The same men who invited evangelical pastors into the Oval Office to lay hands on them and bless this war. The same men who invoked the name of Jesus to justify bombing a country that Congress never authorized attacking. The same Catholic Vice President who flew to Rome to personally invite the Pope to America’s 250th anniversary celebration — and was turned down flat.
Pope Leo wasn’t subtle. He prayed especially for Christians in the Middle East, whose suffering, he said, “challenges all our consciences.” He closed with a direct cry from the cross: “Lay down your weapons. Remember that you are brothers and sisters.”
Christian Nationalism takes the language of faith and uses it to bless things Jesus never would have blessed. It puts pastors in the Oval Office to pray over an unauthorized war. It sends a Catholic Vice President to quote scripture while kids come home in body bags.
The Pope is telling us those two things are not the same.
What he described — a king of peace who rejects war and turns away from the prayers of those who wage it — is a direct rebuke of what we are watching happen right now. You won’t hear it from MAGA Republicans in Congress.
That’s exactly why we’re working so hard to change who is in Congress.
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