It’s over, sort of

As I write this, the polls haven’t yet opened, and won’t for many hours.

As I write this, the campaigning for president is still going at a feverish pace, though mostly in the “swing” states. (If there is one good thing—and perhaps the only good thing—about this election cycle, it’s that Illinois has been spared the messiest battles.)

As I write this, I have no idea who’ll be elected once the polls close—and perhaps not for several weeks. That’s because The Catholic New World’s publishing cycle means we must lock up the paper Tuesday night even as the last voters trickle into the polls in the far west.

Such ignorance gives me latitude. I can look back at some of the most negative campaigning I can recall in many elections. And I can look ahead to what might be ... and what could be still.

It’s been an election in which religion (and the alleged lack of religion) has been thrust into the mix. Religion has been the unfortunate backdrop for many skirmishes, large and small.

Issues with roots in our faith have frothed to the front: abortion, certainly, but also stem-cell therapy, same-sex marriage, capital punishment, the war, of course, immigration and many more.

No one candidate or party could claim a faithful lock on all those subjects, though much of the campaigning would have you think so.

And, oh the dirty tricks those issues caused. Some voters were told that one candidate would, if elected, ban the Bible (utter foolishness) or impose gay marriage by fiat when, in fact, he opposed it. Another candidate mixed messages and bent facts almost in two to make his opponent look bad. Ah, but such sadly is the stuff of American elections.

(To be fair, this was hardly the first campaign to stoop to such tactics; history offers much worse, especially back 150 years or more.)

But no matter who wins, questions of religion and faith and values will be with us for years to come.

Candidates may stop shouting and debating about what is a sin or isn’t, and who sins when they do what, when or where. But sin—real, personal and societal sin—will still be part of our lives. And there’ll be as much in the halls of government as out.

As this is written, without a single vote being counted, pundits and prophets are making predictions about the future. Or trying to.

I have no more ability to look ahead than do they, so I’m not picking a winner. But I am offering a hope.

Here’s my hope and my prayer: It is for a nation that seeks what the Gospel calls us to, a society that feeds the hungry, gives drink to the thirsty, heals the sick, comforts the afflicted, celebrates and protects life in all its forms, honors freedom, values honesty, seeks peace, proclaims liberty, challenges injustice, decries violence and prays—and then listens—for wisdom.

No candidate fit that bill, but future voters can demand it.

A few hours before I wrote this a first-time voter, a new citizen and an immigrant, shared with me her nervousness at the awesome task of being able to have a voice in changing the way society will turn out. It was not, she said, the experience of her native country. And it was a task she took seriously, studying issues, praying.

Maybe I was wrong about picking a winner. After all, she is the best example of how the future will win.

I wish American voters, jaded by shallow campaigning and unimpressed by the honor of being able to affect society’s core values, would again be so aware of their power.

By the time you read this the balloting will be over. Prayer, however, for a better world, continues to be needed.

Tom Sheridan
Editor and General Manager

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