Hillary vs. Ven. Fulton Sheen

Dear
Hillary,

You are only running for president. The position of
God is already filled.  Despite your April 23 speech at the
Women in the World Summit, you cannot overturn his 5^th Commandment: Thou
Shalt Not Kill.

You will not be able
to make good on your pledge to change religious beliefs when you said: “Far too many women are denied access
to reproductive health care and safe childbirth, and laws don’t count for much
if they’re not enforced. Rights have to exist in practice — not just on paper.
Laws have to be backed up with resources and political will. And deep-seated
cultural codes, religious beliefs, and structural biases have to be
changed.”

I suggest removing your goal to “change deep-seated
religious beliefs” from your to-do list. Otherwise, you will fail.  Christians die for their faith. Do you know
what that means?  We might suffer for you,
Hillary, but we cannot become pro-abortion for you.

Ven. Archbishop Fulton Sheen put politics and religion
in perspective in his book Characters of the
Passion written in 1947.  He considered the characters that played a
role in the Passion of Jesus Christ and related them to our modern
world. The lessons are remarkably relevant today.

Sheen wrote: The Church does not interfere in
politics.  If by interference in politics is meant judging or condemning a
philosophy of life that makes the party or state, or the class, or the race,
the source of all rights, and that usurps the soul and enthrones party over
conscience and denies those basic rights for which the war was fought, then the answer is emphatically Yes! 

“The Church does judge such a philosophy.  But
when it does this, it is not interfering with politics, for such politics is no
longer politics but theology. When a state sets itself up as absolute as God,
when it claims sovereignty over the soul, when it destroys freedom of
conscience and freedom of religion, then the state has ceased to be political
and has begun to be a counter-Church.” 

The Church teaches that the state is supreme in
temporal matters.  But when politics make religious proclamations such as
women have the right to end the life of their unborn babies – politics enters religion
and claims supremacy over the human soul.  Voting and campaigning against
candidates and issues that compete with religion, is not against politics but
against a counter-religion.

As Sheen reminded his reader: “It was Jesus Christ
who suffered under Pontius Pilate; it was not Pontius Pilate who suffered under
Jesus Christ.  The grave danger today is not religion in politics but
politics in religion.” Christ was always and is forever our example. 
He did not deliver himself from the power of the state although he ultimately
held all power.  

Sheen equated God’s truths with true freedom: “The
Christ Who suffered under Pontius Pilate signed Pilate’s death warrant; it was
not Pilate who signed Christ’s.  Christ’s Church will be attacked, scorned,
and ridiculed, but it will never be destroyed…. The bold fact the enemies of
God must face is that modern civilization has conquered the world, but in doing
so has lost its soul.  And in losing its soul it will lose the very world
it gained. Even our own so-called liberal culture in the United States, which
has tried to avoid complete secularization by leaving little zones of
individual freedom, is in danger of forgetting that these zones were preserved
only because religion was in their soul.  And as religion fades so will
freedom, for only where the spirit of God is, is there liberty.”

Hillary, true Christians
will not change their beliefs for you, but perhaps you can change your politics
for God.  You once invoked God when you opposed same-sex
marriage. “Marriage
has historic, religious, and moral content that goes back to the beginning of
time, and I think a marriage is as a marriage has always been, between a man
and a woman,” you said in 1996. Now, you say something very different.
          Free thinkers not connected to over 2,000 years of Church teaching can come
to opposite conclusions over time.  We
cannot.  It’s not a code or bias, it is
our faith in Jesus Christ that is immovable. 
Muslims countries also ban abortion, so this passion for life is not
Christian alone.   Thinking you can delete
thousands of years of religious teaching puts your grip on reality in a questionable
light.  How do you imagine annihilating
such teaching from our lives?   Stop questioning religion and question yourself.  The answers might surprise you.
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