America's salvation depends on Catholics

'Christ in Majesty' mosaic by Jan Henryk de Rosen in dome of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, D.C.

"The religious group that seems to be figuring most prominently in the presidential election right now is the Roman Catholic Church," wrote AP's Rachel Zoll in an article about vice presidential candidates Republican Rep. Paul Ryan and the incumbent, Democrat Joe Biden. While that one sentence is true, Ms. Zoll doesn't seem to know what makes someone truly Catholic or not. Worse yet, a vast number of Catholic voters may not know, either.

Why does this matter? According the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, 77.7 million Americans declared themselves Catholic in 2011. That's a hefty 24.9 percent of the U.S. Census Bureau's estimated population for last year, and Catholics are supposed to be the champions of human rights. However, according to Brian Burch of CatholicVote.org, 20 percent of eligible Catholics – 15 million – are not registered to vote in this crucial election.

The Catholic Church rightly condemns all forms Marxism (collectivism, communism, socialism) – but few Catholics know it. The Church also condemns human laws permitting or coercing the crime of abortion, but many Catholics ignore it. (See more in the searchable Catholic Catechism.) Yet Barack Obama and the nominally Catholic Joe Biden are imposing Marxist dictates and abortions upon the American people, while Mitt Romney and his truly Catholic running mate, Paul Ryan, want to liberate Americans by protecting our rights to life, liberty and free enterprise. In keeping with human rights, they pledge to repeal Obama's health-care law and reform insurance law.

Thus, when Ryan was named as Romney's running mate, his bishop, the Most Reverend Robert Morlino of Madison, Wisc., publicly rejoiced in a column, where he also explained why Catholics may never support intrinsic evils and further highlighted Catholic doctrine on economics and helping the poor.

"It was no shock at all for me to learn that our diocesan native son, Paul Ryan, had been chosen to be a candidate for the vice presidency of the United States," wrote Bishop Morlino. "I am proud of his accomplishments as a native son, and a brother in the faith, and my prayers go with him and especially with his family as they endure the unbelievable demands of a presidential campaign here in the United States."

To the contrary, Bill Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights recalls many bishops rebuking Biden.

Paul Ryan's bishop, Most. Rev. Robert Morlino of Madison

Catholics are duty bound to see the big the picture and vote accordingly. At this moment, all Americans are subject to President Obama's policies here – and billions more vulnerable persons are subject to his policies around the world. Here, Obama and his administration have ordered the Catholic Church, other organizations and individual citizens to pay for abortion insurance policies. Thanks to Obama, his allies in Congress and the Supreme Court, singles and families who can't afford health insurance will be taxed per person and left without health care. That's Obama's plan for helping the poor – tax them. Obamacare also empowers the government to deny health care to anyone, especially disabled persons and the elderly. And if the Romney/Ryan claims are true, Obamacare takes $716 billion from Medicare. Furthermore, companies that refuse to pay for abortion insurance – even religious institutions – will be fined $100 per day per employee, and they'll quickly be bankrupted.

But Catholics can save lives and empower Americans if we decide to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves. As Jesus says, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments" (John 14:15).

Catholics empowered Obama

In 2008, the Obama/Biden campaign tirelessly fought for the souls of Catholics and won many votes through Catholic politicians who sold out Christ for political power.

This year at the Democratic National Convention, Obama and Biden shamelessly paraded abortion speakers from Planned Parenthood and NARAL (the National Abortion Rights Action League), plus Sandra Fluke, the non-Catholic abortion/contraceptive activist and Georgetown University grad. So their message is clear. Obama and Biden reduce women's rights to being used as sexual objects, using men as sexual objects and resorting to violence if children are conceived.

Ironically, when I tell Muslims about Obama's abortion agenda, including his White House commercial for the abortion chain Planned Parenthood and his 2012 Democratic Party platform promising free abortions, they all – male and female – have the same reaction. They all open their eyes wide and ask "Whyyyyyy?" for a full five seconds because the murder of unborn babies is incomprehensible to them – as it should be to everyone.

Likewise, Father Paul Schenck of the National Pro-Life Center wrote: "My friend, Nat Hentoff, a founding editor of the Village Voice newspaper in New York City, who is a syndicated columnist for the Washington Post, a prolific commentator on the Constitution and a jazz music critic, is a left-wing atheist and thoroughly pro-life. The defense of human life is an eminently human position."

When I further tell Muslims from various countries that in 2010 Obama spent at least $18 million in Kenya campaigning for the new constitution which decriminalizes abortion and establishes Islamist courts, they are shocked because they fled Islamist tyrannies. They are appalled that Vice President Biden went to Kenya and announced: "We are hopeful, Barack Obama is hopeful, I am hopeful that you will carry out these reforms to allow money to flow."

As WND reported, Kenyan voters passed the dangerous constitution and now at least $480 million is set to "flow" from America to Kenya.

Obviously, those who vote for Obama/Biden and other abortion politicians become accessories to mass murder. Nevertheless, when I go to Catholic parishes in the Washington metro area, I see Obama/Biden bumper stickers on cars in the parking lots.

Warnings from Pope Benedict

"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. 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," wrote G.K. Chesterton in "The Everlasting Man."

Over the centuries, popes have condemned despotism and cultures of death. In April 2008, Pope Benedict XVI came the United States and warned the Catholic bishops, saying: "[I]t cannot be assumed that all Catholic citizens think in harmony with the Church's teaching on today's key ethical questions. Once again, it falls to you to ensure that the moral formation provided at every level of ecclesial life reflects the authentic teaching of the Gospel of life."

In January of this election year, Pope Benedict summoned the Catholic bishops of the United States, he warned them about coming government attacks on the Church and he commanded them to fight the good fight.

In part, the Holy Father said: "[I]t is imperative that the entire Catholic community in the United States come to realize the grave threats to the Church's public moral witness presented by a radical secularism which finds increasing expression in the political and cultural spheres."

Shortly thereafter, Kathleen Sebelius, the Catholic secretary of Health and Human Services who is forbidden to receive Holy Communion, announced Obama's deadly mandates and every single Catholic bishop in the U.S. announced that his diocese would not comply. Since then, some 50 Catholic dioceses, institutions and businesses filed lawsuits against the Obama administration. As WND reported, a federal court ruled that the Newland family, Catholic owners of Hercules Industries in Denver, doesn't have to comply with Obama's immoral orders.

On Sept. 17, Obama attempted to counter the protests of Catholics, other Christians and Jews by posting a video claiming his "unwavering" support for "religious freedom." Days later on Sept. 25, he contested the Newland family's religious freedom in federal appeals court.

While the savagery of abortion isn't the Obama administration's only threat to life and liberty, we have a holocaust on our hands because at least 55.5 million innocent little Americans have been gruesomely slaughtered in the names of freedom and choice since the Supreme Court's ruling on Roe v. Wade.

Back in 2006, the World Health Organization assembled reports showing that oral contraceptives are carcinogens. So with Obama mandating free contraceptives, a larger environmental disaster looms because synthetic hormones in contraceptives are poisoning water supplies, thereby neutering wildlife, rendering humans infertile and increasing the risk of cancer.

The late papal adviser Father John Hardon, S.J., now up for canonization, said abortion victims are martyrs and keenly observed: "Most zealous Catholics are not as well organized or cooperative as those in the world. One of the hardest things is to get orthodox Catholics to cooperate. For their own projects, God will bless them, but they are no match for the organized efforts of those on the other side. This is a weakness."

The "fiercely pro-life" Catholic Judge Andrew Napolitano concurred when he said: "If Catholics kept the faith, Roe versus Wade would never have happened."

So Catholics, do you love Christ? And do you love your neighbors as yourselves?

I hope so because, as Bishop Thomas John Paprocki of Springfield, Ill., says, your own salvation is at stake.