American Catholic Dissonance

Catholics are the new power religion. What would Jesus do?

Hello readers, I’ve been on hiatus finishing the fourth draft of my memoir, Pia & The Elephant: A Daughter-Father Memoir of Drink, Ink & Catholicism, but the vicious goings-on in Washington from Trusk¹ Inc. have prompted me to write about the role Catholics are playing in getting America to this zenith of unholy goals to attack, defund, and outlaw legal migrants, the poor, and marginalized peoples. I’m drawing on my days covering the Vatican, being a Vatican employee at Vatican Radio, being raised Catholic, and decades-long observations of church politics here and abroad. I have included links and some additional resources at the bottom if you want to go deeper. I’ve struggled with this essay for weeks now, there’s so many more angles to it all that it may be the first in a series. I’ll be at AWP in Los Angeles this week. If you’re there, message me on Substack!

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The Antichrist (on the left, presenting himself as a king) by the nun and abbess Herrad of Landsberg, from her 12th-century Hortus deliciarum, an illuminated manuscript and the first encyclopedia written by a woman.

Catholicism is arguably the most political of all U.S. religions, perhaps due to our long line of philosopher-mystic-theologian saints such as Saint Augustine, Saint Hildegard of Bingen, Saint Teresa of Avila, and Saint Thomas Aquinas, or perhaps because catholic social teaching calls so many of us to to lead and to be of service.

Catholics have now displaced WASP²s as America’s powerhouse religion. They are now the majority religion of the U.S. Supreme Court, thanks in large part to the long judicial overhaul game led by Leo Leonard, the Washington D.C. conservative Catholic influencer and fundraiser extraordinaire. And it’s no coincidence that Project 2025, the blueprint for the second Trump administration, came out of a conservative Catholic think tank. Catholics are everywhere in the Trump administration, making up at least a third of his cabinet, and spearheaded by Vice President J.D. Vance, a 2019 Catholic convert groomed by tech mogul Christian nationalist Peter Thiel.

As a Catholic, former Vatican reporter, and lifelong observer of Catholic politics, it’s been painful but not surprising to me to watch so many conservative Catholics, priests, and bishops champion Donald Trump as the savior of Christian values. If anything, the president is the bible’s definition of an antichrist. But he did deliver a Catholic-majority supreme court that overturned federal access to abortion, the policy holy grail of conservative Catholics and evangelicals since the protestant-led court of the 1970s made Roe law. I imagine the complicit bishops expected they would now have Friends in the White House, especially with J.D. Vance, a 2019 Catholic convert, as vice president.

Instead, these bishops are finding out that Trump used them, just like everyone else. Foreign priests and nuns haven’t had their immigration status fast tracked-–in fact, many are now in danger of deportation because of expiring visas, so many as to threaten the fragile integrity of Catholic churches, schools, and organizations across the country; the administration terminated its contracts with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) for the resettlement of legal refugees, leaving Catholic nonprofits with millions in unpaid bills, causing hundreds of layoffs, and cutting off rent and food for migrant families.

Bishops around the country have rightly spoken out against mass deportation and especially raiding schools and churches, in stark contrast to their statements in support of moves to limit reproductive healthcare and promote religious “freedom” in businesses and schools. The USCCB even sued the administration over its shutting down of USAID funds.

Vance, in his first week in office, pissed on the bishops’ shoes, accusing them of caring more about the money in their cancelled contracts than the people they serve. Pope Francis applauded the bishops’ supporting migrants and essentially called Vance an asshole in an unusually-direct February 10th letter to the U.S. bishops.

“The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the “Good Samaritan” (cf.Lk 10:25-37), that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception,” the pope wrote, referring to Vance’s post-liberal Catholic interpretation of St. Augustine’s ordo amoris, the Christian concept of prioritizing love. Vance, who chose St. Augustine as his confirmation saint and is a sanctimonious vessel overflowing with the aspirations of those smarter than him, had cited ordo amoris as a justification for shutting off aid and the doors to the U.S. to those in need abroad.

Understanding just how much political water the bishops have carried for Trump and the choice they now face about speaking out against policy that goes directly against Church teaching on social justice (words that have been scrubbed from government websites under the DEI purge), Pope Francis exalted them into greater action by reminding them that “God will richly reward all that you do for the protection and defense of those who are considered less valuable, less important, or less human,”

But will they?

The Catholic church is as bitterly divided politically as America. In some right-wing traditionalist Catholic circles, Pope Francis is considered an antichrist and illegitimate pope. Progressive Catholics have found community in leading movements for climate action, embracing queer and trans Catholics, supporting the Christian community in Gaza, and reproductive choice.

The word “catholic,” means “all embracing” and what I’ve always loved about my religion is its “Big Tent,” the concept that all the different views of orthodox, traditional, conservative, post-liberal, liberal, progressive, non-practicing, and former catholics are collected under it. Yep, we count all the baptized, even if they say they’re out, because you never know what might happen on your death bed. And none of us weighs more than the other. We are taught that God loves us all, as imperfect as we are.

When liberal friends discover I am still Catholic, they often ask how I can still belong to a church that has brought so much pain and horror (think the Crusades; the Inquisition; colonialism; psychological and sexual abuse by church religious) and whose official doctrine goes against many of my own values, for example, supporting women leaders, reproductive choice, and gay marriage. And yet, Catholicism is my cultural heritage, a strong thread to my immigrant ancestors from Italy, France, and Ireland; to my grandparents, now all passed on. It is part of my family. And we don’t get to choose our family, or control what members do, or say, or believe. But we can still love them even if we don’t always agree with them.

Catholic Dissonance

This is the nature of Catholic dissonance. Christ is dead; Christ is risen. The host³ is bread; the host is the body of Christ. We can be sinners and saints, to hurt and to be hurt, sometimes on the same day or in the same hour. But there is always the option to choose to love others and to let yourself be loved by God. I can love my church and be horrified by what it does, or has done.

Accepting contradiction is part of my faith and I choose to hold this dissonance because of the beautiful aspects of my religion, its call to serve the less fortunate, the outsider, the refugee, and the environment.

My parents raised me in the 1970s as a Christmas and Easter Catholic. My French grandfather, a laundryman, brought me with him every Sunday to mass during the summers I spent with him, always letting me light the candle he placed before the statue of St. Joseph, patron saint of fathers, workers, and immigrants. My dad survived 16 years of Catholic San Francisco schooling and Jesuit college. Being Catholic taught him to always question authority and fight for justice for those with no voice. His Ramparts magazine in the 1960s championed brave priests and nuns' work during the civil rights movement as well as shouting out the hypocrisy of the Vatican and the U.S. church during the Vietnam war.

But the Catholic tent is splitting, especially in the U.S. where conservative Catholics are riding a wave of immeasurable and unprecedented policy power.

So will the bishops, and the powerful catholics on the supreme court and elsewhere, find their backbone and speak out against the administration when it comes to Catholic social teaching? Against administrative overreach in the name of a Make America Christian Again agenda?

My guess is it will be a mixed bag. Chief Justice John Roberts, a Catholic, was applauded for bitch-slapping Trump on the question of judicial impeachment. Amy Coney Barrett, also Catholic, may surprise us, having sided with liberal justices in a few cases. Dozens of conservative bishops, priests and pro-lifers gathered at Mar-a-Lago in March to pray for Trump and the Catholic agenda. Meanwhile, Father James Martin continues his brave work to welcome LGBTQ+ Catholics.

All Catholics, but especially priests and bishops, are called to use their voices to speak out for those with none. Trusk is just getting started rolling out their vision of a “Christian” nation where a chosen conservative elite decide who is worthy of existence. Grab your megaphones. Help your undocumented neighbors who’ve been paying taxes for years. Feed the poor. Donate to immigrant relief services and scientific and ecological nonprofits to help our planet. And pray.

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Deeper Reading & Resources

• Catholic media to consider:

  • National Catholic Reporter, liberal catholic news, opinion, and politics

  • America Media, liberal leaning media, great podcasts, run by the Jesuits

  • Father James Martin, Jesuit priest and author welcoming LGBTQ catholics, funny, thoughtful and brave

  • Outreach: an LGBTQ Catholic Resource

  • La Croix International, moderate, balanced international coverage of the church and catholic politics

  • The Pillar, conservative but interesting media roundup and commentary

  • National Catholic Register, old-fashioned traditional conservative U.S. Catholic news

  • The Holy See, the official website of the Vatican and Pope Francis

  • Word on Fire Catholic Ministries, evangelical non-profit media juggernaut founded by conservative Bishop Robert Barron, wildly popular with traditionalists, especially men

  • Massimo Faggioli, Italian-born author and professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova University.

  • Commonweal, progressive magazine and podcasts on culture & politics

  • Organizations: Franciscan Action Network, Catholics for Choice, Catholic Charities, Catholic Relief Services, World Central Kitchen, Ignatian Solidarity Network, Laudato Si Movement (care for our common home)

• Washington D.C.’s Catholic Information Center (CIC) is a hub of influence on Catholic power brokers and grooming the next generation of policy wonks. The center is led by Opus Dei, the secretive and influential Catholic group that Argentina recently accused of trafficking young women and teens for domestic servitude (also read Antonia Cundy’s excellent Financial Times series and watch the docuseries, Heroic Minute: How I Left Opus Dei. Opus Dei has denied the accusations.). Project 2025 mastermind Kevin Roberts is suspected to be a member of Opus Dei. Opus Dei has both religious and lay members around the world, and has cultivated powerful members in banking, law, media, and politics. Unlike regular religious orders such as the Jesuits or the Franciscans, Opus Dei is unique in the Catholic church, a personal prelature of the pope, created under Pope John Paul II in 1982. In 2023, Pope Francis amended church law related to personal prelatures to give future popes more say over how they are organized, a move seen as a threat to Opus Dei’s growing global power.

• J.D. Vance converted to Catholicism in 2019, likely under the influence of his mentor Peter Thiel. Thiel, the billionaire Silicon Valley venture capitalist, met Vance in 2011. Vance credits him with opening his eyes to christianity not being for “dumb people.” Thiel arranged for Vance to meet Trump in 2021. Thiel describes himself as a christian, not a Catholic, but he had a close relationship with Father Arne Panul, who ran Stanford University's Opus Dei House, when he was there. Vance credits Thiel with introducing him to the Catholic philosophies that fuel his zeal.

• Pope Francis has been accused of being the “anti-pope” by conservative priests and catholics in the U.S. and abroad for his “heretical” views on welcoming LGBTQ+ catholics, elevating the role of women in the church (even if it’s only as Vatican department heads), and other reforms. The USCCB will elect a new leader in 2025 and Pope Francis’ declining health points to a likely new pope during this Trump term.

1. Trusk = Trump + Musk

2. White Anglo Saxon Protestants. The founders and political controllers of our country for most of its history.

3. The communion wafer.