I am thinking about 25 years' worth of messaging to "good Catholics." We were supposed to vote for the Republicans in 1994, because abortion, and never mind about Newt Gingrich's then-shocking decision that it was better to shut down the government than to negotiate with the liberals.
We were supposed to vote for GWB in 2000, because abortion, and never mind that he broke his campaign promise to hold the line on embryonic stem cell research less than seven months into his first term. Never mind the war, because abortion.
We were supposed to vote for Republicans in 2008 and 2012, because abortion, and never you mind about candidates who refused to take a principled stand against torture. The liberals were supporting a worse mortal sin, the logic ran (if torture was even a mortal sin -- they weren't convinced about that), and at least torture didn't kill anybody. Remember when they told us Obama was going to shut down all the Catholic hospitals because he was so committed to advancing the abortion activists' agenda?
I found myself more and more puzzled and unhappy across these years, as the rhetoric became more and more divisive. These are the Five Non-Negotiables, screamed the pamphlets, with lots of bold-face type and little sourcing.
There are a couple of men I know who would describe themselves as pillars of their churches, but I have had to mute them on Facebook because of the ugliness in their political posts. If Nancy Pelosi is a beloved child of God, redeemed by the death of the Lord, then there are limits on what we as Christians should say about her. But it turns out that if you spend decades telling people that WE are right and THEY are dedicated to promoting evil, it gets a lot harder to see Nancy Pelosi as a beloved child of God, redeemed by the death of the Lord. If you tell people that all good Catholics vote Republican, it pushes people to overlook Republican policies that are problematic for Catholics.
I thought surely Donald Trump was a bridge too far in 2016, but I was wrong. I thought surely SURELY his 2020 campaign would flounder and fail, but I think he would have won if not for COVID, and the Catholics saying "most pro-life president ever!!!!" would have propelled him toward that victory.
I am permanently done with any flavor of pro-life activism that looks favorably on the Trump administration. Catholic Vote mailers? Straight into the recycling bin, unopened, forevermore. I called and harangued the Priests for Life office again and again, until they finally took me off their mailing list. I can't even deal with the sight of their envelopes. Because when you tell people to overlook evil in the name of stopping evil, you blunt their moral sense. And when you steer people toward media sources that play fast and loose with the truth (because those sources tend to condemn the evil you oppose most emphatically) you wind up with a nation in which astonishing numbers of people believe that the Most Pro-life President Ever (no) won the election (no) but was thwarted by widespread voter fraud (no) and that there is somehow justice (no) in their refusal to accept the outcome of a free and fair election and in obstructing the peaceful transfer of power in a democracy (so much no ALL THE NO). You wind up with armed insurrectionists smashing windows in the US Capitol, shouting that it's time to hang the vice-president who has been attempting to do his constitutional duty even as the mob erected a gallows on the lawn.
The church is full of people saying "you can't be a Catholic and a Democrat!" as if it were a self-evident truth. This position has led an appalling number of Catholics to reject biblical truth (family separation at the southern border, anyone?), the Catechism (capital punishment is morally inadmissible, Roma locuta est), and science (climate change deniers, repent and submit to the Pope). If a person rejects the Bible, the Catechism, and science, what's left?
We have profoundly damaged our Christian witness in the name of rewriting abortion law. And as the nation picks up the pieces (and, please God, removes from office the man who fomented the Wednesday insurrection), we in the church need to have some hard conversations about where we've found ourselves, and where we go from here.
I’m personally struggling with how to deal with the sure knowledge that some people I considered real friends are just so not on the same page that I’m on. Having someone who “doesn’t believe in germ theory” is wacky enough in regular life—but when that manifests as refusing to mask / social distance / etc. ... I’m just really having trouble.
I thought these were My People: the ones who also have a million kids and drive big vans and eat lots of beans-and-rice because they’re living on one income, and are homeschooling and don’t have tv’s, and are maybe even converts like me, who know how counter-cultural this life is.
Sigh. I’m feeling lonely and sad about it. It feels permanently life-changing.
Posted by: Jenny | January 10, 2021 at 03:00 PM
I echo all of this, substituting “evangelical” for “Catholic.” My rage at the church that has chosen power over Christ is monumental.
Posted by: MomQueenBee | January 10, 2021 at 07:26 PM
Jamie,
I have read your blog(s) for more than fifteen years, and have always appreciated your wisdom, even if I didn't always agree with you. This is probably the last time I will read.
I was a few months too young to vote in 2000. I am a first generation immigrant and was raised socialist but cradle Catholic. I have never voted for a pro-choice candidate, as I have lived in states that we very red or blue and felt I had the luxury of voting third party. I did not vote for Trump in 2016, but I did this year (although I do not support the Capitol Hill protest, etc).
Why? Not because I have any delusion that Trump is the most pro-life president, but certainly because Harris and Biden are not. Abortion regulation in the state of California is an excellent case study of what to expect if she ends up having to take over. Because the goal posts of what is mainstream have shifted so much since 2008. In the next county over, a story time involving a certain kind of performer was held with few objections, Because I want my daughter to be fairly compete in women's sports without someone who has a hormonal advantage over her assaulting her in a locker room. Because I believe in faith based adoption agencies (how pro life is that?) and sectarian colleges not having to compromise their moral positions rather than be called bigots. Because who sues nuns providing corporal works of mercy? I don't have kids in public school, but even in our tiny red state town, the school board has approved certain kinds of clubs.
And, sadly there is plenty of anti-science on both sides. It is mostly Democrats saying keep schools closed, even though research is showing with precautions they aren't a major source of transmission (see the peer reviewed case study on the Archdiocese of Chicago schools). The trans stuff.
I meant to write this as a comment to a different post but will leave it here. In my block of a small rural town, there is a new family with a handicapped adult child, an older man who provides most of the caregiving to his wife, a new immigrant family, a single mom feeling shunned, one empty nester, and three big Catholic families. One of our elderly neighbors passed away suddenly from non Covid reasons the day before yesterday. No amount of porch deliveries or check in texts is touching their isolation and in some cases, desperation. We too have had the ice storms that you mentioned, and my side of the street - the one with the low risk big families- lost power on a below freezing night. Fortunately it was resolved quickly, and if the situation were reversed I would have taken any one of those people in, to hell with Covid.
Posted by: Lucy | January 11, 2021 at 09:04 AM
You might consider reading
https://dwightlongenecker.com/the-divided-states-of-america/
I think a lot of people are really angry, for vastly differing reasons, but we can't beat each other up.
Also, I'd be really reeeeeeally careful about suggesting that the Pope can speak in an obedience-worthy way on science (=/= faith or morals) so there is no call for repentance necessary on that. Unless you're coming down on the side of "down with Galileo for his science" (which never happened, even back then). That doesn't mean that we shouldn't be looking at the MORAL implications of treating the environment badly, and the outsize consequences bad behavior has on the poor and disenfranchised. That would be a question of morals, and definitely within the pope's purview. But don't conflate "climate change denier" with "rank polluter" just because there is often overlap.
All the best, Jamie - back to reading just your non-Trump posts and wishing you peace :-)
Posted by: mandamum | January 11, 2021 at 08:44 PM
Thank you so much for this. I feel very lonely as someone who is a Democrat and a Catholic. (Remember when to be Catholic was to be a Democrat? - Oh well). And you are right that the problem is single issue voting which much (most?) of the Church hierarchy supports.
Again, thank you for your voice. It helps a lot.
Posted by: Jeri Graham | January 23, 2021 at 09:31 PM