Everything up in the air as bitterest of US elections gets underway

AUSTIN, TEXAS – Both yesterday and today there been nothing about the US election on the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) webpage for any Catholic voter hoping for guidance.  

Silence from the Vatican too, even though this election increasingly looks like if could be decided by the abortion and “reproductive freedom” issue, the protection of which the Democrats have made one of the –  if not the – key campaign issues and that appears to have been effective and motivated voters to get out for Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee. It could very likely prove decisive.   

The most recent polls have shown Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump almost neck and neck, although a PBS News/NPR/Marist poll on the eve of the 2024 presidential election showed Harris with a 4-point lead over Trump among likely voters nationally, with 51 per cent supporting Harris and 47 per cent supporting Trump. 

Via traditional and social media, a couple of voices from the US Catholic Church chose to speak out. 

Bishop J Strickland, the Texas bishop removed from his diocese by Pope Francis, took to social media platform X on 4 November to emphasise that Catholics should be spurred into action over fighting abortion, and also addressed the silence that seemed to be prevailing on the day before the election.  

“If you remain unsure about the pre-eminent issue of life, as one shepherd I implore you to finally face the truth that life is sacred from conception to natural death.  

“Abortion is the violent murder of unborn children. No exceptions. As Catholics in this nation we must stand for life, even if bishops aren’t strong or even contradict this truth. Our nation depends on it.  

“The silence of the shepherds will not be pardoned nor will the complicity of the sheep. The shepherds must be stronger but all of us must stand strong in Christ’s Truth.”  

At the end of last week, US Cardinal Raymond Burke told EWTN anchor Raymond Arroyo that Catholics have an obligation to vote in this year’s elections and that if there is “some good reason to think we can advance the cause of life, and the family, and religious freedom, that’s the kind of candidate we need to support”.

Both the USCCB and Vatican may have been keeping what they judged a dignified silence so as not to appear to be unduly trying to influence the vote. Or they may have made the call that the less said about abortion the better, given the fact that many voters appear to have been motivated to vote for Kamala Harris to protect abortion rights.  

Or they may have simply thrown their hands in the air given that Donald Trump is the alternative, and he has indicated that he has shifted toward a more pro-choice stance, saying he would leave it to the states to decide on abortion. At the same time, he has campaigned relentlessly against immigration, doing a notable job of going against Catholic social teaching on welcoming those in need.   

It’s estimated that around 80 million Americans have already voted in early voting. This applied to some of the parishioners attending Mass on Sunday 3 November at St Mary’s Cathedral in downtown Austin, Texas. 

One lady expressed relief to have got voting out of the way, noting the surrounding tension and acrimony. She said she had heard that two women were escorted off a recent British Airways flight from London to Austin after they got in an argument over one of them wearing a pro-Donald Trump MAGA [Make America Great Again] hat. 

One man described that while most of his family were in agreement in voting for Trump due to the Democrats unwavering enthusiasm for abortion, one adult daughter had been persuaded by her boyfriend to consider Harris, after he had “done research and looked into that matter” which suggested Trump did not represent a bona-fide vote against abortion.   

The Pope’s comments over “choosing the lesser of two evils” were cited by another as offering really the only practical and decent advice for Catholics facing two contentious and far from ideal options. 

Returning from his trip to Southeast Asia, Pope Francis during his in-flight press conference addressed how Catholics were torn on how to vote in the upcoming presidential election due to the Church’s pro-life policy and its social doctrine teaching on migration, while urging Catholics to vote and to choose between the “lesser of two evils”.  

That was surely the only way to approach the riddle, noted the parishioner at St Mary’s, who added that you are never going to get a satisfactory choice in politics, and if you look to your politicians for moral clarity you are sure to be disappointed. 

Most of the news coverage of the election on November 4 seemed only sure of one thing: that the race remains on a knife edge, with talk of how the election could even be settled at county level, making the crucial difference in one of the seven battleground swing states.  

In the news studios, the interactive electoral college map showing how many electoral college votes each state gets took pride of place as the commentators demonstrated which combination of swing states being won – each of which is allocated a different number of electoral college votes, with Pennsylvania having the most at 19 – could get either candidate to the magical mark of 270 electoral seats (out of 538) to win the election.  

On the PBS NewsHour, the political pundits interviewed refused to be drawn into making a prediction, though one acquiesced with a prediction that the result may still not be known by Saturday due to the different systems for counting votes used across the country (and which last election led to so much contention about the vote being “stolen”). 

There have been reports in some US cities of shops boarding up in case of trouble after the election result. In Texas, law enforcement has reportedly been strategising over how to react to potential trouble.   

A strange listless quality characterised the final day in Austin before the US election, the torpor at least offering voters a last chance to reflect and decide between the tough choices. 

By the end of the uncomfortable day of limbo, the weather had had enough as the storm clouds gathered and the wind picked up after nightfall before the thunder broke as Austinites took to their beds for one last sleep before the big day itself.  

Now it is election day. The limbo is soon to end, and with it the tactful silence from the Catholic Church too, surely.  

(AUSTIN, TEXAS – OCTOBER 21: A voting sign is displayed near the entrance of the Millennium Youth Complex on October 21, 2024 in Austin, Texas | Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

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