Old Time Religion

Alternate Title: A Devout Agnostic’s Sometimes Humorous But Mostly Serious Perspective on the State of Catholicism

As a researcher and teacher of the creative process, I want to give Donald Trump his due. By posting the now deleted Truth Social image of himself as Jesus healing the sick, Trump unleashed a wrath of creative talent which included the following:

• Images of the casts of “The Pitt” and “Grey’s Anatomy” in robes.
• The graduating class at Cornell School of Medicine in robes.
• Parodies where Trump is healing BFF Jeffrey Epstein.
• Versions where Trump is surrounded by his fellow authoritarians.
• A cognitive test with one picture of Jesus and one of a doctor. Trump is asked to identify the doctor.
• Jesus, sitting in an airplane, raises his hand when the flight attendant asks, “Is there a doctor on board?”
• Trump/Jesus turning water into Kool-aid instead of wine at the wedding in Cana.
• Insurance company says “glowing orb” treatment is not covered under the patient’s health plan.
• Jon Stewart referring to a picture of “The Last Supper” as urgent care.

My Two Cents

Of course, I had to join this brushback challenge. I completed my first draft yesterday morning after seeing Trump’s post and his earlier potshots at Pope Leo XIV. It reminded me of that moment in the 1988 vice-presidential debate when Republican nominee Dan Quayle compared himself to John F. Kennedy. To which Democratic nominee Lloyd Bentsen responded, “Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy” What would Pope Leo say upon seeing Trump as a false messiah?

However, in my course on “Imagination and Entrepreneurship,” I would tell students even if the first right answer may seem adequate, keep searching for the NEXT right answer. And as he always does, Trump laid the foundation for a better response when he suggested he thought the image of himself represented a physician, not a savior.

My Third Cent

Then came the third right answer. Instead of the MAGA-verse legislating the Ten Commandments be posted in every public school classroom, perhaps House Speaker Mike Johnson should introduce a joint resolution requiring they also be visible in the Oval Office. However, Trump had his custom-made with all 10 bearing the same directive, “Thou shalt have no other god before me.”

The Patron Saint of Wayward Oligarchs

Not that Pope Leo needed anyone to defend him against Trump’s Truth Social attacks, among the most vocal has been the Bishop of the Winona-Rochester Diocese in Minnesota. Although I do have to ask, if you were looking for a Bishop in this era of concentrated wealth to be a leader of an organized religion that owns an estimated 277,000 square miles of real estate, who would you pick?

I promise, I am not making this up. His name is “Robert Barron.” I was surprised as anyone Barron was a member of Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission, a new arm of the Justice Department tasked to “secure domestic religious liberty and identifying opportunities to further the cause of religious liberty around the world.” Did Trump think he was nominating an actual “robber baron” to the commission? I can hear him now. “Karoline, that Catholic fellow from Minnesota. Add him to the list. He’s one of us.”

Despite personal White House ties, Bishop Barron was among the first and loudest to break ranks with Trump this weekend.

The statements made by President Trump on Truth Social regarding the Pope were entirely inappropriate and disrespectful. They don’t contribute at all to a constructive conversation. It is the Pope’s prerogative to articulate Catholic doctrine and the principles that govern the moral life. In regard to the concrete application of those principles, people of good will can and do disagree.

Was this a case of attrition or ambition? For a Trump loyalist to break ranks is a modern miracle. Just two more supernatural phenomena and Barron qualifies as a candidate for sainthood. And since he has finally seen the light, it is only appropriate he be anointed as the spiritual guide for oligarchs who want to atone for putting wealth and power ahead of the common good.

But Seriously, Folks

The title of today’s post, “Old Time Religion,” is a reference to the role Pope John Paul II played in bringing an end to the Cold War, including cessation of Soviet domination of Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe. The late Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, explained it best during a 1979 interview with NPR’s Margaret Warner.

He certainly deserves an enormous amount of credit for it, but not in the way it’s being expressed, particularly in the American mass media. Now, he and President Carter had much in common in terms of their emphasis on human rights. We as the United States and then later Reagan promoted human rights very directly politically. The pope did something very different, which was not political but it had a political effect. He stripped communism of its myth of invincibility. He demonstrated that the appearance of unanimity in communism was a sham, that people were universally against it, and that is what had that effect.

The masses in a country which is intimidated, in which there are many informers, in which people were afraid to communicate freely. The country all of a sudden discovered that they all share the same aspiration and the same resentments, and the regime discovered that it was weak and isolated.

In other words, John Paul did not become a good politician. He became a better pope. Giving people the faith to believe in themselves and the power they have to advance change.

Sunday afternoon, when I first learned of Viktor Orbán’s re-election defeat, I wondered if John Paul was a factor in this latest rebellion against autocracy. In Hungary, 29.2 percent of the population is Catholic. The National Catholic Reporter’s coverage of the election included more evidence that voters were constantly reminded of their religious values over their political ones. The new Prime Minister Péter Magyar “used St. John Paul II’s invocation ‘Be not afraid’ as a campaign and social media slogan.” And the ecumenical Association of Christian Intellectuals urged Hungarian voters “not to make an idol of politics, but remember the ultimate point of reference is not a political leader but Christ.” If there were any undecided voters in Hungary on Sunday morning, I cannot help but wonder if Trump’s image as Jesus and J.D. Vance’s interviews on Sunday talk shows were a factor in late-deciders voting for assembly candidates representing Magyar’s Tisza party.

Meanwhile, Trump appeared to take out his disappointment about his fellow autocrat’s loss in Hungary on Pope Leo. Reporters, aboard the pontiff’s flight to Algiers at the start of an 11-day visit to four African countries, asked Leo for his reaction to Trump’s insults and especially the president’s unsolicited advice that Leo “should get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician.” Already batting zero for two over the weekend (Orbán’s defeat and failed Iran negotiations), Johnny-Come-Lately Catholic J. D. Vance could not contain himself, telling the Vicar of Christ his lane should stick to “matters of morality.”

To make a point that neither Trump nor Vance understood that the message of the Gospel was, in fact, one of morality, he responded to their verbal jabs with a even more significant moral statement.

I will continue to speak out loudly against war, looking to promote peace, promoting dialogue ​and ⁠multilateral relationships among the states to look for just solutions to problems. Too many people are suffering in the world today. Too many innocent people are being killed. ⁠And I think someone has to stand up and say there’s a better way.

Sounds like exactly what a “Great Pope” would say. But that was not the only way Pope Leo emulated his predecessor John Paul II. Unlike Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the pontiff did not speculate if God or Jesus had picked sides in the Iranian war or any other global conflict. Instead he relied on the words of the Gospel, “Blessed are the peacemakers,” a universal message which applied too each and every player in this current global game of Risk. In his April 11 homily, he called on those who have the power to choose between war and peace to seek the latter.

Dear brothers and sisters, there are certainly binding responsibilities that fall to the leaders of nations. To them we cry out: Stop! It is time for peace!

And when those leaders do not listen? Saint John Paul II and now Pope Leo XIV remind each of us it is our personal responsibility to become the peacemakers. The people of Hungary got the message. Will Americans follow suit?

So, what is the state of the Catholic Church in 2026? A picture is better than a thousand words.

[NOTE: All images in this post were created with Adobe FireFly.]

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP