By REY FLORES
With the midterm elections this week, we again are faced for the most part with choosing the lesser of two evils. This is very frustrating because it has become increasingly apparent that there just don’t seem to be any good, solid, practicing Catholics, or at least a Christian of any kind, running for office anymore. [Editor’s Note: The Wanderer went to press this week on October 30, days before the elections took place.]
This is a frustration that we must get over because if we wallow in it, we’ll just end up driving ourselves crazy. So what is a Catholic voter supposed to do?
For one thing, do your homework and do the research on any person whom you are thinking of voting for. It’s easy to know whom you shouldn’t vote for because those candidates usually are touting some obvious nonnegotiable, anti-Christian agendas like so-called gay marriage or abortion.
When you are researching your favored candidates, make sure that they are being completely honest in what they say and how they represent our best interests as Catholics. More than likely they may not be Catholic themselves, but they openly and publicly espouse some of the same moral values that we do.
Even then, many politicians will say and do whatever they need to during a campaign run, but once they get elected and sworn into their respective office, they change their tune entirely. Imagine that, a dishonest politician!
The bigger problem to me are the candidates and politicians who say they are Catholic, and instead turn out to be some of the most ardent supporters of things like abortion, contraception, Obamacare, and homosexuality. Those are definitely the most deceptive ones of all, for obvious reasons.
In their minds, these CINOs (Catholic in Name Only) will sacrifice moral values in order to attract more voters from mainstream America. This is not only selfish, but morally reprehensible and entirely inexcusable. The irony is that most liberal progressives have already dismissed voting for them simply because the candidates labeled themselves as Catholics.
I believe that it is not so much that they sacrifice moral values with difficulty, because many of them have already been so malformed in the Catholic faith that it isn’t a sacrifice to them. It is just the way they think, the way they believe, and the way they carry out their own personal lives.
Why would any CINO candidate who is personal friends with cohabitating heterosexual couples or supposedly married homosexual couples want to support any legislation that would hurt these kinds of people? Who are they to judge?
We’ve all seen the CINO candidates that “support a woman’s right to choose,” but always remind us that they themselves are personally against abortion. That’s like saying, “I don’t shoot heroin in my veins, but I support anyone who does.”
Worse yet is when these CINOs are allowed platforms by liberal clergy in their dioceses and parishes to stump for votes. That right there is a case of the shepherds leading their own flocks to the slaughter; and it isn’t just a physical slaughter, but an eternal slaughter of souls.
I totally understand the concepts and the importance of human rights, human dignity, and Catholic social justice, but what does all that mean to an average Catholic who is just trying to do the right thing and thus obeys his wayward pastor? These kinds of Catholics are exactly the ones who are most likely to vote for the candidates who support the nonnegotiable issues and agendas of the radical, Godless left.
In the Catholic Answers voter’s guide, we are reminded to “avoid to the greatest extent possible voting for candidates who endorse or promote intrinsically evil policies. As far as possible, you should vote for those who promote policies in line with the moral law.”
As much as I like and appreciate that advice, we are again back to square one where we ourselves must vet the candidates carefully. We need to find out if they are indeed not promoting intrinsically evil policies, and if they are promoting policies in line with the moral law.
Even if it takes reaching out to those candidates themselves at their election headquarters or at an in-person campaign stop, get to know these people. A better setting is a debate or a public town hall when you can ask a direct question of a candidate, in front of many people, so the candidate can be held accountable later on for promises made at these sorts of events.
Watch these candidates on televised debates or listen to them on your local radio stations. With the Internet, you can visit their websites, watch videos of them on YouTube, or find out if they serve on boards of questionable corporations and institutions, or if they are members of fraternal organizations or unions that support nonnegotiable agendas.
As I have always said, unless Jesus or any of the saints run for office, we’ll never have candidates that we can fully put our trust in. No candidate will save us from anything; no candidate will have all the answers to all of our questions and, by any stretch of the imagination, no candidate can get us to Heaven. Hence. . . . In God (alone) we trust.
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(Rey Flores is a Catholic writer and speaker. Contact Rey at reyfloresusa@gmail.com.)
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