What Choice is Ours?

If there is anything that we, as Catholics, can learn—assuming we didn’t already know this—from the abhorrent state of our nation’s political affairs, it is that we should never put our faith in men (or women). Despite my relatively young age, the study of history has taught me enough about the presidencies of men the likes of Eisenhower and Kennedy to know that we are painfully bereft of true statesmen in the 21^st century. Archbishop Fulton Sheen once said that it was hard to admit that one is a sinner. In other words, human beings are prone to pride and boastfulness and we have a difficult time admitting to our own inherent stubbornness. This is not a new concept. But it seems that we are increasingly living in a world that is devoid of humility.

In looking at our two choices for the presidency in 2016, what we’re seeing is a great deal of pride and boasting and a severe lack of humility. If it is true that our elected officials are merely mirror images of their electorate, I must say that I’m deeply concerned. Broken clocks are indeed right twice a day and so it goes without saying that if I tried really hard, I could find positive aspects of the platforms of Secretary Clinton and Mr. Trump. That being said, I find both individuals to be deeply flawed as politicians and as a role models and I genuinely believe that both of them will lead our country down two very different, though equally dangerous paths.

Let’s get controversial for a moment, shall we? Secretary Clinton is not the monster that many on the political right paint her as. There, I said it. But now that I’ve said it, I will also say that I find her to be wholly uninspiring, a pathological liar and a political opportunist whose policies are borderline schizophrenic. She changes her mind far too frequently according to the changing winds of popular opinion and she comes off as being palpably disingenuous. Should she be elected to the presidency, her administration would only further dilute the waters of American exceptionalism and reinforce the trending millennial hypersensitivities and prevailing tide of secularism, both of which are dismantling the once-great American fabric a little at a time.

As for Mr. Trump, I am not blind to the reasons why he is enormously popular—and equally unpopular. His rhetoric strikes a chord with people who, for one reason or another, are fearful of things and people who are unlike themselves. Taken to extremes, this mindset leads to xenophobia and ultra-nationalism. As Catholics, we never have the right to resort to such thinking. However, just this week Pope Francis expressed his dream for Europe, calling for a greater spirit of integration. I found his choice of the word integration to be alarming, as I have long shared the popular belief that the more appropriate concept would be that of assimilation—namely that people who seek refuge or a new life in Westernized countries should adopt and embrace Western values. Integration is the notion that cultures should blend—oftentimes via government intervention, the result of which has almost always led to societal tensions and infighting.

In the case of Europe, the integration the Holy Father is calling for is not only cultural but religious. This creates a very tumultuous situation in an already fragile region—a region that was once the center of Christendom. Some would view this call for integration as serving to further erode the longstanding, though dwindling Christian values that have made Western Europe—and the United States—what they are today, which in turn plays right into the hands of those who subscribe to the rhetoric propagated by Mr. Trump. Samuel P. Huntington was a Harvard political scientist, a national security advisor for President Jimmy Carter and by all means, a liberal. Yet even he saw the dangers of promoting Western integration with non-Western cultures, particularly Islamic cultures. “The fundamental problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilization whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.”

It is easy in our modern, PC world to promote a starry-eyed form of utopian humanism and likewise, to dismiss and lambaste the Church of the Middle Ages as being too zealous and hungry for political power, but doing so would be ignoring the very real historic facts of human nature and cultural differences. The Church is comprised of human beings, therefore, like human beings, it is flawed. Now that we’ve acknowledged the obvious, we must acknowledge that no other institution in the history of the world has offered more global opportunity for human progress via scientific endeavors, higher education and familial and societal framework than the Roman Catholic Church. To even attempt to dispute this would be an exercise in futility. The Church is the world’s leading charitable organization, it runs more universities than any other religious organization and the Society of Jesus alone has produced a staggering number of leading mathematicians and scientists for the better part of five centuries. Above all else, the Church has remained consistent in its unwavering insistence that human life is sacred at all stages.

So why is it that so many people in our world—and more specifically, in our nation—have embraced the cultures of hedonism, relativism and overall self-destruction? Why is it that we can no longer find leaders who exemplify the best qualities of human nature, rather than the worst? I’m sorry to say that I do not have the answers to these questions. Or perhaps, to be more specific, I have answers, but most people won’t want to hear them. To ask people to turn back towards God, to embrace His ways and to live in a spirit of humility and selflessness, i.e. the true American spirit, will sadly fall on the deaf ears of a society increasingly obsessed with worshipping new forms of golden calves. As Catholics, it appears that we have no choice other than to look on at the sad spectacle, live out the example set for us by Christ and take refuge and shelter in He who offers the only true happiness and—most importantly—Eternal Life.