Issues And Faith In This Political Season

Issues And Faith In This Political Season

Christ’s Kingdom ‘….is not of this world’ but we are still called to participate in our country’s political processes; at the very least by visiting the polling places every so often. The dilemma: How do we see our faith and morals guiding our support for the platform of one political faction or another?

Today, many see this as no easy task, to others it’s very simple. While not endorsing any political party or candidate, shedding some light on fundamental Catholic doctrine might be of use. To paraphrase St. Teresa, we are called to be ‘faith-filled’, not ‘politically correct’!

Paramount to our faith is the ‘pro-life’ outlook, “from the womb to the tomb” it states. Life–born and unborn–matters: to the same degree and to the same extent! If you don’t support human life itself, how can you support “human rights”? Can you have a human right without a human being? In other words, who decides what is human life? Isn’t this the same issue that allowed slavery to continue in contradiction to the Constitution’s claim that “…all are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights..” defining African slaves as three-fifths of a man? Slaves, like the unborn, couldn’t vote, however.

The ‘Culture of Life’ includes supporting an equality and sanctity of life in all the ways humans interact. Racism is bad because it’s one of the worst forms of man’s inhumanity to man. Racism is therefore, evil but so is abortion, abandoning your children, beating your spouse, disrespecting your parents, murder (of the already born), cheating, stealing, degenerate sexual behavior, rape, burning and looting and running to do evil in all its forms. As my grandmother said: “two wrongs don’t make it right”.

Any belittling of evil in any of its forms and their grave moral consequences, leads to moral and civil anarchy; a license to do wrong as long as you are not ‘racist’.

Those who disagree with this “woke” culture narrative are considered malevolent, a hater, homophobic, and yes, ‘racist’. This is nothing but a demonic trick that tries to play on the Christian obligation to love one’s neighbor; an ideological hammer to intimidate Christian doctrine into submission: a “shaming campaign” against us.

The present polarization and partisanship is preventing us from solving many of the issues we face. We need functioning political institutions. But we cannot minimize or downplay our God-given principles for the sake of a false pluralism. We cannot check our values at the curtain of the voting booth. We must fight against both the slavery of human chains and injustice but also against the “slavery of sin”.

Evil is pervasive today. The culture constantly bombards us with temptations of greed, lust, envy, anger and vengeance. Today, we are in the midst of a world in a tailspin spiraling down in social disintegration and destruction. Clouds of misfortune hang over us. Salvation and happiness will not come from politics. Politics promises what it cannot deliver. You cannot give what you do not possess. Nothing in human affairs is perfect; and, especially in the political arena. Only Jesus can heal our wounds!

The true God is the supreme Reality, the universal Reality, the Creator of all things and of all men. He is therefore, the God of all men. He knows us even if we do not know Him. He loves us even if we do not love Him or love Him poorly. Evils like racism and abortion won’t change until human hearts change no matter what political party is in power. Take this from a black man who grew up in the segregated south and who fought against racism and discrimination fifty years ago and who agreed with the radical politics of that time. Today seems like a distant mirror, so eerily familiar in its radicalism. Now, as then, from an atheistic, naive idealism and a black power militancy a similar crisis in political legitimacy has unfolded. The same radicals and militants of that time are being railed against today by their grandchildren as the new purveyors of systemic racism, homophobia and deniers of women’s “reproductive rights”. As they say: “what goes around, comes around”.

We must remember that no matter how important politics are in the fight against social injustice we must avoid the temptation whereby everything is defined by political ideology. The absence of religion from the public debate, with its calming effects of the Gospel, is a big factor in the current turmoil. Once God is thrown out, the false god of political correctness arrives. Satan has many a deadly submarine that rides just below the eternal sea of politics. We see this played out when a justified struggle against racism, a historic problem which has been ongoing for centuries if not longer, is made the measure of all things. Everything becomes ‘racist’ according to a definition made by some groups. Demands for absolute political justice is then turned into a “canceling” and demonizing of people who speak the slightest disagreement from a “correct political line”.

So when we enter the voting booth this November, let us look beyond the transcendent issues of earthly politics. As Knights of Columbus, and as citizens of this great country of ours, let us reaffirm the relevance of Christian values and teaching to the just concerns of our common social and political life.

Only the Lord Jesus Christ will bring about perfect justice at the Second Coming. All human imperfections, sin, forgiveness, tolerance, the limits of earthly politics does not mean that we need to be any less vigorous in fighting for justice and fairness. We just don’t want to get drunk on the wine of false promises or worship the god that failed.

SK Wendell Jeanpierre, Lecturer