Still smarting under Pope Francis' recent appeal to the US Council of Catholic Bishops to press for humane treatment of immigrants, a group calling itself Concerned Catholics appeared on Neo-Nazi Steve Bannon's podcast to demand a RICO investigation into the USCCB and demanding that Catholic Charities be defunded. Lawfare, of course, is only bad when Democrats do it; and the when the Biden/Harris Junta threatened to defund Catholic Charities over their refusal to bow to the Rainbow Agenda, then it was religious persecution; but when Catholic leadership objects to the MAGA Agenda, then even the Pope and Council of Catholic Bishops are treated as the enemy within.
Too many actual Catholics have questions and objections to the New Right's anti-immigration policies, so Concerned Catholics have tried to veil their objectives (rather thinly) under the tried-and-true formula of framing the issue as a sex scandal---something that Americans will always buy into unquestioningly. LifeSite News, which up until last January was fairly objective politically but since has turned into a nominally-Catholic version of Breitbart, is even supporting a petition to Vice-President JD Vance to push for the Lawfare and enforce ideological purity among the Neocon wing of the American Church.
This wing of American Catholics seem to have adopted Vance as their spiritual guru, because (likely largely for political reasons) Vance 'converted' to Catholicism a few years ago. The fact that Vance cites people like Curtis Yarvin, podcaster Bronze Age Pervert, Andrew Tate, and of course homo transhumanist Peter Thiel as his main influences makes no difference to these people.
The political messianism surrounding this Administration ought to be more concerning to people than it is. Sites like LSN can't seem to flatter and fawn over the New Right effusively enough despite its overtly anti-Catholic stances like courting the Gay Mafia, appointing Prosperity Gospel cultists to oversee religious affairs, supporting anti-Christian regimes like the Zionists, and terminating federal oversight over Abortion Mills, techno-fascism, etc.
Instead, despite statements from WH officials to the effect that Trump is God's Anointed, and the aforementioned Steve Bannon asserting that Trump is an instrument of Divine Providence whose enemies are demonic, a genuine cult-following has emerged within American Catholicism that supersedes the authority of the Church itself. More alarming is that this isn't limited to Catholics; polls show nationwide that fully 1 in 5 American Churchians actually believe this schmaltz. It's not as though authoritarians haven't cultivated this kind of thing before.
Too, the New Right's cultists are very selective about overlooking other peccadilloes surrounding Vance and the ideology he supports: things like blasphemous statues displayed at Mar-a-Lago, videos released with golden statues of God's Anointed in the Holy Land, portrayals of Trump as a Divine Royal Majesty or a New Caesar. Vox Day and other Red Pills who make up the base of the New Right shamelessly refer to Trump as the God Emperor of the United States, and none of this seems concerning to anybody.
When we first started this blog in 2016, we made the point that the two greatest threats to Civilization were Western Neoliberalism and the rise of dangerous religious cults. The current administration promotes both. It's past time that those concerned about the future of faith and freedom started calling it out for what it is.
I don't share your concerns about this administration or the formation of a dangerous religious cult, but a couple things from your article jumped out at me. First this part, "a genuine cult-following has emerged within American Catholicism that supersedes the authority of the Church itself."
ReplyDeleteThis is kind of true on the protestant side, too. The church universal seems to stand for nothing. I'm watching doctrine, established theology, a few thousand years of history, just get swept away in this kind of feverish quest to become part of the in-group. You're objecting to the changes you've seen in "LifeSite News" and I was recently lamenting about "Christianity Today." James Lindsay is the guy who noticed some changes too and punked the "American Reformer" by submitting what amounted to Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto, managing to get it published. Hence his term "woke right," describing people who seem to share the precise same ideology as leftists, atheists, and indeed, even communists.
That's a good point about Churchians wanting to be with the 'in group.' That's part of the malign influence of people like Tate and Musk who try to cultivate these personality-cults.
DeleteI wouldn't go so far as to say that the Administration is consciously building a Cult; but they certainly aren't doing much to discourage one from forming. As one commenter noted elsewhere: "It’s one thing to support a political leader; it’s another to see them as divinely anointed. When opposition to Trump is framed as opposition to God’s will, that’s not just politics—it’s faith-based submission."