. We have been dumbed down for so long, people no longer know theology, philosophy, or Scripture. The dining room table with meaningful discussions has been replaced with commuting parents and TV dinners for a very long time now.
For many years we heard of liberation theology as it relates to the poor and less fortunate, and on the surface it all looked fine. When that became a buzzword for those leaning left with all the controversy around it, it was soon sanitized to a less threatening phrase called “social justice.” Language engineering is a powerful tool of the unbeliever that soon morphs into social engineering of the masses. It is no longer about Democrat or Republican, or liberal or conservative. It has come down to believer and unbeliever and it needs to be recognized for what it is.
Herein lies a partial answer to the question. When Yahweh gave the Ten Commandments to Moses, there were not five commandments on one tablet and five on the other to make it nice and symmetrical. There were three on one tablet and seven on the other for a very good reason. The first three commandments are man’s direct relationship to God. The first three commandments are of a God who wants to be worshipped, praised, and obeyed, and where He is first in our lives for “my ways are not your ways.” Scripture says, “The beginning of all wisdom is the fear of the Lord.” The word fear translates to “awesome majesty.” It is not to be fearful or frightened in the normal sense we think of the word.
This direct vertical relationship of us to God is how we personally view God—our ideology of Him. What we perceive Him to be in all His Majesty. These first three commandments are, You Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me, You Shall Have No Idols, and You Shall Not Use the Lord’s Name in Vain, are not in that order by random chance. When you get the first one wrong, everything else is wrong in life to varying degrees. There is no foundation to the house. When we are in sin due to the lack of observance of the first three commandments, we discuss the Divine nature in abstract and intellectual terms. It is sin that blinds us to the Divine structure of the world and how Yahweh intended it to be. Because man fails us is not a reason to believe God fails us. “It is your sin that separates you from God (Isaiah 59:2).” Where there is light, there lies wisdom. No wisdom, no light. God is light and there is no darkness in Him.
The remaining seven commandments are man’s relationship to man. Thou Shalt Not Steal, Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery, Covet Another’s Wife, etc. It is a horizontal relationship of man to man and how we relate to each other as people. As a result of getting the first three in proper order, we have a much better chance of getting the remaining seven correct. The problem is we are a nation scripturally illiterate lacking the fundamental knowledge of what lies on the heart of God. Combine that with little to no teaching from the pulpit for well over a generation, and we are in the mess we are in for good reason. The United States didn’t one day just wake up and witness this decline, it happened over decades due to lack of catechesis and the believer failing to speak the truth and be the salt and light. The believer was stifled due to fear of what others think of them. They failed to speak out.
The Lord has given us His word and there is a responsibility to know it. As a nation we have drifted for so long along a secular and humanistic approach to a near total horizontal approach to life, we have no hope of turning it around without either a direct intervention by God or national repentance. A direct intervention of God’s Mercy is more likely that a national repentance at this point. Scripture reminds us, “He is the same yesterday, today, and forever” and because of this He will not be mocked. As was said not long ago, if God does not harshly judge America, He will need to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah. Fifty million abortions later, we have to turn this around in a hurry or we will be relegated to the ash heap of history.
It is because we fail to grasp the meaning of the majesty of God and resorted to a humanistic approach to solve our problems we find ourselves where we are today. It is why people like Melinda Gates of the Gates Foundation, who was raised Catholic, defied the Catholic Church position on sterilization and reproductive rights (her term) when she recently said, “You must remember I was brought up on the doctrine of social justice.” Caroline Kennedy said the same thing without uttering the phrase social justice at the Democratic National Convention in 2012, but she meant the same thing without saying it as she took on church teaching to the amazement of so many. The good news was now the dissent was in the open for all to hear.
Politics is one thing, and the Commandments are another. A Democratic Convention where the majority of delegates booed God’s presence on the platform needs little explanation to where they stand. They are unbelievers. Good people can have differing views on an education issue like No Child Left Behind, budgets for public parks and a host of other political issues—but not an issue like abortion. That is where the line must be drawn in the sand. There is no compromise here. There is no hope for a nation that aborts.