“Oh Posterity! You will never know, how much it cost the present Generation, to preserve your Freedom! I hope you will make a good Use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven, that I ever took half the Pains to preserve it.” Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, 26 April 1777
Like it or not, interested or annoyed, here we are in the final autumn push of a presidential campaign.
I’m not here to tell you who to vote for because as a Catholic, I don’t really care. Hear me out! That’s not some millennial cynicism. I mean it! I’m more interested if we are engaging and participating in our faith life, not how people vote. If you’re a person who likes political clubs, you may be in trouble, because I hate to tell you we are a faith of Republicans and Democrats. We are liberal and conservative; we can hold seemingly disparaging thoughts in our minds at the same times. Our theology, our faith, and certainly our experiences tell us that our faith is that big, that a well-lived life is complicated, and that we can hold dual solutions to problems. I’m going to let you in on a dirty little secret: neither major American political party holds our complete views on life, social justice and environmentalism. Any political idea worth holding should consist of a variety of positions. The social sin of poverty should be more complicated than saying, “we should give poor people free things” or “poor people just don’t want to work.”
Unlike what people may think, we are not a single-issue faith with a single-issue vote. We can’t allow the media to place us in boxes or turn us on each other, but we can’t allow to sit elections out either.
“Beloved: First of all, I ask that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone, for kings and for all in authority, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity” (1 Timothy 2:1-2).
Paul is pretty clear in our Second Reading. Our job is to participate in elections. In his day it was just being faithful and praying for leaders; in our blessed democracy it is about faithful citizenship — praying for all our leaders and voting! It’s our sacred American duty. Christ tells us this weekend that “we cannot serve two masters!” That should be easy for us Americans with our beautiful gift of democracy — a democracy that has had the longest, consistent, non-violent transfer of power in the history of the world.
Don’t like either major party candidate? No problem! If you are voting in the state of New Jersey, we have nine candidates on the presidential ballot and (as of this writing) accepting write-in votes! You may think that is wasting a vote, but believe me, there is no such thing as a wasted vote. If I go jogging a couple of times a week but don’t lose a pound, the jog wasn’t a waste! So when someone asks if you are voting Blue or Red, you can say, “Actually? Purple.” I’m Elliot Guerra and I approve this message.
I’ll be seeing you,
Elliot