A look at the top headlines this morning:

• Colorado legalizes marijuana
• Voters approve same-sex marriage for the first time in 2 states
• Wisconsin elects first openly gay senator
• The man who tried to defeat the infant born alive act is reelected president

Fortunately, the physician assisted suicide measure was narrowly defeated in Massachusetts, thanks in part, perhaps, to an op ed piece in the Cape Cod Times where the late Senator Ted Kennedy’s widow, Victoria Reggie Kennedy, spoke out against it. It goes to show that when prominent people speak out on behalf of human life, it can make a difference.

The bleak results of yesterday’s election show that America is trending towards decadence.

Decadence: Moral or cultural decline as characterized by excessive indulgence in pleasure or luxury.

Some would argue that we are already there; in part, that’s true.

As the Roman historian Livy once wrote:

Here are the questions to which I would have every reader give his close attention —what life and morals were like; through what men and by what policies, in peace and in war, empire was established and enlarged; then let him note how, with the gradual relaxation of discipline, morals first gave way, as it were, then sank lower and lower, and finally began the downward plunge which has brought us to the present time, when we can endure neither our vices nor their cure.

The medicine may seem more difficult to stomach than the pain itself, at this point. That all depends on where we place our hope. Perhaps the moral of this election is that now more than ever we need to place our hope in Christ, our only Hope.

To me it seems that our Holy Father’s proclamation of the Year of Faith was a timely initiative (Pope Benedict always has an uncanny way of timing these things). Our job as Christians is to boldly stand up for, promote, and proclaim what we believe, always prepared to give reasons for our faith. In the end, I believe Christ will conquer.

It is still up to us to sow the seeds of the New Evangelization in our culture — to preach, to teach, to educate, and to form our culture with the principles of Christian virtue that our nation was built on; and to lead by example with our witness to the Gospel of Hope.

America is still the beautiful land of the free that it always was. It can still be inspired by the noble ideals that make up its foundation, if we still hold them and continue to promote them. It’s up to those of us who believe in those values to hand them on to future generations for a brighter hope for America.