Catholic vote

Election campaign is getting heated these days with lots of mud thrown at each opponent. No time is wasted for candidates questioning the morals held by each opponents. This candidate is a womanizer, this candidate has secret bank accounts in Swiss banks and this candidate promises to kill everyone who violates the law. People get easily affected with these rumors, and they tend to switch sides and vote for a candidate who is less immoral. Suppose that all candidates have a dirty past and still doing vices. This will result into a crisis and in the end people will not vote. 

It also invites us to think on what the Church has done to teach good morals to people for half a millennium.They have spent millions of pesos given by donors and lots of energy to form Catholics into good Christians and patriotic citizens of the State and yet they seem to lose this never-ending battle with evil. 

Honestly I cringe to see some devout Catholics raising up the importance of a "Catholic vote" wherein Catholics must vote for a leader who is a devout Catholic with a strict upbringing that would put the interests of the Catholic Church first in State matters. Church teaching must be adhered by all secular institutions so as to realize the reign of Christ the King in the State and in the Universe. The question is, does the "Catholic vote" really exist?

Technically not. 

Well here are the reasons why it does not exist:

 - We live in a society where authority loses its power and influence to command people to follow their precepts. Millennials either believe in God but doesn't identify with any organized religion or do not believe God at all. If a religious leader reacts against a candidate who is known to commit a mortal sin, he is accused of being a hypocrite and raise up issues like "clerical corruption" particularly sex abuse cases committed by priests and clerics as form of blackmail.  

- Catholics are now divided on who they should vote as president. Unlike the Iglesia ni Cristo who commands her followers to vote according to the choice of their elders, the episcopal conference encouraged Catholics to vote according to their 'conscience.' They must vote on what their 'conscience' and reason say that it is right. 

The lay-run Catholic Faith Defenders, who profess themselves as "orthodox Catholics loyal to the Pope and ready to defend Church doctrine from enemy attacks", are now divided on the choice of their candidates. Most of them support Duterte and some of them do not agree with what Duterte says. It badly damaged the image of the Church as a 'non-partisan organization' because it implies that bishops are now commanding their flock not to vote for this guy as what some 'apologists' think.

- We do not have a strong and influential political party whose ideology is based on Catholic social teaching and conservative ideals (not American neoconservative ideals) that give importance of human life, tradition, family and a Catholic State. We have the Ang Kapatiran Party and Pro-Life Partylist, but they are not big and influential unlike the Nacionalista Party, Liberal Party and other political parties in the Philippines. Besides, our political system is only based on getting peoples' sympathy and support sans political ideological spectrum. We easily fool people of promising an 'earthly utopia' in just few years.

Whoever wins the national elections, it is a great opportunity for us Catholics and us Catholic seminarians to assert our spiritual influence towards the masses by creating a social movement, a movement that put the interest of the family, tradition, the Faith and also the State and a movement that recognizes its human faults yet strive to become holy Christians. Enough of voting for candidates who keep on promising to make laws that respect human life yet very incompetent and corrupt. We must establish a new order, an order where Jesus Christ is Head of the State that is not subservient to any corrupt political power.