Romney has been endorsed by many pro-life activists and activist organizations.

Right off the bat, let it be known that Mitt Romney was my fourth choice among the GOP primary candidates.

Check my writing in this space from that time and you’ll see me talking up Gingrich, Perry, and Santorum, with barely a word in support of Romney. Since he won the nomination I’ve written a whole lot about how awful Barack Obama is but still barely anything in favor of Romney.

I think that establishes that this is far from blind loyalty speaking.

I am supporting Mitt Romney wholeheartedly in this election and I would like to share with you why I think you really ought to as well.

It comes down to this: we have a responsibility, as citizens, to be engaged in the public policy process to move public policy in the direction of the true and good. Our most direct and important means of doing this is voting. We are about to vote for President of the United States, the single most powerful secular political office in the world. There are two, and only two, candidates with any chance of winning the presidency next Tuesday. A vote for anyone apart from those two candidates will not affect public policy at. all. If one of the two candidates with a chance to win is morally acceptable then that candidate is eligible for your vote. But further, if one of the two candidates is morally reprehensible, then the other has a lower threshold to overcome to be deserving of your vote.

That applies to voting in general. We as Catholics have special considerations, teachings from our church on what is more or less important when casting a vote. There are five “non-negotiables:” abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, gay “marriage,” and human cloning. We cannot ever support policies that go against the Truth on these matters. Other areas that are negotiable—taxation, capital punishment, social welfare, waging war, etc.—allow for legitimate disagreement within a spectrum guided by Church teaching but ultimately up to the individual’s conscience. In this post I’m not talking about the negotiables.

On those non-negotiables, some seem to think we cannot vote for a candidate who is not darn-near pure as the driven snow. In his recent rather flippant post on such a consequential matter Mark Shea seems to be in this category.

After some undeserved and flimsy shots at Romney and Paul Ryan he concludes:

My point is this: If the five non-negotiables are this negotiable, something is wrong. My idea is that the five non-negotiables really are non-negotiable and that our selective negotiability has, over the past 30 years, cost the prolife movement a whole lot more than it has gained it anything. I think we should return to refusal to negotiate on non-negotiables–and re-evaluate our voting based, not on the negligible impact our vote has on election outcomes, but on the massive impact compromising on non-negotiables has had on the prolife movement.

First, his arguments against Romney in his preceding paragraph read more like sour grapes than anything else. Romney is endorsed by plenty of legitimate, respected pro-life groups and provides ample assurance that he will protect life, religious liberty, and marriage. I did not support Romney in the primary because I believed the other three would be better champions of these causes, but I am not afraid of a Romney presidency, and certainly not as afraid as of four more years of Barack Obama.

But second, based on that paragraph I quoted, which is more important to Shea, the “prolife movement,” or actually affecting public policy for the good over the next four years? He talks up the “prolife movement” at the expense of Romney and Ryan. He disparages the “negligible impact” of our individual sovereign vote. You could almost get the impression that Shea would be okay with four more years of Obama so long as the “prolife movement” gets stronger at some indeterminate point in the future. Ridiculous, and counterproductive for actually moving public policy in the direction of the good and true.

Shea may consider his version of the “prolife movement” more legit than others, but then what kind of movement is it if so many within the main bulk of the movement have already gone another direction?

Regardless of the present power or leadership of the “prolife movement,” public policy will be formed  both over the next four years, as well as in that as-yet unattainable epoch when the “prolife movement” is strong enough to satisfy Shea. It is imperative that we do what we can to affect public policy now, and in the future. Voting is our most immediate and important means of affecting public policy. We live in the now, and the next four years of public policy will likely roll by before that coalescing of the “prolife movement” Shea so desires, so we need to act to affect the now. Romney *is* the only candidate for president who both has a chance to win and is acceptable on the non-negotiables. Romney is not perfect—no one is, not even the three I preferred over him—but the alternative is Barack Obama. And this much is true: If you sit out today and withhold your vote “to teach a lesson,” or in pursuit of ideological purity you will achieve neither in this fallen world of constantly shifting political factions and fads. It just doesn’t happen.

Politics, the rough-and-tumble, back-and-forth competition of coalitions and compromise by which we get public policy, is about doing what you can, when you can, with the team you can put together at the moment, to advance the ball as far as you can, every opportunity you can. Politics is not about taking your ball and going home when you don’t hit the 90-yard touchdown strike on the first play from scrimmage. If you pursue that strategy you will lose, badly, and not be taken seriously by those who are actually trying to, and are content to, advance the ball by increments toward the goal. Trent Dilfer won a Super Bowl, Jeff George did not. Don’t be Jeff George.

George Weigel, writing in National Review Online, essentially agrees:

Catholics who are still pondering their presidential vote will have heard, endlessly, that no political party fully embodies the social doctrine of the Catholic Church. That is certainly true. And it is also largely irrelevant. For the choice in 2012 is not between two parties that, in relative degrees, inadequately embody the Catholic vision of the free and virtuous society. The choice is between a party that inadequately embodies that vision and a party that holds that vision in contempt, as it has made clear in everything from the “HHS mandate” through the Charlotte convention votes against God to the [Lena Dunham] ad. Catholics who do not like their Church, or their vote, or themselves to be held in contempt could make the decisive difference in 2012 — not so much as a “Catholic vote” bloc, but as a community of American citizens determined to restore the decencies to public life and American culture.

(emphases mine)

On religious liberty, abortion, defense of marriage, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, defense of marriage, and human cloning, the question is not, “Is Mitt Romney perfectly, solidly Catholic on these positions?” but “Will Mitt Romney or Barack Obama present the better opportunity to advance public policy toward the true and good, and will either of them be truly deleterious to these causes?”

I make no categorical claim that a President Mitt Romney will have a perfect record on all of these areas—only fools make categorical claims about the future actions of politicians. But the nearest to a categorical claim any of us can make is that Barack Obama, if given the chance, would continue to be the most anti-life, anti-religious liberty president we have ever endured.

So in my view the choice is clear: If you value life and liberty in the way the Church admonishes us to you must vote for Mitt Romney.

Kevorkian wouldn't like this ruling.

…because the former still sometimes finds the latter.

Today’s edition comes the UK Catholic Herald, which reports that Europe, who has been breeding herself out of existence (or rather, aborting and contracepting herself out of existence) and suffering from a cultural depression since World War I, might be waking up just a little.

The Council of Europe—a body that I admittedly have no idea how it interacts with the several sovereign nations or with the European parliament—ruled that euthanasia ought to be illegal in all European countries.

The amendment said that “euthanasia, in the sense of the intentional killing by act or omission of a dependent human being for his or her alleged benefit must always be prohibited”.

Among those fighting for the amendment was British member Edward Leigh, the Tory MP for Gainsborough and a Catholic.

He referred to the case of Kerrie Wooltorton, a 26-year-old from Norwich who died in 2009 by poisoning after her living will prevented doctors from resuscitating her.

He said: “Can my fellow delegates here in Strasbourg imagine how they would feel if they received a phone call informing them that one of their children had drunk poison and that ambulance and hospital staff who had everything necessary to save the child’s life stood by not helping instead as the child lay dying?

“That is a situation that advanced directives or living wills allow,” Mr Leigh said. “This is not alarmist talk – this is the historic fact, the track record.”

The opposition, of course, said that among human rights is the right to decide how one will die. Nihilism as a human right. That sounds more like the sterilized dying Europe we’ve all come to know.

Let’s hope those fatalistic ideas die faster than Europe does.

Of course, I say all of this knowing full well that the U.S. is not too far behind Europe in our cultural embrace of death, contracepting and aborting at practically the same rate. Hopefully we’ll have enough leaders who will make a stand for life before it’s too late.

Welcome to the Lunchtime Reader, where we assemble important stories to keep your eyes on.

Vaclev Havel was a playwright, anti-Communist, and former leader of a free Czech Republic. He died yesterday at 75. http://is.gd/5xzOCB

Brutal North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il dead at age 69. Pray for the people suffering in North Korea. http://is.gd/yrGU23

Christopher Hitchens: Abortion survivor, post-abortive father, cognitive pro-lifer. http://is.gd/2cqL9Q

NY Times: Newt Gingrich represents “new political era for Catholics.” http://is.gd/eqxHkA

Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-SC, ought to be ashamed. He compares the effort to ensure fair elections to racism, claiming that GOP efforts to pass laws requiring voters to show an ID is a “21^st century poll tax.” http://is.gd/T77JBc

‘Vegetative’ patients may be fully conscious: Lancet study. http://is.gd/CPK65s

Two new U.S. saints! Pope Benedict XVI decrees miracles needed to canonize Blesseds Marianne Cope and Kateri Tekakwitha. http://is.gd/TTWc0d

With Herman Cain suspending his campaign on Saturday, rumors are that he will endorse Newt Gingrich today. http://cvote.to/9H  

Yet Mark Block, Cain’s campaign manager, told ABC: “I have no knowledge that Cain is endorsing anyone anytime soon.” http://cvote.to/9I  

Usually when a candidate rises in the polls, the knives come out. But Politico says the ‘anti-Newt chours’ is holding its tongue. For now. http://cvote.to/9K  

Sarah Palin praised Rick Santorum for ‘ideological consistency.’ http://cvote.to/9N   

In 1870, federal, state and local government spending amounted to 7.3% of national income. Today it consumes 36.6%. http://cvote.to/9M

State Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi says he is not running for the Senate seat held by phony pro-lifer Bob Casey, Jr., D-PA. Drats! I wish Pileggi had run. http://cvote.to/9J  

Good news: The Massachusetts Medical Society reaffirms its opposition to physician-assisted suicide. http://cvote.to/9L

Siri, which is a voice recognition program for the iPhone, won’t help you find a place to get an abortion. http://cvote.to/92

Maybe this is why Siri is like that. http://cvote.to/93

The Grinch is alive in Rhode Island: Gov. Lincoln Chafee, an Independent, calls it a “holiday tree.” What holiday, sir? Is there any holiday other than Christmas that is commemorated by a tree? http://cvote.to/94

Newtmentum is real, says conservative commentator Matt Lewis. http://cvote.to/95

Planned Parenthood called 2011 the ‘most difficult year in our history.’ Good. And I hope you have an even more difficult time killing children in 2012. http://cvote.to/96

The Massachusetts Alliance Against Doctor Prescribed Suicide is formed and launches a website to stop a petition to legalize euthanasia in the Bay State. http://cvote.to/97

Bayard Publishing merges Faith and Family magazine into a new Catholic Digest with Danielle Bean as the new editor. http://cvote.to/98

The National Journal, a political news magazine that is not conservative, noted that the Tea Party has infused the Grand Old Party with lots of minority candidates like Marco Rubio, Allen West, and Herman Cain. But the Journal noted: “The biggest roadblocks to these challengers often were within their own party.” They noted that Republican insiders in Washington (known as the Establishment) often side with candidates deemed “more electable” like Charlie Crist rather than Marco Rubio. Right now the more moderate establishment-backed candidate in the Texas Senate race is Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst. Just like the Rubio-Crist race, conservatives and Tea Party activists are supporting the more conservative challenger, who like Rubio, is Latino. That man is Texas Attorney General Ted Cruz. “Republicans always had a message that was going to appeal to a certain group of these minorities,” said former Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va. “The problem is, they didn’t have the right messengers.” The National Journal noted: Thanks to the rise of the tea party, the GOP may have found those messengers. http://cvote.to/63

Michele Bachmann’s campaign in New Hampshire had some staffing issues today: They all decided to quit. WWUR-TV in Manchester, N.H., is reporting that the entire New Hampshire staff for Michele Bachmann has quit due to “deep frustration with the campaign’s lack of commitment to New Hampshire.” http://cvote.to/62

President Obama signed into law trade agreements with South Korea, Panama and Columbia. For many years President Bush pressed the Democratic Congress to send the bills to his desk, but Democrats refused to do so because of their ties to organized labor. The bills found new life when Republicans took back the House this January. Though Democrats control the Senate, enough of them supported the measures to get them passed. The free trade agreements will likely give the economy a boost but that might come too late for Obama. http://cvote.to/61

Other articles of interest:

After passage of New York’s same-sex “marriage” law, gay activists in the Empire State have mounting doubts of pursing the institution of marriage at all. http://cvote.to/64

A Maryland man nearly starved to death like Terri Schiavo is now responsive. http://cvote.to/65

Protesters allied with Occupy Wall Street force London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral (Anglican) to close for 1st time since WWII. http://cvote.to/66

Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston denounced an effort to get physician-assisted suicide on the Massachusetts ballot. “We hope the citizens of the Commonwealth will not be seduced by language [such as] dignity and compassion, which are means to disguise the sheer brutality of helping people to kill themselves,” said O’Malley. http://cvote.to/3i Here are some links from the Massachusetts Catholic Conference for those interested in more information. http://cvote.to/3j Supporters of euthanasia need 70,000 signatures to get it presented for action and the Legislature would either vote on the measure or send it to the ballot box for citizens to vote on the measure.

The National Abortion Federation cheered a recent NPR story on abortion doctors and linked the story on their Facebook page. But NPR’s Ombudsman, Edward Schumacher-Matos, was upset about the story, slamming the news agency for using the loaded term “abortion doctor.” Does this mean this editor thinks it was inappropriate to label an abortionist with the nice term of “doctor”? Ah, No. He thought NPR wasn’t favorable enough to abortion supporters. “We don’t say a physician is an STD doctor. Or a child-birth doctor. Or a breast-exam doctor,” Schumacher-Matos said. Apparently the approved term is “abortion provider.” Sheesh. What a Culture of Death we live in. http://cvote.to/3h

There’s another wrinkle regarding Gardasil, a vaccine used to combat HPV. It’s been the subject of considerable discussion since Rick Perry entered the presidential race. Dr. Diane Harper, a professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City says the vaccine is being way over-sold. NPR notes this is “striking” since Harper worked on studies that got the vaccines approved and even accepted grants from the manufacturers (although not any longer, she says.) She changed her mind, she said, when the vaccine makers started lobbying state legislatures to mandate school children get vaccinated. “Ninety-five percent of women who are infected with HPV never, ever get cervical cancer,” she says. “It seemed very odd to be mandating something for which 95 percent of infections never amount to anything.”  http://cvote.to/3l Yes, we have certainly covered this issue extensively at CatholicVote and not all opinion here has been uniform. http://cvote.to/3k

Rep. Jeff Flake, an economic libertarian who doesn’t care too much about social issues, endorsed former Gov. Mitt Romney, an economic liberal who doesn’t care too much about social issues. Flake is an early favorite to win the GOP nomination for the Senate seat vacated by Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl. Flake upset pro-family activists when he voted to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military. Arizona has moved up their presidential primary to Feb. 28, so this is considered a “big get” for Romney. http://cvote.to/3m

Other articles of interest:

CBS’s Mark Knoller reports that President Obama promises to veto any deficit plan that reduces Medicare benefits if the plan does not also raise taxes on “the rich and big corporations,” according to White House officials. http://cvote.to/3n Wow. Raising taxes in a recession? Yeah, brilliant.

The National Organization for Marriage compiled a long list of media outlets which noticed the impact that David Weprin’s vote on so-called “same sex marriage” contributed to his upset defeat to pro-life and pro-family Bob Turner in the race to fill the House seat in Queens and Brooklyn that was vacated by Anthony Weiner. http://cvote.to/3o

Republican insiders worry if Rick Perry can win over suburban voters. They wonder how the Texas governor would fare in Pennsylvania and if he’ll make Missouri more competitive than it should be. http://cvote.to/3p

President Obama’s approval ratings have dropped below 50% in nine target states that George W. Bush won in 2004, but that Obama captured in 2008. They are: Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana, Colorado, Iowa, New Mexico, and Nevada. http://cvote.to/3q

Have a million bucks? You could buy the domain teaparty.com, which has been owned by The Tea Party, a Canadian rock band since 1993 – and they are actually liberal in their politics. http://cvote.to/3r

Hugh Grant and Ann McPherson

• This past week long-time assisted-suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian died in Detroit. On the other side of the pond, another assisted-suicide advocate also died. Ann McPherson founded Healthcare Professionals for Assisted Dying to promote assisted-suicide in Britain. Thankfully, the practice is still illegal in the United Kingdom. According to LifeSiteNews, actor Hugh Grant is a financial supporter of McPherson’s work. “She’s right on assisted dying,” said Grant. “That seems to me like the dignified option. I don’t know quite what she wanted in her last few weeks, but she was a great champion of the right to die in a dignified manner, which it seems she did.” Sad to see another celebrity to use their notoriety to promote the Culture of Death.
• Ross Douthat, writing on his New York Times blog, speculates what legalized assisted-suicide would look like in the United States if the practice became as prevalent as abortion: “If the right to die really became ‘a lot like’ the right to abortion in America, there would be Swiss-style thanatoriums in most American cities, the Hemlock Society would be a major lobbying group (boasting, no doubt, that most of its resources go to palliative care rather than assisted suicide), and Kermit Gosnell-style thanatists would prey on the elderly while the courts looked the other way.” God help us all if that ever happened.
• Catholic colleges are getting intense scrutiny from the Obama administration. Adam Wilson has an excellent write-up on the clash between Catholic colleges and the National Labor Relations Board. It cuts to the heart of religious independence from the state. “On May 26, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) found that one Catholic college lacks substantial religious character and hence cannot stop adjunct faculty from unionizing. They ruled that St. Xavier University in Chicago ‘is not a church-operated institution’ and is therefore subject to federal labor law. That was the second such ruling in a few months. The NLRB declared in January that Catholic Manhattan College in Riverdale, New York, is not recognizably Catholic.” Read the rest of the article at Crisis magazine.

• At the age of 83, Dr. Jack Kevorkian died of natural causes at a Detroit-area hospital today. Over 130 persons killed themselves with the help of the man named Dr. Death. Kevorkian long attacked the Catholic Church for her teaching against assisted-suicide and euthanasia. Even though he advocated for an evil practice in the false sense of “compassion” and “dignity,” the Lord told us to pray for our enemies, including those who prey on victims. So let us pray for his soul.
• Catholics who would like to who should learn more about assisted suicide, euthanasia, and also pallative care (the practice of aggressively managing and controlling pain), please read these Frequently Asked Questions complied by the Patients Rights Council, formerly known as the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide. Catholics and all people who uphold the dignity of the human person should have at least a basic understanding of these issues. Physician-assisted suicide is sadly legal in Oregon and Washington and possibly Montana after a state Supreme Court ruling there.
• The Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, better known as C-FAM, is sounding the alarm about the World Health Organization‘s decision to approve the drug misoprostol. One pro-life doctor said, like morphine, the drug could be used for good or for evil. C-FAM noted: “By authorizing the use of a single drug, the World Health Organization has simultaneously raised hopes for saving thousands of mothers’ lives and raised fears that the drug will also be used to kill perhaps millions of unborn children. Misoprostol is used to help stop bleeding during delivery, the main cause of maternal deaths, but it can also be used to induce at-home abortions, which are very dangerous, particularly in rural areas that lack primary or emergency medical care.”

Think with me, for a moment, about the full import of this amazing event in world history.

Jesus Christ, the second Person of the Trinity, God, came into the flesh. He lived among us, worked among us, loved and obeyed His mother and foster father, and made friends. He made things out of wood with his hands. He walked about and experienced the rain, the heat of the sun, the amazing nighttime skies, beautiful sunrises, arresting sunsets, the songs of birds, and the rush of water. He smelled flowers, picked fruit, ate, drank, laughed, and cried. He experienced the birth of friends’ babies and the deaths of loved ones. As God He knew from all eternity that these things *would* be, but until He was one of us, in the flesh, He did not experience them in time, with emotions, and experiencing the temporal emotions of others.

He eventually left his mother’s house and moved to Capernaum. He moved all about with his chosen ones. He taught all who would listen that God loves us and has loved us and will love us. He taught us how to respond to God’s love and share it with others.

He ruffled some feathers. Some very self-important feathers. Eventually the bearers of these self-important feathers prevailed upon the local political leader to put Him to death. The local political leader complied for politically expedient reasons.

He died a most horrid and unjust death. His body died and was buried in haste in a borrowed tomb.

He rose again to life, in that body he had from his mother’s womb.

Now, importantly, as we celebrate the great Solemnity of the Ascension, consider what happened next. Here was a man who was killed in the flesh and came back to life in the flesh.

As far as we’re concerned, flesh dies. He did die, but He, the Light of whom John said, “the darkness could not comprehend it,” *conquered* death, and rose again to life. What, then, could He do with His flesh? Could He die again? How? He had conquered death; death no longer had power over Him. Would he simply cast off his flesh in some way and return to heaven as pure God? Well no, because then what was the point of coming in the flesh in the first place?

Unless the matter matters.

God the Son took on flesh, with all that it entails in a fallen world, and submitted to the death to which our flesh is subject, then showed us that death is not the end. And then He took our flesh with Him into heaven.

The Resurrection is, of course, the event that makes our faith live. St. Paul recognized that if Christ did not rise, then we are the most pitiable of men. But Christ did rise, and then glorified our flesh by uniting it eternally to the Godhead by ascending in the flesh (not just *with* the flesh, but in the flesh) to heaven, in the sight of His disciples, promising to return, and to return in the flesh.

In so doing He affirmed that the flesh is no mere ancillary part of our overall existence, the vehicle through which we act and then cast aside to live our true “spiritual” life after death, but is intrinsic to who we are and how we are to relate to each other and to God.

Consider the import of the Ascension for our modern day life and political struggles: the matter matters. God says so through His actions. He ratified the dignity of the flesh by His actions. We are not disembodied pilots of unimportant ships. Our physical nature can never be considered insignificant, from the moment of our conception: the moment at which our biological parents consented, by their actions, to our coming into the world.

We are called to live our life, with the joys, sorrows, pleasures, pains, highs, lows, suffering—inevitable suffering—and incredible lessons and insights that come along the way, precisely because they are what make us human and fit for union with God, the God who lived and experienced joy, sorrow, pleasure, pain, highs, lows, inevitable suffering, and *learned* lessons about being human (how to walk, talk, swing a hammer, dig a ditch, cry, and so much more) that were theretofore experientially foreign to the Godhead.

And it is these lessons and experiences we never have a right to unjustly deprive ourselves or another human being of.

God himself did not avoid any of them, but embraced them with joy and hopeful expectation; how can we do otherwise?