In this episode of The Open Door, Jim Hanink, Mario Ramos-Reyes, and Christopher Zehnder discuss, the day after, the November 3rd election. The regular panel (to wit, Hanink and Ramos-Reyes and Zehnder), also known as “The Irregulars,” will consider the following questions. Feel free to suggest others. Remember: we’re card-carrying members of the American Solidarity Party. That is, we would be if the ASP had a budget for such things!
1. Anybody want to ask me who I voted for in the presidential & vice presidential race? I (name) voted for _______________________.
2. Anybody want to ask me why? I (name) did so because _________________________.
3. What state and local races did the panelists find especially important? How did they vote in them and why?
4. Is there such a thing as “the Catholic vote”? If so, how does it vote? If not, why not?
5. Have the Catholic bishops done a good job in helping form consciences in the matter of electoral politics?
6. St. Thomas Aquinas writes that “As to the proper conclusions of practical reason, neither is the truth or rectitude the same for all, nor, where it is the same, is it equally known by all. Thus it is right and true for all to act according reason: and from this principle it follows as a proper conclusion, that goods entrusted to another should be returned to their owner”; but he then observes that “as we descend into further detail” and as “the number of conditions” increases “the greater the number of ways in which the principle may fail…” (ST I-II, q. 94, art. 4 Respondeo) How does this passage relate to political judgement?
7. Archbishop Jose Gomez (Los Angeles) recently wrote that “This country’s founding commitments to equality and human rights have no foundation apart from this belief in a Creator who endows men and women with inalienable rights. That is why the indifference toward religion in American public life and the marginalizing of religious believers is so disturbing.” How might secularists respond, and how might we answer them?
8. Archbishop Gomez also writes that “Our mission as the Church and our duty as Catholics remains bigger than politics. We are here to serve God and bear witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the coming of his kingdom…. Most important of all, we need to be deliberate and vigilant about passing on this story — our Catholic way of life — to the younger generation.” How deliberate and vigilant have we been? How could we do better?
9. The late, and in some ways great, Joe Hill said: “Don’t mourn for America, organize”! How should the American Solidarity be organizing at this time?
10. Looking ahead, does the refrain that “time is money” have special significance in our organizing work? And what about the adage “your dollar is your best friend”?