Guest Opinion: Senator Obama's Politics of Division and Despair

A former law student of Professor Doug Kmiec concludes his analysis and presents his opinion on the US Presidential campaign.

LOS ANGELES, Ca. (Catholic Online) - Senator Obama regularly calls us to be united in our "common humanity" and "our shared destiny." In Berlin, he called on all of us to tear down all sorts of "walls" that divide us. However, despite vague references to "our values," Obama cannot articulate what it is that unites us or what are our values. In fact, his politics are not the politics of unity, but of division. The unity Obama offers can never be because he views sins as fundamental rights. Spe Salvi (Saved in Hope), the encyclical letter of Pope Benedict XVI, reminds us that "[s]in is . . . the destruction of the unity of the human race." Yet, Senator Obama wants us to embrace sin as a fundamental right. How can our country ever hope to achieve unity if we embrace sin?

Obama divides mothers and children, supporting a mother's "right" to kill her child if it is unwanted. He divides husbands and wives, by supporting contraception and mandating insurance coverage for it, depriving the sexual act of its unitive and procreative elements. He divides workers and their employers by solely discussing the sending of jobs overseas and the federal minimum wage, rather than discussing our common interests. He divides us from the Iraqi people, to whom we have made a commitment, by claiming that we no longer have an interest in their security. He divides parents and the state by refusing to allow school choice. Most frightening, he wants to divide Catholics from the Church by convincing them that they can support his and the Democrat Party's agenda concerning calling a "right" what is always wrong, the taking of innocent human life in the womb. He has encouraged those Catholics who have become separated from the Church to continue headlong into their own destruction and others to follow their example. On January 29, 2008, while speaking in El Dorado, Kansas, he said this of Governor Kathleen Sebelius: "I want to thank Governor Sebelius for her support in this campaign, for the leadership she's provided the state of Kansas, and for the example she's set for Democrats all across America." Indeed, he hopes that many will follow her example and that "Governor Sebelius is a bright part of [the Democrat party's] . . . future."

Obama wants to build a false unity, a unity built around him and his social program, not God. Pope Pius XII reminded us that "[a] social teaching or a social reconstruction program which denies or prescinds from [the] internal essential relation to God of everything that regards men, is on a false course; and while it builds up with one hand, it prepares with the other the materials which sooner or later will undermine and destroy the whole fabric [of society]." Such a program is not a good but is an objective evil.

Enjoy Daily Readings? Pay it Forward

Any attempt to build unity must be based on the absolute respect for human life. If some of our fellow Americans have no right to life, then our approach to social justice, "disregards the respect due to the human person and to the life which is proper to that person, and gives no thought to it in its organization, legislative and executive activity, [and] instead of serving society it harms it; instead of encouraging and stimulating social thought, instead of realizing its hopes and expectations, it strips it of all real value and reduces it to a utilitarian formula . . . ." In the final analysis, true unity as Pope Pius XII explains, must be based on "the respect of human dignity in oneself and others, on the love of society and of its God-given ends," it cannot "proceed on the insecure ground of materialistic postulates" which "sees in the people only a herd of individuals who, divided and without any internal cohesion, are considered as a mass to be forded over and treated arbitrarily." We must reject Obama's assertion that we are divided and that only he can unite us under the common goal of electing him president to obtain "change."

Before Obama came along we were a country, after Obama we will continue to be country, with, as Pope Pius XII makes clear, an "intrinsic unity, which has grown up and matured under the guidance of Providence, a unity which within the bounds assigned to it and according to its own peculiar gifts--tends, with the collaboration of the various classes and professions, towards the eternal and ever new aims of culture and religion." Americans have always recognized that our unity is a consequence of our being God's children, as George Washington stated: It is from God that we can obtain the blessings of "good governments, peace and concord." Therefore, as Catholics concerned for the common good we need to remind our fellow Americans that the true source of unity is God not Obama. As Pope Pius XII exhorted us, we must make a "solemn vow not to rest until [our leaders are] formed . . . of men who, bent on bringing back society to its center of gravity, which is the law of God, aspire to the service of the human person and of his common life ennobled in God." Obama is not one of these men.

Politics of Despair.

Obama tells us that the future is uncertain and that we need him to change America. The so-called hope offered by Obama is nothing more than social programs: Universal government controlled health care, mortgage bailouts, reduction of carbon emissions, abandoning the people of Iraq, increased taxes on the "wealthy," allowing babies who survived abortion to die, and encouraging teens to engage in risky sexual behavior by telling them that the sex is "safe" with contraception, etc. The error of Obama is the error of Karl Marx, which, as Spe Salvi explains, is "materialism: man, in fact, is not merely the product of economic conditions, and it is not possible to redeem him purely from the outside by creating a favorable economic environment." We cannot make the same mistake as Obama. Our religion teaches us that and our federalist system of government is based on "man always remaining man, that man is free and that freedom always remains freedom for evil." Because of this truth, we must disabuse ourselves of the notion that "once the economy has been put right that everything will automatically be put right."

Free Catholic PDF's - Home / Parish / School / Bulletin Inserts

This is the type of false materialistic hope which Catholics are enjoined to reject. We have a trustworthy hope, a hope in the everlasting joy of eternal life with Christ, we hope in things which are certain, not improbable. As Catholics we know that "[t]o come to know God--the true God--means to receive hope." Catholics are not doing God's work and His hope with fellow citizens by voting for Obama's political agenda. We cannot use a political platform as justification for contradicting the clear doctrines and teachings of the Church on life. We should see this as a gift, placing our hope in economic solutions will only lead to despair, since we can never be certain of our economic condition. Furthermore, we are freed from depending on politicians like Obama to give us hope, since they will always disappoint. Pslams 146:3. Rather than accepting Obama's despair, America needs us to stand up for our faith and to remind our fellow citizens of the true hope that is offered by God's Church. Our national motto is not "In Obama We Trust" or "In Universal Health Care We Trust" but it is, thank God, "In God We Trust." It is because we trust in God that we have the strength to reject those who would invite us despair and betray our trust in God, our Faith and this country's greatest ideals.

Obama is offering solely political liberation, a liberation from material ills, as he actively works against the Christian morality which our country was built on. Our faith, as explicated by Leo XIII, teaches us that such an effort is vain: "Take away the instinct which Christian wisdom has planted and nurtured in men's hearts, take away foresight, temperance, frugality, patience and other rightful, natural habits, no matter how much [the working man] may strive, he will never achieve prosperity." Spe Salvi makes it very clear, " 'hope' is equivalent to 'faith.'" We must hope and have faith in Jesus Christ, not Barack Obama. We must remember that with or without Obama, "a distinguishing mark of Christians [is] the fact that [we] have a future," that we have a real hope. We do not need Obama to live a good life in America.

Let us not fall into bitterness, despair or animosity. Let us not depend on social programs, political parties or presidential candidates for our happiness. Rather, let us each remember this beautiful prayer by St. Thomas More, who lost his Lord Chancellorship for the sake of upholding God's law: "Give me, good Lord, a full faith, a firm hope, and a fervent charity, a love to Thee, good Lord, incomparably above the love to myself, and that I love nothing to Thy displeasure, but everything in an order to Thee."

Witness the Words of Jesus Come to Life

This is what America really needs.

---

'Help Give every Student and Teacher FREE resources for a world-class Moral Catholic Education'