Religion, J.D. and Usha Vance.

Because this blog is steadfastly horrified by Donald Trump and his administration, it'd be easy to assume that it's run by a rampaging leftist.  

It isn't.  

Indeed, if you follow the thread you'll see where we come out on the right a fair amount, which in our view doesn't mean supporting fascism.  I'm a conservative, not a right wing populist.

We note this, as there's been a flap over J. D. Vance's comments about hoping that his wife, Usha, converts to Catholicism, as if that's somehow inappropriate.

It isn't, and any sincere Catholic with a non Catholic spouse, which includes me, hopes for that.

Vance wasn't a political figure that I followed at all until he started to campaign for the VP slot next to Donald Trump.  Frankly, I found and still find his political migration to Trumpian authoritarianism appalling.  Anyhow, I knew that he was a convert to Catholicism, but I wasn't really aware of how recent of convert he is.  Vance grew up in Evangelical Protestantism, which isn't surprising given his "hillbilly" background, and at least according to an interview I heard of him some time ago, his influential grandmother was of the non churched Southern type of Christian view.  Vance himself was an atheist by the time he went to college   By 2014, the time of his marriage, he had resumed being a non denominational Protestant Christian but he was evolving towards Catholicism by 2016.  He converted to the Faith in 2019.

Vance's path is a lot more common than people suppose.  Vance is an intelligent man, my numerous political disagreements with him notwithstanding, and he became an atheist in ignorance.  The more educated he became, the more Christian he became, and exhibiting Cardinal Newman's Rule, that lead him ultimately to Catholicism somewhat against his own will, much like C. S. Lewis became a High Church Anglican after having been an atheist, or like G. K. Chesterton argued himself into the Faith.

Vance's path to Catholicism coincided his increasing rightward political draft and his barely camouflaged transformation into a Illiberal Democrat.  He's trod the same path in that regard ad Rod Dreher, whom is a friend of his (and who is pretending, frankly, to be Orthodox).  There's numerous other intellectuals on the right at this time who likewise share that distinction, such as J. R. Reno and Patrick Dineen, and amongst them are notable converts like Eva Vlaardingerbroek.  Indeed, there's a notable movement amongst conservatives from Lutheran nations in this direction, even as a non political boom in conversions occurs in various areas in Europe.  For cradle Catholics the association with illiberal democracy can be disturbing, and even result in outright internecine fights, but it is going on.  We here will note, as we have before, that becoming politically conservative does not mean having to become a populist let alone an illiberal democrat.

Anyhow, one of the things about Catholicism is this.  We are not religious pluralist.  If Vance did not wish for his wife to become Catholic, he'd be a very bad Catholic.

Usha Vance is a Hindu.

Catholics believe extra Ecclesiam nulla salus.  There is no salvation outside the church.

Now that's a doctrine that Catholics don't emphasize much, and often real diehard radtrad Catholics don't understand.  It isn't the case that Catholics believe that only Catholics can go to Heaven.  For that matter, Catholics are very far from any kind of "once saved always saved" theology and accept that a lot of Catholics might very well go to Hell.  Rather, Catholics believe, as the Catechism states it:

"Outside the Church there is no salvation"

846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers? Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:

Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.

847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:

Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.

848 "Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men."

Catechism of the Catholic Church. 

Vance can of course hope, and should hope, that Usha converts, as her chances of salvation are heightened.  Does that mean that if she doesn't, she's damned to Hell?  Well, we can't know the state of anyone's soul, but the fact that she hasn't would suggest that she's not consciously rejecting Christianity, but rather hasn't overcome something.

Vance himself should be worried about the state of his soul. Catholics reject IVF, which he's been backing, and lying on serious matters is a serious sin, which Vance has been doing at an epic level.

At any rate, Vance isn't doing the wrong thing by hoping his wife becomes Catholic.  He's completely correct to wish for that, including openly.

This is, however, where the liberal side of American culture, and even the American Civil Religion, and frankly the Evangelical Christians, all come into conflict with Catholics.

At some point in American history and in American culture, and it goes back pretty far it became really common for people to be sort of religious relativist.  "It doesn't matter what religion you are, as long as you are a good person."  Well, it does in fact matter what religion you are, and of course you should be a good person no matter what religion you are.

Catholicism was an oppressed religion in the United State up until basically the 1960s.  Open oppression of it lessened steadily in the century prior to the 60s, and in fact was intense prior to the 1860s.  Catholics really kept themselves in a major way as a result, and only really began to enter the wider culture after World War Two.  Al Smith's Catholicism is generally regarded as what made it impossible for him to win the Presidency prior to the war.  An early Casper politician of Irish extraction was controversial in the town's Catholic community because of the distance he put between himself and his religion.  The first Catholic Governor of Wyoming was probably Frank A. Barrett, who was a devout Catholic who went on to become the state's U.S. Senator thereafter.  Joe Hickey, another Catholic came after him.  Both Barrett and Hickey were Governors in the 1950s.  Of course, Kennedy broke the dam in 1960, but in part by pledging basically not to let his Catholicism influence him, which was a despicable pledge. 

Vance hasn't pledged that.

The only U.S. Army generals known to be Catholic during World War Two, we might note, were Lieutenant General John E. Hull and Major General Patrick J. Hurley.  This fits into the culture of the professional military class at the time and it might be noted that the first Jewish general in the U.S. Army, Maurice Rose, was a practicing Episcopalian.  Patton, often noted to be very devout, was an Episcopalian, as was Marshall.  

Anyhow, as noted, it's not the case that Catholics feel all non Catholics are going to Hell as they are not Catholic, and Catholics certainly do not believe that all Catholics are going to Heaven as they are Catholic.  Rather, Catholics believe that the Catholic Church, which is the oldest and original form of Christianity, is the church Christ founded and the one entrusted with the instruments of salvation.  In some ways, everyone who is ultimately saved is saved in some way because of the Catholic Church.  As, to use a mistranslation of von Balthasar's statement, we wish "for all men to be saved", we want everyone to be Catholics as that makes it much more assured.

This puts us way outside of the American Civil Religions' views that all religions, or perhaps all Christian religions with Judaism thrown in for good measure, are equal.

One thing it should also do, however, and recent conversions should help cradle Catholics to refocus on this, is to be concerned about people in our immediate orbit.  Vance is basically doing that, but frankly he's in a bit of a tough spot because he and his wife married before his conversion.  

Simply being in a marriage in which one member is a Catholic and the other is not, if the Catholic is a sincere Catholic, has some real challenges.  Catholicism is different and even after decades the non Catholic spouse can be really surprised by the application of the Faith by the Catholic spouse.  In "mixed" couples where the non Catholic spouse is a member of one of the churches that's very close to the Catholic Church this is less so, but even here I've known couples who attended Mass faithfully where one was a Catholic and the other a Lutheran, for instance, with the Lutheran never converting in spite of the two churches being so close.  

As Yeoman's First Law of Human Behavior is a powerful force, general run of the mill Protestant spouses may attend Mass and support their Catholic spouse early on, but over a period time, simply stop attending as most Protestants aren't under a requirement to attend any service on a Sunday. That's inevitably extremely hard on the Catholic spouse who soldiers on.  This has to be even more difficult in a situation such as Vance's in which the other spouse isn't even a member of a Christian religion at all.

Indeed, at one time Catholics were very much discouraged from marrying non Catholics, although its always occurred, and it was often a stipulation by the Catholic spouse that the other convert.  I've known several Catholic couples where this was what happened, although I think it much less common now.  The religion where this frequently occurs is the Mormon religion, which is not a Christian religion and which isn't compatible with any.  Of note there, usually fallen away Mormons simply become intensely anti religious, rather than some other religion.

Catholics only marrying Catholics was a lot easier when Catholics pretty much were associated, culturally, only with other Catholics. That day is long gone, but there's still some wisdom to the old custom here.  As with many things, the Catholic viewpoint on something like marriage is much different than the cultures, if taken seriously.  Catholics married to non Catholics are adding weight to their cross, no matter what.  And part of that weight is the hope the other spouse become Catholic.

Sunday Morning Scene: Happy Cowboys

 Happy Cowboys

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 105th Edition. What's up with the rush on the White House?

It occurs to me that something is really odd about Trump rushing to start his vandalization project on the White House, and then expanding it to destroy the entire East Wing. . . . it's almost like he fears not being around to enjoy it.

Maybe he knows he's not going to be.

Maybe he fears that if he's not around the ugly garden shed won't be built.

Maybe he fears that's going to be so soon, he had to actually take steps that try to force its completion.

Why would that be?

Maybe Trump knows that he's on death's door, or maybe its something else.  Let's look at the possibilities.

Trump knows he's not long for the world.

There's been some speculation on this for other reasons.  

One could say he's acting weird, but he acted weird in his first term too.  He's been acting extra weird.  He's been talking a fair amount and expressing fears that he's going to Hell.  And well he should fear it.  For one thing:

Now someone approached him and said, “Teacher, what good must I do to gain eternal life?” 

He answered him, “Why do you ask me about the good? There is only One who is good.* If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.

He asked him, “Which ones?” And Jesus replied, “ ‘You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; honor your father and your mother’; and ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” 

The young man said to him, “All of these I have observed. What do I still lack? 

Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to [the] poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. 

When the young man heard this statement, he went away sad, for he had many possessions. 

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Amen, I say to you, it will be hard for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. 

Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” 

When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and said, “Who then can be saved?” 

Jesus looked at them and said, “For human beings this is impossible, but for God all things are possible.”

Based on the difficulty that implies, and it is not intended to be metaphorical, Trump should fear Hell.  He's been far from perfect.  He's a serial polygamist for one thing, and genuinely a bad person.  It appears to some extent he's trying to buy his way into Heaven with the thought that if he can secure peace in some war somewhere God will credit that and allow him to otherwise get a pass on his sins.  He keep seeking reassurance from those around him that will work.

That obsession suggests that he knows he's running out of time.

Trump wants to be remembered for amount to something.  He knows that much of his Presidency will be regarded as a fart in a windstorm.  So he's building his own monumental mausoleum, maybe.

And in doing so, time is short.  Either he'll be out of office in three years, and this is a project that for American construction would take longer than that, or he'll die before its built  He well knows that if a Democrat comes into office after him, under the original plan, no ballroom would be built.  He's taking steps, by destroying the entire wing, to make sure it has to be.

But even that won't.  It'll just assure that something has to be done.  

Trump knows that there's next to no chance of getting this monstrosity done in time.

I touched on that above, but there's every chance in the world that Trump leaves office, either at the expiration of his term, or being lead out while babbling in full dementia, and this project stops.  As he departs his last glimpse of the ballroom will be of a construction project with workmen likely picking up debris.

There's a good chance that the week thereafter the construction company has cleared out and the trackhoe is back with the same operator demolishing this worthless monument.

It's a natural instinct in most people to complete a project.

And it's a natural instinct to keep and use something, once it's built. . . except for Americans.

Trump's spent a lot of time in the orbit of the high and the mighty his whole life. Since his first legitimate term in office, and now in his second illegitimate one, he's had the opportunity to see monumental public buildings that are really old, quite frankly frequently gaudy.  He's not that smart of guy and he probably doesn't realize that the regimes that built such structures aren't always admired in later years, but he probably does appreciate that things Louis XIV built, or the Czars, are still being used.

The American track record isn't quite so good.  We take down buildings all the time, including our athletic civil temples that were constructed at great expense.  We usually get around to morning them long after they're gone.

Trump probably feels that if he can get this built, particular if the East Wing gets destroyed with it, it'll have to be built, and it'll have to stay when its built.  Like Justice Kennedy, he probably naively assumes that after he's out of office, and after he's dead and gone, people will forget that he was a putz, and love him.

People aren't going to love him.  He'll be remembered as the worst human being to ever occupy the Oval Office, and the building will come down.  A future Democratic President will take it down to make a point, if not out of spite.

Trump is banking on nobody tearing it down (which I suspect is a pretty bad bet).

See above.

Another view of the hideous monstrosity.

An interesting aspect of this is the NatCon one that was circulating before this piece of shit project started to advance.  

As we've noted before, Trump's real backers are members of the Dominionist New Apostolic Reformation, but within the NatCons are Catholic and Orthodox intellectuals who have become Illiberal Democrats.  Not too surprisingly, this same group has pretty strong architectural views.

They like architect James McCrery.

Some of these folks hang out at website called Rorate Caeli, which is actually a type of Mass, but which means "drop down, ye Heavens."  They really like James McCrery, and for good reason.  Here's their post on his getting the job of being garden shed architect:

McCrery, Architects of Catholic Beauty, chosen to renovate the White House

McCrery Architects, New Carmel, Wyoming

Those familiar with the architectural work of James McCrery know he is among the greats of the 20th and 21st centuries. 

McCrery Architects, St. Mary Help of Christians, North Carolina

Based on the Senate side of Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, he has designed, restored and enhanced numerous churches, schools, homes and other buildings — all in a classical style where the average man, woman and child responds “beautiful” upon seeing his work.

Now, Jim McCrery has designed what will be his legacy for generations of Americans: a new White House ballroom. President Donald Trump announced on Thursday $200 million in private funding (including Trump’s own money) will fund a ballroom next to the east wing of the White House that can accommodate 650 guests. This is needed, as the East Room of the White House (the largest for gatherings) seats around 200 people, so the custom has been to put up tents outside when a large dinner or event is hosted.

See the designs for yourself to appreciate them.

McCrery, who is celebrating his 60th birthday, completed a restoration and enhancement of Saint Mary Mother of God church near his DC studio, where the TLM existed from the mid-1980s until its suppression three years ago. From the cathedrals in Knoxville, Tennessee, and Raleigh, North Carolina, to Corpus Christi in the Diocese of Arlington, to the Newman Center in Lincoln, Nebraska, to the Carmelite monastery in Wyoming, the churches he designed are spectacular — no easy task in an age of modern codes, budget limitations and senior officials often advocating bland over beauty. McCrery’s name is synonymous with beauty.

Rorate congratulates Jim McCrery on this achievement and looks forward to the next three years of his project’s construction. And we commend President Trump for choosing traditional architecture, and developing a great relationship with such a fine architect. Who knows what others would have chosen to dump on the White House lawn! It is a time to be thankful for the partnership of McCrery and Trump on this project that will stand tall long after all of us depart this earth.

Rorate Caeli.

This is, quite frankly, part of what upsets me.  This thing is ugly and stupid.

It'd be ugly and stupid anywhere, but it'd make more sense in some places.  In Georgian England, for example, or in 18th Century France.  If you went back, an were honest with yourself, you'd think "well. . . this is ugly and stupid, but looks like belongs here" and then you'd go on to tell everyone, "wow, that's impressive.

The top two buildings are in fact impressive.  Why did they take this assignment?

Well, . . . on this, I'll be frank that I"m not so sure about the top building.

Wyoming isn't Medieval France or pre King Henry VIII the Vandal England, and I'm not really too sure that this fits the state too well.  There's been a fair amount of murmuring about it, which is slightly embarrassing for Wyoming Catholics.  We know we don't live in Medieval France.

I guess, however, that this is religious architecture and they are free to build what they wish.

Monumental public architecture belongs to the public, however.  The public doesn't want a gigantic gilded garden shed.

Worthless Democrats

One thing this has served to do is to illustrate how completely worthless the Democratic Party is.

If this was the party of 1975, or 1985, it would have rushed out on day one and filed an action for an injunction, which would have included a request for a TRO.  They would have gotten it.

More particularly, what they would have asked for is an injunction returning the White House to the status quo ante until the architectural commission in charge of these things had a chance to consider the matter.  That would have meant that Donny would have had to stop the construction and the structure repaired, on his dime, until the body could meet and make a ruling.

Yes, that body is going to say "go ahead", but that would have burned through about $10M of the vandalization money in advance, and delayed the project by at least a year.  Mobilization costs would have gone up, and Democrats would likely be back in power.  The thing would never have been built.

Instead they sat around and did nothing.

This all points to an existential crisis within the Democratic Party.  Most Democrats are actually center left, politically, but over the last fifteen or so years the party has been captured by its hardcore left wingers that will not compromise on anything, and so the party has glaciated.  The left wingers in the Democratic Party are every bit as nutty, if not more so, than the hard right of the Republican Party.

We need new parties.

McCrery

I noted earlier that I had placed some home in the design in that James McCrery was responsible for it.

I've lost that hope.  

The more I look at it, it's just flat out gaudy and ugly.  It's interesting to note that McCrery, who was one of the people that Donny did the roof top tour with recently, has been taking some flak. 

Apparently McCrery wasn't always a classicist.  And people interviewed about him recently haven't been all that kind.  For example, Robert Livesey, who was chair of the Ohio State architecture department from 1983 to 1991 when McCrery was a student wrote recently in an email that “to be honest, I do not have a real memory of Jim. My sense was that he was a good design student which is why Eisenman hired him,  Unfortunately, his work does not have the presence of real classical architecture, or even of people who were also after the classical, like Palladio, or later Hawksmoor.”

Eisenman refers to Peter Eisenman, who was a professor at Ohio State and who took McCrery under his wing and later employed him.  Eisenman is not a classicist and has called his former underlings design "bonkers", adding "putting a portico at the end of a long facade and not in the center is what one might say is untutored.”

Pretty harsh.  In fairness, Eisenman and McCrery seem to have had a falling out some time ago, and McCrery seems to have become very identified with his Faith in regard to his architectural projects, which leads a person to wonder why he'd want to take on a giant civil structure like this.  Frankly, Eisenman's criticism seems pretty valid to me.

Rats

One potentially good thing about this is that it might make a lot of rats homeless.  Apparently the White House is full of them, in the walls.

No big surprise.

Rats being rats, however, they're probably just moving into the house itself.

What should reconstruction look like?

One thing that this brings up is what should reconstruction look like.  The White House grounds are already pretty crowded without this monstrosity. Frankly, a pretty good argument can be made that the East and West Wings detract from the original appearance of the structure.  Maybe this presents an opportunity just to take them out, although apparently that would create an office space problem.

The donors

Here's who is paying for this abomination:

Altria Group, Inc.

Amazon

Apple

Booz Allen Hamilton

Caterpillar, Inc.

Coinbase

Comcast Corporation

J. Pepe and Emilia Fanjul

Hard Rock International

Google

HP Inc.

Lockheed Martin

Meta Platforms

Micron Technology

Microsoft

NextEra Energy, Inc.

Palantir Technologies Inc.

Ripple

Reynolds American

T-Mobile

Tether America

Union Pacific Railroad

Adelson Family Foundation

Stefan E. Brodie

Betty Wold Johnson Foundation

Charles and Marissa Cascarilla

Edward and Shari Glazer

Harold Hamm

Benjamin Leon Jr.

The Lutnick Family

The Laura & Isaac Perlmutter Foundation

Stephen A. Schwarzman

Konstantin Sokolov

Kelly Loeffler and Jeff Sprecher

Paolo Tiramani

Cameron Winklevoss

Tyler Winklevoss

Some of these you know, and some of their products you use everyday.  Microsoft, for example, is pretty hard to avoid. 

Some can be easily avoided.  I'll never eat in another Hard Rock Cafe again, ever, which of course will be an easy thing for me to do.

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 104th Edition. Mike Johnson, toady, and other matters.

Labels: 2010s, 2019, 2020s, 2025, 2025 Off Year U.S. Elections, Donald Trump, Mike Johnson, New York, North Korea, Socialism, Special Forces, The Madness of King Donald, Trump Derangement Syndrome, U.S. Navy, Zeitgeist

How Super Bowl LX should be informing American Catholics why the populist far right will betray them as soon as it gets a chance.

Last weekend we ran Catholic Ross Douthat's interview with Doug Wilson.  In his interview Douthat kept trying to pin Wilson down on whether there was a place for Catholics in Wilson's vision of a Calvinist theocratic United States. Wilson came down on yes, but he hedged his bets a fair amount.

The real answer to whether members of the New Apostolic Reformation feel that was has been provided by Super Bowl LX.

I don't like football at all.  I won't be watching the halftime game which I always find to be much like professional football itself, grossly overblown.  But it does provide a weathervane to the culture.  The music associated with professional football shows very much who football feels to be the up and coming audience.

The performer chosen was "Bad Bunny".

Bad Bunny is one Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio.  He was born in Puerto Rico.  He sings in Spanish.

Well the late Charlie Kirk's Turning Point USA is having none of it.  It's going to offer its own  “All American Halftime Show”.

Oscasio is an American.  Puerto Ricans have been since March 2, 1917.  They're fully American, and frankly, Puerto Rico ought to be granted statehood, there being absolutely no good reason for it not being a U.S. State at this point.  And, Oscasio is a Christian.  He's a Catholic, whose mother is apparently very devout.

Here's the thing.  Turning Point USA is exhibiting a populist far right Freudian Slip.  Some members of the organization are just too ignorant to know either of these points, but some know them and don't believe that Puerto Ricans are "real" Americans, or that Catholics are Christians.

The last point is particularly ironic.  Lots in the Evangelical far right like to say they're "Bible Believing" Christians, by which they mean sola scriptura Christians. Sola Scriptura is itself Biblically indefensible as St. Paul informed the Thessalonians that they should stand firm in the "traditions" that they had been brought, indicating that there were in fact traditions already.  We know now what those traditions were, as Christians had been writing many of them down in other texts  that didn't end up in the Bible almost from the very beginning.  But more ironic yet is this, the Bible is a Catholic book.

This isn't a matter for debate.  It just is.  We know how the books of the Bible came about, who wrote them, and what they believed.  There was, at the time, just one "holy, catholic and apostolic church", and that was the Catholic Church.  You can add the Orthodox churches to this list today as they directly descend from it.  But in a strict sense, members of various Evangelical churches don't fit into this category.  Indeed, fear of not fitting into it by various Protestant groups has lead some of them to claim membership all along, such as various branches of the Lutheran, Anglican and Methodist churches. They don't dispute that the Catholics and Orthodox are direct descendants of the original Catholic Church, and indeed, they agree that the Catholic Church is the uninterrupted Christian church that Christ founded.  Evangelical churches that don't hold that view are frankly ignorant on this point.

But they are persistent in their ignorance.  So much so, that many of them don't believe that the original Christians, the Catholics, are Christians at all.

We put the Bible together, and the New Testament was written by inspired Catholic authors, but they ignore that.

As I've noted before, and as Wilson conceded, this is a Protestant nation and moreover Wilson was also right that it was founded as a Calvinist one.  That's a major reason that for much of this country's history the Irish, Italians, and other Catholics were detested and even regarded as a separate race.  It's part of why Hispanics are regarded as a separate race today.  Stripped of his fishing tackle piercings, Bad Bunny could look like a Spanish Conquistador. . . not a "Pilgrim".   

Something about the election of Barrack Obama really brought out latent racism in this country.  The Obergefell decision really unleashed a deep dormant conservatism in the population, but one that followed the American Civil Religion rather than real Christianity.  The New Apostolic Reformation took advantage of that and has been advancing its cause under the radar, until recently, when it started doing it more openly, although still not so openly that the fact that we're in the midst of a Christian Nationalist coup right now is appreciated.  Quite a few conservative Catholics, not really well schooled in what far right Evangelical Christians believe, or just badly catechized themselves, have joyously gone along with it, as it seems to address, and to some degree if fact addresses, the cultural rot that has set in, in the Western world.

But it will catch up with us.

Welcome back to the Ghetto.

Blog Mirror: In Anti-Catholic Crusade, Trump's ICE Targets Holy Mass in Chicago

 

In Anti-Catholic Crusade, Trump's ICE Targets Holy Mass in Chicago

Egg and Smoked Salmon Sandwich (1920) on Sandwiches of History

This looks pretty good.  Frankly, it would have been a really good option for Fridays for Catholics, and well it still is a really good option for Catholics on Fridays.

I think I'll give this a try.

Blog Mirror: A Clash of Liberalisms

 

A Clash of Liberalisms

Pope Leo to MAGA Climate Skeptics: “Repent” The pope warned that ridiculing global warming is not courage — it’s contempt for the poor and for God’s world.

 

Pope Leo to MAGA Climate Skeptics: “Repent”

The pope warned that ridiculing global warming is not courage — it’s contempt for the poor and for God’s world.

#676 A Meditation on Givenness and Home

 

#676 A Meditation on Givenness and Home

Death of an Evangelical. On Charlie Kirk's Protestant American legacy

Almost (well probably all, up until now) of the religion blogs linked in here are Catholic.  There is, of course, a reason for that.  I'm a Catholic.   

Anyhow, I recently put in a blog link to a protestant (Episcopal) one as it's a really broad blog.  It does have religious content, of course, but a lot more.  Anyhow, in its religious content is this item:

Death of an Evangelical

On Charlie Kirk's Protestant American legacy

I think this may sum up Kirk's religious legacy as much as anything.

I've noted that it appears that Kirk was headed towards Catholicism, and he was.  What I didn't know is that he'd lead his wife away from it.  This is more of a problem for her soul than for his, but it would appear that she was coming back, but hasn't quite made it yet.  She likely will.  Jewish novelist Herman Wouk noted in his novel The Caine Mutiny, about the young WASP Naval officers love interests that lapsed Catholics, such as the love interest, had a way of suddenly and devoutly returning to the Faith.  I've noticed that in people I've known myself.  Catholicism is the original Christian religion, and frankly it's hard not to accept that the more you know of it, which is why entire "Bible Believing" Protestant churches will convert when they go down the road of really studying the Faith.

Anyhow, there's been a bit of an effort, an innocent one, of some Catholics to basically claim Kirk as almost a Catholic.  I don't know how far down that road he'd gotten. He was traveling it, but if we're honest about it, and we should be, his legacy, because it was cut short, will be an Evangelical Protestant one.  

And that's why his death has become such a huge deal in this political climate, where as others would likely not have been.

Reginald Pole, the last actual Archbishop of Canterbury, in case you were wondering.

There hasn't been a legitimate one since, in absolute terms.

In Memoriam. James Earl Jones

James Early Jones with Barbara and George Bush.

James Earl Jones

The legendary movie actor with the deep unforgettable voice was an Army officer in the latter stages of the Korean War.  Jones never served in Korea, but his service was notable in part because he attended Ranger school as an Army officer and was accordingly Ranger qualified.

Category:  Actor

Passed today at age 98.

Jones was an interesting figure.  He started university as a pre med major but switched to drama prior to entering the Army.  He had considered a career in the service, but a conversion to Catholicism influenced him to leave the Army as he claimed that Shakespeare and the Catholic Church were the only things in his life that were not geared towards killing.  

He played many roles, but is probably best remembered for either being Darth Vader by some, or Terence Mann in Field of Dreams.

He was a fairly private man rarely speaking of his private life, but he did late in life reveal a diabetic condition which plagued him and he was a devout Catholic, albeit with potentially irregular marriages, dating back to his time in the Army.

postscript:

I screwed t his up, as the comments note.

To make it worse, I noted his death at the time it actually happened.

Inexcusable.

Churches of the East: Blog Mirror: Sisters of Charity of New York Respo...

Churches of the East: Blog Mirror: Sisters of Charity of New York Respo...:   Sisters of Charity of New York Respond to Cardinal Dolan’s Remarks on Charlie Kirk

Blog Mirror: Sisters of Charity of New York Respond to Cardinal Dolan’s Remarks on Charlie Kirk

 

Sisters of Charity of New York Respond to Cardinal Dolan’s Remarks on Charlie Kirk

A Protestant Dominionist Dictatorship brought to you by Project 2025 and the New Apostolic Reformation or the End of the Reformation?

When Trump was elected President, people, for the second time in a row, thought "oh he won't be so bad".  

He's been as bad as expected, and worse.

A large segment of the politically aware American demographic is wondering, nearly every day, "what on Earth is going on here" as the Trump administration does something odd day after day.¹ A second group, his core MAGA adherents, ignore the oddities and assume that a lot of the nonsense about lurking Marxist must be true, and assume that Trump is doing what needs to be done to save the Republic.

Well, Trump is demented, which explains a lot. But there's something else going on. And that something else is Christian Nationalism with a strong Protestant Dominionist focus.

Round Head flag, English Civil War.  Takinginterest01, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons. There were several varieties of this standard, as there was no standardized Parliamentarian flag.

Trump himself isn't really a sharp enough tool in the shed to do what's occurring. quite frankly, and at any point in his life, he probably wouldn't be interested enough to care anyway, as long has people are praising him and he seems to be getting what he wants..  To the extent he has any deep thoughts at all, and he likely doesn't, many of his real thoughts and desire run contrary to much of what's occurring.  Trump, after all, is nothing much more than a wealthy playboy.  He likes money, women, and has bad taste. M'eh.

But Trump was savvy enough to know he needed muscle and backing to get into office and moreover back into office.  The intellectual muscle has been provided by far right populist, Protestant Evangelicals and their fellow travelers, the latter of which will live to regret ever being associated with the movement.  Trump supporting Catholics are going to come to particularly regret traveling on this bus.  

We've often said here that the United States is a Protestant country, culturally.  It's so Protestant that people who aren't Protestant often are, culturally. Right now we have a really good example of that in the form of Stephen Wright, who is Jewish by heritage and perhaps by practice, but who in views is a raging Calvinist.  It's pretty easy to find run of the mill, and even some non run of the mill, Catholics in the Trump fold who likewise culturally looked not to Rome, and not even to Luther, but to John Calvin.  

The very first religiously significant group of English colonist in North America were religious dissenters, something very much worth remembering. The Puritans were Calvinists, not members of the dominant and official religion of England, the Church of England.  Their landing in 1620 came in the context of an ongoing struggle in England over what England was to be, in terms of its faith.  The Anglicans were in control at the time the Puritans left for North American shores and they were also suppressed for their religious radicalism in their native land.  England was now solidly Protestant, sort of, with latent Catholicism seemingly having been beaten down with the peasants losing the Prayer Book Rebellion of 1549, but whether England would be radically Calvinist or sort of looking back at its Catholicism with the Church of England had not been determined.  That question would provide much of the background to the English Civil War in which the parliament sought to depose an Anglican king, while being lead by a Calvinist who would be declared the Lord Protector.  Ultimately, Calvinism didn't sit well with the English, and while parliament won the war, the crown would be restored and playboy king seated on the throne, who would convert to Catholicism sometimes prior to his death.

Calvinist would flee to North America upon the crown being restored.

The early English colonies in North America were frequently religiously intolerant.  They were commonly sectarian and aggressively enforced the religion of their founders.  The Puritans did not come to North America for religious freedom in the manner in which so often portrayed in grade school when I was a kid, but rather to avoid suppression under the crown and enforce their version of Christianity where they lived.  People living in Puritan colonies had mandatory worship requirements at the local Calvinist church.  It's not as if, if you lived in one, you could sit that out, or for that matter declare that you were a Catholic and would worship elsewhere.

Puritans on their way to church.

Mary Dyer, a Quaker, was executed in Massachusetts for preaching her variant of Protestantism in that colony.  

Christian Dominionist look back to the Puritans and the 1600s for their concept of what the state should be like.  Not to the 1770s to 1790s.  They may not all do so consciously, but they do.  When they say that the United States is a Protestant nation, they mean its a Puritan one.

We all know, of course, that 1st Amendment protects the freedom of worship. That text states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

When that law, and that's what it is, was added to the Constitution in 1791 the infant United States was much different that the loose group of sectarian colonies of the 1600s.  Indeed, the mother country itself was much different than the one that had fought the English Civil War.  Having endured that experience, and with its own history of sectarianism, what the drafters of the Bill of Rights wanted was to avoid there being a Church of the United States, which if it had been created, would have been a branch of the Anglican Church.  The amendment protected the right of various people to worship as they saw fit, or not at all.  Modern conservatives have decried the Courts for decades about this amendment being misinterpreted, but it isn't.  The Bill of Rights inserted religious tolerance ito the law.

Be that as it may, there's no doubt that the country remained a Christian nation.   Other religions made an early appearance, setting aside native religions, very early on, but they were a distinct minority.  A Jewish house of worship existed in New York, for example, as early as 1654.  But overall, non Christian religions were practiced to a very small degree.  And early patterns of settlement meant that the sectarian nature of the colonies continued to reflect itself into the early 1800s, and even into the mid 19th Century, although patterns if immigration began to heavily impact that, particularly the immigration of Catholics, who were largely detested by everybody else for a very long time.  Be that as it may, American culture reflected Protestant Christianity well into the 20th Century and still does today.

This began to break down, as so much in our modern culture has, in the 1960s with the Baby Boom generation. Baby Boomers, or at least many of them, outright rejected many of the basic tenants of Christianity and brought in the really loose cultural Christianity, although with a leftward tilt, that we see today.  One religion was a good as another, Christianity was basically "be nice".  The warnings that St. Paul had given in his letters were ignored. 

Things decayed.

On this site we've tracked some of that decay.  While not meaning to spark a mass debate, we've noted the erosion of hetrosexual religious standards starting in the late 1940s and which were in full bloom before the Baby Boom generation with the massive success of Playboy magazine, and the concept of the loose moral big boob dimwit and sterile "girl next store", who was always ready to have sex. By the 1960s the erosion was becoming generational.  By the 1970s it was becoming part of the culture and homosexuality began to openly emerge.  Marriage started taking a big hit by the 1980s, with divorce becoming increasingly common by the late 1970s  A culture in which divorce had been hard to obtain had evolved into one where marriage wasn't necessary at all, and ultimately into one where same sex couples could marry, the original meaning of marriage having been pretty much lost.

Enter (Evangelical) Christian Dominionism.

In 1975 Evangelicals Loren Cunningham and Bill Bright had a meeting in which they claimed to receive a divine message related to the culture.  They were shortly thereafter joined in their infant movement by Presbyterian theologian Francis Schaeffer..  They claimed a mandate from the Devine to invade and achieve dominion over the "seven spheres" of society identified as family, religion, education, media, entertainment, business, and government.  The New Apostolic Reformation is informed by this movement.  And this is the Evangelical wing that is active in the Trump Administration and which have heavily influenced Christian Nationalist.

Dominionist, no matter what they may say, are not democratic.  They are part of the Illiberal Democracy movement, and in the United States, they are the very core of it.  Believing that the culture has been hopelessly corrupted in the seven spheres, they do not seek to convert by example, but to seize control of the culture, force a reformation of it, and bring about a Puritan nation on the model, sort of, of the original Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Puritan flag of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

This heavily aligns with the concept of Illiberal Democracy.   You can have a democracy, the Dominionist and Illiberal Democrats hold, as long as it fully accepts the predominant cultural world outlook.  No countering that is allowed.

Now, something careful observers will note is that this movement is now all over the European world.   And some of the early Christian Nationalist are most definitely not Evangelical Christians.  R. R. Reno is a convert to Catholicism from the Episcopal Church.  Patrick Dineen is a Catholic, although he's notably moved away from the Republican Party and is now openly part of the American Solidarity Party.  Rod Dreher was a Protestant who converted to Catholicism and then converted to Orthodoxy.  He's also now moved on from the Republican Party to the American Solidarity Party.  The head of the Heritage Foundation, which is responsible for Project 2025, is Kevin Roberts, who is Catholic.  And of course, J. D. Vance is a Catholic convert.

How do we make sense of this?

Well, one way in which we can makes sense of this, although not in the case of Dineen, Reno or Dreher, is to admit that a large segment of Catholics are heavily Protestantized, although this notably excludes younger Catholics and recent converts who most definitely are not.  Gen. Jones Catholics and Gen. X Catholics were often very poorly catechized and therefore you can find quite a few who have gravitated to the far political right and who will state very Evangelical views of things which they have picked up from it, sometimes theological views that  Catholics don't hold at all.  Boomer Catholics went through the entire Spirit of Vatican Two era and are sometimes pretty beat up by it, and the younger ones experienced the Kennedy betrayal of religious adherence which caused many Catholics to follow suit.  Some Boomer Catholics were on the very liberal Church end as well to the irritation of nearly everyone else in the Catholic sphere, who are glad to see their waning influence, but who contributed to the atmosphere the same way that poorly catechized late Boomer/Jones/Gen X Catholics were, but with a certain added massive whineyness on some occasions.

Anyhow, while it happened later than the birth of the Dominionist movement, intellectual and younger Catholics have moved towards an increased conservatism for quite some time, and it is now really visible in the Church.  Overall it's a very good development, because it's so Catholic, and it reflects the view expressed in the letter to Diognetus more than any Seven Mountain tract.  But the decay in the culture, which is particularly evident from the much more informed Catholic perspective, has caused some intellectuals, notably Dineen, Reno and Dreher, to despair of the culture and, in the case of of all three, to openly maintain that liberal democracy is an experiment that has failed.²

They aren't dominionist, however. They're more in the nature of Catholic Integralist, a movement that long predates Christian Nationalism or Dominionism.

Integralism argues that the Catholic faith should be the basis of public law and public policy within civil society, wherever the preponderance of Catholics within that society makes this possible.  It formed out of the chaos of the late 19th Century in Europe and was strong in traditionally Catholic Romance language speaking countries.  It never supported the concept of a state religion, but rather subordinating the state to the moral principles of Catholicism, rejecting morality from the state, and, in its European form, favoured Catholicism as the proclaimed religion of the state

Integralism really fell away from Catholic thinking as a discussed topic after World War Two for a variety of reasons, one being that modern liberal democracies quite being hostile to religion, which frankly most had been before the Second World War.  Indeed, over time, the Church increasingly disapproved of clerics being in politics, and ultimately banned it.  But in 2014, with an essay by Dinneen, it started to reappear.  It's adherents claim that its the official position of the Church, but fail to acknowledge that on many things the church's "official" position can be pretty nuanced.  Even prior to the Second World War it had always been the case that integralist took the view that imposing a Catholic view of things on a population couldn't be done on a non Catholic culture.  In more recent years the Church has really emphasized that there's a civic duty to participate in elections, which while not rejecting integralism, does demonstrate a view accepting democracies and requiring Catholics to participate in their democracies.

The revival of integralism came about the same time, however, that dominionism started to gain steam, and for same, but not identical, reasons.  Dineen's essay came out in 2014, but the following year the Supreme Court issued the Obergefell v. Hodges decision, and just as we predicted here, thing have really gone off the rails.  Justice Kennedy's decision lead directly the populist outrage and right on to Donald Trump.

Obergefell was just a bridge too far for many Americans, but the drift towards societal libertinism it expressed had been going on for a long time.  As we've noted, you can trace it back at least to 1953 and the release of Playboy, but savvy students of culture would point out that perhaps the signs were there as early as the very first movies, which took a run at pornography right from the onset until being reigned back in.  Mass communications of all types, including mass media, had a big role in this no matter how much society attempted to restrain it.  The moral shock of the First World War lead to the Roaring Twenties which foreshadowed the 1960s, interrupted only by the economic deprivation of the 1930s and the Second World War.  At any rate, the decay had set in pretty deep even by the early 1970s.

Anyhow, Integralism and Dominionism are not the same thing. Pope Francis, noting a rising connection between Integralism and Christian Nationalist, approved a publication criticizing the drift in this direction.  Catholics getting tied up in the far right Evangelical movement's goals are going to be in for a surprise when they learn that many in that community would not even regard Catholics as Christians.  The re-Puritanization of the country would not be a good thing for Catholics, who after all hold a very broad view of Christianity rather than a nationalistic view of it, and who don't share the same millennialist views of things at all.

Dominionist, for their part, would be shocked to learn that Integralist hold a lot of things that Dominionist frankly accept as abhorrent. They may be united on abortion being evil and transgenderism being contrary to the moral law, but modern American Evangelical Christians would be surprised that the mass of the Catholic Church holds divorce to be a great moral wrong and condemns easy remarriage.  They'd also be surprised to learn that Catholics condemn sex outside of marriage, including all sexual acts outside of the unitive type, to be grave moral wrongs, and that's the Catholic concern with homosexuality.  

Rod Dreher, who seems to have joined the Christian Nationalist movement, or who had joined it (I'm not sure about his current position, given that he's a member of the American Solidarity Party), early on advocated a sort of walled in approach to societal moral decay in his book The Benedict Option.  I criticized that approach here, and he seems to have retreated from what he seemed to indicate that book espoused.  Anyhow, looking at the situation overall, this is a really dangerous moment in American history, but also one from which Western societies might emerge into something new, and better.

Much of this comes in the context of the collapse of the Reformation, and it stands to accelerate it.  At the end of the day, holding Donald Trump as any sort of "Godly Man" is absurd. The direct attack on American democracy, which is occurring as we write, is highly dangerous, but probably won't succeed.  Forces on the other side have taken forever to react, but are finally starting to, including a reassessment of the really radical and downright goofball positions the left has advocated for some time.  The New Apostolic Reformation and Dominionist movement carrying the flag is causing "Christianity" to be condemned, but among thinking Christians is causing a reassessment of the Reformation churches and a massive movement away from them back into the Apostolic fold, as the theology of the Reformation churches simply can't be defended.

Roman society was reformed by Christianity, but not by operation of law, but by operation of the faithful members of the "one Catholic, Holy and Apostolic Church".  We're in the death throws of  the Reformation, of which this is all part.  If that's right, it'll be a blessing in the end.

Footnotes:

1.  In fairness, a lot of the odd things that Trump does is because he very obviously has dementia, which nobody is doing anything about.  He's really not mentally stable enough to occupy the office he's in.

2.  Evangelicals of the far right are particularly focused on transgenderism and homosexulaity, but just completely ignore almost all of the remaining actual Christian tenants on sex.  Donald Trump, whom Evangelicals have really adopted, is a serial polygamist.  White House "faith advisor" is on her third husband.  Evangelical churches have pews fill up on Sundays with people who are living in what St. Paul very clearly condemned as states of mortal sin.

Related threads:

A Protestant Country. It's history, and what it means.

Labels: American Civil Religion, British Empire, Catholic, Christian Nationalism, Christianity, Colonial North America, Donald Trump, Judaism, New Apostolic Reformation, Orthodox, Protestant, religion, Society

Until Death Do Us Part. Divorce and Related Domestic Law. Late 19th/Early 20th Century, Mid 20th Century, Late 20th/Early 21st Century. An example of the old law, and the old customs, being infinitely superior to the current ones and a call to return to them.

Labels: 1940 Wyoming Legislature, 1941, 1970s, Blog Mirror, Evolutionary Biology, Long Posts, Marriage, Monday at the bar, religion, Sex, Sexual Revolution, Social Issues, Sociology, The relationship between men and women

Can real conservatism exist without authoritarianism?

Labels: Agrarianism, Commentary, Conservatism, Democracy, Distributism, Illiberal Democracy, Liberal Democracy, Liberalism, Populism, Progressivism, William F. Buckley

Illiberal Democracy. A Manifesto?

Labels: Illiberal Democracy, Liberal Democracy, National Conservatism, Politics

Illiberal Democracy.

Labels: 2020s, 2022, Christian Nationalism, Conservatism, Illiberal Democracy, Liberal Democracy, Liberalism, Politics, Populism, trends

"Do not be led astray: 'Bad company corrupts good morals.' Trump, Putin and American Evangelicals.

Labels: American Civil Religion, AnteCovid, Christian Nationalism, Illiberal Democracy, Monarchy, Mormon Missionary Test, Protestant, religion, Russian Orthodox Church