Two weeks ago I wrote that the Catholic Standard had published online the text of Cardinal Gregory's homily, the one he gave while he was cooperating with mortal sin by offering Mass at Father Martin's Outreach 24 gab fest. For some reason, I didn't think the Standard would be so brazen as to publish it in their print, thus making known their unholy alliance with perversion. Silly me! They did! It's on page 5 of the August 22nd issue.
I saw it in a copy that I picked up after Mass yesterday. As I read it, I wondered to myself how decent Catholics could read this and yet not be outraged at this overt betrayal and dissidence against Catholic moral teaching. I mentioned this to someone as I was still somewhat aghast at both the dissidence and apparent indifference of so many Catholics. Their reply was, "I don't like politics". I replied that this wasn't politics, but didn't continue further when I realized that the mindset this person was evincing is quite widespread.
Before I go on any further, I remind my readers that this blog does NOT operate under a 501(c) charity. Thus I can say anything political and even endorse candidates to my heart's content. Now let us continue..
We are coming up on a presidential race that will be quite pivotal for our nation. Politics is in the air and that is a healthy thing. Politics is simply the effort to implement the teachings of Jesus Christ in the public arena. Our opponents are setting themselves against Jesus and are making efforts to implement their perverted world views. That mean, ladies and gentlemen, that there will be struggles and conflicts between the two camps. We Christians must simply harden our noses, thicken our skins, and put some calcium into our backbones. We must accept the fact that we will get dirt under our fingernails and have the anti-life crowd say (and do) mean things to us. To those of us bemoaning the scrappiness of politics, may I remind you that politics has become unsavory in large part due to the generations of Christians abdicating their God-given duties to be involved in civic affairs?
At this time we are also facing the wearisome spectacle of Catholics stating that because both candidates from the major parties are morally tainted, that they cannot vote for either one, and thus they will either stay home on election day or vote for a third-party candidate who doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of winning. I've dealt with this so many times in previous years; I link now to an anthology of posts.
When I wrote those posts, I lamented that no priest was willing to weigh in with a theological or philosophical viewpoint on the matter. I was delighted to discover that Father Chad Ripperger did so during an interview. Here is a video of the relevant portion.
UPDATE AS OF 9/15/24: I originally posted a small snippet of Father Ripperger's remarks last week. I am now replacing it with the entire video as it gives Father's complete remarks. The relevant portion starts at the 1:08 mark.
The Priestly Fraternity of St Peter has a treatise on the matter, as well.
Still, the #nevertrump crowd has resumed their tamper tantrums. Granted, he has made regrettable remarks betraying a reduced pro-life conviction, but he has an obvious pro-life track record. May I remind one and all that Roe v Wade would not have been overthrown, had not Trump appointed three of the five Supreme Court Justices who trashed Roe?
In that anthology of posts, I described what I believe some of the causes of the weird #nevertrump mindset are. Now I believe I have stumbled across another. I believe that #nevertrumpers are operating out of an effeminate mindset. The word "effeminate" has several definitions, but one is used by St. Paul. Merriam-Webster has an online dictionary. The relevant definition is the second one. So many of the comments in my previous posts involve an over-exaltation of "conscience" as a cloak for mere distaste.
I always appreciate your viewpoint, Janet. I linked to a column today by Catholic philosopher Edward Feser about Trump's defection from his pro-life base and think you may find it interesting. I'll be voting for Trump, but also making my opinion about his betrayals public. And if I lived in a blue state where his defeat was certain, I would not vote. In 1972 I, when Virginia was definitely red, I voted for George McGovern because I hated to see Nixon win in a landslide. He did anyway. One does the best one can in the tainted world of politics. It really does corrupt even the best of men and women. Power, honor, and money have a way of making people forget about God.
ReplyDeleteI too am disappointed in Trump's waffling on abortion, but he's much better than Harris. A moldy ham sandwich would be better than she. This post is more directed at those who seem to make it a point of pride to never vote for anyone not meeting their oh-so-pristine standards. They refuse to acknowledge that there are several valid motives for voting, and one of those is to prevent harm that would be inflicted, should the more evil candidate wins. They will rail on and on about how rotten Trump is, yet not utter a peep about evil Kamala. I can only think that such behavior arises from an effeminate pride; I don't know what else it could be.
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