Watching the election results last night was very painful.
The one piece of consolation for BCI in the results was that in Massachusetts, we managed to defeat Question 2, physician-assisted suicide — 51% voted no vs 49% who voted yes. Praise God for that triumph over evil. Kudos to all who worked to defeat it, including Cardinal O’Malley and the team from the archdiocese. BCI spoke to and heard from people working to oppose the measure in recent weeks, and found it troubling that the compelling moral arguments against physician-assisted suicide worked less well in persuading people to oppose it vs talking about how the law was flawed in its wording. Still, we are very glad it was defeated, and we hope it does not come back again.
On a local level, we were very disappointed to see pro-abort candidates Elizabeth Warren and Joe Kennedy III win.
Of course, the worse outcome was seeing the most pro-abortion President in our nation’s history get re-elected, and seeing how voters who consider themselves Catholic helped that victory.
Catholics represent more than a quarter of the electorate. According to this Politico article, and this one from the Catholic Sentinel, Obama won Catholic voters 50 percent to 47 percent, though Catholics who attend Mass weekly seem to have favored Romney. Obama also won 70 percent of the Jewish vote, down from 78 percent in 2008. Romney carried Protestant voters by a 13-point margin, 56 percent to 43 percent. Here’s more from the Huffington Post:
Obama carried Electoral College votes in several battleground states where religious voters were key parts of the electorate, including Catholic-heavy Ohio, evangelical-heavy Iowa, and Virignia. Another swing stage with a large population of religious voters, Florida, was too close to call by early Wednesday morning.
Initial exit polls — which are expected to change through Wednesday as more results come in — showed a mix bag of support for Obama and Romney among religious voters. Among people who said they attend religious services weekly, for example, exit polls indicated Romney took a significant lead. But among voters who said they attend services “occasionally” or “never,” Obama had large leads.
Early exit poll results also showed Obama losing the overall white evangelical vote to Romney, but winning the overall Catholic vote by just a few points. Among Jewish voters, initial exit polls showed Obama having an overwhelming lead over Romney, but preliminary results also showed him winning a smaller percentage of the Jewish vote than he did four years ago.
And in Maryland and Maine, early reports indicated that ballot initatives that would legalize same-sex marriage — efforts that were strongly opposed by conservative pastors — would pass.
Obama may have eked out a victory, but he won it ugly, and his first term will go down as one of the great squandered boons in American political history. Rarely has a president come to office with such a reservoir of goodwill; rarely has any done so much to poison it. To cling to office, he spent a vast fortune trashing his opponent — a ferocious campaign that epitomized everything he once claimed to oppose.
The last four years changed Obama from the face of “hope and change” to the candidate of “whatever it takes.” What will the next four years bring?
Alas, despite the bad news, we pick ourselves up and carry on. Much remains in this battle. A Post-Election 2012 Webcast featuring Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life will take place tonight from 9-10pm and should be a very worthwhile listen. We can also especially take comfort in the scripture readings for today.
From Philippians 2: 12-18, we hear:
My beloved, obedient as you have always been, not only when I am present but all the more now when I am absent, work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
For God is the one who, for his good purpose, works in you both to desire and to work. Do everything without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent,
children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine like lights in the world, as you hold on to the word of life,
so that my boast for the day of Christ may be that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.
In Psalm 27, we hear:
The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom should I fear? The LORD is my life’s refuge; of whom should I be afraid?One thing I ask of the LORD; this I seek: To dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, That I may gaze on the loveliness of the LORD and contemplate his temple.I believe that I shall see the bounty of the LORD, in the land of the living. Wait for the LORD with courage; be stouthearted, and wait for the LORD.
The Gospel, Luke 14:25-33 says:
“Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.”
So keep praying, hold onto the Word of God, wait for the Lord with courage, but remember at the same time, we all have to carry our own crosses and follow Christ.
We close today by repeating this Election Prayer to Mary, which is even more meaningful today:
O Most Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Mercy, at this most critical time, we entrust the United States of America to your loving care.
Most Holy Mother, we beg you to reclaim this land for the glory of your Son. Overwhelmed with the burden of the sins of our nation, we cry to you from the depths of our hearts and seek refuge in your motherly protection.
Look down with mercy upon us and touch the hearts of our people. Open our minds to the great worth of human life and to the responsibilities that accompany human freedom.
Free us from the falsehoods that lead to the evil of abortion and threaten the sanctity of family life. Grant our country the wisdom to proclaim that God’s law is the foundation on which this nation was founded, and that He alone is the True Source of our cherished rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
O Merciful Mother, give us the courage to reject the culture of death and the strength to build a new Culture of Life.
Boston Catholic Insider 
DON’T STOP PRAYING NOW!!! MANY STARTED TOO LATE BEFORE. WE SHOULD HAVE BEEN PRAYING AND ENCOURAGED TO DO SO MANY YEARS AGO, ACCORDING TO POPE LEO’S LOCUTION AND THE ST MICHAEL PRAYER MORE FERVENTLY FOR YEARS. WE WERE ALSO ALERTEDD AT FATIMA AND THE BLESSED VIRGIN’S MESSAGES AND OUR SHEPHERD’S LET US DOWN. PEOPLE WAKE UP AND KEEP THOSE ROSARIES GOING UP TO HEAVEN AND WE CAN CHANGE OUR “LOT” HERE ON EARTH!!!!
PLEASE GOD ENLIGHTEN YOUR “SHEEP” AND HAVE MERCY ON US!!!!
Well we squeaked out a victory on assisted suicide, and I suppose we should be grateful, yet one side of me wishes we lost. Perhaps only then would the Church in Boston be awoken from its stupor and see the truly hideous culture of death that has been wrought by decades of making nice with the enemy.
Mad Mom, I’m with you. We may have gotten a win for PAS. However, we still have to try to exist 4 more years with Obama and his sickos.
We could say that this was thanks to George Soros, but why stop there. Where was Cardinal O’Malley when John Connors, a member of the Cardinal O’Malley’s team, when he was hosting 2 fund raisersfor Obama, one of which was on the same day as the Cardinal was doing the town hall meeting on TV. Mr. Connors also finds money to fund an abortion clinic in a major Boston hospital, which he named in honor of his deceased mother. Wouldn’t that just make a mother proud????
Another very bad move was from Cardinal Dolan. He as aksed to reneg on his inivtation to Obama to speak at the Al Smith Dinner, but he didn’t listen. Now, we have 4 more years of this astounding evil. We have only ourselves to blame. Me, because even though I am passionate about these issues, I wasn’t able to do more.
When will we all get the message???????
Your friend in Christ.
Looks like the “Death with Dignity” folks have conceded defeat:
http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/x1440176498/Question-2-advocates-concede-death-with-dignity-fight
They said, “Our grassroots campaign was fueled by thousands of people from across this state, but outspent five to one by groups opposed to individual choice.”
Opponents of the question argued the question was flawed and succeeded in reversing public opinion on what was a few months ago a question that looked likely to pass.
Roman Catholic groups in Boston and around the country backed the opposition with about $2 million in campaign funds.
“We believe the voters came to see this as a flawed approach to end of life care, lacking in the most basic safeguards,” said Rosanne Bacon Meade, chairwoman of the Committee Against Physician Assisted Suicide.
I wish Rosanne Meade had just said “voters came to see this as a flawed approach to end of life care.” Period. End of story. Does she mean to imply that if the Death with Dignity folks come back in a few years with a modified bill to help people kill themselves by swallowing 100 lethal pills – but just with better basic safeguards – she’ll be OK with it then? Crazy.
Much appreciation to BCI for helping carry the torch on this important issue! I forwarded several of your blog posts to my liberal friends and believe it made a difference since a number of them changed their minds in the final weeks.
When Catholics talk about Death with Dignity .. this is what WE mean.
I think that you have to look at the true motivation of the Catholic bishops. I believe that a majority are extremely sympathetic to the views of President Obama in regard to “social justice”. Abortion and the views of women are less a consideration in the move presaged by Malachi Martin in his writings of world socialism. I have recently found out that there are “gay priest associations” active in most dioceses. What do you think that this says about the preaching of the Gospel?
the sad truth of this is that if ” catholics ” had simply voted in a way that was consistent with their faith, and in accordance with the official teachings of the bishops and the magisterium the result of the election for president would have resulted in a far different outcome….it would not have been close….how anyone who self identifies as a catholic could check the box for the current president is simply incoherent. there is a serious crisis of faith in our church today….we need to pray for our church leaders and for ourselves so that we can become more faithful to the wonderful faith that God has given us through his son’s sacrifice for us on the cross. May God have mercy on this country and all of us.
tryingtofigurethisout,
You are absolutely correct. Barack Obama got 60,459,962 popular votes (50.4%) while Romney got 57,653,973 (48.1%) . That’s 118M votes in total. If Catholics are 27% of the electorate, then that means Catholics represented almost 32M votes in this election (27% of 118M). According to BCI’s post, then 16M Catholics voted for Obama (50% of the 32M who voted) and 15M Catholics voted for Romney (47% of the 32M who voted). If just half of the 16M “Catholics” who voted for Obama had voted for Romney instead, then Obama would have finished with 52.4M popular votes and Romney would have had 65.6M votes–a popular vote landslide, which would have also swung the electoral vote to Romney. Wishful thinking.
Just be aware that there are probably at least 10MM more votes that will be trickled out in reporting for the next several weeks (this is what happens now since the year 2000, as counting gets more rigorous), perhaps even more. The late-reporting votes tend to break more Democratic than Republican.
According to Libertarian Party Candidate Gary Johnson, he received 1.2 million (point-maker’s) votes. This is not a negative against the democratic process because some days I would like to become a party unto my own. But, those 1.2 million would not have voted 3rd party if they were happy with party in power; so, I have to assume they would have been Romney votes and there are several other parties which also received those point-maker votes; so, who knows!
Thank you, God, that You bestowed free will on us. We are not sheep but thinking human beings. Some of us hold different opinions. Thank you, God, for loving us anyway.
Standing in front of 1055 Commonwealth Ave. on Nov. 6th, Election Day, there was little talk of Death With Dignity. It was about Life instead of death for a child in the womb.. Amid the comments in opposition to the sign I was holding showing a 19-week unborn child was one from an individual who paused to view it. He said that God was in favor of aborting children, because they go to Heaven – or at least to limbo. Do we have work to do?
BCI, your comments are moving and genuine.
I question your judgment on the sources you use, however.
Citing Politico and the Huffington Post as your go-to sites for information is like asking
the Archdiocesan Director of Social Services and Health Care to be your official spokesman.
Jay, Thanks for your positive feedback on our post. You raise a fair point about our citing Politico and the Huffington Post, but the comparison to the Archdiocesan Secretary for Social Services and Healthcare really hurt. Ouch! Did you notice the post time was just after 6am? When we arose early this morning to write the post, those were the only sources publishing exit poll data about the Catholic vote in the election. The underlying CNN exit poll data is accurate, even if we may not care for the source that published it.
Here is a better reference, at Catholic Culture, that came out much later today, to basically the same CNN exit poll data, plus or minus a percent:
“Obama Won Catholic Vote…”
http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=16173
The polls shows that 50% of voters who identified themselves as Catholics voted for Obama, and 48% for Republican nominee Mitt Romney. The CNN poll did not distinguish between active and lapsed Catholics.
Protestant voters swung heavily toward Romney, the CNN polls showed, with 57% choosing the Republican and only 42% voting to re-elect Obama.
Among voters who said they had no religious affiliation, Obama was the overwhelming favorite, with a commanding 70-26% edge.
The CNN exit polls showed a clear preference for Romney (59- 39%) among voters who attended church services weekly, and an even more pronounced tilt toward Obama (62-34%) among those who never attended services.
Forgive my harsh comparison. No one deserves that fate.
I wait, perhaps in vain, when an orthodox Catholic source will have the resources to provide that kind of information to the likes of a BCI.
For all its lack of financial independence, Catholic Culture does a good job indeed of news gathering.
Jay,
Not a problem, and thank you for clarifying. Indeed, no one deserves that fate!
We do the best we can here, and appreciate your positive feedback about the kind of information we offer at BCI.
Regarding Mary’s remarks concerning Rosanne Bacon Meade’s position concerning the Death With Dignity vote, when Rosanne Bacon(before she married Peter Meade) was president of the Mass. Teachers Association(MTA) in 1990, she prevented the MTA delegates from voting on my resolution to protect the innocent lives of babies in the womb. I had gone through all of the meetings required by the MTA rules to have this resolution voted on. I was warned that “There is no MTA policy in existence concerning “respect and protection for the life of innocent human beings”. It is my understanding that the MTA has always felt that this is a personal decision and does not want to take a position concerning this issue.”(letter from Andrew Linebaugh,Staff consultant to MTA Resolutions Committee,1/30/1990). I continued my efforts and presented this resolution at the Annual Meeting at the Castle,at the Park Plaza,Boston in May 1990. Rosanne interfered before the vote could take place and spent considerable time praising Planned Parenthood for all of the support they gave to the MTA. Then when my resolution was proposed and supported by 3 teachers, a decision was made to decide if my resolution could be proposed for a vote of the delegates. The decision was NO. Therefore Rosanne prevented a vote on my resolution. For this reason, I question the intent of
Rosanne Bacon Meade’s strategy supposedly in the name of protection of the right to life of human beings from the womb to the tomb.
ay 1990.
The message was drilled home in our parish week after week, and in parishes across the state, yet in spite of knowing the grim facts about Q2, many parishioners still failed to recognize the evil of this measure. As people exited our church this past Sunday, we had materials to hand out per order of the Archd. The hostility from some who had only just received the Eucharist was extraordinary. Please remember, even non-Catholics are on our side. Even in the worst battles, you may find more reliable trench-mates from other ranks of humanity, than those we “assume” to share our Faith.
If the amount of money that was spent on defeating Question 2 by the Archdiocese was spent on educating the faithful on where candidates stand on the issues , we would not have support for abortion or gay marriage at the state house or for that matter maybe in the White House. As long as the information is non-partisian, the Church is allowed to spend money on the issues and they can distribute the educational materials IN CHURCH, just as the Evangelicals do and did.
Good Work Cardinal Sean.
Let’s see you
win the Liberal Media: They won the election!!
At lease we have Fox News–Fair and Balanced.
Reply to Patricia.
I experienced the same thing in my parish. While at the door of my church there were 3 women and one was saying how wonderful John Kerry’s speach was a the Dem convention.
I stepped over to them and told the woman talking that you can’t be a true practicing Catholic and vote for this administration. She said we’d have to agree to disagree. I said nothing doing, you are absolutely wrong to vote for this party.
Sometimes I wonder if they go to church just because that’s the way theywerebrought up and vote Dem for the same reason. There doesn’t seem to be any direct connection for them.
I remember reading that Fr. Marx, founder of HLI, once said that the bishops were the biggest obstacle standing in the way of his work.
It is beyond unbelievable that so many Catholics would vote for the culture of death. The political Left has completely and utterly neutralized the Church as a political force in this country; it has even begun to win a slight majority of Catholic votes. People obviously do not understand what the left has in mind for them, or what the left’s agenda with regard to religion is.
It seems to me that the Church must have been infiltrated by leftists over the years, many of whom have advanced to the episcopate. The USCCB is a veritable organ of the Democrat party. The CCHD has funded radical left groups for decades now, and continues to do so. Are the bishops just brain-dead, or is something else at work?
“You will know them by their fruits.”
Let’s follow the instruction of Pope Benedict – and read the “CATECHISM of the CATHOLIC CHURCH, Second Edition”, and ask all others to do the same.
We don’t need to be told by our Bishop or our Pastor.
Go to ‘Year of Faith’ page on : http://whatcatholicsreallybelieve.com
or search: ” What Catholics REALLY Believe SOURCE “.
CLEARLY based upon the election outcome, many Catholics do not know their faith.
Exit polls across the USA showed – 50 % of Catholics voted for Obama,
65 % of Latinos voted for Obama.
Pray & Educate. Pray & Educate. Pray & Educate.