Reflections on America's Semiquincentennial

by Justin Soutar

This year we celebrate the two hundred fiftieth anniversary of the United States of America, one of the greatest nations in the history of the world and certainly one of the greatest in modern times. Our imposing geographical size and relatively isolated position, our fertile soil and abundant mineral resources, our natural beauty and temperate climate, our vast and diverse population, our productive industry and commerce, our high employment rate and comfortable standard of living, our thriving financial sector, our large and well-trained armed forces, and our prominent influence in world affairs all contribute to our country’s greatness. However, the core of that greatness lies in 1) our appeal to universal and timeless natural law principles as the basis of human rights and liberties, and 2) our traditional character as a religious and moral people.

The concept of natural law formed the philosophical foundation for the American colonists’ rebellion against British tyranny and their eventual momentous decision, after many years of lively discussion and intense debate, to politically separate the thirteen colonies from England. This is clear from the ringing opening text of the Declaration of Independence, which was primarily authored by Thomas Jefferson and finalized by the Second Continental Congress:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

As men of faith and reason, our nation’s Founders unanimously recognized that “unalienable” human rights are gifts from God, and that the purpose of representative government is to protect these rights. In other words, they realized that human beings are given certain rights by God because of their very nature as persons created in his image, and that any government that refuses to respect these rights is not legitimate. It’s obvious that the Founders were not simply stating their subjective personal beliefs or opinions about the colonists’ problem and how it should be resolved. Justifying their course of action based on “the laws of nature and of nature’s God” anchored the Declaration firmly in the objective truth of natural law. Benjamin Franklin implicitly acknowledged this natural law basis for human rights when he wisely stated: “A nation of well informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins.”

This is an important lesson for us today in the difficult battle against radical secularism, a virulent philosophy that directly attacks our traditional identity as a Judeo-Christian nation and the natural law principles of her foundation. In recent years, to cite just two of many examples, innocent healthcare providers and wedding-cake bakers have been dragged into court and threatened with huge fines for refusing to dispense abortifacient drugs or contraceptives or to bake a cake for a homosexual “wedding.” The well-intentioned lawyers representing these good people usually base their defense on their client’s right to act according to his or her personal religious and moral beliefs and conscience, a right indeed protected by the Constitution. While this approach has been fairly successful, its major flaw is its failure to take advantage of the objective truth of natural law, leaving the arguments stuck on the subjective plane of “conscience rights”.

Abortifacient drugs unjustly kill innocent unborn children, violating their unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That is a fact and not just someone’s sincerely held belief. No woman has a “right” to kill her unborn child. Contraceptives interfere with the essential love- and life-giving aspects of marriage as designed by the Creator. And natural law defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman; the immoral practice of sodomy is not “marriage”, and no two men or women have a “right” to call it that. Defense attorneys should be arguing their pro-life and pro-marriage cases from the natural law perspective that abortion, contraception for married couples, and sodomy are objectively evil (and thus harmful to society) by their very nature, not just because their clients happen to believe that they are evil and harmful, and that no one should be forced to participate in or to support such immoral activities. In order to effectively defeat the ideology of radical secularism, we should abandon the subjective territory of “conscience rights” and reclaim the unassailable moral high ground—-the objective truth of natural law.

Intimately related to the natural law basis for human rights at the core of America’s greatness is our longstanding identity as a religious and moral people in the Judeo-Christian tradition. This is evident at every turn, from the words and examples of the Founders, to the speeches and writings of our elected representatives and judges down through the decades, to the tens of thousands of churches dotting our landscape, to the prominent Catholic role in the development of our education and healthcare systems, to Congressional sessions opening with prayer, to the display of the Ten Commandments in our Supreme Court building, to our national motto, “In God We Trust.”

George Washington declared: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.” John Adams remarked: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” James Madison said: “We’ve staked the future of all our political institutions upon our capacity… to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.” Having toured the young United States, French political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville concluded: “America is great because America is good; and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.”

In his Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1863, Abraham Lincoln asserted that God’s blessings “should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People.” In his famous D-Day Prayer broadcast on national radio in 1944, Franklin Roosevelt said: “With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy.” Ronald Reagan observed in the 1980s: “If we ever forget that we are one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under.” In 2024, Donald Trump attributed his survival of an assassination attempt to “the grace of Almighty God.” The fourth stanza of our national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” includes the words: “Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n-rescued land / Praise the Pow’r that hath made and preserved us a nation… And this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust.’” And in the Pledge of Allegiance, we declare that we are “one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Our traditional character as a Christian nation, combined with our traditional natural law basis for human rights and liberties, has allowed us to achieve many remarkable things in the past 250 years in the areas of agriculture, architecture, art, aviation, communication, culture, economics, education, energy, entertainment, finance, foreign aid, geology, health care, immigration, law, literature, medicine, meteorology, music, political philosophy, science and technology, trade, transportation, space exploration, sports, world peace, and many other fields. We should celebrate and give thanks to God for all of these accomplishments.

This is not to say that our nation, comprised of flawed human beings, has perfectly lived up to her own ideals. True American patriots wholeheartedly celebrate all that was and is good in our nation while candidly admitting her past and present failures in certain areas and realistically acknowledging her current state of deep division and crisis. We unwisely tolerated the development of a partisan political system, which is now dominated by two major parties that are diametrically opposed on nearly every issue. We unjustly forced most Native Americans onto reservations, tolerated slavery and racial segregation for decades, and bombed innocent civilians in Japan in 1945. We’ve experienced a general religious and moral decline in recent decades with the spread of alcoholism and drugs, pornography, divorce, out of wedlock pregnancies, tens of millions of abortions, sexual abuse, sodomy, transgenderism, and mass shootings, as well as petty theft, vandalism, and littering. Civics education and prayer have all but vanished from our public schools.

Misguided DEI policies have barred hundreds of thousands of qualified people from good jobs. Inflation continues to depreciate the value of our money. Our $38 trillion dollar national debt is far beyond unsustainable yet continues to rise daily. Political corruption and media bias and censorship continue to threaten the common good and obscure the truth. Power struggles and gridlock have replaced bipartisanship and collaboration in Washington as Republicans and Democrats are now bitter enemies, with Democrats attempting to destroy President Donald Trump and to manipulate election laws to their own advantage. Israeli radical Zionists are systematically eliminating Palestinian Christians from the Holy Land, and we’re doing little if anything to stop it. And Communist China has stolen our computer software intellectual property; purchased large tracts of American farmland near our military bases; planted thousands of spies in our city halls and universities; and is actively working to replace us as the world’s leading superpower.

Worst of all, the rise of toxic radical secularist (aka “woke’) ideology, openly embraced by corrupt Democratic Party elites, has taught a large percentage of ignorant Americans to hate their country; to reject our traditional Christian identity and natural law foundation; to assert various new “rights” that exist only in their deluded minds; to discriminate against innocent white men; to disrespect our immigration authorities and police officers; to tear down statues of our national heroes; to stage violent protests; and to assassinate their political enemies. This dangerous ideology has profoundly divided our nation, seriously threatening its integrity and survival.

However, there are many signs of hope that our nation will survive the present grave crisis and enjoy a brighter future. Young Americans flocked to churches after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, and purchases of new Bibles are on the rise. Millions of Americans are taking the free online civics courses offered by Hillsdale College, and Imprimis now has a monthly circulation of nearly eight million copies. Many employers are making color-blind and merit-based hiring decisions. More than 25 percent of American voters are now politically independent. The number of Planned Parenthood abortion clinics continues to dwindle. And the second Trump administration and congressional Republicans have already done much to repair and strengthen our country in many of the above-mentioned fields of endeavor.

America’s first Catholic president and Fourth Degree Knight of Columbus John F. Kennedy famously said, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” If we who continue to love this great nation are successful in converting and defeating her radically secularist traitors and in retaining the twin core of that greatness—-our appeal to timeless natural law principles as the basis of human rights and liberties, and our traditional character as a religious and moral people—-then she will not only survive, unite, and heal, but will also achieve even greater and more spectacular things in the next two hundred fifty years.

Long live the United States of America!

Copyright © 2026 Justin D. Soutar.

Election Watch 2021: The Battle for Virginia

by Justin Soutar

As some readers of this blog may be aware, I enjoy writing about off-year and midterm elections here in the United States. New Jersey and Virginia are the only two states in the country that elect their governors every four years in the year following a presidential election. Their gubernatorial election campaigns typically generate a fair amount of national media and public interest because both the pre-election surveys of likely voters and the actual election outcomes tend to offer a glimpse of the issues and concerns that matter most to Americans in general, as well as a preview of the results that may be expected in the nationwide midterm elections the following year. My adopted home state of the Commonwealth of Virginia is particularly interesting to watch because it is one of a handful of "bellwether" states whose election outcome offers a reliable indicator of the general direction the nation is heading. The fact that no governor of Virginia may serve two consecutive terms, which means the contest for governor is always an open race, only adds to the interest level.

Formerly a southern Republican stronghold, Virginia has been occupied by Democratic agents from the Clinton-Obama-Biden political cartel in recent years, who have poured millions of advertising dollars into the state to win it for Barack Obama in 2008 and to take control of all five statewide offices--governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, and both U.S. Senate offices--from 2013 to the present. It's been a long eight years under Democratic Governors Terry McAuliffe and Ralph Northam as their corrupt and tyrannical administrations have imposed crushing tax burdens on Virginians, increased the number and complexity of business regulations, supported ObamaCare and the HHS mandate, imposed unconstitutional and economically damaging anti-COVID mandates, shoved gender ideology and critical race theory into the public schools, attacked our religious freedom, further liberalized our abortion laws, and even attempted to legalize infanticide. Furthermore, McAuliffe and Northam have given scandal by claiming to be Catholic while advancing public policies that violate natural law and Church teaching on the sanctity of life, marriage, and religious liberty.

A year ago at this time, few Virginians knew who Glenn Youngkin was. This unfamiliar contender for the office of governor shrewdly adapted the Donald Trump presidential campaign model of a successful businessman and political outsider taking on the corrupt establishment to his own primary campaign for the Virginia governorship, and it worked: by May, he had sufficiently overcome his lack of name recognition to secure the Republican nomination for governor. Since his Democratic opponent and former governor Terry McAuliffe galloped into the race with huge name recognition and fundraising advantages, it was no surprise that he was far ahead of Youngkin in the polls for months. Despite his considerable handicaps, however, Youngkin steadily gained momentum across the Commonwealth, and by late August, much to the alarm of the political establishment, he was actually tied in the polls with McAuliffe. But the momentum didn't stop there. On September 8, a WPA Intelligence survey showed Youngkin running slightly ahead of McAuliffe, 48 to 46 percent. The latest poll by the University of Mary Washington, released yesterday, showed Youngkin leading McAuliffe by a healthy margin, 48 to 43 percent.

This steady upward trajectory from obscurity to front-runner is remarkable considering that McAuliffe's campaign has been outspending Youngkin's campaign by a significant amount throughout the race. The fact that the Republican gubernatorial ticket includes the first African-American female candidate for lieutenant governor, Winsome Sears, and the first Cuban-American candidate for attorney general, Jason Miyares, has played a role in this climb out of the doldrums, as these two candidates are certainly pulling some minority voters away from the Democratic Party of Virginia. More significantly, however, Youngkin's surprise ascendancy indicates that increasing numbers of Virginia's likely voters are losing confidence in the unprincipled leadership of McAuliffe and Northam and are rejecting the radical liberal agenda of the incumbent Democratic Party. These two governors have been profoundly out of touch with the daily problems and concerns, not to mention the traditional religious and moral values, of the silent majority of ordinary Virginians. People want an honest and trustworthy governor who will truly advance the common good, not an establishment politician who will exploit the office for personal gain.

It looks like we're in for a repeat of 2009, when New Jersey and Virginia elected Republican governors one year after Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama carried both states. In fact, to the surprise of many observers, Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell won Virginia with 59 percent of the vote. This landslide rejection of the party controlling both houses of Congress and the White House by Virginia voters was a foretaste of the 2010 midterms, when Republicans regained control of the U.S. House of Representatives, expanded their strength in the Senate, and picked up many more state governorships. Virginians' mounting dissatisfaction with their Democratic governor reflects the increasing disapproval of American citizens with their illegitimate president Joe Biden, who stole the White House from President Donald Trump through massive organized vote fraud in violation of the U.S. Constitution and federal and state election law. They've already had more than enough of the Biden administration's executive overreach, fiscal recklessness, monetary inflation, tax hikes, pork-barrel spending, immigration irresponsibility, abortion expansion, vaccine mandates, and radical secularism. They're increasingly realizing that Biden is a puppet of the Chinese Communist Party whose treasonous agenda serves the interests of Red China, not those of the American people. 

If New Jersey and Virginia voters elect Republican governors by substantial margins in November 2021, then it is highly likely that Republicans will win many victories across the nation in November 2022. The Democratic political establishment knows this and is very fearful of losing its grip on power, which is why George Soros recently donated $250,000 to Terry McAuliffe's campaign for governor, and why Youngkin signs are being vandalized and stolen across the Commonwealth. McAuliffe and his Democratic cronies will use all the cash they can haul in and every dirty trick in the book from mudslinging to vote fraud to try to keep Glenn Youngkin out of the Governor's Mansion in Richmond, but their efforts seem doomed to failure. The citizens of the Old Dominion have apparently made up their minds to elect a Republican leader who will put their interests first and govern in accordance with the state constitution and traditional values grounded in natural law. If this is any indication of a national trend, tens of millions of American voters will follow suit next year, resulting in a "red wave" election that will return the U.S. Senate and House and other state governorships to the Republican Party.

In conclusion, it must be candidly observed that Virginia and the United States remain perilously divided. While great leaders such as Trump and Youngkin may gain large followings and unite millions of people in support of their philosophy, agenda, and accomplishments, a large minority of their people will remain their bitter enemies for ideological reasons. Virginia played a leading role in the founding of the United States of America on the basis of common religious and moral philosophy and values that are rejected and attacked by today's adherents of radical secularism. We need to pray for the conversion of these militant secularists in the Democratic Party, Hollywood, Big Tech, academia, the courts, and elsewhere who threaten to drag our country into a second civil war and to destroy our traditional American society and culture. May such a catastrophe be averted, and may we return to being "one nation under God" before it's too late.

Here's to Glenn Youngkin as the next Governor of Virginia!

Reflections on the Past Twenty Years

by Justin Soutar

I wish all readers of this blog post a Happy New Year 2020 and a happy new decade as well. It's hard to believe we've just entered the "Twenties," since my maternal grandparents were born in the 1920s almost one hundred years ago. This milestone is a good time to pause and reflect on the direction of the Church, our country and our world during the first twenty years of the twenty-first century.

From the Jubilee Year 2000 to 2019, the Catholic Church generally prospered under the courageous leadership of three saintly Popes: Saint John Paul II "the Great", Benedict XVI and Francis. Despite major differences in personality, style, and emphasis arising from their different backgrounds and training, there has been a great continuity among the Polish, German, and Argentinian pontiffs in their unwavering focus on Christ and His Gospel; the clarity of their teaching on the essential doctrines of the Faith; and their efforts toward administrative and spiritual reform of the Roman Curia and the Church generally.

While disturbing revelations of sexual abuse of children and youth by some Catholic priests and cover-up by a few bishops in the second half of the twentieth century cast a shadow over the Church throughout the world, these same revelations led to the establishment of new Church policies and structures that contributed to a drastic reduction in abuse incidents in the U.S. during this period. Additionally, during the late 2010s, dissident pressure groups and the secular media ignited an unfortunate controversy within the Church in the U.S. and elsewhere over the meaning and application of certain passages in Pope Francis' beautiful apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love), leading millions of faithful Catholics to erroneously believe that Francis wants to change the Church's moral teachings or is unfit for office.

Despite these problems, the Church overall has been thriving. In the U.S., the majority of bishops have been saintly men and nearly all have remained faithful to the Magisterium. We saw the beginning of the end of the chronic priest shortage as orthodox seminaries across America were packed with increasing numbers of holy young men each year and the number of priestly ordinations began to steadily increase. Faithful religious women such as the Nashville Dominicans also grew substantially in number. The number of lay faithful has continued to grow with each Easter Vigil. EWTN expanded its media apostolate by acquiring the National Catholic Register in 2011 and adding tens of millions of new radio listeners and TV viewers. Worldwide, the Church added about 300 million new members during the past twenty years, the majority of them in Africa.

Our country enjoyed an economic boom from 2000 to 2007 during the Bush administration which was followed by the stock market crash of 2008 and resulting Great Recession which was prolonged by the Obama administration's high taxes and increased government regulation of businesses. Lower taxes and less regulation contributed to economic growth and historically low unemployment during the first three years of the Trump administration. While the standard of living generally increased with nearly every American enjoying Internet access, a cell phone and flat screen TV, corporate greed and the failure of wages to keep pace with cost of living increases contributed to the dismemberment of the middle class, and the national debt swelled from $2 trillion to $20 trillion.

The growth of major corporations such as Dollar General, Wal-Mart, Lowe's and The Home Depot forced tens of thousands of small businesses to close by flooding the U.S. market with cheap goods imported from China and other foreign countries. However, a popular movement to support American manufacturers by buying American made products had gained steam by the end of the 2010s, with President Trump replacing NAFTA with USMCA to discourage the outsourcing of American manufacturing. And fueled by growing demand, the organic food and renewable energy industries saw significant growth during the past two decades.

Politically, our country has grown more and more divided from the contested presidential election of 2000 to the futile attempt by House Democrats to impeach President Trump in late 2019. Corrupt Republican and Democratic members of Congress have proven incapable of bipartisan collaboration on a host of pressing issues from abortion and religious freedom to healthcare and the environment to immigration and foreign policy. Unable or unwilling to peaceably discuss and work with their colleagues across the aisle, they've resorted to scoring whatever legislative or judicial victories they can scrape for their own side and either violently attacking or quietly distancing themselves from the opposition. Millions of frustrated Americans espousing traditional Judeo-Christian values created the Tea Party movement within the Republican Party in 2009, many of whose candidates were swept into state and national office in the gubernatorial, senatorial and Congressional elections of 2010 and 2014.

Religiously and morally, our country has become increasingly less Christian under the pervasive influence of militant secularism. Christians are still a large majority of the population, but their percentage has gradually declined while the percentage of nonreligious individuals has grown into double digits and Satanism and the occult have become more popular. In 2000, freedom of religion as protected by the First Amendment was sacrosanct, but just ten years later, under pressure from the abortion cartel and pharmaceutical and insurance giants, the Obama administration was requiring abortion and contraception to be part of "healthcare coverage" regardless of religious or moral objection to these anti-life practices.

During his visit to the U.S. in 2008, Pope Benedict XVI had warned that radical secularism would lead to an attack on religious liberty, and Pope Francis repeatedly highlighted the importance of religious freedom and met briefly with Kim Davis and the Little Sisters of the Poor during his own tour of the U.S. in 2015. The ObamaCare assault on our first freedom provoked a well-organized religious liberty campaign led by our bishops during the 2010s, including an annual Fortnight for Freedom, that led ultimately to the reversal of Obama's HHS mandate and many other anti-religious regulations by the Trump administration.

The confident exuberance and idealistic optimism for world peace, freedom, and prosperity that marked the beginning of the third millennium, nicely encapsulated in the Ford Millennium Anthem "Just Wave Hello," soon proved ill-founded. The shocking destruction of the World Trade Center's iconic Twin Towers by Israeli intelligence agents disguised as Arab terrorists on September 11, 2001 and subsequent terrorist attacks all over the world; the U.S. invasion of Iraq against the urgent advice of Pope John Paul II; the unabated continuation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; the ongoing exodus of Christians from the Holy Land; the U.S. support for ISIS that led to its occupation of the Nineveh Plain in 2014 with subsequent murder and displacement of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Christians and Muslims and the destruction of dozens of ancient churches and monasteries; widespread drug and human trafficking in Central America; civil wars over natural resources in several African countries; brutal Communist repression in China; and North Korea's nuclear weapons tests were just a few symptoms of the pervasive lack of peace and freedom in our twenty-first century world.

Nor was global prosperity so easy to achieve as it seemed, although the spectacular advance of digital technology has led to nearly everyone on earth owning at least one cell phone and the rise of social media has interconnected us as never before. As John Paul II and other twentieth-century Popes predicted in their social encyclicals, transnational capitalism and free trade driven mainly by greed and untethered from moral and ethical considerations have led to the exploitation of cheap labor, economic instability, enormous gaps between rich and poor within the same nation, social unrest, emigration, and environmental degradation. Famine, poverty, and starvation are still common in many countries, and tens of millions of people have left the Third World in search of gainful employment here and in Europe. Benedict XVI's masterful 2009 encyclical Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth) features a penetrating analysis of these problems and beautifully explains why truth and love are essential to a healthy global economy.

Meanwhile, most European countries have largely succumbed to the forces of radical secularism and hedonism, with weekly church attendance in the single digits and their native populations in dramatic decline due to widespread abortion, euthanasia, and the unpopularity of marriage and traditional family life.

Notable changes from historic climate patterns were observed around the world from 2000 to 2019, but the main source of climate change was obscured by thick clouds of "global warming" propaganda and dire warnings of an impending man-made climate emergency. By virtue of its massive size and tremendous energy output, the sun is the dominant influence on earth's weather, beside which all other influences combined, including human CO2 output, are minor. Astronomers have noticed a general decline in solar activity, including a reduced number of sunspots, during this period. And NASA climate satellites have recorded a 3/10 of a degree drop in Earth's average global temperature from 1998 to 2017. Observed changes in solar activity have been the primary cause of climatic changes during the past twenty years.

The truth about the dramatic First World honeybee die-off of the past two decades has been similarly concealed. The blame for Colony Collapse Disorder is usually pinned on a certain class of pesticides, even though their use has declined greatly with the spread of organic farming practices across North America and Europe during this period. The fact is that the proliferation of cell phones and other wireless technology has disrupted normal hive activity, killing honeybees in droves. This is painfully obvious from the fact that honeybees have remained abundant in the ever fewer and shrinking parts of our country and the world where cell phone service is still absent.

To summarize, the overall picture we see here is a mixed bag, with the Church on the whole doing well and our country and our world faring rather poorly. Yet perhaps the most significant negative aspect of the past twenty years is that many of us have been so caught up in the daily newsfeed that we've lost a sense of perspective on the bigger picture, where we've come from and where we're heading, and we're ignoring or forgetting the valuable lessons history has to teach us about our current problems. The Bible says that without a vision, the people perish. In this regard, I heartily recommend Fr. George Rutler's book Calm in Chaos: Catholic Wisdom for Anxious Times.

All of the above mentioned problems in the Church, our country, and the world at large can be traced back to human failure to observe the two great commandments of love of God and love of neighbor. As Pope Benedict said, when we exalt ourselves above God, when we exclude Him as irrelevant, we succumb to the dictatorship of radical secularism. And as Pope Francis said, when we exalt ourselves above our neighbor, we fall prey to the cancer of indifference.

Pundits and interested parties too often exaggerate the gravity of today's problems, forgetting or ignoring the fact that our loving God, who created us, redeems us, sanctifies us, and sustains us in existence at every moment, knows all of our problems and their root causes intimately and is ready to help us resolve them if we humbly turn to Him and request His assistance. When asked what's wrong with the world, G.K. Chesterton famously quipped, "I am!" And Saint Pio of Pietrelcina declared that the solution to all the world's problems is personal holiness. The future of the Church, our country, and our world will be brighter if many of us answer the call to daily conversion, thus radiating the light of faith, hope, and love into the darkness of doubt, despair, and hatred.


Copyright © 2020 Justin D. Soutar.

In Praise of Democrats

No doubt many readers will be put off by the unexpected title of this essay, so I'll hasten to add a crucial disclaimer: This article will not extol the godless, radically secularist ideology of the current Democratic Party leadership or its abominable methods of putting it into practice. Nor will it condemn the traditional Judeo-Christian values, strict constitutional government, and fiscal responsibility espoused by the current Republican Party leadership. Rather, my intention here is along the lines of Jesus' famous remark to his disciples that the children of this age are wiser in their generation than the children of light. My goal is to demonstrate that there is something truly praiseworthy in our worst political enemies, the Democrats, and that there is something truly blameworthy in our best political friends, the Republicans.

Looking back over the past ten years of contemporary American history, which includes eight years of President Obama and two years of President Trump, it becomes painfully obvious that the Democrats have been steadily gaining the upper hand in national and state politics. This increasing concentration of power in Democratic hands has been taking place despite the remarkable growth and ascendancy of the Tea Party movement which swept historic Republican majorities into the Senate, the House of Representatives, and state legislatures and state governorships across the nation in 2010 and 2014 and propelled Donald Trump into the White House in 2016. Ironically, Democrats are even more powerful and dangerous now in 2019, with majority control of the House alone, than they were in 2009 when they controlled the White House, the House and the Senate with a filibuster-proof supermajority in the latter chamber. How so?

In today's money-driven, politically polarized, social media-saturated culture, a political movement easily claims victory over its opposition based on the sums of money it raises and spends on advertising, the amount of media publicity it gets, and the number of seats and chambers it wins and holds in Washington and state capitals. Although these factors are to some extent important and necessary for any political movement to achieve national prominence, their sum does not automatically equal enduring influence. The true yardstick for measuring the long-term success of any U.S. political movement is its ability to accomplish its stated objectives. And the absolutely critical factor here is the movement's determination (or lack thereof) to implement its agenda.

During the past ten years, the Democrats have made it very clear that their agenda is to fundamentally transform America from a Judeo-Christian, Constitutional, pro-life, pro-family, small-government, low-tax, balanced-budget, market-economy-based, secure-borders nation into a godless, lawless, pro-abortion, anti-family, big-government, high-tax, high-debt, socialist, open-borders nation. Their toolkit to accomplish this has included lies, propaganda, secrecy, name-calling, character assassination, threats, and blackmail. Frankly, they've made substantial progress toward their revolutionary goal with the continued expulsion of God from our national life and public places, a litany of unconstitutional laws and executive orders from ObamaCare to DACA, maintaining taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood, Supreme Court decisions upholding ObamaCare and striking down state marriage laws, swelling of the federal bureaucracy, high taxes, a national debt increase of $12 trillion, stifled economic growth, and a massive population of illegal immigrants.

The fact that most of this was accomplished with Republicans controlling one or both houses of Congress is a shining reflection on the bulldog tenacity of Democrats to see their agenda through, come what may. It's also a glaring reflection on the disappointing lack of determination by Republicans to implement their own agenda for the country. Supposedly, the Republicans want to keep America a Judeo-Christian, Constitutional, pro-life, pro-family, small-government, low-tax, fiscally responsible, market-economy-based, secure-borders nation. And it's true that in the past two years, President Trump and Congressional Republicans have taken some important steps to implement their agenda, reversing some of the damage wreaked by Democrats under President Obama. However, the Republicans have not been anywhere near as aggressive in implementing their good agenda as the Democrats have been in implementing their evil one. Worse, Democrats consistently make agenda-driven campaign promises and deliver on them, while Republicans tend to make agenda-driven campaign promises and renege on them.

Case in point: the ObamaCare monstrosity. Democrats promised it during the 2008 election campaign, and after winning that election, despite opposition from Republicans and two-thirds of the American people, they delivered, ramming the controversial bill through Congress and into law in 2010. Republicans promised to either repeal or de-fund it during the 2014 election season, but after winning that election, despite massive support for fulfilling their campaign promise, in 2015 Republicans led by House Speaker John Boehner caved in to President Obama's demand for money for his pet law. Again in 2016, Donald Trump and the Republicans solemnly pledged to repeal the Affordable Care Act [sic] and replace it with entirely new healthcare legislation in line with their own agenda. But while a Democratic-controlled White House, Senate and House in 2009 and 2010 proved entirely capable of enacting ObamaCare, a Republican-controlled White House, Senate and House in 2017 and 2018 proved entirely incapable of repealing it.

The fact that ObamaCare is still on the books today certainly demonstrates the staying power of the corrupt Washington establishment behind it (with which the Democrats are fully in bed), but more to the point here, it exemplifies the ominous trend of the past ten years in which Republicans are quickly throwing their campaign promises out the window, quietly setting their agenda aside, and gradually ceding more power to their Democratic enemies. The donkey's iron determination combined with the elephant's hushed timidity effectively renders the Democratic Party the majority party in America today. If this trend continues, within twenty years the Republican Party will find itself an irrelevant minority party, leaving the Democrats firmly in charge of national affairs.

Why have Republican politicians abandoned their core principles, betrayed their loyal constituents, and compromised their cherished values in this fashion? Apparently, for fear of the Democrats who are threatening them and have added the incitement of mob violence to their toolkit in their increasing desperation to further advance their radically secularist agenda. And apparently, Republicans are so scared of the above-mentioned establishment that they've been transformed into creatures of that very establishment, while still claiming to represent "we the people." They are now followers disguised as leaders. The Republicans' hypocrisy is sickening and their cowardice is frightening. I have to hand it to the Democrats: they know exactly what they want to achieve and how to achieve it, and come heck or high water, they're accomplishing it. Meanwhile, much of the wholesome agenda our country sorely needs languishes in the comfortable offices of House and Senate Republicans.

Yes, the Democratic bullies have lots of money and power thanks to the corrupt establishment and the "mainstream" media. But that's a poor excuse for Republicans to roll over and play dead. The Republican principles that made America great are worth defending as strenuously as possible, and since the Republican agenda based on those principles holds the key to America's long-term survival, it must be pushed with even more determination than the Democrats are pushing their rotten agenda if it is to succeed long-term. This means the Republicans must be "wise as serpents and simple as doves," taking full advantage of their own strengths and fully exploiting the Democrats' weaknesses. The Democrats may seem stronger at the moment in worldly terms, but Republicans have the far greater strengths of faith and trust in God, the revealed truths of natural law regarding human life and liberty, the wisdom and example of the Founders, prayer and fasting, and divine grace. If Republicans utilize their own strengths with sufficient determination and resolve for a sufficient period of time, America will be rescued from the tyranny of radical secularism. If not...


Copyright © 2019 Justin D. Soutar. All rights reserved.

ElectionWatch 2018: What Will Happen?

Continuing with a tradition begun in 2010 and continued in 2014, it's time (past time, really) for an ElectionWatch series of blog posts and articles offering insight and commentary on the 2018 U.S. congressional, senatorial, gubernatorial and state legislative elections. Although leap-year presidential elections are the "big shows" that generate increasingly huge amounts of political fundraising, campaigning, media attention and voter activity, I personally find the off-year elections a bit more interesting.

While millions of Republican, Democratic and independent voters regard presidential elections as the most consequential for our nation, the fact is that midterm elections are often just as influential, if not even more so, on the direction of our country. This is because our president, while head of the executive branch of government and director of national policy, is only one man, whereas the fifty state governors, ninety-nine state legislatures, one hundred senators, and 435 members of Congress do the lion's share of actual governing, thereby exerting tremendous influence on state and national policy by virtue of their offices and authority. Depending on the issue positions, agenda, and political affiliation of these lawmakers and executives, this influence is used either in support of or in opposition to the president's national policy goals. During the notoriously immoral and corrupt administration of President Barack Obama, for example, Republicans who took control of state legislatures, governorships, Congress, and the Senate provided an important check on the president's abuses of power by refusing to implement ObamaCare, suing the federal government over the unconstitutional HHS mandate, restricting abortion, protecting religious liberty, and enforcing immigration laws.

Yes, senators, members of Congress, governors, and state legislators are elected in presidential election years as well. However, the midterm elections provide a valuable barometer of national opinion across a wide range of issues, typically indicating voter support or lack thereof for the incumbent president and his agenda. In the historic 2002 midterms, Republicans expanded their majorities in both the House and the Senate due to voter approval of President George W. Bush's pro-life, economic and national security measures. As support for Bush's foreign policy waned, Democrats managed to narrowly take over Congress and pick up some state governorships in the 2006 election. The stunning Republican landslide victories of 2010 and 2014 were driven by massive public dissatisfaction with Barack Obama's abortion, healthcare, economic and tax policies.

What will happen in 2018? Will Republicans keep and strengthen their majorities in the House and the Senate as in 2002? Will Democrats seize control as in 2006? Or will something entirely different happen? To answer these questions in a meaningful way, we must attempt to combine historical perspective with an objective evaluation of the current complex situation in the United States.

We live in a country that is more deeply divided than at any time since the Civil War. Party lines have become fault lines segregating people with radically different values, issue positions, interests and income levels from each other. Republicans have become the party of traditional Judeo-Christian values and support for President Donald Trump, and Democrats have become the party of radical secularism and outright hatred of President Trump. Yet many Americans feel that neither party truly represents their interests. Civil discourse, the art of expressing one's opinions and convictions in a compelling yet respectful manner; and bipartisanship, the art of working together for the common good based on common values, have all but vanished from Washington, replaced by vulgar personal attacks and legislative deadlock. Meanwhile, many Americans, myself included, applaud President Trump's performance on certain issues such as abortion, religious liberty, the HHS mandate, court appointments, taxes, the economy, and (partially) immigration and foreign policy while taking issue with his decisions on renewable energy, environmental protection, and (partially) immigration and foreign policy.

Although it has certain unique aspects pertaining to our own time, our current national crisis is far from unprecedented, and history teaches that such profound wounds of division will be reflected in the election results. That said, it's tricky to predict what will happen on Tuesday night. On the one hand, Democrats are spending a ton of money to try to take over Congress, with the secular media and certain national opinion polls biased in their favor. But on the other hand, the economy is doing pretty well, which helps the Republicans. The latest polling averages from Real Clear Politics show Democrats winning a narrow seven-seat majority in the House of Representatives and Republicans holding on to the Senate, but as we saw with Hillary Clinton in 2016, the polls can be inaccurate. To offer my best guess at this point, I don't think we'll see a repeat of 2002 or 2006. I think something entirely different will happen: Republicans will maintain majority control of both the House and the Senate, albeit by extremely narrow margins.

Regardless of what happens, much is at stake in this election. The Democrats have vowed to impeach President Trump and force their own radically secularist agenda on our nation, and they will certainly attempt to do this if they achieve even a one-seat majority in the House. We need to pray earnestly for our country's conversion and healing, vote our values and leave the results in God's hands.

Starmus v. Festival of Creation

This month, a bevy of prominent astronomers, former astronauts, and other noted scientists from around the world joined up with rock musicians to collectively present the Starmus conference-festival in the Canary Islands, which was attended by hundreds of wealthy science and music enthusiasts from the United States and other countries. This interesting two-week event, which has been held in the same location every two or three years since 2011, was co-founded by Armenian astrophysicist Garik Israelian and his British friend, Queen guitarist Brian May, who conceived it as an attractive blend of science and music (the name, Starmus, is short for "stars and music"). During the last few years, this exclusive summertime conference-festival--which was initially considered a bit eccentric--has grown increasingly popular, drawing an ever-larger number of touristy attendees. It features talks by individual astronomers and scientists, roundtable discussions on specific issues related to science, and meet-and-greet sessions with participants during the daytime hours, and ear-splitting rock concerts by May and company in the evening hours. The genius behind the concept of putting scientific presentations and musical entertainment together in a single event, held at a popular tourist destination to boot, is evident from the fact that this festival is resonating with a rapidly growing audience. People want to take a break to travel and enjoy God's creation during the summer; they want to learn something about the latest science and astronomy discoveries from the leaders in those fields; and they want to listen to music. And these wants are not just whims or preferences, but fundamental human needs for relaxation, education, and entertainment. There is a basic hunger for these things, and Starmus is out to fill it. The question is whether this particular scientific gathering and rock festival, which is now an accepted part of twenty-first century Western popular culture, really satisfies these basic human needs.

For me, the major problem with Starmus lies in the ideological and philosophical thrust of the event, which is decidedly Darwinist, materialistic, and atheistic. One of the best-known keynote speakers at multiple events has been Richard Dawkins, the infamous evolutionary biologist, religious bigot, and spokesman for the Darwinist worldview, which is the opposite of the Christian worldview. By contrast, no devoutly Christian astronomers and scientists--not even award-winning and world-famous ones--are ever invited to speak at the conference-festival. There has been very little talk about God or the relationship between science and religion at Starmus thus far, and when such discussions do occur, God is treated mainly as a curiosity, as an aside, and religion is generally viewed as a private, subjective matter subordinate to science, which is hailed as the real and only source of accurate information about the world we live in. Basically, there is no real room for God on the stage at Starmus, where the organizers and VIPs dismiss God the Creator as unnecessary and irrelevant and thus dare to exalt themselves above their Maker. This essentially atheistic guiding philosophy also dictates the type of music offered at the event, which--as then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger once wrote--is "the expression of elemental passions, and at rock festivals it assumes a cultic character, a form of worship, in fact, in opposition to Christian worship" (The Spirit of the Liturgy, Ignatius Press, 2000, p. 148). And then there is the relatively minor issue of the exclusive nature of this event; only those who can afford to travel to the Canary Islands can participate in it.

Yes, unfortunately, Starmus is a highly secularist and elitist event that accurately reflects the  ideological drift of our contemporary Western culture. It denies God, the Creator of the universe and of humanity, the acknowledgement and glory that rightly belong to Him, replacing rational faith in God with irrational faith in blind evolutionary forces that supposedly shape all of reality with no ultimate meaning or purpose whatsoever. Whatever nuggets of good may be found in the Starmus festival, as a whole it is an event profoundly steeped in the darkness of error, a product of human arrogance and foolishness.

A few years ago, as I was reflecting about this, an inspiration came to me: Why not start a different kind of scientific conference and music festival based on the Starmus model, but shaped by Christian faith and traditional values? Such a conference-festival could be called the Festival of Creation, and unlike Starmus, which lasts two weeks and is held every two years on the same remote island, this event would be a few days to a week long and would be held annually each summer right here in the United States, in a different city and state each year, to give people all over this country the opportunity to attend at some point in their lives without having to spend a fortune on travel. Ideally, this event would not be held in a major metropolis, but rather in a medium-sized city surrounded by the natural beauty of God's creation, with the necessary facilities to accommodate up to about 10,000  participants in the first few years. Opening with a prayer, the conference would feature talks and presentations by believing scientists and theologians from across the denominational spectrum, all of whom would be free to speak openly about their faith in God and Jesus Christ. It would also feature informal roundtable discussions that would examine such topics as  science and religion, faith and reason, weather and climate change, environmental issues, good stewardship of creation, the development of sustainable energy resources, and space exploration. The roster of invited speakers would include creationists and Intelligent Design proponents as well as theistic evolutionists (those who believe God used evolutionary processes to develop his creation gradually over time). Some great keynote speakers to invite would include planetary scientist and Carl Sagan Medal winner Brother Guy Consolmagno; renowned DNA geneticist Dr. Francis Collins; well-known creation theologian Cardinal Christoph Schonborn; and noted creationist Ken Ham, founder of the Answers in Genesis theme park in Kentucky. On the basis of their shared faith in the Creator, these speakers would hopefully engage in respectful and charitable dialogue with one another both on and off the stage concerning their different perspectives on how God created everything. This conference would also feature religious testimonies by former atheistic and agnostic scientists who have since come to belief in the Creator (hint hint: former Starmus stars who see the light would be most welcome!). And in the evenings, uplifting and entertaining concerts would feature praise and worship music offered by popular Christian soft rock and pop bands as well as classical music performances with creation-inspired themes by talented artists, all for the glory of God.

While the Festival of Creation would be primarily a Christian event organized by Christians and for Christians, other people of good will who share our faith in God the Creator would also be welcome to attend. Unlike the expensive, exclusive, and worldly shindig in the Canary Islands, this event would be a wholesome, accessible, family-friendly gathering of like-minded believers to celebrate God's creation and enjoy some good fellowship and inspirational music, all while giving the Creator the worship and honor and glory He deserves. And unlike Starmus, which wallows in the darkness of human error, the Festival of Creation would bask in the bright light of revealed truth. Finally, in contrast to Starmus, which discourages and weakens faith in God the Creator, the Festival of Creation would encourage and strengthen such faith while offering an attractive and needed witness to the growing ranks of nonbelievers of the true origin and purpose of their existence. People need a good vacation, they need to relax and enjoy God's creation, and they need to be entertained; but above all, amid this ever more radically secularist culture, people are starving for the truth, and that is the most important thing the Festival of Creation would deliver: the truth that all the goodness and beauty of the cosmos is the handiwork of a great, wise, infinitely powerful and loving and awesome God, who created everything through his Son Jesus Christ and in the Holy Spirit, and who holds everything in existence, ceaselessly guarding and mysteriously guiding creation at every moment with His providential care.

Is anybody with me on this? What do you think? Please let me know by leaving your comments and suggestions below.

Defending our Freedom

As we Americans prepare to celebrate Independence Day less than two weeks from now, we American Catholics are observing the fifth annual Fortnight for Freedom declared by our bishops, a two-week period of prayer, fasting, education, and activism in support of religious liberty that always begins on June 21 and ends on the Fourth of July. Recognizing the increasing frequency and intensity of the attacks on freedom of religion by militant secularists, especially in our government and the courts but also in the media and our educational and cultural institutions, in the spring of 2012 our bishops published an important pastoral letter entitled "Our First, Most Cherished Liberty." In this document, our shepherds recalled America's rich tradition of religious freedom spanning four centuries; listed more than a dozen examples of recent attacks on that freedom; called the faithful to be vigilant in defending their hard-won religious liberties against the ever-mounting assault of radical secularism; and finally announced the first annual Fortnight for Freedom, which was promoted by EWTN and observed by Catholics across the United States.

Of course, the main event that led our bishops to establish this annual observance was the controversial HHS mandate bombshell dropped by the Obama administration in January of 2012, which demanded that health insurance plans across the country include artificial contraception, sterilization, and abortifacients regardless of religious or moral objections to the distribution of such items. Although this mandate--the crucial centerpiece of the massively unpopular Affordable Care Act, generally known as ObamaCare--is still on the books four and a half years later, having been unfortunately upheld by the Supreme Court along with the rest of the ObamaCare travesty as somehow "constitutional" in June of 2012, dozens of lower court rulings against it have provided temporary injunctive relief to scores of Catholic and other Christian religious groups, healthcare providers, charitable organizations, universities, media entities, and other institutions that have rightly refused to comply with this unjust law despite the threat of crushing tax penalties. Furthermore, last year the Supreme Court ruled that most businesses that object to compliance with the mandate on religious grounds should be permanently exempt from it. So while some progress has been made against this particularly egregious and unconstitutional attack on our religious liberties, more remains to be done: it must be completely overturned.

Like the other freedoms we enjoy as Americans such as freedom of speech and of the press, freedom to peaceably assemble, and freedom to petition the government for a redress of grievances, freedom of religion is a gift from our Creator that is guaranteed by our Constitution and must accordingly be protected by our government. No one should be forced into providing anti-life products and services that he or she considers immoral, against the dictates of his or her religion and conscience.

However, as Yuval Levin pointed out in an article in First Things magazine several months ago, we should beware of too narrowly individualistic, negative, and subjective an approach to religious liberty. Freedom of religion must not be confined to simply obtaining and retaining exemptions for certain individual persons and organizations that refuse to obey the law because they consider it wrong. Rather than being limited to a condescending exception for certain seemingly fanatical individuals within our society, religious liberty should be the rule for our society as a whole, as it was once upon a time. The idea here, which originated with our nation's founders, is that American society will flourish when all of its members are allowed to freely exercise their religious beliefs together as a community. In addition, it is fundamentally misguided to oppose the HHS mandate simply because we Catholics consider it an unjust law that attacks our religious liberties and moral conscience rights or simply because we Catholics regard contraceptives and abortifacients as immoral drugs. Such arguments are too narrowly focused and too subjective to be really convincing in the long run, and our radically secularist opponents have already seized on those weaknesses to bolster their own position. We must go deeper, building our defense on the bedrock of natural law and objective truth. Ultimately, we seek to rid America of the HHS mandate, not simply because we Catholics consider it an unjust law, but because it is an unjust law--not only for Catholics, but for pro-life Americans of all faiths and even for pro-life atheists. It isn't just an attack on our religious liberties and moral conscience rights; it's an attack on the natural law established by our Creator and upon our sacred right as human beings to act in accordance with that law.

Anchored firmly in the natural law, the concept of ordered liberty was a key founding principle of our nation that unfortunately is largely forgotten today. In a remarkably Catholic view of this concept, the Founders regarded freedom not as the totally unrestricted ability of human beings to do whatever the heck they may want to do, but rather as the ability to do what they ought to do, what they should do. While the freedom our Creator has given us is indeed very broad, it does have certain limits that He has laid down for our own good, and those limits are defined by the natural law, which is accessible to human reason. As long as we obey the natural law and thus act in accord with right reason, we remain truly free as individuals and as a nation. Morally speaking, to violate the natural law is an abuse of freedom, which was once commonly referred to as license or permissiveness.

A big part of the problem with America today is that we have largely abandoned this rational concept of ordered liberty rooted in the Creator's natural law in favor of a nebulous, ill-defined sort of "freedom" that is ultimately a product of moral relativism. In the past, our nation had laws prohibiting obscenity, indecency, and pornography in printed material and radio broadcasts; these entirely reasonable laws, which reflected the natural law, benefited our society by discouraging certain forms of immorality, which naturally helped to protect our freedom. No one at the time ever claimed that these laws violated anyone's right to freedom of speech. But if someone today advocates for bringing back such laws, he or she is derided as a crackpot fundamentalist who opposes freedom of speech. That's a shame. We must revive this forgotten concept of ordered liberty based on "the laws of nature and nature's God" in order to re-learn the true meaning of freedom, so that we can preserve this treasure and hand it on to future generations.

This is the first full Fortnight for Freedom since the Supreme Court's infamous ruling last June that overturned dozens of state marriage laws by elevating immoral homosexual relationships to the legal status of marriage throughout the country. As with the Obama administration's HHS mandate, this terribly misguided and wrong decision is not just a major attack on our religious liberties, but constitutes an assault on the Creator's natural law, in which the union of a man and a woman is the primary social institution for the good of the couple, their children, and the whole society. As we fight to defend our religious freedom on this particular front, our well-reasoned arguments must be grounded in the objective truth of the natural law and borne out by the personal witness of our own lives in order to resonate with the widest possible audience and effectively influence public opinion.

Returning to what was said above about the communal aspect of religious freedom, it should be underscored that only a truly religious people will value, fight for, protect, and defend their religious liberty. America's founders and colonists who fought for our independence from Britain and established our nation were deeply religious people of devout Christian faith, and we considered ourselves a Christian country until very recently. As the pseudo-religion of radical secularism increasingly dominates American society and strives to supplant the Judeo-Christian philosophy that made us a great nation, the question naturally arises as to whether we will remain a religious people tenaciously committed to defending our first freedom in an increasingly hostile cultural climate, or whether we will eventually surrender to the forces of militant secularism and allow this cherished freedom to be stolen from us by a handful of godless elitist pirates who have commandeered our Ship of State. It is to be hoped that we the people will retain the courage to stand up and retake control of our nation from the high priests of radical secularism; to recover and proudly reassert our nation's traditional Christian identity; and to consistently and vigorously defend the religious liberties and moral conscience rights of all Americans of good will, so that we can pass this great land on to our children and grandchildren as "one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all".

Mary Immaculate, Patroness of the United States, pray for us!

The Political Rise and Fall of Dr. Ben Carson

by Justin Soutar

(This article was originally published on the website Intellectual Conservative May 11, 2016 at http://intellectualconservative.com/the-political-rise-and-fall-of-dr-ben-carson/ )

More than two months ago in early March, following a slew of major defeats in the GOP primary elections, award-winning neurosurgeon, popular speaker, bestselling author and Tea Party candidate Dr. Benjamin S. Carson officially announced that he had decided to withdraw from the presidential race. For those millions of us citizens across America who had been his loyal and dedicated supporters for the previous several months and years, the sudden demise and fizzling out of Dr. Carson's remarkable presidential campaign came as a jarring and profoundly disappointing anticlimax. Carson's stunningly dramatic rise from relative obscurity to a leading presidential candidate in less than a year's time appeared to bode well for his chances of winning a substantial number of state primary elections--and thus a sufficient number of delegates to the upcoming Republican National Convention--to secure his adopted party's nomination for President of the United States in 2016.

Unfortunately, however, Dr. Carson's performance in the early Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada primary election contests in February, as well as in the Super Tuesday primaries of March 1, failed to meet the expectations of his hardworking organizers and supporters, who had reasonably expected him to carry at least a handful of these critical early voting states. Instead, closely reflecting national polling data at the time, Ben Carson came in consistently third or fourth in each state's election returns behind Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. In the wake of Super Tuesday, with more than one fourth of the states having already voted, Carson had amassed a total of only about 60 delegates--not even one-twentieth of the total necessary to clinch the GOP nomination. Since the math and polling trends now rendered electoral victory extremely unlikely if not impossible, Carson's campaign team realized that it would be futile for him to continue to stay in the race. Calmly facing the unpleasant reality of defeat with his characteristic humility and wisdom, Carson acted prudently in bowing out of the primary election contest when he did.

Within two and a half years' time, Dr. Ben Carson's political star had climbed with extraordinary steadiness from the horizon to the zenith, where it shone with dazzling brilliance, and then suddenly it plunged toward the opposite horizon, disappearing from view entirely in a matter of weeks. What happened here? How did the previously little-known Dr. Carson so quickly achieve the status of a major presidential candidate, only to find himself leaving the race just as things were heating up?

Paradoxically, Dr. Carson had laid firm groundwork for his presidential run by building a solid reputation outside the political realm in the fields of medicine, education, business, and culture. He is probably best known for his trailblazing twenty-nine year career as the director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, during which he performed more than 36,000 surgeries with an extremely low patient mortality rate, including the first-ever successful separation of twin boys joined at the back of the head. For his veritable encyclopedia of stunning achievements as a neurosurgeon, President George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2008. For a number of years, through the Carson Scholars Fund, Ben and his wife had been working to reform and improve America’s education system by setting up reading rooms in inner-city elementary schools across the country to encourage more kids to read books, stimulating better academic performance through a merit-based reward system, and offering scholarships to promising students from low-income families.

In addition to the significant business experience he accumulated as head of the multi-million-dollar pediatric neurosurgery division at Johns Hopkins for three decades, Dr. Carson had served on the corporate boards of a number of Fortune 500 companies, including Costco and Kellogg’s. Finally, Carson’s fascinating rise from a single-parent childhood of poverty in inner-city Detroit to a world-class neurosurgeon had won the respect and admiration of many Americans of different races and backgrounds who had read his popular autobiography Gifted Hands (1990) or seen the TV documentary of the same title (2009). More recently, Ben Carson’s influence on American culture was further strengthened by several other widely read books, including the number one New York Times bestsellers America the Beautiful (2012) and One Nation (2014); the latter sold an astonishing forty-two million copies in the ten weeks following its release, outselling Hillary Clinton’s simultaneously released autobiography Hard Choices three to one.

What initially catapulted Ben Carson into the political limelight was his brilliant, thoughtful, frank, courageous, and respectful off-the-cuff address at the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast attended by President Obama and Vice President Biden—a monumental discourse which deserves a place in the annals of conservative oratory alongside Barry Goldwater’s 1964 speech at the Republican National Convention and Ronald Reagan’s famous “Evil Empire” address of 1983. In this eloquent and well-balanced critique of contemporary America, delivered while he was still practicing neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins, Dr. Carson put ObamaCare, our nation's tax system, our national debt, and our moral decline into perspective and suggested some biblically-based, common-sense solutions to these problems. To those who heard him speak that February morning, it was obvious that Dr. Carson was endowed with a rare ability to discuss complex issues in simple terms that any layperson could easily understand. It was this highly accessible speech that introduced him to the nation as a great communicator with a solid grasp of America’s founding principles and ignited a national movement to draft Ben Carson into the 2016 presidential race.

From that time onward, as a popular speaker and author of multiple bestselling books, Dr. Carson became increasingly well-known within both the African–American community and the wider American cultural arena for his insightful and articulate reflections on what made our country great; for the simple stories he often used from his own experience to illustrate a point; for his intelligent and original opinions on how to resolve our national problems; and for his optimistic vision of America's future based on a return to our nation's founding principles. And his character traits of self-reliance, hard work, honesty and integrity, humility, courtesy, and compassion, combined with his devout Christian faith, traditional moral values, and record of exemplary achievement, made him a principled leader and a shining example of the American dream whose mass appeal transcended racial and political boundaries. In short, millions of Americans already knew, liked, and trusted Ben Carson for months and years before he ever became a presidential candidate.

The ironic thing is that, despite his authentic leadership credentials, Dr. Carson had never desired or intended to run for President of the United States. When the suggestion was first made to him immediately following the 2013 speech, he laughed it off as ridiculous. After all, he was a sixty-plus-year-old pediatric neurosurgeon on the verge of retirement and a registered Independent with no prior experience in politics. But his address at the National Prayer Breakfast had unwittingly prompted the establishment of a super PAC called the National Draft Ben Carson for President Committee under the leadership of conservative political activist John Philip Sousa IV—and once that ball got started rolling, it continued to steadily gain momentum. During the next two years, at the instigation of this committee, upwards of 500,000 Americans insistently clamored for Ben Carson to run for president on the Republican ticket, claiming that his leadership in the White House was desperately needed to straighten our country out. Finally, in May of 2015, the reticent Dr. Carson acquiesced to the will of the people and threw his hat into the presidential ring, entering an already crowded field of contenders for the GOP nomination.

At that time, national polls registered Ben Carson as the presidential choice of about 5 percent of Americans, so it wasn't surprising that the mainstream media initially paid him little attention. He was a classic longshot candidate for the White House, and most observers never seriously expected him to surge out of the bottom category into the top tier of likely presidential candidates. They were in for a surprise. Carson's entry into the race further elevated his public profile, stimulating his modest and already growing support base to expand at an accelerated tempo. Slowly but unmistakably, Ben Carson's national poll numbers started to climb out of the doldrums, leaving single digits behind within a few weeks. (During this time, he also made quite a splash as the surprise winner of the first televised Republican debate.) By the end of June, Dr. Carson had risen to 18 percent, making him the second most popular Republican candidate, and he continued to surge throughout the summer, steadily gaining on Donald Trump. In August, he was tied with Trump for the number one spot, and by early October, Carson had actually overtaken Trump to become the leading Republican presidential candidate in national polls--and despite the predictions of naysayers, he managed to hold that enviable position for the next two months straight.

If Ben Carson's five-month ascendancy from near-oblivion to the pinnacle of the GOP field and his two-month dominance of that field represented astonishing achievements and newsworthy events from the perspective of any reasonable observer, the reaction of the radically secularist mainstream media pundits on both sides of the political aisle was even more astonishing. With conspiratorial uniformity, they ignored Dr. Carson almost entirely. Despite their earlier casual dismissals and negative predictions, here he was leading in national polls, sharing the center of every debate stage with Mr. Trump, yet there was no serious discussion of why this was happening, no thoughtful commentary on this remarkable and unexpected development, no extensive interviews with Ben Carson on the major networks. Instead, we were saddled with a nearly total mainstream media blackout of Dr. Carson, while the lion's share of big media attention remained obsessively devoted to Trump, Bush and Christie. This incomprehensibly hypocritical and blatantly unfair treatment of Ben Carson on the part of America's media elite represented a prime example of biased and irresponsible journalism. Journalists bear a responsibility to the general public to convey and reflect upon the truth of what's actually going on, but in this case the Beltway journalists were obviously at pains to conceal the truth because it didn't mesh with their radically secularist agenda for our nation.

The corrupt mainstream media elite and the corrupt Washington political establishment--which, for convenience, may be treated as a single entity, since the same mega-corporate interests essentially run both entities and they share the same radically secularist agenda--couldn't tolerate the mere idea of an honest and principled citizen statesman like Ben Carson getting into the White House. If that were to happen, the deeply entrenched political corruption that buttresses and sustains their jealously guarded power and influence would be pulled like a rug from beneath their feet and the power of the federal government would revert from these usurpers back to its rightful owners, i.e., we the people. So these cunning and worldly-wise media moguls had to figure out some way to derail Ben Carson's astoundingly successful grassroots presidential campaign in order to prevent him from winning the Republican nomination. They knew they wouldn't be able to smear his reputation with any dirt from his past because there isn't any dirt in his past to dig up. They had attempted to spread some lies about him, but that didn't work very well because most people already knew the truth about him, and those who didn't discovered it soon enough. They tried to find some juicy errors or omissions in Carson's income tax returns--a huge potential "gotcha"--but that search came up empty. And they knew that his political campaign (unlike their good pal Hillary Clinton's) was being run entirely in accordance with federal election law, so they couldn't shut him down legally or call that into question.

Consequently, the mainstream media executives settled on a strategy of deliberately ignoring Ben Carson and relentlessly focusing their primary attention on their own favorite GOP candidates, Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, and Chris Christie. This approach extended to the Republican debates, where despite his high poll rankings and central position on the stage, Dr. Carson was generally given far less time to speak than the mainstream media darlings. As the months passed, this strategy of marginalization proved effective. Not seeing or hearing much of their candidate on TV, millions of less fanatical Carson supporters gradually became discouraged and drifted into the more visible and noisier Trump, Cruz, and Rubio camps. By the end of 2015, Carson had slipped to second place in national polls; he was at third place this past January, and had sunk to fourth place by the time actual voting began in early February.

Yet even with this perceptible decline in nationwide support precipitated by the big media boycott, Carson might still have won the Iowa caucus on February 1 had a despicable last-minute dirty trick not been pulled off by a rival and less principled GOP campaign team. Just hours before voting began, a false rumor that Carson had dropped out of the race was deliberately circulated by the Ted Cruz presidential campaign, deceiving who knows how many thousands of Carson supporters into casting their ballots for Cruz instead. Spreading this lie about Carson enabled Cruz to steal victory in the Iowa primary election. Although he would not withdraw from the race for another month, it's apparent in retrospect that the Ben Carson presidential campaign was essentially finished at that point. Dr. Carson already had enough of a challenge trying to win state primary elections with official campaign and super PAC funding limited to grassroots donations and the heavy media bias against him, but when a dishonest tactic by a fellow candidate on opening day was thrown into the mix, the stage was unfortunately set for his presidential campaign to flounder beyond reasonable hope of recovery. 

Although history indicated that Carson didn't necessarily have to win Iowa to win the Republican nomination this summer, and so technically his chances were still pretty good, it was critical that he score victories in at least some of the other early voting states to give him a realistic shot at winning his adopted party's nomination. But with the deck stacked against him, he lost one state after another, and his chances of making it to the GOP convention as a presidential finalist correspondingly dwindled. Regrettably, Dr. Carson's campaign never recovered from the major damage it sustained in Iowa.  

So in essence, Ben Carson rose to political prominence on the strength of his credentials as a principled citizen statesman, but he failed to clinch the Republican nomination because the corrupt mainstream media and D.C. political establishment conspired to do him in. Shame on them. However, there is more to the story than that. While many of us ordinary Americans do profess traditional religious and moral values, we have nonetheless almost unconsciously allowed the propaganda being constantly cranked out by the radically secularist mainstream media machine to influence our thinking and shape our political loyalties. As a result of this, we have gradually abandoned a humble, honest, great, wise, selfless, moral, principled, civil, commonsense citizen statesman candidate--Ben Carson, a true populist--in favor of an arrogant, dishonest, petty, foolish, self-seeking, immoral, unscrupulous, rude, and ridiculous establishment politician--Donald Trump, a fake populist. Shame on us. Apparently, we’ve allowed ourselves to become so intoxicated by the mainstream media propaganda that we are unable to clearly distinguish between a counterfeit and the real deal. Unlike Carson, who truly represented "we the people," Trump is a charlatan who merely pretends to represent us, while in reality he represents himself and his bank accounts and the Washington political establishment he craves to join. Unlike Carson, Trump is a shameless braggart and a rabble-rousing demagogue who cannot be safely trusted to govern this nation in accordance with the principles of the Founders. Yet this clanging cymbal is seemingly trusted by more than two-fifths of the American populace.

If, at the end of the day, we the people are really on the side of the corrupt media and political establishment, what does that say about us? It says, for one thing, that we are a gullible bunch, easily bamboozled into believing exactly what the establishment wants us to believe. This lack of discernment and critical thinking would have horrified the Founders, who regarded an intelligent and well-educated citizenry as indispensable to the continued health and wellbeing of the American republic. While Carson intuitively held, as he put it in one of the debates last autumn, that "the American people are not stupid" (his emphasis), he was clearly overestimating our intelligence. Yes, we are stupid. Just as a certain crowd, at the instigation of certain religious leaders, preferred the release of a convicted murderer over the innocent Son of God himself, so we, under the influence of our own media and political elite, would rather elect an assertive, blustering, corrupt, and ambitious worldly real estate mogul as President of the United States than a meek, quiet-spoken, ethical, and trustworthy Christian doctor, philanthropist, speaker and writer. We prefer Trump to Carson. We prefer vice to virtue. And because of that, we’ve cavalierly passed up our first real chance to nominate and elect a truly great president since the days of Ronald Reagan, leaving America vulnerable to the capricious whims of a corrupt, immoral, and tyrannical Trump or Clinton presidency and ensuring continued national decline for at least another four years.

During the past two months, I've been asking myself why God permitted Ben Carson to achieve such remarkable early success as a presidential candidate if he knew that his campaign was ultimately doomed to failure. I had sincerely believed that God was raising up Dr. Carson to be our next president, and I was also convinced--as I still am--that he was the only presidential candidate who would have healed and united our broken and wounded nation and restored America to greatness. Apparently, for some strange combination of reasons, God willed that Ben Carson emerge for a brief span of time as a prominent national figure in the political arena, but did not will him to be our next president. Perhaps one of those reasons is that God wanted to expose the interior nastiness and rottenness of our radically secularist mainstream media and political establishment and to show us how easily we good folks are awed, taken in, and deceived by the gleaming exterior of that omnipresent establishment. On the positive side, I would also suggest that God willed to clearly show us, through the beautiful witness of Dr. Carson's words and actions, the path we must tread as a nation if we wish to reclaim our former greatness in the years to come. There may be other reasons as well. At any rate, I continue to trust that God, in his infinite wisdom and providence, has a plan for this beleaguered country of ours, and that Carson's tragic political demise—which guarantees a continued absence of principled leadership in the White House, at least in the near term—is somehow a part of that mysterious plan.

With his amazing roller-coaster ten-month sojourn in presidential politics now behind him, the inimitable soft-spoken conservative genius Dr. Ben Carson is back where he prefers to be, living the quieter life of a private citizen, albeit a much better known one now. He may have lost his one and only bid for the presidency, but unlike his fellow contenders for that high office, at least he had his priorities straight: he would rather lose an election than lose his soul. He will undoubtedly spend his remaining years on this earth continuing to serve his beloved country in any way he can. He will remain and be remembered as a great American physician and speaker and writer and philanthropist, a tireless defender of Constitutional government and a fervent champion of liberty and justice for all, respected for his character and values and renowned for his abilities and accomplishments.

Although he never wanted to run for President of the United States, Dr. Carson did it on behalf of “we the people”, out of genuine love for us and genuine concern for our country, offering a noble and splendid example of both Christian servant leadership and authentic patriotism. For months on end during the height of his popularity, he calmly yet firmly stood his ground and steadfastly weathered the storm of unjustified political and media hostility and prejudice and indifference that beat mercilessly upon him, without becoming bitter or retaliating against his enemies. For that example of selfless service and that tranquil steadfastness in the face of adversity, he deserves our sincere admiration and our humble gratitude.

Unlike any of the other leading presidential candidates, Ben Carson was a true Christian gentleman and a true patriot, and his absence leaves our current political arena acutely impoverished. At a time of constantly deepening national crisis, Dr. Carson's definitive departure from the 2016 presidential contest exposes a yawning leadership vacuum within the American political system that no lesser candidate can possibly fill.

 
Copyright © 2016 Justin D. Soutar. All rights reserved.                               

Why Is EWTN Boycotting Ben Carson?

by Justin Soutar

(NOTE: This article was originally published by Catholic Online Dec. 28, 2015 at http://www.catholic.org/news/politics/story.php?id=66141 )

Like tens of millions of Catholics and others throughout the United States and hundreds of millions of people around the world, I am immensely grateful to God for the priceless gift of the Eternal Word Television Network. From the day of its founding by a Poor Clare nun named Mother Mary Angelica in a Birmingham, Alabama garage some thirty-five years ago, this great tool of catechesis, inspiration, and evangelization has been faithfully proclaiming the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as taught by the Magisterium of the Catholic Church both “in season and out of season,” strengthening and assisting those of us who are “inside the fold” while attractively presenting the beauty of our faith to those outside the Church, leading to many conversions to Catholicism. As someone who has been watching EWTN since 1993, I have been delighted to observe the steady growth of this Catholic cable and satellite network in national and global reach, professionalism, and the quality and variety of programming offered. Since its initial foray into shortwave and AM/FM radio back in the nineties, the advent of twenty-first century media technology has further extended the network’s reach to the Internet, satellite radio, mobile devices, and social media. Along the way, EWTN has acquired a new studio along with its own publishing house which offers our nation’s leading Catholic newspaper, the National Catholic Register, in both print and digital format together with an array of high-quality Catholic books. All of these providential developments have transformed the network from a small amateur TV station of humble origin into the world’s foremost Catholic media apostolate, which is now reaching well over one billion people across the globe.

Thanks to the ongoing prayers and sacrifices of Mother Angelica and her Poor Clare nuns as well as to the spiritual and financial support of its ever broader base of viewers, EWTN has continued to remain remarkably faithful to its mission, in general doing a fantastic job of nourishing and spreading the Catholic faith. Because of that, I have rarely felt the need to question or criticize a policy decision of the network’s leadership during my twenty-two years of watching EWTN. At the present moment, however, I do feel that it is important to raise a question and offer a little dose of healthy criticism regarding one aspect of the network’s programming and publishing that has been bothering me for some time. We are commanded to speak the truth in love, so that is what I will attempt to do here.

My current bone to pick with EWTN has to do with the network’s news programming and publishing—and specifically with its overall coverage of the 2016 presidential election campaign—in light of its mission to faithfully proclaim the truth of the Gospel. I have no objection whatsoever to the network offering extensive and in-depth coverage of this election campaign from a faithful Catholic perspective, as it has been doing over the past year on TV and radio programs such as The World Over Live, EWTN News Nightly and Candidate Conversations, as well as through the National Catholic Register. My problem lies with the fact that this coverage has been noticeably slanted—that is to say, unfairly biased—in favor of certain Republican candidates and against others, under the influence of the godless, radically secularist, worldly, dishonest, immoral, corrupt, and money-driven mainstream media establishment whose values are diametrically opposed to those of the network itself.

As a civil nonprofit corporation run chiefly by lay Catholics, EWTN has long prided itself, and rightly so, on its independence from official Church institutions as well as from corporate entities of both a religious and secular nature, which has allowed it to strike its own path and pursue its mission without unwelcome interference. Unfortunately, when it comes to covering American politics and world news, in recent years the network has gradually but perceptibly drifted from its core mission to be an independent voice of truth, and it is now almost slavishly following the lead of the worldly mainstream media both in the stories it is choosing to break and discuss and in the presidential candidates on whom it is focusing. Whereas EWTN News was once accustomed to offering a fresh and balanced perspective on well-known current events and highlighting important stories neglected by the mainstream media, the network’s journalism division is now largely caught up in the Beltway news cycle, airing and discussing much the same headlines and focusing on the same presidential candidates as Fox News, CNN, the New York Times, Politico, and all the other D.C. establishment media outlets. This is quite a sea change from ten years ago, when Raymond Arroyo and other Catholic journalists at the network were known for their refreshingly independent and investigative approach, often digging up interesting stories off the beaten path, occasionally presenting a different angle on well-known stories, and not infrequently interviewing news makers who were being unfairly attacked by the mainstream media--or who might otherwise never appear on television, radio or in print.

A paradigm shift has clearly occurred within the journalism department at EWTN. Prior to this shift, the network was focused on the objective truth of what is happening in the world today, and its priorities were to seek out and discover that truth and share it with viewers as an independent source of faithful Catholic news and commentary. Now the focus is on what is happening in the world as seen through the dirty and short-sighted lenses of the worldly and highly subjective mainstream media, and the priority seems to be to highlight and discuss whatever the mainstream media is highlighting and discussing at the moment. While EWTN News was once prized for original Catholic news and analysis you couldn’t get anywhere else, now its programming is often almost a lock-step imitation of secular mainstream media news broadcasts—secular news with Catholic overtones, if you will. Although faithful Catholic perspectives are still routinely offered on current events, the global Catholic network’s overall news agenda is now largely dictated by the mainstream media. It’s like an orchestra whose members have remained the same, but they now have a different conductor and are playing different music.

This shift seems to have begun back in 2008 when the TV studio for the network’s flagship news magazine, The World Over Live, was permanently relocated from Birmingham to Washington, D.C. Whereas prior to this big move, the weekly news program was produced in a small, devoutly Catholic media enclave on the outskirts of a large city in central Alabama, now it comes to us from Capitol Hill, where the idols of money and power generally hold sway and where the alluring yet toxic influence of the mainstream media is difficult to resist. Over time, this significant change of environment has led, regrettably yet predictably, to a noticeable change in both the content and tone of the EWTN News programming. Without constant vigilance and the help of God’s wisdom and grace, how could any good Catholic journalist who lives and breathes this radically secular environment not find himself being gradually influenced by it as time passes? It will increasingly reshape his ways of thinking and acting, until eventually he is hardly distinguishable from his worldly peers.

Yes, it must be acknowledged that a certain degree of worldliness has crept into the journalism department at EWTN. This is clearly evident from just a cursory glance at its coverage of the 2016 presidential election cycle thus far, which—with the notable exception of Raymond Arroyo’s brief interview with Senator Rand Paul, a true statesman of character and principle—has generally mimicked the mainstream media coverage. This coverage has been unfairly skewed in favor of wealthy Republican candidates such as billionaire real estate magnate Donald Trump, former Florida governor Jeb Bush, and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, with insufficient attention given to the moral character, voting records, and issue positions of these candidates—the things that really matter to faithful Catholics looking to cast their vote responsibly in next year’s elections. Trump, a longtime Democrat and a good friend of Hillary Clinton, has donated money to Planned Parenthood, supports ObamaCare, and earned much of his fortune by forcing other companies into bankruptcy. That EWTN’s news director would unhesitatingly embrace him as a good candidate and give him so much positive attention on a faithful Catholic TV network this past summer was an example of irresponsible journalism that betrayed a serious lack of wisdom and discernment.

Meanwhile, just about every other leading and longshot Republican presidential candidate has been interviewed or discussed at some length on one or more EWTN news programs during this past year, indicating that some degree of fairness and balance does still prevail within that realm. However, there is one leading Republican candidate who, for no good reason, has been glaringly conspicuous by his near-total absence from the network’s news programming and publishing. Perhaps there is no better way to highlight the problem under discussion here than to pose the following simple question: Why is EWTN boycotting Ben Carson?

Now, it’s true that the term “boycott” usually refers to a consciously activist, deliberate and explicit decision to exclude a certain person, product, or service from one’s support or patronage because he, she or it in some way violates the principles held by the one engaged in the boycott. I am not aware of any conscious or explicit decision on the part of EWTN executives to ban Dr. Carson from the network airwaves or press; nor am I aware of anything in Carson’s character, achievements, or issue positions that would warrant such a boycott by a faithful Catholic media powerhouse. Yet the fact remains—having grown painfully obvious over the past few months—that, aside from occasionally mentioning him briefly in passing on a few programs and in one or two news articles, EWTN News has been avoiding Carson like the plague, neglecting to interview or discuss him and in general refusing to have anything to do with him. There seems to be an implicit, unspoken decision by the network’s journalism staff to simply ignore Ben Carson. And the answer to the simple question posed by this article is unfortunately also quite simple: EWTN is boycotting Dr. Carson because the corrupt and worldly mainstream media—from which the network’s journalism department now takes its cues—is deathly afraid of this particular presidential candidate and hates him with a passionate vengeance.

This, of course, leads to another question: Why does the Washington, D.C. media establishment so deeply fear and loathe Ben Carson? And the answer to this is that the Beltway media elite correctly perceives that Dr. Carson’s candidacy poses a major threat to everything it stands for. And what exactly does this radically secularist mainstream media empire stand for? Moral relativism, religious syncretism, unbridled materialism and hedonism, abortion on demand, continued funding for Planned Parenthood, the retention of ObamaCare and the unjust HHS mandate, unlimited government growth, higher taxes, endless national debt accumulation, the destruction of the nuclear family through sexual immorality and deviant lifestyles, the radical homosexual agenda, the continued stranglehold of powerful special interest groups on our national politics and economy, the recension of our Constitutionally guaranteed rights and liberties, and the thorough de-Christianization of our country.

By contrast, Ben Carson is a devout Christian who stands for moral absolutes, hard work and sacrifice, the right to life of the innocent unborn and an end to legalized abortion, the repeal of ObamaCare and the HHS mandate, smaller government, lower taxes, a balanced budget, traditional marriage and family values, personal responsibility, and a return to strict Constitutional government. However, Dr. Carson’s values alone cannot adequately explain the malicious ferocity of the mainstream media’s coordinated vitriolic assault on him or why he is perceived as being such a formidable threat to the establishment. Other Republican and Tea Party presidential candidates claim to stand for these things as well, yet they are not being half so viciously attacked by the mainstream media. Why is Ben Carson being treated differently?

The answer is that he is different from the other Republican presidential candidates in key respects—and these differences may collectively afford him a decisive advantage over his rivals when it comes to winning both the Republican nomination and the presidency. Among the unique characteristics that set Dr. Carson apart from the rest of the field:

1. He is a citizen statesman running for president by popular demand for the good of our country, not a career politician seeking high office for his own benefit.

2. He is a devout Christian man who reads the Bible daily and puts his faith into practice, not a Christian in name only.

3. He is a trustworthy and courageous man of impeccable character and principle who always strives to do what is right, or what he thinks is right, in any given situation regardless of public opinion or other external pressures.

4. He is a clear and independent common-sense thinker whose issue positions are not predetermined by partisan rhetoric.

5. He is a great communicator, blessed with a unique ability to discuss and explain complex issues and topics in simple terms that anyone can understand.

6. He has a clear vision for America’s future based on a return to sound Constitutional government and the wisdom of our nation’s Founders.

7. He is a splendid example of the American dream and a role model for American youth, having risen from childhood poverty to become one of the world’s greatest neurosurgeons.

8. As a philanthropist, he has made a significant contribution to improving America’s education system through the Carson Scholars Fund.

9. He is the most highly decorated American civilian among all the presidential candidates and the only one to have received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

10. He has built up, and continues to steadily build up, a massive following among the American people, having already sold far more books, recruited far more campaign volunteers, and received far more individual donations than Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, or any other presidential candidate.

Those running the mainstream media establishment are all too happy to promote politically correct presidential candidates like Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump who are in line with their own radically secularist philosophy and values. But the mere thought of a principled citizen statesman like Dr. Carson even approaching the White House is enough to send them into panic. The fact of the matter is that, despite his lack of political correctness, Ben Carson stands a significant chance of being nominated and elected President of the United States. The media elite is clearly aware of this, which explains their vicious and despicable attempt to destroy Carson’s candidacy. They desperately wish that he would just go away.

But the biggest reason of all for the mainstream media’s fear and hatred of Ben Carson is this: polls consistently indicate that he is the only Republican presidential candidate who can decisively defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 general election. Another unique characteristic of Dr. Carson as a presidential candidate is that, as an African-American who is deeply respected among his own people, he is the only Republican candidate who can realistically win a significant percentage of the black vote. If he were to win only 17 percent of the black vote in the general election, he would defeat Hillary Clinton and win the presidency. Furthermore, despite the mainstream media’s all-out effort to destroy his candidacy, polls reveal that Ben Carson has now gained the support of about 20 percent of African-American voters—and that percentage is likely to grow in the near future. In other words, Dr. Carson is the only Republican presidential candidate who can put an end to Hillary Clinton’s hope of finally becoming president herself. And therefore, Ben Carson is the only Republican who can realistically win the White House in 2016.

As the Second Vatican Council reminded the Church, those who are in charge of the communications media bear a serious responsibility to transmit the truth and to help shape public opinion in accordance with what is objectively true and good and right. When it comes to the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign, the truth is that Ben Carson is the only viable alternative to Hillary Clinton as America’s next president. Therefore, EWTN should be taking advantage of its unique position as an independent and massively influential bully pulpit to help promote Dr. Carson’s candidacy among its U.S. viewers, listeners and readers and to galvanize millions of faithful American Catholics in support of his presidential campaign. I am not asking the network or its journalists to explicitly endorse Ben Carson for president (although that might not be such a bad idea); I only ask that they candidly recognize his providentially unique qualifications to lead our nation in light of the basic realities of the current presidential landscape and give him the fair share of attention he deserves.

EWTN’s beautiful and appropriate motto is “Sharing the Splendor of Truth,” and the network continues to do just that in admirable fashion as far as Catholic doctrine, liturgy, the sacraments, morality, prayer and spirituality are concerned. But when it comes to the Catholic media apostolate’s news coverage of the critically important 2016 presidential election season, the truth is not served by sweeping the best and most promising candidate in the race under the rug. It seems clearly apparent that Ben Carson has received so little attention on EWTN thus far because he has been so perniciously attacked, maligned, and belittled by the morally toxic Washington mainstream media establishment. That’s a shame. A faithful Catholic television network should not be permitting the lies and deceptions of worldly mainstream media outlets to influence the decisions of its own journalism department. On the contrary, EWTN should do whatever is necessary to reclaim and preserve its original identity as an independent voice of truth and reason, clarity and common sense in a world ever more filled with lies, irrationality, ambiguity and craziness. Instead of allowing itself to be dragged along by the Beltway media machine, EWTN News should be setting its own agenda based on its own values and striving to influence political discussions and events in a wholly different direction.

The unjustified and irrational EWTN media blackout of Ben Carson must end. The network can, and should, utilize its tremendous influence to support and further advance the presidential candidacy of Dr. Carson with the true good of our country in mind. As Catholics vote, so goes our nation. If we can get a majority of American Catholic voters firmly committed to Ben Carson, we can elect a new president who shares our Christian faith and moral values and prevent another radically secularist, scandal-ridden career politician from succeeding Barack Obama. That is a goal worth achieving, but it may be very difficult to achieve it without the vital support and assistance of the Eternal Word Television Network.


Copyright © 2015 Justin D. Soutar. All rights reserved.