Hudson & Fournier: Catholic Countdown to Election 2012, Day 4. Put Out Into the Deep and Vote!

By Deal W Hudson and Keith A Fournier
11/2/2012
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

Bishop Di Marzio is urging all Catholics to imagine how our nation will be impacted by the reelection of Obama/Biden

We as Roman Catholics need to put out into the deep. We love the child in the womb. We love the child who is poor, and we love the child who is sick, because of her great dignity and sanctity. After all, what Christ calls us to build is a civilization of love in the support of his or her life.

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WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic Online) - Several bishops have made public statements on the reelection of Obama/Biden. Bishop Sheridan of Colorado Springs, Bishop Ricken of Green Bay, Archbishop Chaput of Philadelphia, Bishop Paprocki of Springfield, IL, but the most interesting of all came from Brooklyn.

Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio published a column in The Tablet, his diocesan newspaper, entitled, "What Constitutes a Woman's Issue?" Bishop DiMarzio begins:

"As we head into the final week of the presidential campaign, I cannot help but be preoccupied by the tone of the debate surrounding what is being referred to as 'women's issues.' This language seems to be code for abortion rights and now a mandate upon employers to offer contraceptives, sterilization and abortifacients to employees."

Of course, if the good bishop spent any time watching television -- and we are glad he doesn't -- he would not have to speak of a "code" for abortion rights and the mandate, because the Obama/Biden campaign ads aimed at women make that connection perfectly clear.

Bishop Di Marzio goes on to explain why the HHS mandate, in fact, is aimed directly at the Catholic Church: "moral opposition to all artificial contraception and sterilization is a minority and unpopular belief, and its virtually exclusive association with the Catholic Church is no secret."

Just why "the President has senselessly made religious liberty a central issue in this campaign" is a question Bishop Di Marzio raises but does not answer. However, he does spell out how Catholics ought to view the Obama/Biden candidacy for reelection:

"It is inconceivable to me how Catholics could support such policies. Indeed, Roman Catholics who support abortion rights and vote for a candidate because of those policies, place him/herself outside of the life of the Church. In so doing, they also place themselves in moral danger."

Bishop Di Marzio is not the first bishop in this election cycle to allude to a certain moral peril at stake in casting a vote for Obama/Biden. Bishop Paprocki, in his statement to his diocese, closed by saying, "Pray very carefully about your vote, because a vote for a candidate who promotes actions or behaviors that are intrinsically evil and gravely sinful makes you morally complicit and places the eternal salvation of your own soul in serious jeopardy."

Bishop Ricken sounds a similar note in his column, "An Important Moment." Starting with a quote from "Faithful Citizenship", he goes a bit further in unpacking its meaning:

"A well-formed Christian conscience does not permit one to vote for a political program that contradicts fundamental contents of faith and morals. Intrinsically evil actions are those which have an evil object. In other words, an act is evil by its very nature, and to choose an action of this type puts one in grave moral danger."

With all due respect to the other bishops, Bishop Di Marzio's statement includes some language that has a certain, well, flair that is not found in the rhetoric of the good bishops of the mid-west:

"Is it possible to vote for somebody despite their support for these policies? To my mind, it stretches the imagination, especially when there is another option."

When the bishop evokes the "imagination," he is not taking us into the realm of art. He is very realistically reminding us how we lay our moral choices before us in our minds before we make them. We conjure up, as it were, the different options, and imagine ourselves choosing one or the other, even imagining the future consequences of our choice.

No, this is not an invitation into the "pure imagination" of "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory". Bishop Di Marzio is urging all Catholics to imagine how our nation will be impacted by the reelection of Obama/Biden. The bishop's own imagination can hardly "stretch" that far because it encompasses the imposition of so many intrinsic evils on our families and our societal norms.

Bishop Di Marzio, however, does not leave it there -- he then allows himself an evocative, poetic note, the sign of a great orator:

"We as Roman Catholics need to put out into the deep. We love the child in the womb. We love the child who is poor, and we love the child who is sick, because of her great dignity and sanctity. After all, what Christ calls us to build is a civilization of love in the support of his or her life."

Yes, we agree whole-heartedly, we nod our heads in agreement, we barely stifle the urge to shout, "Amen" (because we are Catholics), and we want to clap, so we do, loudly!

"Put out into the deep," there are no words that better compress all that is at stake in the next few days than this allusion to Luke 5:4 when Jesus tells Simon to go out into deeper water and let the nets sink lower. When Simon protests that they have fished all night and caught nothing but agrees to do as Jesus says, the result is overwhelming:

"When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break." (Luke 5:6)

- - -

Pope Benedict XVI's Prayer Intentions for January 2013
General Intention: The Faith of Christians. That in this Year of Faith Christians may deepen their knowledge of the mystery of Christ and witness joyfully to the gift of faith in him.
Missionary Intention: Middle Eastern Christians. That the Christian communities of the Middle East, often discriminated against, may receive from the Holy Spirit the strength of fidelity and perseverance.

Keywords: Bishop Ricken, Bishop Sheridan, Archbishop Chaput, Bishop Paprocki, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, Romney, Ryan, Obama, Biden, faithful citizenship, campaign 2012, catholic vote, Catholic action, Deal W Hudson, Keith A Fournier

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1 - 8 of 8 Comments

Judy Claar
6 months ago
Tom McGuire: I am glad that You See Yourself as a Justified Catholic. The Gospels of Jesus Christ ARE the Gospels of LIFE. How on earth could Any Catholic/Christian vote for a leader of the Culture of Death? Common Sense 101 tells you that! Intelligent science, tells you that Abortion is indeed Murder...they have pictures to prove it. Then there is Euthanasia. That goes against Natural Law. Natural Law is A person dying a Natural Death. I need not go on. No bishop need say anything Tom, it is just the Common Sense of Christianity.

You have voted for the continuation of PP. You have voted Abortion etc. Not just you, but Every Catholic and Christian who voted for Obama has. PP is not womens health care..that is insulting. My Mom has said for years, "The man who is for Life has my vote. That comes first". Prayers to a Seeker...
Rush Glick
6 months ago
Dear Mr. McGuire,

In reading your post, I was confused as to your reasoning for having chosen to vote for Obama. Was it a negative experience in the past with some bishops who suggested that you would “go to hell” if you attended a public school? Was it the reading from 1 John:1 about how “…we can be called children of God.”? Well, with Obama as president for four more years (or beyond, perhaps, if our Constitution can be further eroded before 2016…) there will certainly be many, many more of those “children of God” who will not be allowed to take their first breaths. Also while we are quoting from 1 John 3, how about verses 7-8: “Dear children, don’t let anyone lead you down the wrong path. Those who do what is right are holy, just as Christ is holy. Those who do what is sinful belong to the devil. They are just like him. He has been sinning from the beginning. But the Son of God came to destroy the devil’s work.”

Mr. McGuire, you ask at the end of your post: “Am I willing to be PERSECUTED FOR THE SAKE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS?” If enough of us follow your sad lead, we may all have that chance sooner than you think, and may God have mercy on our us, our children, our church, our nation, and the world.
Cecilio Silwamba
6 months ago
I urge the Americans to vote for somebody who promotes life in its entirety
Tom McGuire
6 months ago
I am a faithful Catholic and voted early according to my best prudential judgment and I voted for President Obama. I am old enough to remember when bishops told the people they would go to hell if they sent their children to a public school. Threats of going to hell are serious, especially coming from Bishops. So all I can do is place myself in the mercy of a loving God.

Yesterday at the Mass of All Saints the second reading I John 3: 1-3 caught my attention:
"Beloved, we are God's children now;
what we shall be has not yet been revealed.
We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him,
for we shall see him as he is.
Everyone who has this hope based on him makes himself pure.."

I am a seeker for how to be like him.

The ultimate call of Jesus is in the Beatitudes the Gospel proclaimed yesterday:

I ask myself

Am I POOR IN SPIRIT? Do I MOURN? Am I MEEK? Do I THRIST FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS? Am I MERCIFUL? Am I CLEAN OF HEART? Am I a PEACE MAKER? Am I willing to be PERSECUTED FOR THE SAKE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS?

My answer is no to every question. I am a sinner. I pray Ps 51

Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
:) JMJ
6 months ago
To: MICHAEL S,

As Catholics, we are instructed to be good citizens.
As a citizen, we are obliged to vote.
As a Catholic citizen, we must vote for the candidate who follows the teachings of the Church.
It's that simple.
God Bless,
:)
Thomas
6 months ago
The Bishops leave no Question that your soul is in danger if you vote for Abortion, same-sex marriage, and the HHS mandate. Only one candidate supports these positions. It can not be clearer for catholic's who follow this leftist, atheist dogma.
mike robertson
6 months ago
There is not enough space to argue that a national government-run health insurance plan is not the best way to provide quality heath care for the largest number of people.

What cannot be argued is that Catholic democrats are supporting an evil man who is, in effect, threatening our bishops (and other innocent Christians) with steep fines if not imprisonment for remaining loyal to God and His laws. It cannot be argued that the evil man Catholic democrats support favors infanticide outside the womb even after a baby survives the attempt to kill her inside of her mother's womb. What cannot be argued is that the evil man Catholic democrats support thinks he is wiser than God as to what constitutes a marriage.

I have voted for a Democrat for governor when he was pro-life and the GOP candidate was pro-abortion. I ask Catholic democrats to prayerfully consider putting God and His laws above their preference for massive federal government social programs (I think those hurt people in the lower half of the economic spectrum-like myself, but that is an argument for another day).
MICHAEL S
6 months ago
Thing is who do we vote for? Definitely NOT Obama, but is Romney necessarily a better choice considering his track record on abortion, same-sex so-called marriage, etc? As Gov of Mass he wasn't exactly all pro-life, pro-family. Alan Keyes suggests voting a 3rd party and no no one has made any effort to dispute that suggestion with a better argument to vote for Romney.

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