Reviewed by The Catholic Advocate
Dr. Droleskey’s campaign principles are based on the primacy of God’s laws over societies, government, and mankind. He purports to "drive home the point that the Democratic Party is institutionally committed to evil, while the Republican Party, funded by those who support contraception and abortion, aids and abets evil by its cynical strategy of electoral expediency." By presenting himself a candidate for political office, Dr. Droleskey is the living embodiment of the militant activism that is needed to rescue a society in near ruin. His book, Christ in the Voting Booth, is an education in history, politics, and apathetic Catholicism, a startling revelation as to what has gone so wrong in America.
At the outset, Dr. Droleskey claims that "a large plurality of Catholics today have no understanding of the relationship between their faith and public policy. The most classic political example of the abandonment of moral absolutes in favor of relativism is the Catholic who votes for the pro-abortion politician—the Catholic vote that put Clinton in the White House. A lived Catholicism is not supposed to seek compromise with the world but to transform it into the social reign of Christ the King; the state should be subordinate to the Divine and natural laws."
However, for reasons Dr. Droleskey illustrates so well, American Catholics, having bought into a pagan culture, have replaced God with government and brought about their own severely compromised faith. By educating Catholics as to the whys and wherefores, Dr. Droleskey has provided an invaluable service. Every thinking Catholic should read this book before each and every election!
In a smartly named chapter, "How We Got from Christendom to Clintondom," Dr. Droleskey maps out the path from Christendom (the Middle Ages), where faith and culture were united, to the New Ages, the age of isms: "feminism, socialism, radical environmentalism, moral relativism, legal positivism, the contraceptive mentality." Here, faith has not only been cut from culture (and seemingly from reason) but boxed up and set in a corner so as to not affect society or trouble anyone’s conscience. In the Middle Ages, the hierarchical structure, of which the family is the chief example, was reinforced by governing monarchies (the altar and the throne), and the nature of the Church, all in imitation of the sovereignty of God over His creation. There were abuses of power, just as today. However, the concepts of morality, sin, and the primacy of God’s law remained unquestioned.
Dr. Droleskey believes that the Protestant Revolt (a rebellion that theologian Fr. John Hardon, S.J., has written was "principally about sex and divorce") not only broke the bond of unity between faith and culture, but is directly responsible for the influence of neo-paganism today. Luther’s belief that one is saved by "faith alone," allows people to profess a belief without acting upon it. Dr. Droleskey’s opinion is substantiated by an encyclical letter of Pope Pius XII, On the State in the Modern World:
The denial of the fundamentals of morality had its origin, in Europe, in the abandonment of that Christian teaching of which the Chair of Peter is the depository and exponent. . . . [C]ut off from the infallible teaching authority of the Church, not a few separated brethren have gone so far as to overthrow the central dogma of Christianity, the Divinity of the Savior, and have hastened thereby the progress of spiritual decay. . . . In our days, dissensions come . . . from a deep spiritual crisis which has overthrown the sound principles of private and public morality.
Echoing Pope Pius XII’s observations, Dr. Droleskey claims,
The division of Christendom has led to all of our problems today. The State has replaced the Church as the guiding force of society. . . . The breakdown of the family, chronicled herein, is the direct result of the collapse of unity in Christendom. Divorce, adultery, child abuse, contraception, abortion, selfish careerism, feminism all spring from the tree of Luther and Calvin.
The Protestant Revolt (incorrectly termed "reformation") was essentially against the authority of the Church. Modern liberalism is a revolt against the supremacy of the Divine and natural laws of God in favor of the ability of man, unaided by a supernatural Being, to effect a society capable of solving all problems. Ultimately it "leads the human being to believe in self-redemption." When one no longer needs a Redeemer, one no longer has the Faith.
Regrettably, Dr. Droleskey says, the Catholics who settled America did not seek to convert their neighbors to the one true Church of Jesus Christ. Rather they worked assiduously to "fit in" with Protestant society, "to get a piece of the American material pie." One of the primary means of achieving co-equal status was affiliation with the Democratic Party. The immigrants to the New World learned quickly the road to success entailed adopting a belief in American pluralistic democracy as the basis of a just society rather than following the laws of God as taught by the occupant of the Chair of Peter. Today a slavish adherence to the Democratic Party still remains, even when that Party’s political platform stands in direct and sinful opposition to the most sacred laws of God.
A full century later, Dr. Droleskey claims, the situation has deteriorated into abject scandal.
We are now at the point where the whole apparatus of the Catholic hierarchy in this country is enmeshed in a web of fiscal and social relationships with the very people who are promoting programs which are at odds with the dignity of the human being as a child of God. . . . The contemporary expression of this alliance is to be found in the utter silence of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, never slow to criticize Ronald Reagan or other Republicans, about the policies of evil being pursued by President William Jefferson Blythe Clinton.
In a shocking admission, Dr. Droleskey acknowledges, "There can be no question that the ‘American Church’ is a reality in the minds of many in the hierarchy." He claims its origin lies in the beginning days of the Republic, that the tension that exists between the American hierarchy and Rome "is caused by the prevailing ethos of democracy which exists in American politics and culture." When bishops adopt the spirit of modernism and Americanism, hide behind the threat of losing their tax exempt status, maintain a near total silence in the face of the killing of 36,000,000 unborn children, buy into programs of social engineering initiated in the Roosevelt years, it’s no wonder a "seamless garment" ethic, a Call to Action coup, a Campaign for Human Development abortion funding program, a left-wing Justice and Peace organization, a "We Are the Church" petition drive, and a "personally opposed, but . . ." ideology can spring up to spread rot and ruin in the Church.
The author concludes that the Catholic culture in the United States "was but a myth . . . little more than a means of socializing . . .," a failure on the part of Catholics to take their faith seriously, making "it possible for the social engineers and moral relativists, and not Christ the King, to be triumphant."
Christ in the Voting Booth is a book that will make both enemies and devotees. Some will be offended; others will rejoice that an author has dared to name the enemy. No reader, however, can fail to profit from it, especially since the last chapters offer concrete solutions. Christ in the Voting Booth is an absolute must-read for Catholics trying to make sense of the seemingly endless confusion in the Church and the world today.