Denver Catholic

18 MAY 14-27, 2016 | DENVER CATHOLIC Perspectives Now what? T wo days after that circular fi ring-squad known as the "Republican primaries" came to a de facto conclusion on the banks of the Wabash, the Wall Street Journal had this to say: "A plu- rality of GOP voters has rejected the stron- gest presi- dential fi eld in memory to elevate a businessman with few fi xed convic- tions and little policy knowledge" to Republican nominee-presumptive, a man "who has the highest disap- proval ratings in the history of pres- idential polling....Mr. Trump wasn't our fi rst choice, or even the 15 th , but the reality is that more GOP voters preferred him to the alternatives. Dozens of miscalculations made his hostile takeover possible, not least the decisions by other candidates in the early primary states to attack each other instead of Mr. Trump.... Yet GOP voters made the ultimate decision, and that deserves some respect unless we're going to give up on democracy." No, I think not. Would it be "giving up on democ- racy" to suggest that those who voted for Strong Thurmond and the Dixie- crats in 1948 made a serious error? Or those who voted for George Wallace in 1968 and 1972? Or those who voted for Huey Long when the Kingfi sh, a Trumpian precursor, was riding high in Depression-era Louisiana? No. It wouldn't be "giving up on democ- racy." It would be a matter of recog- nizing that democracy is an ongoing experiment in self-governance; that democracy's success in building humane societies is an accomplish- ment, not a given; and that the people can and do get it very wrong on occasion. With all respect, this is one of those occasions. And the mistakes are not all on the Republican side of the ledger. What about the Demo- crats who have never demanded an alternative to a septuagenarian crank who specializes in recycling the leftist bunkum of the twentieth century, and a failed Secretary of State who almost certainly committed felonies by breaching security regulations with her personal communications network? At least some Republican of conscience tried to urge their polit- ical brethren to choose a plausible, competent alternative to a narcis- sistic vulgarian; I haven't heard anything analogous on the other side of the aisle, and the seemingly tongue-tied Catholic Democrats in the blogosphere are no exception to that default. It's become a cliché to say that "no candidate and no party fully embraces the vision of Catholic social doctrine." True enough. But previous election cycles gave Catholic voters a prudential choice between candidates who embodied at least some of the major themes of the social doctrine. What is the thoughtful Catholic voter to do when neither of the presidential candidates is even minimally com- mitted to human dignity, the common good, subsidiarity, and solidarity, as the social doctrine understands those concepts? When one party has elevated lifestyle libertinism to the fi rst of constitutional principles (and is prepared to kill unborn children, jettison free speech, and traduce religious freedom in service to hedo- nism), while the other is prepared to nominate a fantasist who spun grotesque fairy tales about an alleged connection between an opponent's family and Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before he closed the deal? That will be a question to ponder carefully in the next six months. The immediate take-away that the Ameri- can democratic experiment is in deep trouble – and that trouble has some- thing to do with moral judgment. The reduction of voting to a vis- ceral exercise in anger-management, identity politics, or class resentment (cf. "Trump campaign," "Hillary cam- paign," and "Bernie campaign") tells us that our political culture is sick. And if the political culture is sick, that must have something to do with the state of the culture as a whole. Did we really imagine that a culture of self-absorption and vulgarity, taking its cues from the passions of ado- lescence, was not going to cash out in our politics? If so, let's hope that we've been disabused of that fallacy. Such a sobering-up would be one, modest silver lining in the ominous storm clouds now gathering. The reconstruction of a morally serious political culture is essential, if American democracy is not to descend into incoherence and what an eminent churchman once called the "dictatorship of relativism." That reconstruction could start with U.S. Catholics leavening our politics – and the culture as a whole – with Catholic social doctrine. The Catholic Di« erence George Weigel is a distinguished senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. GEORGE WEIGEL What my "yes" meant I just recently attended my eldest child's middle-school choir concert. As I watched her sing her heart out up on the stage—this daughter of mine who prefers music and theater over any sort of organized athletic competition and who, at twelve years old, still exudes a youthful innocence and relentless joy—I had a most terrifying (and, regrettably cliché) thought: my little girl is growing up. Time is slip- ping by. My family is entering a new era, marked by teenagers. Motherhood, I confess, was not something I spent much time dream- ing about and wishing for during my formative years. I am an only child (yes, only children can go on to have eight or more kids of their own, and live to tell the tale!), I was not raised in the Catholic Church, and I was nearly 30 years old before ever really encountering the concept of open- ness to life in marriage. I had even— quite unfortunately—used the birth control pill upon getting married, before I knew better. And yet here I am today, owner of a 15-passenger-van and an abnormally large (and full!) dining room table. Something in my heart dramatically changed all those years ago, when I learned my husband and I—just 21 and 22 years old at the time, respec- tively—were expecting our fi rst child, and even more so once she was born. Pregnancy, childbirth, and parent- hood somehow all felt very right for our marriage, this natural result of conjugal love that mysteriously brought us closer to one another and, also, closer to God. Motherhood compelled and changed me in pro- foundly unexpected ways. That is of course not to say that motherhood is, or has ever been, easy. Even beyond the lack of quality sleep and Everest-sized mountains of dia- pers and laundry, there is an inevitably heavy weight we moth ers carry. And I don't so much mean a cloud of gloom or sadness that follows you and your passel of crumb-spewing kids around; truth be told I do more laughing than crying in my life, quite possibly as a coping mechanism, although I prefer to think of it as a grace from God. No, more than anything, I suspect it is the weight of our "yes," the knowledge that in embracing an openness to life we must also necessarily embrace an openness to not only joy, but also to sorrow. I am presently thrilled to be pregnant with my fi fth biological child, but I have su' ered through three miscarriages, too. I am blessed to be a mother to four adopted children, and yet each of their stories includes loss and brokenness as well. Half the time I'm not certain of what exactly I'm doing or supposed to be doing, but I keep showing up, and laughing, and I fi gure at least that's something. It is humbling, this vocation. When I talk with other moms, I sense both a strong and determined desire to do the right things (particularly when it comes to discipline, educa- tion, and character formation), and a fear that perhaps even in doing our best, it is just not enough. I confess that I fi nd myself worrying the same thing, in between shuttling my people to soccer practice and signing fi eld trip permission slips so they can attend the symphony. Then when a child messes up or makes a mistake, I become convinced that things have oŠ cially gone awry and I'm in way over my head. Of course, I probably am in way over my head. But maybe there's a little bit of Guest Column Brianna Heldt is a Catholic writer, speaker and podcaster. Her work has appeared in various print and online publications. BRIANNA HELDT

• Cover