What Type of Voter Are You?

10-23-2022Pastor's LetterFr. John Bonavitacola

Dear Friends,
We are coming up on an Election, time to vote. As usual the campaigners and their sycophants are giving you reasons to vote.

The first is the ‘fear vote’. This one is tried and true and directed at you Sun City types of voter. “They are going to take away your Social Security and you will lose your Medicare.” If you vote the wrong way the Sword of Damocles will fall, for sure, really, this time. Sometimes called “the life as you know it is over” vote.

Then there is the fantasy reason to vote. Everything is fine, the economy is strong, don’t believe those naysayers and especially don’t believe your lying eyes when you fill up your grocery cart or your gas tank. This reason is a nice buffer from those who prefer to have a deficient contact with reality. Also known as the Alice in Wonderland voter: “I can believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

Of course, more recently there is the “vote for me because I HATE ‘he who must not be named’ more than anyone else.” This is the odium/animus rationale for voting. With this motivation you can vote for the guy who hates the guy you hate more than anyone ever hated anyone, ever.

And there is a fantastic new reason this year: and it’s the fantastic vote. I’m so fantastic, adorable and lovable that I don’t really need to campaign, speak on the issues or policy choices and certainly not debate my opponent. I am so wonderful and that’s all you need to know. This vote makes you feel really good about yourself. Sometimes called the “snowiest of snowflakes” vote.

Of course, none of those are good reasons to vote. This is why the US Bishops have issued “Faithful Citizenship” ( www.faithfulcitizenship.org ) as a guide to help form your conscience and supply it with the principles of our Faith that can inform your voting reasons. The bishops want us to be informed, not opinionated Catholics. A big part of that requires us to be informed about the social teaching of our Faith and to remember that not all issues are equal. Some matter more and some are more foundational. So informed means first being formed by your faith. It requires you to put your faith filter on first before your political filter. That is hard to do when we are living at a time when just about every issue has been politicized.

Over 60 years ago, Archbishop Fulton Sheen said, “A nation always gets the kinds of politicians it deserves- if a time ever comes when the religious Jews, Protestants, Catholics have to suffer under a totalitarian state which would deny them the right to worship God according to their conscience it will be because for years they thought it made no difference what kind of people represented them and because they abandoned the spiritual for the realm of the temporal.”

Be clear on this: no elected politician can cure what ails America, only God can. The Kingdom of God, as history demonstrates defeated the Kingdom of Caesar but not by conventual means rather by the victory of God’s love and power over the greater empire of death. So vote with the values of the Kingdom of God in mind. It is those values that shaped a society where liberty, justice and equality held sway.

Love, Fr. John B.

PS This year RH Johnson Rec center will not be a Polling Place. The addresses of the SCW polling locations are listed in the Bulletin. If you receive a mail-in ballot but would rather vote in person, just take your Ballot to your Polling location, where it will be destroyed, and you can vote in person. Also if you want to learn more about the candidates and the positions they hold on various issues a good resource is www.azvoterguide.org.

Also you can watch this video from the Arizona Catholic Conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J_FTbPgVLI

An issue that takes on greater importance now that Roe has been overturned on the federal level is the election of State Judges. You can go here to read more about the various judges up for election or retention: https://www.azvoterguide.com/judges/. Admittedly it is a slog to go through but this is where the rub now meets the road.

Also you can research judges and their ratings here: https://www.azcourts.gov.