Let me preface this piece by saying I am an atheist, at best an agnostic. I don’t believe in an Immaculate Conception or that Jesus came back from the dead. I do not believe that the Jews walked across a parted Red Sea to escape the Egyptians. There are more than a billion people who do, and that’s their prerogative.
What I could believe is that Jesus was someone like Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., or Mother Teresa, an extraordinary human who promoted compassion and tolerance. He was a love your neighborkind of guy, welcoming all comers, preaching love and acceptance. His charisma and magnetism drew people to him.
He was a Jew who challenged the rigid orthodoxy of Judaism. He was a revolutionary. In my mind, he was a 60’s hippie, a socialist, and would be singing out on the Beatles “All You need is Love.” If he lived today, he would be pro-immigration, accepting of the LGBTQ community, embracing neurodiversity; fighting against the devastation of hunger and working to uplift the downtrodden. He might even be running an international human rights non-profit.
He would be appalled by masked men separating children from their families; he would be opposed to rich people getting richer at the expense of the poor; he would be to see people lose their healthcare because of an immoral government; he would be against The Don’s environmental policies that further destroy the planet; he would be deeply disturbed at a president who seeks vengeance on those he sees as enemies; he would definitely be horrified by an unjust war in Iran.
Jesus understood that we are all flawed and that suffering was a part of life. And one more thing: Jesus was born in the Middle East, and despite all the depictions of him as White, he was darker skinned. It is only when White colonizers came in the 6th century to the Middle East did White Jesus appear. This had a dual purpose. Not only did he represent Christianity — which colonizers hoped to spread — by making him White, the colonizers could claim him as their own God. I raise this point because of the increasingly disturbing attempt in our country to merge Christianity with White Supremacy. After all, it makes you wonder what our world would be like if Jesus was represented as the brown man he was. Most likely we would view non-white people differently and certainly would not be promulgating White supremacy in the name of Jesus.
All the outrage about The Don criticizing the Pope and his depiction of himself as Jesus is creating hysteria. I am so tired of it allthe media and pundits bent out of shape, apoplectic about The Don’s blasphemy. Give me a fucking break. Blasphemy is The Don’s middle name. His criticism of the Pope is just another moment for his grandiosity writ large on the public square. It’s not even his first foray into the world of the Pope. Last year, following the death of Pope Francis, The Don posted an AI-generated image depicting himself as the new Pope “I’d like to be Pope,” Trump told reporters, adding that he would be his own “number-one choice” to serve as the next Pope.
How dare he go after the Holy See. It makes me chuckle, in an are you shitting me’ kind of way. Chuckle? Yep. Because why wouldn’t we expect The Don to do this? He has no sense of decency, no capacity for compassion and frankly, not one ounce of religion in his bone-spurred body. His extreme narcissism creates the megalomania that allows him to believes he is more important and more potent than the Pope.
The Don attacks anyone he feels criticizes him, pope, schmope. To him, the pope is just another stupid person who has the gall to disagree and criticize him,that Michelangelo isn’t around to create a mural on the ceiling of his grand ballroom. Worst of all, he is envious that the Pope is more popular than him.
If you have been a reader of this blog, you know that I have referred to The Don as the devil or Anti-Christ on numerous occasions. I’ve mused that his capacity to convince so many religious people to follow him, despite his amorality, is just what the devil would do. The pope is just another person who needs to be brought down to size in order to elevate himself. Frankly, given the spectacle of it all, I wouldn’t be surprised in a moment of rage that The Don challenges Pope Leo to a WWF smackdown.
According to The Don, Leo owes his papacy to him. “Leo should be thankful because, as everyone knows, he was a shocking surprise. He wasn’t on any list to be Pope, and was only put there by the Church because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump. If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican.” Classic Don. Ruler of all things. Everything that happens (except of course bad things) is because he willed it. Sounds kind of God-like?
I love the fact that Pope Leo is speaking the gospel and shows no fear of The Don. The Don is not used to coming up against someone who he can’t bully, who has such a sense of ethics and morality won’t capitulate. It did not sit well when the Pope said: “Jesus does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them.” “God does not bless any conflict. Anyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs.” The Don’s response was: “The Pope said that Iran can have a nuclear weapon. I say Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.” The fact that the Pope is talking about peace means he is advocating for Iran to have a nuclear weapons The distorted mind of our great leader in action.
To his credit, this Pope is also aware of how “The Church has often been distorted by a desire for domination, entirely foreign to the way of Jesus Christ.” Ain’t that the truth. Let’s face it: Millions have been killed in the name of Christianity. have been killed because they were seen as threats, because they didn’t believe in the same God. Jeffrey Epstein has nothing on the Church when it comes to sexual abuse.
The problem isn’t with the gospel, wit preaches acceptance and love, the challenge is living up to its words. The Catholic Church, (and for that matter other religions: Hindus killing Muslims, Muslims killing non-believers, etc) for all its acts of goodness, is deeply stained, and The Don knows that. The Pope in speaking the gospel is bringing the right message, but the Church’s baggage and its hypocrisy taints its message. In some ways the Pope is the perfect foil for The Don. The Don lives his life diametrically opposed to the gospels teaching. He is venal, vengeful, hateful, gets joy in devaluing, envious, is greedy, has no compassion and finds pleasure in devaluing others. He is darkness (the Prince of Darkness?) to Jesus’ s light. His disregard for the traditions of the Catholic Church is apparent in his reference to Communion as a “little wine” with some “little crackers.” Blasphemy!
To the Pope’s credit he has been mortified by the religious tirades of Pete Hegseth whose comments revive memories of the Crusades.
At a Pentagon news conference, Hegseth celebrated the “death and destruction from above” beseeching Americans to pray for our troops “in the name of Jesus Christ.” Hegseth likened the rescue of an American airman shot down over Iran to the Resurrection of Jesus. “A pilot reborn, all home and accounted for, a nation rejoicing,”
Hegseth has a tattoo on his right biceps that says “Deus vult,” Latin for “God wills it.” He has described that phrase as a battle cry during the Crusades, which, of course, pitted Christians against Muslims. He titled his 2020 book “American Crusade” and wrote in it that Americans must fight “like our fellow Christians 1,000 years ago.”
Hegseth is not only the great Christian soldier, but he is the great White Christian soldier. Hegseth’s idea of Christianity, and many who surround him and The Don, embrace White Christian Supremacy. (Lindsey Graham has on numerous occasions touted the war with Iran is a “religious war!) Project 2025, the Right’s manifesto, aims to replace secular democratic values with a governing philosophy that treats the US as a “Christian nation” with a divine mandate to rule. It will do this by any means necessary. The Don is their Grand Wizard
By embracing The Don and his ilk, Catholics and Evangelicals support a man who preaches and lives the anti-gospel: Cruelty, racism, vengeance, sexual assault, dehumanization of the other- all behaviors that Jesus admonished and would be horrified to witness. What does touting Jesus and belief in God mean when you continue to support people who live by these values? Time to stop with the “I voted for him because I thought he would make things more affordable” bullshit and wake up. Not only is he not delivering that, but all of you who have professed your belief in gospel of Jesus have had plenty of evidence that he was an amoral man but somehow put that all aside to help him because president again.
Maybe it’s a time we stop focusing on Jesus’s supposed miracles and start focusing on his message. How about we strive for kindness, empathy, acceptance, and humbleness? How about we stand up and reject White Christian Supremacy and all the awful things it represents? How about?
The Grand Offal Party 