While Trump is fighting with the Pope, and everyone has a direct take on it, I believe we need to ask more fundamental questions about where this came from and where it will go. Since I have only generalized knowledge of Catholicism and their history with secular powers, my questions will be filtered through my own experience and beliefs. I’ve already made a peripheral statement about the Pope’s comments on the Iran war and more jabs have transpired since such that the nature of the argument is now greater than the original subject, the Iran War. The definitive impression I’m left with is, disturbing. While I have longstanding doubt about the authority of The Catholic Church and the Papacy, Pope Leo XIV is proving my agnosticism of that authority. Certainly, Catholics can be considered Christian, about that, there is no doubt, but Pope Leo XIV may not be considered a worthy singular emissary of the faith he represents.
In NER, I generally keep spiritual opinions scant but deliberate. I compartmentalize. Just like I hide virtually all political inclinations off of Facebook. In local company I may speak either of these but almost never both. I’ll answer any question, but most people already know what not to ask, to guard their own opinions. My opinions of Catholicism have deep roots. I was raised mainline Protestant, moved into charis-funde-gelical circles and back out for good reasons. I spent a time as a small – c catholic as an Episcopalian but could not stay as the local parish and larger org went further over the precipice of wokeisms. To my father, Catholicism was apostasy. During all my fundamentalist days, Catholicism was always suspect but the fringes of my movement and their movement overlapped so there was some small acceptance. Later in my spiritual ecclesiastical journey, I wanted to like and maybe even to find a way to embrace something of Catholicism. From what I could glean of their understanding of music, art, architecture, and last but not least, liturgy, I could tell that their ancients at least had a vision of the divine and they spoke something that didn’t seem to be fully appreciated in the other movements. But I cannot do it.
The single greatest impediment to accepting Catholicism is the Pope, the Papacy. This long predates anything involving the current kerfuffle. The declaration and belief that such manifestly fallible individuals can and must be regarded as infallible is a singular great assault on my reasoning and I could never fake it otherwise. After that comes institutional celibacy, a practice that predisposes their clergy to sexually abuse the flock, particularly children. I understand the desire and institution of monastic service where celibacy may be a calling, but this is apart from a world where they can ruin a child’s life if they fail their vows. There are plenty of other beliefs in the Catholic Church that I question but I and anyone can abstract, symbolize, or if all else fails, ignore them. The Papacy is a question of authority and the challenge of the celibate priesthood is a practicality that cannot otherwise be ignored.
I had hopes for Pope Leo XIV. This was in the context of wanting to find something within Catholicism that would become an affirmative. After the leftist administration of Pope Francis, there were reports that the Cardinals were more focused on moderating from the Pope’s political leanings. Supposedly, Pope Leo was a good answer to that and in fact he may have been, until the day he ascended the throne. Pope Leo XIV serves masters greater than himself and I’m not talking about any person of the trinity. They spoke, through David Axelrod, and he quickly obeyed. If perchance you’re a dedicated Catholic and find all this offensive, of course no apologies. If you believe in Pope Leo XIV, it’s an article of faith. Any leader of a Christian faith must prove their office. There is no pass for the Pope. He could be worthy of his office though never infallible, but he is not.
We’ve been offered vague pablum about the evils of war and all sorts of innuendo about Donald Trump. Donald Trump could have talked to the Ayatollahs, it is said. He could have talked about the hundreds of thousands of people murdered by the Ayatollah’s regime, or their satanic quest for nuclear weapons or their vow to wipe Israel off the map, and he could have talked about 47 years of acquiring the literal means to carry out every one of their beliefs and objectives which are not just idle concepts like the Pope has expressed. The missiles are real, the refined uranium dust is real and if it were to be shot into the villages of poor people they would die a real and horrible death, According to Pope Leo XIV, Trump should have talked to them. So forget the theologies of wars and just-wars and forget the bible that Pope Leo XIV doesn’t seem familiar with, and it’s not-so-subtle declarations of righteous wars and justice, forget all that for a moment. Pope Leo XIV, the one that allegedly occupies the higher office, the one that Donald Trump is expected to bow to, that office holder held his lips in silence. He had nothing to say to Iran or anyone else and no authority to say it with. The cheapest talk are the words you’re not even willing to say. Trump is not the news story here, the news story is the Pope
It’s with honest sadness that I conclude that Pope Leo XIV has nothing truly to offer the world. He’s just another in a long line of Popes that became quivering operatives for corrupt earthly regimes, brokering the collective massive force of ‘the faithful’ to have their way with them. If that stings, so be it.
Donald Trump in his few short years in office, has already brokered more and more lasting peace than and all the other Popes in modern history combined.
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