An Archbishop speaks: “What should Catholics do when we vote in November?”

When Archbishop Samuel Aquila of Denver was a medical student, he had a couple harrowing run ins with abortion.  He reflects on these dreadful experiences and applies them to how to choose how to vote in the presidential election.  HERE

Read the whole thing, but here is the end part for those with little time or patience. BTW… he is saying nothing particularly complicated. Every Catholic ought to know this and then ACT ON IT. Staying home is NOT an option this time.

Excerpt:

With this background, the Archbishop addresses the 2016 presidential election in the following terms. ‘Both candidates are very poor, have little credibility and have made comments that have ruffled my feathers,’ he begins. ‘The American people are fed up with politicians and the ruling class of both parties. This being so, what should Catholics do when we vote in November?

The Democratic party platform demonstrates a ideological commitment to abortion, which must be opposed, the Archbishop points out. Democrats have declared their intention to repeal the Hyde Amendment, which restricts federal funding of domestic abortions, and the Helms Amendment, which restricts federal funding of abortions overseas. He also points out the connection to religious liberty, using as an example the long-standing battle between the U.S. government and the Little Sisters of the Poor to force the religious order’s compliance with the Affordable Care Act’s abortion and contraceptive provisions.

In contrast, the Republican Party platform supports the Hyde Amendment and, just this year, has strengthened its defense of life, calling for the suspension of funding for Planned Parenthood, prohibiting abortion by dismemberment and opposing assisted suicide. ‘The right to life is the most important and fundamental right because life is necessary for any other right or issue. Other issues can be discussed legitimately among Christians – such as what policies are most effective in care for the poor – but every follower of Christ must oppose at all times the inflicted direct killing of an innocent human being,’ the Archbishop states.

UPDATE:

See the comments of Archbp. Chaput about the Dems who work to subvert the Church.  HERE

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99 Comments

  1. Charles E Flynn says:

    From Casting Your Ballot: A Moral Act, by Lawrence P. Grayson:

    On matters that involve an intrinsic evil, a Catholic cannot be true to the faith and claim to be opposed personally to a political position, but support it for those who think otherwise. The person is either in self-delusion or deceitful as he or she tries to straddle contradictory positions. A Catholic who votes for such an individual, if there is a morally acceptable alternative candidate, would objectively be guilty of formal cooperation in grave evil.

    While a candidate’s stand on a single issue may not be sufficient to guarantee a voter’s support, the Church makes clear that a single position that favors an intrinsic evil should disqualify that candidate from receiving one’s vote, regardless of the candidate’s views on issues requiring prudential judgment. In good conscience, one must give preference to candidates who do not oppose God-given moral principles.

    There rarely is a candidate with whom one agrees on everything. What does one do when there is no totally acceptable alternative? Deciding not to vote is often not the best solution. When all candidates support an intrinsic evil, it is morally permissible to vote for the candidate who poses the least threat to human life and dignity and thus limit the harm. It is important, therefore, to vote with a well-formed conscience that perceives the proper relationship among moral goods.

    Guidance for voting is available from a number of Catholic sources, Priests for Life (www.priestsforlife.org) preeminent among them. The information these sources provide can be helpful in developing one’s conscience.

    But advice on issues that involve reasoned judgment is not binding as sincere Catholics can come to morally acceptable opposing conclusions based upon the same principles.

    In the coming election, every voice will matter, every vote will count. As you prepare to exercise your right and duty as a Catholic citizen, strengthen your understanding of the Church’s positions on moral issues, learn the views of the various candidates, give the matter prayerful reflection, and prudentially cast your ballot.

  2. GAK says:

    On election day, this country will be cranking the handle on a jack-in-the box. At the end of the day, what’ll pop out is a narcissistic clown. It might Clinton it might be Trump. But the latter is not as scary as the former. So that’s for whom I’ll be voting. Our country deserves better than either of them. But I’d rather vote for someone who has not demonstrably committed any crimes and is not on record as a politician advocating for abortion.

  3. Binker67 says:

    Here in the UK if, as a voter, you are faced with candidates who do not or even barely advocate Catholic moral and social teaching (Leo XIII Rerum Novarum), one would be completely justified, by your informed Catholic conscience having regard to the teaching of Holy Mother Church, in spoiling your ballot paper. Not only by putting ‘X’ in both candidates boxes on the ballot, but writing your reason on the ballot paper as to why you cannot vote for either candidate.
    I am truly sorry for my co-religionists across the pond who have, what seems to me to be a choice between, two candidates who could have a starring role in the Revelation of St John.

  4. GAK says:

    Blinker 67 — We always have the option here in the USA to write another candidate in. I could even write myself in if I wanted to. But the question is whether Trump is significantly a lesser of two evils, or at least worth the gamble, given what we KNOW of Clinton AS A POLITICIAN. Thanks for your compassion and prayers, we need them.

  5. Binker67 says:

    And I’m not referring to the Woman clothed in the sun or St Michael the Archangel!

  6. Dr. Edward Peters says:

    Yes, platforms are just platforms, but they still mean something, and whatever they mean, the Democratic platform is reprehensible, while the Republican is plausible. This, from a man who dislikes political parties and belongs to none.

  7. un-ionized says:

    Binker67, and where I am we use electronic touchscreen voting so I wouldn’t even get the satisfaction of drawing frowny faces all over my ballot.

  8. Binker67 says:

    Something to be said for paper and pen then.
    Mightier than the sword and Microsoft!

  9. Binker67 says:

    Thanks for the link GAK.
    God bless your decision.
    Pray to Our Lady of Fatima.

  10. boxerpaws63 says:

    Podesta Emailed Assassination 3 Days Before Supreme Court Justice Scalia’s death. FACT take from that what you will.You are looking at 2 entities-the Clinton’s and the Obama’s that will do ANYTHING to promote their agenda. ANYTHING. Take from that what you will.
    if you do a write in or refuse to vote you will assure the continued corruption of the FBI,DOJ,IRS and yes,especially the executive branch.You will never get a lick of truth from the media. Clinton will certainly appoint PRO DEATH Justices to the Supreme Court . She will be completely above the law-as she is now. If you think Obama targeted the Catholic Church you are not limited by your imagination what the ANTI CATHOLIC SOROS CLINTONS will do. You let these ppl get elected consider it a partcipation in SYSTEMIC EVIL and no Catholic is EVER permitted to do that. I don’t think i can say it any clearer.

  11. SteelBiretta says:

    It is good to see the Bishops coming around. Now is the time for open defiance of the Johnson Amendment. To hell with tax exemptions, or federal funding! I’m hoping to see Bishop Conley, whom I respect very much, update his statement a few weeks ago. With Hillary’s plans to subvert the Catholic Church laid bare, the stakes are higher.

    Unless you are a Bernie supporter, please don’t write in. Vote for the only chance to stop Hillary.

  12. boxerpaws63 says:

    I pray that these ppl will be exposed if there is any media outlet brave enough to go forward-most are working directly with the Clinton campaign so i don’t hold out much hope. Praying.They’ve been exposed enough already and for those that think they in good conscience can let Hillary get elected-i say shame on you.

  13. CPT TOM says:

    Of course I wonder how it affects the choice when one of the Candidates and their party are committed to subverting and “causing revolution” in the Catholic Church by sponsoring supposedly lay organizations (eg. Catholic United, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good) that are fronts for that effort. I when coupled with the pro-abortion and other ethical issues that that would rule out Catholics voting for Clinton.

  14. boxerpaws63 says:

    follow #wikileaks the corruption is mind boggling and deep.right to the highest levels and in all agencies,INCLUDING the FBI.
    BREAKING: @NBCNews plotted “timing” and edited Trump Tape to nest INFLUENCE the debate and election.

  15. boxerpaws63 says:

    BTW don’t expect most of the major media outlets to report on #wikileaks. it’s a little hard when your network is implicated.We’re getting these stories out ,including the one on the attempted infiltration of the Church, through Twitter-when we’re not getting caught and being censored. I also follow the Wayne Dupree Show on rsbn.tv as frustrating as it sometimes when YOU TUBE blacks them out deliberately.

  16. boxerpaws63 says:

    SIDE NOTE :GOOGLE is also involved. if you’re going to do any research on these stories stay away from Google. They’re going to be exposed in a future batch from Wikileaks.You Tube,Facebook and to a certain extent Twitter are being monitored. Yes, they’re censoring and in some cases removing people.

  17. LovedSinner says:

    It is too bad that Trump does not support the GOP platform and praised Planned Parenthood repeatedly during his campaign.

    Oh, and I think that the sexual assault which Trump *admitted to* is so reprehensible. Shame on those who just let it slide.

    Oh, and shame on all people who did not believe the Boston Globe sexual assault allegations against Catholic priests. This includes myself. I was incredibly guilty. They are an example of liberal media bias, they have an agenda, I kept saying, but in the end they were right and Cardinal Law and the Archdiocese was wrong. I was wrong.

    And Trump’s chances of appointing any Supreme Court justices are rapidly falling. Better to send a message and vote for a candidate who is truly pro-life and against Planned Parenthood, Evan McMullin.

  18. Polycarpio says:

    On issues that matter to Catholics, the Reeps have the edge. Actually, it’s a lot more than an edge, and the prime evidence of this is the hostility to Catholic theology in evidence in the Wikileaks emails. We have to be careful about advocating a party line vote, however. For one thing, our Catholic identity must remain autonomous and independent from earthly political loyalties. Secondly, and not unimportantly, not all politicians are alike. There are Pro Life Dems and Pro “Choice” Reeps. We must exercise our judgment and not vote by rote. That’s why I’m parting ways on the top of the ticket this year (to an indie candidate).

  19. SteelBiretta says:

    @LovedSinner:

    Trump didn’t “admit” to anything, and you know it. Quit helping Hillary and spreading disinformation.

    Evan McMullin won’t appoint pro-life Supreme Court justices. He won’t defund Planned Parenthood. He won’t promote a culture of life. You know why? BECAUSE HE WILL NEVER BE PRESIDENT.

    It’s a binary choice at this point. The next president will be Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. It won’t be your baldheaded stalking horse. If you vote for McMullin to “send a message,” and Hillary is elected, you are complicit in everything she does.

  20. Marc M says:

    All this ultimately in support of a man who brags, is *proud*, of his sexual assaults. I’m so tired of hearing people smugly insist that we need to get over Trumps “imperfections”. The man is proud that he can, uninvited, kiss women and grab their genitals, and he’s so powerful, they’ll just let him. I wonder if any of you continuing to support Trump today have ever sat with a sexual abuse survivor or a rape victim. This is way beyond someone being “less than pure”. This man is beneath contempt. If this is our man, we have ALREADY LOST. All the arguments against Hillary are true! I know! And it still doesn’t make voting for this depraved man ok!

    I wonder about Trump’s statement a few months ago that he could commit a cold-blooded murder in the street and people would still support him. It sure seems true this week. Would you?

    Lest you all think I’m just here to complain, there is a better way. If we ever, EVER, want anyone to take us seriously on issues of morality in the public sphere, we throw this… jerk… out. We lost the White House months ago, when he won the primary. So we show that we mean it when we say we give a damn about character and right and wrong. And we win every down ballot race in every state that we can, because THAT is our only defense against the already-inevitable Clinton presidency.

  21. JimGB says:

    I agree 1,000 percent with Steel Biretta. We may wish we had a different choice as the GOP candidate, but we don’t. We need to put on our big boy or big girl pants (another binary choice), stop the moral preening, and vote for the candidate and platform that does NOT advocate abortion up to the moment of live birth, paid for by taxpayers of course, and is not intent on bending the teachings of the Church to the secularist progressive agenda.

  22. SteelBiretta says:

    @Marc M

    Trump said, “When you’re a star, they let you do it.” It’s lewd, it’s disgusting, he shouldn’t have said it. But it doesn’t suggest sexual assault. “Let” is the key word here.

    In the same way, Trump’s joke that he could commit a murder and people would still support him does not suggest that he actually committed a murder, or that he would even think about doing it.

    If you think just voting downticket will do the trick, I have some bad news. Paul Ryan’s going to rubberstamp everything Hillary does. Wouldn’t it be better to have him tempering Trump’s excesses than conceding left and right to Hillary?

  23. Marc M says:

    @SteelBiretta

    I don’t think you understand how coercion works. You might feel differently if you spoke with some victims of sexual assault about their experiences. I think I’ve said all I can.

  24. crjs1 says:

    I agree 100% with Marc. What Trump has said is disgusting, and now we have the allegations of sexual assault not to mention the recording of him commenting on a 10 year old girl…. to brush it under the carpet and rely on Clinton being worse is depressing and no excuse IMO to give Trump a pass…. neither are fit for office. If a democrat had been videod saying what Trump had said there is no way anyone would be downplaying it as ‘locker talk’ or a joke.

    The election seems to have spiralled into more and more outlandish filth and conspiracy theory

  25. SteelBiretta says:

    @Marc M

    I don’t think you understand how mens rea works.

    What you’re talking about– understanding Trump’s alleged sexual assault by talking to victims of other sexual assault about their experiences is the “appeal-to-non-authorities” fallacy.

    Be careful– you are treading awfully close to calumny here.

  26. aliceinstpaul says:

    I was more bothered by Chaput.

    ‘Yet these two young men not only equaled but surpassed their Republican cousins in the talents of servile partisan hustling’.

    Yet? YET??? Somehow they were Democrat flacks and YET they surpassed republicans?

    As if one EXPECTS such from those vile Republicans?

    I’m so tired of these bishops. Thy can’t believe that a Republican rich guy could be a good Catholic, and Obviously the Dem rich guy cares more.

    So they’ve been giving them a pass since Kennedy. And that’s a huge part of the disaster we are in.

    [There’s a lot of “yellow dog -ism” amongst our bishops, Catholics in general.]

  27. LovedSinner says:

    @SteelBiretta

    Trump said he wanted to “grab [women] by the [genitals].” Do I need to report his statement about groping and kissing women too? But thank you for the kind words you have for me.

    And I don’t live in a swing state. Hillary will win my state by 20 points or more. She will win every electoral college vote from my state. So why vote for Trump, when a vote for Trump in my state is a wasted vote?

  28. boxerpaws63 says:

    following the comments here i can see people who are not following wikileaks or the recently released emails re the Catholic Church. Evidently we missed the plan by podesta,clinton and Soros to infilltrate the Church and sew the seeds of a revolution within the Catholic Church. I also see people willing to believe everything the media tells them;of course nobody has noticed that the majority of the media is covering everything BUT the wikileaks .Imagine that. I guess nobody noticed either that the DOJ,FBI,STATE DEPT are all corrupt and that Hillary Clinton commited enough felonies to put her in prison for some time. So as the good Catholics we are,we are going to put a woman into office who is totally above the law and answers to no one but George Soros. She is certainly going to be pro life, pro free speech,pro freedom of religion. Of course she is. A lawless woman who loathes the Catholic Church and everything we stand for. She will ccertainly be pro life since she adamantly believes you can kill a baby up until the time before it’s born. Trump never said he supported Planned Parenthood. BTW They are giving donations to Hillary Clinton.Oddly enough NOT to Trump. Wonder why that is?
    Here is Trump; a man who admitted to adulterous relationships; a flawed man. A man who apologized publicly for his very crude, profane and offensiv remarks in public. St Augustine was a Manichean who fathered an out of wedlock child and treated his mother like a door mat. Have we forgotten this? He wrote about it publicly in his book Confessions.So we wil even chance putting in power a group of ppl SYSTEMICALLY EVIL over(which as Catholics we may NOT do) a flawed man who has given up his past life.
    Here is one wikileaks I PRAY people will read: https://therasberrypalace.wordpress.com/2016/10/13/such-a-great-man/
    and here is Trump’s own statement on the recent reports:LISTEN CAREFULLY http://rsbn.tv/watch-donald-trump-holds-rally-in-west-palm-beach-fl-live-stream/

  29. boxerpaws63 says:

    btw I am NOT suicidal. my health is relatively fine and i have an aide that assists my husband and i on a daily basis.not prone to falls-in fact i have to take extra precautions NOT to have any.

  30. Marc M says:

    “Non-authorities-fallacy…”

    Ok. It’s really not. I’m not asking you to take anyone’s word for anything. I’m saying you don’t understand sexual assault, and you might feel differently if you spoke with an abuse survivor.

    Here’s an example, then I really can stop. The supervisor brags to his buddy. “These women that work for me, they let me do whatever I want. I can grab them, kiss them, I don’t even say anything, they just let me do it.” He has authority over them, he’s known and respected. He abuses it, and they “let” him, out of fear of retribution, of not being believed, of shame. Has he not committed sexual assault? This is what Trump was bragging about. It’s not lewd, it’s evil.

  31. Kerry says:

    Marc M, inevitable…? O ye of little faith. The perfect is the enemy of the good, and the absolutely craven is the enemy of the deplorables. Vote for Trump to keep Hilary out of hell.

  32. Kerry says:

    And the ‘moral’ outrage at Mr. Trump’s crudity will disappear like grass in the heat if the Hildabeest wins.

  33. LovedSinner says:

    Ladies and gentlemen, this man needs the support of devout Catholics like you to be President of the United States!

    http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/300892-another-woman-says-she-witnessed-inappropriate-sexual

    Lisa Boyne, a health food business entrepreneur, told The Huffington Post Thursday that while at a dinner with Trump and others, the businessman looked under models’ skirts, commenting on whether they were wearing underwear.

    When the women did this, Trump “stuck his head right underneath their skirts,” Boyne said.

    She told the Huffington Post that he commented on whether they were wearing underwear and what their genitalia looked like.

  34. crjs1 says:

    @LovedSinner

    This testimony of blatant assault like the others will no doubt, like the growing numbers of others, be brushed aside as a liberal ‘conspiracy’…. as are the MSM, the FBI, the polls (i remember the same said about the polls in 2012…), the men in the moon…

    It is sad to see devout Catholics and the wider religious right continue to defend such a man as Trump – he is blatantly unfit for office by any standards of common decency. Not just because of the recent video and allegations but his racism such as his comments about the Central Park Five….

    And nearly as depressing is when anyone says in good conscious they can’t vote for Trunp they are accused of enabling Hilary or turning a blind eye to abortion or being a secret liberal or not knowing the Church’s teachings… evil is evil be it the greater or lesser evil

  35. PA mom says:

    Lucky for Democrats, no amount of corruption, lying, immorality or other unethical behavior dissuades them from voting for the top D.

    That Hillary still has some 40% of voters pledging to support her in November is mind-blowing to me.

    Just think of what could be if the media was honest and told everyone in clear terms how corrupt and immoral both Clintons are. Just think of what could be if enough people were willing to look past the constant reassurances from the media, to the facts. It should, by all rights, be a blow out.

    Trump is not good. But, Pence is excellent. Unfortunately, Trump’s name recognition and brash attitude are what breaks through to people in our current society.

    It’s a shame, because Trump has been given some wonderful gifts from God. He has a knack for trends; he identified the issues really bothering the American people and it got him the nomination. He is popular. Around here are people who have met him on the job site and have very sincere and positive things to say about it. He is good at rebuilding cities and has very much helped NYC. How decrepit would parts of it be without his ongoing efforts? He is courageous. To take on Hillary and this group…. they might have him taken out yet. They will certainly be cancelling contracts and contacts with his businesses in every way they can, whether it hurts them as well or not. His kids are likely beginning to be isolated from prior friends (just think of the social circles in NYC). There are sacrifices being made.

    Has Trump allowed his talents to become marred by vice? Obviously. Rudeness, arrogance, sexual license. I suspect the Lord is trying to show him this and wean him away from them. Just think of how good he could be if he put those things away from him. Maybe Pence, and all these prayers for him, will help.

  36. LovedSinner says:

    @crjs1

    I agree with your comment. As I said yesterday, I think that holding one’s nose and voting for Trump is a morally defensible position due to things like the Supreme Court, even if I disagree as I have said elsewhere (short answer, if Trump wins, he will almost certainly be the GOP nominee in 2020, and we could be locked in to 8 years of Trump pro-death justices).

    Good point on the Central Park Five. Conservative media has kept this from people but Trump wants the death penalty for five men which DNA evidence has proved them innocent. And he reiterated this last week. Absolutely stunning! He still wants to put these men to death.

    And to just brush aside his sexual failures are just breathtaking. I know I am not going to change many votes, maybe none. Hold your nose and vote for him, fine. But just stop defending the creep when he does this stuff to women.

    I’m done for today. Can’t wait until this election is over.

  37. boxerpaws63 says:

    “Lisa Boyne, a health food business entrepreneur, told The Huffington Post ”
    I also plan to talk to the Huffington Post and tell them how i ran into a certain Senator when my husband and i were visiting Washington and while my husband momentarily left the room he reached over….i won’t finish this sentence.
    I cannot give out the name of this Senator here-because this did not happen.See how that works.
    I also recall the story the NY Times ran about Trump where they ran these stories about women that worked for Trump and they were terrible.The women came forward and spoke up for Mr Trump who was a total gentleman and the NY Times stories were an out and out lie-things they never said.FRONT PAGE news of course.Eventually the Times had to retract.This time they’re getting sued for libel.
    Now hear the other side of the story. https://youtu.be/lxaKUo5naoY

  38. boxerpaws63 says:

    Father Frank Pavone: I Am Voting for Donald Trump and Pro-Life Voters Should Too. Here’s Why

    FULL STATEMENT HERE: http://www.lifenews.com/2016/10/10/father-frank-pavone-i-am-voting-for-donald-trump-and-pro-life-voters-should-too-heres-why/

    Fr Frank Pavone has spent years in the pro life movement and has done more to advance the prolife cause than any person i know. I don’t feel Fr Pavone would suggest to anyone to vote for a candidate he didn’t feel he in good conscience could vote for.
    As i recall-and have mentioned several times-is that St Augustine was a manichean,fathered an out ofwedlock child and treated his own mother like dirt. As Catholics we are elated whenever someone by the grace of God takes even a small step on the right path. I also know that the Clintons and their ilk are SYSTEMICALLY evil,supported by George Soros,consider Saul Alinksy their god and have nothing but loathing for the Catholic Church in particular and Christianity in general. She is a known felon who has flaunted the laws and gotten away with murder-i say literally and figuratively. Her husband will return to the White House only to carry on their criminal and immoral enterprise as they have done for YEARS. They drove Vince Foster to suicide. Once in office our country will be gone,along with the Supreme Court &judges on the bench.There will be abortion on demand soon followed by euthanasia as part of her single payer health care plan. Freedom of religion,speech,assembly and the press. Remember what those were like. She controls the media now. They are an extension of her campaign. They will definitely toe the mark when she’s in office and God forbid you oppose anything she does. She will shut you down and not think twice. Vote her out in 4 yrs? Not a chance. Her first week in office she will pass either by executive order or law AMNESTY giving us new legal citizens who can do the one thing she wants most-VOTE;assuring her of a 2020 win.That’s her first week in office and she knows it. Trump did not ‘assualt’ any woman the day he made the comments but he did apologize realizing how crude and offensive they were-especially since his wife heard them as well.Since his marriage to Melania there hasn’t been one affair to speak of.I have absolutely no concernsthat he would do anything of the sort that Bill Clinton did in the White House.
    You can vote another candidate but on Nov 8 we won’t even know who that candidate is.We will be waking up to hear either a Pres Elect Clinton or a Pres Elect Trump.One or the other.i get it and I will not throw my vote away or sit home and taken even that one chance of having Hillary elected.
    BTW. I dont’ believe any of these polls with Clinton ahead. They come FROM the media and they happen to be supporting Clinton.Is she campaigning? Where?I haven’t seen her.I know her husband Bill had an event-with 200 people.I know Trump had an event with 20k .
    I join Fr Pavone and will vote Donald Trump with a clear conscience and hopefully convince others to do the same.

  39. Venerator Sti Lot says:

    This seems to be the article by Archbishop Aquila which Andrew Parrish is quoting:

    http://denvercatholic.org/voting-catholic-2016/

  40. boxerpaws63 says:

    Former Miss Universe Manager Slams Media Accusations, ‘Trump was always a Gentleman’ @CNN #RIPJournalism #MAGA3X
    The Tape that was aired with Trump and Billy Bush(the name sounds familiar because it is;he is Jeb Bush’s cousin)was edited and then aired. I am NOT defending the content of the conversation.My take-and i could be wrong-is that it’s possible Bush initiated the conversation and as crass as he was Mr Trump was bragging in a PRIVATE conversation to another man. When they got off the bus Mr Trump and Bush met the woman and neither of the men made any of the kind of contact they were talking about. Yes,i know about his past. I’m just presenting a profile of Mr Trump from both sides.Where far more women who have known him personally attest to what a gentleman he is.

  41. Ages says:

    I can’t believe there are people who unironically believe anything the Huffington Post says, or any of the Mainstream Media (CNN, New York Times, etc. etc.) for that matter. Open your eyes! Wikileaks has exposed the media as literally a branch of the Clinton campaign. Not trustworthy at all, and they dug this grave for themselves.

    Remember the Duke Lacrosse team, the false allegations that ruined the player’s lives? These wicked globalists are TERRIFIED of losing power to someone like Trump who opposes their program, and will do ANYTHING to stop him.

    Trump isn’t a good man in many ways, but he’s good enough to throw a wrench into the evil plans of those who fancy themselves as the kings and queens of the world.

  42. Scott W. says:

    Let me suggest that staying home is an option. From the UCCB’s “Forming Consciences For Faithful Citizenship”:

    36. When all candidates hold a position that promotes an intrinsically evil act, the conscientious voter faces a dilemma. The voter may decide to take the extraordinary step of not voting for any candidate or, after careful deliberation, may decide to vote for the candidate deemed less likely to advance such a morally flawed position and more likely to pursue other authentic human goods

  43. hwriggles4 says:

    Last night on The World Over Live, Raymond Arroyo had Archbishop Neumann from the Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas to discuss the upcoming election. I listened attentively last night on EWTN radio, and highly recommend revisiting the broadcast. The good Archbishop pulled no punches. and this is another time where Raymond Arroyo isn’t afraid to push the envelope.

  44. Markus says:

    Socialism or Capitalism? Government handouts or work for a living?
    Verbal misconduct or complicacy in murder/deaths? Which is the “greater” sin?
    Repentance or constant complicacy?
    False moral outrage or secret, personal greed/vengeance against a social class?

    For me, it is an easy choice. Just who said that the anti-Christ would be male or LGBT(whatever)?

  45. chantgirl says:

    I will repeat this until I am blue in the face- abstaining from voting or voting for a candidate who has no possible chance of beating Hillary will expedite religious persecution in this country. I will repeat what I wrote in another post because I don’t think it can be emphasized enough that though Trump is personally repulsive to me, Hillary as president would mean an accelerated persecution of Christians in this country:

    We are only one or two Supreme Court justices away from a real religious persecution in this country. If Hillary gets to nominate them, expect churches to be taken to court right and left, and punished with heavy fines for refusing to allow confused people to use the wrong restroom, or for rejecting homosexuals’ requests (threats) to rent the church hall for their reception. Precedent will not stop Hillary’s nominees from putting an end to churches being able to employ people who believe and behave according to that church’s teaching. Expect smaller churches to be fined out of existence. Expect schools to close because they can’t hire people faithful to the faith. Expect the Catholic church in America to increasingly split into “patriotic” and underground churches. The “patriotic” churches will capitulate rather than be fined out of existence, and the underground churches will lose their property through staggering fines and be forced into a religious ghetto.

    Hillary has no respect for parental rights. Expect children to have increased access to contraception and abortion without parental knowledge or consent. Expect children to be screened in grade school for gender confusion in order to allow them to act medically before puberty starts. Expect children to be able to get sex reassignment surgery against their parents’ wishes. Expect parents to increasingly lose their ability to choose what kind of education their children will receive. Expect homeschooling to eventually be outlawed, or homeschoolers blacklisted by increasingly totalitarian colleges. Expect faithful colleges to be branded as “hateful” and lose their accreditation.

    Hillary has no respect for conscientious objection. Expect Catholics and evangelicals to be forced to capitulate or be forced out of law, medicine, teaching, counseling, and wedding-related industries. Expect Hillary’s SC picks to force churches and individual companies and private citizens to pay for contraception, abortion, sex-change surgery, and euthanasia.

    I will vote for a man I find personally disgusting but who I believe has the capability to be lead to good decisions versus a woman who appears to be a sociopath and an enemy of the Church.

    On a final note, Trump’s economic policies will likely be much better for the average American family and anyone with the drive to create new businesses and create new jobs, which will reduce unemployment and poverty.

  46. WVC says:

    Without commenting directly on either candidate, can I bring up how scary this new “sexual assault allegations” tactic is? It is Stalinist at best. Now, if you want to take someone down, you only need to convince a handful of women to accuse the subject of “sexual assault.” The alleged incident can be decades in the past with no evidence or eye witnesses to corroborate, but the media will circulate the allegations 24 hours a day and the public will treat the incident as a “guilty until proven innocent” situation. It is a brilliant way to perform a character assassination. The incidents could be true or completely fabricated or somewhere in the middle. The accusers can be earnest, confused, remembering things differently, manifesting regrets for past actions, or bald-faced lying. None of that matters. The character assassination is complete. The target is neutralized.

    I will also say that this current attack against Trump is highly suspicious. First, it is obviously being tightly coordinated as there’s no other way these allegations would not have surfaced months and months ago. They intentionally wanted to spring it in October to minimize any chance the defendant could have of proving his innocence before the election. They all had pre-planned speeches, too, to leap in and scoop up the so-called moral high ground which conveniently shifts the direction away from all of the issues that actually matter (immigration, abortion, national defense, terrorism).

    Second, the accusations are so outlandish that if they were true they would imply that the man in question was someone who truly could not control his passions. Someone this out-of-control should have hundreds if not thousands of accusers against him with hundreds if not thousands of eye witnesses. Openly fondling or kissing people against their will in public places? Grabbing them under the table? If these things happened against the consent of the women involved, there should be a horde of accusers and one would have expected them to have made the news long ago. For there only to be a handful of accusers makes the entire thing as described seem highly implausible.

    I’m not saying he’s guilty or innocent or that he’s a good guy or a depraved individual. I’m not saying that something, nothing, or anything happened or didn’t happen. I’m just highlighting the fact that this is a magnificent manipulation tactic that is clearly being used by the powers that be to control the people and their perceptions. Our current uneducated population, prone to Puritan self-righteousness, hysterics, and sentimentality, is all to easy to re-direct, confuse, and mislead.

    If you haven’t already, everyone should go read the Gulag Archipelago. I think we’re going to be in for a really rough ride for the next 3 to 4 generations. Or more.

  47. boxerpaws63 says:

    any dictator knows that to take control one must: 1. CONTROL THE MEDIA(done) 2. DISARM THE PUBLIC (they’re working on it)3. ATTACK FREEDOM OF RELIGION(we’re there).
    The candidate that is working on all 3 is Hillary Clinton.Wake Up!! Be careful of “Catholics” . If they seem to defend Hillary Clinton or ‘letting’ her get elected it’s possible they’re infilitrating as suggested by the Clinton campaign

  48. boxerpaws63 says:

    Straight from the Saul Alinski and George Soros handbooks!

  49. boxerpaws63 says:

    Former Miss Wisconsin: DONALD TRUMP Gave Me the Coat Off His Back on a Cold Winter Night #MAGA3X http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/10/must-see-video-former-miss-wisconsin-donald-trump-gave-coat-off-back-cold-winter-night/

  50. Markus says:

    With the recent release of emails from Hillary’s staff, how does this relate to our vows taken at Confirmation?
    To defend the Church?

  51. vandalia says:

    Ah yes, Donald Trump is on such good terms with the Republican Party and the Republicans in the House and Senate that he is sure to follow the party platform. And, of course, he has never had a history of doing things to spite his enemies that he would never consider nominating a liberal, anti-life person if elected President just to spite those conservative Republicans who are attacking him now. He also has had a consistent pro-life ethic throughout his entire life and has never had a history of quickly changing his opinions.

    In case you are a bit obtuse, that is sarcasm.

    I wonder who wrote the following?

    If Catholic politicians, journalists, educators, etc. compromise the non-negotiables and then approach the Eucharist improperly, they commit public scandal to others and risk eternal hell for themselves. If Catholic bishops and priests fail to attempt to correct others when they err they commit public scandal to others and risk eternal hell for themselves.

    Non-negotiable means non-negotiable. The term also used is exceptionless. Exceptionless means without exception. You may never support a candidate who is not unimpeachably pro-life. Never. Ever. Numquam. Nefas! The consequences do not matter. If they did, we would say these are “negotiable”, “conditional” norms.

    [I would vote for the corpse of Millard Fillmore to keep Hillary Clinton out of the White House… if only someone could find a way to get it on the ballot. Not a perfect candidate, but better than her.]

  52. Venerator Sti Lot says:

    I do not use Facebook, but I saw this reposted somewhere, attributed to a critical academic theologian (obviously its quotations can be checked – though I have not yet done so):

    Homosexual and transgender advocacy groups know how important this election is. Do you? At a global “LGBT“ summit held in Philadelphia during the Democratic National Convention, Kevin Jennings, Obama’s former “safe schools” czar for homosexualizing our public schools, stated “The future of the LGBT movement hinges largely on the outcome of this election” (reported by LifeSiteNews). For “LGBT” forces, the election of Hillary Clinton (not Donald Trump) is essential for fulfilling their goals.

    Hey bigot, here’s what her own campaign page says are her priorities:

    [1] “Hillary will work with Congress to pass the Equality Act, continue President Obama’s LGBT equality executive actions, and support efforts underway in the courts to protect people from discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation in every aspect of public life.”

    Did you get that? The so-called “Equality Act” (according to LifeSiteNews) “would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include sexual orientation and gender identity among prohibited categories of discrimination” and “apply to areas of ’employment, housing, access to public places, federal funding, credit, education, and jury service.’” It would in the public sector every protection in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act that collided with “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” promotion.

    Any statement you make or any action you might take in any and every public venue that offered anything less than full support for “gay marriage” and “transgenderism” would be treated legally as the equivalent of a Klu Klux Klan assault on African-American civil rights. Don’t want to put your professional talents to the direct promotion of all things homosexual and transgender? Face massive fines that will put you out of business, conscience protections be damned. No protest could ever be raised against a steady diet of homosexualist and transgender propaganda that teaches that if you hold to Jesus’ teaching on natural marriage and gender integrity you are a bigot and will be treated as such. There will be no opt-out provisions, not for you, not for your children. Your social and economic mobility in this country will be completely shackled to this ideology. You will carry it like a dead weight in every walk of life. If your “homophobia” or “transphobia” are found out, you will be harassed, mocked, and punished accordingly, driven out of polite society. You are the equivalent of a racist. Let that sink into your head, you bigot.

    Hillary through executive orders, legislation, and prosecution of cases in the courts will install “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” regulations “in every aspect of public life.” Let me repeat: “in EVERY aspect of public life.”

    [2] “Hillary will end so-called ‘conversion therapy’ for minors, … ensure adequate funding for safe and welcoming shelters, and take on bullying and harassment in schools. She’ll end discriminatory treatment of LGBT families in adoptions….” Every school will have to have regular indoctrination into how to combat “homophobia” and “transphobia” and develop regulations about how to ferret out and punish the bigots.

    [3] “Hillary applauds the Pentagon’s decision to allow transgender personnel to serve openly, and as Commander-in-Chief….”

    [4] “Hillary will work to protect transgender individuals from violence, make it easier for transgender Americans to change their gender marker on identification documents, and invest in law enforcement training focused on fair and impartial policing, including in interactions with LGBT people.”

    [5] “Hillary will promote LGBT human rights [around the world] and ensure America’s foreign policy is inclusive of LGBT people.” In other words, she will tie any US relief aid overseas to the promotion of a homosexualist and transgender agenda.

    Have any doubt about Hillary’s commitment to this oppressive task?

    “Hillary has been a vocal advocate for LGBT rights throughout her career. In the U.S. Senate, Hillary championed legislation to address hate crimes, fought for federal non-discrimination legislation to protect LGBT Americans in the workplace, and advocated for an end to restrictions that blocked LGBT Americans from adopting children.

    As secretary of state, Hillary advanced LGBT rights abroad and enforced stronger anti-discrimination regulations within the State Department, declaring on the global stage that “gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights.” She led the effort to pass the first-ever U.N. Resolution on LGBT Human Rights, launched the Global Equality Fund, ended State Department regulations that denied same-sex couples and their families equal rights, helped implement LGBT-friendly workplace policies, and updated the State Department’s policy so that transgender individuals’ passports reflect their true gender.”

  53. Dave N. says:

    We vote for and elect candidates (or in the case of President, electors) but not platforms. Donald Trump couldn’t possibly care less about the Republican platform because he had no hand in crafting it. And since the GOP overwhelmingly nominated a candidate that didn’t need to agree to anything actually in the platform, that should tell you the standing of the platform within the party as well.

    Whatever mental calculus people do to vote for a candidate or not vote for a candidate, or not to vote at all in a particular race, the platform of a party is virtually irrelevant. Look at the candidates’ record for a prediction of what they will do in the future. We don’t elect parties, we elect people.

  54. LovedSinner says:

    1) By Trump’s own words he kissed and groped women without their consent! If you believe Sean Hannity, Breitbart, and others before you do these women, fine. Because talk radio hosts and certain Fox News personalities have no agenda. But then believe Trump’s own words too!

    2) Trump always says the world is laughing at us. Well they are. Millennials are laughing at us too. They are laughing specifically at religious conservatives and pro-lifers who vote for Trump without shame. Trump is well on his way to destroying the credibility of pro-lifers for years. Do you really think this will bring millennials into the pro-life camp? Vote for him if your conscience says you must. But don’t gush over him like he is a cute and innocent little puppy.

    3) Trump is going to get crushed by Hillary very shortly. You may not like this, but this does not make it false. He will get to appoint as many Supreme Court Justices as you or me. But, even if he somehow does win, he will probably appoint justices even more pro-abortion than David Souter, John Paul Stevens, Anthony Kennedy, or Sandra Day O’Connor, all appointed by Republicans more pro-life than Trump. Do you really think Trump actually cares about being pro-life? I will tell you: Donald Trump cares about pro-life issues so much that he can’t stop praising Planned Parenthood. If you think Trump will risk his skin for pro-life causes then God bless you for that but I see someone totally different.

  55. WVC says:

    LovedSinner,

    1.) – if you go by his own words, he said he kissed and groped women who LET him kiss and grope them. That’s the opposite of “without their consent.” I’m not defending his actions, but you should at least get the facts straight. I’d also say that it’s convenient the women now accusing him never had a problem with it until the month before the election. Terribly convenient.

    2.) – Millenials are, by and large, are abnormally self-obsessed liberal twits. Hopefully nobody in their right mind is doing anything based on the opinion of the Millenials. Alas, the generation of micro-aggressions and trigger warnings will be with us for many years to come. Sigh.

    3.) – Trump has actually provided a list of names that have all been vetted by Pro-Life groups. What on earth would have to gain by not going with that list? I think the mistake you’re making is that you actually think the Republicans before Trump were “more Pro-Life” – they may have talked about it a lot but none of them did anything worth mentioning about it. Trump, on the other hand, knows that if he names 2 or 3 solid judges to the Court, folks will sing his praises for generations to come. If his Court, the Trump Court, over-turned Roe v. Wade, he could go around telling everyone how HE finally got it done when nobody else could after decades and decades of trying. You don’t think that’s something he wants to enjoy? You don’t think he would revel in the bragging rights? I would suggest you don’t know the man as much as you think you do.

  56. Ages says:

    chantgirl says: “If Hillary gets to nominate them, expect churches to be taken to court right and left”

    Well said.

    Even if Hillary does nothing in particular to promote intolerance of Christianity, her victory unto itself will embolden the enemies of Christ and lawsuits will fly simply to push the issue. And the Sodomite Lobby has a lot more cash to burn than your parish or diocese does.

  57. un-ionized says:

    WVC, the expression “what part of NO don’t you understand?” comes from the often used rapist excuse, “She said no, but she really meant yes.” In a relationship of uneven power who wins, always?

  58. Ages says:

    LovedSinner:

    1) Why did they wait 20, 30, 40 years until three weeks before the election to say anything—and all at once? And even if he did, how does that affect any issue that matters in this election? I want our immigration system fixed, a wall built, and companies to stop going overseas.

    2) The pro-life movement rendered itself irrelevant decades ago. Many organizations like Right to Life exist to perpetuate their own existence, and I have that on good authority from people within the organization. Why does the “cuckservative” meme have so much sting? Because it’s absolutely true. Many conservatives desperately enjoy losing. It hurts so good.

    3) Donald Trump released a list of excellent candidates for Supreme Court and promised to nominate people only from that list. You may think he’s lying, but of course that is speculation. Meanwhile, there is no question about the kind of justices Hillary would nominate. Trump’s faint praise for Planned Parenthood is meant to subtly antagonize them. He praises them for everything except abortion, when everyone knows they only exist to provide abortions. Hillary virtually worships the institution of abortion, so if you really cannot see a distinction, I can’t help you.

    So, I hope you have solace when the country is irreversibly destroyed because you couldn’t accept anything less than perfection. “If I can’t have all of it, I don’t want any of it.”

  59. LovedSinner says:

    @WVC

    How dare you say that this is consent! When much older people, or much more rich and powerful people put heavy pressure on you, this is not consent! This is why children under 18 cannot give consent (unless there is only a few years age difference in some states). This is why the children preyed upon by priests could not give consent. Let’s clean up the filth in the GOP just as we must continue to clean the filth in the Catholic Church.

    Furthermore, you conveniently let out, “I just start kissing them, it’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait.” And also, “And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the [genitals].”

    Does this still sound like consent? I bet even the Fishwrap readers know better. Vote for him if you must, but don’t defend this behavior. Don’t risk losing your soul for Trump.

  60. WVC says:

    un-ionized,

    I have no idea what you’re talking about. No one here is talking about rape. I was making the point that Trump’s actual words were not what LovedSinner claimed they were. He did not confess to kissing or groping women against their will. Whether he did or not is beyond my knowledge – I can only tell you what he said.

    With regard to sexual assault, I have serious concerns about the precedent that has been set which allows for women to make accusations years, even decades, after the event, with no eye witnesses and no evidence, upon which judgment is peremptorily rendered against the alleged culprit. It becomes practically impossible for the culprit to then prove his innocence in such a scenario. Anyone who doesn’t realize that such a precedent can (and will and perhaps already has) be taken advantage of is ignorant of human history and human nature.

    The reality is that human interactions are often strange, gray, and muddled. I have more than enough drama in my own personal relationships – I have no need to try to judge, analyze, or even have an opinion about the relationships of people I don’t know, have never met, and don’t particularly care for. With regard to relationships they may have had or not had several decades ago? I honestly couldn’t care less.

  61. WVC says:

    LovedSinner,

    I think I’ve been pretty straightforward – I’m not defending his actions. However, for folks with no personal knowledge of the man or the women he’s talking about to pass a moral judgment on what may or may not have even actually happened is pointless. If you think that every time a guy has bragged to a guy about some sort of sexual exploit he was being completely honest, then you blessedly don’t have to interact with many sailors. We have no idea if he was talking about specific women, about a particular incident, who was involved in that incident, when it took place, or if he wasn’t just making it up to sound cool in front of Billy Bush.

    For you to claim that I’m going to lose my soul if I choose to vote for him is hysterical (not in the really funny but in the you sound unhinged meaning of the word)

    What I am trying to point out is that you claim he confessed to assaulting women with his own words. He clearly does not say that. He clearly says that they LET him and wanted him to do what he did. Are there women like that who exist on this world? Certainly. (believe it or not, every woman in the world is not a virtuous, orthodox, pious, holy, and pure Catholic – shocking, I know) Are the women he was talking about those type of salacious characters? I have no idea (nor do I know if they even exist in reality and that he wasn’t just making it up). For you to claim that he confessed to assaulting women based on what he said is calumny against him, and even if you don’t like the man it’s no excuse to slander him.

    Whether he did or did not do any of the things people claim he did, you should not lie about what he actually said. That’s all I’m saying.

    Incidentally, I would never council someone to vote for him over their conscience. I certainly wouldn’t threaten them with eternal damnation if they didn’t agree with me. Methinks you are taking this election far too seriously.

  62. WVC says:

    LovedSinner,

    Also, if you’re going to clean up the filth in the GOP . . . .you’re going to need a pretty big bucket and one heckuva mop.

  63. WVC says:

    Ages,

    To be fair, Trump isn’t going to stop the country from being destroyed. We’re all doing a mighty fine job of that on our own. Best case is maybe he buys us time, but if we don’t use that time to work on our families, our communities, our churches, and our own lives, then in the long run it won’t make much of a difference. With the possible exception of the immigration issue, there’s not much he could really do to make that big of a change to the omnipresent and systemic rot.

    There are NO political solutions to cultural problems.

  64. un-ionized says:

    WVC i know that you don’t understand. this is a question of there being no chance for consent.

  65. TheDude05 says:

    Forget all of the supposed sexual misconduct from either camp. Hillary and Obama are positioning us for another Cold War or even a shooting war with the Russians. They have been setting the narrative with Ukraine and Syria and now are adding the election and hacking into it. They are threatening sanctions and removing diplomats, both preludes to war. Trump does not want a war with Russia, this alone should secure your vote for him, against the rest of the Republicans who are also rattling their sabres against Russia. It’s either that or vote for neither and by property far away from military bases and any part of the military industrial complex and start digging in. Father Z may hope there are many layers of lead paint in his closest under the stairs so he can survive as well.

  66. WVC says:

    un-ionized,

    I understand, conceptually, what you’re trying to say with regard to consent. (let’s not be pedantic, please) I just fail to see how that has anything to do with the current topic.

  67. The Masked Chicken says:

    You know what this election needs? A theme song. May I, humbly, propose the following. Ahem…maistro…
    ***************
    Aren’t we rich?
    Aren’t we a pair?
    Me grinding you to the ground,
    You in my hair.
    Send in the clowns.

    Isn’t it bliss?
    Don’t polls approve?
    One who keeps lying around,
    The truth can’t move.
    Where are the clowns?
    Send in the clowns.

    Just when I’d stopped
    Closeting doors,
    Finally knowing
    The gender I wanted was yours,
    Making my speaches again
    With my usual flair,
    Sure of my lines,
    No one is there.

    Don’t you love farce?
    You fault, I fear.
    I thought immigrants want what I want –
    Sorry, my dear.
    But where are the clowns?
    Quick, send in the clowns.
    Don’t bother, we’re here.

    Aren’t we rich?
    Aren’t we queer?
    Losing my e-mails this late
    In my career?
    And where are the clowns?
    There ought to be clowns.
    Well, maybe in four years.

    ****************
    Too much? I admit that couple of lines are just wrong. Sorry, I couldn’t come up with something truer, but I had to work with the song I had.

    The Chicken

  68. un-ionized says:

    Wow.

  69. WVC says:

    Chicken,

    Sinatra is too refined for this election. Try something more like this:

    Let me tell you a story ’bout a man named Trump,
    It was alleged he grabbed a lady’s rump,
    His opponent married the same kind of dude,
    And the resulting election sure was mighty crude.

    Disgusting that is. Plain awful. Name calling. Crazy hair.

  70. LovedSinner says:

    @ WVC

    Yes, I am unhinged, particularly in the crazy sense of the word. Thank you for your kind Christian charity about my mental well being.

    And yes, I can now see that you were right. Clearly the women gave consent to Donald, because of the magic word “LET.” When someone very rich and powerful pressures you into doing something you later regret, this is obviously full consent (or deliberate consent, as the catechism would say). This is all much ado about nothing.

    Also thank you for reminding me to confess the sins of calumny, slander, and lies against Donald Trump.

    I am done here.

  71. WVC says:

    LovedSinner,

    You act as if the Donald confessed to raping a binder full of women or something. Can I remind you, yet again, that you have no knowledge of whom the Donald is talking about in the recorded private conversation? (and bear in mind they may not even exist – here’ s a hint – guys often tend to make up stories, be it about fish or women, when bragging in front of other guys – it’s one of our faults, I confess)

    Out of curiosity, why do you buy into such a negative stereotype regarding women? I know very many women (and I would include my own daughters) in the category that would tell an old sleazeball, regardless of how rich he was, to pound sand, and if he so much as put a finger on them would either break the finger or give him a knee in his more tender areas. Are you saying these fictional women of whom you know nothing , not even their names, that the Donald was talking about must be poor little damsels without the moral wherewithal to clearly say “No” to an old rich, famous, pervert?

    I guess I just hold women and their reputations in higher regard. I hope you find a way to work through your negative stereotypes. Confession is good for the soul. Fr. Z recommends it on a regular basis.

    Truly, there may have other instances of much being made ado about nothing, but this takes the cake in my personal experience. We earnestly stand on the brink of active war with Russia (over whether or not Muslim fanatics should rule Syria, and our country is on the side of the Muslim fanatics), and folks are hyperventilating over a decade old conversation about people who may or may not exist, of whom they know nothing about, who, for all they know, might actually enjoy rich old perverts . . .

    And when you point out that there are zero facts involved in this particular case (zero, zilch, nada, none), then folks claim you’re defending sexual assault.

    Truly this world can be a bizarre place. I’ll be happy when it’s all over.

  72. Venerator Sti Lot says:

    Saddening new details from a recent interview with Gennifer Flowers about Chelsea Clinton’s older half- brother? or -sister?

    “To that point he and Hillary didn’t have any children. Didn’t have Chelsea yet. And he had told me that he didn’t think that he could have kids. And that was why I was more casual with birth control then I would have been normally. […] I told him (Bill Clinton). And deep down I wanted to hear him say okay well I’m going to get a divorce and we’ll have this baby and everything is going to be fine. And the first words out of his mouth were, ‘Well you know I will pay for an abortion.’

    “And of course my heart sunk. And then the reality you know hit me right in the face. That he was married and he was going to stay married. And that’s the way it was. So I thought fine. I wasn’t prepared to have a baby and raise it on my own so I decided to go ahead and have the abortion.”

    Married was not the only thing he was going to stay, however (for the next eleven years): “one day he came in and the security guard told him that I had called and gave him the message. And what he didn’t know was that she (Hillary) was actually there and was walking up to meet him and heard the guard say my name. And that I had called. And so she had a conversation with him a little bit later that she was getting real tired of hearing that name. And that she wanted it to stop. And he told her it wasn’t gonna stop. And she said, ‘Well, Just at least don’t embarrass me.’ Well of course he went on to embarrass her. Many, many times.

    “They had only been married about three months when he and I started our affair.”

  73. bookworm says:

    I share every single concern regarding Hillary that has been expressed above. However, I have a major concern about Trump that has not been addressed in this forum: Why does Vladimir Putin want Trump to win so badly that he all but openly threatens nuclear war if he doesn’t, hacks into ONLY the Democratic Party’s e-mails, and pays a “troll army” to flood the Internet with pro-Trump comments? If you think he has our best interests in mind, I have a bridge to sell you. He wants Trump to win NOT because Trump is any great friend of his, but because he believes Trump will serve HIS purposes: to stay out of his way while he attempts to revive the Soviet empire, and/or to provoke dissension, anger and cynicism among the American people.

    There are plenty of news sources out there that verify the existence of the “troll army” and its ultimate aim, which is to undermine trust in the democratic (small d) system, sow division among the people of the nation they target, and demoralize them — both in the sense of making them feel depressed and hopeless and in the sense of persuading them to set aside their moral qualms against deception and violence. They tried it in Ukraine and now they are trying it on us. And I’m afraid we’re falling for it like a ton of bricks.

    None of this is meant to minimize in any way the dangers of a Hillary administration or encourage anyone to vote for her. But the question needs to be asked: why is a dictator and enemy of the United States pulling out all the stops to get Trump elected? Are we really morally obligated to support someone like this just because he claims to be pro-life, regardless of the damage he does to the nation?

  74. WVC says:

    bookworm,

    I don’t think I’d read too much into it. Understand that as much as the media has skewed practically every news story about Trump, it has been (for some time) also skewing news stories about international affairs. The simple fact that you claim Putin is an enemy of the United States is telling. Why is he an enemy? Because he wants his country to have influence on the countries that border it? Because he supports secular regimes over fanatical Muslim regimes? Is there anything he’s done in particular to go against America’s national interest? In reality, we’ve had numerous opportunities to work with Russia and Putin since many of our global interests coincide, but we refuse because too many people have a 1980s mindset of Russian = Villain.

    I don’t pretend to know the mind of Putin (whom I don’t personally like and would not trust if I lived in Russia), nor am I convinced that the Russians are actually hacking the Democratic Party’s emails (maybe they did, maybe they didn’t – I only have the Democratic Party’s word on that which is never a source I trust without plenty of external verification). However, let’s say that Putin does very much prefer Donald over Hilary. Is it really that hard to understand why?

    The USA won the Cold War, but rather than work to build alliances with Russia we immediately moved into a position of progressive antagonism which has never ended. We are STILL fighting the Cold War. NATO, an organization founded solely for the purpose of opposing Russia, and which its own founders believed would disband after the USSR fell, not only still exists but we keep pushing to expand it. We’ve even extended membership to places like Georgia, which is on Russia’s front doorstep. If Russia tried to form an alliance with Mexico to keep US influence out of Mexico, even to the point of threatening war against the US if we interfered with Mexico in any way, would that not make us upset? We weren’t terribly happy with Cuba getting Russian missiles, and we’ve done much worse to Russia with regard to Russia’s immediate neighbors.

    Take the Ukraine for example. It was US agents (in particular Victoria Nuland) which worked with rebel forces (including known neo-Nazis) to overthrow the Constitutionally elected government (this is a fact that the US government doesn’t even try to deny). It was only after that that Russia moved in to protect Russia’s interests, which include the Russian naval base in Crimea. Can you blame them? They didn’t start the mess. We did. There are lots of Russians who live in the Crimea who did NOT endorse the US backed coup of the government. Can you blame Russia for supporting their opposition?

    Consider Syria. Assad, ruthless as he may be, is fighting tooth and nail to keep ISIS from taking over the country. Russia is helping Assad. Yet we insist Assad has to go, and we keep giving money and support to so-called “moderate” Muslim rebels which don’t actually exist (not as any meaningful force to actually oppose ISIS). Now we’re threatening air strikes against Russia because they’re supporting Assad.

    That’s not to mention how we supported the complete destabilization of the Middle East during the so-called Arabic Spring. Actions that dramatically increased Muslim terrorism throughout the world, a problem that Russia has to deal with on a regular basis.

    And most of this was DURING Clinton’s term as Secretary of State. Putin has already seen her handiwork first hand. Ask yourself, if you were in his shoes and looking out for Russia’s best interest, who would YOU prefer get elected?

    If Putin has Russia’s best interests in mind, then he wants to avoid nuclear war at all costs. When even Jill Stein says that Clinton is the candidate to likely get us into a nuclear war, can you fault Putin for backing the Donald?

  75. boxerpaws63 says:

    Please,I’m begging everyone.TURN OFF THE CABLE NEWS.Period.
    “Donald Trump couldn’t possibly care less about the Republican platform because he had no hand in crafting it. ” Actually he did.
    Putin could care less about who gets elected here. All he cares about is Obama is going to be leaving office soon and i think we can all get on board with that.
    Trump put out his list of candidates for the Supreme Court.Read them.I can’t imagine Fr Frank Pavone,Phyllis Schaffly,Jerry Falwell Jr, Franklin Graham and other conservative pro life figures would be supporting a Trump presidency for a second if they weren’t convinced he were truly pro life
    The RECENT charges against Mr Trump are all lies and timed exactly at the time the wikileaks were being published.It seems like every time a new batch of wikileaks gets published;another accuser gets in the media.SOME in the media are reporting SELECTIVE wikileaks but missing the more crucial ones. Instead they’re trying to destroy Mr Trump with these phony allegations. The reason the media is not really exposing the wikileaks is because they are IMPLICATED. They can’t report them because they would be reporting on their own collusion. TURN OFF THE NEWS. Think.Pray Read the Wikileaks files.They are doing the job the media should have been doing all along.We cannot let Hillary Clinton get elected either by voting 3rd party,staying home or actually being stupid enough to vote for her. What damage is Mr Trump going to do to the nation? We’ve already turned into a banana republic with a President that does 2 things:GOLFS and CAMPAIGNS.We get Hillary elected-she won’t damage it. She’ll destroy it .Praying ppl wake up.Mr Trump has a big heart,a love of his country and genuine respect for the American people. His VP Mike Pence is an excellent choice.He’s also pro life. i can’t imagine him supporting Mr Trump if he weren’t convinced Trump were pro life.
    Side Note:WOLF IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING is going to air again on EWTN.I knew Alinsky was bad news but this was a real eye opener.Worse than i thought.Learned a lot!
    >Quick Look at Guccifer Updates and LINK TO FILES https://youtu.be/5AiX4xowqO8 via @YouTube<
    I don't condone hacking(he's in prison)but at this point it's the only way we can get the truth.Wikileaks does NOT hack. They depend on the submission of documents from inside sources.

  76. Venerator Sti Lot says:

    bookworm,

    Even though Team Clinton is variously profitably invested in Russia, perhaps Mr. Putin’s starting point here is Realpolitik, not that he thinks he can run rings around Mr. Trump (as, perhaps, he did to whatever extent around Mr. Bush, whose (apparent public) regard for “My friend, Vladimir” I well remember), but that he thinks Mr. Trump is a more realistic, stable potential negotiating partner.

  77. boxerpaws63 says:

    the allegations against Mr Trump are crumbling as i write this with witnesses and evidence coming forward to support him.Make no mistake though and think they’re done. That these accusations they are piling on, will stop. The closer we get to the election and the more fearful that he could win;the more DESPERATE they will become. A lot of people have a stake in stopping his election. I won’t get into those other people.I will say they are not all Democrats. The Clinton’s will stop at nothing so we can assume, that if these allegations fall apart like they are, there’s only a few routes for them to go. Make the allegations even more egregious.If that fails,be thankful he has secret service around him.We can HOPE they’re above the corruption of the rest of our government.

  78. un-ionized says:

    And yet you cluelessly ignore the Gospel and run off people who don’t ignore it.

  79. crjs1 says:

    Wow….. we are now in a position where we are trashing women making sexual assault allegations… ‘Let Me’ is not concent.. and many many many people do not come forward about sexual assault – especially when is accuser is in a position of power – until much later or other victims share thier experience. I am disgusted by how these women are being talked about…

  80. WVC says:

    un-ionized,

    I’m afraid I again have no idea what you’re talking about (assuming you’re addressing anyone in particular). I’m not sure who here has ignored the Gospel or who here has tried to run anyone off.

  81. WVC says:

    crjs1,

    I’m afraid you’re not reading the comments here very closely. I don’t believe anyone has “trashed women making sexual assault allegations.” Certainly I haven’t. We have questioned the awfully convenient timing, and I’ve put forward the idea that we have established a very dangerous precedent. That’s pretty far from “trashing.”

    You also seem to be tying disparate things together into some fictional whole (which is exactly what the media and the Democrats want you to do). Trump’s lewd talk is NOT directly related to the women currently accusing him of sexual assault. When he said “Let Me” you nor I have any evidence of whom he was talking about if he was even talking about real people at all. Trying to determine whether or not there was or was not consent based on his private statements is an absurd waste of time. You nor I have any idea if there was consent or if there were even real people involved in Trump’s statement. All we know is that in his own statement about this undetermined event Trump implied there was consent and did NOT confess to sexual assault.

    Let me try to clarify for folks who keep missing the boat. YOU CANNOT JUDGE A CASE WITH WHICH YOU HAVE NO INVOLVEMENT, DID NOT WITNESS IT, HAVE NO FACTS AND NO EVIDENCE, AND DO NOT HAVE ANY REAL KNOWLEDGE OF ANY OF THE FOLKS INVOLVED. To pretend that you can judge such a case is overweening pride in yourself at best or calumny against the person you assume must be guilty at worst. It doesn’t matter whether you like Trump or not (and I personally don’t), at this point NONE OF US has enough information to draw reasonable conclusions about his ACTUAL behavior in any particular accusation being made against him. The only thing you know at this point is that he talks lewdly to other men in private (either about real past occurrences, exaggerated occurrences, or completely fictitious occurrences, you don’t even know that much).

    We live in an awful age where people think just because they watch TV and have the Internet they know far more than they actually know.

  82. crjs1 says:

    WVC,

    We have seen in this thread the woman making allegations called liars.. that is trashing. As you say they might not be true but I never assume an allegation of sexual assaults is definitely false off the bat – could they be lies? Of course but they may also very may be true and taken with Trumps vulgar disgusting talk about women and his boasting of his own actions its safe to conclude his attitude and actions towards woman are disgraceful.

    Maybe I take this personally, but I work in public affairs and policy for a national mental health charity and have researched and spoken to countless service users over the years who have been devestated by sexual asssualt as adults and children. The vast majority never spoke to the police or spoke to anyone for years about what happened and when the did they were all to often disbelieved. This particularity if the abuse was commited by someone in a position of authority. I will never be quick to disbelieve a claim of assualt no matter how politically convienient it may be – and obviously I am aware the tv or Internet don’t tell the full story and that they use this for thier own political agenda. I think of the many many verifiable claims of abuse that came to light after Jimmy Savile (a big celebrity) died in the UK.

    And as I said earlier even without these claims or the video, Trumps public statements on race e.g. His comments on Mexicans, and the Central Park Five, are beyond the pale.

    I should make it clear I am not saying that I think no one in good conscious can vote for Trump – for reasons said before: Supreme Court etc. Just that those who can’t vote for Trump should not be castigated as somehow not being in line with catholic teaching, or made out to be closet Hilary supporters..

  83. WVC says:

    crjs1,

    Can you do me a favor? Hit Ctrl-F and then type in “liar.” If you search this particular web page, you’ll see that there’s only one place that the word appears, and that’s in your comment. Well, I guess now it appears in this comment, too. But I digress.

    I tried to point out that there is a wide range of possibilities – everything from the women telling the truth to completely fabricating it to multiple stops in between. What I’ve been arguing is that we do not KNOW which of those possibilities is the truth so we should stop pretending that we do.

    I agree that sexual assault is awful and a problem, but I would also note that false rape allegations are not uncommon. I would cross-reference the Duke Lacrosse case and the recent Rolling Stones article against the UVA Phi Kappa Psi fraternity as very public examples. Knowing that not every allegation is automatically true should make one at least pause before participating in the public lynching of the Donald.

    Two more quick points. First is that you would never argue the same position about another crime. Let’s say I personally know many folks whose lives have been devastated by robbery. Therefore, anytime I hear someone accuse someone else of robbery, regardless of how long ago it was, whether there were any eye witnesses, or even any evidence at all, I must assume the accusation is true and serious until proven otherwise. If I hear the person who has been accused say something like, “I really enjoy material goods. They’re the best!” then I KNOW for SURE that he is guilty of the robbery. This is absurd, obviously, but it’s equally absurd if you try to apply the same logic to sexual assault accusations.

    Second, women who choose to use their sexual assault allegations as political poker chips make themselves political targets. Whether the allegations are true or not, once they step on the stage to try to use their case to influence the political process (and with only 3 weeks left in the election there can’t be any reasonable doubt that it’s clearly a part of their motive), they have chosen to make themselves political targets. The same goes for the poor parents of children who were murdered at Sandy Hook. Was their loss real? Absolutely. Do I have sympathy for them? Without a doubt. Have I prayed for them and the repose of souls of their children? Yes. However, the second some of them stepped on the stage with President Obama and used their child’s death to further a political agenda (i.e. Gun Control), they made themselves legitimate political targets subject to the same level of scrutiny as any other political targets.

    And, I’ll repeat, again, I certainly am not accusing anyone of being a Hilary supporter or immoral if they don’t vote for Trump. I think, though, that good manners would require that folks who don’t like Trump would also stop trying to convince folks who support him that they’ll go to Hell if they vote for him.

  84. crjs1 says:

    WVC

    Boxerpays said:
    “The RECENT charges against Mr Trump are all lies and timed exactly at the time the wikileaks were being published.It seems like every time a new batch of wikileaks gets published;another accuser gets in the media.SOME in the media are reporting SELECTIVE wikileaks but missing the more crucial ones. Instead they’re trying to destroy Mr Trump with these phony allegations.”

    ‘All lies’ is a fair indication that the poster believes the people who made the aligations are liars.

    I completely agree with your last paragraph (and much of the whole post) I definitely don’t believe all those who plan to vote Trump are going to Hell and I was speaking more generally about insinuations that those who are not voting Trump are closet Hilary supporters or against catholic teaching (by other posters and internet more generally) Sorry it wasn’t meant to be personal!

  85. WYMiriam says:

    >>[I would vote for the corpse of Millard Fillmore to keep Hillary Clinton out of the White House… if only someone could find a way to get it on the ballot. Not a perfect candidate, but better than her.]<<

    Sometimes I am really late on the uptake. You would vote for a corpse to keep Hillary out of the White House, Father Z., and yet you keep telling people like myself — who will be voting for a truly principled and pro-life candidate (Darrell Castle of the Constitution Party) — that our vote for such a person helps Hillary.

    Please help me understand why your vote for a corpse — assuming that you mean it’s on the ballot with *both* Hillary and Trump — would not help Hillary. (All three need to be on your hypothetical ballot in order for the two scenarios — my soon-to-be-realized vote and your wishful vote — to be equivalent.)

  86. boxerpaws63 says:

    I hope no one got the impression i was trashing any of the accuser’s. It’s not a matter of trashing anyone. I am only hoping to get ppl to be aware of what exactly is going on here. The media has been having behind closed door meetings to come up with ways to get Hillary elected. In case you catch any news either on cable or in print there will be a smattering of stories on the wikileaks files and an OVERWHELMING amount of time spent on these accusers and negative stories on Trump. As it gets closer to election day the stories will become more egrigeouis. In fact they may ‘go nuclear’ on Trump right around Nov 8th so he won’t have the time to dispute the worst accusation they can come up with. Some of the accusers have ties to the Clintons. Make of that what you will.
    What people are not hearing about Mr Trump are all the women-past and present-who have come forward in his defense with nothing to gain and spoke of how kind he was and what a gentlemnan he always was. What the media doesn’t bother to tell you are his past acts of kindness to people in need.He didn’t do them for headlines. What they aren’t mentioning is his philanthropic work he’s done for years for St Jude’s Hospital or the people’s who’s mortgage he paid off because they helped him when his car broke down or the soldiers who couldn’t get a plane home from the battlefield so he lent them his. Or the time he helped Sgt Tahmooresi-the Marine held in a Mexican prison because he made a wrong turn into Mexico.I could go on. For all his flaws,he is at least nothing like the Clinton’s. I can’t even begin to list everything they have ever done-much of it ILLEGALLY-to line their own pockets and to rise to power. I always thought Bill was more interested in his extra marital affairs and money while Hillary was the one more interested in power.
    All that said,I’m praying people don’t stay home or throw their vote to a third party that has absolutely no chance of winning.I would say save all that for another election but NOT this one.Hillary has no qualms about supporting abortion and euthanasia. Hillary has no qualms about switching us to a single payer Health Care system exactly like Canada’s and FUNDING abortion.Hillary has made it very clear there will be open borders and open trade-aligning herself SOLIDLY behind a Soros vision of us giving up U.S. Sovereignity. Hillary will have no problem persecuting the Catholic Church or destroying our religious freedoms.She won’t have any need to shut down freedom of speech-the media has already managed it. The FBI and DOJ are already corrupted. They already used the IRS to attack various groups they disagreed with;Conservative groups were targeted. Hillary Clinton should be in prison for what she has done but she’s protecting a lot of people INCLUDING the President. There was no way on earth either the FBI or DOJ were going to indict her. She got off. Think of what she’s done and ask yourself how on earth could she ever have gotten away with it.Give her power as President and the fact that she is this lawless now;imagine what she will do then.
    I beg of everyone do NOT let her get elected.Don’t even chance it!Like Trump or not-who cares if you like him-there will only be 1 of these 2 people elected. It will NOT be a third party candidate. Pls get out the vote and pls vote Trump.We are not going to have another chance after this. Once she’s elected.We’re done.No do-overs.

  87. boxerpaws63 says:

    Let me sum it up;the media is LYING. They’re counting on a large group of American people who are complacent. They’re counting on people who think if it’s in the news then it must be true. You know why Wikileaks released all the documents they had? If the media had been doing all along what they are SUPPOSED to do Wikileaks wouldn’t have had to do the job for them.It’s simple.The media is protecting Hillary. IF they can keep people distracted with these bunk(and they are)stories about Trump then they’ve accomplished their goal. Not to mention the fact they’re trying to get the Trump supporters to stay home;meaning NOT vote. We’re the only people standing between a Hillary presidency and if they can shake our faith and we give up our support -she wins.

  88. Venerator Sti Lot says:

    WYMiriam,

    Under correction of the author, I think Father Z’s imaginary situation involves only two ‘major’ candidates and that Mrs. Clinton is one and the corpse of President Fillmore the other, and that he is not proposing a situation in which Mrs. Clinton corresponds to Woodrow Wilson, Mr. Trump to William Howard Taft, and Mr. Castle (or anyone else) to Theodore Roosevelt.

    Having read Archbishop Chaput’s friend’s characterization of the two major candidates, I began wildly to fantasize whether even the corpse of Pope Alexander VI might not be preferable to Mrs. Clinton – but however great his involvement with America through the bulls Inter caetera, Eximiae devotionis, and Dudum siquidem, in order to ‘grandfather’ it in some sort of line with the Constitution, I suppose his corpse would have had to have been reposing in the United States in 1789 rather than in Santa Maria in Monserrato degli Spagnoli.

  89. Venerator Sti Lot says:

    A creepy comment by his grandson, Chris Cox, at the grand-reopening Friday of Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum two days ago: ““There was certainly a lot of controversy in Illinois and Texas about the veracity of the vote […]. My grandfather actually decided not to contest the vote because he thought it wasn’t right for the country. He didn’t want to put the country through it.”

    I think I see something that might be in aid of…

  90. boxerpaws63 says:

    “I definitely don’t believe all those who plan to vote Trump are going to Hell and I was speaking more generally about insinuations that those who are not voting Trump are closet Hilary supporters or against catholic teaching (by other posters and internet more generally) Sorry it wasn’t meant to be personal!”
    No problem-no argument. I take nothing on Fr Z’s blog personally (except GO TO CONFESSION).
    All i was saying is that it’s altogether possible that ppl not voting Trump couldbe Hillary supporters or ppl who are trying to undermine Catholic teaching. It’s also possible that they’re not. Put another way;we should not be paranoid but we should also be cautious. It just makes sense. BTW. Hope everyone will take the time to watch WOLF IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING on EWTN.They’re having a replay.Very well done and researched.The one thing they don’t mention is the connection between Alinsky and Hillary Clinton.Check their website for time and date .ewtn.com
    I have only one thing to say about the Clinton’s that sums them up:DIABOLICAL.Keep her away from the White House.Trump will appoint a special prosecutor and she may end up where she probably should have been in the first place.Do not stay home-go vote.Do not vote 3rd party-take no chances on Hillary winning.NONE.
    The media is going to throw allegations at Trump right up till election day and eventually will go ‘nuclear’. They are barely going to say a word-except in passing -about the corruption in government perpetrated by Obama and the Clinton’s. It’s going to be ugly but remember;they are PROTECTING HER and by the same token protecting OBAMA(and a lot of other people).They want Hillary to win;the media is a CORPORATE ENTITY. They have their own agenda and the money to back it. As a side note:The Clinton campaign is offering $100,00o to any person-meaning woman-to come forward with an allegation against Trump. Make of that what you will.

    Please look at this page 242 in #PodestaEmails9 #Benghazi #Standown Hillary ordered the standown in Benghazi.

  91. Venerator Sti Lot says:

    Following up WVC’s possibly pertinent news stories, someone with the same name as one of the recent accusers of Mr. Trump was engaged in a protracted property dispute with him in the past:

    http://americanlookout.com/hmmm-woman-accusing-trump-of-grabbing-her-on-plane-was-in-property-lawsuit-with-him/

    Assuming it is the same Jessica Leeds, this may be a relevant fact.

  92. Venerator Sti Lot says:

    I know too little about Twitter to know whether or not the “hashtag #WhyWomenVoteTrump became a top-trending topic on social media Friday”, but think these worth reading:

    http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/17-tweets-explaining-whywomenvotetrump/article/2604635

  93. Fr. Vincent Fitzpatrick says:

    crjs1: The women are liars. On YouTube, look up Stefan Molyneux. He has two recent videos providing the proof.

  94. bsjy says:

    Which one is the lamb? He is the star of that book.

  95. WYMiriam says:

    Venerator Sti Lot, thank you for that very plausible explanation. Now I await Fr. Z’s response!

    (In the meantime, I’m still voting for Darrell Castle. . . . I wouldn’t be able to look God in the eye (not that I can right now, but that’s a story for a very different venue) and justify a vote for either of the two “major” party candidates.)

  96. boxerpaws63 says:

    i wouldn’t be able to look God in the eye and justify not battling to the very end to keep an anti Catholic and CORRUPT candidate -Hillary-out of the office of President.I wouldn’t chance it by staying home and not voting at all OR voting for a 3rd party candidate when every vote will count.
    Fr Frank Pavone would never vote for a candidate or recommend voting for a candidate if he couldn’t do so in good conscience:
    http://www.lifenews.com/2016/10/10/father-frank-pavone-i-am-voting-for-donald-trump-and-pro-life-voters-should-too-heres-why/

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