The Apostolic See is Vacant...

And MAGA is jubilant!

Pope Francis embraced the challenge of post-modernity, the flattening of institutions, and a whole lot of other stuff!

MAGA is glad he’s gone, and that speaks volumes!

Photo by Ashwin Vaswani on Unsplash

As a young Protestant high school kid, I was fascinated by Morris West’s The Shoes of the Fisherman. I was born in West Virginia, which is till one of the least Catholic states in the union. I experienced a culture shock when my family moved to Detroit in my sophomore year; there were Catholic churches everywhere, it seemed!

I did not grow up in a religious household, so faith formation was a function of what I learned at my Presbyterian church. I knew little about Catholicism as a teenager, so I was quickly enamored of what I read in West’s novel about the first Ukrainian pontiff. The pageantry and ritual of the Roman Church captivated me. I still find it inspiring.

I graduated seminary and was ordained in the Presbyterian Church (USA) after a legal career. I became a Congregationalist in my retirement years—same theology but a different form of church governance. Our liturgy is often simple, but not so much in my congregation where we pay close attentions to the seasons of the church year and where we appreciate ritual. Some say I am a closet Anglo-Catholic; there are worse things I could be!

I think I share something with Pope Francis—at least in my struggle to become more like Jesus. It is a lifelong journey.

But MAGA did not mourn the pontiff’s death; they gleefully celebrated it!

Pope Francis had barely been dead for twelve hours when Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene took to social media for a bizarre celebration of his passing.

Alleging some asinine insider info on the will and the work of God, she posted:

Now, in any normal period in America’s history, under any normal Administration, and from any other normal American politician, this kind of sickening dance atop a spiritual leader’s grave would be beyond credulity.

Unfortunately, nothing about this moment, this Administration, or this Republican Party is within a thousand miles of normal. In fact, what’s so stomach-turning is how on brand for MAGA these comments are. Their Christianity has no interest in or room for Jesus.

Now, let’s put aside the fact that Marjorie Taylor Greene is about as much a Christian as Katy Perry is an astronaut, and let’s table the fact that right now, she should be in prison or a mental healthcare facility instead of Congress.

But is it any surprise that she and the rest of Trump’s Christian Cosplay death cult despised Pope Francis?

By devoting his life to the teachings of Jesus, he was the antithesis of MAGA Christianity.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, much like her felon-rapist Messiah-in Chief, has never had a noble impulse in her life, never made an effort to care for the poor, bring healing to the sick, protect the vulnerable, or welcome the stranger.

Which is why she and so many in Trump’s Evangelical orbit are rejoicing right now: because the fewer people here who actually give half a damn about the compassion, kindness, and generosity of Jesus’ teachings—the easier it will be for them to further drive the Church to become the very bloated, loveless, violent table that Jesus would have come to turn over.

—John Pavolvitz, The Beautiful Mess on Substack.com

It boggles my mind how the political right wing has blended so seamlessly with the conservative end of Christianity. I dislike calling them “evangelical” because I think it dishonors the spirit of the nineteenth evangelical spirit, which was really quite progressive on most social issues. The end of slavery and child labor came about largely because of the aggressive spirit of those who took the Gospel seriously.

In the post-modern world, the “evangelical” label has come to embody an unhealthy blend of salvation zeal and Republican politics. The trend began in the Reagan years with the adoration of a man who never even attended church! Nobody seemed to notice that.

I fear that the antics of MTG are reflective of a reactionary faith orientation that disses those who speak the word of inclusive love—people like Pope Francis. There is probably a great deal of anti-Catholic bias rolled in as well. The conviction that only evangelical Protestants are genuine Christians is especially strong in the American South and in other red areas where images of the cross of Christ are frequently juxtaposed with the American flag.

This Christian Nationalism phenomenon is clearly heretical, and it is dangerous to the health of our republic.

So much of Trumpism seems to thrive on hatred. Shame on them—and stop calling yourselves “Christians.”

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven” (Matthew 7:21, NRSVUE).