KARL KEATING'S E-LETTER
TOPICS:
I'M GOING BACKPACKING AGAIN--CARE TO JOIN ME?
VOTING SMART vs. VOTING DUMB
Dear Friend of Catholic Answers:
Last summer I led a group of 19 on a hike along the Rae Lakes Loop in Kings
Canyon National Park. The trip was something of an experiment for me.
Usually I backpack alone. I wasn't sure how things would go leading a group
of people who were strangers to one another. I shouldn't have worried. We
all had a great time.
Some participants were experienced backpackers, and one or two were on a
trail for the first time. We fortunately had a priest in the group, and
that meant Mass was celebrated daily in some of the most impressive
settings in the Sierra Nevada.
I was expecting last year's trip to be a one-time-only thing, but it went
so well that I have decided to lead another hike this year. I just got the
wilderness permit, so the itinerary and dates are fixed.
This year's hike will be shorter, both in days and in miles, and it will
have fewer people (15 in all). Last year we took six days to hike 42 miles.
This year the route covers 22 miles in four days.
It will be a loop, starting at the Cottonwood Lakes trailhead on the
eastern side of the Sierra. This is a few miles south of Mt. Whitney. We
start at 10,000 feet and go as high as 12,300 feet at New Army Pass.
A guide book says this is "one of the finest circuits in the Sierra." The
route "travels up an elegant cirque past spectacular peaks, visits lonely
alpine lakes and soft-meadowed ponds, traces streams that now dash, now
meander through green forests and open meadows, and climbs past treeline
into desolate 'moonscapes.' All who take this trip come away with a sense
of accomplishment and inner peace."
We will be on the trail from Tuesday, July 13, through Friday, July 16. We
will gather on Monday at a campground at the trailhead, and we will depart
from there late Friday afternoon. The nearest major airports are Los
Angeles and Ontario, each a four-hour drive from the trailhead. (Reno and
Las Vegas are each five hours away.)
If you want to participate, let me know by writing to me at
kkeating @
catholic.com (without the spaces).
Be sure to use this as the subject line of your
e-mail: "Karl Keating's Backpacking Trip." Tell me something about yourself
and your backpacking experience. Participants will be chosen in early April
(by lottery, if more apply than can be accommodated by the permit).
IF CATHOLICS VOTED THEIR FAITH ...
Recently I sent out a letter to supporters of our apostolate. The letter
was headlined "Why Don't Catholic Voters Vote Like Catholics?"
The fact is that Catholics vote pretty much like other Americans. They give
little evidence of applying Catholic principles to their decisions in the
voting booth. It's a pity, because Catholics, if they voted like Catholics,
could turn this country around.
Consider the numbers, which I will round off to the nearest 5 percent:
Catholics are 25 percent of the population and thus 25 percent of the
voters. A majority of Catholics vote for politicians who support immoral
programs. Let's say that of the 25 percent of voters who are Catholics, 15
percent vote for such politicians.
Now consider another fact. Most elections are decided by less than 5
percentage points. Sure, there are landslides, but those are exceptions. In
the majority of races, if 5 percent of the voters had switched, the other
guy would have been elected.
Lastly, consider what would happen if, of those 15 percent who vote wrong,
just a third of them learned to vote right--that is, if 5 percent more
Catholics started to vote in line with the Church's moral teachings. In
hundreds of races at the national, state, and local levels, the outcome
would be more favorable to traditional morality.
Each election cycle, Catholic publications--and not a few secular
publications--write about the "Catholic vote." Since so many Catholics
don't vote as Catholics should, there really has been no "Catholic vote,"
and that is why Catholics, even though they are a quarter of the
population, exert so little influence on public policy. You can think of
other, smaller groups that vote as a bloc and end up having much more
influence on public policy than do Catholics.
If I were to ask you to name pro-abortion Catholic politicians, you no
doubt could rattle off ten names lickety-split. Ditto for Catholic
politicians who support other things that no conscientious Catholic should
support. Why are these people still in office? Largely because Catholics
put them there and keep them there, which suggests that Catholics are not
smart voters.
I DON'T CARE WHAT A CANDIDATE LOOKS LIKE
A smart voter, by my definition, is someone who evaluates a candidate on
sensible grounds, not on immaterial grounds. A smart voter doesn't care
whether a candidate is attractive or sound-bite savvy; he knows that such
things mean nothing. What counts is what a candidate stands for and, if
elected, will vote for.
Often, the candidate who stands for the right things will be plain looking
and will be awkward in front of the cameras. But why should we care about
that?
Legislation is not decided by legislators' looks or speaking ability. It is
decided by their votes. I don't care if the fellow who represents me in the
state legislature is the homeliest guy in my district. I don't care if he
stumbles over his words when interviewed by the press. His appearance and
his on-camera ineptitude can't affect me. His votes can--and do.
Similarly, which party a candidate belongs to doesn't much matter. When I
was very young, I lived in a big city where nearly everyone belonged to one
party. It was like having a political monopoly. When I reached adulthood, I
registered with a different party. Frankly, I never have felt much loyalty
to any party. After all, parties as such do not determine the laws.
Individual legislators do.
It makes little sense for me--or for anyone--to vote a straight party
ticket because there are bad candidates in every party. You might say that
Party A has more bad candidates than does Party B. Maybe so, but that still
doesn't justify voting a straight party ticket.
I think we need to judge candidates individually. I wouldn't mind having
the legislature packed with members of the Flat Earth Party, if those
members voted right on the key issues.
So there is smart voting and dumb voting, and many Catholics are dumb
voters. They don't vote according to Catholic principles but according to
secondary criteria, and that hasn't been good for America. Of course, other
Americans vote equally unwisely, but, as a Catholic, I'm concerned
especially about my co-religionists.
As I said, if only one-third of those Catholics who vote wrong were to vote
right, there would be big changes. Catholics could change the political
landscape. If there is to be any hope of that, though, Catholics need to be
educated in Catholic principles. They need to see that they should take
those principles into the voting booth.
GUIDANCE FOR CATHOLICS WHO VOTE
That is the goal of Catholic Answers' newest publication, which we call the
"Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics." You can read the whole text and can
obtain copies by going to:
Voter's Guide
You will note that the guide does not name names, either of candidates or
of parties. What it does name are principles. It identifies five
"non-negotiable" issues--things on which there is only one acceptable
"side" for a conscientious Catholic. Those issues are abortion, euthanasia,
fetal stem cell research, human cloning, and homosexual "marriage."
The guide proposes a simple methodology: Find out where each candidate
stands on each of these issues. Eliminate from consideration any candidate
who is wrong on any of the five issues. Vote for one of the remaining
candidates. (The guide explains what to do when each candidate is wrong on
one or more of the issues.)
Sounds simple? It is, but that may be all it takes. My sense is that
millions of Catholics cast their votes without even asking themselves
whether they should be inquiring about how the candidates stand of these
five issues. They mark their ballots based on secondary--and sometimes even
silly--considerations. These Catholic voters need a wake-up call.
That is what the "Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics" tries to be. We'll
see how it works. It's such a simple idea that one's first impression is
that it can't possibly work. "What, change people's voting habits by
telling them to follow Church teachings? What a weird idea!" Maybe so, but
it's worth a shot.
FIRST, CONVERT OURSELVES
The Holy Father has talked about this century witnessing a new springtime
for the Church. He didn't mean that as a prediction but as a possibility.
If that possibility is to become an actuality, the springtime will have to
begin through the Church, and that means through Catholics.
Catholics will need to be reconverted to their own religion, and it surely
won't hurt if, as part of that reconversion, they come to see that living
the faith has a public as well as a private aspect. We can--and should--be
Catholics both outside and inside the voting booth.
p.s., It's not too early to sign up! (If you wait too long, you might end up
lodging in the boiler room ...)
Catholic Answers' 2004 apologetics cruise sails from Montreal to Boston
from October 2 to October 9. Join Karl Keating, Jimmy Akin, Rosalind Moss,
Tim Staples, Thomas Howard, and Bishop Colin Campbell for a week of
beautiful fall scenery and invigorating large- and small-group events,
including daily Mass, rosaries, and fun on-shore excursions.
For more information, go to: http://catholicanswerscruise.com
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