Weekly Roundup: Catholic Trumpism, Brave Heart Christianity, and the Two Popes
On the weekly roundup, Dan and Brad focus on a Politico story about the Trump campaign reaching out to Catholic voters. They explain how a sizable number of Catholics fall into the Christian Nationalist category, what it means for 2020, and how we should expand our vision of Trump's religious supporters beyond white evangelicals. They also talk about controversy between the two popes, a cringeworthy new center at Liberty University inspired by Braveheart, and the bar at Trump Hotel in DC.
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Axis Mundy Okay, welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
My name is Brad Onishi, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Skidmore College, and I'm here for our weekly roundup segment with my co-host, who is I'm Dan Miller.
I'm Associate Professor of Religion and Social Thought at Landmark College.
And Brad, this is our second video segment and we're kind of starting some weekly roundups, as you just said.
And one of the things we've been starting with is a segment that we call, Did You See That?
Something that we, that really caught our eye in, you know, media or pop culture or whatever related to the kinds of themes that we discuss on this podcast.
And so I want to throw it over to you.
What really caught your attention this week?
Something that you, you saw it and you're like, Oh my God, did I just see that?
Yeah, so we're going to talk a lot about Catholicism today, and so my Did You See That for the Week falls right there.
I want to go right to the Vatican, and that is this book that has been co-authored by Pope Benedict.
Pope Benedict is the Pope Emeritus.
He's the one who resigned.
There are now two living Popes, which is only the second time in history that that's happened.
Well, Pope Benedict is seen decidedly as more conservative, theologically and socially, than the Pope who has replaced him, Pope Francis.
I just was blanking on his name.
Sorry, Dan.
There was a firestorm at the Vatican this week because Pope Benedict, the Pope Emeritus, helped to co-author a book on why Catholic priests should remain celibate.
This comes at a time when the current Pope has been sort of floating the idea that priests in certain parts of the world might be able to get married.
This really does kind of highlight, like, there's a show out right now called The Two Popes, and it's like, you know, very full of intrigue and gossip and controversy.
You know, it's fun, but it kind of seems a little bit, you know, outrageous or whatever.
This is kind of bringing that to light.
Like, we literally have two popes with varying theological views, and one of them's like writing a book that is essentially sort of like I mean, I saw one person say that it makes the Vatican look more like Veep than the West Wing.
And it's a little bit strange.
And it makes things, I mean, I saw one person say that it makes the Vatican look more like Veep than the West Wing.
That might be a little harsh.
And I'm not, I'm in no way trying to denigrate, you know, the Catholic Church or our Catholic listeners in any way.
So don't take that too harshly.
What I am trying to point out, though, is that in every human institution, you do have human beings in charge.
And you, you know, at some point you get these kinds of weird events that happen.
So anyway, Dan, I don't know what you think about that, but.
Well, I was just thinking, first of all, in case people didn't catch it or think it's weird, like that is Benedict's actual title is Pope Emeritus.
Like, it's like a faculty member who retires and is invited to stay.
And it's also, maybe Brad, you know more about this than I do.
I haven't looked into this, but I think it's also another layer of intrigue.
It's not entirely clear what the status or authority of the Pope Emeritus is, I think, in relation to the sitting Pope.
Because he's not the sitting Pope.
He doesn't have the same level of clerical or doctrinal or institutional authority as Francis, but he didn't lose the title Pope, right?
And so, and it is, as you said, it's sort of uncharted, relatively uncharted territory within the Catholic Church because, as you say, this has only happened once before, and then the period of the two Popes was really contentious and kind of crazy and That's people can go look in their history books about that.
But so I think it's it's it's I don't know everything about it is weird.
It's in a book.
It's not like an official statement and yet, you know, it is somebody who still has this title and it does highlight cleavages within I think the world Catholic communion right between these these different kinds of perspectives.
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