The Whore of Babylon Goes to the Mall

 

 Jesus was political and so are we ~ how Christians vote matters

On Sunday, May 17, thousands will gather on the National Mall in Washington for Rededicate 250: A National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise & Thanksgiving — a day-long event organized to rededicate America as “One Nation Under God” as the nation approaches its 250th birthday. Among the speakers: Bishop Robert Barron of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, with a video address from Cardinal Timothy Dolan retired Archbishop of New York. Also on the program: Father Mike Schmitz, Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, Speaker Mike Johnson, Franklin Graham, and — centrally — the event’s most enthusiastic promoter, Pastor Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Dallas.

One of these things is not like the others.

Robert Jeffress has been unambiguous about what he thinks of the institution that Bishop Barron and Cardinal Dolan represent. In 2010, on his radio program Pathway to Victory, he delivered an extended theological indictment:

“This is the Babylonian mystery religion that spread like a cult throughout the entire world. The high priests of that fake religion, that false religion… on those crowns were written the words, ‘Keeper of the Bridge,’ the bridge between Satan and man. That phrase, Keeper of the Bridge — the Roman equivalent is Pontifex Maximus. It was a title first carried by the Caesars and then the emperors and finally by the Bishop of Rome.”

He was not finished. Reflecting on the Catholic Church’s use of Scripture, sacrament, and the name of Christ, Jeffress drew his conclusion:

“After all, the Catholic Church talks about God and the Bible and Jesus and the blood of Christ and salvation. Isn’t that the genius of Satan?”

The Catholic Church, in Jeffress’s settled theological view, is a counterfeit religion — Satan’s masterwork precisely because it resembles the real thing so closely.

Cardinal Dolan, of course, is not simply a Catholic bishop. He is a cardinal-elector of the Roman Catholic Church. In March of last year, he traveled to Rome and participated in the conclave that elected Robert Francis Prevost as Pope Leo XIV — the man whom Jeffress’s theological framework would identify as the latest occupant of the throne of the Whore of Babylon.

Cardinal Dolan helped elect the man Jeffress’s own theology names as the Antichrist’s vicar.

And on Sunday, they will share a platform.

One might ask: is there no self-awareness here? No recognition of the theological incoherence of standing alongside a man who has called your Church the work of the Devil — not as a slip of the tongue, not as a youthful indiscretion, but repeatedly, on the record, and without retraction?

Also on the program is Rabbi Meir Soloveichik of Congregation Shearith Israel. One wonders whether the Rabbi is aware that Jeffress has stated publicly: “Judaism — you can’t be saved being a Jew. You know who said that, by the way? The three greatest Jews in the New Testament — Peter, Paul, and Jesus Christ.” The Rabbi’s presence, and the event’s inclusion of a Shabbat 250 observance the preceding days, suggests an attempt at ecumenical optics. But optics are not theology.

What Rededicate 250 actually is, stripped of its anniversary bunting, is a Christian nationalist rally organized around the proposition that America must be reconsecrated to God under the presidency of Donald Trump. The political roster tells the story: Hegseth, Rubio, Johnson, Carson. These are not pastoral figures. They are political lieutenants of an administration that has waged war on immigrants, gutted Catholic Charities contracts, and treated the Holy Father as an adversary.

Jeffress himself made the framework explicit: “I believe President Trump believes this is a time for America to rededicate herself to God.” The rededication is to God — but the God being invoked is inseparable from the political project being served.

Bishop Barron has been a member of the president’s Religious Liberty Commission. He attended the White House Easter luncheon. He will now stand on the National Mall alongside the man who calls his Church the Whore of Babylon and his faith the genius of Satan.

One is permitted to ask why.

The 250th anniversary of this republic is a genuine occasion for gratitude and reflection. The Catholic tradition has deep resources for both — resources that do not require sharing a stage with those who hold our Church in contempt, or lending episcopal prestige to what is, at its core, a political ceremony dressed in prayer.

There is a simple resolution to this problem, and it is called an apology. Jeffress has never offered one — not to Catholics, not to Jews, not to any of the communities his theology consigns to Satan’s handiwork or eternal damnation. An apology, of course, would require an acknowledgment of wrongdoing, and that is a commodity altogether rare — if not entirely nonexistent — in this administration and among its most devoted supporters.

America deserves better than this. So does the Church.

Monsignor Arthur Holquin, S.T.L., is a retired Catholic priest of the Diocese of Orange and the retired rector of Mission Basilica San Juan Capistrano. He writes at Liturgy and Truth on Substack.