"Unless the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it."
This verse of Psalm 126 should have been in the hearts and on the tongues of Catholics as the results of the last American presidential election began to flood into homes throughout the United States. Certainly the hopes of conservatives had taken a beating, as they saw that the candidate chosen by the Republican Party had been swept away by the forces of the New America and its poster boy, the incumbent Barack Obama. Surely grim faces met the morning light the following day, as the so-called conservatives found that the America that most voters believed in was not the America touted by Mitt Romney and Neo-Conservatism but the more forward America of Barack Obama.
This election is certainly a turning point in American politics. Some have pointed out that the present government, having become the source of income for millions of Americans who rely upon it for their daily bread, have in fact created an electorate that will not bite the hand that feeds it. Big government provides the bread and circuses that in turn provide a comfortable life to millions, and these beneficiaries will be the last to vote for any candidate that will withdraw the benefits they now enjoy, even if that means ignoring the abyss drawing ever nearer- a default on the increasing debt now in the trillions of dollars. Thus the Democrats are assured of ever greater power as the huddled masses longing to be fed and entertained increase in size and influence. But despite this unsettling fact, it must also be admitted that the Republicans are incapable of providing any real alternative. Even on the purely practical level, if the Republican Party lowered the amount of money spent on supporting those dependent upon government, its constant desire for more and more wars in the Middle East in order to bolster the power of the State of Israel would only end in increasing the debt of America, rather than lowering it. Its claim to moral superiority over the Obama regime fades therefore when American blood is pledged in unjust wars, and becomes indeed ludicrous when its touted stand against abortion is seen for what it is- only a pledge to restrict the murder of children to certain cases instead of all- not that that pledge would ever really be put into effect. What have Republicans learned out of this election? And what of those more conservative Catholics who have up to the present put their trust in that party and its supposed conservatism?
Republicans seem to now admit that there is a problem. Many, however, see this problem as the party being out of step with an America that is farther left socially. Their answer? Embrace the dream of social liberalism, while focusing on fiscal conservatism. In other words, embrace yesterday's dreams of the Democrats, while preaching a fiscal conservatism that piles on debt through military interventions in countries over which we are not sovereign. Not a very convincing plan if the idea is actually to be fiscally conservative.
The truly tragic part of this drama is not the frantic attempts to bring the Republicans "up to date." It is not even the fact that Obama won a second term in the White House. Those things are tragic enough, of course, but they are not at the heart of the tragedy. The true tragedy is being played out in the Catholic Church, among American Catholics in this case. Perhaps one can speak of a "Comico-Tragedy" as one studies the photo of Cardinal Dolan, Prince of the Church and head of the Archdiocese of New York, as he enjoys his guests at the Al Smith Dinner. On his left laughs the Republican candidate Romney, who gave his approval to a Health Care Law in Massachusetts that in no wise protected Catholic institutions from paying for contraceptives; on the other side was the laughing face of the pro-abortion, pro-contraceptive, pro-left Obama, no doubt enjoying the fact that Religion was certainly no obstacle to the Cardinal's invitation to dinner; while in the middle roared the Cardinal himself, making such a spectacle of himself that if one guest was noticeably absent, it was the decorum of a Prince of the Church. Would that the Cardinal had the dignity of an Irish peasant bowing before an English "milord" rather than the gracelessness of a buffoon in the court of liberal politics. When the election came round, it was plain to see that for the majority of bishops, there was no intention of really stopping the forces of secularism. They had grumbled loud enough to be noticed in Rome for their fidelity, but then had made sure that religion did not get in the way of a democratic victory. Not even all of this, however, was at the heart of the tragedy of 2012.
The real tragedy was the fact that no one questioned the underlying bases making this Obama victory possible. Non-Catholics, of course, had been carefully brought up in ignorance as to the lies underlying Republicanism and the Democrats, so an answer from them was hardly to be expected. But Catholics! Centuries of Catholic Christendom allowed the truth to reign in politics as in so many other areas where Christ was acknowledged as ruler over His creation. The Church has the answer and had condemned the madness that lies at the foundation of modern, liberal civilization, but its children from top to bottom in this age are immersed in the dream of an anti-Catholic liberalism. From the millions of Catholic in America, there has arisen no answer at all to the dilemma of the two headed serpent of Obama and Romney. Answers there are aplenty, all of them wrong. Conservative pundits pondered over how such a loss of Republican values was possible, politicians such as McCain pontificated on the need to be silent on such issues as abortion (it was not for him to be telling young women how to live their lives!), Romney reeled from the victory that he thought would surely be his, and was numb to any answers. For some, it was almost time to despair. Almost, but not quite. In this case, however, despair is precisely the beginning to an answer. It is an answer that is not new, nor is it to be invented by materialists or socialists. The answer was given two thousand years ago. It is the Catholic Faith, and the civilization that rises from it. Christ has given the only answer to man's difficulties. Every other answer is wrong and can only lead to destruction, as the 2012 election is a proof, and not the only one.
