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An Important Election
The November US elections could be the most important of the past 100 years, providing an indicator of whether the country will seek to cultivate a culture of life or one of death.

As this issue of Catholic World Report reaches your hands, the US elections should be less than a week away. Some observers have pegged this election, especially the presidential ballot, as the most important of the last 100 years, keeping in mind all of the decisions the next president will have to make, not the least of which may be the nomination of three, or perhaps four, Supreme Court justices.

Some of our non-US readers may ask themselves why they should concern themselves with the election, except perhaps those who will no longer have to worry about cruise missiles being lobbed at them to distract the American people from presidential scandals. But, as has become readily apparent over the past decade, the US, as the sole superpower, is now the 800-pound gorilla of world affairs in economic, security, and cultural matters. Those familiar with Eastern Europe before and after the lifting of the Iron Curtain testify to the rapid changes in culture, including the massive importation of such wonderful American products as television shows, movies, and pornography. The influence of American culture is spreading, and the pace is increasing, not the least from the Internet, which is both a wonderful and a frightening tool.

So what has the next president and Congress to do with that? Simply put, as American culture declines, it spreads that decadence throughout the world. And where does this decline show its greatest effect in American government? Principally, it is in the regulatory activities of federal agencies and rulings from judicial benches.

Over the past eight years, the Clinton administration and its appointments to the federal judiciary have consistently created an environment hostile to families and traditional values, and there are signs that a Gore administration would likely continue that policy. Of course, there are no guarantees that a Bush administration would fare much better, at least as far as Supreme Court nominees go. Justices appointed by President George Bush, the elder, have voted with the liberal majority on several occasions.

Let’s examine just a few of the decisions made by the Supreme Court this year. In Stenberg v. Carhart, the court voted 5-4 to allow the continued murder of infants as long as their heads remain in their mothers’ womb, i.e. partial-birth abortion. At the same time, the court voted 5-4 to allow the Boy Scouts of America to keep their policy that bans homosexuals from casual contact with America’s sons as scout volunteer leaders. The margin on both of these rulings was one vote. One courageous justice could have ended the barbaric infanticide of partial-birth abortion and drawn a line in the sand that told abortion supporters, “Here and no further.” And one weaker justice could have told the Boy Scouts, a bastion of traditional values, that they should begin designing a new pink triangle merit badge.

The most basic principle
In October, Bishop James McHugh of Rockville Centre, New York, issued new guidelines to parish priests and other Catholic leaders in his diocese that outlined his policies regarding pro-abortion politicians. Bishop McHugh starts by saying:

We are not just private citizens but representatives of the Catholic Church. We have a concern for human dignity and human rights, for the sanctity of life of every person from conception till natural death, and for maintaining and protecting the common good. . . . Our participation in the electoral process is an opportunity to build “the culture of life.”

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