By Father Kevin M. Cusick
In just days from now the national election for president may well be decided. We will either have taken the last chance to preserve the vestiges of personal freedom remaining, to follow our conscience and our Faith with some hope of a better tomorrow, or we will have submitted our necks to the yoke of tyrannical overlords who will jail us, or worse, for simply saying out loud, “Christ is King”.
In a post-Christian society, with sin now explained away or ignored out of existence, people often say that they intend to vote for a candidate “even though they don’t like him”, with vague reasoning or with no explanation at all. A recent New York Times story covered eleven voters in Michigan who described their positions in just this way. Why is this considered surprising? Why is it treated as “news”?
There is something to dislike about everyone. None of us born with original sin is perfect. There was only one creature conceived without it and we all know who She is.
So, if everyone has flaws, no matter how striving for virtue they may be, since when did politics and voting become just another opportunity for virtue signaling and social preening? Why has the person we vote for become just another calculus in the social credit score? Point to the president who was perfect. You cannot.
After one eliminates the emotions and irrational issues surrounding voting one can begin to look at the real issues or policies that will be the consequences of voting for Candidate A or Candidate B in a two-party system. Write-ins or not voting is voting, usually for the least worthy candidate. Voting is a duty of good citizens and our faith has always called us to be good citizens of the earthly city as we seek salvation in the New Jerusalem that is above.
All past is prologue. The problems and challenges that face us today are not so different even from those of ancient Rome. They had their Caligulas and Constantines, and so do we.
One party lusts for power even to ending the life of a child as she or he survives an abortion. Walz and, likely Kamala, are perfectly okay with abandoning a living human being to die just moments after successfully escaping the womb of a mother who, more likely than not, consented to the execution of her own offspring.
If even the most vulnerable human being will suffer this fate under a modern-day Caligula what chance have any of us at the end of life if we are in a coma or unable to make personal decisions due to dementia or other disabilities?
One candidate is open to Christian Faith and the Christian message, even going so far as to tweet a birthday message to Our Lady and the Saint Michael Prayer. Yet he is content with only going so far in the pro-life cause as did Reagan: supporting exceptions to restrictions on the legal murder of unborn children in cases of “rape, incest and the life of the mother”. Even the very concept that an innocent human life should suffer the death penalty for the crimes of a parent is barbaric, but such is the idolatry of comfort, convenience and the separation of sexuality from marriage that Moloch is worshipped through the criminal and sinful murder of the living image of God in a new human life.
Much like Constantine, Trump is conflicted yet somehow enamored with the idea of victory in the name of Christ, perhaps particularly after his brushes with death, having survived now two assassination attempts. He has spoken often and compellingly of his belief that God preserved His life. We must pray that his Constantinian conversion may come soon and may result in a whole-hearted rededication of this nation to God and a full embrace of Christian Faith in all aspects of public life.
The difference between the two approaches, and a reason for hope, may be seen when comparing Kamala, who responded “You’re at the wrong rally” to a pro-life heckler who could be heard proclaiming “Jesus is Lord”, as she described her support for abortion and, conversely, JD Vance who agreed and repeated, “Yes, Jesus is King” to a similar voice at a different event.
The dark side of evil is the way in which it responds to good, like a demon leaving the body of a person possessed. Mark Halperin, in an interview with Tucker Carlson, described the fearful consequences of a Trump victory.
(Source:realclearpolitics.com)
“TUCKER CARLSON: A lot of Democrats, maybe the majority, believe that Trump becoming president again is the worst thing that could ever happen. So how do they respond to that?
“MARK HALPERIN: I say this not flippantly, I think it will be the cause of the greatest mental health crisis in the history of the country. I think tens of millions of people will question their connection to the nation, their connection to other human beings, their connection to their vision of what their future, and the future for their children, could be like. I think it will require an enormous amount of access to mental health professionals. I think it’ll lead to trauma in the workplace. I think there will be some degree of --
“TUCKER CARLSON: Are you being serious?
“MARK HALPERIN: 100% serious. I think there’ll be alcoholism, broken marriages... yeah. They think he’s the worst person possible to be president. Having won by the hand of Jim Comey and a fluke in 2016, and then performed in office for four years, and denied who won the election last time, and January 6th... the fact that under a fair election, America chose by the pre-agreed rules Donald Trump again -- I think it will cause the biggest mental health crisis in the history of America.
“And I don’t think it will be a passing thing that, by the inauguration, we’ll be fine. I think it will be sustained, unprecedented, and hideous, and I don’t think the country’s ready for it.
“TUCKER CARLSON: So, mental health crises often manifest in violence.
“MARK HALPERIN: Yeah, I think there will be some violence. I think there’ll be workplace fights, fights at kids' birthday parties, I think there will be protests that will turn violent. I hope they don’t, but I think there will be some.
“I think it will be less anger and more a failure to understand how it could happen. You know, like the death of a child, or your spouse announcing that your wife is a lesbian and she’s leaving you for your best friend. Like something that’s so traumatic, that it’s impossible for even the most mentally healthy person to truly process and incorporate into their daily life.
“I hope I’m wrong, but I think that’s what’s going to happen for tens of millions of people because they think that their fellow citizens supporting Trump is a sign of fundamental evil at the heart of their fellow citizens and of the nation. That’s how they view it.”
No matter who has come away with the victory in this national contest, whether it be Caligula or Constantine, pray for peace in our souls and in our world, whether we are called sooner to martyrdom or some time longer to the continued work of reclaiming the world for God and restoring all things in Christ the King.
Thank you for reading and praised be Jesus Christ our King,now and forever.
Father Cusick’s column appears weekly in The Wanderer Catholic Newspaper.
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