The rise of the Trump-over-the-Pope faction of the Catholic Church has been one of the most fascinating and disturbing developments of the past few years.

I know we have to be careful discussing the sincerity of faith-based beliefs, but it is extraordinarily difficult to find any passage in any sacred text that supports a religious exemption that just applies to Covid-19 vaccines, particularly when the head of your religion has come out as pro-vaccination. 

Catholic Priest Fr. Ed Meeks of Towson, MD said in his sermon this past week that vaccine mandates are contrary to the teachings of Jesus: “No earthly king or president or public health official .. gets to dictate what we put into our body, into these temples of the Holy Spirit.” pic.twitter.com/rrU31PvTUh

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) November 29, 2021

It's even more obvious when you listen to the clip ("or billionaire technocrat") that the source of this position isn't the Pope or the bible; it's Trump/OANN/Tucker Carlson, and to the extent that this stand is religious, the religion is no longer Catholicism. 

MONDAY, AUGUST 16, 2021

"Why does he mean more to you than us?”

I come from the buckle of the Bible belt and I stay in touch with friends from back home. Nothing here is that new to me, but even if you've heard this story before, this retelling is worth your time. 

What I want to single out here is the way that MAGA and other movements can use members' deeply held (and often reasonable) beliefs to bring them in and then, once they are completely immersed, indoctrinate them into a new worldview that often directly contradicts some of those initial beliefs. This is not a simple process. It happen slowly and stealthily and its effectiveness is not limited to the stupid or the gullible. I've seen smart, reasonable people -- the last ones you'd expect -- get sucked in.  

Of course, more often it is the first ones you'd expect, cruel and foolish people with longstanding reactionary tendencies. The closer to the door they start, the easier it is to get them in the temple, but even the most likely recruits are changed by the indoctrination, made less empathetic, more childish, more paranoid and yet more credulous.   

From the Washington Post:

Like other families with split political affiliations, they had some yelling matches after Trump took office, especially over the former president’s immigration policies. Claire was a Canadian-born Catholic drawn to the Republican Party by her fierce opposition to abortion, and Trump had won her over with promises to champion her position. Celina, Laurie and their three younger siblings skewed left despite their conservative upbringing in South Dakota. They had never felt such disdain for a politician before.

By the end of the Trump administration, the bounds of their political disagreements had shifted, Laurie recounted, becoming at once more intense and also less about policy and legislation in Washington. They had learned to live with their disagreements over abortion. Now it felt like they were occupying different realities altogether.

Over the course of 2020, amid a presidential election, racial justice protests and a pandemic, the five siblings began to trade increasingly worried text messages and emails about some of the things Claire was saying and posting on Facebook. There were comments they noticed about child trafficking and sacrifice, a key theme of the extremist QAnon ideology. There was her vitriol toward Pope Francis, whom she had referred to as “the anti-Pope.” After Election Day, they took turns pushing back on a stream of disinformation Claire posted online, including the unfounded claim that the CIA murdered U.S. soldiers abroad to help cover up voter fraud.

...

“Why is this important enough to compromise your relationships with your kids? Why does he mean more to you than us?”

This is a topic that could launch a thousand graduate theses, so we need to come back to it, particularly what happens to an area when conservative media reaches critical mass (we will cover this). In the mean time, one closing thought: cults and cons exist because people believe they would never fall for a cult or a con.