In Trump's World, Freedom of Religion is Not For Everybody
Apparently in Trumpworld, freedom of religion only applies to a certain kind of WASP.
Donald Trump likes to put on a good show about supporting the Freedom of Religion. His White House has established a Religious Freedom Commission. He has launched an “American Prays” initiative. Trump himself has said, “And we will never apologize for our faith ever, ever, never, never. We will never surrender our God-given rights.”
But when the rubber meets the road, Trump’s claims of religious freedom fall hollow:
A delegation of Catholic priests, nuns and lay leaders were among hundreds of people from Chicago and the suburbs who marched from Maywood to Broadview on Saturday in hopes of delivering Holy Communion to detainees at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing facility.
But after approaching Illinois State Police officers standing outside the facility, the group’s communion request was rebuffed.
The processing facility has been at the center of ongoing demonstrations in recent weeks. About 11 a.m., protesters marched down Lexington Street toward the center, praying and singing.
Illinois State Police Lt. Col. Jason Bradley called the facility with the religious leaders’ request to give communion. Bradley said ICE denied the request.
Bradley said no reason was given for the denial.
ICE didn’t immediately return a request for comment on why the request was denied.
If you’re not Catholic, you may not understand what is going on here.
For Catholics, the Eucharist is the Blessed Sacrament. It is the body and blood of Jesus Christ, that through the consecration, the bread and wine presented on the altar become the body and blood of Christ through transubstantiation without changing its appearance.
Denying the inmates the opportunity to receive the Eucharist was denying them Christ.
“What we experienced today was really a rejection of even the possibility of bringing God’s love and the presence of Christ, an exceptional gift that many in there have cherished,” Father Larry Dowling told the Chicago Tribune.
And yet, the Catholics in Maywood got off easy when compared to Presbyterian minister David Black, who took pepper spray to the face from ICE thugs.
Lest you think that this is just a feature of Catholics and other religious groups when they oppose deportations, let us take you back to something that happened in July.
While Trump has a lot of self-professed Catholics in his orbit, it seems like a lot of them are not so serious about being truly Catholic.1
So what does Trump truly mean by “Freedom of Religion”? From what I can tell, it means Freedom of Religion only if you’re a WASP, particularly a WASP that believes in a bastardized evangelical Christianity that puts more faith in politicians than in Christ. Because true Freedom of Religion protects the religious liberty of all…..and doesn’t shoot men of the cloth with pepper spray. And it protects the religious freedom of all people, not just the ones who lionize the sitting President.
It would probably be beneficial to expound upon this in the future.