Protestant’s Faith Bests Catholic’s in Show Me State Race

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ST. LOUIS (ChurchMilitant.com) - A pro-life Protestant Republican is being challenged by a pro-abortion Catholic Democrat for Missouri's governorship.

Tuesday's primary election results are pitting Gov. Mike Parson (R), a pro-life Southern Baptist, against State Auditor Nicole Galloway, a Catholic-educated, Planned Parenthood-endorsed Democrat.

Planned Parenthood's Yamelsie Rodríguez endorsed the supposedly Catholic Galloway.

"Auditor Nicole Galloway is a proven champion of access to health care, including the full range of sexual and reproductive health care," said the president and CEO of Advocates of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri.

Rodríguez continued her endorsement of Galloway:

In Missouri, abortion access is already hanging by a thread for 1.1 million women of reproductive age. Providing health care is meaningless if people cannot access it. The Parson administration has relentlessly attacked our health and rights, but Missourians won't take these attacks anymore — and they're looking to make their voices heard at the ballot box. That's why we are thrilled to endorse Auditor Nicole Galloway for governor, a candidate who will give voters a chance to put Missouri on the right track.

Galloway's pro-abortion platform runs contrary to her nominally Catholic formation in St. Louis, the most Catholic city in Missouri. The diocese was elevated to an archdiocese in 1847. According to the archdiocese's website, St. Louis was known as "the Rome of the West":

Because of its strong Catholic identity and having been the mother diocese of many dioceses in the midwest, the archdiocese was often referred to as "The Rome of the West" — a nickname it wears with pride for its history of evangelization as well as zeal for the missionary discipleship and evangelization it will spread now and for generations to come.

Galloway is a product of St. Louis' Catholic education system. She attended her parish's grade school (St. Paul Catholic School) and is a graduate (class of 2000) of St. Louis' Ursaline Academy, which lists her among the school's "notable alumnae."

The academy's website describes its Catholic school mission.

"The primary focus and responsibility of campus ministry is to foster the spiritual formation and faith development of our students," the website informs. "The programs we offer seek to help our students integrate a knowledge and understanding of their Faith with experiences that make that Faith a lived reality."

Galloway's website, however, makes no mention of her Catholic faith or her Catholic education. An extensive profile in St. Louis Magazine is silent on the candidate's Planned Parenthood endorsement.

The pro-abortion candidate currently lives in Columbia, Missouri, which is located in the diocese of Jefferson City under the authority of Bp. Shawn McKnight. As of press time, the diocese had not responded to a request for comment on Galloway's candidacy.

The evangelical Parson, meanwhile, is regularly heralded as one of the nation's most pro-life governors. He says he'd like to make Missouri "the most pro-life state in the country."

Attempting to make good on his word, Parson tried to close the state's single, remaining abortion mill in 2019 but ran into a roadblock in Judge Michael Stelzer, another "party-of-death" Catholic.

A member of St. Gabriel the Archangel parish and a former parish council member, Stelzer used his office in support of abortion. Ballotpedia documents the incident:

On May 31, 2019, Judge Stelzer issued a temporary restraining order preventing the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) from allowing the license of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region to expire on May 31. In his order, Stelzer stated that Planned Parenthood "has demonstrated that immediate and irreparable injury will result if Petitioner's license is allowed to expire," and that "a temporary restraining order is necessary to preserve the status quo." At the time, the Planned Parenthood facility was the only licensed abortion provider in Missouri. The DHSS was in the process of completing an investigation into the operations of the facility.

With Stelzer's help, the pro-life showdown landed on the desk of the state's Administrative Hearing Commission where another judge sided with Planned Parenthood.

Missouri's pro-life Catholics will have an easy decision for governor. But it will mean voting for a Baptist over a Catholic.

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