AMERICAN ELECTION

God is supremely generous. His bliss

Is something I shall be quite mad to miss.

The re-election at the beginning of last month of Donald Trump as President of the United States of America for the next four years can be seen from a religious or a political point of view. If God did not exist, then the religious point of view would be of little or no interest, and that election might be taken as encouraging proof that the American people have not lost all good sense, because that election showed the people rising up against the extreme left-wing folly of the last four years’ government under President Biden and the Democrats. On the other hand if God does exist, then that election is not so encouraging, because so many democratic elections in modern times show the right-wing conservatives to be conserving relatively little, while the revolutionaries are all the time gaining ground on the left. This election was no exception.

For instance, the valiant Catholic editor of the Remnant magazine and website in the United States, Michael Matt, compared Trump’s 2016 Republican Manifesto when he was elected President for the first time, with the Manifesto for his second successful election in 2024. In 2016 he stood against abortion, often mentioned. In 2024 pro-life is hardly mentioned, as he had made known that he was no longer against abortion. In 2016 the Manifesto mentioned God 16 times. In 2024 God was mentioned twice. And leading up to the election of 2024, he gave several extra indications of his deference to those anti-Christian people who rule the USA, to the point that one wonders if they are not confident that they can control him for the next four years. In 2016 they may have feared Trump’s heading up a popular reaction against them, but hardly in 2024. In 2016 he was a man with decent values of family, country and God. Is he still the man he was in 2016? Or has he slidden to the left, like the large part of his fellow-countrymen?

Of course this slide to the left, despite some right-wing appearances as in this election of 2024, is not only in the United States, it is in all countries of the post-Christian West. Why? Because religion underlies politics as God the First Cause underlies the being and action of all secondary causes. When men chase God out of their lives, of course they lose all sense of any importance of religion, and to attain the good life they rely on themselves alone, and they make substitute religions out of a variety of alternatives to God, notably out of politics. Ever since Henry VIII, Englishmen have worshipped their government instead of God, with disastrous results for England and for the eternal salvation of English souls at their Judgment before God.

But He does not cease to exist, nor does He cease to do all He can, short of taking away men’s free-will, to save their souls. That is why they may vote democratically to be rid of Him and of His Ten Commandments, but as a result their lives will become more and more unbearable, as a punishment by His absence of their refusing His presence (to paraphrase Cardinal Pie). Of course men are aware that their godless lives are becoming more and more murderous – the food that does not nourish, schools that do not teach, doctors that no longer cure, hospitals that kill all ages of patients, politicians that betray – the list goes on and on – but does the mass of people even dream of turning back to God, or to Our Lord Jesus Christ? These make up the one solution which is excluded in advance. These may be mentioned neither in polite conversation, nor in politics.

Here is how and why we have the politicians and politics that we have. Politics are not a substitute religion. They are merely the arrangement of human society between men and men. Religion is far deeper and higher than politics, concerning the arrangement of eternal salvation, between men and God, notably the Ten Commandments, notably the first: I am the Lord your God, it is I who designed your human nature for you to go to Heaven, and if you co-operate, that is such a supreme gift for all eternity, and I surround you in your life on earth with so many creatures to help you to Heaven, that it is no more than just for Me to demand of you love and obedience in return. But I am a jealous God, and for your own good I will have no other gods before Me. Heed what I say, pay no attention to the liars who contradict Me, obey My Commandments, and then a bliss that you cannot remotely imagine will be yours, without interruption, for ever and ever. Heed My Mother, who will never lie to you, and She will show you the sure way to My Heaven, through My Catholic Church.

Kyrie eleison.