[Editor’s Note: We asked a number of prominent Catholic commentors for their reaction to the Trump convictions. Below are their responses. (The reaction of Crisis Editor-in-Chief Eric Sammons can be found here.)]
Austin Ruse, President of C-Fam (Center for Family & Human Rights)
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It is no coincidence that the government jailed an elderly lady to months in prison for praying at an abortion clinic at the same time that a political court in New York convicted President Trump of political crimes and now threatens to jail him. Though I was surprised at how spitting mad I was on the day he was convicted, it makes perfect sense in the current climate. The regime has declared war on their political opponents, everyone from elderly ladies to the former president to you and me.
At a wedding a few nights ago, Rick Santorum, a former U.S. Senator who is known for his conservatism, told me he was being audited by the IRS for the first time in his life. He told me about a well-known fast food maven who sold his business a few years ago because several federal agencies began investigating his business after he had come out as conservative. There are old ladies in prison today because they wandered onto the Capitol grounds on January 6th. These are all political.
My first response to the Trump convictions was anger. I said on social media one word, “War.” We are at war. But it is not a war that we started. It is a longstanding war of aggression started by the left that has taken over all the institutions of our common life including the justice system.
We have no choice but to be warriors, always remembering we must also be happy warriors. We were made for this.
Michael Ippolito, Co-founder and President, The American Postliberal
To anyone who has been paying attention since 2015, it is obvious why Donald Trump was convicted last Thursday. The former president was convicted not because his actions warranted it. Trump was convicted because he stood up to the dying liberal establishment and is now one of the most important figures in American history.
What started as a businessman’s attempt to fix a broken country, has transformed him into a historical phenomenon. The injustice levied against Donald Trump has exposed how deep the rot in America goes. The American government has not served the people for many years, and Trump revealed the true nature of our system.
The United States is not a serious nation, in fact, it seems that the American experiment has failed. The future of this country will not be solved by winning the 2024 election, as important as it is. Catholics should look at the current political landscape, and see the golden opportunity in front of us. The decaying American system presents Catholics with a chance to restore this nation to something greater than it is now.
We need to support Trump. The people and the groups who hate Catholics, hate Trump. Remaining neutral in this election is not an option, given the alternative candidate is a “devout” pro-abortion and pro-LGBT Catholic. Catholics should support Trump, but it’s time to stop thinking in terms of election cycles and start thinking in terms of decades.
Sarah Cain, The Crusader Gal
President Trump’s conviction has rightly shaken the country, awakening even the politically disinterested and perennially disenfranchised. Those whose eyes have long glazed at the happenings of Washington suddenly paid mind. It’s not because President Trump is a bastion of morality, for only the swamp of DC can sometimes make him appear so by contrast. Rather, this saga is quite different from the shady deals and run-of-the-mill corruption that we’ve become rather numb to.
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His convictions at the end of an unfair trial by a partial jury and a partisan judge mark a moment in which the current administration confessed that they did not even care about the appearance of justice and impartiality. It didn’t matter how many people were watching—they demonstrated that they are prepared to wield the levers of power to destroy their political enemies, even (and perhaps especially) in the run-up to an election.
The things that the establishment hates about Trump are the ways in which he most reflects the American people: his indignation about the way the bureaucratic machine works, his desire to start major projects to fix what matters to the American people (e.g. the wall), his sense of national priority over the interests of foreign nations, and his willingness to speak candidly. In this way, the targeting of President Trump is about silencing an unrepresented swath of the nation’s disenfranchised and thereby establishing a more overt tyrannical rule.
The challenge for those living through such uncertain times is to not deify by reflex. Unrighteous persecution does not make one a righteous man, much less does it make him an object of worship. As the psalmist warns us to “not put your trust in princes,” may we join in fighting against injustice while continuing to remember that we will not experience God’s order and peace on this side of the grave. We must speak Truth into a saga of so much fervor—condemning evil, and defending what is good, knowing that this space is vacant of saints. The tendency to lionize can cause us to get swept too far into a political encampment that can never deliver on its unholy over-promises.
