Leo the Lionhearted
Religious people tend to lead with certainty. Fueled with the power of high-octane passion, they look toward the world with a kind of urgent confidence. If you fold in the tradition of self-sacrifice and martyrdom, you have a potent friend…and a potent enemy. Who cares whether a grubby, racist buffoon thinks that you are speaking out of turn when you channel the spirit of the Living God?
Pope Leo (the American formerly known as “Bob”) powerfully exemplifies this type. With an appealing directness and perfect English, he managed to stop Dear Leader in his tracks and arrest the leading edge of his tantrum. Historians will look back at Trump’s threats and fulminations and wonder how he went from carpet bombing Tehran to a shaky, but open-ended cease fire. Most will point to the price of gas and the looming disaster of the November mid-terms. But I wouldn’t discount the Pope’s pronouncements: “God does not bless any conflict….Military action will not create space for freedom… [N]o gain can be worth the life of the weakest.” I love the language and I love the cadence. Is it possible that Trump actually heard the message, even while reimagining himself as Jesus?
Naturally, Leo evoked strong response. Trump cancelled an $11 million dollar grant that had already been promised to Catholic Charities. It was a foregone conclusion that he would try to cripple an agency that has pledged itself to migrant relief. You can see Stephen Miller’s fingerprints on the Executive Order.
Meanwhile, Catholic newbie J.D. Vance took the Vicar of Christ to task and suggested that he be “careful when talking about matters of theology.” The hubris here is as thick as his fawning. There is nothing that J.D. Vance won’t do to massage the ego of his Lord and Dungeon Master, even if it involves insulting his new church.
But the problem here is deeper than that and involves a fundamental misunderstanding of religion and morality. I have known a handful of clergy people who are ceremonial officiants, who see themselves as religious technologists. They recite the words and perform the rituals, but keep themselves from thinking about the world.
That’s perfectly legitimate as far as it goes, but I want nothing to do with such circumscribes souls. If Torah is truly a tree of life, if religion itself is way of structuring the world, then its teachers must reflect the wisdom of their traditions and channel them in words of inspired instruction.
Deuteronomy tells us all about war, when it is justified, and how its violence must be mediated. The Church has thought about the self-same issue for virtually all of its twenty-one centuries.
On the choice between J.D. Vance and his Pope, our Vice President isn’t fit to wipe the suede on Leo’s slippers. When it comes to theology—and the moral issues it addresses—I’ll take the Pope any day. J.D. Vance, not so much.