Archbishop Chaput: ‘Day When Catholics Can Support Neither of Main American Political Parties…’

‘…Some Think It’s Already Arrived’

Source: Dateline Zero

Interesting political commentary from the Archbishop Charles J. Chaput up at Crisis Magazine today. It’s actually a re-print, and the short essay first appeared November 6, 2012 on Public Discourse. (Thus, it reads as if an election is currently taking place.)

The essay deals with a broad topics of modern American politics, culture, and “contemporary problems [that have] developed over centuries.” However, one of the larger points really jumped out at me: The point that American Catholic voters may some day look at the political party scene and be faced with the dilemma of being politically homeless. Archbishop Chaput adds that this may be happening right now.

The archbishop is emphasising the Catholic teaching that voting with a well-formed conscience is important — as opposed to, for example, voting along party lines, or voting with the mindset that all political and social issues have equal footing.

He also warns that we mustn’t get caught in the thinking that our options are limited to two choices. After all, just because one of the major party candidates is disagreeable, doesn’t mean the other major party candidate is necessarily acceptable.

This is something that Catholic philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand warned about, in pre-Nazi Germany. In that time, Hitler and the Nazi Party were gaining favour, much to von Hildebrand’s dismay. This was because many German voters believed that to not support the Nazi Party was in fact a support of the Pro-Stalin Communists (who were also gaining a great deal of favor in Germany.)

von Hildebrand argued with voters that the two choices were in reality “different heads of the same leviathan.” (See The Soul of a Lion: The Life of Dietrich Von Hildebrand
)In other words, the citizens were being presented with false choices, and both options supported a poisonous Statist ideology.

Our options should never be limited to a game of either/or, because it sets up a system where we might be presented a set of false choices.

Full op-ed at Dateline Zero