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

[Greg Gillis]

Thank you Art a very important piece to this whole situation.

Greg


On Sat, Jan 9, 2021 at 1:48 PM Arthur Blomme via craic <
craic at lists.integralshift.ca> wrote:

> 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> <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>
> [image: email sharing button]
> [image: facebook sharing button]
> [image: twitter sharing button]
> [image: pinterest sharing button]
> [image: linkedin sharing button]
> ------------------------------
> [image: 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.”
>
>
> --
> Note:   If you forward this email, please delete the forwarding history,
> which includes my email address. It is a courtesy to me and others who may
> not wish to have their email addresses sent all over the world. Erasing the
> history also helps prevent Spammers from mining addresses and prevents
> viruses from being propagated
>
>
> <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail> Virus-free.
> www.avast.com
> <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail>
> _______________________________________________
> craic mailing list
> craic at lists.integralshift.ca
> http://lists.integralshift.ca/listinfo.cgi/craic-integralshift.ca
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.integralshift.ca/pipermail/craic-integralshift.ca/attachments/20210109/9f8ca859/attachment.html>