Because that is what it will get if it elects Trump and Vance.
As I laid out in the Saturday DM on Opus Dei, what has happened at SCOTUS will happen with the presidency if Trump and Vance win. The same gang that gave us six Supreme Court judges who want to exonerate all presidents of crimes they commit in office, also want a far-right-wing Catholic VP one step away from the presidency. And they have it in JD Vance.
Consider this headline from The Guardian: “Kevin Roberts, architect of Project 2025, has close ties to radical Catholic group Opus Dei.” Roberts is hand in glove with Leonardo Leo, called the “third most powerful person” in the United States, the man who packed the unsupreme court with theocrats.
Roberts is president of the Heritage Foundation and leader of Project 2025. He has close ties and receives regular spiritual guidance from an Opus Dei-led center in Washington DC, a hub of activity for the radical and secretive Catholic group, say The Guardian reporters*. For years he has hung out at the Catholic Information Center on K Street, run by Opus Dei.
In contrast to Biden’s and Nancy Pelosi’s life-long Catholicism, which is nurtured by Vatican II and its emphasis on social justice, Vance’s version of Catholicism, which he adopted five years ago, is in tune with that of Roberts.
Gareth Gore, author of the book Opus, which I reviewed in Saturday’s DM, says that both Opus Dei and Project 2025 represent a reactionary stand against the progressive drive of society. For decades now, the organization has thrown its resources at penetrating Washington’s political and legal elite—and finally seems to have succeeded through its close association with men like Kevin Roberts and Leonard Leo.
Leo praised the Opus Dei-linked Center in a speech in 2022 when he received its highest honor. In his speech he called his political opponents “vile and amoral current day barbarians, secularists and bigots” who were under the influence of the devil. Leo is frequently seen in photos relaxing with Clarence Thomas and his sugar daddy, billionaire Harlan Crow.
Kevin Roberts’ book on Project 2025, scheduled for release this Fall, was pulled at the last minute after Vance was nominated as vice president. It includes a Foreword by Vance in which he praises Roberts for articulating a genuinely new future for conservatism….We are now all realizing that it’s time to circle the wagons and load the muskets. In the fights that lie ahead, these ideas are an essential weapon.
Vance has repeatedly refused to say that Biden was elected president but has said that he would not have followed Vice President Pence and approved of electors in the 2020 election.
Kevin Roberts gave a speech at the same Opus Dei center and has pushed Project 2025 with its agenda of restricting abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, dismantling the Department of Education, ending diversity programs and separation of church and state, gay marriage and contraception. It is Roberts who declared that this is a “second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
Those who vote for Trump/Vance are clearly voting for Opus Dei and displacing a democracy with a theocracy. Is this really what Americans want?
* Rachel Leingang and Stephanie Kirchgaessner, “Kevin Roberts, architect of Project 2025, has close ties to radical Catholic group Opus Dei,” The Guardian, July 26, 2024.
See Matthew Fox, Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election.
And Fox, “Opus Dei,” in Fox, The Pope’s War: Why Ratzinger’s Secret Crusade Has Imperiled the Church and How It Can Be Saved, pp. 106-124.
And Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society.
Banner Image: “An explicitly Christian variant of the Stars and Stripes.” From “One Nation Under God: The Crusade to Capture the American Flag” by Whitney Smith PhD LFIAV FFIAV FFI, Secretary-General Emeritus, FIAV, on FlagInstitute.org.
Queries for Contemplation
Do you recognize Opus Dei ideology as being a “genuinely new future for conservatism” as does JD Vance? How does that make you feel? What percent of Americans do you think want to see America become a theocracy?
Recommended Reading
Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.
The Pope’s War: Why Ratzinger’s Secret Crusade Has Imperiled the Church and How It Can Be Saved
The Pope’s War offers a provocative look at three decades of corruption in the Catholic Church, focusing on Josef Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI. The final section in the book focuses on birthing a truly catholic Christianity.
“This book should be read by everybody, not only for its ferocious courage, but also for its vision for what needs to be saved from the destructive forces that threaten authentic Christianity.” ~ Andrew Harvey, author of The Hope.
“In the gripping The Pope’s War, Matthew Fox takes an unwavering look at the layers of corruption in the Catholic Church, holding moral truth against power.” — Jason Berry, author of Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
Visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil that fundamentally changes the traditional perception of good and evil and points the way to a more enlightened treatment of ourselves, one another, and all of nature. In comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them.
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science. A breath-taking analysis.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics
3 thoughts on “Will America Replace aWeak Democracy with a Strong Theocracy?”
The elites have always worshipped the Golden Calf.
They have sowed the wind that is reaping a whirlwind in democracies around the world.
Trillions of dollars for weaponry deployed worldwide grimly augmented with AI sabotage
Millions displaced and starving
November is the narrow gateway to transcendence…….
Will we choose Barabbas or Mother Earth………………
Yes! The enclosed YouTube video, “Secret Group Embedded,” scarily summarizes how these radical right wing conservative groups, including religion within the Catholic Church such as Opus Dei and Fundamentalist Christians, have already begun to infiltrate American society and government towards a theocracy for several years. If Trump is elected theocracy/fascism will definitely transform American society as Project 2025 has already outlined and planned in its 900+ pages, with Trump as dictator and chief implementer. It’s hard to believe that Americans would ignorantly vote to have our version of an American Hitler or Franco as leader of a destructive theocracy, instead of a free and ongoing democracy. However, Matthew, as you’ve warned us in your recent book, “Trump & the MAGA Movement As the Anti-Christ,” the archetype of evil is very subtle, pernicious, and seductive. This is why our conscious awareness and responsibility on our Soul’s spiritual journey with-in God’s Spirit of LOVE~Truth~Peace~Justice is so important not only personally, but also socially/communally for the health of humanity’s continued evolution along with Beautiful Sacred Mother Earth and the Spiritual Realms….
I think that true conservatism has nothing in common with Vance, et al, but the conservative party has allowed itself to be overtaken by extremist views and is interested only with power. Most people probably don’t want a theocracy but are too complacent and lazy to do anything but go along. Most churches have been complicit in not raising the alarm, if not actually in supporting fascism. When the ex-president was first elected, a new Barmen Declaration was signed by many, but the voices have not been heard. Matthew and Jim Wallis have spoken loudly and clearly, but there have not been enough people listening or paying attention at all. As many have pointed out, there are incremental steps in creating fascism, and most of them have happened in several states. Taxpayer money is used to viciously oppose amendments on the ballot that were proposed by the people, and there have been threats to media in Florida. Since 9/11, there have been bills passed in Congress that have threatened democracy by taking away freedoms, and that has played into the hands of the power mad. Bills connected to national security take away all legal rights, if there is an accusation of threats to national security, and at least one journalist has been arrested in this country and at least two in the UK on that basis. I am afraid that we are reaping what we have sown as a people.