When we say to ourselves, “I’m Catholic,” what do we really mean? Is that purely a cultural identifier? An affinity group? A campus club we attend a weekly meeting for? The question we ask ourselves really isn’t a question at all. To be Catholic is to believe in the faith as articulated by Christ and held together over the last two millennia by the Catholic Church, surviving centuries of disunity, the threat of Islamic conquest, the birth of Protestantism, two major wars in Europe, the rise and fall of communism and an unquantifiable amount of persecution. That is to say, the Catholic faith is not compromising. The literal definition of the word “catholic” is to be “all embracing.” We can’t pick and choose which teachings of the church we accept and which ones annoy us, and we can see, from the model of the last two thousand years of history, that it is only when the church was able to solidify itself and remain unwavering that it was able to survive.
This same attitude can now be applied to the binary choice we face in electing a President in November. As much as we may like to entertain ourselves with the fallacy that it isn’t a binary, that we can abstain or vote third-party and still be “participating,” this is functionally a complete and total myth. That being understood, it is clear that, as Catholics, those who accept, live by and now vote by the complete teachings of Christ through the Roman Catholic Church, we have to pick between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. There is no other path.
In order to accurately chart which candidate is most in line with Catholic values, we have to break down the candidates by the issues. In a poll conducted by The Irish Rover of Notre Dame students, the economy was ranked as the most important issue. Catholic Social Teaching on the economy prioritizes the elimination of poverty and the raising of the overall standard of living. During the four years of Donald Trump’s presidency, median household income rose three consecutive years before COVID-19, rising more than $7,500 to over $80,000 — the highest in American history — and the largest one-term increase of any U.S. President. However, under the Biden-Harris administration, median income fell in both fiscal years 2021 and 2022, the only years that saw a decrease since the 2008 recession. According to Congress, the average cost of goods in the U.S. has increased more than 20%, and more than one-third of American families have been behind on their bills in the last year. Viewed from this angle, the expansion of American poverty and the destruction of our economy indicate a clear Trump win in the Catholic economy vote.
According to The Irish Rover’s poll, abortion was the second most important issue to the average Notre Dame voter. The Catholic Church “affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion” and maintains it is “gravely wrong at every stage.” More than anything else, we must highlight the uncompromising nature of this position. The Catholic Church holds that human life begins at conception, and that the termination of that life constitutes murder, without exception. This is the adopted teaching of the Catholic Church, and we as Catholics are bound to obey it, especially at the ballot box. Although neither candidate lives up to the Catholic moral standard on abortion, we ultimately still have to make a decision. As articulated by Pope Francis last week, there is no candidate that truly meets the Catholic standard for the protection of the sanctity of life, but we can clearly see a moral victor in the abortion debate between Trump and Harris. During her tenure as the Attorney General of California, the Vice President supported stricter regulations on anti-abortion centers that sought to dissuade women from obtaining abortions, and over the last four years, has consistently opposed any and all restrictions on abortion access. Trump is far from an abolitionist on abortion, opposing a nationwide ban, but he still is a far superior Catholic option compared to Harris’ carte blanche abortion-ism. Viewed from this angle, the proliferation of murderous abortion that has led to the killing of more than 63 million people indicates a clear Trump win in the Catholic abortion vote.
More than anything, the Catholic voter must remember who they are. They must remember the millennia of uninterrupted faith tradition they belong to, and the responsibility that gives them at the ballot box. More than anything else, we are Catholics. Do we vote based on hearsay allegations of Trump being a “threat to democracy” or his decades-old, crude comments about women? No, we are to vote in-line with the two thousand-year-old moral tradition we belong to, in universal defense of life and the ability to affordably and ethically live it. Without question, for Catholics in 2024, that vote is for Trump.
The College Republicans of Notre Dame have agreed, along with the College Democrats of Notre Dame, to write a bi-weekly debate column in The Observer's Viewpoint section in the name of free, civil discourse in the 2024 election cycle. You can reach out to the College Republicans at creps@nd.edu.
