[Craic] Fwd: what the Catholic Church needs after Trump

[Arthur Blomme]

thought That Phil's email would be relevant to our discussion



-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: 	what the Catholic Church needs after Trump
Date: 	Thu, 7 Jan 2021 14:26:22 -0800
From: 	Phil Little <sacolargo at gmail.com>



07 January 2021, The Tablet


  Truth and reconciliation – what the Catholic Church needs after Trump

by Christopher Lamb 
<https://www.thetablet.co.uk/author/15/christopher-lamb>
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Truth and reconciliation – what the Catholic Church needs after Trump

Donald Trump arrives at Orlando International Airport for a visit to St 
Andrew's Catholic School in 2017.
Joe Burbank/PA

Just before he was elected Pope in 2005, Benedict XVI issued a warning 
about the “dictatorship of relativism” which refuses to “recognise 
anything as definitive”. The truth, his argument went, cannot be tossed 
aside with every passing wind of doctrine. Those words now seem 
prophetic when read in light of the attack 
<https://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/13731/cardinal-gregory-we-should-feel-violated-> 
on the United States’ congress by a group of Donald Trump supporters 
<https://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/13730/us-bishops-pray-for-peace-as-capitol-under-siege>. 


The incident 
<https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/06/us/trump-mob-capitol-building.html> in 
Washington DC was the culmination of years of polarisation and 
divisions, so much of it fuelled by social media where people 
increasingly live in their own information ecosystems. In the echo 
chamber which is the dictatorship of relativism, people are unable to 
find common ground with those whom they disagree or even see objective 
truth. Believe what you want to believe, and make the truth what you 
want it to be.

This has had catastrophic consequences for Trump supporters. For months, 
they have been fed a relentless diet of misinformation that the election 
was stolen from their president. The baseless claims are without 
evidence and have been rejected by every court who has examined them. 
Yet the Trump mob which invaded the heart of American democracy, egged 
on by an irresponsible president, continue to believe the claims to be 
true.

For a Christian – and a Catholic – a dictatorship of relativism must be 
resisted. More needs to be done by the Church to tackle the pandemic of 
misinformation which is infecting the Body of Christ. It has been 
profoundly disturbing to witness the large numbers of Christians 
throwing themselves behind the Trump cause while some Catholics even 
became tightly connected with the group which carried out the 
insurrection. The shocking events on 6 January mean that action is 
needed to bring about some kind of reconciliation within the Church 
following this episode.

Two days before the violence was carried out, Archbishop Carlo Maria 
Viganò, the former papal ambassador to the United States, gave an 
interview to Trump’s former chief strategist, Steve Bannon. Viganò spoke 
about the “overwhelming evidence of irregularities that has emerged in 
several states” and that “those who fight courageously to defend the 
rights of God, the Nation, and the Family, the Lord assures his protection”.

Archbishop Viganò has become the personal chaplain to hardcore Trump 
supporters, and has entwined his message with the worldview of QAnon, 
the dangerous conspiracy theory labelled domestic terrorism by the FBI. 
Archbishop Viganò must bear some responsibility in setting the stage for 
what happened in Washington DC.

Support for Trump's MAGA agenda doesn’t just exist on the fringe. Last 
month, Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican’s former treasurer, described 
Trump as “a bit of a barbarian, but in some important ways, he is ‘our’ 
barbarian” while several US bishops have indicated their support. Most 
prominent among them is Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York who has 
publicly flattered Trump 
<https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/cardinal-dolans-public-flattery-trump-forgets-few-things>. 


As I set out in my book, /The Outsider/ 
<https://www.amazon.co.uk/Outsider-Francis-Battle-Reform-Church/dp/1626983615>/, 
/the pro-Trump movement is deeply linked to those opposed to the 
direction of Francis’ papacy and has been fuelled by the Catholic media 
conglomerate, EWTN. Their support for Trump has been resolute and 
witnessed in a series of fawning interviews with the president. At the 
same time, through its presenter Raymond Arroyo and outlets such as the 
/National Catholic Register/, they have promoted Archbishop Viganò, who 
in 2018 called on the Pope to resign. It is little surprise that Bannon 
asked Vigano in his interview whether “the Trump Administration could be 
instrumental in helping to return the Church to a pre-Francis Catholicism”.

Nevertheless, a better way is possible. Incoming President Joe Biden 
says it is time to heal the nation, and the same can be said for the 
Church. While the US bishops have announced a working group to examine 
President Biden’s view on abortion, a working group on reconciliation 
following the Trump presidency is equally urgent.

One step forward could be through a synodal process, something which the 
Pope has urged the Church to embrace. It could be the equivalent of a 
truth and reconciliation commission, and a genuine attempt to overcome 
the epic levels of polarisation.

“This synodal approach is something our world now needs badly,” Francis 
writes in his latest book, /Let Us Dream. /

/“/Rather than seeking confrontation, declaring war, with each side 
hoping to defeat the other, we need processes that allow differences to 
be expressed, heard, and left to mature in such a way that we can walk 
together without needing to destroy anyone. This is hard work; it needs 
patience and commitment – above all to each other. Lasting peace is 
about creating and maintaining processes of mutual listening.”

It also requires breaking out of the dictatorship of separate 
information worlds and recognising the uncomfortable truth that some in 
the Church played a role in fuelling the violence on the Feast of the 
Epiphany 2021. In 1995, as he opened the Truth and Reconciliation 
commission in post-Apartheid South Africa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu put 
it this way.

“To be able to forgive one needs to know whom one is forgiving and why. 
That is why the truth is so central to this whole exercise.”



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