A Fox News survey was released last week<\/a> found that only 48% of Catholics nationwide approve of Trump’s overall performance. While 57% of white Catholics still support Trump, most of them are not happy with his actions in Iran \u2013 the issue is becoming a thorn in their throat.<\/p>\nTrump’s second term has been a nightmare that is getting worse every day. Yet not only is the country still standing, but more and more people are becoming aware of the travesty it poses to American values. One of the new warriors is Leo, who told reporters he spoke out not to influence politics in his home country but to remind them of what Jesus practiced and preached, in his role as head of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics. <\/p>\n
No wonder Trump, who wants to have statues built for himself like a Canaanite king, is so upset.<\/p>\n
Maybe Leo’s words will awaken more good people, regardless of their faith, to stand against Trump \u2014 and especially inspire lost Catholics to return to the Mother Church.<\/p>\n
American Catholics have long served as a barometer of acceptance for newcomers and the working class. But only about 20% of Americans identify as Catholic, according to a Pew Research Center study released last year. And only 30% of those Catholics attend weekly Mass. Many people leave the faith rather than embrace it, at a rate far higher than other Christian denominations. This collapse has allowed the conservative wing of the Catholic Church to move away from its historic mission and lead us toward Trump.<\/p>\n
My lifelong commitment to social justice and my eternal suspicion of power and greed come from what I learned growing up at St. Boniface in Anaheim. I also aspired to become a priest, because I find few things more noble than devoting my life to helping others.<\/p>\n
When I started covering church sex abuse scandals as a journalist I stopped attending Mass. I was angry that people who considered themselves God’s guardians on earth not only allowed such crimes to be committed, but generally covered them up and sent the criminals to poor neighborhoods like mine. <\/p>\n
I never stopped praying or considering myself Catholic \u2014 but I couldn’t bring myself to support institutions led by people like L.A. Archbishop Jose H. Gomez and Orange Bishop Kevin Vann, who always have sharp words for progressives but never for Trump.<\/p>\n
Writing openly and proudly about my faith has been a long journey for me \u2014 but Trump’s continued heresies have made it necessary. I still don’t know when or if I’ll start attending Mass regularly again, but the fact that I’m thinking about it shows the influence Leo has on me.<\/p>\n
Recently, when I was doing an interview someone noticed the word \u201cAmor\u201d written on the other side of my Scapular of Santo Ni\u00f1o de Atocha. Last year, I hid this simple necklace, a symbol of devotion, inside a plastic sleeve bearing my Los Angeles Times badge, along with some religious medals. <\/p>\n
Pope Leo caused this. Trump caused it. Any opportunity to talk about my Catholic faith and why Trump is bad, I’m going to take.<\/p>\n
I’m not afraid.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“I’m not afraid.” With these three words on Sunday morning, Pope Leo XIV condemned President Trump and everything he has done to the world as forcefully as anyone has ever done. Three words that make fun of Trump being a bully. Three words that undermine Trump’s self-promoted aura of invincibility. Three words to inspire all<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":63194,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[4449,249,248,1814,6975,548],"class_list":{"0":"post-63191","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bible-verse","8":"tag-afraid","9":"tag-leo","10":"tag-pope","11":"tag-president","12":"tag-shouldnt","13":"tag-trump"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63191"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63195,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63191\/revisions\/63195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}