The Prophet Chesterton on the recent election

Last updated on: November 11, 2016 at 12:36 pm by Mark Shea

The Prophet Chesterton on the recent election 2016-11-11T12:36:18-07:00 Mark Shea

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If there is one fact we really can prove, from the history that we really do know, it is that despotism can be a development, often a late development and very often indeed the end of societies that have been highly democratic. A despotism may almost be defined as a tired democracy. As fatigue falls on a community, the citizens are less inclined for that eternal vigilance which has truly been called the price of liberty; and they prefer to arm only one single sentinel to watch the city while they sleep.

“Yes you will!” cried the crowd at the RNC convention, investing all hope in the Idol at the center of the Cult of Personality.

A reading from the book of 1 Samuel:

When Samuel became old, he made his sons judges over Israel. The name of his firstborn son was Joel, and the name of his second, Abijah; they were judges in Beer-sheba. Yet his sons did not walk in his ways, but turned aside after gain; they took bribes and perverted justice.

Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, and said to him, “Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways; now appoint for us a king to govern us like all the nations.” But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to govern us.” And Samuel prayed to the LORD. And the LORD said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. According to all the deeds which they have done to me, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you. Now then, listen to their voice; only, you shall solemnly warn them, and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.”

So Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking a king from him.* He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots; and he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants. He will take your menservants and maidservants, and the best of your cattle and your donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves; but the LORD will not answer you in that day.” (1 Sa 8:1–18).

What is so amazing is how completely those who, just a few months ago, were telling me Trump is necessary evil, are now telling me that all who object to him in any way have to shut up and are now eagerly ready to defend and bless everything he says and does–and everything done in his name. We now have a prolife movement that is *earnestly* defending an act of desecration done on his behalf and excoriating those Catholics–including the bishop who rightly condemned that act of desecration–as enemies of God.

There’s something archetypal about that. It illustrates *everything* wrong with a prolife movement that has largely morphed into a politicized heresy at odds with the teaching of the Church. The unborn has now *literally* been made into a human shield for the idolatry of a man who embodies qualities, ideas, and agendas radically opposed to the gospel and the anti-abortion-but-not-prolife movement will henceforth spend its time and energy increasingly defending, not the unborn, but every evil he says and does.

Meanwhile, the actual prolife movement will advocate being more prolife, not less. We will advocate defense of human life from conception to natural death and simply agree with, not battle, the Church on the fullness of her teaching, not only about abortion, but about unjust war, torture, a living wage, the death penalty, refugees, and the rest of the gospel.

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