And he said to them: Render therefore to Caesar the things, that are Caesar’s: and to God the things that are God’s.[1]
The irony for an Americanist who cites this verse of sacred Scripture to insist upon the Christian’s obligation to vote is the context pertaining to the taxes that are Caesar’s due. “No taxation without representation” is a treasured mantra for modernism’s mythology of anointed democracy. This mantra is rooted in a contradiction to the teaching of Christ Jesus.
John Mein, a Loyalist who printed the Boston Chronicle, exposed the criminal activities of the patriotic smugglers. Mein exposed John Hancock and others, who revolted against the taxes that were owed to Caesar before he and his disturbing criticisms were eventually driven out of town:
“With the Boston merchants, every regulation, restriction, or tax is a grievous unconstitutional burden: one penny as well as five shillings is a great burden.” Like most of what Mein wrote, his gibes contained just enough truth to make them sting. Certainly, the merchants had written the pamphlet with a clear awareness of how many of Boston’s natural trading interests lay outside the empire. “That Smugglers should think bonds, certificates, oaths and fees, intolerable grievances and wish to be relieved from all legal restraints,” teased Mein, “is natural enough, but that they should write a pamphlet, on purpose to convince England that their unlawful goods should be protected ‘from the jaws of these devouring monsters, Customs-House Officers,’ certainly manifests a most extraordinary degree of assurance and folly.”
According to Mein, “some of the leaders of the Faction [had] strong motives for joining in opposition to the Laws of Trade.” Alluding to men like John Rowe, William Molineux, and Solomon Davis, he charged that some merchants had “acquired very large fortunes by means of Illegal traffic.” According to Mein, “Their aim is to keep their money and their free trade, or rather their illicit trade, as long as they can.” Mein went on to recount an anecdote: When “one of the greatest merchants in New England” was asked why the Boston merchants persisted in their opposition to the laws of trade, he laughingly confessed that the merchants “were all very well agreed to keep their money” rather than pay the duties, and “to make the most of their present advantages in trade, as long as they possibly could and that they would not submit until they were forced,” Ridiculing their hypocrisy, Mein contended that the substance of all the writing and petitioning of the Boston merchants could be reduced to this; “Take away the troops, the ships of war, and the commissioners, and put us in our former situation of smuggling without risk and without penalties, otherwise we will continue to be mutinous and rebellious.” Uncharitable, perhaps, but not without a kernel of truth.[2]
What is often lost in the fog of American mythology is that taxes were needed to fund the military to defend the colonies against their neighboring rivals. Ironically, the Boston Tea Party was instigated, in part, by a decrease in taxes on legally imported tea. The decreased taxes made legally imported tea more competitive with the illegal tea the revolutionaries smuggled. The hypocrisy of these shallow criminals was made apparent after their theft of Caesar’s throne. After the revolution reached its tragic end, taxation for tea was increased. Representation proved to be a costly affair.
The Christian may be obligated to pay taxes, but the Christian is not compelled to give Caesar what is owed to God. When Caesar demands the sprinkling of incense, the Christian who refuses remains faithful to Christ. This refusal illuminates important questions. What does Caesar owe to God? What is forfeited when the democracy of Caesar proposes rebellion against God?
A ballot that proposes the voter’s participation in a decision to enable the murder of children does not require Christian participation. Holy Mother Church teaches us that we have a duty to participate in a democratic process driven by humanity’s common good. The common good of humanity is only authentic when it values human dignity. Any ballot that puts child sacrifice up for a vote is a ballot from hell.
To illustrate this reality, imagine that the Christian belongs to a secular organization that proports to be seeking the common good. For this illustration, we will imagine that the Christian is a member of a hypothetical organization known as the Americanist Legion. The Legion is holding an annual election. The Christian notices that all the candidates for leadership are willing to support, in varying degrees, the Legion’s funding of abortion. Furthermore, the ballot also includes a vote for the Legion to provide abortions, regardless of whomever is elected to office. The Christian in this scenario is not obligated to participate in this Godless democracy. However, it remains a Christian duty to pray and fast for such a Godless organization and its victims. The ballot becomes incidental to this Christian duty. The election is a delusion of liberty, void of any moral validity.
Are we not able to recognize the incompatibility between a devout Christian and a wicked democracy? Should we not consider the requirements for a democracy to compel Christian participation?
Every Citizen Ought to be Mindful of His Right and His Duty to Promote the Common Good by Using His Vote[3]
Being mindful of our duty to promote the common good by using our vote raises complicated questions. Can democracy reach a limit in which there is no longer an obligatory duty for Christian participation? Is hindering a worse evil a promotion of the common good? Is the prevention of evil a promotion of the common good?
The intention of the voter is essential to the fulfillment of duty. If the Christian duty is meant for something more than damage control, if it is intended to be a participation in a virtue that is greater than the voter’s self-interest, then the intention of the voter’s ballot demands that it be a contribution to the common good which is ultimately an act of love for our neighbors. Thus, were the Christian to vote against abortion or any other abomination that makes its way into the ballot box, primarily for financial compensation, then the Christian’s vote and its fulfillment of duty would be fraudulent. Regardless of what the Christian votes for, the vote must be directed toward the common good for it to be virtuous. Voter fraud reveals the higher calling of the Christian duty to vote. The Christian must not vote to receive money, nor must the Christian vote without an intention for the common good. The same may be said of the institution itself. If the democracy that the Christian participates in is not directed towards the common good, if it is sold or disassociated from the common good, then it is fraudulent and inauthentic. The Christian does not have a duty to participate in a fraudulent and inauthentic democracy. Suppose that is the democracy that governs the Christian society. In that case, the Christian’s decision to participate in that democracy is incidental to the fulfillment of the Christian’s duty to promote the common good. The Christian must remain vigilant against the temptation to drift away from the ideals that Holy Mother Church calls us to and become comfortably lost down the lazy river of utilitarian democracy.
If Holy Mother Church honors conscientious objections to war, why shouldn’t conscientious objections to participation in a demonic democracy be honored? What exactly would a ballot have to contain for the Christian to reject it altogether?
Suppose the State of Moloch takes over the United States of America, and you are deemed to be a citizen of the United States of Moloch. Why shouldn’t you be obligated to participate in the Moloch election? Is it your duty to use your vote in the decision between the Moloch Minister of Health Control candidate? Does the use of your Moloch vote for either the fiscally responsible Health Control candidate or the socially just Health Control candidate promote the common good? Shouldn’t you use your vote to choose between the promotion of the Birth Control Pill rather than late-term abortions? Are you promoting the common good when you limit transgender operations to adults and prohibit minors from receiving such procedures? Is the common good advanced when you vote to make murder-derived vaccines readily available to all of those who wish to be included within conventional society, as opposed to making murder-derived vaccines a compulsory demand? In other words, is it possible for a Godless democracy that ultimately promotes evil to compel Christian renunciation?
When We Neglect to Recognize the Limits of Caesar’s Due, We May Likely Become Vulnerable to Sentimental Intimidation.
“If you disagree with the governance of this country, then you should live somewhere else.”
This suggestion is a hateful sentiment that depends upon an indoctrination of ignorant compliance. To counter this spell, it may be proposed that if you disagree with this country’s governance, you should live elsewhere. The moral principle of being set apart from demonic democracy must, as a matter of surrender to Divine Providence, accept whatever redemptive suffering that follows. If the Christian is exiled for refusing compliance, then so be it.
This is not an act of revolution. This is a conscientious objection to the Godlessness of demonic democracy. Suppose a secular democracy turns to the common good that is guided by the value of human dignity. In that case, the conscientious objector may also agree with the country’s governance. It may then become a duty for the Christian to cast a ballot. Until then, the Christian has a God-given right to remain in discord with the governance of modernism and abstain from the democratic sprinkling of incense.
Thank God, Holy Mother Church does not support the ancient serpent’s venom, which decrees that refusing to vote is a mortal sin. The bite of this willful ignorance gives Caesar what belongs to God. It may be a mortal sin for Caesar to place murder and perversion on the ballot, but it does not condemn those who abstain from Caesar’s evil democracy. Abstaining from this twisted freedom allows the Christian to remain in the world but not of the world.
Refusing to vote on a ballot that rebels against human dignity is a commitment to the common good of humanity. A democracy that permits murder and perversion is a worthless, man-made tradition that is irrelevant to Christian duty. It would be absurd to declare that refusing to vote for the funding of a local library is a mortal sin. The idea of rejecting the consideration of murder is purported by professed Christians as being a grave sin, because they are hooked on the democracy of modernism. Rather than submitting to the authority of Holy Mother Church, they become a Magisterium unto themselves. They insist that their profession of presumptuous condemnation should be the marching orders of every Bishop worthy of office. Waving these banners of indignation blinds them to true unity within the Body of Christ.
In Such Blindness, They Become Deaf to the Wisdom of Holy Mother Church
The political community, then, exists for the common good: this is its full justification and right to exist.[4]
Making murder and perversion potential choices for the ballot box to decide upon is not justified and does not possess the right to exist. Far from cooperating with its evils, those who refuse to participate are setting themselves apart from the rotten fruits that it reaps for its members.
If authority belongs to the order established by God, “the choice of the political regime and the appointment of rulers are left to the free decision of the citizens.” The diversity of political regimes is morally acceptable, provided they serve the legitimate good of the communities that adopt them. Regimes whose nature is contrary to the natural law, the public order, and the fundamental rights of persons cannot achieve the common good of the nations on which they have been imposed.[5]
Authority does not derive its moral legitimacy from itself. It must not behave in a despotic manner but must act for the common good as a “moral force based on freedom and a sense of responsibility.” A human law has the character of law to the extent that it accords with right reason and thus derives from the eternal law. Insofar as it falls short of right reason, it is said to be an unjust law, and thus, it does not have so much of the nature of law as of a kind of violence.[6]
Authority is exercised legitimately only when it seeks the common good of the group concerned and if it employs morally licit means to attain it. If rulers were to enact unjust laws or take measures contrary to the moral order, such arrangements would not be binding in conscience. In such a case, “authority breaks down completely and results in shameful abuse.”[7]
“Nobody may be forced to act against his convictions, nor is anyone to be restrained from acting in accordance with his conscience in religious matters in private or in public, alone or in association with others, within due limits.” This right is based on the very nature of the human person, whose dignity enables him freely to assent to the divine truth which transcends the temporal order. For this reason it “continues to exist even in those who do not live up to their obligation of seeking the truth and adhering to it.”[8]
The citizen is obliged in conscience not to follow the directives of civil authorities when they are contrary to the demands of the moral order, to the fundamental rights of persons, or to the teachings of the Gospel. Refusing obedience to civil authorities when their demands are contrary to those of an upright conscience finds its justification in the distinction between serving God and serving the political community. “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” “We must obey God rather than men”…..[9]
It is good not to complain about the authorities God permits to rule over you. It is best to remain grateful for God’s holy providence. Nonetheless, the Christian may rightly renounce and rebuke all Godless governments.
The Christian may renounce and rebuke Godless Legislative, Godless Judicial, and Godless Executive branches of government. The Christian may renounce and rebuke Godless monarchy, Godless democracy, Godless socialism, Godless communism, and Godless capitalism. If the deeds of your country are the deeds of ancient Sodom, ancient Egypt, ancient Babylon, or other such abominations, then you should renounce and rebuke these rotten fruits of Satan’s minions. Never should you vote for such abominations to continue, but evermore, you ought to repent and fast on behalf of your Godless countrymen and authorities.
Where sin has perverted the social climate, it is necessary to call for the conversion of hearts and appeal to the grace of God. Charity urges just reforms. There is no solution to the social question apart from the Gospel.[10]
Patriotic intimidation threatens us with a temptation to become apathetic in our self-reliant cowardice. This temptation attempts to cloud the truth with an uncharitable fear of our fleeting trials of temporal hardship.
God does not bless evil. Godless revolutions ultimately seek independence from God. America has never been a Christian nation, and it will never be a Christian nation if it continues to declare its independence from God
The self-determined separation of Church and State is the separation of light from darkness. It is the fall of creation. The fall of angels and men. It is the dark city of Cain. The tower of Babel. And on and on, the fall continues with man’s empty, self-centered religion. This ancient religion is the fool’s exalted damnation. In due course, this religion has hidden behind various masks of freedom as it secures our bondage to sin.
The American Revolution ushered democracy and its dark shadow, modernism, to a secular pedestal that continues to desecrate the grave of Christendom. Voting for a secular representative, who eventually casts your vote to America’s continual revolution against Christ, does not set you apart from evil. It consummates a sterile marriage to rebellion, murder, perversion, and every other nightmare of demonic democracy.
Sacred Scripture draws us closer to God’s kingdom by communicating the revelation of Christ. Christ is the King of kings. This revelation is a threat to democracy. Visions of kings and kingdoms repulse democracy because such visions find fulfillment in Christ’s Church. Rebellious kings joined the Protestant revolution to overthrow the rule of Christ’s Church. Eventually, this serpentine rebellion made its way around to the tail. Democracy swallowed kings and replaced their kingdoms with the great and powerful vote.
Those who cling to their vote with a wishful thought of freedom pay no attention to the serpent behind the curtain. They walk away with an “I VOTED” sticker, proud to have participated. Those who set themselves apart from this ritual are branded as villains, just as kings were eventually deemed to be the villains. If this spell grabs hold of you, “VOTED” stickers may be replaced with “VACCINATED” stickers, and Free Choice petitions may be transformed into expressions of Solidarity with Vigano. In the end, voting zealots participate in a perpetual revolution against Holy Mother Church because they have bound themselves to a Godless democracy.
The Darkness of Modernism Has Brought us to the Dead End of Democracy
Authentic democracy is possible only in a State ruled by law and on the basis of a correct conception of the human person. It requires that the necessary conditions be present for the advancement of both the individual through education and formation in true ideals, as well as the “subjectivity” of society through the creation of structures of participation and shared responsibility. Nowadays there is a tendency to claim that agnosticism and skeptical relativism are the philosophy and the basic attitude which correspond to democratic forms of political life. Those who are convinced that they know the truth and firmly adhere to it are considered unreliable from a democratic point of view, since they do not accept that truth is determined by the majority, or that it is subject to variation according to different political trends. It must be observed in this regard that if there is no ultimate truth to guide and direct political activity, then ideas and convictions can easily be manipulated for reasons of power. As history demonstrates, a democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism.[11]
Abominations of man-centered societies are anointed with free elections. Secular democracy has proven to be an invisible crown to complement the invisible throne of individual independence. The sola essential of this man-made tradition is an idolatrous indulgence of private judgment. Proud voters continue to fool themselves that Christ compels them to participate in the lie of Godless democracy. For the faithful Catholic who chooses to be set apart from voting, the call of Christ affirms this separation from darkness with a resolution to let the dead bury the dead.
Dereliction of duty is a cheap frame of derision that is often too small and superficial to be mindful of those who remain apart from ballots associated with the culture of death, perversion, and all other broad roads to perdition. However, if the Godless democracy belongs to a rebellion against Christ and His Church, then moral intimidation is a misguided pursuit of hollow virtue.
Conversion is incidental to pending clangs of the political pendulum. It should be no surprise that democracy remains sterile. Democracy does not compel us to pray and fast for the glory of God’s kingdom. It is our prayer and fasting that compels democracy to restrain its evils. An examined conscience that seeks reconciliation with God allows a society to bear good, true, beautiful fruit. Regardless of who does or does not vote, there remains a King of kings. Our unity must be found at the foot of His throne.
[1] Luke 20:25
[2] John Tyler, Smugglers & Patriots, pp. 178-179
[3] Vatican II, Gaudium et Spes, #75
[4] Vatican II, Gaudium et Spes, #74
[5] Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1901
[6] Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1902
[7] Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1903
[8] Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2106
[9] Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2242
[10] Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1896
[11] Saint John Paul II, Centesimus annus, #46
