A Letter to My American Friends…

BEFORE I write anything else, there was enough feedback from the last two webcasts that Daniel O’Connor and I recorded that I think it’s important to pause and recalibrate.

I realize that many of my American readers are raw right now. You have endured four years of political turmoil that literally occupied front page headlines every day with barely a reprieve. The division, anger, and bitterness in your beautiful land has affected nearly every family there and even abroad. This past election has been a watershed moment for your country with implications for the entire world.^[1]read The Agitators –  Part II For my part, I have avoided the politics in my writings, though I was closely following everything that took place more than you realize. Like you, I could sense that the spiritual consequences were enormous…

So Prof. Daniel O’Connor and I knew we were stepping into a minefield by broaching American politics in our webcast On Secular Messianism. But we were both seeing something terribly unhealthy in the letters we were receiving on a daily basis in the weeks leading up to the Inauguration. People were losing focus, getting caught up in literal conspiracies, losing their peace, losing their hope, even losing their faith. In the meantime, the Lord was saying nothing different in the “now word.” Our Lady was saying nothing different in Heaven’s messages on Countdown to the Kingdom. The message was the same the past four years as the past four decades: the world is entering the final stages of the message of Fatima when the errors of Russia will spread (ie. Communism) to the ends of the earth “annihilating nations” in more ways than one. If anything, America seems about to fulfill an ancient prophecy in the Book of Revelation, explained in Mystery Babylon and The Coming Collapse of America.

Yet, Daniel and I also knew that that many of you were heartbroken. President Trump became one of the most outspoken presidents for ending abortion (his defence of the unborn during his debate with Hilary Clinton was one of the most courageous moments of any politician on this issue). He defended freedom of religion. He gave many profound speeches that acknowledged Jesus Christ by name that left me cheering. 

And like many of you, I watched in disgust as the mainstream media dispensed with even attempting to appear objective and, with one collective voice, became a propaganda machine the likes of which the Western World has never seen on their own soil. In the final days leading up to the Inauguration, the surreal scene of troops around Washington D.C. (who are still there), the brutal and unjust “cancelling” of websites and entire platforms, the censoring of views that contradicted the narrative on everything from election fraud, to vaccines, to the facts surrounding the Capitol riot… all of this suddenly awakened many of you that all this is real; that there truly is a global revolution taking place, and that it’s now on full display on American soil. 

Nonetheless, Daniel and I wanted to rise above the politics to draw those of you who were losing your peace back to the reality that it is not flesh and blood, not kings nor princes, but Our Lord alone who can fix this world (and of course, most of you realize this already; we meant in no way to patronize anyone… I often need to be reminded by the Lord to get back to the basics). That’s just where the world is at, unlike the crises of previous generations. As Jesus said to Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta:

My daughter, governments feel the ground missing under their feet. I will use all means to make them surrender, to make them come back to their senses, and to make them know that only from Me can they hope for true peace — and lasting peace… My daughter, the way things are now, only my omnipotent finger can fix them. —October 14, 1918

Mankind will not have peace until it turns with trust to My mercy. —Jesus to St. Faustina, Divine Mercy in My Soul, Diary, n. 300

Yes, fourteen years ago, I wrote that only a Cosmic Surgery can save us from this rebellion. In that writing, I quoted St. Pio, who said:

If God turns nations’ poisonous joys into bitterness, if He corrupts their pleasures, and if He scatters thorns along the path of their riot, the reason is that He loves them still. And this is the holy cruelty of the Physician, who, in extreme cases of sickness, makes us take most bitter and most horrible medicines. The greatest mercy of God is not to let those nations remain in peace with each other who are not at peace with Him. —St. Pio of Pietrelcina, My Daily Catholic Bible, p. 1482

We were so careful to say in the beginning of our webcast that the Church has entered Gethsemane, including its temptations. Among them was the temptation of Peter to withdraw the sword to depose the mob. But Jesus ordered him to put it back. The reason is that the Passion was necessary for a greater plan… so too, now, the Passion of the Church is necessary for a greater and more beautiful glory that is coming. And for this reason, we need to pay attention to what Heaven is saying. We need to recognize the bigger picture and rise above the politics insofar as we only engage the politics with the weapons of the Gospel.

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.” —Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 2246

It will not surprise you, then, that we received letters that were as polarized as the country itself. Many said the video was “profound” and that they recognized within themselves an unhealthy attachment and that, yes, they had indeed fallen into a kind of “secular messianism” whereby they were banking on Donald Trump to turn the world around and destroy the “deep state.” They said they were now back on board with Our Lord’s plan, and that the webcast helped them to find peace again. “I got it!” exclaimed one reader, “Make God great again!”

But others were very angry, “appalled” that we would “attack” Donald Trump. Some said Daniel was “unpatriotic” and that I was just brainwashed by the mainstream media. Now, we both understood this anger, the raw emotions. We aren’t holding it against them. But in our second video on The Politics of Death, we answered why the position we held was the one that all of us as Catholics need to hold: and that is the standard of the Gospel. 

So yes, while I totally praise and support the many good things I said above of Trump, I did make a point in our first webcast of highlighting the source of much of the division, and that was his tongue. Many very faithful American Catholics who were Trump supporters told me that this was a point of scandal for them and their children too; troubled that he would tweet out personal insults calling people “stupid, clown, dopey, unattractive, losers, low class slob, etc.” The reason I pointed this out in the webcast is because the unhealthy element of secular messianism prevalent among many Evangelical Christians in America led to many ignoring such divisive words and only doubling-down on their claim that Trump is “God’s chosen one.” As such, Christianity was being identified more and more as being tolerant of trash-talk with Trump increasingly becoming the face of the Christian right. This compromise, in part, has come with a cost: Christians and “the right” are now being lumped together in the “purge” of the Biden-Harris administration that is rapidly beginning to “cancel” Christianity on social media. (And let it be said that I am outraged at several news stories that have painted the 75 million Americans who voted for Trump as “Nazis” and “extremists.” For all the cringeworthy words Trump directed at individuals, this kind of wholesale categorization of half the country is multiple times more heinous and ought to be roundly and quickly condemned before the most unthinkable persecution breaks out. Instead, cowards and Judases are beginning to reveal themselves by either their silence or patronizing “kisses”… ah, it is Gethsemane, no?”)

Finally, Daniel pointed out that, before Christmas, Trump proudly retweeted gay Cabinet minister Richard Grenell’s tweet that he is “The most gay American President” adding that this label given him is “my great honor!!!”, said Trump. ^[2]The tweet has since been suspended along with the rest of Trump’s tweets. You can find articles on this such as here and here or this article here. See Grenell’s video praising Trump’s advancement of “gay rights” here. The reference is to Trump being “gay-friendly”, not gay himself. Many of you don’t even know that, but it’s true. How can we as Catholics simply ignore these obvious public incongruities with our Faith, especially when gender ideology and gay marriage are perhaps even more on the vanguard of persecution than the abortion issue? None of this detracts from the good things Trump did. But as Catholics, are we disciples of our politicians or Jesus Christ? Whom do we serve?

This is all to say that none of this was put forth in our webcasts to “attack” Donald Trump but to remind those in our audience who had lost perspective that the banner of the Gospel must be raised higher than any political flag, and that we must hold ourselves, each other, and our politicians to that standard before anything else. 

Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations… teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. (Matt 28:19-20)

Truly, I did not mean to hurt any of my readers. I did not intend to give the impression that I do not support the many good things that Mr. Trump did during his tenure. I love America, I truly love its people; they make up the greatest number of my readers. But I will say this: my brother, Daniel, is more patriotic than any American I know. He is a man who has put his career and livelihood at risk to proclaim the Gospel. He has publicly and vocally stood against the evils that threaten the foundations of America, namely, the attack on marriage and the unborn. And he has freely given so much through his apostolate in order to prepare you, and America, for the coming of the Kingdom of the Divine Will. A man could not serve his country more nobly along side those who give their lives in its just defense.

But neither of us are willing to compromise our faith so as to be accepted by either the Right or the Left. In the words of St. Paul:

Am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still pleasing men, I should not be a servant of Christ. (Galatians 1:10)

Even though some of you might still be mad at me, I love you nonetheless, and I will proclaim the truth to you, in season and out, for as long as I have breath in my lungs and the Lord wills it.

Your servant in Jesus and Our Lady,
Mark

As for me and my household,
we will serve the Lord.
(Joshua 24:15)

Put no trust in princes,
in children of Adam powerless to save…
Better to take refuge in the LORD
than to put one’s trust in princes…
Cursed is the man who trusts in human beings,
who makes flesh his strength.
(Psalms 146:3, 118:9; Jeremiah 17:5)

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