In 2020, Father James Altman, from the Diocese of La Crosse in Wisconsin, appeared in a viral YouTube video denouncing Catholics who support the Democratic Party. Father Altman stated very clearly in the video that “You cannot be Catholic and be a Democrat” due, among other issues, to the party’s support of legal access to abortion. After a dispute over his comments with Bishop William P. Callahan, Altman was prohibited from celebrating Mass publicly in 2021. But, was he right?
In theory, the Catholicism that Joe Biden loved to flaunt should not have confused anyone into voting for him in 2020. After all, the policies that he worked a lifetime to implement were clearly antithetical to Catholicism. But, with his removal from the 2024 ticket, via coup d’etat, the veil of confusion – and any convenient excuse – for a Catholic to vote for the Democratic Party has been cast away. A Catholic voting for the pro-trans, pro-euthanasia, pro-abortion, anti-Catholic, stolen-valor ticket does so, at this point, with eyes wide shut.
On issue after issue, it is clearer than ever before that this election is shaping up as one between the ticket of Catholic JD Vance and the Catholic adjacent Donald Trump, versus a vibrantly and unapologetically demonic coupling on the other side. To be clear, the Democrat ticket is not comprised of agnostics or morally ambivalent conscientious observers. No, that party is now actively pulling on the opposite side of the rope from the Catholic Church. This has gone past any imagined separation clause, to the suppression and persecution of the good.
Consider.
To the Catholic, Jesus – the Second Person of the Holy Trinity Himself – taught us how to pray. “Thus therefore shall you pray: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name”. [Matthew 6: 9] Yet, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz belongs to a congregation which prescribes the policy of not using pronouns to describe God the Father. Isn’t this heretical, even for a Lutheran? While God is neither man nor woman, the Catechism of the Church teaches that “By calling God “Father”, the language of faith indicates two main things: that God is the first origin of everything and transcendent of authority; and that he is at the same time goodness and loving care for all his children [CCC239]. God is not a verb. And Walz’ church uses sterile descriptions of God which emphasize His actions rather than his nature in three persons.
Catholics could not have a starker warning that a vote for Harris/Walz is a vote to erode and erase religious freedom in this country. During the Biden/Harris administration, observers watched as the Attorney General and FBI Director cultivated sources and spies in traditional Catholic communities. Watchers have read US government documents which state that the FBI has “enlist[ed] the assistance [of congregations inside Saint Pius X chapels] to serve as suspicious activity tripwires”. This revelation is a chilling reality for anyone who, simply by virtue of being a traditional Catholic, may find himself on a government watchlist. Let alone that this stands at odds with Constitutional principles, it is a terrifying concept for the individual.
As noted by anyone who watches the news, each Catholic who now stands, quietly to pray, at an abortion clinic places his or her freedom at risk. As we watched in horror during the venerable George Floyd fires, especially in Governor Walz’ Minnesota, some Americans have license to riot, to loot and to burn cities to the ground. Catholics cannot. Jews cannot. Christians cannot. Patriots cannot. On a different note, why did Walter Reed National Military Medical Center try terminating pastoral care for Catholic patients during Holy Week 2023? If the Catholic President Biden and former Speaker Pelosi had any effect of reigning in anti-Catholic sentiment inside the government it is hard to see, and harder still to imagine what it looks like in their absence.
Former President Trump, meanwhile, has surrounded himself with Catholics from the starter’s pistol. He has allowed expressions of the Faith to flourish. He has added a Catholic, JD Vance, to the ticket, and has accepted counsel and prayers from Catholic leaders like “Catholics for Trump” and allowed a Catholics for Catholics Rosary Rally to be held at his home.
Then come the easy distinctions to make.
To the Catholic, “The threat of abortion remains our preeminent priority because it directly attacks life itself, because it takes place within the sanctuary of the family, and because of the number of lives destroyed.” [Life Issues Forum Special Edition: A Concern for Catholics in Public Life by Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann (February 26, 2019)] Catholics hold that “Advocating for intrinsically evil acts, like abortion, is a serious immoral act – one that involves grave matter, the prerequisite for the commission of a mortal sin. [Catholics in Political Life (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, June 2004)].
Two thirds of the Supreme Court Justices named by Trump were Catholic and this was the difference in the overturning of Roe. Trump is not perfect, but in returning the issue of abortion to the states, Trump has singlehandedly erased Roe as the national scar that it was, for the world to behold.
“Democrats want to codify Roe v. Wade into law to protect women’s freedom to make their own health care decisions, while extreme MAGA Republicans are working to ban abortion nationwide.” “…Joe and Kamala took action to protect and strengthen reproductive health care access amid ongoing MAGA Republican attacks. This includes signing three executive orders to strengthen reproductive health care access, fighting for a woman’s right to emergency medical care, defending and expanding access to medication abortion…Joe and Kamala are fighting to restore the protections of Roe—and they will never allow a national abortion ban to become law.” For the uninitiated, “reproductive health care” means unrestricted abortion on demand, up to the moment of birth…and beyond. As proof for such a strong statement, look to her partner on the ticket. In 2022 Walz’s state health agency published an abortion-statistics report. It reported that on his watch, five infants were “born alive” in 2021 during failed abortions, and none was provided life-saving care. Three other infants were “born alive” during abortions in 2019, Walz’s first year as governor, and they too perished without life-saving care. In 2023, Walz worked with the Democrat-controlled Legislature to eliminate the reporting requirement and the state’s legal obligation for doctors, nurses and medical professionals to administer life-saving care to infants born alive during an abortion procedure. His barbaric policies, specifically changed to accommodate his ghastly views, leave children, born alive, to die alone on a cold sterile table.
Remember when President Trump passed “Right to Try”? The little noticed legislation allows patients with cancer or other serious illnesses to circumvent the Food and Drug Administration when requesting access to experimental therapies not yet approved for public use. While Trump was pushing Right to Try, Democrats, in state after state, and advancing nationally, push the apocryphal right to die.
To the Catholic, again, the Catechism is very clear. “Whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of handicapped, sick or dying persons. It is morally unacceptable.” [CCC2277]. Furthermore, “Intentional euthanasia, whatever its forms or motives, is murder. It is gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due to the living God, his Creator.” [CCC2324]
A sober analysis of these points brings an unbiased reader to the conclusion that a Catholic puts a strain on credulity, who feigns confusion or ignorance. And the same reader would be justified in asking if maybe the Catholic Democrat just doesn’t believe what the Church teaches.
More of the same to consider in Part II of this column.
Louis Biad
CforC Contributor
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