Homeland Security Committee Attacks Catholic Charities

The House Homeland Security Committee recently came up with a genius plan to “investigate” churches that it says “facilitated Biden’s border crisis.” 

The groups this committee singled out to “investigate” for this dastardly imaginary crime that they just made up when they were drafting the press release were — Drum Roll and Trumpet Fanfare — those blackhearted do-gooders at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Catholic Charities, and Lutheran Global Refuge. 

It just so happens that I know one of the Congressmen who thought up this little dealio. He’s actually a nice guy. I like him. 

And because I like him, I’m going to go easy here. Instead of accusing him of being in league with the devil, I’m going to say that in his district there probably aren’t enough Catholics and Lutherans all rolled together to hold a decent pie supper. 

I think it’s possible that I’m one of the very few Catholics that he even knew before he got his job in Congress. I am also well aware of the anti-Catholic bias down here in Okieland. I have myself heard fire and brimstone sermons denouncing the Catholic Church as the vehicle of just about every kind of depravity you can imagine and a few you might not be able to imagine. 

As for Lutherans; they don’t hardly matter around these parts at all. 

So, I am forgiving my former colleague for his outrageous behavior. I have never known the man to be mean. 

Maybe getting elected to Congress as a Republican during these bad times has affected him. After all, he’s part of a Republican Party that is fighting tooth and nail to destroy our democracy. 

But one thing I’ve learned in my long life is that people become what they do. Maybe the people he’s met and the things he’s done have made him into someone he never was before. It’s been a while since we spoke, so I can’t say for sure. 

All I do know is that this somewhat harebrained committee “investigation” is a canary in the political coal mine. It tells all of us whither we are tending. 

If a nice man like this can confuse himself so thoroughly that he starts using the power of government to attack Christian Churches for following the teachings of Christ, we are indeed living in evil times. 

St Peter (the first pope, by the way) said it well when he told us Your enemy the devil is a roaring lion who prowls around looking for someone to devour. 

We all need to be careful that we don’t listen to the temptations to do evil that come at us over the internet, through steady doses of hate preaching, through cable news, or out of the darkness of our own selfish and nasty little hearts. Rage, self-righteousness and hate are addictive. 

That’s why hate rants are the standard go-to for right wing media and clergy. Hate ranting hooks people. Hate ranting turns off their brains and shapes them into easily-directed missiles to be aimed and launched. It’s so easy to fall into seeking out the church, podcast, web site or news station that gives you your fix of self-righteous anger and frothing rage. As miserable as this anger makes you, it also charges you up, focuses you, and makes you feel powerful. 

It blots out all your other worries and conflicts. It simplifies, clarifies and homogenizes everything into one, simple, focused bit of emotion.

You don’t have to deal with the fact that your kids won’t talk to you, that you can’t get a date or a decent job, that your parents drink too much, your spouse is leaving you for someone else or that, long ago, somebody molested you. 

You can just focus all your anger, all your fear, all your loneliness and self-loathing on some “other” out there that you are being told is the real cause of everything that’s wrong in your life. You can feel like you are one of the moral elite, who are in the know. You can be part of a really big club of fellow self-righteous hate-filled moral zombies who no longer feel the pains of their existence because they are hooked on the drugs of blind rage and self-righteous hatred.

It muddles your brain and kills your soul. It separates you from God as cleanly as a surgeon’s cut, right while you’re sitting in the pew shouting “Amen!”

It’s so easy. It’s as simple as logging on or clicking the remote to accept the evil of this world as goodness and go and do likewise. 

We are living in a nation-wide culture of demonic oppression. In MAGA America, destroying the country is called patriotism, lying is ok, cheating is smart, using government power to extort bribes is just the way things are done, and rapists and sexual predators are so accepted that we elect them to our highest offices. 

In MAGA America, blatant satanic evil is called “christianity” and backed by powerful, big-name clergy and evangelists. 

I suppose a boy from the back of beyond Oklahoma can be excused for being a little confused. 

When, week after week, your screaming-yelling right wing preacher is telling you that the Sermon on the Mount is liberal twaddle, you might get confused about Who Jesus is and what He actually taught. 

When everyone you know and every media outlet you listen to is denouncing church ministries that follow the plain teachings of Christ — teachings that are written down in Jesus’ own red-letter words in every  Bible — you might, over time, get a tiny bit brainwashed. 

When you are exposed daily, hourly, moment by moment, to a cacophony of demonic voices coming out of well-paid human mouths, telling you that evil is good and good is evil, your morality might get a little bit upside down. 

I’m not going to condemn my friend who went to Washington and evidently got his brains washed. I know there’s good in him.

I’m also not going to call him up and ask him what he’s been smoking. I’m just going to pray for him, the same way I pray for the many people I know to be good human beings who have lost their minds and endangered their souls over this sick Trump cult. 

They are in such danger of losing their immortal souls. To say it in flagrant, politically incorrect language, they are in danger of going to hell. 

A Christian who attacks Christians specifically for following the Sermon on the Mount has his spiritual head on backwards. When that Christian resorts to calumny and slander to support his actions, he’s skating close to a line. 

When does denying and excoriating the teachings of Christ that Jesus taught repeatedly before large crowds become denying Christ Himself? 

When does mocking and attacking people and churches for following Christ’s teachings become mocking and attacking Christ?

When do the women bleeding out in hospital parking lots, the raped, the disappeared, those in concentration camps without charges of crimes or hope of release become the least of these?

Jesus was very explicit about this. If you do it to them, you do it to Me. He didn’t say that once. He said it over and over. He gave a lot of examples. He repeated it. He meant it.

If you do it to them, you do it to Me, and on the day of judgement I will say to you, depart from Me, I never knew you. 

I get exasperated with these MAGA fools. Some days, I despair of them. 

But every morning, I get up and I pray for their raggedy souls. I ask St Michael to bind the demons that are controlling them. I ask Jesus to not give up on them. 

It’s not their fault. They have been led astray by clergy who are nothing more than apostles of Judas. 

Note: I paraphrased Christ’s words. Jesus actually said If you do it to the least of these, you do it to Me. Read Matthew 25: 31-46. The first scripture I quoted is 1 Peter 5:8.