(Special to The Remnant)
In 1960, presidential candidate, John F. Kennedy stated,
"I believe in an America where the separation of church
and state is absolute…where no Catholic prelate would
tell the President--should he be Catholic--how to
act...where there is no Catholic vote, no anti-Catholic
vote, no bloc voting of any kind.”
And then, he won the presidency thanks to the Catholic
vote. According to George Marlin, Author of
The American Catholic Voter:
Two Hundred Years of Political Impact
(St. Augustine’s Press)
“John
F. Kennedy, was saved by the Catholic urban vote in the
rich electoral states of the Northeast and Midwest. In
these regions, he carried over 80 percent of the
Catholic vote.”
Marlin, a political analyst, bestselling author of ten
books, and chairman of the Philadelphia Trust Bank whose
columns have appeared in The New York Times, New York
Post, National Review, Newsday, and The Washington Times,
said in an interview that not only is there still a
Catholic vote, but it could decide the election next
month.
Since1972, candidates who have won the presidency also
won the majority of Catholic votes, which accounts for
one-quarter of the electorate. The vote has become
split, however, with cultural Catholics who don’t attend
Mass regularly more likely to vote liberal and church
going Catholics more apt to vote conservative.
“Historically, Catholics have determined outcomes of
national, state, and local elections, and they could
determine who becomes president in November,” said
Marlin. According to him, it matters most in the swing
states of Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana,
Pennsylvania and Florida. With the exception of Florida,
he refers to those states as the rust belt—industrial
states with aging populations and a high percent of
white, blue-collar, conservative Catholics. The
Complete Catholic has published his in-depth
analysis on those states at
The Catholic Voter 2012.
During the last election, pro-abortion, Obama won with
55 percent of the generic Catholic vote over prolife
McCain’s 45 percent. “What happened,” Marlin said, “is
that a lot of socially conservative blue-collar
Catholics would not vote for Obama and didn’t like
McCain, so they stayed home.” Marlin pointed out that
two years later, during the mid-term elections,
Catholics changed direction and 53 percent voted
Republican, allowing the GOP to retake the House. “
He said that Catholics could change the upcoming
election in the rust belt states and in Florida in
November. “The Hispanic Catholics in Florida are mostly
from Cuba and 75% are socially conservative and believe
in marriage,” Marlin said. “They have the ability to
swing the election but the question is whether they will
show up.”
He stated that while economic issues are important, it
is the social issues that can ignite the Catholic vote
this election. “The biggest problem is that many
Catholic voters don’t fully understand the issues,”
Marlin said. For instance, he said he believes that
many blue-collar Catholics don’t understand Obama’s HHS
mandate, which forces religious employers to pay for
contraception and abortion-causing drugs. “For them to
understand the issue and get motivated, they are going
to need to hear it from the pulpit,” said Marlin.
While Cardinal Timothy Dolan and many bishops have made
statements appealing to Catholics, Marlin said, it does
not go far enough. “Making a statement is not the same
as speaking in the parishes,” he said. “Newspapers are
not the standard of news anymore. There is a political
effort, and then there is the spiritual effort that
bishops should be doing throughout their parishes.”
Bishop Filipe J. Estevez of the diocese of St.
Augustine, FL, said he agrees. In September, he sent a
letter to be read in all the parishes, which stated,
“Catholics should not leave their faith on the outside
of the voting booth.”
He wrote:
”We are called by Christ to be salt and light to the
world, and to infuse the culture around us with the
values of our faith. And so I urge you to take your
Catholic beliefs, values and consciences into the voting
booth with you.
“I would not tell you how to vote or who to vote for,
but it is my responsibility to remind you that, for us
Catholics, some issues are simply never morally
acceptable. The taking of an innocent human life,
whether inside the womb or not, and up until natural
death, is always and everywhere intrinsically evil.
Such issues as embryonic stem cell research and attempts
at human cloning are also direct attacks against the
dignity and uniqueness of human life made in the image
of God. Finally, preserving the dignity of traditional
marriage is of central importance and must never be
undermined because marriage is a cornerstone of any
stable society. Any attempts to re-define marriage as
something other than between a man and a woman, should
be vigorously opposed by a Catholic as contrary to
reason, the natural law, and the divinely revealed
truths of the Bible.”
Referring to John F. Kennedy’s famous speech on the
separation of religion from politics, Bishop Estevez
pointed out that today’s culture negates the message.
“In the early Sixties, religion and society were not
hostile to one another as seems to be increasingly the
case today in the United States,” he said. “I suspect
that President Kennedy never meant that our faith and
beliefs should not have any influence on how we act or
how we vote.”
Physician Manuel Gonzalez and his wife, Adriana
Gonzalez, the parents of seven children, were inspired
to found Catholics Called to Witness
(CC2W)
through their own realization that many Catholics do not
understand all the issues. “I read
an article
in which Pope Benedict’ XVI
said there are “non-negotiable” matters that are not
open to debate,” said Adrianna, “so it became our
mission to promote that message to Catholics,” she said.
A result of their desire to inform and inspire, they
had the
"Test of Fire"
video made. It promotes the message using daunting music
and the image of an old-fashioned blacksmith forging
words representing the campaign issues. It ends with the
message “Your vote will affect the future and be
recorded in eternity. Will you vote the values that will
stand the test of fire?”
The video was posted on a friend of the Gonzalez’s
YouTube channel and received over 2 million views in
just a few months. It has just recently been made into
two new versions, one for Evangelical Christians and
another for Spanish-speaking Catholics.
“If you take out Christianity, what is left? Something
else is going to fill that void,” said Manuel. “Our Lord
had a simple message. Don’t get confused, there are some
issues we cannot disagree on if we call ourselves
Catholic.”
Adriana added, “Whatever is happening in the political
field, we want to affect our Catholic culture and
encourage people to love the Lord enough to vote their
faith.”
An Afterword
By Michael J. Matt
Despite widespread apprehension among faithful Catholics
where presidential hopeful Mitt Romney is concerned,
especially regarding the Governor’s positions on the
so-called abortion “exceptions”, contraception, and
American exceptionalism, we believe the above article
makes several valid points for Catholics to consider.
Whatever one thinks Romney may or may not do if elected
president, the fact remains that what we know
about President Obama should induce every Catholic—the
entire Catholic Vote—to vote against the incumbent,
either by voting for Romney or abstaining altogether.
Mitt Romney is far from perfect, obviously, but his
support for home schooling, opposition to most
abortions, and promise to repeal Obamacare has for many
good Catholics tipped the scales in favor of justifying
a vote for him. Whether you agree with them or not,
where unanimous agreement is possible is on one
essential point: As Barack can’t win without the
Catholic Vote, our first objective as Catholics must be
to make sure he doesn’t get it.
On this we can all agree!
You think there’s no measurable difference between the
two candidates, especially on foreign policy? Fine!
We’re all tired of being bamboozled by the GOP. But
at least let’s agree that it will be tantamount to a
fifth sin crying to heaven for vengeance if a majority
of Catholic Americans cast their vote for a second term
for the most enthusiastic abortion and sodomy supporter
in the history of our country.
This need not be a divisive issue among faithful
Catholics. Even if we don’t trust Romney we can still
appreciate the fact that some of our co-religionists
have essentially decided to vote for a less sadistic
warden on November 6, and they’re well within the bounds
of moral theology to do so.
Yes, the word “sadistic” is apropos. Let us consider the
President’s position in support of just one of the moral issues on
the table: abortion, and, in particular, partial-birth
abortion.
The end result of any abortion (including partial-birth,
obviously) is a dead baby and several mortal sins.
Morally speaking, there isn’t much difference between
the various methods of baby killing. But what does it
say about a nation whose people have become so corrupt,
with consciences so numbed, that they would elect a man
president who can stand over a partially delivered baby,
look into her beautiful eyes, barely beginning to open;
watch her struggle to take her first few breaths;
witnesses her little attempts to squirm closer to the
life-giving breast of her mother—and then stab that baby
in the back of the head? What sort of animal does this?
What sort of barbaric nation allows this? Do we even
have a soul anymore? A conscience? That remains to be
seen.
Leaving aside the negligible moral differences between
the various methods of aborting a baby, it is a sobering
indicator of the drastic decline in the moral and
psychological health of a nation, person or president
who thinks it’s okay to insert a pair of scissors into a
baby’s brain. There is a moral difference, not in the
procedure, but in the sadistic mindset of men and women
who would knowingly carry it out or who would vote for
those who would approve of it.
There is at least some gray area (especially among
non-Catholics who are not conversant in moral theology)
with the other social and moral issues on the table this
election season— including the morality of nation
building, stem-cell research, contraception, opinions as
to when life begins, immoral warfare, and a reckless
U.S. foreign policy. There are always going to be
misconceptions involved with these
discussions—ignorance, stupidity, reckless patriotism,
whatever. But stabbing a baby in the back of the head,
or demanding that Americans pay for a woman’s right to
do this to her baby—for this there can be no excuse or
mitigating circumstances, which is why it is an issue
that serves as a convenient barometer of the state of
mind and soul of the candidates and the political
parties to which they are affiliated.
Bottom line: a Catholic vote for the Planned Parenthood
promoting, partial-birth aborting, Obamacare enforcing,
homosexual ‘marriage’ backing Barack Obama will sound
the death knell for the Catholic Church in America and
for any hope of redemption for us and our children.
This doesn’t actually have all that much to do with Mitt
Romney. He is who he is. But this has everything to do
with us, our Church, our bishops, our national
conscience, and our diminished capacity to be repulsed
by open, outright and overt evil. The Catholic Vote
simply must not go to Obama this year if America has any
hope of survival.
God promised to spare Sodom if Abraham could find just
ten good men within that city’s walls. If the Catholic
Vote goes against Barrack Obama in two weeks, who
knows—perhaps God will spare us, too.
You don’t like Mitt? Fine! Don’t vote for him. But for
God’s sake vote against Barack Obama. MJM |