My parish in northern Virginia has commenced 55 hours of
continuous Eucharistic Adoration and Prayer-including Benediction
— “in anticipation of the General Election,” which started Sunday,
November 4, ending Election Day about the time the polls will
close. Catholics never, never endorse any candidate from the pulpit
as happens in some Protestant churches. Yet, over 2000 years, other
more subtle and more efficacious modes of communication have been
developed that respect the proprieties.
Some bishops are issuing letters and pronouncements instructing
the faithful on a Christian’s duty to vote without mentioning whom
to vote for or against. The fact that the Obama administration may
be the single most anti-Catholic administration since the era of
the Know-Nothings is
left unsaid but goes without saying. On religious liberty, life,
and marriage the current crowd in the White House is committed,
outright, to offending faithful Catholic Christians on every single
important question of ethics and morality imaginable. Even Notre
Dame, which awarded President Obama an honorary degree and now
appreciates the maxim that no good deed goes unpunished, has sued
him over the abuse of its religious liberties.
This weekend, at home, we received a ton of mailers calling
hellfire down upon President Obama and former Governor Kaine who is
running against former Senator George Allen for our open Senate
seat, a race just about as close as the presidential contest.
Of course, we are also experiencing a barrage of TV and radio
ads featuring women who are apparently living in tremendous fear of
losing their access to birth control. Does anyone really take these
claims seriously?
We also received robo calls on Saturday from Senator McCain,
Governor McDonnell, Pat Boone and several more from the Republican
National Committee and the state GOP. The Boone call stung a bit
since it was on behalf of some group targeting the over 60 crowd.
How come we aren’t hearing from the young, the beautiful, and the
hip for Romney?
We live in a generally Democratic neighborhood in Fairfax
County, but there seems to be parity in terms of Obama and Romney
lawn signs, something we have not seen in an election since moving
here eleven years ago. Twice volunteers for Romney have knocked on
our doors enquiring of our support for their man. For some reason
they keep missing the three yard signs my wife has planted on our
lawn. God love ‘em, we applaud their dedication and thoroughness in
service to the cause.
I am pleased to read that Michael Barone is calling the election
for Governor Romney, and I enjoyed Karl Rove’s recent
piece in the Wall Street Journal making a great case
for a solid win on Tuesday. Larry Kudlow, following Daniel
Henninger in the WSJ, highlighted the expected surge
in Evangelical voters in Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, and even
Pennsylvania. News reports indicate that early and absentee voting
by Democrats is falling behind 2008 levels which sound
encouraging.
But it is still a very close election. Moreover, whether or not
our side wins on November 6, it has been a very unedifying
campaign, one that has aggravated the already deep divide in
America between Red and Blue, Republican and Democratic, Believers
and Non-believers, Wealthy and Working Class.
The Republican campaign was not bean bag; but the Obama
campaign, starting in the summer, had to be one of the most
mendacious of all time. Not only was it mendacious and dishonest,
it was personal, nasty and vicious in its vilification of a
successful, productive man whose professional and personal life
were exceptional in all respects.
Charles Krauthammer was exactly right when he said that the
entire Obama and Democratic message seemed to come down to Big Bird
and Sandra Fluke. Even more disturbing is that these totems of the
Blue political model actually resonated with so many Americans who
seem to have no tolerance for any restraint on governmental
spending and interventionism, damn the consequences to the fiscal
health of the nation or religious liberty.
Just a few days ago I read a short
news item indicating that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC)
says we have reached a point at which 40 percent of all births in
this country are out-of-wedlock or born to unmarried women. This is
a long-term trend that Daniel Patrick Moynihan was crucified for
highlighting forty years ago. It is now systemic, cutting across
racial and geographic categories as experts such as Patrick Fagan,
Brad Wilcox, and Charles Murray have noted in their writings.
Aside from the personal tragedies — women without husbands,
children without fathers or adequate love, support and economic and
educational opportunities — this is a significant political
milestone that points to a growing constituency dependent on
government for more and more financial and material support without
limit. This is not a population that may be temporarily taken aback
by recession or hard economic times, but a permanent social block
for which government, not their own labor and enterprise, will be
the basis of their survival. Demography is destiny. It will also
drive political choices over time. It already is driving them.
I have no illusion that government can fundamentally change the
behavior of so many people who have forsaken marriage, fidelity,
and “bourgeois” morality. That is a social, cultural, and, yes,
religious matter which must be addressed in those contexts. Yet,
the first principle in life, and government, should be “Do no
wrong.” So this is still the most momentous election in my life,
maybe even more so than 1980, in terms of our one last chance to
preserve a democratic republic that can still reconcile liberty and
virtue.
Don’t forget to vote on Tuesday.
