Some might think he's addressing those Catholics who would be so stupid and callous as to vote for Hillary, but I think his words could just as well apply to the #nevertrump crowd: those who plan to vote "third party" or not vote at all.
A few days ago one of my facebook friends stated his opinion that his conscience was bothered by Trump and he was considering voting for Johnson (libertarian) although the latter is pro-abortion. I objected, of course. In the interest of not repeating myself, I posted links to several of the blog posts that I've written in recent weeks regaarding this particular election. For my trouble, one of my friend's other friends engaged in ad hominems, calling me a "nutcase". My friend rebuked him and some time later the attacks disappeared from his page.
I mention this because I suspect at the heart of the #nevertrump movement, emotion reigns at the expense of logic and reason. When I broach principles of Catholic moral theology to these people, I'm largely ignored, signifying to me that #nevertrumpers are threatened when asked to see if their stances actually square with Church teaching. Others simply carry on as that man cited in the preceding paragraph albeit not nearly so rudely.
As I mentioned previously, a couple of mental anomalies in the #nevertrump mindset are really quite bizarre:
- Acknowledging the fact that Hillary will win should they get their way, and welcoming that outcome, opining that "our nation needs to be punished". I suppose they haven't a care about the babies who will be murdered should she attain the White House.
- Somehow dreaming that Trump and Clinton are morally equivalent. Leaving aside the obvious differences of policy statements that they've both made, let's look at Hillary's track history. She allowed the four men to die at Benghazi. She probably caused many more deaths with her sloppy handling of classified emails. There have been a number of former associates and others connected with her that have "mysteriously" died over the past several months. Can anything remotely similar be uttered about Trump?
- Many of these #nevertrumpers are quite blithe in assuming that our country would survive four years under Hillary, not considering that during these past eight years the fabric of our republic has been weakened and mutated almost beyond recognition. While I might hope they'd be correct I'm not making that brash assumption. They fail to consider that they are gambling with their children's futures.
Nice to see this, especially after being at mass today in the Archdiocese of Washington - a major DC church - where the celebrant bragged about his failure to counsel his friend who was entering into a same-sex marriage during the homily -- and then went on to insult the intelligence of the congregation by giving a sermon which feigned non-partisanship but actually slammed Mr. Trump with lies, while holding up the "supposed virtue" of Hillary Clinton. If I hadn't been directing the choir -- I would have walked out.
ReplyDeleteWould you please provide some details: name of priest and parish, time of Mass, some pertinent phrases, etc? I realize this could make for some discomfort in the parish, but this priest's conduct is endangering the immortal souls in his charge. To minimize damage he needs to be called out and contradicted. Thanks.
DeleteThank the dear Lord for Fr. Imbarrato! Thrilled to see this on (of all places) EWTN! May this sermon go FAR AND WIDE in the Catholic media! Unfortunately you will NEVER be able to convince all Catholics to actually vote the right way, but........this sermon may go a long way to convince at least some to vote morally. Trump isn't perfect, that's a given, but that is the very excuse given by some to either not vote at all, or to vote for a third party candidate, or to write someone in. By doing one of these three things they have convinced themselves they are fulfilling their obligation as Catholics to 'vote'. They're rationalizing away their disobedience.
ReplyDeleteI think I would remind the gentleman who gave the response to you on facebook that 'This country needs to be punished', that punishment is not up to him, punishment is up to God Himself, and his job is to be faithful to the moral teachings of Christ in His Church in regard to voting morally. LOL.....this guy wants to play God I guess, me thinks he will be in for a surprise.
You vote for Trump; within 6 months Trump will be impeached (he has no one in either party who would support him); Pence will then be President, by far the best option of the 4 president and vice presidential nominees!
ReplyDeleteAmen!
DeletePence is an honorable God fearing gentleman. It would be an honor to have him as a VP.
ReplyDelete