This past week was what many Christians regard as Holy Week, starting with celebration of Jesus Christ’s Last Supper on Holy Thursday; mourning Christ’s crucifixion and death on Good Friday; continuing with prayer and church services on Holy Saturday; and concluding with the glory of Christ’s resurrection on Easter Sunday. Here in Washington things were predictably a bit different, starting with a President Donald Trump speech to the nation on Wednesday night which was a series of lies including how great the economy is doing. The intention was to address the American public concern over the ongoing war with Iran, in which he praised the valor of the US troops who are slaughtering Iranian schoolchildren before launching into a tirade demanding that Iran de facto surrender or he would bomb the country “back to the Stone Ages where it belongs” if it did not comply. On Holy Saturday Trump was at it again, threatening Iran. He warned on Truth Social that Iran’s “time is running out. Remember when I gave Iran ten days to MAKE A DEAL or OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIT. Time is running out – 48 hours before all Hell will reign down on them. Glory be to GOD!”
On Good Friday Trump followed up on this threats by requesting approval of a 2027 military budget proposed by the White House that would be $1.5 trillion, half a trillion more than this year, which does not even include the $200 billion recently requested by the Pentagon for the Iran war. Trump was following through on part of the Wednesday speech in which he had said that the United States cannot now spend money on the environment or “take care of day care, Medicaid, Medicare, all of these individual things.” Instead, the United States has to focus on its wars. “Don’t send any money for day care, because the United States can’t take care of day care,” Trump said Wednesday. “We’re fighting wars. We can’t take care of day care.” Some in the audience subsequently speculated that it was an odd comment, totally devoid of anything like Christian charity, to be coming out with just before Easter.
Interestingly, that very week a projection of the US National Debt if the increased military spending is approve estimated that if the deficit spending continues the debt will increase by nearly $7 trillion over the next decade from its current $39 trillion level, which is itself unsustainable. To no one’s surprise, Trump had previously increased the debt by $7.8 trillion during his first four years in office.
A news story also revealed that Trump has wasted $100 million of taxpayer money on his fifty-six trips to Mar-a-Lago in Florida, where he spent 110 days, to play golf. If he keeps up the pace, he will have spent half a billion dollars on golf by the time his term of office has ended. Apparently, there may not be money available for improving the healthcare of Americans but paying huge amounts to be able to play a game, which he allegedly cheats at, is all right.
But there was more than that. Early in the week on Palm Sunday Pope Leo denounced the Iran war as “atrocious,” observing that the United States had “hands full of blood.” This ran contrary to what Trump and his cheerleaders were promoting, particularly Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, who has been evoking God and Jesus while calling for more war. The Pope’s response to that was “This is our God: Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war.”
Trump, who is affiliated with no known Christian denomination and may in fact be a convert to Judaism, has a so-called Christian spiritual adviser named Paula White-Cain. Early in the week she “advised” that American Christians should tithe their gross incomes and give the money (10%) to Israel. She stated that that would be compliant with what she claimed to be the right thing to do to avoid “disobeying God.” At a lunch at the White House later in the week she also compared Jesus Christ with Donald J Trump, an equation that shocked many in the actual Christian community. It might also be observed that the White House Faith Office, which White-Cain heads, was recently involved in the expulsion of its only Roman Catholic member Carrie Prejean Boller, who objected to the group’s inclusion of Zionism as a recognized and protected faith based on its political agenda and its war crimes in Palestine.
And speaking of Christianity and the Trump Administration, there was also celebration of Easter at the Pentagon, though some found one aspect of it rather odd. The event was on Good Friday and was billed as a religious gathering, though Pete Hegseth, who was the principal speaker, instructed the organizers to prohibit the attendance by Catholics. Signs were posted to that effect outside the gathering. Hegseth, who is an Evangelical Christian and ardent supporter of Israel and Zionism who has been promoting Christian religiosity in the armed services, may have been reacting to the Pope’s comments but his ban on Catholics, to put it mildly, provoked some controversy. An email sent out to Air Force personnel on Friday morning read “Just a friendly reminder: There will be a Protestant Service (No Catholic Mass) for Good Friday today at the Pentagon Chapel.” One recipient responded anonymously with “I guess so the Catholics know their kind ain’t welcome. It’s so ridiculous.”
A final story with religious overtones surfaced also last week. The defense attorneys for Tyler Robinson, who was possibly set up by the government as the killer of Charlie Kirk in Utah in September, have revealed that they have been able to demonstrate through technical examination that Robinson’s rifle was not used to fire the fatal shot, which could mean that the FBI, which showed up at the scene astonishingly quickly and proceeded to take charge, may have had prior knowledge of what was about to take place. They intervened to include denying a doctor access to a possibly still living Kirk after he had been taken to a nearby hospital. Kirk notably had decided to end his support of Israel crimes in the Middle East and was prepared to go public with his criticism. Interestingly, when he was shot, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared on television almost immediately in Israel to declare that his country had had nothing to do with the killing! Hmmmm! I highly recommend today (Saturday’s) program featuring Larry Johnson with Judge Andrew Napolitano explaining in more detail how there has been a cover-up and at least some fingers are pointing at Israel colluding with the FBI!
Reprinted with permission from Unz Review.
