Commentary
So what does the abbreviation “MAGA” stand for in light of the contemporary politics within American Catholicism?
I discovered that it actually has nothing in particular to do with Catholicism as such and merely stands for “Make America Great Again”! You could hardly call this a zealously religious leaning in St Jose María eScríva terms but more like a staunchly secularist one – not something that Jose María would come anywhere close to promoting! For while St Jose María eScríva is well known to have advocated heartily for a great bridge between the spiritual life and our everyday temporal affairs, this awesome charism could hardly be equated with a secularist agenda because its entire purpose is steeped in counteracting the insideous influences and seepage of secularism into our spiritual life through making, as Brother Lawrence also exhorted, our temporal lives gloriously spiritual, so that in everthing we do, we give glory to God and this is not out of mere habit or the monotony of superstitious impulse but rather, it is a conscientious choice, a deliberate act of the will to choose to do this or that in a manner that gives Glory to God and humble loving respect to the task at hand, for the greater glory of God, and for the betterment of our humanity and all creation.
But all this idealizing and quasi-mythologizing by MAGA ideologues of ‘nostalgic eras’ when you consider the reality of a “John Wayne meets Robert deNiro meets Coney Island meets Frank Sinatra” is about as worldly as you can get re: such eras, and therefore this kind of pompous mythologizing of the secular and profane has absolutely nothing to do with making our spiritual life great or deepening our relationship with God and others through the entrenching of our hearts, minds, and everyday lives in the good soil of Gospel Values and Catholic Social Teaching. No, nothing whatsoever. Absolutely ZILCH to be precise.
I think John Yep and Steven Millies are right. I think the likes of Jesse Romero and Roger Stone are absolutely bigoted and un-Catholic in their lack of respect for the late Holy Father. And it is also a downright shame that these so-called ultra-conservative newer seminary graduates are majoritatively bigoted. But I have to say additionally, there is a lot of very misleading information regarding the Franciscan University of Stubenville as well as EWTN. I do not believe that EWTN’s position is so-called ‘MAGA’ oriented, anti-Pappa Francesco nor is it unabashedly ultra-conservative and pompous, unlike Roger Stone’s undiplomatic tone and views. And I do not think rightly critiquing genderist ideologies in light of Biblical truth or exposing the evils of abortion are contrary to the agenda of Pope Francis’ own pontificate because I know he too did not favour abortion nor did he promote a gender dysphoric take on the male and female created order within divine design – actually, he was a staunch critic of gender transitioning and the ideological evils this warped practice was steeped in. I do believe however, that EWTN is opposed to Modernism, and righfully so but I don’t believe it is stridently opposed as such, to Pope Francis’ own vision and I do not believe either, that you can rightly label Pope Francis a ‘Modernist’, for he was not that, although in many respects he was unconventional on alot of issues. And that’s not to say he never made mistakes. Of course he did. I myself even pointed out in a very early 2022 blog post¹, just how hurtful and preposturous, one of the worst things I heard about him was, and that if it really were true, then not only was it a complete and utter bull-in-a-china-shop fly in the face of his most wonderful encyclical Laudato Si, the End Times have now abruptly fallen on us and we ought to be praying our hearts out for God to rescue our Holy Mother Church from the perilous and woeful descent into the jaws of diabolical deception. That said, I still could, over time, bring myself (with God’s help that is), to trust that God would convict Pope Francis of that terrible thing which he was scandallously reported to have said. And I was also hoping and praying fervently that these tumultuous reports were, in reality, no more than “fake news”, the kind of media-trumped-up hysteria that exists only to stir up division and reel in media dollars. Not that I am a fan of either stoking the fires of division or the corrupt passtime of a dysfunctional journalism devoted to raking in media dollars any which way never mind how; quite the contrary. Like our beloved late Holy Father, I am staunchly opposed to these terrible tropes of modernity and wish only for truth and integrity to rule the roost of journalistic professionalism. End of story.
Footnoted Citation/Additional Reference 1.)https://myfaithandlifeblog.com/2022/01/11/pope-leo-xiiis-vision/
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