It is impossible not to admire the resilience and fighting spirit with which Donald Trump responded—literally within moments—to the failed attempt to take his life. And that he is among the luckiest of politicians is evidenced not just by his survival, but by the fact that the moment was captured in photographs as dramatic as any seen in recent history. His supporters are understandably inspired, indeed electrified. And his enemies are sure to be demoralized by the sympathy this event will generate—not to mention the blinding contrast between Trump’s virility and the accelerating decline of his doddering opponent. Naturally, that those enemies include some very bad people only reinforces Trump’s supporters’ devotion to him, which is now at a fever pitch. But it is precisely at moments of high emotion that the cold water of reason, however unpleasant, is most needed.
In the week before the assassination attempt, a fierce controversy began to arise within conservative ranks over some radical changes to the Republican Party platform made at Trump’s insistence, and apparently rammed through without allowing potential critics sufficient time to study them or deliberate. The changes involved gutting the platform of the staunchly pro-life position that has in some form or other been in it for almost fifty years, and also removing the platform’s statement of support for the traditional understanding of marriage. The platform no longer affirms the fundamental right to life of all innocent human beings. Instead, it opposes only late-term abortions, while leaving it to the states to determine whether there should be any further restrictions, and explicitly endorses IVF (which typically involves the destruction of embryos).
In short, the platform now essentially reflects a soft pro-choice position rather than a clear anti-abortion position. As Robert P. George has noted, the platform has in this respect become what liberal Republicans like Arlen Specter had long but heretofore unsuccessfully tried to make it. That would be alarming enough by itself, but it is made more so when seen in light of other recent moves by once pro-life Republicans in the direction of watering down their opposition to abortion. For example, Senator J.D. Vance, now Trump’s running mate, has said that he supports access to the abortion pill mifepristone, which is said to be responsible for half of the abortions in the U.S. Senator Ted Cruz supports IVF, despite the destruction of embryos that it entails. Arizona U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake has denounced a ban on abortion she once supported, and at one point even appeared to adopt Bill Clinton’s rhetoric to the effect that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare.”
Trump himself now not only favors keeping abortion legal in cases involving rape, incest, and danger to the mother’s life, but declines to say much more, other than that the matter should be left to the states. He no longer treats the abortion issue as fundamentally about protecting the rights of innocent human beings, but instead as a merely procedural question concerning which level of government should make policy on the matter. Nor do most observers seriously believe that abortion (much less the defense of traditional marriage) are issues that Trump is personally much concerned about, given his notorious personal life and the pro-choice and otherwise socially liberal views he expressed for decades before running for president in 2016. The most plausible reading of Trump’s record is that he was willing to further the agenda of social conservatives when doing so was in his political interests, but has no inclination to do so any longer now that their support has been secured and their views have become a political liability.
Some social conservatives have defended the change to the platform precisely on these political grounds, arguing that they cannot accomplish anything unless the candidates who are least hostile to them first win elections. They note that a federal ban on abortion is highly unpopular and has no chance of occurring in the foreseeable future, so that for Trump to push for such a ban would be politically suicidal. But the problem with this argument is that Trump does not need radically to change the platform in order to win the election. For one thing, even his bitterest opponents have for some time judged that he is likely to win the election anyway, despite the unpopularity of the GOP’s traditional stance on abortion. For another thing, he could let the existing platform stand while basically ignoring it. Or he could have merely softened the platform, preserving the general principle of defending the rights of the unborn while leaving it vague how or when this would be done at the federal level.
In short, it is one thing to refrain from advancing a certain position, and quite another positively to abandon that position. The most that Trump would need to do for political purposes is the former, but the change to the platform goes beyond this and does the latter. If this change stands, the long-term consequences for social conservatives could be disastrous. Outside the churches, social conservatism has no significant institutional support beyond the Republican Party. The universities, corporations, and most of the mass media are extremely hostile to it. And those media outlets that are less hostile (such as Fox News) tolerate social conservatives largely because of their political influence within the GOP.
Some social conservatives have suggested that while the change to the platform is bad, it can be reversed after Trump is elected. This is delusional. Obviously, the change has been made because Trump judges that, politically, the best course of action is to appease those who are hostile to social conservatism and gamble that social conservatives themselves will vote for him anyway. If he wins—and especially if he wins without significant pushback from social conservatives on the platform change—then this will be taken to be a vindication of the judgment in question. There will be no incentive to restore the socially conservative elements of the platform, and every incentive not to do so.
The result will be that the national GOP will be far less likely in the future to advance the agenda of social conservatives, or even to pay lip service to it. Opposition to abortion and resistance to other socially liberal policies will become primarily a matter of local rather than national politics, and social conservatives will be pushed further into the cultural margins. They will gradually lose the remaining institutional support they have outside the churches (even as the churches themselves are becoming ever less friendly to them). And their ability to fight against the moral and cultural rot accelerating all around us, and to protect themselves from those who would erode their freedom to practice and promote their religious convictions, will thereby be massively reduced.
In short, for social conservatives to roll over and accept Trump’s radical change to the Republican platform would be to seek near-term electoral victory at the cost of long-term political suicide. Robert P. George, Ryan Anderson, Albert Mohler, and other socially conservative leaders have called on the delegates at this week’s Republican National Convention to vote down the revised platform and recommit to the party’s traditional pro-life position. It is imperative that all social conservatives join in this effort in whatever way they are able.
(Editor’s note: This essay originally appeared on Dr. Feser’s blog in a slightly different form and is reprinted here with the author’s kind permission.)
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God works on human minds and hearts – if only we let Him. Let’s remember that Trump was the only president to address the annual pro-life March on Washington. Let’s also remember that Trump was the one who nominated the Supreme Court judges who reversed Roe. Let’s also remember that Trump had as his 1st Vice President a man who once was Catholic and who rejected the Catholic faith. In this election year Trump has nominated a man for Vice President who was baptized into the Catholic faith in 2019 and who is fervently pro-life. God writes sometimes with crooked lines.
Well I’m voting for Trump in any case, but Mr. Vance may be a bit confused as a fairly recent Catholic convert as to what being prolife actually entails.
But he certainly isn’t the only one & at least he’s been sympathetic to the cause. Not rabidly opposed as the Biden admin. has been.
Best case scenario is that following the election faithful, better informed Catholics may reach out to him & instruct him. We can hope & pray for that.
Lets also remember that the use of contraceptives which certainly are “anti-life” is the norm for most Catholics. I hesitate to venture a guess but I wouldn’t be surprised if 95% of Catholics use or have used contraceptives whose sole purpose is to prevent the creation of human life.
I agree that a great number of Catholics contracept. It’s a shame.
That and I believe there was a recent Pew Research poll that indicated about 90% of Catholics think abortion should be legal in some circumstance or other.
We’ve been needing to fix this sort of thing for several generations.
Pew Research in 2016:
Catholics viewing contraception as morally wrong: 8%
Catholics viewing contraception as morally acceptable: 41%
Catholics viewing contraception as not a moral issue: 48%
Views on contraception among Catholics attending weekly services:
Morally wrong: 13%
Morally acceptable: 45%
Not a moral issue: 42%.
http://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2016/09/28/4-very-few-americans-see-contraception-as-morally-wrong/
Sometimes comments are written with crooked lines too. “Let’s remember” is like saying let’s remember how the team played in the playoffs while it continued to drop the ball in the championship. The cause for life is not something that concludes with a semi-final. Trump and his team (his family at the RNC) have put pro-lifers on the bench and the latter would trade them if they could. And this article is not only about Trump, but about a national party and its prospects of finding its religious members a future nuisance, unless of course they put just a little pinch of incense on the political altar.
Dear Deacon. Your adoration of convicted felon Trump will cause this Catholic to take issue. How can I vote for a man who flagrently defies Catholic and Christian teaching with insecent lies and use of vial disparaging names and hatred for his assumed “enemies”. “Crooked Joe, crooked Kamala, crazy Nancy, AG Bill Barr a fat pig”. Very unpresidential. Adding a few more major issues to a man who…
Called himself pro-life, when he was pro-choice for most of his adult life in order to attract the votes of Catholics and their clergy… and succeded in doing just that.
Committed treason with Putin in Helsinki by favoring him and disgarding his intelligence professionals on Putin’s involvement in our elections. They are still doing it. And, his inciting the invasion of the US Capitol to overthrow the election. (he watched as his criminals construct a gallows to hang Mike Pence). Says “I am your retribution” and says he will pardon the convicted criminals who acted on 1/6. He calls them “hostages”.
Distances himself from Project 2025, the new Republican “platform” which partially contains…
– Complete government ovehall with expansion of presidential powers. (monarchy?)
– Promote Christian nationalism. (evangelize not politicize)
– Restrict Medicare from seeking lower medication costs.
– Defund the Department of Justice. (full of Trump’s “enemies”)
I am no a Democrat, but I don’t hear this diatribe from them.
Where do we go now?
In a my nearly 30 years as a Catholic (a convert from a lapsed Methodist and Episcopal), I’ve yet to hear any kind of substantial teaching/homily from a priest regarding fornication/contraception/IVF/abortion/divorce (unless said homily was said at an NFP convention–a friendly, already converted audience, so it doesn’t count.)
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Trump/Vance are merely reflecting where we are as a people. Vance is supposedly a convert to Catholicism himself, a recent one. I’d be interested to know if they even broached the topic of contraception/NFP/IVF in his RCIA class–it certainly was not brought up in mine, or in marriage prep.
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Social conservatives need to advance these ideas at home with their own children and among their own friends, who will then influence their friends. They need to get control of the education system especially–this is exactly what the Left has done. We did not became a morass of Moloch worshippers overnight. It took nearly a century to go from where we were morally in the 1900 (contraception illegal) to where we are today (naked men dancing in the Streets during parades in the month of June.)
Well said.
I’m dismayed at the lack of preaching from the pulpit on abortion/contraception/IVF/adultery/divorce. I’m convinced that’s for two reasons, one relational and one practical. On the relational side, pastors don’t want to rock the collection boat. That’s due to a lack of courage and faith. On the practical side, I don’t believe many priests know how to preach about the beauty of the opposites of abortion/contraception/etc. That’s due to a lack of genuine familiarity with the topics. While that needs to change, this is also where married deacons can help fill the gap. Specifically, they can preach with perceived authority on these subjects. Yes, then you potentially get some conflict with the pastor over the aforementioned relational concerns. In the end, though, someone has to get uncomfortable. Lord, give them the courage to preach the truth, and give us, those with the view from the pew, the presence of mind to love and support them when they do.
I’ve heard Dr. Janet Smith say, on the basis of teaching in a seminary for decades, that many seminaries actually taught priests not to preach on controversial topics, not to clearly state what is right and what is wrong. I don’t think it was on the basis of collections, but on the basis of avoiding hurting people. Truth can cause pain.
But it doesn’t cause *damage*, it actually heals that.
There might be some lack of familiarity with the topic, there’s also a lack of practice in doing so, and there’s also probably an emotional barrier of doing what they were told not to. Breaking through that barrier carries the risk of being over-aggressive or over-emotional when they do so. They should do their best anyway. As you say, someone has to get uncomfortable. Probably “someone” is “everyone”. Might as well do it now, before it gets worse.
Lex, you’re correct. Once when it was my turn to preach at my parish at two Sundays Masses, I preached on abortion since it was right around the March for Life in January. At the first Mass, the congregation all applauded. At the second Mass, there was applause and a standing ovation. Lesson: if you preach it, they will respond.
Married Priests have children who can be used as blackmail material. Chaste celibate priests (not homosex!) have authority to preach sexual morality. Preach HV every week for the 50 years priest did not preach it
IVF does not necessarily require destruction of embryos, and provides the ability to enable life to devout Catholic couples. I have several friends who have kept their frozen embryos for decades, and have experienced the joy of children. One such child now serves God as both a physician and a member of a Catholic Order of nuns.
However, the other points mentioned in your article are indeed concerning. Let us remember that Donald Trump was the first American President to openly participate in the annual Walk for Life, and is our strongest defense for continuing protection of the innocent. Compare this to our current nominal Catholic President and former speaker of the House, who term the killing of innocents “Women’s Health.”
“IVF does not necessarily require destruction of embryos, and provides the ability to enable life to devout Catholic couples. I have several friends who have kept their frozen embryos for decades…”
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Okay, sure. Not destroyed, but kept in a frozen prison until…when? When will these “spare” embryos (human being/children) be born? Know the touch and love of their own parents? Be baptised? Communion? Get to know their siblings who were allowed to be implanted, gestated, and born?
.
Ah, but that is a very difficult conversation to have with infertile friends, much less one’s own children who are tempted toward IVF (having spent their fertile years busy working as the clock ticks on). It is much easier to go to a pro-life rally and/or pester politicians with policy positions than confront the people you very much want over for the holidays.
Who wants to disagree on a medical issue with someone who has MD after their name? Well, I guess I will since I learned that I had to do so during Covid.
Dr. Isala says that, “IVF does not necessarily require destruction of embryos.” Everything that I have read says that it does. Multiple embryos are created (maybe 10 to 20). The best one is selected for implantation, and the others are discarded (killed) and some may be frozen.
The doctor then says that, “I have several friends who have kept their frozen embryos for decades.” This is presented as some kind of positive. These are human lives placed in some kind of suspended animation for decades. After decades the couple is past reproductive years. So, what will happen to them? They will be discarded (killed) or used for experimentation.
I am also in the same situation as Mrs. Hess who said – “I’ve yet to hear any kind of substantial teaching/homily from a priest regarding fornication/contraception/IVF/abortion/divorce…”
Imagine being kept frozen in an embryonic state for decades?😣
It’s something out of a science fiction horror movie.
The Catholic Church teaches that IVF is intrinsically immoral. See The Catechism #2377, etc.: http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2377.htm
That we lovingly accept a child conceived by an immoral act, does not mean that we should approve of the immorality that led to the child.
For those Catholics suffering from infertility, many couples have had babies by moral medical treatments like NaProTechnology. Search for a specialist to help you: https://files.ecatholic.com/14123/documents/2024/5/CFCMC%20%20Collaborating%20MC%20list%20for%20website%20-%20Updated%20May%2006%202024-3.pdf?t=1715707221000
If I recall correctly NaPro has about a 95% success rate within 2 years without any invasive procedures, and they have more invasive treatments they can do as well.
They can’t give you a designer baby, but if you want a child in order to serve the child, you don’t really need them to be a girl with grey eyes.
And the whole “just freeze them for decades” until their great-great niece decides to implant them is ridiculous. The longer you keep them frozen, the less likely they are to survive. If no one implants them, freezing them is killing them slowly.
Read donum vitae. The frankentube makes children creatures of the state and must be rejected period
Politicians do many things in public for political reasons in order to further their political gain. While we can’t judge their motives, we can observe their personal lives and draw a few conclusions about their integrity and character. In other words is there enough evidence to convict them of being a Christian?
Thank you Edward. Am praying for a culture of life and that the Republican platform does not compromise with murder. Satan has taught us to ignore the Commandments of God. Children are being assassinated in the womb every day. If it is acceptable to kill an inconvenient child in the womb, why not a political opponent?
A personal anecdote about “the moral and cultural rot accelerating all around us”:
The day after the Trump assassination attempt, while I was eating brunch with my family, an African American couple ordered in front of us at the counter. They were very well dressed. Perhaps they had just came from church? As the man went to get syrup and utensils for their pancakes, a mid-60s Caucasian man with a Midwest baseball team logo on his hat approached and the African American man and said:
“Too bad the guy missed!”
The African American man looked shocked, but he wisely did not engage and walked away (I think it was Seneca who said: “Never talk to crazy people.”). The Caucasian boomer with the beer gut then insecurely quipped as the African American man walked away: “Hey man, I’m just saying, you know?” – as if the African American man, as an African American, must have appreciated his murderous mindset. Then the Caucasian boomer, eating alone (I wonder why?!), opened back up his laptop and entered again into the internet.
I stayed silent for the sake of my family. Yet I confessed in the car home that I was torn between confronting him and not engaging like African American man. What did I want to say in response to the hate?
“The assassin did not miss. Four were hit, including our former President, and one has died.”
Witness the culture of death. Abortion has brought us to this place.
Well written, clear, concise.
We must pray that the Holy Spirit will influence the decision to keep the platform pro-life.
It would be tragic to remove from the Republican platform the current stand for protection of the life of unborn American babies.
“We believe that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that no person can be denied Life or Liberty without Due Process, and that the States are, therefore, free to pass Laws protecting those Rights.”
This is the GOP platform wording.
After the fall of Roe how is this not exactly what we were telling progressive extremists on the other side? That post-Roe America would not look like a dystopian Hand Maid’s Tale regime with aborted moms being carted off to prison. But instead simply turn the regulation of feticide back to the states.
Best to follow Mr. Feser’s advice about applying reason. In the states that have now seriously restricted abortion – where are pictures of abort[ing] mom’s in shackles. A national platform/policy (for every state) does not mean dystopia. To follow your logic, what’s to stop each state from carting off its mom-resisters? Answer: a national policy that makes abortion illegal and punishes the abortion providers (unless it is to save the life of the mother). Let’s try a middle point – the U.S. guarantee’s the liberty (to walk on the sidewalk), and that the States are free to protect that right. Are they also free to infringe upon that right? What then happened to your guarantee? Oh, I see, it’s not important that we guarantee life, only that we duly process it. The platform you quote is non-sensical to constitutional and natural law.
Reason isn’t applied in fearmongering propaganda, Inigo.
My hope is that one day we will be ready for prolife human rights reform on a national level but we’re not there yet & any GOP politician who runs on that platform this year will surely be defeated.
Hope is the confident desire of obtaining some future good that is difficult to obtain. Confidence arises from trust and is demonstrated by effort. Your way is to follow those who set aside the future good because votes are difficult to obtain. This is not hope, but expediency. It is advantageous, not justice. Mr. Feser alludes to the future backward outcome of your “one day”: votes corrupting virtues.
Let us hope and pray that Vance will advance the call of social conservatism within the Republican Party though Trump’s platform is RINO ideologically that at best will me a major stumbling block to the progressives.
A sober and much-needed reflection.
Your comments are all correct…but at this time in history, we simply have to gird up our loins and vote for the candidate(s) who is/are not totally sold-out to abortion on demand for any reason.
Pres. Trump advocates allowing the individual states to determine their abortion policy, and there are plenty of states (like mine) in which an abortion is not easy to obtain and that impose strict limits on when an abortion can be performed. I think it is realistic for as many of us as possible to move to such states, although I realize that many are not able to move, or at least, they think they can’t move.
Voting for a totally pro-life, non-compromising candidate is, sad to say, giving the election away to the totally pro-abortion (and also pro-LBGTQ+ activist crowd, many of whom are calling for legalization of sex-change surgeries even for very young children/teens). This stuff is evil, and to not do what is necessary to block candidates who support evil is not acceptable or wise.
I personally think that as our population continues to decline and there are not enough people to do the “work” that needs to be done to keep the U.S. going, we will see more children born. Many of the incoming immigrants (legal) are opposed to abortion and have children that they raise up with a good work ethic.
I also think we need to spend less money on our “church programs” designed to make life enjoyable for those of us who are already comfortable with our incomes, homes, and investments, and instead, become more involved financially in helping the poor, the addicted, the victims of racism, the children and teens who are at risk of becoming involved with street gangs and drugs and eventually with crime as they are “recruited” into the national and international criminal syndicates. And we need to help girls/teens/women to get to place where they do not “need” an abortion to keep their home and income.
But to throw the election away and allow those who advocate evil policies to take power is not acceptable, even if our only realistic option is to vote for a candidate that is not “100%” prolife. Voting for an unknown, inexperienced, and poorly-funded candidate will result in loss of the election to the pro-abortion candidates who will advocate and bring about evil policies that will make it difficult to live with our consciences. There simply aren’t enough of us who are pro-life and who vote to sway the election to unknown, totally pro-life candidates. Get real. Vote wisely.
I am praying that Trump’s brush with death this past weekend will result in a change of heart.
After all, he was himself nearly aborted in Butler.
I pray he will realize the horror of murdering the unborn children in a more immediate, more personal way.
Well, I hope, too, that he will (continue) to have a change of heart, a hope that extends to all of us. That is to say, an ongoing conversion of heart and mind toward love and truth.
It has been said by those who know more than I about such things that a near brush with death does indeed aid in reshaping one’s perspective. A person may become, for instance, more present to others, more open to joy, more hopeful.
And as one who has had a near-death experience–the bullet is still in the back wall of my chest cavity–I can attest that is does make a difference in ways small and large.
I am staunchly against abortion except in gravest need, but this entire article reduces national politics to a single issue, while that does not work in the real world where single issue election attempts nearly always go down in flames, no matter the issue…and anyone who trusts any politician to stand by anything when votes are at stake needs to talk to me about some great deals I am offering on assorted NYC bridges and prime waterfront property in the Everglades.
Yes, I think God not only saved Pres. Trump’s life but literally “got his ear.”
I pray Trump will be listening more to God’s directions, especially those concerning the sanctity of all human life.
Mr. Bob we’re probably in agreement on this & you’re just using different terminology but there is never an ethical reason to commit feticide. I’m thinking you already know that & you are talking about the situations where both mother & child would die without intervention & the double effect principle applies. That’s not the same thing as directly targeting & killing the child.
I agree that since the overturn of Roe we should be looking at the wider scope of issues the Democrats endorse. We could be free of legal feticides now in every state thanks to Dobbs, but obviously not every state is ready for that. Human rights reforms take time. And the funding to oppose prolife advancement is huge.
Let us normalize the C-section/incubator/NICU in medical emergencies to end a pregnancy quickly when the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother (as opposed to an abortion), instead of just when either the ob/gyn or mother wants to have a scheduled birth so as not to interfere with vacation plans.
One of my grandchildren spent a little time in the NICU for that reason. Both she & my daughter would have perished had it not been for an emergency, early C-section. Praise God she was only a little premature & all turned out well.
When Ireland had a 100% abortion ban, the rate of maternal death went down, relative to mainland European countries.
It’s not health care.
Nor is euthanasia. They are both failures to provide healthcare to the most vulnerable.
“Opposition to abortion and resistance to other socially liberal policies will become primarily a matter of local rather than national politics, and social conservatives will be pushed further into the cultural margins.”
The “and” does not follow.
My first GOP convention (of several) was 1960 in Chicago. At the time, abortion was illegal in the vast majority of states. A Capital Crime, like rape and murder, it merited the death penalty.
Case closed.
The Supreme Court nationalized the issue w/Roe v. Wade in 1973. Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization returned the issue to the states in 2022 – after two generations had been brainwashed by the “woman’s right to choose” apparatchiks of the “popular culture,” a.k.a. the Culture of Death.
“…and social conservatives will be pushed further into the cultural margins.”
Why is that a given? Pushed by whom?
The battle over abortion now goes to the states. So do education, welfare, health, and a host of other powers that Wilson, FDR, LBJ, and Obama/Biden have federalized – unconstitutionally.
Pro-lifers are strongest at the local level. Don’t be “pushed to the margins” by the usual suspects. Identify your state reps and senators up for (re)election this fall and work the trenches with your fellow pro-lifers on the ground.
That’s where it counts.
Let us not forget that abortion, like slavery, and reordering persons according to sexual desire/inclination/orientation in order to justify the engaging in of acts that, regardless of the actors or the actor’s desire’s , sexually objectify the human person, all, by objectifying the human person in some form, deny the inherent Dignity of the human person as a beloved son or daughter, and thus deny the inherent Dignity of all our beloved.
All human persons have the inherent Right to be treated with Dignity and respect in private and in public and not be viewed as merely as a means to an end. To objectify the human person, is to deny the Sanctity of Life, of Liberty, and of The Pursuit of Happiness for all our beloved.
Just as with slavery, abortion belongs at the highest level of abolition. Jefferson Davis, too, was for states rights, but that strips the winds of inalienable from the sails of created equal.
Those union soldiers and their families fought to abolish abortion, as well, and we spit in their face with Dobbs.
Or he could have merely softened the platform, preserving the general principle of defending the rights of the unborn while leaving it vague how or when this would be done at the federal level [Feser], is reasonable, more compatible with our Catholic principles.
Although Dr Feser seems to acknowledge election isn’t feasible absent some form of compromise platform. That has its basis in the fact that the large majority of Catholics in America favor some form of abortion, virtually all use contraceptives. Furthermore, Catholics have been voting for the Democrats 44% to 37& Republican according to Pew. An acceptable principle in voting for the Rep platform is the lesser evil. Similar to choosing your poison. The difference is the Dems more lethal venom will kill you quicker, whereas the other offers a “long-term political suicide” if not cultural suicide. Time and the opportunity for cultural change in favor of life is the better choice.
Father, respectfully, when you compromise Truth, you will always end with error, and error is not of God.
I suppose that is why the atheist materialist over population alarmist globalist who deny the Sanctity and Dignity of human life from the moment a human life is created and brought into being at conception, because they view human life to be a burden, and not a Blessing, have infiltrated Christ’s Church, in an effort to create a counterfeit church that we can know through both Faith and reason, cannot subsist within The One Body Of Christ because it denies The Unity Of The Holy Ghost and denies The Author Of Love, Of Life, And Of Marriage, The Blessed Trinity, Father, Son, And Holy Ghost.
How then, can the Faithful who affirm God Is The Author Of Love, Of Life , And Of Marriage, and the unfaithful, those who have been Baptized Catholic but deny God Is The Author of Love, Of Life, And Of Marriage, deny their Baptismal promises and remain unfaithful to Christ and His one, Holy, Catholic, And Apostolic Church, both be, in essence , Catholic, when the unfaithful ipso facto separated themselves from Christ and His Body? There Is Only One Body Of Christ.
ND. For a Catholic to compromise their faith is one thing. On this you’re correct. Whereas voting for a candidate and platform that compromises the truth for sake of electability is another. Also, consider that Trump and his party have done more to reverse the moral downslide and protect Christianity particularly Catholicism than any former president. That done in a divided country particularly with a basically nominal Catholic population.
The Republican Party’s national position simply reflects the Supreme Court’s position in Dobbs. The Supreme Court in the Dobbs majority opinion decided not to change Justice Blackmun’s position in his Roe v. Wade majority opinion that the human fetus is not a “person” under the Constitution of the United States, and thus left the fate of God’s littlest children in their mothers’ wombs to the tender mercies of the fifty state legislatures. The Republican Party’s platform position does advocate prohibiting late-term abortions, presumably on the thesis that the fetus becomes a “person” entitled to federal constitutional protection at some time before birth.
It is the obligation of the Court, if they choose to deny Due Process to any person, to prove that it is possible for a son or daughter of a human person to not be, in essence, a human person, and to provide proof that human persons can conceive a son or daughter, who is not, in essence, a human person.
Our unalienable Right to Life, is Unalienable because it is endowed to us from God, not Caesar, John Locke, or King John.
Prayer is always more powerful than anything the devl can throw at us. We have to engage evil in order to defeat it. The devl has already been defeated by our Lord Jesus Christ, and it knows it. So, none of us has any excuse to buckle under or cave in while we are engaged in this celestial battle against principalities and powers.
A closing thought – No party and no candidate is perfect. If you are holding out for perfection, you will never be satisfied.
We are morally compelled to choose the lesser of two evils.
At least Trump acknowledges God, while bidn mocks and disdains God. In this context, it should not be a difficult voting choice this time around.
At this point in time I’m grateful that the state I live in is 100% free of legally enshrined feticides. Those ended immediately following Dobbs. Thank you Donald Trump.
I don’t put any trust in the GOP, I just vote for the better option. Which party is committed to wokeness & mutilating confused children? Even taking them away from parents who refuse to submit to mutilation? Not the GOP.
Instead of drilling holes in the life boat we should be encouraging prolife Catholics to get out & vote for the candidates that at the very least will allow people who hold traditional views on marriage & family to live in peace & practice their faith without persecution. And God willing, under a Trump presidency we will be able to enact prolife laws state-by-state as my own state has. Little by little is better than nothing at all. And nothing at all is what you would get under 4 more years of the Democrats.
An additional pro-life perspective to ponder is a substack post by Peachy Keenan: Victory is Fragile.
Yes, thank you. Peachy Keenan did a great job explaining this issue.
Good vibes or feelings changes nothing. Prayer changes everything and to think it can’t, doesn’t or won’t is unthinkable and wrong. Trump’s wife is professed Catholic and Vance is Catholic. Fr. Altman gave Trump a statue of St. Michael the Archangel which sits on a night stand in Trumps bedroom (according to Fr. Altman). I was thinking how I wished that God would give the world a sign that the world would know that He/God is with us and then came the miracle of an assas*nation bullet that missed Trump’s head. I pondered the incredible sign that was given to the world. So, I do happen to think that Trump has a new understanding of what just happened to him and who gave him that gift. So to think things can’t change with prayer and circumstances I find unbelievable that anyone could think like that.
We can know through both Faith and reason, that “It is not possible to have Sacramental Communion without Ecclesiastical Communion, due to The Unity Of The Holy Ghost(Filioque); It Is “Through Christ, With Christ, And In Christ, In The Unity Of The Holy Ghost” (Filioque) , that Holy Mother Church, outside of which there is no Salvation, due to The Unity Of The Holy Ghost ( Filioque) exists.
As the family goes, so goes this Nation and The World.”-Pope John Paul II
“It is a sin to accommodate an occasion of sin and cooperate with evil.”
The fact is, when God, “Nature’s God”, with the capital G , The Author Of Love, Of Life, and of Marriage, and thus The Author of our unalienable Right to Life, to Liberty, and to The Pursuit of Happiness, The Ordered Communion Of Perfect Love, The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity, is denied, because a multitude of persons desire to render onto Caesar what belongs to God, including Jorge Bergoglio, who ipso facto separated himself from Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic, And Apostolic Church, when his heresy was manifested and made public ,in his book, On Heaven And Earth, on page 117, where he stated, in regards to same -sex sexual unions and thus same-sex sexual acts, “If there is a union of a private nature, there is neither a third party, nor is society affected”.
denying The Sanctity of the marital act within The Sacrament of Holy Matrimony , that sin done in private is still sin, that we, who are Baptized Catholic, are Called to be, “Temples of The Holy Ghost”. ((God’s Universal Call To Holiness), and that to deny The Unity of The Holy Ghost , is to deny The Divinity Of The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity, which is apostasy.
Apostasy is what apostasy does.
“When God is denied, human dignity disappears.”-Pope Benedict XVI
When human dignity disappears , anything can become permissible, including the destruction of a beloved son or daughter residing in their mother’s womb.
We can recognize through both Faith and reason, the relationship between The Spirit Of The Law and The Spirit Of The Constitution in regards to securing and protecting The Sanctity and Dignity of human life from the moment of conception to natural death, while recognizing that the intentional destruction of an innocent beloved son or daughter residing in their mother’s womb, which is never a “victimless “ crime , and in fact, establishes both harm, and “a risk of harm”, to all future generations, and thus stands in direct conflict with both The Spirit Of The Law and The Spirit Of The Constitution in regards to first and foremost, securing and protecting our inherent unalienable Right to Life, upon which securing and protecting our inherent unalienable Right to Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness depends, and securing and forming “ a more perfect Union, establishing Justice, insuring domestic Tranquility, providing for the common defense, promoting the general Welfare, and securing the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”, must be realized in every State of The United States Of America, if our Nation is to prosper, and not fall victim to the atheist materialist, over-population alarmist globalists who view human life to be a burden, and not a Blessing.
We, who are no longer sleeping in Gethsemane, and desire to remain with Christ and His Church affirm that:
At the heart of Liberty Is Christ, “4For it is impossible for those who were once illuminated, have tasted also the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, 5Have moreover tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come…”, to not believe that Christ’s Sacrifice On The Cross will lead us to Salvation, but we must desire forgiveness for our sins, and accept Salvational Love, God’s Gift Of Grace And Mercy; believe in The Power And The Glory Of Salvation Love, and rejoice in the fact that No Greater Love Is There Than This, To Desire Salvation For One’s Beloved. “Hail The Cross, Our Only Hope.”
“Blessed are they who are Called to The Marriage Supper Of The Lamb.”
“For where your treasure is there will your heart be also.”
“Behold your Mother.” – Christ On The Cross
“Penance, Penance, Penance.”
May Our Blessed Mother’s Immaculate Heart Triumph!
Biden’s actions regarding major life issues have been evil. Satan could not be happier. Note: I am not saying Biden is evil.
Re Deacon Peitler above – It is unfair to characterize former Vice President Pence in negative terms as rejecting his Catholic faith. In my understanding, he finds more active, consistent pro-life faith in Evangelicalism. He is by no means alone in this belief.
Cleo, I could never understand how a Catholic could turn his back on the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist having once acknowledged him in the Sacrament.
Hello Dr. Feser,
Abortion and IVF should be illegal, period, and strictly speaking I am neither a nationalist nor a populist. I am not even entirely sure I will vote for Trump yet again. At the same time, I would have appreciated this article more had it alluded, however briefly, to what provoked MAGA to begin with: A profound dissatisfaction with the conservative establishment on the part of its voter base.
I can’t help but suspect that Professor George pines for Bush conservatism. Here in the boonies we are less happy about neoconservative wars for Our Democracy(TM), about the decline of the American working-class, and about being made to feel like aliens in our own country. For some of us, those are also non-negotiable issues.
“But it is precisely at moments of high emotion that the cold water of reason, however unpleasant, is most needed.”
Dr. Feser, whom I greatly admire, should take his own counsel to heart. We are seeing a rush to judgement by some Catholics about decisions that are made in a highly charged, highly fluid political environment, in which pro-lifers, who have claimed to decades that the majority of Americans were on their side and they were only held back by Roe, have lost referendum after referendum after referendum in the two years since Roe fell, including, good grief, in Ohio and Kansas. Instead of condemning those who practice the science of what is politically possible, the pro-life movement needs to do a lot more soul searching about the claims it has made over the years. To date that has not fully occurred. So jump on Trump and Vance, etc. all you want, but if watering down the platform keeps Kamela Harris from becoming president, then it seems to me a calculated move worth making. Because the nightmare scenario is that abortion is the front and center issue come November, and that, see “Ohio”, etc, it helps elect not only Biden/Harris but also a Democrat House and Senate. We would then see things far worse than a document which already nobody reads.
So pull your intellectual hairs out over this, but try to recall that politics is the science of the practical, and especially, start doing more of that soul searching about claims the pro-life movement has made over the years about where the majority of Americans stand. Some pro-life leaders have fooled themselves and fooled the rest of us. Because the majority Americans appear to stand right about where Donald Trump does.
Erased in our techy and anti-moral culture and political discourse is elementary human imagination–real and metaphysical. Vance in his support for Mifepristone, Cruz in his support for IVF, the abortion culture, and the tribal LGBTQ religion.
All fail to see the endgame. That is, now, the acreage of Auschwitz has been miniaturized into a pill in the suburban medicine cabinet, and into a triage solution in a Petri dish.
It’s actually God who invented miniaturization and purposeful binary sexuality, as at the very beginning of every unique and vulnerable human person. But, today: out of sight, out of mind; and out of mind, out of sight.
The reason the Left is in self-admitted existential “panic” is not merely the loss of an election cycle or two, and the loss of countless positions of business-as-usual. But first of all, the loss of a false and entire cosmology, just as in the Roman Empire when the eternal city was sacked by Alaric in A.D. 410. Beneath the Beltway of star constellations, the false floor also drops away. Angst, both political and psychiatric!
The massive human costs of utopian “pogroms” are enabled when functionaries have lost even the “faculty to imagine [!] that which they know” (the ex-Marxist Max Eastman, “Freedom and the Planned Economy,” 1955; citated in William F. Buckley, Jr., editor, “American Conservative Thought in the Twentieth Century,” 1970, p. 203).
So, planks to you, Buckley, for all your foundational work, maybe not yet in exile.
The main error in this column is the emphasis on social conservatism and the fear of being left without a political party or choice. Why should we fear it? Did Christ and the Apostles fear it? Catholics should be authentically Catholic. We vote our religious(religare)conscience binding ourselves to God. Many who write their comments here would have Catholics be politicos, not saints.
It’s about rendering unto Caesar. Politicians aren’t saints & political parties aren’t cults to saints.
Turning a civic duty into a moral purity test that no politician can ever be virtuous enough to pass just encourages people of faith to despair & stay home on election day. It by default lets the other side win.
Mrscracker – Just like the rest of your comments, you are representing only half of the story. Jesus didn’t say “render unto Caesar” and stop there. He said “give to God what is God’s”. I am registered undeclared (thus an “independent”). I am also pro-life, thus a “pro-life independent”. Trump got my vote in 2016 and in 2020 because he wanted both parts of what makes me whole. Now he only wants half of me because he is willing to disregard the pro-life part to gain the independent part.
It is you and those like you who have for years made political parties into cults (have you watched the conventions!?) The moral purity tactic (baloney)is not going to work here, but nice try. Remember, those like me have real “hope”, the theological virtue, not the watered-down ho-hum maybe we’ll get there “one day”. People of faith will not despair and like me they will not stay home; there are many things and referenda to vote on for country, state and region. “Life” doesn’t belong to Caesar, it never has, though he thinks (still) that he can take it and do as he likes with it for his own benefit. National security, taxes, borders, natural resources, may belong to Caesar, being lent to him for a while as a steward, but life is God’s and Caesar has no business leveling it for votes or, worst of all, for popularity.
Inigo, I don’t think we’ve ever met each other & it’s unwise to make assumptions about real folks through anonymous comment boxes.
Let’s be serious here… just because you avoid writing in the second person doesn’t mean that you can hide your own personal assumptions and presuppositions which have been obvious here. Moving on…
Inigo, I don’t share your confidence in reading hearts and minds.
You have a blessed night.
🙂
Erased in our techy and anti-moral culture and political discourse is elementary human imagination–real and metaphysical. Vance in his support for Mifepristone, Cruz in his support for IVF, the abortion culture, and the tribal LGBTQ religion.
All fail to even imagine and thusly to see the endgame. That is, now, the acreage of Auschwitz has been miniaturized into a pill in the suburban medicine cabinet, and into a triage solution in a Petri dish.
It’s actually God who invented miniaturization and purposeful binary sexuality, as at the very beginning of every unique and vulnerable human person. But, today: out of sight, out of mind; and out of mind, out of sight.
The reason the Left is in self-admitted existential “panic” is not merely the loss of an election cycle or two, and the loss of countless positions of infantile business-as-usual. But first of all, the loss of a false and entire cosmology. Just as in the Roman Empire when the eternal city was sacked by Alaric in A.D. 410. Today, beneath the Beltway of stars, the false floor also drops away. Angst, political, existential, and psychiatric!
The massive human costs of utopian “pogroms”—now the abortion culture—are enabled when functionaries have lost even the “faculty to imagine [!] that which they know” (the ex-Marxist Max Eastman, “Freedom and the Planned Economy,” 1955; citated in William F. Buckley, Jr., editor, “American Conservative Thought in the Twentieth Century,” 1970, p. 203).
So, planks to you, Buckley, for all your foundational work, maybe not yet in exile.
One of the problems here is not the change in the Republican platform, but the failure of Catholics as a group to support pro-life Republicans at the ballot box and oppose attempts to enshrine abortion in law. Look to Michigan – where abortion has become a right, and voted into law with significant Catholic support. We need to fix our own morals, not expect politicians to legislate it.
Exactly – and the Bishops abetted this…Trump did a lot for Catholics and the Church stabbed him in the back ….so he made a tactical decision.
Now more than ever, we Catholics worldwide need to read, study, understand, and apply the Catholic Social Teachings (CST). We Catholics should start getting familiarized and oriented with the fifteen papal social encyclicals beginning with the 1891 “Rerum Novarum” by Pope Leo XIII up the 2020 “Fratelli Tutti” by Pope Francis. One can start taking up and reading the 2004 summary and synthesis book, “Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church.” In today’s highly polarized world divided by progressive versus conservative geopolitics, the Christian faithful in their social engagement, especially voting for politicians and platforms, need to go beyond the divisive partisan programs and policies and go back to the foundational teaching of the Bible and of the Church. In the U.S., Catholics need to transcend the divide between the Blue (Democrats) and Red (Republicans) politics and turn to and be guided more by the Purple (color of Jesus’s robe after scourging) politics of Jesus. This predicament faced by Republican Catholics mostly driven by the single issue of anti-abortion come to finally realize they have been merely duped into unquestionably supporting Trump and the GOP only to see their values compromised for political utility. Ed Feser here loudly points out this present inconvenient sad and bad reality experienced by Catholic supporters of Trump and the GOP, “Fight, yes, but for what?” Had more Catholics been rightly formed by the CST, they could never have been blinded (in their sole anti-abortion stance) to other critical moral and social issues that also align with Catholic teaching, such as care for the poor, social justice, and ecological care. The Trump administration despite its anti-abortion pro-life rhetoric engaged in policies and behaviors that contradict CST like immigration policies, disregard for environmental protection, and a divisive approach to social justice (especially racial) issues. Now that Trump and the GOP have softened their anti-abortion stand out of political expediency, Catholic supporters must reconsider their allegiance solely on the basis of abortion policy. Catholics ought to realize that these politicians just used the anti-abortion stance as a political tool rather than a sincere commitment to moral principles. These politicians have exploited religious voters’ genuine concerns about abortion to secure their support all the while advancing policies that undermine other aspects of CST. Ed Feser’s essay here rightly serves as a cautionary tale for Catholic Republican voters. The primary takeaway here is for all Catholic voters to have a more discerning approach to political engagement, one that evaluates candidates and parties based on a comprehensive understanding of CST rather than a single-issue litmus test.
It is sad the Republican party is backing off from a forceful pro life platform. However, think the Catholic Church Bishops etc. need to push the issue. When was the last time have priests made anti abortion sermons. Maybe a few but not many as far as I know. So while it is right to criticize the platform, there is a real need for introspection of what the Church has done and needs to be more assertive.
I agree with this article. However, it does illustrate the error of democratism – i.e. majority can do no wrong. Democracy isn’t any guarantee of justice.
What ought to happen is that every politician who supports this platform ought to lose office or the ability to obtain. Politics is never a matter of expediency. That which is not just can not be law.
From Deacon Dom, a deceptive caricature—conservatives as single-issue anti-abortion?
As if the direct killing of the most vulnerable is on the same plane as all the other CST issues. But, yes, there are also structural sins of omission. So, how to retain the baseline moral absolutes while also advancing affirmative actions on means toward other agreed ends?
We have yet to see a concise CST message…
CST: in addition to the non-negotiable moral ABSOLUTES, and certainly not an ideology, but rather the negation of all ideology. Are the Church’s social principles essentially an application of the personal MORAL VIRTUES—justice and prudential judgment, temperance and courage?…
Courage rather than business as usual, and with the core vision to see that each and every concrete human PERSON, without exception, is not a thing devoid of intrinsic rights; that the natural FAMILY is permanently not an obsolete or arbitrary or state-conferred legal fiction; that SOLIDARITY means concrete human relationships are both real and not unjustly exclusive; that SUBSIDIARITY means that the State is not the origin or even the definition of real human community(ies); that HUMAN WORK and the human worker are not commodities or even “human resources” entered on a corporate balance sheet or a political-party client list; that the POOR of all kinds—Pope John Paul II notes spiritual poverty—are not refuse any more than are unborn children or the euthanized elderly; and that all of CREATION is a constant wonder which, before it is ever quantified or commodified—the consumer culture?—is an intergenerational gift from a God other than and transcending ourselves.
In all of the above, there must be a “vocation” or two? More than a career? And maybe even what Vatican II had in mind when it linked “ressourcement” (the return to sources) and “aggiornamento” (engagement) together?
You are not going to get a national abortion ban. The Dobbs decision which overturned Roe sent the issue back to the states. Trump, who will likely be elected, has no appetite to nationalize abortion. I do not foresee a national ban in the near future. Politics and morality are not the same thing.
Yes, Dobbs moved feticide regulation back to the states, which is exactly what we expected to happen. That’s as good as it’s going to get in this election cycle & we should at least be grateful for the overturn of Roe & the right of each state to protect human life. No candidate running on a platform to ban feticide nationwide, much less a ban with no exceptions, will win this year.
Instead of attacking GOP candidates running at a federal level we should be concentrating on enacting prolife state legislation. Reform begins at home one state at a time.
It is a moral disgrace that 5 Catholic Justices cannot defend the right to life in the womb at any point in pregnancy. A 9 month old baby doesn’t deserve its right to life? Why? Because these weaklings would have to say if and when a child in the womb is considered a ‘person’ in a ‘legal’ sense. It is a disgraceful abdication of their spiritual duty – abrogating their authority thus to condemn the innocent to death – much as Pontius Pilate did to the Beloved One of God with the connivance of the corrupt ‘priests’ of the Church. The SCOTUS has the eternal shame of legally instituting both slavery and the mass murder of innocent children.
But that wasn’t the case that was before the Supreme Court. Please God, perhaps one day it will be.
There comes a point at which the Republicans need to “prove themselves,” much the way a hit man is eventually handed a gun and told to kill someone– and if he fails, he’ll be killed himself. That point is now or never. If pro-life people don’t demand that Republicans deliver, right now, then they are just throwing their votes away, and the Republicans will never have to deliver, ever, if they even survive as a party. We don’t need a Democrat Lite Party. We need a 100% pro-life party, right now, and if the Republicans don’t want to be that party, it’s time to find or create another party that will.
I’m 62 now. People have been pushing the “what are you going to do, vote for Democrats?” line almost all my life. Voting for the lesser evil is a proven failure. The ratchet just keeps moving further and further to the left, and Republicans never do much to move it back to the right; at best, they delay the next move to the left. I’ve come to the conclusion that we are headed for another Babylonian exile, and voting for Republicans is only going to delay the inevitable. As for Christians, it’s starting to look as though we’d all best prepare for martyrdom, because the whole world wants our heads and doesn’t care about our votes.
Dr. Feser, how many bishops joined Trump on the stage at Pro-Life rallies when he was president? NONE. There is no pay-off, no political advantage for being pro-life. The bishops have made that patently clear. Go ahead, criticize Trump for adjusting his stand on abortion, but if bishops (and Catholic academia) are not willing to stand with a pro-life president when we have one, albeit imperfect – as we all are, we have no grounds to complain. And by the way, when Cardinals and bishops come out as de facto pro-choice (McElroy, Stowe, Tobin, Cupich and others) we’ve lost the high ground. Trump didn’t do that. Bishops did. And those bishops gave the green light to Catholics concluding it is just fine to be pro-choice. Trump didn’t do that. Bishops did. (And I suspect with a certain Roman pontiff’s seal of approval; Remember Gomez being shut down for writing a letter critical of Biden’s pro-abortion stance? Cupich, Tobin and O’Malley orchestrated that with Rome’s approval.) Rail against Trump all you want; but abandonment of the pro-life agenda – that’s squarely on the USCCB.
to jpfhays …. excellent post ….our Byitch-up in Richmond won’t even confront the malevolent heretical Sen Kaine
jpfhays: YES.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I think you’ll catch my drift:
Thank God for Trump.
We have Francis to thank for Biden.
Biden reported that Francis told Biden he was a good Catholic and that he should continue to receive Holy Communion. Francis did not deny that he said that.
Trump follows the logic of Conservative ideology. It’s guided, not by absolute, universal principles to which each society should submit, but by the evolution of society’s conventions. Even if Trump believed in God (perhaps recent experiences have made an impression on him), or wished to save the unborn, to be loyal to Burkean Conservatism he would have to submit the social consensus of the day.
Society needs to recognise Christianity as the standard for its conventions, not the reverse. No more Enlightenment ideologies, please.
“Trump follows the logic of Conservative ideology. It’s guided, not by absolute, universal principles to which each society should submit, but by the evolution of society’s conventions.”
Hmmm. Trump is not a conservative in any substantive sense, even if he’s taken snippets from traditional conservative ideas. He’s a political pragmatist whose principles are not rooted in any of the permanent things that a great thinker such as Edmund Burke or Russell Kirk would point to.
In fact, anyone familiar with Kirk, whose conservative thought was deeply principled, traditional, and Augustinian, knows how deeply Kirk disdained ideology (he wrote eloquently about and against it) and how insistent he was that objective truth be the guiding principle for conservatives. In his own words (yes, let’s actually use sources instead of broad brushes):
Read more here.
I think that Trump will be elected, but term limited. Thus, it might be interesting to see where he goes. “Conservative” and right wing are not the same. Neither is “Liberal” and Left Wing. Indeed, classic Liberals and classic Conservatives do have some overlap.
Majorie Taylor Greene is not a true conservative,nor is AOC a classic Liberal. They are both fringe clowns. Unfortunately, we have too many of these in both parties.
Thanks Carl. Donald Trump, Edmund Burke and Russell Kirk all had different private ideas on things no doubt, but they agreed on the conservative essential, that society establishes what its conventions will be by criteria decided by itself. Both Burke and Kirk refused to allow natural law any place in society as such. Burke was explicit about this. Kirk squirmed, but ultimately only allowed natural law an “influence” through informing the judgement of private individuals who might be important in society. But society as such was not in submission to natural law. For example, he supported Orestes Brownson’s opinion that, although slavery might be wrong according to natural law, one could not appeal to natural law against the US Constitution.
Unfortunately, with Trump, we only have more of this conservative divinisation of whatever an evolving social “tradition” might dictate. This is a vicious circle which is only broken by the intrusion of Christian absolutes into society. This was the case from Constantine/Theodosius until the end of Baroque hegemony, with the victory of the Enlightenment establishments in Paris and London. I know my view is not conventional for Anglo-Conservatives. They must learn fast however. The world is much bigger than their world, and it’s changing fast.
“Both Burke and Kirk refused to allow natural law any place in society as such.”
Seriously?
Yes, Carl. Unfortunately it’s like that. Of course, I’m not stopping you from providing any clear evidence to the contrary. But please use their own words.
Miguel Cervantes, Trump could just be a pragmatist who likes to do deals. Sometimes it looks conservative and sometimes it looks liberal. It will show as not coinciding with Natural Law. Some people will be jawboning about Trump and Natural Law from now to until; and some will add that doing it is conservatism. Conservatism doesn’t always embrace Natural Law either; so the comparison with it might only yield intelligible -or, noticeable- business or consequences, when Trump does deals with such, this way or that. That is why Trump is so well known for being unpredictable.
Notwithstanding that Trump is known as being unpredictable, he has crafted around him a super stable homosexualist support base including a cadre of security goons. He intends to build on this.
Elias. Yes that’s all true. I wasn’t arguing that Trump is necessarily a conservative, just that his evolving position to suit society (once society has “come to terms” with changes, like homosexual marriages which Trump says is now just water under the bridge now) is consistent with Conservatism. The issue I suppose, is whether we want to define our beliefs as Conservatism, or simply as Christians, like the Christian West until the Enlightenment. There is no Christian West without natural law.
While I agree with you on many issues, there are those who resort to “Trump isn’t a conservative, he’s a pragmatist.” OK. Name one national political personality who isn’t, hasn’t been “pragmatic,” i.e., say, promise, do what they need to say, promise, do to get elected. That’s how democracies work. That’s what political leaders must do – to exercise power/authority in a democracy. Power comes from the people. We seem to want leaders to persuade the people to choose well in elections, in forming their conscience, making decisions in their own lives and families, etc? That sounds like a pastor, a bishop, a preacher’s job. And that’s where the Church (USCCB) has massively failed. Bishops played the political game – they lost that game and lost spectacularly. When bishops themselves do not how to choose well in principle, non-pragmatically, when they become pro-choice (McElroy, Cupich, Tobin, Stowe, etc) … we have no reason to expect political leaders to do that for them. Our bishops have failed massively in politics and shepherding. Instead of changing hearts, they played the game of changing laws – and they failed. And even when they got what they wanted, overturning Rowe, they had no idea about the fallout and were left clueless as to what to do next. We have a bunch of bishops who have no clue about their own jobs and love political games. Why? Because that’s the game they played in the Church to get where they are. It’s the only game they know. And they have no clue about being shepherds. Again, attack Trump all you want, the real problem is Church leadership and gaping lack thereof.
Much could be said here, but I’ll stick to a couple of things. First, compared to Biden and Co. (that is, the Dem party), Trump bears a certain “conservative” quality. For instance, I think his strongest points (as POTUS) were in foreign policy and handling certain economic factors. Morally, he’s a crapshoot and is certainly a pragmatist (despite left-wing hysteria, Trump has always been friendly toward “gay marriage” and any number of sexually liberal positions). So, it’s a mixed bag. But, Trump has the advantage of running against a Party that has completely sold out to the culture of death, so he need not be as consistent or principled on certain matters as he might have if this election was decades ago. That’s the reality.
“That’s how democracies work.” I tend to agree with you. But this country was established as a representative form of democratic order and the Founders understood (as they mentioned many times) that it can only thrive if its citizenry is virtuous. Alas, that’s not the case.
I certainly have my frustrations with Church leadership. But the real problem lies at the lay level. Most American Catholics are bourgeois and completely in synch with the latest fads and nonsense, regardless of what their bishop or the pope says.
JPFHAYS. I agree with you about the Church’s lack of leadership. All the same, this doesn’t mean Catholics should so nothing. If they do something, however, it’s got to be right. Political realism may mean not saying the whole truth but, for us, it will mean saying nothing but the truth. Trump/Vance fail in this as much as Biden, or Harris.
Trump himself identifies with doing deals. His sense of direction is always in shortfall. What is the point I make? If he is being advised but not understood properly, the advisor more likely than not will get lost in the thickets. And I think that would be so even for a good advisor trying to hold to his post. But if Trump will actually listen, the advisor must at least understand him well, first.
In addition, if he wins, all now want to come to him for whatever allocation; and this is where his “strengths” work best (if “strength”, “work” and “best” can apply).
Then too, he was unable to distinguish himself from the COVID main-streamers nor was he especially effective against the deep state power players; and this does not augur well for his politics in general or in crisis.
When things had got to a fever pitch an entire flank of his bailed via Pence. From present appearances (as I see it) Vance could easily bring about another free-fall if things suddenly went south and he -Vance- might even be smarter than Pence and produce slow but steady concessions/buckling on many fronts. Trump’s prior staffing problems/hitches would be worsened.
Deacon Peitler – I’d say many Catholics’ belief in the Real Presence is fairly abstract, or tenuous if you wish. The reality of the child in the womb is more graspable to most.
As well, non-Catholics observe that many Catholics are wishy-washy in practising what they supposedly believe. I can appreciate the process by which Pence has arrived at his position.
There can be no doubt that the Republican party is now revealing itself as the centrist party for everyone, from Elon Musk to Amber Rose to Lila Rose, much like the anti-traditional so-called Synodal Church. I for one feel alienated now by the Republican Party, not to mention the Catholic Church. The official changes to the Republican party platform are shortsighted to say the least.
IIRC long before Trump became a factor in the Republican party wasn’t there something of a fissure between the fiscal conservatives and the social conservatives? GOP candidates made social conservative promises on the campaign trail, only to do nothing when they got into Congress. They had their defenders in the conservative press.
*
I don’t like the pro-life changes in the Republican platform, but Dobbs did return the abortion issue to the states. To do more than that SCOTUS would have been legislating from the bench like Roe did. Even doing simply that made the pro-aborts livid.
*
Trump’s appeal is that he gives a political voice to people who are ignored and looked down upon by the political establishment. The establishment brought Trump on themselves through the neglect shown to the issues that mattered to the voters who make up his base.
1. A professor of literature at a Quaker college, looking back on WW2 and all of recorded history, wrote this in the year he died, 1951:
“The greatest poetry has always depicted the world as a little citadel of nobility threatened by an immense barbarism, a flickering candle surrounded by infinite night.”
2. Yes, everything has gone to h*ll, and is getting worse.
The bishop of a once eternal city has gone rogue, and most of the bishops and priests applaud and justify the disorder, confusion, and chaos.
President so-and-so has no principles (as his sister said, shortly before she died), only cares about winning and personal glory and power.
3. But there still remains the “little citadel of nobility,” which is the eternal and all-Good God with us in our souls, if we permit Him to be so.