Cardinal Burke Weighs In On Responsible Catholic Voting

Yesterday LifeSiteNews relayed the proceeds of a teleconference with Cardinal Burke, in which they participated.  His Eminence gave some very cogent suggestion to Catholics and people of good will regarding the upcoming presidential elections.  I'll highlight and elaborate on a few salient points from the LSN article.

• "The faithful must vote for the candidate who will do the most to advance the protection of human life, defense of the family, respect for freedom, and care for the poor."  Note the imperative "must".  Now cannot that be said for some third-party candidate?  No - simply because he/she will not get elected.  There are only two viable candidates: Clinton and Trump.  Whether or not we like that situation is irrelevant.  It is what it is.  We need to deal with reality as it presents itself, not as we might wish it to be.
• "Burke warned Catholics against not voting at all and against the practice of writing in the name of a preferred candidate on the ballot, saying it could inadvertently cause the election of a candidate who does not respect life, family, and freedom."
• "Those are difficult considerations, and I don’t say any of this in a kind of easy way. But I do think that Catholics especially need to be very cautious and not simply opting out, or good pro-life people and good pro-family people, simply just throwing up their hands."

In that last point, His Eminence addresses the spiritual and intellectual malaise that has deluded many, if not most, of the #nevertrump crowd.  It is that malaise that seems to have caused Alan Keyes to blather on like Cokie Roberts - and he's only one of several.

Regular readers of this blog will recall that I've put forth the case that not only is it moral to vote for Trump during this election, but not to do so would be immoral.  It seems that Cardinal Burke's words corroborate my understanding of the moral theology as it pertains to this particular presidential race.