God Gracious

I never seek to be amazed at how Catholic politicians, who profess to be Catholic, nevertheless flout the teaching of the Catholic Church in their public persona and in their role in secular society. Instead of being witnesses to the truth they bark up the tree of secular sentiment and scandalize the Catholic community. There are numerous examples of this around abortion and the so called “right to die with dignity” euphemized in the title of MAID [medical assistance in dying]. Our previous Canadian liberal Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau and our current liberal Prime Minister, Mark Carney, are proponents of this woke culture with respect to abortion and Maid, although thankfully Pier Trudeau, when he was Prime Minister, led a successful charge to outlaw capital punishment in Canada. Capital punishment flourishes in many other countries however, including some of the states comprising our neighbor to the south.

A recent change to the catechism of the Catholic Church renders capital punishment inadmissible morally because it is an attack on the “inviolability and dignity of the person”. Paragraph 2267 of the catechism has been revised as follows: “the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”,^[1] and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide”. I understand that Governor De Santis of the state of Florida ordered the execution of two men recently, one a man of 80 years of age, explaining that the families of the victims had waited long enough to see justice done and Governor De Santis professes to be a Catholic.

When are these so-called Catholic politicians going to wake up to their responsibility to adhere to Church teaching in undertaking their governmental responsibilities? They scandalize the rest of us in their failure to do so. If they don’t agree with Church teaching, then they should not profess to be Catholic. Our Catholic Christian ideals must be promoted in the secular culture no matter the political cost in doing so. To fail in this respect is gravely immoral and will have to be addressed before the ultimate tribunal that we all face as we move into eternity.

Let’s pray for our Catholic political leaders that they would have the courage to run for public office on the basis of their Catholic Christian values centered on a recognition of the values of the Kingdom of God focused on love, compassion, mercy, humility and trust in God rather than the nebulous and changing sentiments of secular culture. Let them be in the world rather than of the world so that they model Christian values rather than the transitory values of the world that they might be a righteous example to all of us. Is this too much to ask of a politician who professes to be Catholic?