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On the first full day of his second term as president, Donald Trump attended a national prayer service in Washington, where he sat and listened to the bishop of the local Episcopal Diocese. It quickly became quite memorable: The Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde spoke truth to power, urging the newly inaugurated president to reconsider his attacks on marginalized communities.
Trump reacted furiously, and among Republicans, he was hardly alone. House Speaker Mike Johnson and the new White House press secretary condemned the bishop’s sermon, and Fox News personalities repeatedly lashed out at Budde on the air. One GOP lawmaker went so far as to introduce a congressional resolution to formally condemn her remarks — and it quickly picked up 20 Republican co-sponsors.
It served as a timely reminder that too often in GOP circles, religion is treated as something that must be celebrated, protected and respected — just so long as the faith community is telling the party what it wants to hear.
In fact, the first week of the Trump era ended on a similar note to the way in which it began.
JD Vance sat down with CBS’s Margaret Brennan for his first on-air interview as vice president, and the “Face the Nation” host reminded her guest that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops last week condemned some of Trump’s executive orders, most notably the administration’s new policy on allowing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to enter houses of worship.
“Do you personally support the idea of conducting a raid or enforcement action in a church service, at a school?” the host asked. The Ohio Republican, who is himself a Roman Catholic, replied:
Of course, if you have a person who is convicted of a violent crime, whether they’re an illegal immigrant or a non-illegal immigrant, you have to go and get that person to protect the public safety. That’s not unique to immigration. But let me just address this particular issue, Margaret. Because as a practicing Catholic, I was actually heartbroken by that statement. And I think that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops needs to actually look in the mirror a little bit and recognize that when they receive over $100 million to help resettle illegal immigrants, are they worried about humanitarian concerns? Or are they actually worried about their bottom line?
So, a few things.
Right off the bat, it was curious to hear Vance say that officials have a responsibility to “get” those convicted of violent crimes “to protect the public safety.” Trump’s pardons for violent Jan. 6 felons suggest the Republican White House has already rejected the vice president’s assertion.
What’s more, it’s unusual, to put it mildly, to see a prominent American political leader use such pointed language in reference to Catholic leaders. “Are they actually worried about their bottom line?” is the kind of question that, I suspect, will not be well received by the USCCB.
But let’s also not brush past the larger context. In recent years, in instances in which the Biden administration disagreed with the Roman Catholic Church, Trump and other Republicans were quick to accuse the former Democratic president of being “against God,” “against the Bible” and “essentially against religion.” At the Republican National Convention, one speaker condemned Biden — by all accounts, a devout Catholic — as a “Catholic in name only.”
What are the chances Republicans will hear similar talk after a week in which party leaders launched a hysterical offensive against Budde and publicly questioned whether Catholic bishops are principally concerned with “their bottom line”?
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MSNBC political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
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