Politicos being tone-deaf when it comes to faith is nothing new.
Sometimes cosplaying Jesus goes over well, at least for the intended audience. Take William Jennings Bryan’s “Cross of Gold” speech in 1896, for example.1 Even then, it’s an arguably-risky move. On the other hand it’s nearly guaranteed to get remembered.
About politics, principles, piety and personal preferences, my gut-level response to what’s been going on is not dissimilar to Mark Twain’s imagined reader of the Deerslayer tale:
“…the reader of the Deerslayer tale dislikes the good people in it, is indifferent to the others, and wishes they would all get drowned together.…”
(“Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offences” , Mark Twain (1895) via Gutenberg.org) [emphasis mine]
I don’t like “God agrees with me” politics, or folks acting as if their personal preferences are eternal, unchanging principles.
That’s a personal, emotional response. It matters, a bit, to me.
Feeling and Thinking
I haven’t talked about emotions for a while, so here’s a brief (for me) recap of why feelings matter, to an extent.
Feelings, emotions, happen: they’re part of being human. So is thinking. Or, more accurately, it should be. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 154-159, 1763-1764)
I can decide to act on whatever impulse pops up, or not act. I’ve got free will, so thinking is an option, not a hardwired response. (Catechism, 1730, 1778, 1804, 2339)
By themselves, emotions aren’t good or bad. They just happen. “Good” or “bad” come into play when I decide what to do or not do about what I’m feeling. (Catechism, 1764-1764, 1767-1768)
I’m feeling decidedly peeved by some of what’s been in my news feed this week.
Since the topical gibberish involves matters that I take seriously, I’ve decided to talk about what I’ve seen. And try to stay comparatively calm.
Pictures, American Presidents, and Getting a Grip
I don’t know who decided that posting a colorful and imaginative image of the American president — with glowing hands, robed in white and red —
Seriously, I don’t know who thought that would be a good idea.
Something like that would, I think, have been over the top even for the red, white, and blue-blooded radio preachers of my youth.
Their secular and religious fervor were rather thoroughly mixed, but — I’d better stop now.
Apparently the American president is intended to be viewed as a doctor.
Okay, the posture and gesture sort of fit “doctor/healer” artistic conventions, and the man lying in the foreground could be a patient. But I’ve seen doctors, off and on, all my life. They didn’t dress like that, and none of them had glowing hands.
Granted, I’ve spent most of my life in the Upper Midwest, so maybe doctors on the east coast — Good grief.
Apotheosis and Presidents: Not a New Myth-Take
I gather that this week’s nifty presidential image was AI-generated. Tech behind the picture is new. More-or-less ham-handed representations of public figures in religious/mythic settings aren’t.
I still think George Washington, seated in glory between Justice and Victory in Brumidi’s “The Apotheosis…” looks like he’s about to stab Victory’s leg; and I’m drifting off-topic.
Or maybe not so much.
I don’t think 19th century Americans really believed that George Washington was on a par with the gods of Olympus. But some of them expressed arguably-excessive enthusiasm about our first president.
Remembering Who’s Who
The iconography of this week’s nifty picture — even without the red overlay stole, there aren’t many people other than Jesus who’d be dressed like that, looking like that.
Seeing Jesus as a role model: that makes sense, although I have a hard enough time trying to imitate the Saints, let alone Jesus of Nazareth.
Posting a picture of myself, dressed the way we show Jesus in religious art, posed as if laying my mystic hands on some guy? I’m no shrinking violet, but that’s something I wouldn’t do.
That’s because God’s God, I’m not, and Jesus said “I AM”. Then, and this is why I take Jesus very seriously, he made good on his claim.
Living in Today’s World, Looking Ahead
I don’t like war. It kills people and breaks things. But I’d make a terrible pacifist, since I think sometimes war is less bad than the alternative.
This is not a new idea.
“The legitimate defense of persons and societies is not an exception to the prohibition against the murder of the innocent that constitutes intentional killing. ‘The act of self-defense can have a double effect: the preservation of one’s own life; and the killing of the aggressor. … The one is intended, the other is not.’ (Catechism, 2263) (“…double effect…” from “Summa Theologica” , STh II-II,64,7, St. Thomas Aquinas) [emphasis mine]
“…79. …Those too who devote themselves to the military service of their country should regard themselves as the agents of security and freedom of peoples. As long as they fulfill this role properly, they are making a genuine contribution to the establishment of peace.”
(“Gaudium et Spes” , Pope St. Paul VI (December 7, 1965)) [emphasis mine]
My guess is that the assorted politicos and pundits who have been talking about “just war” lately have the idea of legitimate defense in mind. Or hope that the folks they’re trying to influence will think so.
These days, the ‘just/not-just’ war we’re supposed to agree with someone about is the one involving the outfit that’s been running Iran since 1979.
It’s my considered opinion that I don’t know enough to have a considered opinion about whether the conflict counts as “legitimate defense”.
Fear, Hope, and a Very Distant Goal
The current Iranian regime’s ‘death to the Jews, death to the Great Satan (Sheytân-e Bozorg) America’ slogans aren’t reassuring. How they’ve been treating their subjects is regrettable.2
Again, I don’t know enough about what’s been happening to know whether the current war with Iran is okay.
A few more points and I’ll wrap this up.
‘Passing moral judgements’ on my country’s government: that’s part of the Church’s job. Ethics apply to everyone: even United States government officials.
“The Church, because of her commission and competence, is not to be confused in any way with the political community. She is both the sign and the safeguard of the transcendent character of the human person. ‘The Church respects and encourages the political freedom and responsibility of the citizen.'” (Gaudium et Spes 76 § 3 (1965))
“It is a part of the Church’s mission ‘to pass moral judgments even in matters related to politics, whenever the fundamental rights of man or the salvation of souls requires it. the means, the only means, she may use are those which are in accord with the Gospel and the welfare of all men according to the diversity of times and circumstances.'” (Gaudium et Spes 76 § 5. (1965))
(Catechism, 2245, 2246) [emphasis mine]
Avoiding war is a very good idea. But we do not live in an ideal world.
“All citizens and all governments are obliged to work for the avoidance of war. However, ‘as long as the danger of war persists and there is no international authority with the necessary competence and power, governments cannot be denied the right of lawful self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed.'” (Gaudium et Spes 76 § 5 (1965))
(Catechism, 2308)
The “international authority with the necessary competence and power” Pope St. Paul VI mentioned in Gaudium et Spes (Joy and Hope) does not exist. Not yet.
I think part of our job is building a “civilization of love”.
“…The answer to the fear which darkens human existence at the end of the twentieth century is the common effort to build the civilization of love, founded on the universal values of peace, solidarity, justice, and liberty….”
(“To the United Nations Organization” , Pope St. John Paul II (October 5, 1995))
That’s going to take time. Generations. Centuries. Millennia. Whatever we cobble together won’t be perfect. But I think we must try, and am sure that we can do better.
I’ve talked about living in a non-ideal world before:
- Being an American
- “Politics, Poppycock, and a Mess in Minnesota” (January 31, 2026)
- “Liberal? Conservative? Republican? Democrat? No: Catholic” (July 27, 2024)
- Acting As If What I Believe Matters
- Hawk? Dove?
- Long-Term Goals (turning good ideas into practical realities takes time)
- Acting As If What I Believe Matters
- “Hamas, Harvard, Ukraine and Alaska Air: Looking for a Bright Side” (October 28, 2023)
- “Veterans Day and Patriotism” (November 11, 2025)
- Remembering the big picture
- “Just Who is This Jesus Person, and Who Does He Think He is?” (October 8, 2022)
- “Jesus, Human on His Mother’s Side: the Incarnation” (December 25, 2021)
- Faith and feelings
1 Very effective speech, but not one I’d deliver:
“…Now, Bryan was ready to conclude the speech, and according to his biographer, Michael Kazin, step ‘into the headlines of American history’.
Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests, and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: ‘You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns; you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.‘
“As Bryan spoke his final sentence, recalling the Crucifixion of Jesus, he placed his hands to his temples, fingers extended; with the final words, he extended his arms to his sides straight out to his body and held that pose for about five seconds as if offering himself as sacrifice for the cause….”
(Cross of Gold speech, Bryan addresses the convention; Wikipedia) [emphasis mine]
2 Iran, very briefly, then someone’s look at the current rulers and their subjects:
- Wikipedia
- 2026 Iran war
- Ali Khamenei (“Not to be confused with his predecessor, Ruhollah Khomeini, or his son and successor, Mojtaba Khamenei.”)
- Ayatollah
- History of Iran (summarized: there’s about seven millennia of it)
- Iran
- Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
- Ruhollah Khomeini
- Shah
- Supreme Leader of Iran
“Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is killed in Israeli strike, ending 36-year iron rule”
Jackie Northam, James Hider, Peter Kenyon; NPR News (Updated March 1, 2026)“…’Ayatollah Khamenei was a man with strategic patience and was able to calculate a few steps ahead,’ he [Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C. seior fellow Alex Vatanka] says. ‘That’s why I think he managed — on the back of the Revolutionary Guards — to increasingly appropriate all the levers of power in his hands and sideline everyone else.“
“Khamenei’s close ties to the Revolutionary Guards allowed Iran’s military to develop a vast commercial empire in control of many parts of the economy, while ordinary Iranians struggled to get by.
“Vaez says Khamenei also began to build up Iran’s defensive policies, such as developing proxies like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip to deter a direct attack on Iranian soil.
“‘And then also becoming self-reliant in developing a viable conventional deterrence, which took the form of Iran’s ballistic missile program,’ Vaez says.
“As supreme leader, Khamenei also had the final word on anything to do with Iran’s nuclear program.
“Over time, Khamenei increasingly injected himself into politics. Such was the case in 2009, when he intervened in the presidential election to ensure that his favored candidate, the controversial conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, won office.
“Iranians took to the streets to protest what was widely seen as a fraudulent election. Khamenei brutally crushed those demonstrations, triggering both a backlash and more protest movements over the years.
“Iran killed thousands of its citizens under Khamenei’s rule, including more than 7,000 people killed during weeks of mass protests that started in late December 2025, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency, a U.S.-based organization that closely tracks rights abuses in Iran….
“…By the time Khamenei died, his legacy was in tatters. Israel had hobbled two key proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, and had wiped out Iran’s air defenses. With U.S. help, it left Iran’s nuclear program in shambles.
“What remains is a robust ballistic missile program, the brainchild of Khamenei. It’s unclear who will replace him to lead a now weakened and vulnerable Iran.”
[emphasis mine]
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