The first White House press conference introduced us to Karoline Leavitt: articulate, assertive and intensely Catholic. She represents to us the third component of the Religious Right in the United States.
For years, we have read about the evangelical Christians. They come primarily from the American South and trace their lineage back to Jerry Falwell. They have been represented in recent years by Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Church of Dallas and Franklin Graham of Samaritan’s Purse. They constitute, we are told, about 20% of the American electorate and have wielded enormous power in recent decades.
Dwight Moody
Recently, the focus has shifted to the Pentecostal piece of this religious puzzle. They are, in fact, part of that evangelical cohort, and are known as the New Apostolic Reformation, a small cadre of men and women who see visions, hear voices and announce them as the word of God to our generation. They are obsessed with Israel, the end of the world as we know it and surprising acts of God, like the double election of Donald Trump.
Both these religious groups have gravitated toward dominion theology wherein Christian leaders are urged to seek places of influence (and power) in one of the seven mountains of cultural influence: business, education, media, family, arts and entertainment, religion, and especially government.
Running alongside these is another cadre of would-be rulers, those committed to the Roman Catholic Church.
These Catholics are not the ones we have grown accustomed to — that is, shaped by the Vatican Council II and committed to social justice. Those are the Catholics of my generation, who embraced God’s “preferential option for the poor” and celebrated when Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina was elected Bishop of Rome (pope) in 2013.
This new generation of Catholic scholars and activists are of a different stripe. They often resist the reforms of Vatican II and look for places to celebrate the Mass in Latin. Kansas City professional footballer Harrison Butker spoke from this tradition when he gave the commencement address at Benedictine College in Kansas last spring. You remember he caused quite the stir when he urged the graduating women to go home and have children and suggested everybody find a place to live and work where the Latin Mass is celebrated.
Butker is a newly refurbished Catholic. Beside him are a host of newly converted Catholics, such as Vice President JD Vance (received, as they say, into the church in 2019). Heading the list of converts is the celebrated Harvard law professor Adrian Vermeule. Like Vance, he converted to Catholicism (from Protestantism) and assumed intellectual leadership of their advocacy of what scholars call Catholic integralism, which seeks to integrate Catholic faith and practice into social structures and procedures.
“All these strands of religious commitment have one thing in common: a criticism of the separation of church and state.”
All these strands of religious commitment have one thing in common: a criticism of the separation of church and state as it has been understood in the American legal tradition. They want more religion in public places and more religion in powerful places: not just religious people, but religious symbols (like the Bible in classrooms) and religious preferences (like release from the public obligation to serve people whose life they dislike).
They are, generally, on the same page on abortion — against it — but diverge when it comes to contraception. And immigration: Catholics have a long, strong commitment to protecting and providing for immigrants (especially when they are coming from Catholic cultures, like South America); this commitment they increasingly share with Latino Pentecostals and for the same reason.
Donald Trump strolls at the head of this religious procession, claiming leadership without submitting to membership in any of their groups. In fact, his religious affiliations and commitments are notoriously loose. He wants power, and they have given it to him in the hopes he will lead our country into the sort of religious revival that favors a certain brand of Christian faith and practice.
So far, so good for them. Not so much for the rest of us — the 40 million who have given up on church and the millions more of us who prefer the “do justice and love mercy” mantra of Micah the Hebrew prophet and also Jesus, who said, “Blessed are the merciful.” Clearly, Trump and his religionists took offense at that.
Oh, did I mention that the chief architect of Project 2025 is a Roman Catholic? And six of the nine justices on the Supreme Court? And two of my best friends in the ministry who converted to Catholicism in recent years?
Dwight A. Moody is an author, minister, scholar and host of the media site The Meeting House.
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Butker’s commencement speech echoes MacArthur and other male supremacists | Opinion by Rick Pidcock
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