Chaput: Bad Electoral Alternatives Spring from Reformation Divide

In a review of Brad Gregory’s The Unintended Reformation , Archbishop Charles J. Chaput laments our current political alternatives:

Elections are tough times for serious Catholics. If we believe in the encyclical tradition—from  Rerum Novarum  to  Evangelium Vitae ; from  Humanae Vitae  to  Caritas In Veritate —then we can’t settle comfortably in either political party. Catholics give priority to the right to life and the integrity of the family as foundation stones of society. But we also have much to say about the economy and immigration, runaway debt, unemployment, war and peace. It’s why the US bishops  recently observed  that “in today’s environment, Catholics may feel politically disenfranchised, sensing that no party and few candidates fully share our comprehensive commitment to human life and dignity.”

The evils of November 6 were sown on October 31, Chaput suggests:

No wonder Catholics find elections these days so grim. To be a Catholic in 2012, in the modern West at least, is to live at the end of a long history. Brad Gregory eloquently shows us some of what that means. Our moral failures and our intellectual choices have had consequences over the centuries. And now our culture is fractured.

More here . It should be noted that Ephraim Radner had a much more critical review of Gregory’s book in our pages that highlighted and celebrated the way modernity embodies and advances the ideal of Christian love.