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With Prayer and Fasting

Perhaps at no time was the chasm between me and the conservative leaning Catholic community deeper than during the run-up to the 2008 election.  To listen to some people, Barack Obama was a demon who escaped Hell and if elected, would be the catalyst for the Apocalypse.  The hot mic moment when he was caught lamenting those clinging to guns and God might have sent his opponents into a tailspin, but he actually echoed the sentiments of many Catholics and Christians who believed that faith was more than fervently praying the Rosary in Latin and applying the discipline to one's self. The dreaded "social justice Catholics" of which I was a lifelong member, were something to be exorcised in the effort to have a "smaller, more pure Church."

Now, while Jesus never said "go and sin some more" He was very clear that He didn't come to call the righteous.  "Those who are well do not need a physician, but those who are sick."  Also, there is nothing "sick" about caring for the poor, paying the laborer just wages and making sure children don't go to bed hungry, all concepts rejected by many Trads and Evangelicals in the oft chance that a tax dollar might be spent fraudulently.    

A friend who is no longer a friend but to whom my door will always be open told me that the nuns were fasting and praying that Obama wouldn't be elected.  I told her that was nice, but some of us were praying no harm would come to him and his family as a result of the twisted rhetoric propagated by the gun lobby and other right wing extremists, the kind who saw no irony in claiming to be pro-life while slinging a Bushmaster over their shoulder. 

Another Catholic friend proudly posted on her Facebook page a photo of a young white woman in a cowboy hat holding a flag, a Bible and an AR-15 as though this was an appropriate symbol of American Christianity.  That image might have come to define Evangelicals and other Republican-leaning denominations, but I could find no likeness whatsoever to Christ.  

In the weeks before the election, churches were urged to hold Holy Hours so the faithful could pray that the Democrats wouldn't prevail.  We were urged to pray and fast and pray some more.  I made my share of those Holy Hours, but my prayer intentions were that God's would be done.  Still, and I am embarrassed to admit this, I cowered in 2008 and 2012 and voted for pro-life 3rd party candidates.   I also expressed no disappointment when Obama won both times.  I didn't agree with him about many things, but almost nothing could get me to vote for a party that paid lip service to life while insisting gun ownership was a right and healthcare was a privilege.   I also understood that there is a huge divide between outlawing abortion and protecting the most vulnerable and that concern for life cannot end at birth.  


Those Supreme Court justices dangled like candy in front of pro-life voters are not endorsed because of what they'll rule about Roe vs Wade.  No, they're placed on that court to protect the kind of corporate interests that poison our air and water,  permit predatory lending and punish workers for daring to expect safe conditions in the workplace.  The promise of outlawing abortion is just the shimmering wrapping paper on an empty cardboard box. 

I think it must be said that nothing jeopardized any possibility of Medicare for All than the left's insistence that abortion is reproductive "healthcare" and that a woman has a right to exercise that option well into the 3rd trimester.  The other fallacy, borne out by Kermit Gosnell's clinic,  is that a legal abortion is a "safe" abortion.  What's safe about a procedure that leaves a human being dead at its conclusion?  

Conversely, what is pro-life about the death penalty, cluster bombs and armor piercing bullets?  Nothing.  Nothing whatsoever. 







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