This has to be one of the best homilies that I have heard in recent memory and I hear good homilies on a weekly basis from my Pastor and Parochial Vicars at the parish I work for and attend.
This homily needs to be shared with everyone and anyone that is voting this coming election here in the United States of America. Either read it here or watch it below, but whatever you do, please share this your family and friends. This must go viral!
As I have said before on this blog, I am so glad that I live in the Diocese of Phoenix. We are very blessed to have Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted and priests like Fr. John Lankeit, my Pastor, Fr. Will Schmid, and many of their brother priests who are not afraid to preach the Gospel message of Jesus Christ.
For more information on voting as a Catholic, I would encourage you to read, Catholics in the Public Square, a document in it’s fourth edition and written by Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted.
To pray for this election, see my post – If we haven’t prayed yet for the US Election…it’s time to start praying!
More from Fr. John Lankeit, see A Catholic Priest walked into Target today.
Fr. John Lankeit is the Rector of The Cathedral of Saints Simon and Jude Cathedral in Phoenix, Arizona. He has been a Catholic priest in the Diocese of Phoenix since June 3, 2006. He has served as the Rector of the Cathedral since June 1, 2010. Fr. Lankeit is a dynamic speaker and homilist. His homilies can be heard here.
Note: After considerable thought and prayer, the comments on this blog post have been closed. Some trolls have shown up, some rather anti-Catholic rhetoric has also been given, but not approved, and extremism on both sides of the argument. Thank you to everyone that did comment.
Categories: Catholicism
TOM PERNA 
god bless you fr john. lankeit.
we pray all is going well for you and the services you are doing to help others come to Christ in their of need in prayer. our blessings. fr Donald Thomas.
I am not Catholic, but I appreciate your homily. I was already voting against this particular presidential candidate, but now I am confident in my decision.
Thank you Father Lankeit. I believe we need more of our priests and bishops “preaching politics”. We can’t pray enough for our country right now, and the direction it is headed.
Needs to be translated into Spanish as in the last two elections, the Pro Abortion candidate was handed the election by a majority of Hispanic Catholics who placed their own financial and material comfort ahead of the rights of others to their very lives.
Thank you Fr. John Lankeit!
Your courage and clarity on abortion verses the other issues which so many people use to justify voting irresponsibly are greatly appreciated! May other priests be inspired to preach likewise!!
That is exactly why I am voting for the pro life candidate,donald trump.The church teaching on capital punishment is that it supports the death penalty in SOME cases of heinous crime.We need more priests to speak out about this election.God bless you, Father.
Sandra McNeer on October 6,2016 Thank you Fr. John for speaking the truth. My husband and I go to mass every Sunday and all we have been hearing is how important it is to vote for the human rights of immigrants and refugees, but very little talk about the human right for the unborn. So pretty much they are giving an ok to vote for Hilary who openly is for Abortion. It makes me so sad and angry to the point to wonder if the Catholic church is not my church any more, my heart was in despair until I listened to your sermon! Thanks be to God.
I have forwarded this magnifcent and courageous homily to everyone on my address list. Congratulations, Father. This is exactly what we , as Catholics, need to hear from our pulpits,now, and sorry to say, seldom do.
Thank you and bless you for your strong homily.
As a Catholic and Christian I am appalled by this homily. Father Lankeit you should get out of your own body and mind to be that representative of what God’s message truly is. Love, Peace, understanding and forgiveness. It is not your job to tell people, Catholic or not, how to vote.
i do not want any replies to my comment.
You may not want any replies, but more than likely you are going to get them. “Get out of your own mind and body” – what the heck does that even mean? How does one get of their own mind and body?
I thought the same thing, Tom Perna.
Carol,
Your attitude is PRECISELY the problem in the Church. God is LOVE but we must NEVER forget that God is also Just. Catholics today are all to busy with the Love, Love, Love part and have forgotten to FEAR the Wrath of God. 54 MILLION aborted innocent unborn USA children cry out to God for Justice like nothing we can imagine. We as a nation may have but one last chance to get this right. Fr. Lankeit is SPOT on … we had ALL better listen and respond.
Sorry Carol, who should be be helping us make an intelligent Godly decision The Media!! I am a Baptist, not Catholic, but I really appreciated Father Lankeit’s message and truly believe it to be true
Fantastic! Thank you!
Amen:
One of my favorites – Romans 1:32
Who, having known the justice of God, did not understand that they who do such things, are
worthy of death; and NOT ONLY THEY THAT DO THEM, BUT THEY ALSO THAT CONSENT
TO THEM THAT DO THEM.
W/Love
God bless you, Father John Lankeit, for having the courage to speak the truth! Our Lord will bless you richly! Thank you also, Bishop Olmstead, for your stance against this evil in our country! May our Lord hear our prayers about this issue and help us in this and future elections!
god bless you and thank you father lankeit, for standing firm to gods words. I have chosen to be an abject in the house of my god, rather than to dwell in the tabernacle of sinners. (Ps. 83:11) god bless you bishop Olmsted.
thank you now more than ever,dems will stop at nothing to get that crook in,let Jesus draw the line and let who is without sin refuse to vote for life.
thank you , for your homily. It makes choosing a canidate much easier!
Carol appears to have personal problems. May God bless her and her weaknesses.
To stand in a church and speak such words is not only irresponsible, it is immoral. He is encouraging, really, threatening 20% of the population to vote for a man who does not respect women, black people, Latinos, Muslims, or disabled people (among others). The aforementioned groups are some of the most “vulnerable among us” thanks in part to the many policies that the party Fr. Lankeit so encourages enacted.
When looking at what Pope Francis says about abortion it is clear that this man is misguided or has willingly decided that he knows more than the leader of the church. Pope Francis “has criticized the church for putting dogma before love, and for prioritizing moral doctrines over serving the poor and marginalized.”
Honestly, this type of rhetoric is the reason why generations of young people are fleeing the church. As a Catholic, I believe there should be one guiding question for your faith: What would Jesus do? If a leader of the church honestly thinks that Jesus would support a bigot like Donald Trump (who, newsflash, is pro-choice and only switched his position to cater to one party voters), I don’t think I want to be associated with the church anymore.
Very well said Angela. I support the priest’s right to speak out on this issue but I respectfully disagree with his position that a candidate’s position on a single issue should determine whether or not we support that candidate. “He all but said “Vote for Trump because he’s pro-life.” Like with so many other issues there is recorded evidence of Trump’s flip flopping views on abortion. Trump MAY be pro-life but he is against so many of the other principles and values that are at the very core of Catholicism or any of the world’s major organized religions. As for the question “What Would Jesus Do?”… I can’t speak with certainty but I’m pretty damn sure he wouldn’t support Donald Trump either!
when have we ever compared candidates to Christ ?! I don’t recall anyone comparing Obama or Romney to Christ.. they’re running for president, not for God. Clinton and Johnson aren’t saints …far from it.
Gina you’re not going to tell me that Trump is saint are you?
I’m not comparing him or any candidate to Christ. What I said was his campaign does not reflect any of the Catholic values that I learned growing up. If the pro Trump supporters here want to vote for him because they believe he is pro life that is absolutely their right. But it is beyond bewildering to me that anyone who claims to follow the teachings of Christ can blatantly ignore Trump’s ever lengthening list of groups who he has mocked, belittled and insulted. Is it following the teachings of Christ to support a man who insults Muslims and Hispanics… who mocks the disabled and POWs…who constantly degrades women?
I would be very interested in hearing Father Lankeit’s views concerning Donald Trump’s positions on other issues besides abortion. Because whether you choose to believe it or not there ARE other important issues in this election.
God bless al my fellow Catholics. The Church has always put the respect for and sanctity of human life at the forefront (this includes not supporting euthanasia) and to say that the un-born children who do not have a voice of their own, should be ignored is quite pathetic. I believe that the division among Catholics is due to poorly catechized folks such as I was when I also held your viewpoints until I embarked on a closer relationship with Jesus and His mother and really learned my faith. I encourage folks to see the documentary “Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing” that was featured on EWTN as it shows how “liberation theology” was developed in the Catholic Church and the true intent was to weaken and split the church. The ideology is apparently good on the surface (hence the name wolf in sheep’s clothing) but is really based on communist and atheistic thinking where God and morality are ultimately removed from the picture. Helping the poor has always been a high priority for the church and for many good Catholics. However, our government has the resources to help young mothers and low income families so they wouldn’t be pressured into abortion but instead they prefer to pour money into special interests like Planned Parenthood which by the way, was founded by a racist Nazi sympathizer named Margaret Sanger, as a form of Ethnic Cleansing. Yes, that is the true intent of abortion as most aborted babies are Black and Hispanic. At the end of the day everyone will vote as they wish but let’s hope we do the right thing… and if we don’t vote for life….let’s hope we have time to repent before we have to meet our maker! I will pray for our Church and our country!
THANK YOU BISHOP AND PRIESTS!!!!!
I’m so touched with this message, I’m more convinced to follow the teaching of Christ.when it comes to my civil obligation to this country. !
What saddens me concerning this great homily is that it is newsworthy. Every priest in the country (world) should have been telling us this throughout the campaign, so that there would be nothing unusual about this homily. I also have pity (and try to have mercy) for those who objected to the homily. I must believe that they have motives other than what they stated. We need to pray for them, but don’t tell them because they would object.
How can any leader or member of a religious group built around the principles of love and tolerance support or endorse a man who has built his entire campaign around messages of hate and intolerance? Hillary Clinton is not a perfect candidate for President. But there are NO perfect candidates…and Donald Trump is about as imperfect a candidate as I have ever seen in American politics.
Believe it or not I will not object if you pray for me. I believe very strongly in freedom of religion and I pray to the same God as you. But from today until Election Day I WILL object to anyone who suggests that Donald Trump is the candidate best suited to lead America for the next four years. I will not yell, scream, belittle or insult as Mr Trump and so many of his supporters do but I will most certainly and proudly object.
Donald Trump is not the best candidate. But if you do not vote for him or if you vote for Hillary, you are enabling the intrinsic evil of abortion for which she stands. Think about it and work so your soul can be saved.
Thank you Father for no truer words. I have defended priests’ right to speak politically for many years based on the fact that you are all voting citizens of this country with First Amendment rights. I want to draw your attention to the fact that “they” will not stop at abortion but will in fact push on to infanticide and euthanasia. When Obama was a state senator in Illinois, late term abortions were being performed in hospitals. Some of these babies survived their abortions and the “doctors” commanded the nurses to place the surviving aborted baby in a bucket, cover it and let it die. The nurses went to the Illinois state legislature for a bill to order these doctors to treat those babies as patients. The person who blocked this bill, 3 times, was Barack Obama. This is in fact infanticide. Obama’s action exposed the lie this nation is told by pro abortionists that once the baby takes a breath it is considered a “protected” citizen with rights. Peter Singer, a Princeton professor and philosopher, teaches that infanticide is acceptable for a child up to two years of age. The Groningen Protocol is already practiced in Europe. It allows the murder of a born child with disabilities. Euthanasia is already allowed in the USA in some states. But it has been in use in the Netherlands since the 1990’s. And no matter what the left tell us, doctors there have already gone way pass “asking permission” from the patient and their families to just doing it as they see fit.
Britain’s health care system moved very quickly to the Liverpool Protocol applying euthanasia as they and cost was applied to the patient. Thankfully, families had a fit. I have not sourced its present application. You can google all of this. Hillary Clinton recently pronounced that she wanted abortion to be a “natural” event woven into the “fabric” of society. I often ask my friends who are primarily Catholic – How can a Catholic vote for abortion?
Bravo. God bless you
What I don’t understand is how people are so blind to the truth. Killing an innocent life is wrong.period. in conversations I have with friends everything else is mention except abortion. I try to educate them about abortion, and they look at me as if I was crazy, so I will pray for them that God open their eyes to the truth.
No priest should ignore the law prohibiting political lobbying by tax-exempt organizations, including churches. By doing so, they endanger the church’s tax-exempt status.
https://www.irs.gov/uac/charities-churches-and-politics
I consider the candidates’ positions on all the issues in order to make an informed decision. As for Trump, he was pro-choice before he became pro-life, just as he supported the invasion of Iraq before he decided to object to it. His “beliefs” are based on whatever he thinks is politically expeditious for his candidacy.
Bud saying “so what’ to Trump’s position changes on abortion and a number of other issues puts you in the company of those who say his degrading comments about women are “just words” Here’s a question for you. Suppose Trump is elected president. What is there to prevent him from changing his position on abortion AGAIN? Right now he will say up is down, left is right and anything else if he thinks that doing so will get you his vote.
Are Catholics supposed to be anti-Muslim…anti-immigrant…anti-women? Are Catholics supposed to favor tax breaks and other economic advantages only for the richest Americans? Trump’s words show him to be all those things and more.
I’d love to see your comparison of “Hillary and the Democratic party’s position on most major issues” to Trump’s positions on those issues.
Bud Herning, it appears that most Catholics do not find Trump an acceptable candidate for President, for many good reasons. The responsible social justice position of Catholic voters is discussed in the following interview: http://www.npr.org/2016/09/01/492203088/church-going-catholics-reject-trump-expected-to-support-clinton
That interview is a joke on two levels: first, it’s NPR, and second, they are out and interview someone from Georgetown University, a university in Catholic name only. That university doesn’t know what Catholic social teaching is.
AWESOME homily.Never heard it put a better way! GOD BLESS YOU! I pray your word spreads quickly! Thank you for standing strong and speaking the truth!!!
Excellent homily. Is there a way to have the homily in word form and emailed to me so I can put it as in insert in our Church bulletin? Thank you
Here is the link – https://14031.sites.ecatholic.com/documents/2016/10/Homily%20OT%2027%20-%20October%202%202016%20Year%20C.pdf
As a former Catholic I watched and listened to your homily. It touched my heart as I pray it will touch the hearts of many Christians. God Bless you Father Lankeit for having the courage to speak as you do.
Penny Latko – I am so impressed with father lankeits homily of October 2. For, unfortunately, the first time that I remember, I have seen someone speak with courage from the pulpit on the subject of abortion. It is and should be the most important issue upon which we should consider who to vote for always. God bless you father.