With the election looming only three short weeks away, we are hearing more and more Catholics and conservatives talking about something that seems rather absurd; voting for a third party candidate.
Photo taken by Gage Skidmore
Why would I call this idea absurd? Simply put, we have Hillary Clinton, the most radical, pro-abortion candidate to ever run for President in this country as the front-runner of this race, according to polls released thus far.
Hillary Clinton has an excellent chance of winning this election, whether through honesty or rigged elections. The only other candidate who has an excellent chance of winning this election is Donald Trump, a man who has proposed giving us pro-life Supreme Court justices, willing to defend the 2nd Amendment, and many other pro-family values. He has also written a sincere letter to Catholics discussing the importance Catholics have had in building this country and how he will fight for our religious freedom.
No matter what your argument may be in Donald Trump not being “the best man for the job” there is a near zero chance of a third party candidate winning this election. Unless you can convince 60 million people to vote for said candidate in the next 20 days, you are throwing your vote away and allowing Hillary to walk away with this election.
In the third Presidential debate, Hillary admitted that she would put justices on the court that will make abortion legal for all nine months, up until the day the baby is ready to be born. If you are pro-life in the slightest, the very thought of this should leave you appalled, and this should send shivers down your spine. Babies who are ready to be born will die under this woman.
But what I have discovered is that it almost appears to me that the Catholic “pro-life” Church in America might want Hillary to win. I have seen numerous Bishops (Archbishop Chaput for example), come out against both candidates, treating Donald Trump as bad, if not worse, than the most radically pro-abortion candidate in the history of this country, a woman who admires Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood.
In 2008, we were told that we couldn’t vote for Obama, but we had to vote for McCain.
In 2012, we were told that we couldn’t vote for Obama, but we had to vote for Romney.
Both of these men were known as soft Republicans who had no interest in running a pro-life platform, except for those pesky six months before the election. Romney ran all of his previous election campaigns for various offices under a pro-choice position. “Well, he is from Massachusetts, but he was pro-life.” McCain was another soft Republican who never did much for the pro-life platform. But with both of these candidates, we were told that we had to stop Obama because of his staunch pro-abortion stance.
Apparently, that isn’t the case anymore now that Hillary is the nominee.
In 2016 we are told to vote our conscience even though Trump has done far more than either McCain or Romney ever had with pro-lifers or Catholics. Trump has given us a list of 20 Supreme Court justices who will uphold the Constitution, and overturn Roe V. Wade when given a chance. But apparently, when push comes to shove, it’s easier to claim to be pro-life when it makes one look like a good Catholic than to actually put those principles into practice.
Catholics and every single person on this planet have a moral duty to stop evil. But all I see Catholics doing is getting up on their high horses, puffing out their chests, and pretending that they are so high and mighty by ignoring Trump and allowing Hillary to walk away with this election, all because they voted their “conscience.”
As Pope St. John Paul II says in Christifideles Laici:
Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights-for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture-is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination.
The USCCB, in their document Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship write:
Sometimes morally flawed laws already exist. In this situation, the process of framing legislation to protect life is subject to prudential judgment and “the art of the possible.” At times this process may restore justice only partially or gradually. For example, St. John Paul II taught that when a government official who fully opposes abortion cannot succeed in completely overturning a pro-abortion law, he or she may work to improve protection for unborn human life, “limiting the harm done by such a law” and lessening its negative impact as much as possible (Evangelium Vitae, no. 73). Such incremental improvements in the law are acceptable as steps toward the full restoration of justice. However, Catholics must never abandon the moral requirement to seek full protection for all human life from the moment of conception until natural death.
Pope Pius XII, in his March 16, 1946, letter to the Pastors and Lenten Preachers of Rome, wrote:
The exercise of the right to vote is an act of grave responsibility, at least when there is the question involved of electing those whose office it will be to give the country its constitutions and its laws, particularly those which effect, for example, the sanctification of feast days, marriage, family life and school, the various phases of social life. It therefore falls to the Church to explain to the faithful their moral duties which derive from their right to vote.
Again, two years later, Pope Pius XII strictly commands:
It is your right and duty to draw the attention of the faithful to the extraordinary importance of the coming elections and to the moral responsibility which follows from it for those who have the right to vote. In the present circumstances it is strictly obligatory for whoever has the right, man or woman, to take part in the elections. He who abstains, particularly through indolence or cowardice, commits thereby a grave sin, a mortal offense.
Photo by Roaming Catholics
Anybody who decides not to vote, or votes for a third party candidate (their “conscience”) commits a mortal sin. Thus it is important that you form your conscience properly, and use it to stop evil.
Every single vote matters in this election and for Catholics who want to continue down the pro-life, pro-religious liberty, anti-contraceptives in health care, pro-traditional marriage path, I don’t see them rallying around Trump, the man who is going to stop Hillary. Hillary has promised that she will throw Catholics under the bus.
I urge you, to take what could very well be your last stand against evil. Protect innocent life. Cast your vote for Donald Trump.
Or you can stand on your pedestal and vote your conscience. We’ll both be in the gulags if Hillary wins.
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