The Catholic vote

My genealogy books are filled with newspaper articles of my shirt-tail relatives' involvement in politics. Many, many branches of the family, on both my father's and mother's sides, are very politically active. I'm currently related to two political office holders: Senator Dorgan (D) from North Dakota, and in a surprising turn of events, a Republican House member from Wisconsin. I contend that the only reason that my cousin, the Republican, got elected, is that my extended family is so incredibly huge that she was elected on their votes alone, albeit those lines of farmers voted for her begrudgingly, with gritted teeth and a few cuss words.

Back in the day, farmers were Democrats. Plain, simple. My farming family is also all Catholic. This didn't used to be a problem as these things went hand-in-hand, and they were very proud of their Faith and their Politics. As always, times change but the Catholic Church does not. My family's political affiliation, like their Faith, is part of their DNA, despite these two pieces of their soul being at odds.

Unfortunately, the Democratic party has been affected by relativism and has morally derailed. My family has been slow to change. Unwilling to change. It could be at the expense of their souls.

Other cousins, very active in their parish, community, and Democratic politics, have been more willing to compromise their Faith than their politics. I'm sure their saintly and staunchly Catholic parents would be aghast to learn their children now support birth control, abortion, euthanasia, population control and a host of other moral evils.

In a short period of time, family members went from supporting morally acceptable Democratic candidates, to voting for candidates that support immoral causes, to internalizing those beliefs and spouting them off themselves. All this within one lifetime.

About a year ago, Ma Beck had the following maps on her blog. Since branches of my family and my husband's family both came from Germany, mine being Catholic and his being fiercely Lutheran, along with several Bavarian Catholic branches, the maps are an interesting visual.

Germany, 1932. Percentage of Catholics with black being the highest.

(In the top left of the map, where the black makes a "peak" is where my family is from, the Duchy of Oldenburg.)

Percentage of people voting for the Nazi party. Black is highest.



A lady in my homeschool group recently sent out the following (shown below) Time article (H/T: Jean). It is also interesting to note the counties and states where Catholics have a higher percentage (darker red). It will be telling to see how the country votes.

The intro to the piece says, "With the economy and Iraq topping voter concerns, abortion has receded into the political background. That puts Catholics up for grabs—and Obama is winning some converts." Since when has abortion receded into the background? Especially when we have a candidate who is unwilling to protect the life of the unborn and the born.

I suspect the map of how Catholics vote in the next election will be completely unlike the German map. Our shepherds need to be more vocal in just how grave the matter of voting for a pro-abort candidate is because many Catholics, a large number of my family, are rationalizing their collusion with evil as something acceptible, even necessary.



It is not morally possible for any Catholic to support abortion, euthanasia, fetal stem cell research, human cloning, or same-sex marriage. There are no ways around this, no justifications whatever. Why? For the simple reason that the Church holds these things to be intrinsically evil. They are evil in themselves, and no circumstances or subjective conditions can ever change that.
Father Corapi

* Link to the Time map, for clearer viewing