Yeah. Sadly this is a thing. Conspiracy-theory believing Catholics is nothing new, of course. But in the era of MAGA, Q-Anon, and resurgent fascism, sadly, there is a marriage between a not-so-small faction of Catholicism and all sorts of right-wing insanity.
So everyday I receive these things, in the form of text messages, emails, Facebook posts, etc. Some are easy to deal with. Block the sender, or unfriend them, or delete and block the text. But others are not so simply dealt with because they come from long-time friends or relatives. And I have deleted, blocked relatives and friends before—but I am more hesitant to do so, because I always think about the past relationship, and the finality of cutting them off—even if only in a social media sense.
But I have blocked a bunch. And sometimes I think people just blindly parrot what they hear, or copy and paste, or resend, what they see and hear. There is certainly a lack of critical thinking.
We’ve heard this before. That Catholic cultural conservatives prefer a smaller, more homogenous church, and they denounce those whom they view as being “Catholic lite.” They want a Church that is like that of a bygone era that they think existed, perhaps based upon a 1955 Baltimore Catechism, or a Michael Voris or Raymond Arroyo diatribe, or Cable re-runs of a dead right-wing ranting, and exaggerating, nun, or some such thing.
But they live in a fantasy. The American family no longer looks a thing like what they profess. Their families do not look a thong like it. These doubly and triply divorced, fornicating or closeted bisexual or homosexual hypocrites will rant about the sexual sins of others all day long. But their own sins could fill a book. Ditto and double on their so-called pro-life and abortion rants, whereby they love to judge other people’s lives but what are they hiding in their past? Old antiquated racism and antisemitism—and ironically—the nativism that used to be directed against Catholics—is resurrected, along with stilted terminology. And this is embraced? By supposed followers of Jesus who railed against hypocrisy, cruelty, and judging others?
I am reminded of a poll from just two years ago: Among those who say they are practicing Catholics, 69 percent supported Trump. However, 60 percent of those who are non-practicing Catholics supported Biden. But look closer—how many of those so-called supporters of Biden have a kind of serfish fealty to him, or regard him as a kind of prophet or cult-leader?
Hmmmmm?
The same Church that never denied Communion to fascist politicians even at the height of oppression and genocide now have prelates and priests calling for the denial of the Blessed Sacrament to Catholic politicians who endorse a woman’s right to choose. Ironic.
Because on other matters, these same far-right adherents want the right to choose for themselves, and rail against supposedly intrusive government policies regarding things that never even come close to touching their bodies and what they can do with them. Just a couple of year’s ago, Cardinal Raymond Burke, the poster child of closeted gayness-while overtly bashing LGBTQ at ever turn, said in an interview, “no practicing Catholic” can vote for pro-choice politicians.
As folks like John Gehring and Christopher Lamb have observed, there is a well-funded Catholic echo-chamber in the United States that parallels the politically conservative one. The end result, the fruits of these efforts, and the perpetual lie machines of the same as ilk Lie-Site News and EWTN-Fascista-Catholic Radio is something vile showing up in my inbox with the phrase, “Judeo-Masonic-democratic degeneracy….” WTF!?!
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