SUNDAY EDITION - #4 - The Craziness of American Politics and the Church

Sunday edition #4

AMERICAN POLITICS

WHAT IS AN AMERICAN

CHRISTIAN TO DO?

I grew up in the city of Chicago where I assumed there was only one political party and that happened to be the one that the (real) mayor of the City of Chicago happened to belong to and that was the Democratic Party.  Richard J. Daley, the father, was His Honor the Mayor. After him, the city has suffered under men, including his son, that were less than successful in keeping the city running. True, his honor probably was crooked, he definitely took care of his own and he kept the city working like a well-oiled machine, but he never was caught doing anything wrong. During this time in American politics, the Democratic Party was the party of the working man and the party that the unions endorsed more often than not was the Democratic Party.  My grandfather knew how to vote.  He came from the old country and after serving in World War One in the Battle of Heinz Hospital in Maywood Illinois, he settled down in the Chicago area.  He became an American Citizen and took his obligations to his country seriously and voted in every election.  There were times his neighborhood captain would pick him up in a car so that he could go and vote. He voted a straight democratic ticket, the process of his voting taking less than a minute.  My Uncle John, God rest his soul, told me that. “A working man had no right to vote Republican.”  Back then, the Democrats cared about the working people.   The blue collars and those that dug ditches were their meat and potatoes back then and they looked out for the working people of America and because of this, the wage earner was heard and had some say so on Capitol Hill.   

Without tipping my hand as to how I voted, which I keep secret as a matter of course, I have to say that in modern America it is hard indeed for a Christian to vote Democratic. The Democratic Party has abandoned the working class people and now supports most if not all causes that are working against Christian morality and pandering to an if it feels good, do it sort of mentality.  The family and decency do not seem to be part of the party platform. The planks of the Democratic Party are festooned with mold and rot caused by the embracing of abortion as a right, same-sex marriage, mandated provision of birth control, and other things that the Church deems sinful. Their candidate in the last presidential election stood for all of these things and how she received even one Catholic vote is beyond me.  Maybe it was because of who she was running against.

The Republican Party is no collection of saints either.  The party caters to the rich at the expense of the working class and quite honestly I am still waiting for the Ronald Regan trickle to hit my bank account.  The only thing you can say that is good about the Republican Party is that they have a good record of being Pro-Life and Anti-Abortion.  They do not try to lump the murder of human embryos into “women’s health.”  They tend to see abortion for what it is, murder.  But, this party tends to take care of only its own.  There is a selfishness among its members that divide the riches of the nation into two piles, and those are, “What is mine and what I still have to get.”

Our elected officials sitting in Congress and the House are a bunch of do-nothings who have lost the ability to see outside of the box that they are in.  The boxes, of course, are the parties themselves.  The congress and senate have to start looking across the aisle and they have to start doing what they are being paid to do, and that is to look for the good of the people that put them into office and all those that live in their districts.

We as members of the Church need to speak up a little louder and I do not mean just our bishops, I mean all of us who bend our knees together in prayer.  We know what is right and we know what is wrong.  We must make our voices heard. 

Until Next Week, This is Sunday Edition.