Such a vacancy on the high court can come at any time. In fact, in the lower courts of the Federal system right now, there is a vacancy crisis. Despite the fact that the President has made appointments, the Senate is not acting to confirm them.
If you think this has anything to do with abortion, you're absolutely right. In the minds of some, all the rest of the country's business is secondary to insuring that abortion remains enshrined as a sacred right — and the institution that has done the most to enshrine that right is the court system.
Of course, if we believers sit out the mid-term elections, we risk the Church becoming a close second. Inaction is as powerful as action.
I once heard a Vatican Cardinal answer the question as to why Catholic pro-abortion politicians aren't excommunicated, and he said, “You have a solution to that here in America — it's called elections.”
I am neither a Republican nor a Democrat. I don't think the dominant positions of either party adequately reflect the teachings of the Gospel or the goals which the Church has for social reform. What I advocate is not support for one or another party, but the electing of people who are wise enough to know that there is no political sanity without moral sanity, and that moral sanity starts with adherence to the principle that we may never intentionally kill or authorize the killing of the innocent.
The first thing to do, practically, is to register to vote, and to call upon our pastors to have non-partisan voter registration drives in our parishes. Then we have to look closely at the races in our states, and find out who can, in our judgment, best advance the Culture of Life.
A lot has happened since the elections of 2000, but nevertheless, can we forget the lesson it taught us about how every vote counts? Whether we agree or not with the outcome of that election, it's time to remind ourselves that every vote counts even more this November, since turnout is characteristically lighter in midterm elections. It's also time to realize that the work of that election is not finished. Whether we will have the opportunity any time soon to rid our land of the poison of Roe vs. Wade will depend upon what the US Senate looks like after this election.
You can be a force to bring out the few hundred votes it may take to make a change. Don't just pray about the upcoming elections. Get to work, contacting people in your state and in other states, volunteering for political campaigns, talking to your pastor, writing letters to the papers, and driving people to the polls on November 5.
This update courtesy of the Priests for Life newsletter. You may contact Priests for Life at PO Box 141172, Staten Island, NY 10314; Tel: 888-PFL-3448 or 718-980-4400; Fax: 718-980-6515; Email: mail@priestsforlife.org; Website: www.priestsforlife.org.
