Happy Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe!
Editor’s Note: 488 years ago today, Our Lady appeared on Tepeyac Hill in Mexico City, the geographic center of the American continents. With a few decades, Her miraculous intervention brought about an estimated eight to ten million conversions to the One True Catholic Faith! In honor of Our Lady’s great feast, we will post a reflection tomorrow on the typological connection between Our Lady of Guadalupe and Our Lady of Fatima. If you are unfamiliar with the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe, we suggest reading the original version, translated from Nahuatl into English, which we have posted HERE.
What Do Cafeteria Catholics and Pope Francis Have in Common?
Hint: Orange Man Bad
Fatima Perspectives #1360
Brietbart reports the less-than-surprising news that “A majority of practicing U.S. Catholics support President Donald Trump and give him a 52 percent job-approval rating,” whereas “Catholics who say that faith plays only a minor role in their lives gave the president an approval rating of just 28 percent.” That’s the conclusion of a poll of U.S. Catholics jointly conducted by EWTN News and Real Clear Opinion Research.
The definitions of terminology employed in the poll are quite revealing of the correlation between belief in what the Church teaches and support for Trump, notwithstanding his unsavory pre-election personal history, particularly in the realm of the Sixth Commandment. The poll defined “most active” Catholics as those who “accept all or most Church teachings,” and it is among this group that Trump enjoys the highest level of Catholic support.
A further look at the data is even more revealing: “Only 32 percent of those Catholics who reject certain key teachings of the faith said they are sure to vote for Trump or that there is a good chance they will do so, while fewer still (23 percent) of those whose faith plays only a minor role in their lives think they will vote for Trump in 2020.”
In short, the less Catholic one is, the less likely he is to vote for Trump in 2020. And the more Catholic one is, the more likely it is that he will be a Trump voter.
Turning to Pope Francis, who has already declared that Trump is “not a Christian” because of his advocacy of a border wall — a wall far less impressive than the walls that surround Francis in the Vatican — we have this recent statement to a group of Jesuits during his visit to Thailand and Japan (another carbon-spewing junket by the Pope who claims the world is on the brink of a CO2 disaster):
“The phenomenon of refugees has always existed, but today it is better known because of social differences, hunger, political tensions and especially war. For these reasons, migratory movements are intensifying. What is the answer the world gives? The policy of waste. Refugees are waste material. The Mediterranean has been turned into a cemetery. The notorious cruelty of some detention centers in Libya touches my heart. Here in Asia we all know the problem of the Rohingya. I must admit that I am shocked by some of the narratives I hear in Europe about borders. Populism is gaining strength. In other parts there are walls that even separate children from parents. Herod comes to mind. Yet for drugs, there’s no wall to keep them out.”
Of course, “walls that separate children from parents” is a Democratic Party talking point in the United States, so that the intimation that Trump is like Herod is impossible to overlook.
There can be little doubt that Francis shares the mentality expressed by the Internet meme “Orange Man Bad.” Tellingly, not one word of criticism of the depredations of socialist, communist or secularist regimes like the EU has ever been uttered by this Pope. It does not seem that any level of tyranny on the Left arouses anything approaching the level of concern Francis evinces concerning border walls or the CO2 emissions to which he himself is a prodigious contributor.
So, what is this all about? Perhaps Trump’s statement at the Christmas Tree lighting ceremony at the White House only days ago provides an indication:
“As the Bible tells us, when the Wise Men ‘had come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary, His mother, and fell down and worshipped Him.’ Christians give thanks that the Son of God came into the world to save humanity. Jesus Christ inspires us to love one another with hearts full of generosity and grace.”
I dare say no President in American history has ever invoked the divinity of Christ so explicitly in his official capacity. Nor has any President done so much for the pro-life movement, including the appointment of scores of conservative jurists to the federal bench who (as my own experience confirms) are not ideologically committed to abortion as the virtual sacrament of what the moderns call “liberty.”
Perhaps Trump has undergone something of a conversion in the midst of trial, as all the worldly powers seem to be conspiring for his removal from office and even his personal destruction. Only God knows. But this much seems true: that Trump is too Christian for liberal Catholics. And too Christian for a liberal Pope who decries border walls and demands worldwide abolition of the death penalty while refusing to lend his authority to the worldwide abolition of the legalized mass murder of children in the womb or opposition to the relentless advance of the tyrannical “LGBT” agenda.
And now it appears that Francis is grooming the ridiculous Cardinal Tagle as his successor. May God intervene soon to deliver His Church from the clutches of the “innovators” that the future Pope Pius XII could see in the shadows as early as 1931.
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!
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