An entire gallery of politicians and commentators who have spent decades working against Christ and His Church have today revealed themselves as champions of the papacy. People who legislate against natural law, who inject gender ideology into schools, who persecute conscientious objectors and ridicule Catholics at the slightest opportunity, are suddenly very concerned about the dignity of the Holy Father.
But let’s say it clearly: they are antichrists. Not in the apocalyptic sense of the term (although sometimes it seems that way), but in the plainest and most everyday sense: people who live, legislate, and govern against Christ. They hate what Christ teaches. They work tirelessly to erase His footprint from public life. Today, because it suits them to give Trump a slap on the wrist, they wrap themselves in the pope’s flag like someone putting on a carnival costume. But they are not defending the pope; they are using him.
Alongside them have appeared the on-duty Savonarolas. Holier-than-thou types who saw the meme and proclaimed that Trump has committed a «scandalous blasphemy.»
Calm down. Open the Catechism and look up the conditions for mortal sin: grave matter, full knowledge, and full consent. The blasphemous intention, that deliberate act of hatred or contempt toward God that constitutes blasphemy in the proper sense, is nowhere to be seen. Rudeness is not blasphemy. Stupidity is not blasphemy. It requires directing an act of the will against God, which at minimum demands knowing what one is doing. Trump was not pronouncing on God. He was making a joke, which is very different.
What is blasphemous is not a deleted meme. What is blasphemous is placing oneself literally in the place of God, not in an image created with artificial intelligence, but in legislation, in discourse, in the insane pretension of redesigning human nature. When they promise to «save the planet.» When they arrogate to themselves the power to decide what a man is and what a woman is. When they legislate as if there were no law above the Official State Gazette. That is when they are attempting to usurp God’s throne. And that is what all those new defenders of the pope do every day. With full knowledge, full consent, and gravely serious matter.
As for the political discussion, there is a simple rule. The pope must be obeyed in doctrinal matters: when he teaches on faith and morals, when he transmits what the Church has always taught, and when he speaks as the successor of Peter. The antichrists should never be obeyed. Neither when they attack the pope nor when they defend him. Especially when they defend him. Because when a character like Pedro Sánchez comes out in defense of the Vicar of Christ, the question is not what Trump has done. The question is what they are plotting.
Article originally published in Fruslerías.