By FR. RICHARD D. BRETON JR.
As the son of devout Catholics parents, I received my faith at a very early age. As the firstborn of triplets, three months premature, I was baptized in an emergency because I might not survive. Having lost my two brothers within days of my birth, I spent the first three months of my life in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital.
The first moments of my life were filled with God’s sanctifying grace already at work within me. Through the Sacrament of Baptism, I received the faith handed down to me by my parents, but more important, I received the blueprint for the life the Lord had created me to live. My journey of faith had begun, and I was falling deeply in love with the Lord and His Church. Throughout my childhood years, the seed of my vocation was nourished and watered through the power of the Holy Spirit, thus enabling me to enter a unique relationship with the Lord.
My love of, and for, the Church was strengthened through the sacrifices my parents made ensuring that I received a good quality Catholic education. My education was marked by struggles of both visual and learning disabilities, but the grace of God continued to pull me through my educational experiences. Despite all these struggles, I persevered in my faith and allowed the graces of my Baptism to lead me to where the Lord was calling.
In 2008, I was ordained a priest and was forever grafted to the side of Christ. Through my Ordination to the priesthood I, like all priests, am entrusted with the responsibility of teaching the faith, preaching the faith, and healing the sick. Priests are the protectors of the faith! This is especially important in today’s world where the Deposit of our Faith is under attack. On June 1, 2008, at my First Mass of Thanksgiving, I was blessed with presence of the Rev. Roland Bousquet, who preached and reminded me of my new responsibility as a priest. In his eloquent and profound homily, I was told to teach the faith without fear, to admonish the faithful when needed, and to remind them of the responsibility they received through Baptism.
Fr. Bousquet reminded me that it won’t always be easy and that I would often be ridiculed for preaching the truth. If no one ever complains about you as a priest, then you’re not doing your job. If they attack you for speaking the truth of the faith, that’s because you are penetrating their consciences. Persevere without fear because the souls entrusted to your care need a priest who loves them so much that his only desire is to get them to Heaven.
And so, as November 3, 2020 — Election Day – approaches, in a spirit of love and concern for you the souls entrusted to me by God, it is my moral obligation to prepare you in the best way possible, to approach the ballot box and vote in a way that saves souls from the deterioration of faith that exists around us.
You might be saying to yourselves: Father, you can’t do this. You can’t discuss politics. On the contrary, the Church herself encourages me, and I dare say, expects me to remind you of the moral responsibility you have in voting. In 1962, the Second Vatican Council was convened to move the Church into the modern world. The Church Fathers were tasked with the responsibility of providing an understanding of how this was to be done. The blueprint was presented in the document entitled: Gaudium et Spes, or the Constitution of the Church in the Modern World. This document provides instruction for the Church’s ministers to teach the faith and conquer the relativism of our time. Here is what the council fathers said:
“It is only right, therefore, that at all times and in all places, the Church should have true freedom to preach the faith, to teach her social doctrine, to exercise her role freely among men, and also to pass moral judgment in those matters which regard public order when the fundamental rights of a person or the salvation of souls requires it.”
This landmark document is the blueprint through which the Church begins to engage the modern world, with the understanding that the integrity of the faith must never be compromised, but maintained. This document is especially relevant today as before our eyes the very moral fabric of society and our nation are on the brink of falling into the dark abyss; an abyss where there would be no turning back.
Having explained the moral obligation regarding the responsibility we have to teach the faith, how are we preparing ourselves to enter the ballot box on November 3? The Church is very clear, we do this by following Sacred Scripture and the longstanding Tradition of the Magisterium of the Church. The Church continues to inform us of the moral obligation we have in voting. In her teachings the Church has set forth three moral imperatives that must always be the litmus test in voting for any candidate.
In his apostolic exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis, Sacrament of Charity, Pope Benedict XVI reminds us of the necessity of being a Eucharistic people united in Christ. Benedict reminds us of the non-negotiable tenets of faith that unite us in this Eucharistic way. He has given us a litmus test to use as we enter the ballot box.
First, we cannot vote for a candidate who supports the destruction of innocent human life, through abortion and euthanasia. We must respect life from conception to natural death. Not doing so goes against every fiber of our created nature. We are created as people of life, in the image and likeness of God to continue the work of creation.
Second, we cannot vote for a candidate who supports the destruction of the sanctity of marriage and the family. Marriage is a sacred institution between one man and one woman, through whom we experience family life. The family is uniquely made up of a mother, father, and children. Anything to the contrary, violates the natural law. Meaning if a candidate supports the LGBTQ agenda or the idea of promoting civil unions, same-sex marriage, or the destruction of family life, we cannot and should not vote for that person. To do so is morally wrong and puts us in the path of grave sin.
Third, we cannot vote for a candidate who proposes the destruction of our religious liberties. Our religious liberties are secured in the words of our founding father, James Madison, the primary author of our Constitution when he affirmed: “We have staked the whole future of our political constitutions upon the capacity of each of ourselves to govern ourselves according to the moral principles of the Ten Commandments.”
These three moral imperatives are the foundation of our responsibility in voting. If any, or all, of these are within the platform of a candidate, then, we cannot vote for that person.
Let’s look at the platforms of each party and see where they stand regarding the moral imperatives mentioned above. If we look at the Republicans, we see a party, and a candidate in President Trump, following these criteria. Regarding the sanctity of life, Republicans protect human life and offers real solutions for women and strongly oppose infanticide. Regarding protecting the sanctity of marriage and the family: The Republican Party works to preserve the dignity of the family. The family is the foundation of civil society, and the cornerstone of the family is natural marriage, the union of one man and one woman. Regarding the protection of our religious liberties, President Trump has always continued to protect our religious liberty ensuring our freedom to worship in the future.
Now let us look at the Democratic Party, on the other hand, which does not support the Sanctity of Life and supports repealing the Hyde Amendment, thus allowing the government to fund abortion. It supports “codifying” the law and the “right” to an abortion. Democrats believe every woman should be able to access “reproductive health-care services,” including “safe and legal abortions.” They will fight to overturn federal and state laws that create barriers to abortion.
What about the sanctity of marriage and the family? The Democratic Party continues to destroy the family by endorsing and protecting the dysfunctional and disordered LGBTQ agenda. They also encourage the infiltration of this agenda into our schools and are confusing our children about human sexuality. Regarding religious liberties, the Democrat leftist agenda continues to erode them. We see this in their continued criticism of a person’s faith. They have used this argument as an attempt to disqualify a faithful Catholic woman from serving on the Supreme Court. And it doesn’t stop there, but will continue as they try to enforce a leftist liberal ideology that will surely lead us into the dark abyss.
So, right now at the outset, we know that the Republican Party conforms to the moral imperatives of protecting the Sanctity of Life, the Sanctity of Marriage and the Family, and the protection of Religious Liberties. Sadly, the Democratic Party fails to meet any one of these criteria. So morally we cannot vote for a candidate who denies these moral imperatives, namely, former VP Joe Biden.
In sharing this perspective with you, I am fulfilling the responsibility given me through sacramental Ordination to “teach and admonish” the faithful, in the hope that my fidelity to my vocation will spur you on to fulfill the responsibility given you in Holy Baptism. Be the salt and light Christ expects you to be, which the world so desperately needs. If we Catholics have our priorities straight, we will know how to interact in society with conviction, boldness, and courage.
In closing, I want to share with you an excerpt of a homily given by, Fr. Peter M.J. Stravinskas, of the Priestly Fraternity of St. John Henry Cardinal Newman, on October 18, 2020 at Holy Innocents Church in NYC:
“When the present cardinal archbishop of Boston, Sean O’Malley, was bishop of Fall River, he penned this election reflection, which offers some potentially unnerving remarks for certain Catholic voters (and politicians):
“I will not vote for any politician who will promote abortion or the culture of death, no matter how appealing the rest of his or her program might be. They are wolves in sheep’s garments, the KKK without the sheets, and sadly enough, they don’t even know it.
“If I were ever tempted to vote for simply selfish reasons, tribal allegiances, or economic advantages, rather than on the moral direction of the country, I should make a hasty retreat from the curtain of the polling booth to the curtain of the confessional.”
God willing, no one present here today will have to do that.
We end with this prayer from the U.S. bishops: “Mary, patroness of America, renew in us a love for the beauty and sanctity of the human person from conception to natural death; and as your Son gave His life for us, help us to live our lives serving others. Mother of the Church, Mother of our Savior, open our hearts to the Gospel of life, protect our nation, and make us witnesses to the truth. Amen.”
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