At stake in this election is the fate of the American republic. Massachusetts will decide whether our nation will be subjected to a health care overhaul that would almost certainly require subsidizing abortion with tax dollars, lead to the rationing of care, and violate the conscience rights of health care workers. One inexorable result of such a scheme: the eventual forcing of the Catholic hospital system out of existence, though it is so essential to the poor. This overhaul would be an absolute disaster for human rights and for the powerless.
But we citizens of the state that was the cradle of American liberty have been blessed with the chance to vault back into the vanguard of American freedom. We can vote for a candidate who would derail the health care overhaul over a candidate who would crusade for abortion. We must get out and vote, and encourage others to vote, for the candidate who will perform actions more in conformity with the basic requirement of solidarity and justice: the preferential option for the poor. The more powerless the human life, the more we owe that person. This means that the unborn have the first claim on us, being the most powerless, most vulnerable, most innocent human life of all. If we are serious about solidarity, we must start with the weakest.
The Epistle to the Hebrews reminds us of the horizon each Mass opens, the height to which we are elevated and from which we are sent, down into the byways of history: “You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem,…and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks more graciously than the blood of Abel.” In the slain Lamb, the voice of all the little victims calls to us—more than 3500 hundred times each day in this nation alone. We hear it. And we most happy citizens of this great Commonwealth will do something about it at the ballot box this Tuesday. The weak have no defender but you. It is time. It is time for Massachusetts to be great again, for us, us, to show the nation the “ardent unlimitedness” to which America is called: to live out a freedom that loves without end. God save the American republic!
J. David Franks, Ph.D., is a member of the full-time faculty of Saint John’s Seminary in Boston, teaching courses in moral and systematic theology.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Please tone down the rhetoric. The fate of the republic is not on the line. Life will go on, and these United States will survive, no matter who is elected tomorrow. If we can survive slavery, the civil war, terrorist attacks, two world wars, corruption, graft, a divorce rate greater than 50%, an illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, J. Edgar Hoover, and John Yoo's torture memos, surely we can survive (nay, perhaps even thrive) with Martha Coakley in the U.S. Senate. Are there good reasons to vote for either candidate? Yes. Does the fate of our democracy hang in the balance? No.
ReplyDeleteAs far as I'm concerned, there were at least three good reasons for not voting for one of those candidates, and one of them goes back to the 1980s Fells Acres Scandal which I won't get into here. Does the fate of our democracy hang in the balance? You bet it does and if you were listening to the Fox News Network, you would be able to figure that one out for yourself. Yesterday's election was the "shot heard round the world". The folks are beginning to get tired of these rubber stamp candidates who vote along party lines in Congress,who's only aim is to advance a progressive Socialist agenda, while ignoring the wishes or their constituents. Their activities are a direct violation of our Constitution. American history tells us that our founding fathers were not stupid, and our laws come directly from God, not the Federal Government!
ReplyDelete