Trick or Treat?

I really hate that Halloween occurs only a few days before our presidential elections. I never know which is worse: the costumed monsters of Halloween, or my fear that those who obtain worldly power will become real monsters.

As we approach a U.S. Presidential election, we Catholics have not only a civic duty to vote, but a moral duty. We must look at what platform we are voting for through our selection of candidates. We are deciding what our nation will stand for or against.

I've been watching a documentary on Grant, the famous Civil War general and U.S. President. Something that struck me about Grant is that at one point he was so poor, he sold firewood to survive. When his wealthy father-in-law gave him a slave to help him farm, Ulysses Grant freed the slave, and resisted the temptation of selling the man for money. 

For us today, it is easy to look back and rightly judge the wickedness of slavery. The issue of slavery wasn't an economic issue, it was a moral failure. Yet we live in an era of abortion, a worse wickedness which is a death sentence for those who are inconvenient. We see that there are complex reasons abortions survive in our nation. Weak and evil politicians support abortion rights. We need more Grants in our ranks. We need to set free the unborn.

The issue of abortion is not a women's rights issue, it is about whether the strong may kill off the weak. We should not mince words about what abortion does.

Even the horror entertainment industry lifts the veil on abortion indirectly. I watched an interesting horror program with my teens that featured an alleged haunted house that was formally an illegal abortion site. It was a frightening program. But would it honestly surprise any Catholic that the devil's energy feeds off of people's decisions to have abortions?

While elections have consequences, our decisions also have eternal consequences. We will meet God one day at the moment of death, do we honestly want to explain why we voted for leaders who advanced abortion? The real issue is a spiritual one for Catholics: do we sit by and accept abortion or do we work and vote to end it?

"Thou Shall Not Kill" has been a governing principle for Judeo-Christian societies. When we vote for leaders, we must think about what type of society we choose to create. One in which the unborn are considered less worthy than dogs or cats to protect from death is not a just society. It is hell.

Halloween's horror exists because the damned do exist. The damned live with their sins forever haunting them, just as the saints live celebrating their victories over evil in heaven.

We cannot ignore the evidence of what abortion does, just as those born before the US Civil War could not ignore what slavery did. Our nation is at a crossroads. Catholics will have a say in an election that will decide if abortion remains or falls. Do we choose to remain in the horror of Halloween or deliver our nation to All Saints' Day? No house divided will stand.

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Pro-life Voter's Guide:

http://www.nrlc.org/uploads/records/2020POTUScomparison.pdf

https://prolifeaction.org/voteprolife/