On Politics, the Church, and Satan, by Dr. Jeff Mirus

By Dr. Jeff Mirus, Catholic Culture, Sept. 18, 2020

Jeffrey Mirus holds a Ph.D. in intellectual history from Princeton University. A co-founder of Christendom College, he also pioneered Catholic Internet services. He is the founder of Trinity Communications and CatholicCulture.org. See full bio.

Two recent news stories confirm deep flaws in the Catholic Church’s practical commitment to objective moral norms in the United States (and by extension, throughout the West). By “practical commitment”, I do not mean official Church teaching but practical decisions by huge numbers of Catholics, both high and low, to favor and support social movements and political platforms that advocate objectively immoral laws. Again, these decisions are typically based not on Church teaching but on culturally-borrowed perceptions of which causes and candidates are “humane”, or “caring”, or “nice”.

The two news stories I am using as indicators, though they are hardly fresh news in and of themselves, are these:

• Survey shows trends in US Catholic voting: I recommend clicking through to the original Pew Research Center report, which conveniently highlights under eight headings the evidence that Catholic voters are divided along party lines rather than uniform in their application of Catholic principles. …

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