“I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me…. You shall not commit murder” (Deuteronomy 5:6,17)
He or she believes in God from infancy. He was baptized and raised being taught to love, honor and obey the teachings of “One holy, Catholic and apostolic Church.” And he had done so, even as an altar server, learning the doctrines of the Church and observing them throughout school days and college years. He nurtures himself spiritually on the sacred sacraments of the Church. And then he chooses to enter the field of politics. And that’s where he discovers a conflict of conscience.
On the one hand, the Church hasn’t changed its basic standards. Do the Ten Commandments demand that one will never murder or become an accessory to killing? Of course. But the American society has changed in at least one regard. Promoted as a natural conclusion of the Women’s Rights cause, the legal right to an abortion has grown from justification in cases of rape into abortion on demand without explanation or reservation, with present conditions such as late pregnancy restrictions; however, those are merely present impediments to be dealt with in due course.
What does a traditional Christian running for national office do? Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives and “Good Catholic” from an Italian heritage makes the claim that in these times the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church are not quite clear. There’s a certain “wiggle room” that a trained lawyer might appeal to and justify the platform of one’s political party. If the modern times have brought about confusion on the matter, one might claim a sort of agnosticism. Walk away from the situation and don’t get involved. But two archbishops immediately challenged such fuzzy thinking. No, they affirm, nothing has changed as far as the Church is concerned. Further, others have also recommended that the nominated Vice President of the same party, Joseph Biden, absent himself from receiving Holy Communion. And it’s not a matter of political party. Many are finessing morality. In all parties there are the professional political aspirants whose decisions are made by raising a moist finger into the wind and following the breeze measured by polls.
Not just the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox Christian Church has the same absolute rule against abortion. In the Apostolic era pagans used the practice of leaving deformed infants on the hillsides to be eaten by animals as a mark of divergence from Christians who honor and uphold life in all forms and conditions. Then it was a sign of paganism, and today it revives an equal onus.
The decision made by serious Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christian aspirants for public office in many instances has been to plow ahead with their aspirations and ignore the promptings of conscience. If indeed there was a crisis of conscience. Hubris and ego drive too often trump faith convictions in a period of confusion such as the present. Unfortunately in many cases they have not been challenged by hierarchy and clergy because it was felt that they are representing not just the faith but the ethos. One of “our kind” has been voted into office, and the prominence offsets the sins of conforming to secular norms of contemporary culture.
As our Lord Jesus said: “Will not God bring about justice for His chosen ones, who cry out to Him day and night? Will He keep putting them off? I tell you He will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:7)