With perfect peace in my heart, with love of God in my soul, with deep concern for my fellow Christians, my friends, my family, and all those who surround me, I say that I have nothing to be sorry for in this mess of an Election season.
I have maintained, and will maintain, and do maintain, that there are no good faith reasons for a well-informed person to support either of the two major party candidates in this election. The very notion that we should do so is an affront to the dignity of the electorate and a repudiation of republican virtue; it calls into further question the already dubious legitimacy of the American regime.
I see people, in life and on Twitter, in casual conversation and in soul-searching, doing two things: recognizing the truth of their position, that neither candidate is the sort of human being one should support, that neither of them is supported by the sort of civic alliances that could justify our support. And then, all too often, I see them trying to talk themselves out of it, shamefacedly or defiantly, not uncommonly by shouting louder at those around them and hurling calumnies.
I have even seen those whose causes I regard as non-negotiable top priorities adopt utterly unnatural compromises, selling their souls cheap and then escalating their rhetoric and actions to really horrifying levels–as though to shout louder would heal what is broken and unsound in their failed machinations.
Folks, bad faith leads to worse infidelities. You cannot compromise with your conscience, and you cannot assert your own willfulness and wishful thinking in its place and call that “conscience.” Conceding that tactical voting presents some special features, it is nonetheless absolutely plain that you cannot willfully participate in the unfruitful works of darkness and call it “good.”
And all of us find ourselves perplexed and hurting, and quite justifiably wondering what we did to leave our families and friends and fellow creatures of God in such a bad place. What have we omitted? What have we done? We may not know; we may need to learn greater virtue and be made more holy before we could even know what else might be possible.
So I urge you, friends, all of you: when you have voted, to seek the first opportunity of hearing God’s forgiveness pronounced upon the truly penitent, those who are moved by sorrow for sin to abandon it.
You can start with the Act of Contrition, if you need a model.
You can go to Confession, if you’re baptized and willing to hear God speak to you through the lips of a validly ordained Catholic priest.
You can read the Psalms, where you’ll find just such perplexity–and just such reception of God’s grace.
You can read Jeremiah and Lamentations, where you’ll find texts appropriate to such days.
But you need to seek God’s face, and then you need to do some good. Share his forgiveness with others. Urge them to recognize their sin, so they can be healed–and never do so without assuring them that God is a God who forgives sinners.
Indeed, a God before whom we are sinners is the only God there could conceivably be–and a God who forgives sinners is the only kind we could conceivably serve.
All else is vanity and vexation of spirit.