Lux Lucet

During the 1960 presidential campaign John F. Kennedy’s Catholicism was a big deal to American voters. It was thought by many that a Roman Catholic president would have divided loyalties, that he would attempt to do what Jesus said could not be done: serve two masters. In this case, the Constitution and the pope. This was such an issue that Kennedy felt compelled to give a speech on this topic to a group of Protestant ministers in Houston, in which he stated his belief that the separation of church and state was absolute. Referring to this speech during the 2012 presidential campaign, Republican candidate Rick Santorum said he almost threw up when he first read the speech and that Kennedy had thrown, “his faith under the bus.”

If Kennedy gave him a Maalox moment, a little reflection on the US political climate in 2014 will, no doubt, do wonders Santorum’s stomach. Not only are Roman Catholic politicians not required to play coy when it comes to the political implications of their faith, but they brazenly waive the banner of their Catholicism for all the world to see without consequence. The latest example of this is Speaker the House John Boehner’s open invitation to Pope Francis I to address a joint session of Congress. Boehner, a Roman Catholic, addressed the following letter to Francis,

                March 13, 2014

His Holiness, Pope Francis PP.

00120 Via del Pellegrino

Citta del Vaticano

Your Holiness:

It is my honor as Speaker, an on behalf of the bipartisan leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, to extend to you as head of state of the Holy See an open invitation to appear and address a Joint Meeting of the two houses of Congress assembled in the Chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives.

                    With every good wish to Your Holiness, I am,

                    Sincerely Yours,

                    John Boehner

Boehner’s starts off in good Catholic fashion by blasphemously calling the pope “His Holiness.” Kennedy could never have gotten away with this in 1960. But in 2014. few Evangelicals. if any, seem concerned. In fact given their track record, far from expressing any concern at the thought of the pope addressing Congress, a good number of today’s leading Protestant ministers likely will welcome the Pontiff with open arms.

In order to placate those who may object to the invitation on the principle of the separation of church and state, Boehner’s invitation refers to the pope as, “head of state of the Holy See,” as though the invitation were being extended to some strictly secular political leader. This sort of double-speak is common when it comes to US diplomatic relations with Rome. For example, at the time the US first sent an ambassador to Rome in 1984, a US Senate report on the matter stated, “diplomatic recognition focuses on the pope as chief of state of Vatican City and not on his office as leader of the Roman Catholic Church…” (John Robbins, Ecclesiastical Megalomania, 190). Of course, double-speak is difficult to avoid when talking about Rome, because Rome is, by its own admission, both a religious and a political institution.

Not content with a short letter to the pope, Boehner published a longer statement for public consumption and posted it on his Speaker of the House blog. In his statement, Boehner,

• Expresses his reverence for the pope
  
• Lauds his “pastoral manner and servant leadership”
  
• Praises the pope’s social teaching rooted in, “the joy of the gospel”, (“joy of the gospel” is English for Evangelii Gaudium the Latin title of the pope’s 2013 Apostolic Exhortation; this radically socialist document has been condemned for its blatant attack on private property and free-markets; it is amazing to this author how brazen Roman Catholic politicians have become in advancing the politics and social teaching of the popes)
  
• Invokes Roman Catholic socialist buzzwords such as “solidarity” and “social justice”, and mistakenly claims, “These principles are among the fundamentals of the American Idea”
  
• Labors under the erroneous notion, common among Roman Catholic politicians, that the founding documents of the US set forth a, “delicate balance between the twin virtues of subsidiarity and solidarity,” which is being disrupted by the centralization of political power in Washington
  
• Endorses compassionate fascism by claiming that Americans must meet their responsibility to the poor, “by personal charity on the one hand and sound, inclusive policies on the other,” the latter of which, apparently, is some sort of state-sponsored welfareism.
  

There was a time, even in the degenerate 20th century, when American Evangelicals never would have permitted such an obvious endorsement of Roman Catholic social teaching from a national-level politician. And the idea of the pope addressing Congress would have been unthinkable. They properly would have viewed this as an invitation to Antichrist. But the rise of dispensational pre-millennialist and post-millennialist end times theology has blinded the Evangelical mind to the true nature of Rome. Instead of being the Mother of Harlots drunk with the blood of the saints, as was the majority understanding of Protestants from the time of the Reformation until the late 19th century, Rome is now viewed as the defender of all that is right, holy and just, a faithful ally in the culture war against the evil, liberal secularist barbarians. As a result, American Evangelicals, ignorant both of theology and history, are easily misled into supposing that the pope is a humble servant of God and that his toxic brew of solidarity, social justice and subsidiarity is as American as apple pie, when nothing could be further from the truth. The civil rights historically enjoyed by Americans – freedom of religion, freedom of speech, protection of private property, legal due process – are not gifts of the Roman Antichrist, as Boehner would have us believe. Rather, they are the rooted in the Bible and the doctrine of justification by faith alone, rediscovered at the time of the Protestant Reformation 500 years ago.

Expressing his view on the possibility of diplomatic relations with Rome, John Adams had this to say,

“congress [sic] will probably never send a Minister to His Holiness [the pope] who can do     them [Congress] no service, upon receiving a Catholic legate or nuncio…[a representative]     of an ecclesiastical tyrant…” (Robbins, Ecclesiastical Megalomania, 191, n 16).

To 21st century American ecumenical Evangelicals raised to view the pope as a champion of Christ and staunch ally in the culture war, this language may seem shocking, the residue of a prejudiced and ignorant past. But if his comments offend the sensibilities of contemporary Evangelicals, perhaps they should consider why he said what he did before rejecting it outright. For if the pope was an ecclesiastical tyrant in the time of John Adams, much more is this the case today. John Boehner has invited Antichrist to address Congress, yet scarcely any objection is raised. It is high time Evangelicals came to their senses about the nature of the Roman Catholic Church-State. Their future freedom, both political and religious, depends upon it.