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“Remember: voting with the crowd can get you Barabbas over Jesus.”
Pope Leo XIII
This year marks the 125th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII's Encyclical “Sapiente Christianae” (on Christians as Citizens). He begins his Encyclical with these ominous words of warning: “From day to day it becomes more and more evident how needful it is that the principles of Christian wisdom should be borne in mind, and that the life, the morals and the institutions of nations should be wholly conformed to them. For, when these principles have been disregarded, evils so vast have accrued that no right-minded man can face the trials of the time being without grave anxiety or consider the future without alarm.”
Pope Leo goes on to explain that the overwhelming proof of the disintegration of Christian faith leads to verbal assaults upon the faith, and that those nations who deviate from Christian principles through moral decline cause the very “foundation of human society” disintegrate right along with it. The Holy Father further states, “From God has the duty been assigned to the Church not only to interpose resistance, if at any time the State rule should run counter to religion, but further, to make a strong endeavor that the power of the Gospel may pervade the law and institution of those nations.”
Nowhere is this more apparent than what is happening today in the United States of America where abortion-on-demand and abortifacient drugs are being forced upon religious convents and seminaries as well as Catholic Universities, where marriage between a man and a woman is being attacked and re-defined and where open hostility and verbal attacks are being levied upon the Church for standing up for its biblical principles. Our responsibilities toward God as Christians are being replaced by the whims of the Secular Humanists.
Since 1890, when Pope Leo XIII wrote his Encyclical, the world has gone through two World Wars as well as countless other smaller wars and “police actions.” One need look no further than to what is happening today to Christians in the Middle East, more specifically in Syria and Iraq, to grasp the full severity of his warnings taking real shape in our world today. That being said, no other election or conflict more effectively points out the correctness of this Encyclical than the events leading up to and the devastating results of the Second World War.
Adolph Hitler may have become the dictator of Germany but his rise to power was facilitated first and foremost by the German people who elected Hitler as their Chancellor and overwhelmingly voted the Nazi party to take over their Parliament and thus the leadership of their country. With nearly 45% of the Catholic vote and an overwhelming majority of Protestants voting for the Nazi's with a 65% majority vote (Lutherans being the overwhelming majority) Hitler and his Nazi Party were placed in a perfect position to take over control of the country.
“Luther, expected that Jews would follow the Apostle Paul's lead to convert to Christianity.”
Martin Luther
Sister Dottie Almloney teaches a certification course at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg (Pa). In her Master's Degree research project at Lancaster [Pa] Theological Seminary, she states:
“The Nazis used Martin Luther's anti-Semitic words from his 1543 book, “On the Jews and Their Lies” to justify their actions.” “Luther,” she said, “expected that Jews would follow the Apostle Paul's lead to convert to Christianity.” When they didn't he [Luther] denounced them. “Be on your guard against the Jews,” he wrote. “Wherever they have synagogues nothing is found but a den of devils. Their schools and synagogues,” he wrote, “should be burned.” Their prayer books and Talmudic writings should, “be taken from them.” ... “This,” Luther wrote, “is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians.”
So is Pope Leo XIII telling us that we are not to be good citizens and that we shouldn't love our country of birth? Absolutely not! Leo stated: “We are bound, then, to love dearly the country whence we have received the means of enjoyment this mortal life affords, but we have a much more urgent obligation to love, with ardent love, the Church which we owe the life of the soul, a life that will endure forever.”
Pope Leo goes on to say, “Moreover, if we would judge aright, the supernatural love for the Church and the natural love of our country proceed from the same eternal principle, since God Himself is their author and originating cause.” For Leo, the two sides of this coin should not collide with one another, but rather balance with one another for he believed that human laws alone should never sit above divine law and it is the duty of Christians to defend and maintain Life and Liberty.
Even more significant, however, Pope Leo goes even further with this concept by openly condemning those Christians who place human desires over God's desires when he states: “To recoil before an enemy or to keep silence when from all sides such clamors are raised against the truth, is part of a man devoid of character or who entertains doubt as to the truth of what he professes to believe. In both cases such mode of behaving is base and is insulting to God, and both are incompatible with the salvation of mankind.”
The Venerable Bishop Fulton J. Sheen took it a step further when he said, “Most people today want a religion which suits the way they live, rather than on which makes demands on them. Religion thus becomes a luxury like an opera, not a responsibility like life.”
Who, then, is responsible for carrying out our Christian duty concerning our political activities? Is it solely the responsibility of our Pope, our bishops, or our priests? The Reverend Franklin Graham answered this question very well when he said, “Who says we can't be in politics? The anti-God people are.” He went on further to say, “Secularism and Communism are the same thing. They're godless. They're anti-Christ.
We risk our faith if we doubt the power of the Church to govern our souls...
The US Capital building
So now we have the secularists who've taken over the country. They've taken control of Washington.” Turning to Pope Leo XIII once again, we see this question being addressed as well in his Encyclical: “In respect consequently, to the duties that bind us to God and the Church, it should be borne earnestly in mind that in propagating Christian truth and warding off errors the zeal of the laity should as far as possible, be brought absolutely to pray.” In other words, when it comes to politics, it is the responsibility of the rank and file lay persons in the pews upon whose shoulders this squarely falls.
We risk our faith if we doubt the power of the Church to govern our souls and defer the same to our government. Although the Church and State remain separate, to separate morality from governing of the people is nothing short of schizophrenia. Unless the government is moral, we are under no obligation as Christians to adhere to their rule. Our Forefathers understood very well that man is of a fallen nature and unless the government set up some sort of guidelines that controlled society's behavior, the newly formed nation would not exist for very long. For this reason they laid down some rules or guidelines that, if followed, would allow us to live together in peace and harmony.
Today, however, these fundamental precepts which are the building blocks of the American Experiment are under attack. Catholic hospitals, Catholic charities, Catholic adoption agencies, local parishes and dioceses, and even individual Catholic business owners are being forced to violate the sanctity of their biblical beliefs. Our Federal Government is launching law suits against our Christian institutions as well as individual Christians.
So where do we go from here? Well, let's return once again to Pope Leo XIII's Encyclical to see what he has to say about mixing politics with religion: “Honor, then, those who shrink not from entering the arena as often as need calls, believing and being convinced that the violence of injustice will be brought to an end and finally give way to the sanctity of right and religion.”
Christians, especially Roman Catholic Christians, need to get involved! After all, the largest Christian denomination in America are the Roman Catholics. The second largest Christian denomination in America is made up of the “Fallen-Away” Catholics, or those who no longer attend weekly services. When 90% of those who attend weekly Mass are Pro-Life and 90% of those who attend only at Christmas and Easter (if at all) are Pro-Abortion, our task before us appears daunting and indeed overwhelming. But does that mean we simply throw our hands in the air and give up? No! It means that we need to fight harder and we need to fight smarter. I've heard it said by many people, “I never vote. What difference does my one vote make, anyway?”
...Congress recommended the printing of federal laws in both German and English.
Well, in 1796 a proposal before Congress recommended the printing of federal laws in both German and English. No bill was actually voted upon. The House debated the proposal on January 13, 1795 without teaching a decision, and a vote to adjourn and consider the recommendation at a later date was defeated by one vote, 42 to 41. Because the motion to adjourn did not pass, the matter was dropped. The House debated this recommendation once again on February 16, 1795, but the final result was the approval of a bill to publish existing and future laws in English only. This bill was approved by the Senate and signed into law by President George Washington a month later. Coincidentally, a year earlier, in the 1794 elections, Dwight Foster, a Federalist from Massachusetts, won his bid for re-election to Congress by a mere 50.8 % of the vote. So you see, your vote does count after all!
I leave you with one final caveat from Pope Leo XIII: “Therefore, they who cherish the prudence of the flesh and who pretend to be unaware that every Christian ought to be a valiant soldier of Christ; they who would fain obtain the rewards owing to conquerors, while they are leading the lives of cowards, untouched in the fight, are so far from thwarting the onward march of the evils disposed that on the contrary, they even help it forward.”
Christopher L. Dickson, F.L.A.
Chris Dickson is the Servant General of the F.L.A., (Franciscan Lay Apostolate.) Located at the Portiuncula Franciscan Hermitage and Retreat Center in Jerusalem, Ohio, the F.L.A. follows the Medieval Penitential First Rule of the Third Order of St. Francis, dated 1221 A.D., placing themselves under Holy Obedience to the Bishop of Steubenville.
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