By Dr. David Franks

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.

Political Litmus Tests on ER Workers?

With the latest poll reporting Republican State Senator Scott Brown ahead of Democrat Attorney General Martha Coakley in the race to succeed the late US Senator Edward Kennedy, one statement drawing tremendous scrutiny is the one made by Ms. Coakley in reference to conscience clause protections.

Listen to the audio here.

Is this misstatement the death knell for the Coakley Candidacy or can President Obama's scheduled appearance on Sunday rally the Deomcratic base and bring her victory? More interestingly, will Catholics play any kind of a meaningful role in this election? Finally, will the Brown Campaign get out the vote?