A Question on the Source of a Cultural Reference

In commenting on the impact of yesterday's primary election results in the United States, GOP strategist and CNN contributor Alex Castellanos noted the following:

Tomorrow, [John McCain] can get started. He'll have the [Republican National Committee] behind him. He'll have a broad base of financial support. It's a big step. Meanwhile, it looks like the Democrats are engaged in the land war across Russia, so he's got a big advantage now.

My question is this: in using the metaphor of a "land war across Russia", what is the direct background of Castellanos' cultural reference? I would argue that the final background is, indeed, the historical notion that a land war in Russia is about the hardest and most grueling thing a European army can attempt. However, is this also the direct background behind Castellanos' remark? Or is the direct cultural reference, which itself then refers to the historical background, Vizzini's remark in The Princess Bride that the most famous of the classic blunders "is never get involved in a land war in Asia"?

It's still a human fetus

In an insightful and provocative story in this weekend’s issue, the New York Times Magazine examines the possible existence and extent of a fetus’ ability to suffer pain while in the womb. While approaching the topic initially from the perspective of fetal surgery (a fascinating and amazing example of the advance of medical technology), the article acknowledges and later examines the impact of the ability of a fetus to feel pain on the issue of legalized abortion. While I commend the entire article to my readers, I want to focus on an anecdote offered early in the article:

Most invasive of all is open fetal surgery, in which a pregnant woman’s uterus is cut open and the fetus exposed. Ray Paschall, an anesthesiologist at Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville, remembers one of the first times he provided anesthesia to the mother and minimally to the fetus in an open fetal operation, more than 10 years ago. When the surgeon lowered his scalpel to the 25-week-old fetus, Paschall saw the tiny figure recoil in what looked to him like pain. A few months later, he watched another fetus, this one 23 weeks old, flinch at the touch of the instrument. That was enough for Paschall. In consultation with the hospital’s pediatric pain specialist, “I tremendously upped the dose of anesthetic to make sure that wouldn’t happen again,” he says. In the more than 200 operations he has assisted in since then, not a single fetus has drawn back from the knife. “I don’t care how primitive the reaction is, it’s still a human reaction,” Paschall says. “And I don’t believe it’s right. I don’t want them to feel pain.”

Mr. Paschall is among several medical personnel quoted in the article (the most prominent being Kanwaljeet “Sunny” Anand, who has been a tireless advocate over the last three decades for infant and fetal pain management) who also support, at least in limited terms, a woman's right to have an abortion. Yet, what I find most provocative is Mr. Paschall's statement, “I don’t care how primitive the reaction is, it’s still a human reaction. And I don’t believe it’s right. I don’t want them to feel pain.” I would echo his words to say, no matter how primitive the fetus is, it’s still a human fetus.

This brings me, however, to a point on the debate over abortion that I've been meaning to make for quite a long time (and I should make clear before we start that in the following argument, I appeal only to human reason and the natural law; my conclusions do not rely on any revealed truths peculiar to Christianity). As I've alluded to previously, this year’s election once again represents a showdown between those who would protect human life at all stages of development (represented by their presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain), and those who insist that the government not guarantee the right to life that was once so eloquently named “inalienable.”

Supporters of candidates like Sen. Hillary Clinton will tout that she believes that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare.” Yet, what they don't realize is the logical contradiction behind such a statement. If one believes that a human fetus is an innocent human life (N.B. the adjective innocent indicates that the fetus is guilty of nothing by which it would deserve punishment, an assumption that I hold to be self-evident), then the natural law that informs us that homicide is immoral also informs us that abortion is immoral. To put it into syllogistic form: (A1) It is immoral and legally punishable to purposely kill an innocent human life. (B1) A human fetus is an innocent human life. (C1) Therefore, abortion (the killing of a human fetus) is immoral and legally punishable.

(N.B. I have included the adjective "innocent" in the major premise because, at least according to the natural law, there are certain situations where it is morally and legally permissible to kill a human life, e.g. in warfare. The revealed beliefs of religion may place additional restrictions on these situations, but as I have said, I am arguing here from the natural law.)

The corollary to this syllogism is that if one believes that abortion should be legal, then one denies either one or both of the premises. Since I've yet to meet an abortion supporter who denies the major premise (indeed, many abortion supporters offer more comprehensive versions of the major premise than some pro-lifers do, i.e. they extend the immorality of killing to capital punishment and even to warfare), then it is clear that abortion supporters must deny the minor premise, namely, that a human fetus is an innocent human life. Furthermore, since I've also never met an abortion supporter who claims that a human fetus is a guilty human life, then it is also clear that abortion supporters deny that part of the minor premise that declares a fetus to be a human life.

If, therefore, one believes that a fetus is not a human life, that is, if one believes that the fetus is simply an extension of the body of the mother, and that the mother therefore exercises the full sovereign rights over the fetus that she exercises over the rest of her body, then one's moral judgement on abortion is reduced to a judgement concerning those sovereign rights. The syllogism would then follow: (A2) Without extenuating circumstances, a human being exercises personal sovereignty over his or her body. (B2) A fetus is a part of a woman's body. (C2) Therefore, a woman exercises personal sovereignty over her fetus.

If this is really what Sen. Hillary Clinton believes, then her position in favor of abortion is logical. What is not logical, however, is her claim that abortion should be "safe, legal, and rare." It is this last factor that leads her into trouble. She must have some reason for wanting abortion to be rare. Yet, as far her logical position is concerned, it shouldn't matter to her whether abortion is rare or not, just as it shouldn't matter to her whether a woman dyes her hair blond or black, or pierces her navel or her ears, or gets breast implants or breast reduction surgery. Each of these decisions are made out of the woman's sovereign rights over her body, and Sen. Clinton doesn't have anything to do with those decisions.

Yet, Sen. Clinton does say that she wants abortions to be rare. In fact, one is unlikely to meet any abortion advocate who claims that they don't want abortion to be rare. And the reason for this is simple: as much as abortion advocates try to delude themselves into believing their syllogism, they do not, in fact, actually hold to it. Despite their attempts to ignore the prods of the natural law, they do, in fact, conceive, at least subconsciously, of a moral dimension to the decision to have an abortion.

Where they in fact fail is in the first part of the major premise: Without extenuating circumstances. This caveat to the premise is necessary for its logical cohesion, because both individually and as a state we acknowledge that there are circumstances under which a human being does not exercice personal sovereignty over his or her body. For example, we place age restrictions on things like drinking and smoking and getting body piercings; we also admit that convicted criminals have abdicated, at least temporarily, certain of their rights, like the right of free movement; we even go so far as to refuse certain classes of the clinically and criminally insane of almost all their rights of personal sovereignty over their bodies.

For the abortion syllogism to hold, there must, therefore, be no extenuating circumstances. Yet, it is evident that there are extenuating circumstances when a woman is pregnant. Whether you believe that a fetus is a human life or not, we all agree that, if carried to term, it will be a living, breathing, moving baby. Furthermore, the woman cannot produce the fetus by herself; the fetus is as much the product of its father as it is the mother's. Finally, especially given our modern ability with ultrasound technology to visualize the fetus, we all do feel, despite our views on abortion, that twang of amazement, wonder, and awe when the fetus we have fathered or mothered sucks its thumb or kicks its foot in the womb.

The fact is, the natural law is squeezing its way into Sen. Clinton's views whether she likes it or not. What she doesn't realize is that in calling for abortion to be "rare", she admits that there are compelling reasons to discourage the practice. For these compelling reasons to exist, the logical syllogism that allows abortion to go unopposed falls apart. Sen. Clinton's own humanity undermines her support of abortion. Although abortion advocates will tell you that there is a grey area, they are simply trying a trick of sophistry in order to have their cake and eat it too. The choice is simple: either abortion has absolutely no moral consequences and should be perfectly legal; or abortion does have moral consequences, and the first syllogism that we proposed is the proper one. As we have shone the former conclusion to be false, there remains but one logically consistent, proper conclusion: (C1) Abortion (the killing of a human fetus) is immoral and legally punishable.

Sen. John McCain for President

Many readers of this blog may know that a year ago, I was a passionate supporter of the Presidential Campaign of Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS), and that I remained a passionate supporter of Sen. Brownback all the way until October 18, 2007, when he was forced by a “lack of funds” to drop out of the race. It was Sen. Brownback’s unflinching integrity in leading his life, both public and private, according to his Catholic faith that drew me to him from start to finish. This could be most clearly seen in his “pro-life, whole-life” stance: not only does he oppose abortion, but he opposes capital punishment, too; he doesn’t just want to shut down the abortion factories run by Planned Parenthood, he wants to replace them with pregnancy resource centers, so that women who thought that abortion was their only option can receive the resources and support they need to actually have the baby; he doesn’t just care about the human rights of the unborn fetus, but he is an enthusiastic, compassionate fighter for the poor and oppressed, the sick and the hungry, the disenfranchised and the downtrodden both at home and around the world.

Unfortunately, Sen. Brownback’s message never seemed to click with conservative voters (who flocked rather to Gov. Huckabee; I suspect that his Catholicism may have frightened them away), and he was unable to continue to carry this banner of true humanitarianism all the way to the White House. When he dropped out the race, most of his supporters made their way to Gov. Hucakbee’s camp; I, however, remained on the fence. And after the Governor’s disastrous response to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December (instead of talking about the national security implications of terrorism-induced chaos in a country armed with nuclear weapons, he talked about limiting the flow of immigrants from Pakistan), I got off the fence and threw my support instead to Sen. McCain—just like Sen. Brownback did.

Why, then, did I choose the man who has been decried by the conservative establishment as practically a Democrat? I finally started to see again the reasons why I wanted to vote for him in 2000 (if only I’d been old enough) and in 2004 (if only we hadn’t been beholden, lemming-like, to George W. Bush). He is, in fact, not only a true conservative (despite Rush Limbaugh’s bloviating to the contrary), but an honorable man, one of the last in a Washington which has descended into the bitterest, dirtiest, foulest mire of partisan hatred not for the sake of the issues but simply for the sake of partisanship.

The conservative “establishment” is trying its hardest these days to discredit Sen. McCain. They like to say that he is “pro-tax” because he voted against the Bush tax cuts. This is nonsense—the man’s a Republican, for gosh’s sake! Of course he’s anti-tax; he knew that the Bush tax cuts were going to pass, so he used his vote to lodge a protest against the fact that they didn’t contain any concomitant cuts in spending. In point of fact, Sen. McCain is far more the fiscal conservative than all of the Republicans who voted for the tax cuts without demanding spending cuts to go along with them, to say nothing of Gov. Romney, who actually tried to raise certain taxes while Governor of Massachusetts (though to his credit, he was carrying out the will of the people, for many Massachusetts Dems would prefer the French tax code to the American one).

Indeed, while Gov. Romney was promising to lavish more of the Federal budget on “old-economy” workers in Michigan whose jobs have been sent overseas (one wonders how the Governor will pay for his “job retraining assistance”—will he raise taxes, or will he simply drive us deeper in debt? One thing is certain: he will not show fiscal restraint.), Sen. McCain told them the economic truth: their jobs aren’t coming back. And he lost Michigan because of it. The decision, therefore, is between the Governor whose words will always twist themselves to please his audience, no matter what promises he must make and what positions he must “amend” to do it; and a Senator who tells the truth, even if the truth is not palatable to his audience’s ears. As a lover of the truth, it should be clear to whom my vote goes.

And on that single issue that matters to many of us more than any other because of what it tells us of a man’s whole outlook on the human condition, namely, his view on abortion? Sen. McCain has spent three decades in public service consistently voting and tirelessly fighting for the right to life; meanwhile, Gov. Romney was elected in Massachusetts because he was pro-abortion. He says he’s pro-life now, but how do we know he won’t change his mind again when it is politically expedient to do so? I rather suspect, especially since he’s a Mormon, among which religion's many failings a pro-death stance is not to be numbered, that he’s always been, at least privately, pro-life—and if I’m right, it unfortunately means that winning the governorship of Massachusetts was more important to him than his pro-life values.

What attracted me to Sen. Brownback more than the other “social conservatives” in the early days of the race, however, was not just that he was pro-life, but that he was “whole-life”; that is to say, Sen. Brownback lived out the implications of his belief in the value of human life to their logical conclusions by supporting human life across its whole spectrum, from conception to deathbed, and from poorhouse to mansion. Sen. McCain, though not perhaps always in the same ways or to the same extent, has shown the true compassion that Our Lord asks of us—at least, far more than I have ever seen (publicly, at least, for I dare not judge what is in a man’s heart) from Gov. Romney; and we need look no further than his (much ballyhooed and criticized, at least by the “conservative” pundits) plan to fix the immigration problem in America. Rather than treating illegal immigrants as wholly unworthy of the American Dream that we all so often and wonderfully enjoy (I’m speaking here as a man who has come from a lower middle-class family which has often struggled paycheck to paycheck, who is currently able to spend a year living in Germany and studying medieval literature, all because of the generous support of the American and German governments in the form of the Fulbright program), Sen. McCain recognized their humanity and, out of compassion for all that he shares with them (for in our common humanity, all partisan differences of political opinion become mere drops in the ocean of dignity and love that we share as creatures of God and co-heirs with Christ), he proposed that they be offered a path to citizenship, albeit a long and tough road of waiting periods and steep fines.

Another facet of his plan for immigration, however, is Sen. McCain’s recognition that our economy has become dependent on these men and women. While the rest of the Republican field throws out lofty rhetoric of sending the illegal immigrants packing, he realized that to do so would cripple our economy. So, together with the President, and though it made them unpopular with their own party and in the end failed for that same reason, he offered a plan that actually made sense and faced both the humanitarian and economic reality of immigration. Empty rhetoric that denies reality and abandons at the water’s edge the compassion so wonderfully resonant in the pro-life position, or a firm stance that recognizes our economic situation and extends compassion for human dignity even to those who have broken our laws: the choice should again be clear.

Sen. McCain has also demonstrated that, far from being a partisan and divisive figure, he can also reach across the aisle, while staying true to his conservative principles,; indeed, he is far more interested in effectively governing the country than in the partisan bickering and gridlock that seems to be Washington reality these days. With the President’s job approval ratings in the low 30’s, and with those of Congress usually even lower, it is clear that what the American people want now more than anything is someone who can bring them together and effectively govern the country—not another party hack spewing the same old message of partisan half-truths (or worse, a party hack claiming to be bipartisan, though in reality his bipartisanship is simply another partisan half-truth dressed up to hide that fact). While the “conservative” pundits have been trying to turn Sen. McCain’s bipartisanship into “treason”, it actually represents the fact that more than any other candidate, Sen. McCain will unite this country, if only we let him.

Indeed, the worst thing that could happen to this country in November would be to allow Sen. Hillary Clinton to win the presidency, for there is no more divisive figure in this election cycle than she. Yet, a nominating vote for Gov. Romney is the best thing a Republican voter can do to ensure a Clinton victory—too many Americans are too fed up with the Republican Party as the party of Pres. George W. Bush to vote for Gov. Romney. Sen. McCain, on the other hand, has exactly the broad-based appeal that will bring not only independent voters but even moderate Democrats on board. In short, Sen. McCain is the only Republican candidate who has a realistic chance of winning in November.

Yet, it is not merely for this banal reason of political reality that I am supporting Sen. McCain. Behind the quality of his stances on political issues (consistently conservative) stand his honesty and honor, integrity and humanity. Sen. McCain is a man that demands respect because he has lived a respectful and virtuous life, and it is this honesty and virtue (and not, as for some candidates, the malleable paths of political expediency and polling data) that form the basis for the political decisions he makes everyday; we should expect nothing less from the President of the United States.

"Do you believe every word of this book?"

In reference to the Bible, this was one of the questions during yesterday's CNN/YouTube Republican Presidential Debate, and of the three candidates to answer the question (Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Gov. Mitt Romney, and Gov. Mike Huckabee), two of them had excellent answers, while one (Romney) fumbled the ball. You can see the video of their answers here.

The first to answer was Giuliani:

The reality is, I believe it, but I don't believe it's necessarily literally true in every single respect. I think there are parts of the Bible that are interpretive. I think there are parts of the Bible that are allegorical. I think there are parts of the Bible that are meant to be interpreted in a modern context.

So, yes, I believe it. I think it's the great book ever written. I read it frequently. I read it very frequently when I've gone through the bigger crises in my life, and I find great wisdom in it, and it does define to a very large extent my faith. But I don't believe every single thing in the literal sense of Jonah being in the belly of the whale, or, you know, there are some things in it that I think were put there as allegorical.

The mayor gave an answer that would be similar to my own answer to the question, which would have run something like this: "Yes, I believe that every word in the Bible is true. I do not, however, believe that a literal interpretation of every word is always the best interpretation. Rather, much of the Bible is to be understood either allegorically, that is, it speaks to us in metaphor and allegory; or anagogically, that is, it speaks to us about the being of God in analogy and metaphor; or tropologically, that is, it speaks to us in metaphor concerning our own morals and way of life. Do I believe that God created the world in seven, twenty-four hour days as we understand them? No. Do I believe that there is a wealth of meaning that could fill volumes and tell us many things about God, about ourselves, and about the world around us, all to be found in the metaphor that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh? Yes." Or something to that effect.

The best answer of this question, however, was given by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister who was most eloquent while at his most sincere:

Sure. I believe the Bible is exactly what it is. It's the word of revelation to us from God himself.

And the fact is that when people ask do we believe all of it, you either believe it or you don't believe it. But in the greater sense, I think what the question tried to make us feel like was that, well, if you believe the part that says "Go and pluck out your eye," well, none of us believe that we ought to go pluck out our eye. That obviously is allegorical.

But the Bible has some messages that nobody really can confuse and really not left up to interpretation. "Love your neighbor as yourself." And, "As much as you've done it to the least of these brethren, you've done it unto me." Until we get those simple, real easy things right, I'm not sure we ought to spend a whole lot of time fighting over the other parts that are a little bit complicated.

And as the only person here probably on the stage with a theology degree, there are parts of it I don't fully comprehend and understand, because the Bible is a revelation of an infinite God, and no finite person is ever going to fully understand it. If they do, their god is too small.

'Nuff said.

The Difficult Mix of Religion and Politics

In yesterday’s New York Times’ Sunday Magazine there appeared a lengthy article by David Kirkpatrick that examined the current crisis among the nation’s evangelicals and “religious right.” Kirkpatrick describes how the original vanguard of the religious right movement (Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, etc.) is fading, and that the evangelical Protestantism stands at a bit of a crossroads today; will they follow the conservative (both theologically and politically) route of the last generation, or is the future face of the religious right in fact the religious middle or slightly left?

Kirkpatrick documents the fact that among many evangelicals, the key issues of abortion and gay marriage are no longer just the key issues; he quotes Bill Hybels, one of the leading evangelical pastors of today, as saying, “We are interested in the poor, in racial reconciliation, in global poverty and AIDS, in the plight of women in the developing world.” Or as Rev. Gene Carlson put it, “There is this sense that the personal Gospel is what evangelicals believe and the social Gospel is what liberal Christians believe, and, you know, there is only one Gospel that has both social and personal dimensions to it.”

The split between liberal mainline protestants and conservative evangelicals goes back a century, when it was crystallized by the fight over evolution. As Kirkpatrick seems to demonstrate, a new split may be forming among the evangelical community, a split between those who seem to dictate that “Evangelical Christian” = “conservative Republican”, and those who see beyond the political label to realize that neither the Republican nor the Democratic Party has a monopoly on representing the Gospel.

The growing inner conflict amongst the evangelical community has also opened the eyes of the Democrats. As Kirkpatrick points out, all three of the leading Democratic candidates for president (Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards) have talked about their personal Christian faith more on this campaign trail than has a Democrat since Jimmy Carter, the evangelical who, or so it is perceived, turned his back on the evangelical community when he got to Washington (because of his support for abortion rights, among other issues). (And I should note as an aside that, despite Barack Obama’s being a baptized Christian, Kirkpatrick quotes Kayla Nickel, a member of the evangelical parish Westlink in Witchita as saying, “Obama sounds too much like Osama. When he says his name, I am like, ‘I am not voting for a Muslim!’ ” Her statement thus confirms what I’ve been saying for more than a year now, that whatever his politics (he could out-do Jerry Falwell and it would still be true), some people will still vote against him for the very fact that his name rhymes with “Iraq Osama”; a sad fact indeed, but a pertinent one).

The problem facing the evangelical community is, oddly enough, one with which the Catholic community has long had to deal. Catholics in our country (and, despite my denomination as an Anglican Catholic, what I write here, though based mainly on the experiences of Roman Catholics, is nevertheless applicable to all Catholics, since the few matters on which we disagree are not pertinent to the topic at hand) have historically voted Democrat, first because the Democrats were the party of the immigrants and minorities at a time when Roman Catholics (mainly Irish and Italian immigrants) were heavily discriminated against; and later because the Democratic platform stood for social justice with a social conscience, echoing the emphasis that Holy Mother Church has placed in the last century on the social message of the Gospel (though they might not want to admit it, the Democratic platform has often, if only unconsciously, echoed Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical, Rerum Novarum, to which we will return below).

What has long irked Catholic politicians, however, is that the Democratic Party has often stood for things less than Catholic, and in those situations, the Republicans have often come through—I am thinking, of course, most especially about the issue of abortion. Before we continue, I should make it clear that Holy Mother Church always has and always will be opposed to abortion; it is not a matter of doctrine that is flexible (as has been, for example, the Church’s doctrines on usury), but rather a dogmatic statement of the value of human life that is absolutely central to the Christian message. The Church cannot now nor can it ever declare abortion to be anything but the sin of murder, and herein lies one of the key points of the entire argument: the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. The Magisterium is the teaching authority of the Church, granted her by divine revelation and the institution of her authority, invested in the Apostles by Christ in the Gospel. In other words, it is the authority by which the Church can teach the Truth.

The Truth is not something the Church, or anyone, can change. It is a permanent standard of what is reality, infinitely perdurable and infinitely unchanging. Unfortunately for those of us who live in the real world, however, very rarely do the decisions of our daily lives line up clearly with this Truth. This is never more so the case than in politics. Ask any politician, and he will probably agree that his party also seeks the truth—but in the political sphere, we speak of truth with a lowercase “t”.

Sometimes, we discover that the Truth aligns with the platform of the Republican Party—take abortion again as a capital example. Other times, it would seem to align with the Democratic Party—as when Christ proclaims the mission of social justice, to care for the sick and poor (as the Church has formally phrased it—and in a nice line of alliterative pentameter—“the preferential option for the poor”). Instead of identifying the Christian Truth with political truths, it might be better for us to do the reverse: a pro-life politician holds a view which coincides with the Truth, as does a pro-social justice politician.

A case in point is Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, which became the quintessential statement of the modern Church on the “Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor” (its subtitle), and the Gospel’s intention therefore. While Leo categorically condemned the unbridled competition of pure capitalism as socially unjust and therefore uncharitable (for the political pundits that are keeping score, that’s +1 to the Democrats), he also decried the violence inherent in the system of class struggle that Marxists seemed so intent on perpetuating:

The great mistake made in regard to the matter now under consideration is to take up with the notion that class is naturally hostile to class, and that the wealthy and the working men are intended by nature to live in mutual conflict. So irrational and so false is this view that the direct contrary is the truth. Just as the symmetry of the human frame is the result of the suitable arrangement of the different parts of the body, so in a State is it ordained by nature that these two classes should dwell in harmony and agreement, so as to maintain the balance of the body politic. (Paragraph 20)

The political pundits should now remove that point from the Democratic column (and yes, I recognize that Marxist theory and the Democratic platform are not to be confused, but I ask you, when was the last time you heard a Teamsters negotiator praise the natural harmony between capital and labor?).

This dichotomy that has vexed Catholics for so many years seems finally to have caught up with the evangelicals. Abortion and gay marriage are important issues, yes, but the Gospel is about so much more than that, and Christ’s call to holiness is bound up with the entire message of the Gospel, not just bits and pieces (for the danger of a piecemeal reading of Scripture, just ask the Pharisees).

The problem, of course, is that both sides seem to engage in just such a piecemeal reading of Scripture. The Republican Party (and this is what is leading many evangelicals to reconsider their unwavering allegiance to it) has often of late skimmed over the social duties expressed in the Gospel. The issue of the justice of the war in Iraq is complex and certainly won’t be solved here, but the fact remains that warfare, the intentional destruction of human life (even if that life be guilty), is in some fundamental aspect morally wrong; even the most just of wars using the strictest of interpretations of just war theory still inflict a violence that is unsettlingly contrary to the principal message of the Gospel. Likewise, the Republican Party’s standard support of capital punishment, though technically justifiable under Christian notions of justice, seems to lend an unsettling appearance of hypocrisy to its pro-life message. The Catholics have this one figured out—even though it’s a nice political catch phrase, Sen. Sam Brownback’s “pro-life / whole-life” position is remarkably and refreshingly cogent: a Catholic Christian expression of respect for life at it’s every stage, from the moment of conception to a person’s last (natural) breath. Furthermore, most Catholics, and an increasing number of evangelicals, take the Party to task for its seemingly obstinate refusal to consider social programs that help the poor, the hungry, the AIDS-afflicted, the oppressed, etc.

Lest we should think that the Republican Party has left the Gospel behind, however, we must turn our attention to the often even more egregious piecemeal approach of the Democrats. Christ’s Gospel is all well and good for them when they want to oppose war and the death penalty and want to establish programs of social justice to help the helpless among us. But then they conveniently leave Scripture at the door when it comes to abortion (after all, they will help the helpless only if the helpless have already been born) and the promotion of lascivious lifestyles, whether they be heterosexual, homosexual, or anywhere in between.

Then there are issues in which neither side seems to support true Christian belief. The most significant of these are views on homosexuality. Democratic acceptance not only of homosexuals but of the homosexual lifestyle runs counter to a true understanding of sexuality. When the Catholic Faith expresses an opposition to the actively homosexual lifestyle (just as it expresses an opposition to the actively heterosexual lifestyle out of wedlock), it does so out of the ideals of compassion and charity. The Catholic understanding of the actively homosexual lifestyle is that it, as a state of sin, is harmful to its practitioner, for, in perverting the sexual act, it demeans and damages the order created by God and it harms the practitioner’s own sexual understanding. Therefore, the Catholic faith opposes that lifestyle out of a desire to help those who feel inclined to commit such a sin to refrain from it.

The Republicans, however, fare little better, for while preaching against homosexual acts, they go too far and preach against homosexuals themselves; Republican opinion is, quite frankly, founded more on homophobia than anything else. We must remember that it is not the state of being homosexual, whether secretly or openly, that is condemned as a sin; rather, it is the active, voluntary commission of the homosexual act that is a sin. Furthermore, the Catholic Faith calls upon its believers to practice their opposition to this sin in a compassionate, charitable manner. Any person whose opposition to homosexual acts is expressed without the love of God in his heart is not then a believer of the Catholic Faith.

Of course, from a truly Christian perspective, far more grievous than any support our modern society gives to homosexual acts is the support it gives to the perversion of heterosexual acts; the real epidemic is the general promiscuity that has followed in the wake of the sexual revolution, homosexual and heterosexual alike. As the Church teaches, a full understanding of one’s sexuality can only come through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, by whom and with whom and in whom all things were made and are, therefore, understood (this is the notion that sexuality, like all things, is “sacramental” in nature). In this context, one comes to understand that one’s sexuality is not some independent department of the self; rather, sexuality is inextricably bound up in the whole being of body and soul. Modern notions of sexuality on both sides of the fence present a sexuality that is missing its greatest context: Christ.

Voters, as good Christians, are obligated by their faith to vote for men and women who will uphold the message of the Gospel. This is why we had such a mess in the 2004 election over Catholic bishops telling their flocks it would be wrong to support a Catholic politician who supported abortion (i.e. John Kerry). The problem, of course, is reconciling the Truth with political parties that stand for only parts of it.

This reconciliation, between a Truth that must guide completely our lives and a political system in which nobody seems to stand for that Truth, will not be an easy one to effect. We are faced with a slate of candidates for the presidency who seem to wander every day farther from it. Rudy Giuliani supports abortion rights and is a lapsed Catholic multiple times divorced, and yet appears to be the best bet the Republicans have against the Democrats. All three leading Democratic candidates support abortion, and Hillary Clinton, at least, has shown repeatedly that she is not in the least bit dismayed by the moral licentiousness that permeates our culture (just check out her husband, whom President Gerald Ford, according to a recent book, called a “sex-addict”).

I thought I had found somebody that would work—the aforementioned Sen. Sam Brownback, who seemed to be step-for-step with the Church in his understanding of how to live a good Christian life in a flawed and sinful world, but his campaign never found traction (as the Sunday Magazine article points out, the man who should have been the darling of the religious right got left out on the front stoop by them; though Kirkpatrick attributes this to their desire to back a candidate with a greater chance for success, I think the reason for the religious right’s aversion to Sen. Brownback is at least partially attributable to that old anti-Catholic prejudice), and he has officially bowed out of the race.

The problem for me, of course, is that it would be near anathema to support a candidate who supports abortion; I am too strongly tied to my respect and love for the dignity of all human life to vote for men and women who disregard it so blatantly. Yet, that leaves me in the arms of a handful of Republican candidates whose anti-homosexual rhetoric is more homophobic than it is charitable and who seem to pay little attention to the Gospel’s imperative to care for the poor with a charitable heart (though they have their good intentions, it is hard to perceive just how their views on foreign aid and immigration mesh with the “preferential option for the poor”, a theological principle of action founded in Christian love and charity).

What is necessary, above all, is to breed in ourselves a renewed respect for the dignity of all people. When our society can find in Christian love the hallmark of humanity, then we shall be able to overcome this quagmire in which we languish. When we as individuals find our every action motivated by love of God and neighbor, then we shall find that the choice between one evil and another has been resolved, for there will be only one choice then. When we ultimately can submit ourselves wholly to the Will of God, then we shall discover that we need not think long and hard about our compromises, for only then will the Will of God—of Love—remain. The choice today between Republican and Democrat may not be clear, but the choice today between God and the world is. I do not yet know how I will vote a year from now, but what I do know is that I shall pray every day hence for the God’s guidance for me and for all of the men and women who govern our country.

Who's Rich and Who's Poor?

Republicans usually are painted by their opponents as so pro-business and pro-capitalism that, in worshiping the almighty Dollar, they lord it over the poor, screwing them over time and again. Yet, according to figures recently released by CNNMoney.com, the five states in the Union with the highest annual per capita income are Connecticut ($55,536), New Jersey ($51,605), Massachusetts ($51,297), Maryland ($49,324), and New York ($47,176), all five of which are "blue" states, i.e. they tend to vote Democrat.

On the other hand, the six states with the lowest annual per capita income are Mississippi ($29,582), Arkansas ($31,145), West Virginia ($31,198), Utah ($32,249), Kentucky ($32,673), and South Carolina ($32,790), all six of which are "red" states, i.e. they tend to vote Republican.

Furthermore, the campaign fundraising numbers for the first quarter of 2007 were just released, showing that Hillary Clinton raised a record-shattering $26 million in just three months, with Barack Obama just a hairsbreadth behind at $25 million (that's right - a combined total of over $50 million).

So the real question is, which is really the party of the rich fat cats and which is really the party of the poorer people?