An American Proto-Fascist Presbyterian Church

Mixing religion and politics can be a dangerous business, especially if done from the pulpit and backed up by fully-weaponized police poised in a worship space at the laity in the pews, and from the front so the congregants know they are being intensely watched even as the words, “Peace on earth” are shown on the big screen directly above one of the uniformed police employees. To my utter astonishment, I encountered just this scenario when I visited a large Presbyterian church in the U.S. early in 2026. A Christian who has read the Gospels might look askance at the weaponized, uniformed police in the sanctuary who were facing the people from near the front, and the television cameramen who were standing on the stage even very close to the altar, and think of Jesus castigating the money-changers and sacrifice-animal sellers operating inside the temple.

During the piano prelude, a cameraman hangs out near the altar.

The modern equivalent to the greedy businessmen in the temple is the power-tripping, weaponized police officer staring down congregants in a sanctuary even while the people are worshipping God. To see people worshipping the prince of peace while a fully-weaponized policewoman looks directly at the worshippers from just left of the stage in front—staring at the people—is surreal. True Christianity cannot thrive in such a hostile environment. Lest any members of that Presbyterian church might consider complaining about the obvious hypocrisy, the pastor’s sermon could easily be interpreted as a warning against complaining, not just about the church, but also, and even more troubling, the government.

Just one day before my visit to the large church in a Trump-friendly state in the U.S., Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Kamenei denounced rioters, saying that they “must be put in their place.”[1] Such a sentiment is hardly surprising because Iran’s “democracy” is severely constrained to include only approved candidates for office. So, it does come as a surprise that Iran’s supreme leader went on to say, “We talk to protesters, the officials must talk to them.”[2] It may also come as a surprise that the pastor of the Presbyterian church would not agree with Iran’s leader on talking with protesters, for that pastor said in his lengthy sermon that Christians should not complain about government. To do so is to “rebel against God’s sovereignty.” Anyone who complains has an overblown, selfish sense of oneself. The pastor also urged his congregation to contact the White House’s office of religion about a public prayer for the U.S. coming up.

Because it is unclear how a democracy can endure without complaints being made about elected officials, government policy, and even laws, I contend that the pastor was advocating a proto-fascist, anti-democracy message as a religious sermon. That he lapsed in overreaching from the domain of religion to that of politics and government—a category mistake—was dangerous because he had stationed fully-uniformed, and fully-weaponized local police not only at the periphery of the building outside, but also inside the sanctuary and in front, facing the people—staring at them as they (presumably) worshipped amid the blatant show of force. 

I intentionally made transparent the latent hostility by pivoting in the pew in the direction of the policewomen because she was staring in my direction throughout the entire service, except during the sermon, when she faced the pastor. Her loyalty was clear, and this means that the pastor’s demand that the laity not complain, even though in the Gospels Jesus complains about the money-changers, is dangerous. Were he to have seen me holding my phone/camera at my chest in the direction of his hired gun and told her to harass me, she would not have hesitated to do so, and with manufactured anger directed at me. In short, the pastor’s autocratic mentality plus the blatant, literally “in your face” presence of a fully-weaponized police officer is so toxic to Jesus’ message in the Gospels that the pastor could hardly be trusted to wield such power as he did.

The policewoman was even staring in my direction through a gap between the cameraman and the camera. She probably took my sustained stance toward the screen above her as a provocation, as she was well accustomed with passive aggression. So much overt hostility in a Christian church belies its raison d'etre. 

The environment inside and outside of the church was so toxic to worship that the pastor actually did his congregation a favor by talking through almost all of the service, lest the people be put in the uncomfortable position of closing their eyes in engaging in transcendent religious experience. Outside of the building, before the service, at least two uniformed, near riot-gear police employees roamed around the perimeter while security guards were also present. It was a sight, ironically, of excess, and thus bad judgment. As I sat in a pew inside the sanctuary, I noticed two cameramen standing near the main table/altar even though the only activity was that of a piano-player, who was very good. The Christmas lights were still up, and the sight was beautiful, but unfortunately false (which is what Aristotle wrote of Plato’s theory of the forms). After a hymn was sung, just before the Creed was said, the pastor warned his congregation, “If you don’t believe in the Apostles’ Creed, you aren’t getting into the kingdom of God.” Apparently that minister had never read Paul’s dictum that without the love of compassion, even, and I would like to add, especially for one’s enemies and even rude and dislikeable people, even faith that can move mountains is for naught. Love is not primarily about belief, though that it part of it, as I discovered ironically as I was walking from the pews.

The pastor went from reciting the Creed to making a bunch of announcements of upcoming church social-events. Any sense of transcendence that the laity may have felt arising in them from reciting the Creed was instantly wiped out by the profane announcements, which were essentially advertisements. The profane turn was made complete when he urged people to contact the White House’s office of religious affairs regarding an upcoming public prayer for the United States, which was then aiding and abetting Israel’s committing of what the UN and the International Criminal Court have both determined to be a genocide. “Praying for the country” would not include praying that the United States hold the guilty accountable and extend compassion to the million of homeless, starving civilians in Gaza.

Empty pipes even during the sermon.

The pastor’s sermon came after a reading not of the Gospels, but of one of Paul’s letters to a congregation. Philippians 2:12-6 was the reading. Interestingly, it includes the expression made popular by Soren Kierkegaard, fear and trembling. These words rightly apply to a human’s reaction to the presence of God, rather than to that of a uniformed, weaponized police officer confronting a congregation inside a sanctuary. Not surprisingly, the pastor referenced his recent sermon on fear and trembling. Fittingly, in the current sermon, the minister claimed, “Paul is almost like a sergeant.” Not. Then the pastor turned to his personal dislike of people who complain. “Remember God hates complaining,” he said without any scriptural justification. Furthermore, “complaining is a type of unbelief,” by which he probably meant atheism. Then he overreached onto the domain of government—something that Jesus refuses to do in the Gospel stories. “Complaining about the government is really complaining about the sovereignty of God.” Only self-centered people who think too much of themselves complain. Of course, democracy requires criticism of government officials, their policies, and even laws. In fact, in strenuously opposing people who criticize their respective governments, the minister was advocating autocracy because under that form of government, political criticism is prohibited. 

How do you suppose the elderly couple felt about a heavily-weaponized, uniformed "off duty" police employee of the city looking in their direction at such close range? That the couple was effectively barred from complaining even about such an overt wrong goes without saying. Forget about worshipping; transcendent experience, had there been any during that service, would have been utterly untenable in the face of such a blatant show of force. Such palpable distrust of people who could be regular members evicerates the conditions that are necessary for worship.  

Consistent with his heavy-handed political ideology, which also manifested in there being weaponized police in the sanctuary, the minister's theology of grace had little room for credit going to free-will, which is why complaining can only be rooted in arrogant selfishness. His draconian theology can be likened to that of the Jansenists, who were extreme Augustinians—extreme because they believed that the Fall is so devastating on human nature that even free-will is severely warped. Redemption by the Cross is by grace alone. The use of free-will to extend humane compassion to one’s detractors and even enemies is instead totally by grace—the person deserves no credit for making the choice to help. 

As I was thinking about the pastor's theology in the church that I hated so much as I was walking in a line past pews at the end of the service, I saw a cell phone fall on the carpet ahead. Immediately, I picked up the phone and another person helped me locate the man who had just dropped it. As I returned it to him, I said to just a few—now I wish I had had the guts to really speak up as Jesus does to the money-changers in the Gospels—“I am really opposed to your church, but, here, this is real Christianity—I am intentionally returning this phone to this man to show humane compassion even when it is not convenient. I really oppose your congregation.” The few people who heard this nodded in agreement that what I was intentionally illustrating was indeed what Jesus stands for in the Gospels, and that my complaint against the brazen police presence was valid. Even though credit is deserved for my use of my free-will to pick up and return the phone—this was not solely due to God’s grace, though I did wonder about how fortuitous the phone being dropped such that I saw it first was. It was as if a supremely intelligent being sourced beyond our realm—including our domain of politics—was testing me to see if my anger at the violations in a house of worship was in line with authentic Christianity, and thus akin to Jesus’s anger at the money-changers in the temple. As in the Gospel of Mark, the word immediately came into my mind as I saw the phone on the carpet. I knew it would have to be a split-decision whether to ignore the phone out of spite for the minister and the policewoman who had been staring at me, or to be compassionate in such an environment in which I was so angered. I would even state that it is precisely in making the choice to be compassionate when being so is inconvenient at the very least that the image of God is in us, and that the proverbial Fall does not diminish that image in us. Even Augustine argued that a person’s self-love of that in oneself that is in the image of God is theologically laudable, whereas selfish self-love is a sin.

During my first master’s degree (and Ph.D. minor-field) program in religion, my advisor used to take his graduate students to a variety of religious places on weekends so we could observe religious rituals along the lines set out as a methodology by Geertz. We were to bracket our respective religious backgrounds and perspectives to focus on knowing “the other of the other.” We did so at Hindu and Sikh temples, Greek Orthodox churches, Protestant churches, and Roman Catholic churches. I’ve continued this practice off and on through the rest of my life. In visiting the anti-democratic police-state Presbyterian church at the beginning of 2026, however, Geertz’s methodology of bracketing one’s own religious view went out the window; I couldn’t get away from that church fast enough, though I did get a glimpse of real Christianity as I paused to pick up a phone on the way out.  

By chance, I was wearing blue and the man I helped wore red. I had come from a very "blue" state, and he lived in a red state. The phone returned, nonetheless, from one hand back to the rightful owner. That he was still holding his phone when the photo was taken may suggest that having his phone back meant a lot to him. That humane compassion can seep through the cracks in such a hostile environment as a proto-fascist church is a testament to the value of the principle itself. Without valuing it and willing it into praxis, belief in the Creed is for naught. 

---

1. The Associated Press, “Rioters ‘Must Be Put in Their Place’ Following Week Long Protests, Iran’s Khamenei Says,” Euronews.com, 3 January, 2026.
2. Ibid.

Skepticism within Religion: A Prescription for Epistemological Humility

We tend to separate religion from skepticism, and we associate science with evidence even though of religion and science, only science is open to revision. Kierkegaard remarked that there is something absurd about religious belief, and yet a religionist should believe, and even without any evidence to back up the absurd. In fact, in the early-modern period in the West, religious belief was often assumed to have a higher epistemological status than philosophy and science even though the latter two are supported by the strictures of reason and the support of empirical evidence, respectively. I submit that it is precisely to the extent that religious beliefs are held to be certain that we should be modest about them in terms of what we can know. According to Peter Adamson, religions were once very open to skepticism, whereas the Aristotelian philosophers were certain of their epistemological certainty. Considering that varied assumptions have been applied by philosophers to their craft, they should be weary of their own claims of having achieved epistemological certainty. I contend that religionists should get back to being more tolerant of, and even invite skepticism, even within their own minds. Being humbly aware of falling short, both as an individual and as a species, of grasping true religious knowledge as it is, undeluded by our own limitations (e.g., opinions), is rarely the case as religionists make declarations as if with epistemological certainty.

In a talk, Peter Adamson asked, why does God allow us to be so ignorant? Why does God make us subject to error? It must be for some reason, Descartes thought. The problem of ignorance is akin to the problem of evil. Is the former just a sub-case of the latter? They may be the same problem. I submit that even if the two problems are related or relatable as being similar, the hatred that is endemic to evil is absent from ignorance. Stated on a more secular basis, ignorance does not necessarily come with, or spring from a bad attitude.

Nevertheless, Adamson viewed ignorance in religious terms. To Augustine, ignorance is due to free-will amid original sin. Also, the limited nature of creation is why knowledge is limited, hence ignorance exists. A religious basis exists for ignorance in terms of people tending to latch on to just some knowledge. Augustine’s Free Choice of the Will does not insist on grace because Augustine had not yet encountered Palagianism. In the text, Augustine is in dialogue with Evodius, a convert to Christianity. Adam and Eve were created in a state “between wisdom and foolishness.” In our fallen state, we are “born into ignorance, difficulty, and mortality.” “Evil is turning away eternal things, . . . and instead pursuing temporal things, which are perceived by means of the body.” Also, when desires rule over the mind, “the mind is dragged by inordinate desire into ruin and poverty . . .” This characterizes infants, according to Augustine. In short, ignorance, which is synonymous with foolishness, exists due to free-will in the state of original sin. But why then are Adam and Eve ignorant? To Augustine, this is like complaining about the world because it is not as good as heaven. Descartes wrote, “it is in the nature of a finite intellect to lack understanding of many things, and it is in the nature of a created intellect to be finite.” God certainly is not obligated to do more, and we are able to obtain knowledge. According to Adamson, Stoics and neo-Platonists, including Plotinus, have contended that individual evils are part of a good whole. According to Leibniz, the best of all possible worlds reflects this philosophy. The upshot is that human ignorance is just part of the best of all possible worlds that God could create, so we should not blame God for our own ignorance. I contend that it is important even when looking at scripture in a revealed religion to keep in mind that human ignorance is not exempted on our end. Therefore, humility in making religious claims, as if declarations, could greatly reduce the typical impious air of infallibility on our end. Even if revelation does in fact come from an intelligent being that transcends the limits of human cognition, perception, and emotion, such news must travel through our fallible atmosphere before we can make sense of the distinctively religious truth.

It follows that religious accounting for human ignorance is not exhausted by one religion, or at least that in humility human epistemology should be open to alternative accounts. Even if one religion holds a monopoly on truth, the truth of this truth is not contained within our purview. Accordingly, in his talk, Peter Adamson discussed the religious account of Jainism, which is native to South Asia, with respect to ignorance. Umasvati (4^th to 5^th century), for example, author of the Tattvartha Sutra, was a Jain, so he was not a Brahmanic thinker. On the topic of the human self, Jain thought is that the Brahmanic and Buddhist philosophies are in part right and in part wrong. The Jains claim that there is an eternal, changing self. Liberation means freedom from the cycle of samsara and comes through “enlightened worldview, knowledge, and conduct,” so one is not trapped in a one-sided view. Being non-violent, Jains didn’t want to disagree too strenuously with others, but this explanation doesn’t fit with the polemics in some Jain texts. Also, the Jains criticize a person having one-sided knowledge. In addition to assertability, there is the notion of unassertability. Omniscience refers to knowledge of all substances in all their modes, past present, and future.” The path to knowledge is about elimination of karmic bondage. Growth in knowledge involves the steady falling away of one-sided thinking. Seeing the world from every perspective rather than from only one is thus to be sought.  Delusion is at the root of ignorance, and is associated with having a one-sided view; both are associated with karmic bondage, which keeps a person from liberation.

So rather than original sin from a Fall, which itself is premised on Creation, Adamson’s account of Jainism is that delusion is part of the unenlightened human condition, wherein we may tend to have one-sided views. Our knowledge and perspectives tend to be one-sided, and we are susceptible to being in bondage to them—even to being deluded that they are wholistic rather than partial. Both Augustine and Umasvati were skeptical concerning the pretensions of human knowledge. In his talk, Adamson added in Francis Bacon’s view, which is that Adam has perfectly functional cognitive faculties, whereas we, the fallen, do not. True knowledge is the province of divinity. I submit that religionists would greatly enhance their own credibility as purveyors of truth that is inherently sourced beyond our reach by humbly keeping in mind their own fallibility even and especially with regard to what is actually religious belief rather than knowledge, for if the content of religion were known, what place would faith have when the human mind enters into the religious domain?

Educating Scholarly Priests: The Cult at Yale

Speaking at a Bhakti-Yoga conference in March, 2025 at Harvard, Krishma Kshetra Swami said that scholars who are devoted to the academic study of religion are also undoubtedly also motivated by their religious faith, even if it is of a religion other than what the scholar is studying. The Swami himself was at the time both a scholar of Hinduism and a Krishna devotee. He was essentially saying that his academic study of Hinduism was motivated not just by the pursuit of knowledge, but also by (his) faith. He also stated that he, like the rest of us in daily life, typically separated his various identities, including that of a professor and a devotee of the Hindu god, Krishna. Although his two roles not contradictory in themselves, a scholar’s own religious beliefs, if fervently held, can act as a magnet of sorts by subtly swaying the very assumptions that a scholar holds about the phenomenon of religion (i.e., the knowledge in the academic discipline). To be sure, personally-held ideology acts with a certain gravity on any scholar’s study in whatever academic field. Religious studies, as well as political science, by the way, are especially susceptible to the warping of reasoning by ideology because beliefs can be so strongly held in religion (and politics), and the impact of such gravity can easily be missed not only by other people, but also by the scholars themselves.  

The full essay is at "Educating Scholarly Priests."

Conservatism in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

The Quorum is a high-level governing body in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Quorum “helps set church policy while overseeing the many business interests of what is known widely as the Mormon Church.”[1] On December 27, 2025, Jeffrey R. Holland, “a high-ranking official . . . who was next in line to become the faith’s president,” died.[2] He was 85. To be at that age and yet next in line to lead a major Christian denomination is a sign of just how tilted toward the elderly the leadership of that Church was at the time. Almost exactly three months earlier, Russell M. Nelson, the then-sitting president of the denomination, died at the age of 101. Dallin H. Oaks, at the age of 93, became the next president. These ages make 75, the mandatory retirement age for Roman Catholic bishops, look young, though Pope John Paul II died at 84 and Pope Francis died at 88—both men while in office. Especially in Christianity, whose Gospels depict Jesus and his disciples as much younger men, the question of whether an aged leadership unduly foists conservatism on what in the Gospels is characterized as a radical religious movement.

In 2020, a group of researchers put the old adage that people tend to become more conservative as they age to the test. Contrary to the folk adage, the study found that political attitudes tend to be stable over time; however, when attitudes do change, “liberals are more likely to become conservatives than conservatives are to become liberals, suggesting that folk wisdom has some empirical basis even though it overstates the degree of change.”[3] Regarding religion, research indicates people tend to become more religious as they age, but this doesn’t answer the question of whether a person’s religious beliefs become more conventional or orthodox within a religious institution as the person ages. Simply put, are older people in a congregation more likely to “upset the apple cart.” To the extent that living through decades has a thickening effect on the idealism of the youth because the inertia of status quo, whether of an organization or a society, is difficult to move, even with a faith that can move mountains.

As a complication, the influx of social ideology (e.g., social issues) into the religious domain can make orthodox religious believers seem more or less conservative. I have argued elsewhere that the overreaching of social ideology onto the religious domain minimizes or ignores the sui generis nature of both domains. Based on the study on political ideology changing over time as a person ages, it seems reasonable to posit that a person’s social ideology is most likely to stay constant, but when it changes, it is more likely to get more conservative. It is important not to omit the possibility, however, that very old people can surprise us and actually shake things up a bit in leading a religious organization.

Russell Nelson “was revered as a prophet” even though he was “the oldest serving head of the church” when he died at 101.[4] If the label of prophet resembles the prophets in the Hebrew scriptures, the implication is that Nelson spoke truth to power. It may be going too far to say that his time at the helm of the denomination “will forever be remembered as one of . . . profound change” because he emphasized global ministry and increased temple construction.[5] The need to temper the magnitude of the change reflects the empirical results of the study on changes in political attitudes discussed above. For instance, in 2019, when Nelson was in his mid-90s, “the church made a surprise move . . . by pledging to roll back a series of anti-LGBT policies introduced in 2015 that had reportedly led to 1,500 people leaving the [denomination] in protest.”[6] That the motivation to roll back the anti-gay policies may have had something to do with the loss of membership, and thus money, tempers the magnitude of the shift in the social ideology in the Church’s leadership. Attention to finances can itself be construed as conservative. Furthermore, reversing the ban on children of same-sex parents being baptized and the expulsion of gay members who are married are not as surprising as the announcement that the denomination would perform gay-marriage ceremonies would have been.

That rolling back two policies does not count as profound change is also supported by the fact that just two years later, Holland gave a speech “in which he called on church members to take up metaphorical muskets in defense of the faith’s teaching against same-sex marriage.”[7] That the speech “became required reading for BYU freshmen in 2024” is itself an indication that the social ideology in the Church’s governing body and leadership had not changed.

That both Nelson and Holland opposed homosexuality even as two policies were rolled back does not mean that those men had become more conservative, and that were younger men in charge, the Church’s stance on the social issue would have been more progressive in 2019. Therefore, this case study should not be used to argue that because Jesus and his disciples are characterized as middle-aged in the Gospels, Christian denominations should be led by young or middle-aged people or else the radicalism of the movement in the Gospels can be expected to be hampered by old men at the helm. In fact, that Nelson did so much—albeit not necessarily of profound change—in the last decade of his life in leading his denomination qualifies the typical assumption that people over 85 should be put out to pasture because they cannot possibly make a difference, whether to an organization or a society.

Nevertheless, the finding that when political attitudes do change as a person ages, most often this results in a more conservative ideology, means that young and middle-aged people can be included at the highest level of an organization so to counteract or balance out the admittedly mitigated tendency. In other words, the elderly can make contributions as organizational leaders and are not necessarily more conservative than they were, so the need to balance out excessive conservativism, due to age, with younger leaders, is less though it does exist to some extent. The tendency of the elderly to resist giving up some power to younger members is thus something to watch out for in church governance, but the elders need not be replaced altogether as a prerequisite for religious organizations to be able to adapt to a changed environment at least to some extent so to be able to survive. It is not as though a denomination must adopt a progressive social ideology, which I submit is extrinsic through related to religion anyway, in order to survive; rather, the mitigated, or muted, tendency of people to become more conservative with age should itself be countered institutionally in terms of there being ways of including young and middle-aged members at the highest organizational level of leadership and governance. Generally speaking, the tyranny of the status quo should be countered so both change and constancy can have a chance at swaying the day.

---

1. CBS News, “Jeffrey R. Holland, Next in Line to Lead Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Dies at 85,” CBSnews.com, December 27, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Johnathan Peterson, Kevin Smith, and John R. Hibbing, “Do People Really Become More Conservative as They Age?” The Journal of Politics, Vol. 82, No. 2 (April, 2020), pp. 600-11.
4. Nadine Yousif, “Russell M. Nelson, Head of Church of Latter-day Saints, Dies Aged 101,” BBC.com, 29 September, 2025.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.

The Scarlet and the Black

In the film, The Scarlet and the Black (1983), Gregory Peck and Christopher Plummer face off as Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty and Col. Herbert Kapper at the end of the film when the Nazi head of police in Rome abruptly changes his tune in challenging the Catholic priest no longer by threats, but by appealing to the priest’s faith of humble compassion applied even to one’s enemies so O’Flaherty will extend mercy to Kapper’s wife and children, who would otherwise fall into the hands of the Allied troops advancing into Rome. Before that dialogue, O’Flaherty and Pope Pius XII subtly debate whether the pope had been right in compromising with Hitler in order to keep the Catholic Church intact in Nazi Germany. The film can thus be viewed in light of the potential of the medium of film to convey and even thrash out contending theological ideas.

The full essay is at "The Scarlet and the Black."

Pope Leo’s First Christmas Message: On International Relations

That severe, systematic inflictions of suffering on whole peoples were going on in the world even on Christmas Day in 2025 did not require a papal announcement for people the world over to be informed of those atrocities. Russia’s military incursion in Ukraine and Israel’s genocide in Gaza had been going on with international impunity for years. The suffering in Yemen and Sudan was less well-known, but substantial nonetheless. Speaking out against the sordid state-aggressors on the first Christmas of his pontificate, the pope provided an alternative basis for international relations that is so antithetical to military invasion and genocide that the message could seem utopian and thus practically of no use whatsoever. Because “might makes right” had made such unimpeded “progress” even in becoming the default and status-quo, the principle of humble compassion to the humanity to one’s detractors and even outright enemies could seem like a fairy tale. 

Nevertheless, even though the principle was so utterly eclipsed in practice on the world’s stage at the time, a person can have faith that even enunciating the alternative has value. At the very least, making it explicit shows powerful people such as Russia’s Putin and Israel’s Netanyahu in an especially dark light. Ironically, were either of those men to come to terms with themselves and change their ways, the principle would call the rest of us to forgive them. Even absent such a change-of-heart, or a dawning of heart in those two men, the principle mandates that the rest of us respond in humane compassion even to those two men on an interpersonal level should either of them need help. Such is the depth of power of the principle that it can be reckoned as inculcating what can be called divine nature even if the principle is not anthropomorphized in human form; the principle has validity, and thus value, in itself. So even if it seems utterly unrealistic for it to become the default in international relations (and even interpersonal relations), there is value in the pope’s inclusion of the principle in his first Christmas message.

In his Christmas Day homily, Pope Leo “remembered the people of Gaza, ‘exposed for weeks to rain, wind and cold’ and the fragility of ‘defenseless populations, tried by so many wars,’ and of ‘young people forced to take up arms, who on the front lines feel the senselessness of what is asked of them, and the falsehoods that fill the pompous speeches of those who send them to their deaths.’”[1] The infliction of genocide, and even such suffering as to qualify as a holocaust, on a defenseless civilian population that had been subjugated for many decades, render Israel’s Netanyahu government and its supports equivalent to the Nazis in Europe almost a century earlier. The very language used by the pope, as in “the pompous speeches of those who send them to their deaths” could definitely be applied to Hitler and Netanyahu.

The sheer depravity of such powerful men who have allowed their respective hatreds to manifest in atrocities without any internal restraint is antipodal to a person who “would truly enter into the suffering of others and stand in solidarity with the weak and the oppressed.”[2] It is paradoxical that such outwardly powerful, militaristic government officials are actually so weak internally, whereas people who are willing to defer “before the humanity of others”—even and especially detractors and even enemies—may have no worldly force yet are very strong internally.[3] 

Therefore, it is of value for anyone, especially a pope with a microphone, to set the stubborn savagery of men like Putin and Netanyahu relative to a principle that, if internalized and acted on by enough people, would change the world even though the likelihood of such a drastic, fundamental change is only possible rather than probable. Being possible is itself astonishing, given the fixity of human nature. Worldwide, peoples and their respective government officials in 2023 failed to retain the lesson that had presumably been learned when the Nazi holocaust was exposed in 1945. Standing by rather than going in to rid Gaza of the Israelis and even Ukraine of the Russian army can be reckoned as instantiating the banality of evil, which is two degrees of separation from the principle of humble compassion for the humanity of others, especially one’s enemies. The world, and humanity itself—our species—can thus be condemned for standing by instead of stopping at least the holocaustic genocide that had been going on for years as of Christmas, 2025.

---

1. Silvia Stellacci and Colleen Barry, “Pope Leo XIV Urges the Faithful on Christmas to Shed Indifference in the Face of Suffering,” APnews.com, December 25, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

Divine Presence in Liturgy and Compassion

The medium of film can treat organizational, societal, and global ethical problems either from one standpoint, which is appropriate if the assignment of blame for immoral conduct is clear (e.g., the Nazis), or by presenting both sides of an argument so to prompt the viewers to think about the ethically complex problem. This second approach is useful if it is not clear whether a character or a given conduct is unethical. When it is obvious which characters or actions are unethical, a film can still stimulate ethical reasoning and judgment by drawing attention to unethical systems as distinct from individuals and their respective conduct in the film. The film, Spotlight (2015), which is a true story, takes the position that Roman Catholic priests who molested and raped children in the Boston Archdiocese in Massachusetts behaved ethically. The dramatic tension in the film is set up when the chief editor of the Boston Globe, Liev Schreiber, tells the paper’s investigative “spotlight” managers that the story will not go to press until the system that enabled Cardinal Law and others to cover up many child-rapist priests by transferring them to other parishes is investigated. “We’re going after the system,” Liev says in keeping the story under wraps until the entire informal system that has enabled the rapists to continue to lead parishes.  

The full essay is at "Spotlight."