{"id":115981,"date":"2016-08-14T09:31:58","date_gmt":"2016-08-14T13:31:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aleteia.org\/?post_type=post&p=115981"},"modified":"2016-08-14T09:31:58","modified_gmt":"2016-08-14T13:31:58","slug":"chaput-asks-what-are-we-to-do-this-election-cycle-as-catholic-voters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2016\/08\/chaput-asks-what-are-we-to-do-this-election-cycle-as-catholic-voters\/","title":{"rendered":"Chaput asks: ‘What are we to do this election cycle as Catholic voters?’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

The archbishop of Philadelphia, Charles Chaput, offers some thoughts in his column<\/a><\/strong> this week:<\/p>\n

My column this week is a collection of personal comments.\u00a0 Read it as thoughts from a brother in the faith, not as teachings from an archbishop.<\/p>\n

Presidential campaigns typically hit full stride after Labor Day in an election year.\u00a0 But 2016 is a year in which two prominent Catholics \u2013 a sitting vice president, and the next vice presidential nominee of his party \u2014 both seem to publicly ignore or invent the content of their Catholic faith as they go along.\u00a0 And meanwhile, both candidates for the nation\u2019s top residence, the White House, have astonishing flaws.<\/p>\n

This is depressing and liberating at the same time.\u00a0 Depressing, because it\u2019s proof of how polarized the nation has become.\u00a0 Liberating, because for the honest voter, it\u2019s much easier this year to ignore the routine tribal loyalty chants of both the Democratic and Republican camps.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been a registered independent for a long time and never more happily so than in this election season.\u00a0 Both major candidates are \u2013 what\u2019s the right word? so problematic<\/em>\u2013 that neither is clearly better than the other.<\/p>\n

As Forbes magazine pointed out some months ago, the Republican candidate is worth roughly $4.5 billion.\u00a0 The Democratic candidate is worth roughly $45 million.\u00a0 Compare that with the average American household, which is worth about $144,000.\u00a0 The median U.S. income is about $56,000.\u00a0 Neither major candidate lives anywhere near the solar system where most Americans live, work and raise families.\u00a0 Nonetheless, we\u2019re asked to trust them.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a big ask.\u00a0 One candidate \u2014 in the view of a lot of people \u2014 is an eccentric businessman of defective ethics whose bombast and buffoonery make him inconceivable as president.\u00a0 And the other \u2013 in the view of a lot of people \u2013 should be under criminal indictment.\u00a0 The fact that she\u2019s not \u2013 again, in the view of a lot of people \u2014 proves Orwell\u2019s Animal Farm<\/em>principle that \u201call animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.\u201d<\/p>\n

So what are we to do this election cycle as Catholic<\/em> voters?\u00a0 Note that by \u201cCatholic,\u201d I mean people who take their faith seriously; people who actually believe what the Catholic faith holds to be true; people who place it first in their loyalty, thoughts and actions; people who submit their lives to Jesus Christ, to Scripture and to the guidance of the community of belief we know as the Church.<\/p>\n

Anyone else who claims the Catholic label is simply fooling himself or herself \u2014 and even more importantly, misleading others.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He goes on to offer some advice for discerning how to vote. Read it.<\/strong>\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The archbishop of Philadelphia, Charles Chaput, offers some thoughts in his column this week: My column this week is a collection of personal comments.\u00a0 Read it as thoughts from a brother in the faith, not as teachings from an archbishop. Presidential campaigns typically hit full stride after Labor Day in an election year.\u00a0 But 2016 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":13730,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nChaput asks: 'What are we to do this election cycle as Catholic voters?'<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The archbishop of Philadelphia, Charles Chaput, offers some thoughts in his column this week: My column this week is a collection of personal comments.\u00a0\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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