How's A Catholic To Vote?

Politics gets so ugly so fast that I truly try to stay away from it on this blog. I wouldn't dream of telling a Catholic (or non-Catholic) how to cast their vote. I am not going to personally support any candidate on this blog either. What I hope for all voters is that they take some time to get to know who's running for what and on what issues and what their past says about them. This goes for local elections right to the White House. Every vote is important and while you may not see a "great" choice, there is always a choice to be made and a vote to be cast so please vote. If the last few elections have taught us anything, it is that TRULY EVERY VOTE COUNTS!
Weigh the issues- we've sure got enough of them to consider! There's the war, the economy, abortion, illegal immigration, taxes, health insurance or the lack of, the national debt, global warming/ the environment, jobs going overseas, stem cell research, terrorism, high food & gas prices and more. Look at them all and weigh them against the candidates looking not at just what they say they "hope" for the future (after all we've all got hopes and many times they just don't come true). Look at the candidates past. Where did they stand on these issues years ago? Are they standing on the issues important to you? What have they done or said prior to running for office about this stuff?
Look at the whole package and make an informed decision then you can cast your vote with a clear conscience and know you've done your best in voting for America's future. There are a lot of "undecided" people out there right now who can honestly see the good and bad in either candidates winning the White House. So this post is mostly to the undecideds out there (and there are many of you- that I've talked to anyway).
For Catholics a big issue is abortion and the death of a human life it causes. I hear many Pro-life Catholics saying "Yeah but the war is killing people too." Very true, I completely agree. War and abortion both kill, no doubt about it. So does embryonic stem cell research. These things must be considered. But so must other issues, like the economy. What happens in a poor economy where people are losing jobs and homes? Abortion rates climb because people who under better circumstances wouldn't even consider an abortion suddenly panic because of finances and get an abortion. Also crime goes up. Human life is the most important thing, or it should be to all of us. Human life is precious and must be protected in all ways in all areas. From abortion, from embryonic stem cell research, from war, from starvation, from no medical help and from terrorism and other threats. These are all real issues that need to be considered before casting our votes. There are tons of things on the web about this candidate or that one, some truthful some not, some good some bad. One source is YouTube. Today I received an email from someone sharing a Youtube video on the issue of our economy and the "bail out" mess (though this video is not a fan of the Dem. party). I want to say first that I personally do not lay the blame of our economy on any one person or party. I think the blame is spread around to a great many who are guilty on all sides. But for those interested, I am going to share the Youtube video I received. Take from it what you will or ignore it completely. I truly believe both McCain and Obama have a true desire to help our country through this difficult time, they just have very different ideas about how to do that. May God bless you all and guide you in voting!

The Holy Sacrament Of Marriage: An Act Of Love And A Leap Of Faith

“So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.”
(Matthew 19: 6.)

Doug writes: I read in the newspaper today that John and Cindy McCain have a prenuptial agreement. When I remarked on that discovery aloud to my wife, she replied, “Cindy McCain has a lot of money.” We then discussed prenuptial agreements and both agreed that if one of us were engaged to a fiancé who demanded, or for that matter, even suggested the signing of a prenuptial agreement that we would instantly call off the wedding. That scenario, of course, is hypothetical. First of all, my wife and I love each other deeply and are committed to our lifelong marriage vows to each other, with 20 years already behind us, and hopefully many more ahead of us. Secondly, given our financial state, even the very mention of a prenuptial agreement is downright hilarious!

I find nothing in the Catechism that specifically cites prenuptial agreements, but 1662 sheds sufficient light on the matter: “Marriage is based on the consent of the contracting parties, that is, on their will to give themselves, each to the other, mutually, and definitively, in order to live a covenant of faithful and fruitful love.”

A prenuptial agreement, by its very definition, is, at the very least, a “what if” condition, and at its very worst, an “out clause,” to coin a legal term. In either case, it is the antithesis of faith, a staple of which marriage is to be founded upon.

Marriage is also founded upon love. We know from 1 Corinthians 13, a favorite passage of many couples, and often read at their wedding ceremonies, that love is patient, not jealous (or might I add, to paraphrase the 9th and 10th Commandments, “covetous”). Love does not demand its own way. It isn’t resentful. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things. It is even greater that faith or hope. St. Paul didn’t exactly leave a whole lot of wiggle room there for a pre-nup, did he?

Jesus taught us and expects us to be of His world, and not of this one. The 3rd Joyful Mystery of the Rosary is a rightful reflection on poverty, as it depicts from Luke 2: 7, the birth of Jesus in a manager, with the baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes. With their faith and love, an impoverished Joseph and Mary got along just fine. A close friend of mine formerly worked in the cut-throat corporate world and got laid off due to downsizing about three or four times before finally going into business for himself, but not entirely without hardship for him, his wife and their three children. After the last time he lost his job, I offered condolences to him, to which he calmly, succinctly and faithfully replied, “God provides,” and shortly thereafter, He did.

A prenuptial agreement is a simultaneous clinging to materialism as it is an actual barrier to love, a barrier just as much as contraception is, or as is a continued refusal to share conjugal love in a marriage. Marriage is a unity, and in any real unity, there is no room for barriers.

In our modern hedonistic world, narcissism is running amok and ruining marriages and lives. Singles now “hook-up” upon meeting. In other words, sex begins before dating, and certainly outside of marriage. Most women especially often regret such hook-ups after they occur. Dating barely lasts, when it exists at all, before couples engage in premarital sexual relations and very soon often cohabitate. From there, a new and disturbing trend is now emerging: as if so-called “accidents” weren’t bad enough, many couples now deliberately conceive children while unmarried and then later and cavalierly “see if things work out” before even considering marriage. It’s all part of the same gratuitous, corrosive, and dehumanizing evil. Human dignity is being discarded, if not defiled, for immediate sexual gratification, knee-jerk emotions, greed, and overall gross self-centeredness.

By doing things the right, or “traditional” way, slowly, deliberately, and with wholesome courtship and sexual abstinence, both parties can truly come to know each other, and true love can be fostered and nurtured, but even then, only after time, prayer, reflection and discernment. Love is more than an emotion. It is also a decision. The mental aspect must be as deeply present, if not more, than the emotional aspect. Such is the difference between love and infatuation.

With this deliberate and focused slowing down of the intended and seemingly almost obsolete relationship process, fact will trump fantasy, if not fiction, and discernment can overcome the potentially destructive blindness of infatuation-driven denial. Some people are very astute at deception, and others are less savvy at reading people, but all too often, those in infatuation are also in denial, and thus cannot as easily detect someone who is not trustworthy, or places materialism on a higher plain than his or her supposed soul mate.

A decision to love is also a decision to sacrifice. It is also a decision to stay, “in good times, and in bad, in sickness, and in health.” My wife and I can regale you with 20 years worth of roller coasters of “good times and bad,” and of “sickness and of health.” I have known several physically disabled people whose spouses left them because he or she just could not, or more appropriately, would not tolerate the later-acquired disability of his or her spouse. Words have meaning. A promise is more substantive than an agreement, and likewise, a vow is greatly more significant than a promise. In marriage, we take wedding “vows” for a specific reason, in much the same way that God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, and not “a few helpful suggestions.” There isn’t supposed to be a “what if,” or “an out clause” in marriage, hence the “vow.” That is where the mental overcomes the emotional, and the decision can and must override the circumstances. Suffering hardships in life draw us closer to Christ, grant us special graces, and make us stronger in our faith and relationships to Him and to each other, in much the same way that intense fire is used to forge the defects off of precious metals, and in the end, making them that much stronger, and even more precious and valuable.

The divorce rate in the US is currently at about 50%, and sadly among Catholics, it is about the same. Being Catholic in name only is one factor, as roughly 75% of American Catholics don’t regularly attend weekly mass and receive the Eucharist. Cohabitation is also a relevant factor. Roughly 80% of cohabitating couples later and permanently separate, even after later marrying each other. That stark statistic brutally debunk the popular, but detrimental folly that cohabitation is better way for a couple to get to know each other prior to marriage, if marriage is even truly in the picture at all. Too many Catholic couples get married in the Church to only placate their families, often parents and/or grandparents, who may be paying for all or part of the wedding, and thus want their say. Some Catholic couples don’t marry in the Church. The Church thus does not recognize their marriages and then those couples live in a state of unrepentant and grave manifest sin, may not receive the Eucharist, even if they so desire, and are in danger of eternal damnation if they do not confess and repent in time.

We Catholics are not called to be of this world, but that of our God and our Savior. To save marriage, and to limit needless misery, we must culturally change our mindset. That begins with being faithful to our Church, up to, including, and long after receiving the Holy Sacrament of Marriage. In the Catholic engaged couple ministries, we teach couples that marriage is not comprised of two entities, that being just of husband and wife, but rather, of three entities, God, husband and wife. Without that crucial and intended trilateral relationship, the marriage is potentially doomed before it even begins.

A prenuptial agreement is symptomatic of idol worship. It places love of money before love of the person, and thus, before love of God as well. It is conceivably a violation of the 1st Commandment, if even only indirectly so. It is steeped in greed, lacking, if not devoid of true faith and true love, and effectively says, “Just in case…”

Students study for exams. Athletes practice for competitions. Soldiers train for battle. Firefighters drill for that inevitable fire or other catastrophe. Likewise, before even considering the vocation of marriage, and marriage truly is a vocation, we must also genuinely, earnestly and diligently prepare. Money is at or near the top of the short list of causes for arguments, and in some cases, divorces among married couples, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be so. Our Catechism refers to “consent” and “covenant” in marriage. The consent must first be full before the covenant can ever be solid.

Then there will be no need for a “…just in case…”

Doug

Major Crash On Campaign Trail

“Maverick”-Driven “Straight-Talk Express” Runs Over Life, Plummets Over “Ridge”!

Doug writes: I just can’t take it any more. Enough already with the hypocritical rubbish of incessantly uttering “John McCain” and “pro-life” in the same sentence. Those two phrases go together about as well as a red wine with a seafood dish.

McCain’s announcement of today that he might consider pro-choice (Let’s cut to the chase: “pro-abortion”!) former Pennsylvania Governor and US Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge as his running mate is just the straw that broke my already aching back.

John McCain has shown utter disdain for, been critical of, and has even ridiculed Christians, moral traditionalists and social conservatives. He has been given a free pass on his fraudulent so-called pro-life credentials for far too long. That nonsense needs to end now.

McCain favors embryonic stem cell research, which, unlike adult stem cell research, takes human life. He favors abortion to save the life of the mother (a medical falsehood), or to punish the baby for the sins of a rapist or an incestuous fornicator. He has flip-flopped several times over the years and right up to the present about whether or not Roe vs. Wade should be overturned. On different occasions, he could not give a straight answer on his stance regarding health insurance coverage for contraception, or how he would proceed if his daughter were to become pregnant. On that last one, the best gibberish “Johnny-Stuttering-On-The-Spot” could muster was something about a “family conference.” It is more than evident that John McCain’s so-called pro-life stance is about as steady as a weather vane in a hurricane, and that stance is obviously based on his core values…of convenience and political expedience!

Since 1980, The Republican National Committee (RNC) has maintained a pro-life plank in its platform. On the issue of life, the Republican Party is the very antithesis of the Democrat Party, at least, on paper. The implementation of the pro-life plank into the GOP platform was a hard-fought battle that has had to be renewed every four years since. On countless other instances, the Republican Party, as well as many Republican-affiliated candidates and elected officials have given lip service at best to the pro-life plank, and at worst, have outwardly defied it, especially in the liberal bastions of the northeast and the west coast, the two “fringes” of the country, not just geographically, but culturally and politically as well.

“Maverick” John McCain can’t have his cake and eat it, too. A party platform is a collection of ideas and issues that the party supposedly tries to forward and of which the members supposedly rally around. McCain said today that being pro-choice (pro-abortion) should not preclude someone from being considered for elective office. It should if they’re a Republican, “Senator Straight-Talk.” Besides, what issue is more important than life? What other issue can we possibly forward if we are dead? Would we have such a forgiving and cavalier attitude to a candidate who was pro-terrorism? Never mind Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Hussein or Mugabe. We’ve had our own genocide here in the US since the 1973 Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision, with 48 million and still counting of our most innocent and vulnerable slaughtered, not because it was right, and it never was or is, but only because it became legal. How many of those babies, had they lived, would possibly have brokered international peace, cured terminal diseases, or greatly alleviated the suffering of the poor? For that matter, how many of them would have opted to live, had they been given so-called “choice”? We will never know. For that matter, how many of them would have grown up to register as Democrats, or dare I say, even Republicans?

You can be “a little pro-life” about as much as you can be “a little pregnant.” It’s not rocket science, but it is an all or nothing issue, like it or not. The D’s and even some of the R’s might vociferously disagree, but the truth is still the truth, so my vote is for the T’s. Let me make this very clear: John McCain is not pro-life. And his saying that he is only proves that he is only pro-lying. So much for the so-called “Straight-Talk Express.”

Pro-Life voters, or at least, the real ones, cannot and must not vote for John McCain. But that is not to say that they can or should vote for Barack Obama either. Obama not only favors abortion, including partial birth abortion, but he favors federal funding of it. Picture that: infanticide on your (tax paid) dime. Over 200 years ago, some of our forefathers dumped a shipload of tea into Boston Harbor for much less of an issue than that. Obama also remarked that he would never want to see one of his daughters “punished” by a pregnancy. Last but not least, while an Illinois State Senator, Obama legislated to literally kill live, born babies who survived botched abortions. His so-called reasoning for this sheer, evil, barbaric atrocity was that he felt to do otherwise might bring Roe vs. Wade into question and possibly compromise its status as an open door to abortion on demand. Perhaps now you know what Obama really means by “hope” and “change.” Much like with the deceptive and over-used euphemism of “choice,” the ambiguity is very much by design, and not by accident.

I am also sick and tired of continually hearing otherwise very moral, intelligent, rational people bemoaning the erroneous fact that they only have two choices for president and they dislike both of them. Voters have a duty to inform themselves as much as they have a duty to vote. If you count the every Tom, Dick and Harry who wakes up one morning, scratches himself, yawns, pours a cup of coffee and thinks, “Hm…I think I’ll run for President today,” you have literally hundreds of choices. But honing in on a closer grasp of reality, you still have some other choices as well. Alan Keyes (the other “black” presidential candidate) is a former US Ambassador to the UN and a former Assistant Secretary of State under then President Ronald Reagan. He also holds a PhD in Government Affairs from Harvard University. He has run for President and US Senate before on the Republican line and is now running as an independent. Chuck Baldwin is a Baptist Minister and radio talk show host from Pensacola, Florida. He is affiliated with the Constitution Party and was that party’s Vice Presidential candidate in 2004. Bob Barr is a former Republican United States Representative from Georgia. He is also a former US Attorney and also formerly worked for the CIA. Barr was also one of the House managers of the impeachment proceedings against then President Bill Clinton. On a personal note, having had the opportunity to meet and speak to Congressman Barr a few years back, I can also tell you that I found him to be very warm, congenial, engaging, genuine, and a very good listener. Congressman Barr lost his seat after several consecutive terms due to redistricting in his state. He has also since left the Republican Party because of his disgust with the party’s abandoning of its platform, and more importantly, the United States Constitution. Mr. Barr has since joined the Libertarian Party and is that party’s presidential nominee. All three of these fine candidates have impeccable and consistent pro-life credentials on the issues, and on the public record.

I would be grossly remiss if I did not next address a very large contingent of voters out there who mean well but inevitably cause much continued damage to our country and culture, and share at least some of the blame for the abysmal candidates we too often get stuck with, election after election. I call you folks, “The nose-holders.” You are a little savvier than those who still think there are only two candidates every year, but that knowledge sadly doesn’t faze you because while you have scruples, you don’t believe in them enough to utilize them, and that is a lack of faith. Too often I have heard voters say, “I don’t like so and so, but he’s better than the other guy and the ‘lesser of two evils,’ so I’ll just ‘hold my nose’ and vote for him.” This is a self-fulfilling prophesy of electoral doom. Then after their chosen candidate gets into office a few months later and starts doing what should have been anticipated as damage, you nose-holders whine like you didn’t see it coming. Hey, you voted for him (or her)! What did you expect? The nose-holders are natural naysayers and will tell you that “third” or “minor” party candidates can never win. Of course not, because the nose-holders, who agree with them, but perceive that they can’t win, vote for somebody they don’t want, and then make their perception come true. But what if everybody just ignored the polls for once and truly voted their conscience? Does not every grain of sand form a beach? Does this historic and prophetic (and erroneous) newspaper headline ring a bell: “Dewey Defeats Truman!”? A sage, ancient Chinese proverb tells us “Every long journey begins with the first step.” We should not accept nor even tolerate a “McCain” or an “Obama,” but we are our own worst enemies and continually make it happen anyway. President John Quincy Adams said it best, “Duty is ours. Results are God’s.” Never mind what Zogby, Rasmussen, Quinnipiac, or any other pollster tells you. Do your homework, vote your conscience, and let God handle the rest, because let’s face it folks, so far, we haven’t exactly done a stellar job by doing it our way.

When you vote for “the lesser of two evils,” you are still voting for evil. Some dispute that claim and say that you are instead voting to limit evil. That debate is perhaps a topic for another day. You may supposedly be “limiting evil” by voting in a race that really does only have two candidates running, but in most presidential races, between the independent and the third party candidates, such has seldom if ever been the case in our lifetime, and the 2008 race is no exception in that regard.

Voting for John McCain instead of Barack Obama is limiting evil, given that Obama’s platform on life issues is far more radical and intrinsically evil than that of McCain. But no voter with a conscience has to settle for only limiting evil in this race. Voters of moral conscience can and must vote for eliminating evil, and that means voting for Alan Keyes, Chuck Baldwin, Bob Barr, or, if it really floats their boats, one of the hundreds of overnight aspiring wannabe-presidents, as long as he or she is clearly and consistently pro-life.

Despite whoever takes the oath on Inauguration Day, 2009, our country will still then only have a total of 44 presidents since 1776. Yet despite those figures, since only 1973 we have made over 48 million fatally egregious and wholly (or more appropriately, “unholy”) unnecessary electoral mistakes. It is little wonder we say, “Every vote counts.” However, what we also need to consider and reflect upon is how much each vote counts, and ultimately, costs.

Let’s try to get it right this year.

Doug