Time Immortal

A lot of Catholic opinion I’ve been reading has tended toward being rather glum at the victory of Barack Hussein Obama in the recent American presidential race…and with good reason, given Obama’s strong support for abortion…even for its most vile methods.

This is, after all, the man who promised to make FOCA into law if at all possible, and then as one of his first acts upon taking office. Not only would this legislation make partial-birth abortion legal again and remove the need for parental notification in the case of minors attempting to procure an abortion; there’s a very good chance that FOCA would also abolish freedom of conscience protection for doctors and nurses who want nothing to do with abortion.

For Catholics, that’s pretty much the definition of “problematic.”

But in spite of that, the general approach that I’ve seen on Catholic blogs and news sites has been to look on President-elect Obama with an air of charity and prayer. John C. Wright’s reflection that this is a time to set factions aside, in particular, resonated with me:

Let us reflect on the duties enjoined upon a free man under a republican form of government in these times; and next on the duties of a philosopher; and finally on the duties of a Christian.

First, our duty as citizens of a democratic republic is to affirm our loyalty to the will of the majority. The losers form rank and file behind the winners in a democracy. Everyone had a chance to vote; but the bargain is that you agree to abide by the outcome, and that agreement is implicit in the act of voting. That is the price you pay for democracy, my fellow sovereign citizens.¹ Anything less erodes the sovereignty of the people. We are at war, and we have a new Commander-in-Chief. During wartime is not the time to diminish the authority of the leadership. It is better, for the sake of obedience and cohesion, to obey a bad leader than to follow the fractures of party faction.

Second, the duty of a philosopher is to regard adversity with Olympian detachment, if not stoicism, and to offer that obedience to the laws that logic and right reason commands. Socrates drank hemlock rather than disobey the laws placed above him, and died with the dignity of a philosopher, the courage of a soldier. Do you wish to live a life free from the misery folly brings? Then you must study philosophy and temper your passions. Can no modern man follow the ancient models? Are we to be found wanting in such virtue, when the yoke of the laws under which we labor are so much lighter than this?

Third, the duty of Christian men is to obey the authorities placed above us. “Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation” (Romans 13:2).

My brothers in Christ, do we take these words of Holy Scripture seriously? As far as I know, there was no revised version of the Bible printed up during the Enlightenment that left out the inconvenient passage after the fashion of Luther scuttling the inconvenient the Book of the Maccabees. This verse was written in a century which also saw Imperial Rome persecuting Christians in the bloodiest fashion the ancient world knew — the faithful being torn to pieces by wild beasts as a popular entertainment, or tied to stakes covered in pitch and ignited as screaming torches for the amusement of the Emperor’s court. Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s was the command of Our Lord, who submitted to a kangaroo court, and who was handed to the tormentors appease popular tumult. Obama is not the Messiah, but neither is he Nero.

No less poignant than the above is the response of the Church herself, as Archbishop Donald Wuerl called upon Catholics to offer their prayers for the upcoming presidency of Mr. Obama, and that his eyes might be opened and his mind given wisdom as he takes on his role as leader.

And this is especially true of Obama’s pro-abortion stance; may his eyes be opened in Christ Jesus, the better to perceive the necessity of preserving the unborn — the most precious, fragile, and vulnerable of all people — from harm.

The point, I guess, is to do all things with grace, and if not with grace then at least with charity. As Obama’s fans and zealots denigrate and insult all those over whom they have emerged triumphant, our response must be to humbly submit to the guidance and wisdom of the Lord; if an unjust time is upon us, then we must confront it prayerfully.

I speak here in a tone which implies that I am thinking about this issue as though I were American, as though Obama were about to become my head of state. I am not, and he is not. But I am thinking in an air of unity with my brothers and sisters in the Church in the U.S., who must confront what is to come.

And for them, my prayer is charity, and grace.

(P.S. don’t miss Wright’s commentary on St. Barbara!)

Update: Welcome, Steynians!

1) in this, good Reader, conservatives must succeed, and then in a way that puts to shame, by way of demonstration, the raving madmen and madwomen on the Left whose very existence hinged — or seemed to hinge — upon casting Bush and Cheney as incarnations of pure evil and malice.