God's heavy hitters smack down Trump, ‘the lying, criminal predator’

Prominent American religious leaders are joining protests against the manifest evils of the Trump Administration, as Alan Austin reports.

CHURCHES AND SYNAGOGUES are no longer just cringing in shame and embarrassment at the mockeries of their faith by the fakers and frauds leading the USA. They are joining the courts, state governors, courageous actors, journalists, retired military brass and the millions of No Kings marchers in condemning President Trump’s escalating criminality.

Recently-installed Pope Leo XIV met this month with the Bishop of El Paso, Mark Seitz, and senior Catholic welfare director Dylan Corbett as violence by Trump’s goons against refugees and citizens alike was raging.

The Pontiff told his two countrymen:

The church cannot stay silent before injustice. You stand with me. And I stand with you.

You have in your hands a very important task: to accompany those who are deeply in need of a sign that God never abandons us: the smallest, the poorest, the foreigner — everyone.

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After that meeting, Bishop Seitz urged all Catholics to support the Pope’s message:

“It is just so important today – in this time more than ever – that the Latino presence in the United States be acknowledged, encouraged, loved, accompanied. They feel so much rejection, so much hatred in the place that they came to seeking security and love.”

Consistent Vatican messaging

Pope Leo is continuing the denunciation of Trump’s mistreatment of migrants of his predecessor, Pope Francis.

In his first major analysis of the state of the world, in the Apostolic Exhortation, Dilexi te, the Pontiff addressed several contentious issues in the bitterly divided USA. These included brutality against migrants, health care, slavery, women experiencing violence or exclusion, free education and the struggle for economic equality.

Pope Leo said:

‘We must continue, then, to denounce the “dictatorship of an economy that kills”, and to recognise that while the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few.’

Among the Catholic faithful quick to echo the pope, Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami accepted the need for immigration reform, but rejected MAGA’s solution.

Wenski said:

“We have a problem in which we have people being broken by the law, not breaking the law. The Administration can say that they are enforcing the laws, and they are. They are enforcing laws that are inadequate and antiquated.”

In a recent TV interview, Cardinal Robert McElroy, the Archbishop of Washington, DC, opposed Trump’s tax and spending bill and warned of the risks of U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran.

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McElroy was appalled that millions would “ultimately lose their health care because of this bill so that billionaires can receive greater tax cuts” and added:

“There’s something radically wrong with a society that takes from the poorest to give to the wealthiest. It’s just wrong.”

McElroy condemned Trump’s deportations without due process:

“This is not only incompatible with Catholic teaching, it’s inhumane and morally repugnant.”

Ecumenical collaboration

Ten interfaith leaders recently denounced Trump’s decision to send military forces into American cities.

Their open letter began:

‘President Trump justifies assuming control of the D.C. police and deploying the National Guard by declaring our city is “overrun by violent gangs, blood thirsty criminals, roving mobs of youth, drugged out maniacs, and homeless people.” Such sweeping language is both inaccurate and dehumanising, increasing the risk of indiscriminate arrests and the use of excessive force.’

The faith leaders – from Jewish, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist and Anglican communities – titled their letter, ‘Fear Is Not a Strategy for Safety’. It slammed Trump’s decision to ‘cut more than $1 billion from programs proven to reduce crime, including law enforcement support, addiction and mental health treatment, youth programs, and affordable housing’.

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Bishop Budde still advocating

As IA reported at the time, the Anglican Bishop of Washington, DC, Mariann Edgar Budde, told Trump to his face at a church service after his inauguration that he should show mercy to Americans fearful for their safety.

In an interview last month, Budde was asked if Trump had heeded her plea, replying:

“He has not.”

The opposite has eventuated:

“It’s surreal, to be honest. It’s beginning to feel like a deportation raid, a real effort to... remove as many undocumented people living in our country as he can... It’s terrifying. It’s absolutely terrifying.”

Evangelicals also aghast

Pat Kahnke is a retired conservative Evangelical minister, a published author and now an internet video producer. He was a lifelong Republican-voting anti-abortion campaigner and while still pro-life, is no longer pro-GOP.

Kahnke's gentle-Jesus manner has recently morphed into a scathing condemnation of Trump’s sexual predation and criminality:

Corruption isn’t going to fix itself. Whatever else the MAGA movement is and whatever else Donald Trump might be, Trump and MAGA are corrupt to the core. And corruption is only going to embed itself deeper until it’s rooted out. Trump’s rhetoric about draining the swamp was always dishonest. He is the most corrupt president in history. And now he has corrupted the Republican Party and he is corrupting every institution of government. And he’s corrupting the Christian groups who thought that he might be serving their interests.

Kahnke urged all believers to abandon the MAGA movement:

“Obviously, OBVIOUSLY, I’m not going to vote for a lying, criminal predator, especially in the name of Jesus, because obviously that’s sick, and offensive.... You don’t vote for the criminal.”

Yet many professing believers did. We shall see if they continue to do so.