28-29 NEWS Human dignity and ELECTION CORR1_Culture 10/1/20 4:28 PM Page 28
NEWS UNITED STATES
“PUT NOT YOUR TRUST IN PRINCES” STARK CHOICES LIE BEFORE US. NO MATTER THE OUTCOME, THE PENULTIMATE STRUGGLE HAS ALREADY BEEN WON BY CHRIST n BY ROBERT ROYAL
Top, President Donald Trump. Below, Democratic challenger Joseph Biden with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders
P
ut not your trust in princes.” We quote it all the time. And as a general rule about not expecting much from politicians or public authorities—whether they have to appeal to voters to retain power or not—it’s simple moral and spiritual realism. But our current moment reminds us of something further: not only are worldly leaders unreliable. On many burning questions, they are also quite often powerless. If there has been a moment in recent memory when that has been clearer, it’s hard to think of one. We will have to make some stark choices in coming months, and no conceivable political outcome is likely to resolve the deepest challenges we face. But as we have been warned on the Highest Authority, the things that are Caesar’s are limited anyway. And the larger spiritual struggles with “principalities and powers,” active in our world, has already been won by Christ on the Cross. He allows us to suffer many trials so that good, ultimately, will come out of them. It’s useful, therefore, to recognize precisely what those trials are in our time. Until the first few months of this year, we all thought that the 2020 elections presented unusual, but relatively clear alternatives. A con-
“
28
INSIDE THE VATICAN OCTOBER 2020
troversial sitting president with a strong economic record and enthusiastic supporters would be challenged by an opposition party that believes his every deed, beginning from before his election—even before his entry into politics—is self-serving, corrupt, or darkly conspiratorial. Donald Trump became only the third U.S. president to be impeached (none has been removed from office and Trump was acquitted by the Senate in early 2020). His impeachment had little effect on his overall popularity, and the race continued much as it had earlier—an acrimonious clash of two differing visions of past, present, and future. That was the situation when
COVID-19 struck. The political divide immediately asserted itself once again, with the president’s supporters seeing his efforts as well managed. The opposition, as was to be expected, believed the opposite. Everyone began to say that the way the virus was handled would determine the election. For the record— though there are various ways to analyze the figures—among the countries whose statistics are fairly reliable, America has comparatively high rates of infection (partly, perhaps, a reflection of the massive numbers of tests done compared to any other country). But it has quite low fatality rates among the infected, lower than Germany’s, the European leader, but higher than the top performing countries such as South Korea. In sum, and given the many factors that make comparisons between countries difficult, America has done reasonably well, though it might have done even better if our social life just now were more cooperative and less troubled. The strangest thing about our current moment is that all this may now mean virtually nothing. The May 25 death of George Floyd while in police custody—and the subsequent protests, riots, looting, and deaths that have marked the past several months—seem to be
