We were and are shocked. Not surprised really, as we increasingly expect horrific tragedies like Sandy Hook last Friday. Everyone always asks “how did this happen and how can we prevent it from ever happening again?” Better security, armed guards, gun control and the like are mentioned. These things will not deter a determined attacker. The problem is the determined attacker and how we have created him.

One T-shirt asks: “Dear God, why do you allow so much violence in our schools?” to which the reply reads “I’m not allowed in schools.” Systematically removing God from public life and filling the vacuum left with depravity has a greater hand in these heartbreaking attacks than many pundits will recognize or admit.

When we have dramatically failed each other and a (supposedly inexplicable) “crazed killer” is in our midst, time has run out. No longer theoretical or something that happens to other people, we have immediate decisions to make. Real heroes emerge – men, women and children too. No protective gear, no weapons to fight back, no backup…   only self-sacrafice.

“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. This I command you: love one another.”

John 15:11-17

Writing for the National Catholic Register, Matthew Archbold wrote yesterday about those who remembered this in a moment of crisis:

1996 – When Charles Carl Roberts IV hung up on the police dispatcher, the police negotiator outside the Amish schoolhouse frantically redialed Roberts’ cell phone number but could not get through. Roberts, likely feeling that the police were coming at any moment, readied himself to begin shooting the girls.

That was when it happened — a miracle. Not the kind that changed one thing in that schoolhouse, but one that affected the millions of us outside the school house. 13-year-old Marian Fisher raised her voice. “Shoot me first and leave the other ones loose,” she reportedly said.

Her 11-year-old sister, Barbie, then said, “Shoot me next.”

“Shoot me first.” Imagine saying those words. Now listen to them again in your mind. Then imagine them being said by a child.

Marian Fisher and her sister Barbie must have known the police were coming from Roberts’ frantic phone calls and they may have believed that if they offered themselves perhaps he wouldn’t have had time to kill the others. This was a moment that we should all measure ourselves against.

Roberts looked strangely at the girls and he asked them to pray for him just before he opened fire.

2012 – Victoria Soto, 27, a first-grade teacher at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., moved her students into a closet, and placed her body between them and shooter Adam Lanza.

She was found huddled over her students, protecting them.

Read the whole piece: Greater Love Hath No Man?.

Some other excellent posts are:

• Archbishop Charles Chaput’s Advent, suffering and the promise of joy
• Father John Hollowell’s Reflections on Connecticut
• Father Dwight Longenecker’s Where Was God in Sandy Hook?
• Joseph Pronechen’s In the Face of Horror, Faith in Action

Eternal rest, grant unto them O Lord
and let perpetual light shine upon them.
May they rest in peace.   Amen.

May their souls and the souls of all the faithful departed,
through the mercy of God, rest in peace.   Amen.

Catholic bloggers are motivated, driven and called to do what we do to share the fullness of the Christian faith with everyone (in other words, to fulfill The Great Commission). Converts have a unique viewpoint, looking back at our pre-Catholic Christian past and comparing that to what we know now – the “fullness” of the Christian faith (not a “subset”) and nothing but it (the truth).

The source and summit of that faith is The Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Blessed Sacrament (the Eucharist). The Mass is so much more than a “worship service” and the Eucharist so much more than “a community meal.” Who knew?!

Renée Lin is a 2003 convert from the Evangelical world and a new blogger. Her love and excitement for the Mass is abundantly evident in her 13 part series on it. Renée explores the Mass in a unique way, as if you – her Protestant friend – were accompanying her. She shows you… what you would be surprised to find (and not find), how scriptural it is, the beauty and sheer awe of the Mass. Her writing is engaging and full of wit.

Below is a quick tour of the series with small snippets from each piece. I love the titles too, they are a hoot!

Tourists At Mass:

We kneel just as Jesus knelt to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane (Lk 22:41). We stand at different times during the Mass to show respect, during the processional and before the Gospel is read, for example. We sit down because we’re tired.

So basically Mass will be more of a workout than what you’re used to on Sunday morning, but well worth it, I think. I hope you’ll stick with me! Next post we’ll talk about why you might need to bring a handkerchief or two.

I’m Sniffling As Quietly As I Can:

I used to think it was the music – maybe I just got emotional when the music swelled….   But then I attended a Mass where the music was provided by a band, complete with two saxophones and a drummer with a very heavy hand. Their rendition of the Gloria was reminiscent of a one-man band with a kazoo. But when we began to sing:

For You alone are the Holy One, You alone are the Lord,
You alone are the Most High, Jesus Christ?

I dissolved into tears, hoping all the while that no one would think that I was crying because the band was that bad. No, I was crying because the Mass is that good.

Liturgy – You Say It Like It’s A Bad Thing:

There seems to be a great deal of repetition going on in the heavenly worship! Notice, too – worship quite clearly is corporate. St. John reports that certain worshipers all cry out the same thing at the same time. Had he visited a charismatic Heaven, he would not have been able to report much more than “There was quite a cacophony when the Lamb received the scroll!” As it is, he knows exactly what the worshipers said, because they cried out in unison. They responded as one.

The Divine Proposal:

In a Protestant worship service, things generally end with the sermon. It is the pinnacle; it is the final word — a quick altar call and you’re outta there. When Protestants broke away from the Church, they took the Liturgy of the Word with them — the hymns, the prayers, the sermon — and relegated Holy Communion to an afterthought. If the Protestant worship service is a body, the sermon is the heart, and the Lord’s Supper is the appendix — it’s there, Protestants know God made it, but they’re not sure exactly what it’s for. From a Catholic perspective, the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist are inseparable. The Liturgy of the Eucharist is the response to the Liturgy of the Word, a response for which the Protestant “altar call” is a paltry substitute.

Alleluia!:

To say that I was apprehensive when I attended my first Mass would be something of an understatement. I had read all the books I could find on Catholicism. I had no access to EWTN, so I couldn’t check out the Mass from the safety of an armchair in my living room. I had no Catholic friends who could enlighten or accompany me. I finally just had to GO and see for myself. One Sunday morning I dropped the kids off at their Baptist Sunday school, and I drove over to the nearest Catholic parish, with furrowed brow. All my life I had heard about liberal Catholic priests pooh-poohing orthodox doctrines like the Resurrection and the Second Coming. I really didn’t want to be there when the earth split open in a convulsion of divine retribution and swallowed up the heathen. I sat in the seat nearest the exit.

CSI: Vatican:

Let’s talk about a few of the things that may be distracting you when you come to Mass with me. I’ve been babbling on about the wonders of the Mass, but I’ve noticed that you can’t concentrate; you keep staring at the larger-than-life crucifix we’ve got strategically positioned right behind the altar. I know what you’re thinking — He’s RISEN!

If it makes you feel any better — we know! The Catholic Church has been proclaiming the literal death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth for 2000 years! And what’s the point of proclaiming Him if He is not risen? If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain! (1 Cor 15:14).

Catholic Guilt:

If you’re a Protestant who’s been taught that nothing you do can jeopardize your salvation, of course these repeated pleas for mercy seem useless and sad. If you’ve been told that all the sins you will ever commit were forgiven when you prayed the sinner’s prayer, then this Catholic groveling is offensive. So what if that pesky Lord’s Prayer says “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”? So what if Jesus admonished his listeners “whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.” So what if the unforgiving servant was not forgiven, but was delivered to the jailers till he should pay all his debt? So what if 1 John tells us “IF we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”? So what if 2 Peter tells us that we have been cleansed of our PAST sins? So what if “Lord, have mercy!” was the cry of the tax collector, the one Jesus said went home justified”

How Beautiful on the Mountains:

Protestants probably feel more at home in one segment of the Mass than in any other. They may be suspicious when we praise God in song (Don’t sing along, Martha! When they come to the part about Mary you might accidentally sing that, too!). They may feel uncomfortable when we pray “Lord, have mercy!” (Don’t Catholics know that all our sins, past, present and future, are under the Blood??? What’s with all the servile cringing???). They may get miffed when it is explained to them that no, they can’t go forward for Holy Communion (I’ve been in churches all across America, and no one ANYWHERE has EVER told me that I can’t take communion!!!). But when the priest announces:

“The peace of the Lord be with you always.”

And we respond:

“And with your spirit!”

the Protestant is finally on familiar ground. It’s a meet-and-greet!

Well, actually, no — it’s not, but I can’t blame you for thinking that….

Extraordinary Ordinary:

When I became Catholic, I was overwhelmed by the joy of constant celebration in the Church. To my delight, Christmas and Easter were not just one day to look forward to, but rather entire seasons in which to meditate upon the Incarnation and the Resurrection. No longer did I suffer through the euphemistically entitled “holiday season” — Advent was emphasized as a time of preparation not only for the coming of the Christ Child to us in the past, but also for the soon coming again of Christ the King of Glory. Lent with its communal fasting and abstinence only served to heighten the meaning of the Suffering, Death and incredible, unfathomable Resurrection of the Lord. Solemnities like the Most Holy Trinity or Corpus Christi emphasized how real these theological concepts are to Catholics and how important their contemplation. I reveled in the seemingly constant celebration.

Where’s Mary?:

Now that would have gotten the attention of most Protestants; after all, we’re not just talking about Christ born of the Virgin — we’re calling the Virgin Mother of God. That’s like waving a red Marian handkerchief in front of an already irritable Protestant bull.

Christ the King:

I’m so glad you’ve stuck with me this far for the Mass. As you’ve seen, in some ways it’s like your Protestant worship service, because Protestants, when they separated themselves from Catholicism, took certain elements of the Mass with them. We share the music, the Scripture reading, and the preaching. At some of your worship services you also offer Holy Communion. That is where we part ways. Holy Communion, or the Eucharist as we call it, is not an addendum to an otherwise complete Sunday morning service. Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist is the entire point of the Mass.

Because He Said So:

As we come to the climax of our worship service, I think you can see that our emphasis and yours coincide — Jesus Christ is the entire focus of the Mass, just as He is the entire focus of your Protestant worship service. This is a great point of agreement between Catholics and Protestants. And yet, ironically, we have just come to our biggest point of disagreement. The fact that Catholics believe that Jesus is really present, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, in the Holy Eucharist strikes many Protestants as odd. Not grossly offensive — more of a small, peculiar irritant than a major provocation. It’s weird, all this Body and Blood stuff, you admit, but there are other Catholic doctrines a lot more objectionable. Actually, from the Catholic perspective, you’re wrong about that. The Real Presence is the watershed doctrine separating Catholics and Protestants — not “faith ALONE,” not “once-saved/always-saved,” not Mary’s place in the divine scheme of things, not the Pope’s authority or infallibility….   It’s Christ Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. A Catholic who believes that Jesus is really present in the Eucharist can wholeheartedly confess with the likes of Flannery O’Connor that the Eucharist “is the center of existence for me; all the rest of life is expendable.” It’s THAT important.

Go There!:

As I was saying, some sermons are better left unpreached, and some connections better left unmade, at least from an Evangelical Sunday-morning-sermon point of view. But if you ever get weary of what’s being left unsaid, come on over!

We “go there” every time we have Mass.

If you are Protestant and want to understand where we Catholics are coming from, read this! Renée relates well to where you are at. It may look like a lot of reading, but it’s not really – and trust me, it will be a lot of fun!

For your convenience, here is a numbered list so that you can read them 1-at-a-time:

1. Tourists At Mass
2. I’m Sniffling As Quietly As I Can
3. Liturgy – You Say It Like It’s A Bad Thing
4. The Divine Proposal
5. Alleluia!
6. CSI: Vatican
7. Catholic Guilt
8. How Beautiful on the Mountains
9. Extraordinary Ordinary
10. Where’s Mary?
11. Christ the King
12. Because He Said So
13. Go There!

Follow Renée at Forget The Roads.

It is intriguing to me why so many people become Catholic. These are adults who were in other Christian communities, other religions or none at all. Common threads run through their stories, but each remains unique – and a deliberate, personal, informed choice to be Catholic.

Brantly Millegan, a young, Evangelical convert himself, continues to write some excellent pieces on his blog Young, Evangelical, and Catholic. I last featured aspect one of his pieces on the early Church and in some 7 Quick Takes Fridays (here and here).

This is his latest on piece – this time on converts, complete with a zillion links:

Yes, people do choose to join the Catholic Church.

Both my wife and I joined the Catholic Church as adults (see My Faith Story). The website Why I’m Catholic has a great (and growing) collection of stories of people who joined the Church. There are so many great stories. Obviously, there’s the stories of people like Paul, Augustine, Ambrose, Emperor Constantine, John Cardinal Newman, Dorothy Day, Alasdair MacIntyre, Edith Stein, and G.E.M. Anscombe, Francis Beckwith (who was president of the Evangelical Theological Society when he converted), Scott Hahn, and Richard Neuhaus.

There’s also the bisexual atheist blogger who just became Catholic this last summer, the former evangelical/emergent church co-author of the book Jesus for President who found his way back to the Church via Catholic Social Teaching, the pro-life leaders Lila Rose, Abby Johnson, Bernard Nathanson, and Bryan Kemper, the Wheaton College Bible professor who crossed the Tiber a year and a half ago and the steady stream of disaffected Anglicans joining the Catholic Church. Even former speaker of the house and recent presidential candidate Newt Gingrich (who produced a great documentary on John Paul II) and former prime minister of the U.K. Tony Blair have jumped aboard.

Below are four stories of people who joined the Catholic Church as adults who I think many people probably don’t know about (at least I was surprised to learn about their stories!). One was a convicted homosexual playwright who converted on his death-bed, another was an ex-Marxist who authored the “eco-Bible,” the third was a drafter of the U.N’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the last one was the founder of a whole new academic discipline.

Death-bed conversion of a homosexual playwright: Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

A contributor to the aestheticism movement and best known for his play The Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde is also a well-known example of a famous person convicted under laws in the 19^th century that punished homosexual acts. What is not as well-known, however, is that he joined the Catholic Church literally on his death-bed. Though born into an Anglican family, his interest in the Church started as a young man. A meeting with Pope Pius IX left a big impact on him, and he read the writings the Cardinal Newman, another great convert to the faith. At the age of twenty four, he actually was set join the Catholic Church, but decided against it at the last minute.

A quarter of a century later, after serving his prison sentence, he unsuccessfully tried to go on a six-month Jesuit retreat. He later developed cerebral meningitis. With his health deteriorating, a friend called for a priest. The priest conditionally baptized him (Wilde had a vague memory of being baptized as a child) and gave him Last Rites. He died the next day.

The liberal environmentalist nobody knew was Catholic: E. F. Schumacher (1911-1977)

Schumacher was a protégé of John Maynard Keynes as a young man and had an accomplished career as an economist. For much of his adult life, he was an avowed Marxist atheist. But a visit to Burma in the early 1950s and seeing how Buddhism shaped the economic life of the country got him to start rethinking his atheism. Upon returning to England, he decided to look into the Christian tradition and read the writings of St Thomas Aquinas, St Teresa of Avila, and St John of the Cross, and the lives of other saints. He also read modern Catholic thinkers Rene Guenon, Etienne Gilson, G. K. Chesterton (another convert), and Jacques Maritain (another convert, see below). A friend eventually persuaded him to read the papal social teaching encyclicals. A friend of his relates how he responded:

He replied, ‘No, no, I’m sure that the Popes are very holy men living in their ivory tower in the Vatican but they don’t know a thing about the conduct of practical affairs…   But this friend…   insisted that he should read the social encyclicals, Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo Anno above all…   He did so and was absolutely staggered. He said, ‘here were these celibates living in an ivory tower…   why can they talk a great deal of sense when everyone else talks nonsense’…   (source)

Pope Paul VI’s encyclical reaffirming the Church’s stance against the use of contraception Humanae Vitae came out as he was getting closer to wanting to join the Church. Though many criticized the teaching, Schumacher was in full support: “If the Pope had written anything else, I would have lost all faith in the papacy.” (source) For his wife and daughter, who had also been considering Catholicism, Humanae Vitae was the final assurance that the Catholic Church was the right place to be. After years of being intellectually convinced of Catholicism, he was eventually received into the Church.

Two years later, he published the book Small is Beautiful: Economics as if people mattered. Touted by TIME magazine as the “eco-Bible”, the best-seller simply explained in non-theological language the ideas of Catholic social teaching. When he died four years later a celebrity among liberal environmentalists, most still didn’t know he was Catholic. His daughter has related that, as word got out, many were “astounded” and “thought it was a real let-down, a betrayal.” (Read more about his conversion here.)

There is more in Brantly’s full piece, including pictures at: The Converts to Catholicism You Didn’t Know About.

UPDATE: Brantly continues with 4 more notable, interesting converts in More Converts You Didn’t Know About.

My special interest is in those who blog, telling their story and continuing journey. I have assembled a good list, along with links to other good sources of online convert stories. There is also a good list of convert stories published in book form. Explore it at Convert Stories.

Like all of you, I am tired of the election and happy it is over. For better or worse, elections have consequences. This one will be no different.

The big losers are children in the womb. Individual “choices” will be made continuing to snuff-out over 3,000 lives per day in the US alone. In addition to the immediate death of the child, long lasting (possibly eternal) effects will be felt by the mother and others directly involved. Reversing the faulty legal basis for this will now take much, much longer as more intransigent pro-abortion judges are certain to be appointed to the Supreme Court over the next 4 years.

The next set of losers are families who want to protect the sanctity of marriage. Their children will be taught in school that homosexuality is good and normal. Their businesses will be forced to participate (photographers, bakeries, wedding halls, etc.) in these unnatural unions. Coercive pressure will be applied to churches to perform “gay weddings.” Discrimination laws will be perverted to accomplish this. Do not believe anything you have been told about conscience protections, as we have seen again and again, they will be false.

All people of faith are big losers as “freedom of religion” (to live by your faith) becomes “freedom of worship” (something you can do only privately). Religious charities and institutions will shrink and be poorly replaced (if at all) by radically secular, bloated government programs.

There are other big losers too, starting with our children. They will inherit an enormous debt. That debt will be a permanent drag on the economy, impacting their quality of life in numerous ways. We will exchange a broken, but working healthcare system for an even more expensive, dysfunctional bureaucratic one. In the short term, we will all suffer through a recession that will not end.

Steven Mosher shares his thoughts on the election at Catholic Lane. He asks “Question: What Can we Expect From a Second Obama Administration on the Life Issues?”

• Answer: More of the Same
• Supported Sex-Selection Abortion
• Supported Abortion Funding
• Promoted Abortion Overseas
• Eliminated Conscience Protection
• Appointed Abortionistas to the Supreme Court
• Promoted Abortion in ObamaCare
• Funded Planned Parenthood
• Funded Embryo-Killing Research
• Advocated Abortion

Read the full piece for all the details.

Devin Rose writes on his excellent blog (St. Joseph’s Vanguard):

The U.S. has gone over the tipping point. It happened years and years ago, but the evidence for it is in the reelection of Obama.

Sure, Romney lost by a fairly small margin, popular vote-wise. But upon what principles were people voting for him? Based on the correct understanding of the order of truths? Largely, no, and that’s more evidence of the problem.

For example, how many Republicans believe that the sanctity of human life, from conception to natural death, is the most important issue? Probably 5%, if that.

So while those who voted for Obama certainly have a wrong understanding of natural law and the order of truths, not to mention divine revelation, the majority of those who voted Republican similarly have a wrong understanding of these things. Many of them don’t give a lick about 3,500 children aborted each day in our country, or about euthanasia, embryo-destructive stem cell research, traditional marriage, and so on.

They were more likely voting with the idea that the economy was the main issue, or because they think Romney will be better for their pocketbook.

And in spite of the bad economy, the ineptitude that left four of our people dead at Benghazi, the forcing of people to pay for others’ contraception, a (slight) majority of people in our country voted for Obama again.

Truth is, we as a country have cut ourselves adrift from the moorings of natural law and divine revelation. Our ship, rudderless in the ocean, will eventually hit a big wave and founder. It is not a question of if, but of when, and reelecting Obama just speeds the day. On balance, Romney would not have slowed this catastrophe by much, but he was the lesser of the two evils.

There is more. Read Over the Tipping Point.

Dr. Paul Kengor, as always, has some insightful reflections as well about what just happened:

Fortunately for Obama, two forces intervened to rescue him. One was the mainstream media, which ensured that Benghazi, Hurricane Sandy, and the increase in the unemployment rate wouldn’t be used to undermine Obama. As for Hurricane Sandy, Obama flew in for a photo-op and then immediately returned to campaigning. If George W. Bush were president, a relentless media would have ensured that Bush didn’t return to the campaign trail.

The second force was David Axelrod and the campaign machine. I stand in awe at what they pulled off. They managed to push considerably more Democrats than Republicans to the polls (38-32 percent margin), closer to the 2008 turnout that favored Obama than the 2010 mid-term turnout that favored Republicans. Because they did, the predictions of an easy Romney victory by the likes of Dick Morris, Michael Barone, George Will, and Newt Gingrich (and myself) were dead wrong. We were certain that pollsters were oversampling Democrats. The pro-Republican, pro-Romney, and anti-Obama enthusiasm we were seeing was extremely intense. It was inconceivable to us that it could be overcome by a higher Democrat turnout. Somehow, however, it was, obliterating Romney’s five-point victory among independents. It erased Romney’s 50-49 percent edge in the final polls by Gallup and Rasmussen.

I stand in stunned disbelief. David Axelrod, you are a miracle worker.

How much of a miracle worker? Consider:

The American people reelected a man who presided over one of the worst four-year economic records in American history. By every objective measurement, the economy is far worse than four years ago: 47 million on food stamps (up from 32 million); all-time record deficits and debit (dwarfing the Bush numbers); chronic unemployment; a prolonged non-recovering recovery; 636,000 homeless; a doubling of gas prices; and on and on.

For historical perspective, consider this: No president since FDR in 1940 won reelection with an unemployment rate above 7.1 percent. And for FDR, that number was a huge improvement from four years earlier.

How did Obama and his team overcome this? The answer: they successfully blamed it on George W. Bush, with Bill Clinton aiding and abetting the process. There were no limits to how much they blamed Bush, and how much it worked. The Democratic base swallowed it hook, line, and sinker.

There is more, so read it in America’s Fundamental Transformation.

Finally, Father John Hollowell talks about his call to the priesthood and the future of the Church:

I’m a bigger fan of authentic peace, but I’d rather have a battle than surface level passive-aggressive “peace” that simply masks evil. I’ve seen, in 3.5 years of priesthood, that perhaps a battle would do us all some good. If the stats hold true, 40% of Catholics who go to Mass every week just stood in open defiance of their bishops and the Church in voting in the affirmative for a candidate who:

1. supports redefining marriage
2. supports forcing the Church to do something it will never do
3. is for abortion through all 9+ months of pregnancy
4. is for the government helping people procure abortions if they can’t afford one
5. provides for the destruction of human embryos for research

Please draw me up a candidate who could more completely embody the opposite of Catholicism.

The Catholic Church in the United States is a cage that needs rattling, and the coming battle will provide just such a shake-up. The days of bishops and cardinals yucking it up with anti-Catholic politicians will soon be at an end. The days of bishops and cardinals wagging fingers at anti-Catholic “catholic” politicians and telling them not to cross this line again…   and then redrawing the line further back…   those days will soon be at an end.

And I guess what I’m saying is that there is a lazy part of me that prefers comfort and wishes it never had to come to blows like this surely will…   but there is another part of me that realizes God is doing something in the hearts of faithful priests and Catholics and I think we’re on the edge of something that will be unlike anything we’ve seen in our lifetimes.

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace. I’ve come not to bring peace but rather the sword.” — Jesus Christ. He brings the sword because the sword wakes people up, and it is better to be awakened at the last moment so that one can still repent than it is for a person to gain the whole world but lose his soul.

Read all of Father’s comments in Election Reflection for Warrior Catholics.

On Tuesday I wrote about the source of human rights (It’s your right), the completely false “right to choose” and the upcoming election. Considering his unequivocal position and track record in favor of abortion, no Catholic can morally vote for Barrack Obama.

Can a Catholic vote for Mitt Romney? There are a number of areas where faithful Catholics can disagree on the potential effectiveness of his plans (e.g. healthcare, taxes, government aid for the poor, just war and the death penalty). These are prudential judgments on effectiveness, not morality.

Primary issues of morality where Mitt Romney differs from Barack Obama include abortion, traditional marriage and religious freedom. Romney would score “excellent” in all but abortion where his position is pro-life but not as perfect as we would like. Where does that leave us faithful Catholic voters?

Leila Miller coincidentally addressed this question last Tuesday on her blog Little Catholic Bubble:

I have heard faithful Catholics agonize over this year’s presidential election. They know that a vote for Obama is morally impossible (they are correct), but they are conflicted about voting for Mitt Romney, who is not 100% pro-life. Should they sit out the election or vote for a third party or write-in candidate, knowing that those options boost Obama’s chances of winning?

Or should they vote for Romney and possibly commit a sin?

I hope to assure you today that you will not commit a sin if you vote for Mitt Romney. Not only is the faithful-to-the-Magisterium organization, Catholic Vote, endorsing Romney, but pro-life warrior Fr. Frank Pavone will be voting for him as well:

Speaking as a private citizen and not on behalf of any of the organizations I lead, it is clear to me that taking account not only of the teachings of the Church but of the demands of conscience in the light of the holocaust we continue to face with abortion, voting for the Romney-Ryan ticket is a smart way to mitigate the present evil we are facing.

Priests for Life has laid out “Ten Easy Steps to Voting with a Clear Conscience“, and I’d like to draw your attention to number eight, which helps us make some critical distinctions. Please note that all emphases are from the original:

{{omitting long quote – please follow the link below}}

After you chew on that for a bit (I know I did!), you can continue to form your conscience on these matters by considering what Blessed John Paul II wrote in Evangelium Vitae (paragraph 73), concerning the legislative votes of elected officials (emphasis mine):

A particular problem of conscience can arise in cases where a legislative vote would be decisive for the passage of a more restrictive law, aimed at limiting the number of authorized abortions, in place of a more permissive law already passed or ready to be voted on. Such cases are not infrequent. It is a fact that while in some parts of the world there continue to be campaigns to introduce laws favouring abortion, often supported by powerful international organizations, in other nations-particularly those which have already experienced the bitter fruits of such permissive legislation-there are growing signs of a rethinking in this matter. In a case like the one just mentioned, when it is not possible to overturn or completely abrogate a pro-abortion law, an elected official, whose absolute personal opposition to procured abortion was well known, could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative consequences at the level of general opinion and public morality. This does not in fact represent an illicit cooperation with an unjust law, but rather a legitimate and proper attempt to limit its evil aspects.

Look, it would be nice to have the perfect candidate running against Barack Obama this November. But we live in the real world, the fallen world. We have a viable candidate in Mitt Romney, a man who will not actively persecute the Church (can you believe that’s even an issue?), and who will mitigate the evil that has come and will continue to come through Obama’s policies, executive orders, mandates, and (lifetime!) judicial appointments. As we read above, “by your vote, you can keep the worse person out. And trying to do that is not only legitimate, but good.”

You will not be in sin by voting for Romney. I beg of you not to “make a statement” this election, but to make sure that Obama is voted out of office for good. There is no greater threat to both the Catholic Church and unborn children in America than four more years of Barack Obama in the White House.

According to the principles of the Catholic Church, you may vote Romney-Ryan with a clear conscience.

Read Leila’s whole post: Catholics: Why it is not a sin to vote for Romney.

Priests for Life publishes the Voter’s Guide for Serious Catholics and…

• Candidate Comparison: English / Spanish
• Party Platform Comparison: English / Spanish