Election Interference

Preaching the gospel during a presidential election

10/23/2024

LK 12:39-48 Jesus said to his disciples: “Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour when the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.” Then Peter said, “Lord, is this parable meant for us or for everyone?” And the Lord replied, “Who, then, is the faithful and prudent steward whom the master will put in charge of his servants to distribute the food allowance at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master on arrival finds doing so. Truly, I say to you, he will put him in charge of all his property. But if that servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed in coming,’ and begins to beat the menservants and the maidservants, to eat and drink and get drunk, then that servant’s master will come on an unexpected day and at an unknown hour and will punish the servant severely and assign him a place with the unfaithful.

Several parishioners have asked me if I would speak about the upcoming election and I have been hesitant to do so. Why? Well, we live in such a toxic and polarized political climate that words and thoughts are ripped out of context to serve the listener’s political agenda. Some people will walk away from this homily thinking: “Ha! Fr. John only wants Trump to win!” or others will say, “I knew it! Fr. John secretly wants Kamala to be the next president!”

Like Jesus said, “This generation has ears but they cannot hear” (Mt 13:15). In spite of that concern, I still feel compelled to say something. After all, St. Paul urged his disciple Timothy: “Preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, and exhort” (2 Tm 4:2). So, for those with ears to hear, let me make 3 observations about the November election.

The first observation in any election is prioritizing the protection of human life from conception to natural death. But sadly neither party can pass that litmus test. The Democratic ticket advocates abortion on demand, while the Republican ticket readily makes exceptions for rape, incest, and danger to the life of the mother. Not to mention the practice called IVF, and the so-called “snowflake babies” that result from it.

Catholic morality would not be 100% in agreement with either party’s platform and approach to the prolife issue. Sam Sicard recently sent me an article about a new party, a third party, called the American Solidarity Party, which upholds the full spectrum of the prolife position. That third party might be a better option for the more conscientious Catholic voter.

The second observation is that both parties engage in making patently false or contradictory statements, but are unaware of their own prevarication. For example, Democrats maintain that the embryo in the woman’s womb is a part of her body, and as such, she can deal and dispose of it as she wishes, like trimming your fingernails.

On the other hand, these same Democrats unflinchingly insist that embryo is a baby, and cherish it as a human life, and paint the unborn baby’s room and pick out the unborn baby’s furniture, and are devastated if the unborn baby dies before birth. Can you hear the contradiction? Is the embryo the woman’s body or is it the woman’s baby? It cannot be both.

300 years before Jesus Christ, Aristotle the Greek philosopher articulated his famous principle of non-contradiction: a thing cannot both be and not be true in the same sense and at the time same. In other words, the embryo cannot simultaneously be both the woman’s body and the woman’s baby.

But some Republicans engage in equivocation and making false claims that do not align with reality as well. It is beyond a reasonable doubt that the presidential election of 2020 produced a clear winner, namely, President Joe Biden. Joe Biden is indubitably the 46 president of the United State of America.

And yet, an October 2022 Washington Post article found that 51% of Republican nominees for House, Senate, and key statewide offices in nearly every state that year denied or questioned the 2020 election outcome. Can you hear the self-contradiction, or at least the incompatibility with reality?

A thing cannot both be and not be true at the same time and in the same way. But both parties routinely ignore basic logic for political expediency. And the real tragedy is that the American people are not smart enough to hear it.

A third observation is that both campaigns claim the other candidate is an “existential threat to democracy.” Have you heard that rhetoric? For instance, the Harris campaign asserts that if Donald Trump is elected he will scrap the Constitution and declare himself a dictator. On other hand, the Trump campaign insists that Kamala Harris desires open borders and that she will let our country be flooded by illegal aliens who will destroy our modern society.

Both campaigns take tid-bits of information and exaggerate them so much that fear motivates people to vote. Each side paints the other person as the Anti-Christ for America. Personally, I do not believe that Donald Trump will become a dictator, nor do I believe that Kamala Harris desires open borders.

But still, I am convinced that one day our democracy will come to an end. All great civilizations eventually end. The wise Greek civilization ended. The Roman Empire crumbled under barbarian invasions. Charlemagne’s French Kingdom, who boasted being “the eldest daughter of the Church”, is a mere memory today.

All empires, kingdoms, nations have a life cycle – a birth, a rise to full stature, a decline to senility, and finally a death. Our nations has reached full stature and is declining into senility - just listen to the political rhetoric. The Letter to the Hebrews said prophetically: “For here we have no lasting city, but we seek one that is to come.”

In other words, the true existential threat to democracy is not Trump or Harris but the inexorable march of history. Put differently, the brave men who signed the Declaration of Independence were not only signing our country’s birth certificate, but also our nation’s death certificate.

When I celebrate a funeral Mass, I give a word of explanation about the “Our Father.” I say that when we utter the words, “Thy Kingdom come,” we are really praying that Jesus will come back and establish his kingdom, definitively and permanently. And the sooner the better – Thy kingdom come! And Christ's Kingdom is where we should put all our marbles.

Indeed, Jesus says in the gospel today: “You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.” So what does all this mean for our upcoming election? Well, first, pray for our nation, and then vote according to your best lights. But don’t get derailed by all the distractions. And finally, maintain your peace. How? Remember that America will not save you, only Jesus will.

Praised be Jesus Christ!