Mois : mai 2023

Are you, like many faithful Catholics, feeling politically homeless? Are you turned off by the social libertarianism of the left and by the authoritarian nationalism of the right? Are you uninspired by Joe Biden and fearful of Donald Trump? Are you thinking of a third party candidate?

Finally, there is an answer for this existential ennui. There is a new face, willing to throw his political hat into the ring, someone untainted by prior political involvement, someone whose views are not bound by the governing orthodoxy of either of the two major parties. Now, there is a third option, a different choice, a new voice.

Taylor Marshall, podcast host, sedevacantist and prominent conservative Catholic conspiracy theorist, has announced his candidacy for the presidency. According to his website, his podcast has 425,000 subscribers, making him one of the most watched Catholic podcasters in America.

The video in which he announces his candidacy is short and you won’t need any popcorn. I suggest not drinking while watching the video: Spitting up Dr. Pepper onto your laptop will destroy the electronics. Marshall’s platform is the « Christ the King platform. » While other GOP contenders debate at what stage in pregnancy to ban abortion, he gets to the root of the matter and advocates making contraception illegal.

« We need a Christian culture in America, » Marshall announces, a point on which I agree, but arguing « we don’t need strict separation of church and state » will need a bit more of an argument.

Hundreds of 2022 GOP candidates for different offices seconded Donald Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen. Others equivocate. « What happened on Jan. 6 was not great. Does he [Trump] deserve to be impeached? Absolutely not. I don’t even think there’s a basis for impeachment, » said former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. « They beat him up before he got into office. They’re beating him up after he leaves office. At some point, I mean, give the man a break. »

Only Taylor Marshall has the guts, the courage to do Trump one better. Not only was the 2020 election stolen by Biden, but the 1958 papal election may have been stolen by Pope John XXIII! Actually, it is not clear what variety of sedevacantism Marshall espouses. D.W. Lafferty, writing at Where Peter Is, reviewed Marshall’s book Infiltration: The Plot to Destroy the Church From Within, and points out that: « What gives him leeway to shape and twist his material into any shape he wants is that he hovers between constructing a narrative with human conspirators and a narrative that is driven by Satanic, demonic forces. There is no need to prove that so-and-so was actually a Freemason if, in the end, Freemasonry, Modernism, communism, and the Sankt Gallen Mafia are all manifestations of the same Satanic plot. »

Are you reaching for your checkbook to send Marshall’s campaign a check yet? Or are you a modernist or a Freemason!

Marshall’s platform may not have much to say about the debt ceiling, but he is very much opposed to receiving Communion in the hand. He is opposed to Protestantism because it rejects the papacy, but he also opposes the pope. Not sure how that works out. Marshall is more convinced that King Charles III is a « Globalist Antichrist. » 

Turning to foreign affairs, Marshall’s views are deeply influenced by disgraced former nuncio Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò. Marshall frets about the « deep state » and the « deep church » working together for a nefarious, globalist agenda. He allows that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a « criminal, cruel man who manipulates Christianity for money and power. » But he also objects to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, and cites a tweet in which Zelenskyy said Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was an inspiration to him. According to Marshall, Trudeau is « an evil tyrant, who is destroying the Canadian people. » 

There is a lot of talk about Our Lady of Fatima. Pity she would not be available to serve as secretary of state should Marshall win. Smart money is on Viganò emerging from retirement to return to the diplomatic hustings on Marshall’s behalf.

On the domestic front, a Marshall administration would find some cabinet positions easier to fill than others. Janet Smith, the nation’s foremost opponent of contraception, would be an obvious choice for secretary of health and human services, and Fr. James Altman of LaCrosse, Wisconsin, is a good bet to lead the Department of Justice, which is likely to be weaponized by any GOP president. Altman has been unafraid to call out « modernists, » and modernism, the « mother of all heresies, » is likely to be a major concern of Marshall’s administration.

Marshall likes doing media. He has appeared on Steve Bannon’s « War Room » and Glenn Beck’s podcast. He is a frequent guest at LifeSiteNews. Still, he will need a press secretary. Perhaps EWTN radio hosts Dan and Stephanie Burke, who interviewed Marshall when his book Infiltration came out, could serve as press secretaries jointly (h/t to Where Peter Is for that and many other tidbits of information regarding this sector in the Catholic conspiracy universe).

Cabinet appointments need to wait until after Dr. Marshall wins. One choice must be made in advance of the election, the choice of a running mate. The veep candidate must be someone endowed with profound spiritual insights into the complex moral issues of our day and also be familiar with modern means of communication. The obvious choice? Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas, who just last week shared with the world the fact that he had discerned Pope Francis was « undermining the Deposit of Faith. » How helpful would it be to President Marshall to have a vice president with such a finely tuned theological sensibility, especially if the apocalypse is really at hand.

Strickland would also help with another problem. Every president needs a retreat, a place where they can go to get away from the burdens of office. Strickland was part of the bishops’ panel at the 2019 Napa Institute gathering at Tim Busch’s swanky resort. I am sure Mr. Busch could be persuaded to erect a nice retreat cottage for President Marshall.

Marshall & Strickland in 2024. America needs them! No other candidates will make « reveal the fourth secret of Fatima » a leading campaign pledge! It is time to make America holy again! Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war!

Abraham Lincoln and my granddaughter Emma have gotten me curious about Jesus. More specifically, curious about Jesus’ curiosity.

It started when I was reading a review of a new biography that noted that Lincoln’s closest friends and associates « recalled him as a man of boundless curiosity for whom ‘life was a school.’ « 

That reminded me of Emma. She’s just turning 4, and she’s always been filled with an inexhaustible desire to take in and understand — to touch and feel and experience — this world she’s found herself born into.

When she was 2, we were at the park one day, she and I, and she was riding on a swing, an activity she delighted in. From her perch on the moving swing, she spent the time looking all around her: at the street nearby, where she’d note every truck passing; at the slide where the older kids were playing; through the buildings where she could glimpse elevated trains on their way to or from Chicago’s Loop; at every doggie — « goggie » — she could spot.  

Emma was taking it all in and relishing the fun of putting together all these pieces of life into patterns and arrangements to comprehend how this connects with that, how these are like those and more important, her own place in this place called Earth.

Curiosity is a hallmark of humanity. Even so, I’ve known people who weren’t very curious, people going through life with blinders on. That strikes me as a narrow way of living.

When I think of the saints, official and unofficial, I have the sense that they were as open to the fullness of life as Emma has always been, as Lincoln once was — Francis of Assisi, Dorothy Day, Martin de Porres, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Teresa of Avila, Thérèse of Lisieux, to name a few. They woke up every day with fresh eyes, eyes hungry for the world God created — and for the people in this world, all the people, old and young, poor and rich. 

I’m no mystic, but I try to be as open to life as I can be. And that’s how I picture Jesus.

Remember the story in Luke’s Gospel about how, when Jesus was 12, his family visited the Temple in Jerusalem? When Joseph and Mary headed back to Nazareth, the boy, unknown to them, stayed behind and spent at least three days with the teachers there, sitting in their midst, « listening to them and asking them questions. »

I think this story (Luke 2:41-52) is usually used to show that Jesus already knew a lot at that age, and I’m sure there’s something to that. But for me, it’s more a story of the boy’s curiosity.  He was, like Lincoln, hungry for « every morsel of human existence. »

Consider the parable Jesus tells about the mustard seed (Matthew 13:31-32). As I picture it, he’s sitting there and maybe holding one of those tiny seeds when he says, « The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that a person took and sowed in a field. It is the smallest of seeds, yet when full-grown it is the largest of plants. »

How does Jesus know about mustard seeds? He’s a carpenter after all, not a farmer. And how does he know what happens, as he relates in another parable, when seeds are sown on different types of soil?

The answer is his curiosity. I imagine him listening to farmers grousing about trying to plant seeds in rocky ground. I imagine him, at some time well before he told this parable, pondering a mustard seed in his hand and marveling — enjoying the thrill of realizing — that it explodes, in the slow motion of nature, into a huge tree.

He’s open to revelation from the smallest of God’s creation, and to people of all sorts — even those who were outcasts in his Jewish culture.

This openness of heart and mind that Jesus models is a key element of curiosity. My granddaughter will never learn anything if she isn’t open to learning.

Jesus was a human being who had to learn about life, just as Emma is learning — and the learning didn’t stop in childhood. Even as an adult, he maintained this openness, this profound curiosity. 

Picture Jesus at the wedding feast at Cana, for instance. I see a single guy in his early 30s who is intensely interested in all that he sees, hears and smells. He takes in the feel of the party, its rhythm, the mood of the people who are dancing, the emotions on the faces of those men and women along the wall. He is alive to all that is around him, including, with a nudge from his mother, the dwindling wine supply. He is attentive, curious.

Or consider Jesus on the cross: Amid the suffering, dejection and the knowledge of his approaching death, he looks out and gazes at faces he loves. He sees his mother, the other women and John the beloved disciple there. He looks among the crowd, noting the variety of emotions and positions.

Even in dying, Jesus is intensely alive, observant of what is happening around him. What is the point of becoming human if not to be fully present to all life brings, even death?

Jesus walked through life with his eyes wide open — and faced his death with the same wide eyes. As his follower, I am called to the same intense engagement with the world and its people, called to share the curiosity of Christ.

Congress and the White House have until the end of the month to raise the debt ceiling, which means that the rest of May will be consumed with a high stakes game of chicken. At a time when our politics is a toxic mix of outrage, ideology and braggadocio worthy of Mussolini, this fight will test whether our nation is up to the task of self-governance.

Unlike most policy battles, a fight over the debt ceiling vote dominates everything else. At 6 p.m. on Tuesday night, on the Politico homepage, the first six articles all focused on the debt ceiling fight. « Biden starts to throw some punches in the debt ceiling fight » was in the hero position, followed by « Former Biden adviser Tribe: Just use the 14th Amendment now, » « Raskin: Biden has a ‘constitutional command’ on debt, » « Podesta: Cut energy permitting talks from debt ceiling fight, » « Debt ceiling brawl jams up  the Pentagon’s mega policy bill » and « Debt anxiety falls a little on the Hill. It might not be enough. » 

As is common in our political life, both sides articulate principled positions. President Joe Biden is not wrong to argue that the debt ceiling is so important, it deserves a vote untethered to other policy considerations, a « clean vote. » House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is correct when he says that the nation must come to terms with its ballooning debt. 

The problem with Biden’s position is that you can never really disassociate any policy from politics and the problem with the McCarthy position is that his own party is largely responsible for the nation’s debt because of its addiction to tax cuts. In short, the principled positions are not really on point for the issue at hand.

No one knows what would happen if the U.S. government were to default on its debt. The Bipartisan Policy Center states: « Failure to extend the debt limit in a timely manner would likely have catastrophic consequences for global financial markets and Americans across the country. » The center has a useful history of recent debt ceiling fights. 

What we know from history is that when an economic crisis occurs, the poor and the marginalized are the first to suffer and the worst to recover. For all the problems with inflation today, and those problems are real, the fact that our economy attained a record low unemployment rate for Black Americans this spring is an enormous accomplishment. That achievement would be imperiled by any kind of economic downturn. 

The history lesson is useful, but with a caveat. Political games of chicken in advance of a debt ceiling cliff have happened before, but they have never happened at a time when a speaker of the House relies on the votes of his caucus, many of whom are drunk on the Trumpian belief that blowing things up is a good thing. 

Whether it was our NATO alliance or respecting the results of an election or the Iran nuclear deal, former President Donald Trump has shown again and again that there is a lane, perhaps a winning lane, for a politician who builds on the distrust of institutions that is engrained in the contemporary American psyche to advocate not just throwing the bums out but torching the house too. 

Wednesday night, on CNN, Trump was asked about the debt ceiling. 

« I say to the Republicans out there — congressmen, senators — if they don’t give you massive cuts, you’re going to have to do a default. And I don’t believe they’re going to do a default because I think the Democrats will absolutely cave because you don’t want to have that happen. But it’s better than what we’re doing right now because we’re spending money like drunken sailors. » 

Trump’s time out of office has not taught him the value of prudence or caution. It is all about winning or losing the political game. Politics is not a game.

At the Brookings Institution, Sarah Binder argues that recourse to a discharge petition is not a likely option. That is a shame. A discharge petition allows a majority of the House to force a vote on a proposal that is bottled up in committee. The hope would be that the Democrats could peel off the five Republicans they would need to pass a clean debt ceiling bill. 

Binder points out that « lawmakers have successfully discharged less than four percent of the 639 discharge petitions introduced since 1935. » Apparently, there are not five GOP House members willing to do the right thing.

There are ways to put the government on a more sustainable financial path, but that would involve steps that one or the other party finds anathema. Democrats rightly refuse to cut social programs. Republicans refuse to raise taxes. Neither party is willing to confront the bloated defense budget. 

The Democrats need to do a better job looking for ways to bring spending down and Republicans need to get over their anti-tax orthodoxy, and then the outlines of a compromise would emerge. With highly gerrymandered districts, however, the only political pressure most members of Congress face is from their flank, not from the center. 

The looming fiscal and economic crisis is, therefore, best understood as one more eruption in our political crisis. Neither party is blameless, but there is no moral equivalence in this comparison. Today’s Republican Party depends on people who are fundamentally irresponsible. 

As evidenced by the reaction to Trump from the GOP voters in Wednesday night’s town hall, they root for their guy even when he is obviously lying. It is politics as professional wrestling. It isn’t pretty. It might be about to send the world economy over a cliff.