re: Pope Francis allies: Bannon use 'apocalyptic geopolitics' like islamic extremists

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“The first thing we have to do is give a voice to our Churches,” some say. The real meaning of this type of expression is the desire for some influence in the political and parliamentary sphere and in the juridical and educational areas so that public norms can be subjected to religious morals.

Rushdoony’s doctrine maintains a theocratic necessity: submit the state to the Bible with a logic that is no different from the one that inspires Islamic fundamentalism. At heart, the narrative of terror shapes the world-views of jihadists and the new crusaders and is imbibed from wells that are not too far apart. We must not forget that the theopolitics spread by Isis is based on the same cult of an apocalypse that needs to be brought about as soon as possible. So, it is not just accidental that George W. Bush was seen as a “great crusader” by Osama bin Laden.

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Some who profess themselves to be Catholic express themselves in ways that until recently were unknown in their tradition and using tones much closer to Evangelicals. They are defined as value voters as far as attracting electoral mass support is concerned. There is a well-defined world of ecumenical convergence between sectors that are paradoxically competitors when it comes to confessional belonging. This meeting over shared objectives happens around such themes as abortion, same-sex marriage, religious education in schools and other matters generally considered moral or tied to values. Both Evangelical and Catholic Integralists condemn traditional ecumenism and yet promote an ecumenism of conflict that unites them in the nostalgic dream of a theocratic type of state.

However, the most dangerous prospect for this strange ecumenism is attributable to its xenophobic and Islamophobic vision that wants walls and purifying deportations. The word “ecumenism” transforms into a paradox, into an “ecumenism of hate.” Intolerance is a celestial mark of purism. Reductionism is the exegetical methodology. Ultra-literalism is its hermeneutical key.

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The Spadaro-Figueroa tirade is as nasty as it is ignorant. Writing as proxies for Francis, the pair make plain their boss’ uncomprehending distaste for America—its history, its politics, and its Christianity. They have given us an accidental exposé bereft of critical reflection and with no ear for its own cant. Of a piece with longstanding European disdain for the American character and manners, the invective suggests a crippling case of status anxiety vis-à-vis the global intellectual elite it aches to ingratiate.

Our authors bolt out of the starting gate snorting suspicion of In God We Trust. The first sentence quivers with implication: “This phrase is printed on the banknotes of the United States of America.”

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In fine postmodern style, the Vatican’s learned toadies upend traditional catechetical insistence on objective evil by muttering darkly about Manichaean visions. They swat at Presidents Bush and Trump for calling evil by name. Where is that delicate papal regard slathered on the Castro thugs? They deplore the American “bond between capital and profits and arms sales,” a Bergoglian idée fixe. Francis’s men cite the meme as if it were an accepted tool of analysis rather than a facile slogan meant to silence prudential concerns about national sovereignty, civic well-being, and the rule of law.

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The ugliest point in Spadaro & Co.’s lunatic Syllabus of American Errors is its contempt for “religious groups composed mainly of whites from the deep American South.” Sound familiar? It is a riff on “bitter clingers” and “deplorables” but more candidly racist. An insinuation appropriate to academic pit stops like Evergreen State College is grotesque in the pope’s own house organ. It brings to the surface what hovers beneath Francis’ touted sympathy for the oppressed. He is concerned only with those poor-and-oppressed whose interests are useful to the Left. And the Left finds it useful to see white skin as a sign of moral defect.

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Was it before or after the party dull of drugs and little boys?

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