Conservative public opposition is not entirely unjustified either, particularly considering Trump’s apparent compromises on pro-life and pro-family issues.
For example, at this year’s Republican National Convention (RNC), Trump’s allies drastically diluted the Republican Party's traditional pro-life platform, only outlining their condemnation of abortions late in pregnancy. In addition, Senator J.D. Vance, despite calling himself a Catholic, indicated that he backs access to the baby-killing pill mifepristone, which is said to be culpable for half of the abortions in the United States.
Over 100 pro-life groups called on the RNC to reinstate the pro-life cause to its platform.
In response, over 100 pro-life groups called on the RNC to reinstate the pro-life cause to its platform. A group of pro-life advocates, championed by the former Vice-President Mike Pence’s policy shop, Advancing American Freedom, also released a letter stating that “pro-life Americans are rightly outraged and gravely concerned.”
To complicate matters more for social conservatives, the GOP noticeably watered down their backing of biblical marriage between a man and a woman, in a move that was perceived by some as a nod to LGBTQ+ ideologues.
Also, Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, who has been nominated alongside Elon Musk to head the newly created “Department of Government Efficiency”, reinforced the GOP’s toned down support of traditional marriage, saying in late October:
“Our message to [homosexual] Americans tonight is this: you’re free to marry [sic] who you want, if you want, without the government standing in your way.”
Little wonder then, did many faithful Catholics and social conservatives struggle with their consciences to vote Trump, when exhorted by their loved ones and friends to do so, in order to prevent the frenzied baby-killing murderer, Kamala Harris, from winning the presidency.
For instance, Lila Rose, pro-life activist and founder of pro-life group Live Action, publicly protested Trump’s softening on his stance against abortion and IVF.
In a post on X on August 30, Rose called for pro-life activists to put pressure on Trump to enhance protections for unborn babies:
“Given the current situation, we have two pro-abortion tickets. A Trump win is not a pro-life win right now. Pro-lifers will need to challenge both leaders either way. We only help Trump by sounding the alarm - Trump is losing pro-life votes regardless of what I say - because of his own actions. Kamala Harris supports abortion up until birth, unrestricted and tax-funded. Of course, Harris does not deserve the pro-life vote. But this does not mean Trump should not be challenged with the truth.”
Nevertheless, shortly before the election on November 5, Rose declared that she would be voting for Trump, explaining her reasons for doing so, including disclosing that she “had the opportunity to meet privately with President Trump [and] he was generous with his time, and we spoke for two hours on my disagreements with him on abortion.”
“Some progress was made: When enough pro-life allies expressed outrage and threatened to withhold their vote, Trump reversed his position on Amendment 4, which would legalize abortion through all nine months in his home state of Florida, and expressed his opposition to it,” Rose penned.
Pro-lifers and faithful Catholics should unite even more than ever in this post-election reality to advance the pro-life cause and the Social Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
In a post dated August 10, 2024, Los Angeles-based Catholic writer spoke about how Trump has placed many conservatives in a genuine dilemma and crisis of conscience on whether to vote him into power.
As Feser aptly summarizes the dilemma:
“It is understandable that many social conservatives have concluded that, his faults notwithstanding, they must vote for him in order to prevent a Harris/Walz victory. The argument is a serious one. But the matter is not as straightforward as they suppose, because the problem is not merely that Trump will no longer do anything to advance the pro-life cause. It is that his victory would likely do positive harm, indeed grave and lasting damage, to the pro-life cause and to social conservatism in general. For that reason, a case can also be made for voting for neither Harris nor Trump.”
Feser continued:
“It is quite another thing to abandon those goals outright, and yet another thing to advocate policies that are positively contrary to those goals. The trouble with Trump is not that he has done the first of these things – that much would be perfectly defensible – but rather that he has done the second and the third. Consider first his change to the Republican party platform, which not only gutted its longstanding pro-life language, but introduced elements positively contrary to the pro-life cause. The platform’s longstanding general principle that “the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed” was removed. Only “late term abortion” is explicitly opposed. Not only was support for a national ban on abortion also removed, but the new platform indicates that the matter should be left entirely to the states. The emphasis is now not on the rights of the innocent but rather on the purely procedural question of who gets to determine whether and where abortion should be legal. The new platform also adds that the party supports ‘policies that advance… access to… IVF.’ Into the bargain, the party platform’s support for traditional marriage was also removed.”
Additionally, Feser went on to state:
“Obviously, Trump has judged that he and the GOP are now in a strong enough position politically not only to ignore social conservatives, but even to rub their faces in their loss of influence, without electoral consequences. And if he wins in November, this will confirm this judgment. There will be no incentive to restore the socially conservative elements of the platform, and every incentive not to do so, given their unpopularity.”
Illustrating the ramifications on the pro-life and pro-family cause if Trump were to be elected President, Feser said:
“The long-term consequences for social conservatives are bound to be disastrous. Outside the churches, social conservatism currently has no significant institutional support beyond the Republican Party. The universities, corporations, and most of the mass media are extremely hostile to it. And those media outlets that are less hostile (such as Fox News) tolerate social conservatives largely because of their political influence within the GOP. If Trump’s victory is seen as vindicating his decision to throw social conservatives under the bus, then the national GOP will be far less likely in the future even to pay lip service to their agenda, much less to advance it. Opposition to abortion and resistance to other socially liberal policies will become primarily a matter of local rather than national politics, and social conservatives will be pushed further into the cultural margins. They will gradually lose the remaining institutional support they have outside the churches (even as the churches themselves are becoming ever less friendly to them). And their ability to fight against the moral and cultural rot accelerating all around us, and to protect themselves from those who would erode their freedom to practice and promote their religious convictions, will thereby be massively reduced.”
Having said that, given Trump’s eventual win, an outcome that has been praised by outspoken Vatican critic Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, social conservatives have to face up to the new reality the United States (and the world) is facing.
Rather than acrimoniously blame those who supposedly “betrayed” the pro-life cause by voting Trump, or finger-point at those who abstained and thus prevented an even wider gap between Trump and Harris, pro-lifers and faithful Catholics should unite even more than ever in this post-election reality to advance the pro-life cause and the Social Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
We can pray and hope that God will use a very flawed instrument like Donald Trump and draw greater good out of his presidency. On our part, we can “fight, fight, fight” in our various ways to establish the Reign of Jesus Christ the King.
It is worth noting that those Catholics who abstained voting for Trump were not necessarily Never-Trumpers. They may have voted for Trump in 2016 (and in 2020), but chose not to this year given Trump’s softening stance on abortion.
Another thing to bear in mind is that we should not put our hope in fallible and flawed politicians to “save” the United States from the tentacles of Marxist tyranny and chaos. After all, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and not Donald Trump, is the true Savior of the United States and of the world.
As Bishop Joseph Strickland rightfully put it:
“We have to remember, of course, that no human leader is our salvation. Our salvation is only in Jesus Christ. Hopefully that’s just repeating the obvious for all of us, but it needs to be repeated, because we need to turn to God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – and follow the way of Jesus Christ. He is the only way that God has given us – His Own Son – to guide us to eternity.”
While declaring that Trump’s win is a “step in the right direction”, Bishop Strickland also reminded his flock that they cannot take Trump’s victory for granted.
“My attitude for this election is that it has given us an opportunity, but an opportunity that we can’t take for granted. We can’t become complacent. We can’t breathe a sigh of relief and say, ‘Okay, now we have a president that will lead us out of this darkness.’ Hopefully, he will convert more deeply to Christ, along with all the administration, all the leaders that were elected. We must continue to pray for our leaders, men and women, sinners, dealing with the corruption, and sometimes giving into the corruption, in our world. We must pray for our leaders – as we pray for ourselves, our families, and our Church – to more and more turn to the truth that God has revealed through His Son, Jesus Christ, Truth Incarnate.”
Encouraging Catholics to speak the Catholic Truth more boldly, Bishop Strickland elaborated:
“My basic thought with this election is to seize the opportunity it gives us to more freely speak of the truth of our Catholic faith, to more boldly pray and oppose the destruction of unborn children in abortion and all the other threats to life, to do our best to live by the godly principles that flow from His Church, from Sacred Scripture, from all the ways that God has revealed to us the truth that is essential for all of us.”
And, as with all God-fearing and good bishops, Strickland highlighted what Catholics should do in order to be courageous to defend the truth:
“I urge all of us to pray before Him in His presence in the Blessed Sacrament. That is the strength that I need, that we all need to proclaim to the world Who our Savior is,” he said. “Since we have a King, we have a Queen of Heaven, the Blessed Virgin Mary.”
Trump proclaimed that some people have told him that “God spared my life for a reason” after the attempted attempt on his life in July.
Likewise, the Blessed Virgin Mary, whom Trump addressed on Her glorious Nativity, did not sit idly by and interceded for the United States to prevent a Harris victory.
Thus, we can pray and hope that God will use a very flawed instrument like Donald Trump and draw greater good out of his presidency. On our part, we can “fight, fight, fight” in our various ways to establish the Reign of Jesus Christ the King.
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