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The Wire
30-05-2025
- Politics
- The Wire
The Life and Work of Christopher Hill
Menu हिंदी తెలుగు اردو Home Politics Economy World Security Law Science Society Culture Editor's Pick Opinion Support independent journalism. Donate Now Top Stories The Life and Work of Christopher Hill Rudrangshu Mukherjee 38 minutes ago No other historian mined the printed sources of the 17th century and wrote about all its aspects in the way Hill did. Christopher Hill. Photo: x/@radicaldaily Real journalism holds power accountable Since 2015, The Wire has done just that. But we can continue only with your support. Contribute now Christopher Hill (1912-2003) belonged to Balliol, and the 17th century belonged to Christopher Hill. No other historian mined the printed sources of that century and wrote about all its aspects – politics, economics, society and literature – in the way Hill did. He opened up the field and taught us to look at it afresh. His writing was informed by a staggering erudition and a rare passion. E.P. Thompson, dedicating a book to Hill, captured his loyalty to Balliol and his supreme control over the century that he made his own: 'Master of more than an old Oxford college'. In spite of this pre-eminent position, till Michael Braddick wrote this book, no one has attempted to write a biography of Hill. Many of his contemporaries – E.H. Carr, A.J.P. Taylor, Hugh Trevor-Roper, E.P. Thompson, Eric Hobsbawm to name a few – have had biographers. Braddick's book thus fills a major gap. Michael Braddick, Christopher Hill: The Life of a Radical Historian, Verso (2025) In a sense, it comes too late because very few historians and students of history are any longer interested in what Hill wrote and what he stood for. This indifference and neglect notwithstanding, it is good to have Hill's life and work retrieved from the condescension of the present. Christopher was born in York. His father was an affluent solicitor and his parents were Methodists. It was this ambience of dissenting Protestantism, Hill was fond of saying, that predisposed him to lifelong political apostasy. He went to St Peter's School, York, and came to Balliol as a scholar in 1931. It is said that the two History dons at Balliol, Vivian Galbraith and Kenneth Bell, were so impressed by his entrance papers that they not only awarded him 100% but also drove to York to ensure that Hill came to Balliol and did not get lured to Trinity College, Cambridge. Thus began Christopher's 43-year-long association with Balliol, of which he was to become Master in 1965. He took the top first in History in his year and won the distinguished Lothian Prize and the Goldsmith's Senior Studentship. He went on to be elected a Fellow by examination of All Souls. He came back to Balliol in 1938 as fellow and tutor in Modern History. His bonding with Balliol is best illustrated by an anecdote (not mentioned by Braddick). After his retirement, his successor as Master, Anthony Kenny, reintroduced formal Hall (formal dining in the College Hall). On the first occasion when formal Hall was reinstituted, a masked figure appeared beneath the organ loft and shouted, 'Long live the spirit of Christopher Hill.' The incident alludes to the loyalty that Hill commanded and also to his position against some traditional Oxford customs and practices. Hill was Oxford's most famous Marxist who had been a member of the British Communist Party from the mid-Thirties till the Soviet invasion of Hungary. His conversion to communism occurred while he was still an undergraduate. The impact of the Depression and the rise of fascism forced him to question the premises of the society in which he lived. Such queries led, as it did for many others in the Thirties, to Marxism and communism. Braddick dwells at length on Hill's activities and ideas when he was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). I thought that devoting so many pages to Hill's party activism was unnecessary, since such activities, and the beliefs they were based on, would become irrelevant to Hill's work as a historian post 1956. Presumably, Braddick thought that such a detailed account was important to establish Hill's radical credentials. The period when Hill was a party member – roughly mid-1930s to mid-1950s – is the most problematic phase of Hill's professional life. During these years, he remained an unalloyed and unreconstructed Stalinist. He spent time in Soviet Russia in the 1930s, when the terror of Stalinist collectivisation and the purges had begun. He did not take note of these developments. This is like someone visiting Berlin/Germany during the same period and failing to note what was being done to the Jews. Braddick writes of Hill's 'partisan defence of Stalinism'. A few pages before the use of this euphemistic phrase, Braddick notes Hill's paean to Stalin: 'He was a great and penetrating thinker … he was a highly responsible leader.' (Hill's words) As a practising historian, Hill endorsed Stalin the historian. No wonder during these years, he wrote a book on the Russian Revolution which had little or no mention of Trotsky. Hill swallowed the party line to risible and absurd limits. Braddick evades the critical issues involved here by remarking 'It is hard to know what to make of this paean to Stalin.' There is an enormous amount to be made from this. Hill was a victim and product of the greatest radical illusion of the 20th century. He was not alone: many others of equal eminence and erudition had willingly yielded to the predicament of sacrificing their reason to the altar of the party and the Soviet Union. It was a bizarre and self-inflicted blindness. Thompson, a member of the CPGB and Hill's comrade, was to write with more than a hint of regret that he began reasoning only at the age of 33 i.e. after he had left the party in the immediate aftermath of the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. Hill began reasoning when he was 45, after he resigned from the CPGB. It was only in 1981, in far away New Zealand and to a non-British audience, as Braddick notes, that Hill could confess, 'I was a sucker for Stalinism until I found out a lot more about it. I thought that the Communist Party held out an alternative. I was wrong.' Hill's scholarly output was enormous. He wrote 21 books and innumerable essays. The first book came out in 1940 and the last in 1996. That first book, The English Revolution 1640, despite its many drawbacks and its schematicism, has become a minor classic. Looking back at the book, Hill once said it was written by an angry young man in a hurry because he knew he was going to die. It was written up self-consciously as a last will and testament. It broke from prevailing historiography which saw the events of the 1640s either in constitutional terms or as a religious conflict. Hill tried to show that it was a more comprehensive social and economic transformation, the first significant moment in the birth of English capitalism and the bourgeoisie. From that first book to 1956, Hill did not publish any books on the 17th century. Post 1956 was a remarkably productive phase. It coincided significantly with his marriage to Bridget Sutton and his exit from the communist party. He wrote on a range of subjects concerning the 17th century – on puritanism, on the economic problems of the church, on the intellectual origins of the English Revolution and on the literature and political ideas of the 17th century. Looking back at the corpus of Christopher's writings, it is clear that all his books and articles were connected by a running theme. He wanted to understand the place of the English Revolution in history and to document and analyze the mental and cultural transformations that accompanied and facilitated the rise of capitalism. He looked at Puritanism and its relationship with capitalism and the political upheavals of the 1640s; he drew out the links of Puritanism with an intellectual and political radicalism which challenged the very premises of the new socio-economic formation even as it was being born. This is how he made the 17th century his own. He set the agenda for research on the period. It is difficult to even list, let alone summarise, all that Hill wrote. I will take the liberty of presenting here my own personal favourite and I dare say Hill's too. This is The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution (1972), conceived and written in the period of student radicalism and the flowering of counter culture. Here he drew out the revolution within the revolution, ideas and movements that aimed to overthrow what the English Revolution was trying to institute at every level of English life and society. Men and women, seldom written about, came alive in the book as did ideas and movements long relegated to the loony fringe of the 17th century. Hill brought to his archive a historical imagination that lit up a utopian and inevitably passing moment of teeming freedom. This book and, in fact, everything else that Hill wrote, is invariably marked by a sensitive use of literature as a source for history writing. He had the rare ability – most tellingly revealed in his great book, Milton and the English Revolution – of setting his reading of literary texts within a general view of the processes of historical continuity and change. His essays on Marvell, on Clarissa Harlowe, on Vaughan, not to mention his book on Bunyan, are rich in literary and historical understanding. Hill believed that the study of history humanises us. History can never be only the recounting of a success story. He quoted Nietzsche approvingly, 'History keeps alive the memory of great fighters against history.' Hill was only too aware that persons of his ideological persuasion would have to live with 'the experience of defeat' (the title of one of his books). History is a tragedy, Hill wrote, although not a meaningless one. Braddick, as I pointed out, avoids the more problematic aspects of Hill's communist past. Similarly, he doesn't discuss some very critical issues embedded in Hill's formidable academic output. What Hill described as 'The English Revolution'' in 1940 became in his more mature writings the' bourgeois revolution''. But Hill did not quite explain this term and what justified it. Did the bourgeoisie lead the revolution in the 1640s? Did that revolution, if it was one, lead to the formation of a bourgeois society? The only time Hill came to address such questions was in an essay titled 'A Bourgeois Revolution?' – an essay that Braddick does not discuss. (J.G.A. Pocock (ed.) Three British Revolutions, 1641, 1688, 1776, Princeton University Press, 1980). I think the question mark in the title is significant. Hill argued in this essay that the English Revolution 'was brought about neither by the wishes of the bourgeoisie, nor by the leaders of the Long Parliament. But its outcome was the establishment of conditions far more favourable to the development of capitalism than those that prevailed before 1640.' The English-Bourgeois Revolution was the product, Hill argued, of unintended consequences. This is a puzzling argument. What would happen to this argument if the Russian Revolution of 1917 was seen in terms of its outcomes – a violent totalitarian regime intended by Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin to suppress the working class and butcher the common people? It seems to me that Hill had not thought through the implications of his argument. Hence, perhaps the question mark in the title of the essay. There are questions also about Hill's method and reading of sources. Braddick quotes Keith Thomas, who is by no reckoning a denigrator of Hill, 'whatever Christopher Hill reads seems to provide him with additional support for views he already holds'' This is quite damning and very close to what J.H. Hexter in his critique of Hill called 'lumping'. Hill himself once admitted that he had a thesis to argue and he brought together evidence to buttress that thesis. It needs to be asked if this is a valid method and does it live up to what Thompson called the 'historian's discourse of proof'. Moving to his work as Master of Balliol, Braddick's account would suggest that he was a very popular Master. This may not always have been the case. There were Fellows of Balliol who believed that Hill formed cabals, worked on the principle 'if you are not with me, you are against him' and was not always very kind to those who differed with him. In spite of what I have written above, it would be wrong on my part not to note that Hill commanded respect from even people who did not agree with him or liked him. Richard Cobb, who always called Hill quasi mockingly, 'super God', wrote in Hill's support in the Times Literary Supplement during the (in)famous Hill-Hexter spat. In his letter, Cobb invited Hexter to visit Oxford and listen to a sermon delivered on the Sunday of seventh week of Michaelmas Term titled 'On the Sin of Pride'. Tariq Ali recalls Hill telling him that in the aftermath of the Soviet invasion of Hungary, when Thompson had resigned from the CPGB and Hill still hadn't, the former wrote to Hill a letter which Hill described as 'the rudest and the most obnoxious letter I have ever received in my life'. Braddick does not mention this letter. What was in that letter? Why was Hill delaying his resignation? How did a reconciliation between Hill and Thompson take place? Braddick's biography is good if a trifle adulatory and justificatory. Hill would have wanted us to go a little beyond. 'What canst thou say?' he would have asked us as he indeed did in the unforgettable last line of The World Turned Upside Down. Rudrangshu Mukherjee is chancellor and professor of history at Ashoka University. Views expressed are the author's own. Make a contribution to Independent Journalism Related News Prime Time | The Big Takeaways from the India-Pak Ceasefire In Contrast: Nehru's Take on a Young, Dissenting Irfan Habib and the Modi Govt's Treatment of Mahmudabad Ladakh: Local BJP Unit Joins Protests Against LG B.D. 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USA Today
29-05-2025
- Business
- USA Today
With a war on Harvard raging, religious colleges get big tax break in Trump spending bill
With a war on Harvard raging, religious colleges get big tax break in Trump spending bill Trump's spending bill, headed to the Senate, would exempt religious colleges from a big tax increase on endowments. But some religious institutions may not qualify, raising First Amendment concerns. Show Caption Hide Caption Harvard community protests Trump's policies on international students Harvard students, professors, and supporters protested President Donald Trump's policies regarding the university and its international students. As the Trump administration ramps up its war against Harvard University and other institutions seen by critics as woke, it is carving out major exceptions for religious institutions – including from a massive tax increase on college endowments. But the new tax provisions in Trump's spending bill – dubbed the 'The One, Big, Beautiful Bill' that is now in the Senate's hands – don't apply to all religious colleges and universities, raising First Amendment questions and increasing the likelihood of legal challenges, experts say. The tax hike on endowment returns could cost some elite colleges hundreds of millions of dollars. But the tax threatens to envelop more than the latest targets of the president's ire. Some Christian schools favored by conservatives could face the increase and are raising concerns about the bill, despite the carveout for religious institutions. The bill could, for example, touch Hillsdale College in Michigan, a private school with a Christian emphasis that has long refused federal funding to maintain autonomy from national regulations. It could also hit DePauw University, an Indiana institution founded by Methodists in 1837. In 2024, the school received multiple gifts worth $200 million, a huge sum which helps the school provide financial aid to its neediest students. Though the school still has ties to the Methodist church, its senior leadership questions if it will be able to avoid the tax increase. It's not paying the current endowment tax, but Andrea Young, the college's vice president for finance, said the proposed tax increase could cost between $2 million to $5 million a year. The university's endowment is currently at about $917 million, a large figure but far below the multi-billion amount common among top colleges. While they wait on the legislation, DePauw staff have been communicating with lawmakers about the potential impact. 'A tax to the endowment directly impacts the amount of financial aid we're able to give to students,' Young said. 'Instead of increasing access, we actually have the potential to decrease access for students with need.' Endowment tax structure 'extremely novel' for higher education Congress passed the current 1.4% tax rate in 2017. It applies to schools with more than 500 students and with an endowment per student greater than $500,000. The new bill adds multiple tiers of taxation up to 21% on institutions with a student adjusted endowment greater than $2 million. International students are excluded from that per student figure, which likely means more institutions will face the tax. While tiered tax systems are already used for calculations such as income tax, a similar structure would be 'extremely novel' for higher education, said Phillip Levine, an economic professor at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. Notably, the proposed tax includes an exemption for schools that are a 'qualified religious institution.' The legislation defines that as an institution established after July 4, 1776 by or through a religious organization, has maintained that affiliation and has an institutional mission that 'includes, refers to, or is predicated upon religious tenets, beliefs or teachings.' Those details suggest the exemptions are 'clearly instituted for political reasons, not economic reasons,' Levine said. Indeed, House Republicans have touted the endowment tax as a way to hold the nation's top-tier universities accountable for policies they disagree with. The House Ways and Means Committee wrote in a statement that the tax 'holds woke, elite universities that operate more like major corporations and other tax-exempt entities accountable, ensuring they can no longer abuse generous benefits provided through the tax code.' Only a handful of schools in the country predate the American Revolution, but they include institutions like Harvard, Columbia and Yale. Harvard, for example, was founded by Puritans in 1636 and continues to operate a divinity school. Its endowment sits at more than $50 billion – the largest in the world, according to the New York Times. Many religious schools established after the nation's founding maintain ties to denominations. But not all do, raising questions about which religious institutions could be exempt. For instance, Earlham College in Indiana, which was founded by Quakers in 1847, maintains an affiliation with the Western Yearly Meeting of Friends. But in 2010, the college moved away from a legal partnership with the Indiana Yearly Meeting. Then there are schools like Berry College in Georgia, founded in 1902 on a 'commitment to be forever Christian in Spirit' but which has never had a 'denominational statement of faith.' Harvard fight Trump-Harvard clash heats up. Here's what to know. Hillsdale College is likely facing similar uncertainty with the tax. Freewill Baptists started the school in 1844 as a non-denominational institution. The college declined to say if it believed it qualified for the exemption, but its president, Larry Arnn, has written an opinion column arguing against the endowment tax. It also hired lobbyists to address threats tied to it, Politico reported. In his column, Arnn does not address the question of religion. But he described the tax as an incursion into Hillsdale's autonomy that would affect its ability to offer financial aid. 'It would force us to cut resources, to limit opportunities, to pass burdens onto students and their families — all in the name of a fairness that is not fair,' Arnn wrote. Others share Arnn's skepticism. The Council for Christian Colleges & Universities, an organization with more than 150 member institutions in the U.S. and Canada, said it had 'serious concerns about the endowment tax in principle.' But it welcomed the break for religious schools. The organization hopes the exemption will be applied to institutions without a continuous affiliation to a specific denomination. 'Many schools operate with a clear and consistent religious identity while remaining independent of formal denominational structures,' spokesperson Amanda Staggenborg said. 'These institutions are no less committed to their faith-based missions and no less deserving of protection.' USA TODAY reached out to the White House for comment. Could the tax lead to more litigation? The proposed tax structure 'amounts to a kind of gerrymander' that would violate the First Amendment if enacted, according to Daniel Conkle, a professor emeritus at Indiana University's Maurer School of Law. Allowing an exemption for religious schools favors the religious over the secular, he said, and limiting the exemption to only those institutions established after 1776 disfavors religious organizations with longer histories. Conkle noted the U.S. Supreme Court's 1982 ruling in Larson v. Valente, a case over a Minnesota statute that created different reporting requirements for religious organizations depending on how many of their contributions came from their own members. Related: Trump says he wants 'names and countries' of all international students at Harvard In writing for the majority, Justice William Brennan said the 'clearest command of the Establishment Clause is that one religious denomination cannot be officially preferred over another.' In order for the endowment tax to be constitutional, Conkle said there would have to be a content-neutral justification for the structure that shows it is neither targeting universities for perceived 'wokeness,' a violation of free speech, or discriminating among religions in violation of the establishment clause. He said the massive financial implications of the proposed tax structure mean there's 'no doubt that there's going to be litigation' if it's passed into law, Conkle said. Why not draw down the endowment? Endowments generally come from private donors and are often made up of donations that have been accumulated over years. An endowed gift is meant to support the college or university long term and may come with donor restrictions on how it's spent. Critics of large university endowments often question why the schools continue to receive taxpayer funding when they seemingly have a huge pot of money to draw from. Broadly, universities are not pulling money directly from their endowment to fund financial aid. Rather, they invest those funds and then use those returns to provide scholarships. The idea of the endowment, Young said, is that it offers support not just for the current class of students but all those that are to come. Drawing down the endowment, Young said, limits that ability. What's more, for endowments to remain effective they must grow to meet the demands of the economy. A shrinking endowment, Young said, can't do that. At the same time, universities generally must raise tuition to keep up with the cost of inflation. 'We also increase the amount of aid we give every year due to inflation,' Young said. 'As our endowment is subject to taxes that diminishes our ability. It's a vicious circle.' A better way to tax college endowments? The college endowment tax is also seeing pushback from unexpected sources. Neal McCluskey at the libertarian-leaning CATO Institute wrote the tax system should not be used to punish political enemies, but that clearly was the goal with the Republicans plan. He said endowments come from donors who give their money willingly, a model he argued the government should reward. 'If people want to give their own money to 'woke, elite universities,' who is the government to judge? Instead, it should worry about its own, forced funding of higher ed,' he wrote. James Murphy, the director of postsecondary policy at the advocacy group Education Reform Now, also questioned the motivation behind the tax and said the first version of the endowment tax failed to reduce the cost of education. It's unrealistic, he added, to expect the universities to simply enroll more students to drop below the $500,000 per student figure. For example, it would require Harvard to add 80,000 more students, he wrote in a recent column. 'An endowment tax isn't necessarily a terrible idea, but this version of it is a terrible idea to be sure,' he said. Others think university endowments should be taxed but with specific goals in mind. Massachusetts state Rep. Simon Cataldo, a Democrat, introduced a version of an endowment tax − he calls it a public service fee − in January 2023 in anticipation of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on affirmative action. His legislation targets institutions that use what he described as unfair admission practices, like giving an advantage to legacy students. In his model, Harvard would be taxed, but institutions like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology would not. His rate is also much lower. At the highest rate universities would pay 0.2% of their endowment. That rate is also based on the endowment rate per student. In addition, Cataldo said his proposal, which is still being considered by the state legislature, would redirect money to public colleges. 'Shame on the Democrats for not identifying this issue as something that was important and something that resonates with the general population,' Cataldo said. 'This bill is far more carefully crafted to address practices that are actually harmful, and, also, importantly gives schools the option to do the right thing.' USA TODAY'S coverage of First Amendment issues is funded through a collaboration between the Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Opinion - Pope Leo XIV and President Trump are on a collision course
You can take the boy out of the Catholic Church but you can't take the Catholic Church out of the boy. I was raised as a Catholic and went to parochial elementary and high schools. Some of my high school classmates, including my best friend, went to Villanova University, the alma mater of the newly elected Pope Leo XIV. But I then attended Syracuse University, an institution founded by Methodists and became distant from my church. I am now heartened that the new pontiff, Pope Leo XIV, has followed the lead of his predecessor, Pope Francis, and taken progressive positions on economic justice and immigration fairness. That's more than I can say for President Trump. Robert Francis Prevost was elected pope by the College of Cardinals last week. He is an American who served as a missionary in Peru for two decades and was a member of the Vatican hierarchy and Pope Francis' inner circle. He punched lots of tickets on his way up to the papacy much like Americans who get elected president. I have practiced both, and there are many similarities between the Catholic Church and American politics. America's equivalent to the College of Cardinals is the collection of the subcommittee chairs on the Appropriations Committee in the House of Representatives. They are literally referred to as 'cardinals' on Capitol Hill because they are as powerful and mysterious as their counterparts in the Vatican. Our cardinals are wrestling to make Trump's draconian budget cuts for working families into law. The workings of the Vatican's College of Cardinals are nearly as complex and confusing as the Electoral College that selects our president. Both institutions have excluded women from positions of power, now that the Vatican has broken with tradition and anointed an American with Black Creole blood as the Holy Father, there's no reason on heaven or on earth that should prevent the U.S. from electing a woman as chief executive, or for the Holy See to elevate women into the priesthood. Stranger things have happened. Trump has been elected twice, both times against female opponents. Trump welcomed the election of the new Holy Father and said he wants to meet him. I would love to be a fly on the wall if they do meet. The relationship between the new prelate and the second-term president is not destined to end well. The new pontiff believes the church is a tent big enough for everyone. Trump's acolytes take the opposing view that his movement is only big enough for true believers. Trump strategist Steve Bannon (no relation) predicted that there would be friction between the two leaders. Shortly after Pope Francis' death, Trump insulted Catholics when he posted a picture of himself dressed as Pope. Prevost has criticized the president and Vice President JD Vance in the past and those disagreements are likely to intensify now that Leo is pontiff. But American Catholics solidly supported Trump last November over Kamala Harris by a margin of 59 percent to 39 percent. Ideologically, they are more sympathetic toward their president than they are toward their pope. There are distinct areas of disagreement between the Vatican and MAGA Nation, even though the members of both groups wear red hats. The issues in dispute are Trump's extremist immigration policies and the pontiff's advocacy of economic justice. Immigration is irritant No. 1. Pope Leo spent much of his life working as a missionary in Latin America. His predecessor, the Argentinian Pope Francis, was very hostile to the president's abusive treatment of refugees from Central and South America. Although Trump has taken severe steps against Hispanic and Arab immigrants and thrown some of them into a prison in El Salvador, he has encouraged White South African immigrants to enter the U.S. as refugees. In the wake of Trump's 2016 victory, Prevost reposted a homily by the archbishop of Los Angeles, Jose Gomez that criticized Trump anti-immigrant policies and stated, 'America is better than this.' I would like to think it is. Economic justice is also a point of contention. MAGA activist Lisa Loomer, the power behind the Trump throne posted an angry response to the elevation of Pope Leo XIV. She described him as 'just another Marxist puppet in the Vatican.' The Gospel of St. Matthew is still the word of God in the Vatican but an anathema in the White House. In Matthew, the poor are the salt of the earth. In MAGA World, they are the scum of the earth. The new pope took the name Leo to honor his predecessor Leo XIII who was pontiff between 1873-1903 and fought to modernize the church. Trump wants to drag the world backwards in time. Leo was the 'Workers' Pope' whose groundbreaking papal encyclical, Rerum Novarum, championed social justice and workers' rights. The relationship between the second-term billionaires' president and the new workers' pope is a cocktail for contention. The dividing line between Leo XIV and Trump on economics and immigration is in the meaning of the word 'woke.' Loomer accused the new pontiff of being 'woke,' which is a mortal sin in MAGA World. I come from a family of devout Catholics and ardent Democrats. I fervently believe both groups should fight for the same goal — social justice — which means being woke. Brad Bannon is a national Democratic strategist and CEO of Bannon Communications Research which polls for Democrats, labor unions and progressive issue groups. He hosts the popular progressive podcast on power, politics and policy, Deadline D.C. with Brad Bannon. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
13-05-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
Pope Leo XIV and President Trump are on a collision course
You can take the boy out of the Catholic Church but you can't take the Catholic Church out of the boy. I was raised as a Catholic and went to parochial elementary and high schools. Some of my high school classmates, including my best friend, went to Villanova University, the alma mater of the newly elected Pope Leo XIV. But I then attended Syracuse University, an institution founded by Methodists and became distant from my church. I am now heartened that the new pontiff, Pope Leo XIV, has followed the lead of his predecessor, Pope Francis, and taken progressive positions on economic justice and immigration fairness. That's more than I can say for President Trump. Robert Francis Prevost was elected pope by the College of Cardinals last week. He is an American who served as a missionary in Peru for two decades and was a member of the Vatican hierarchy and Pope Francis' inner circle. He punched lots of tickets on his way up to the papacy much like Americans who get elected president. I have practiced both, and there are many similarities between the Catholic Church and American politics. America's equivalent to the College of Cardinals is the collection of the subcommittee chairs on the Appropriations Committee in the House of Representatives. They are literally referred to as 'cardinals' on Capitol Hill because they are as powerful and mysterious as their counterparts in the Vatican. Our cardinals are wrestling to make Trump's draconian budget cuts for working families into law. The workings of the Vatican's College of Cardinals are nearly as complex and confusing as the Electoral College that selects our president. Both institutions have excluded women from positions of power, now that the Vatican has broken with tradition and anointed an American with Black Creole blood as the Holy Father, there's no reason on heaven or on earth that should prevent the U.S. from electing a woman as chief executive, or for the Holy See to elevate women into the priesthood. Stranger things have happened. Trump has been elected twice, both times against female opponents. Trump welcomed the election of the new Holy Father and said he wants to meet him. I would love to be a fly on the wall if they do meet. The relationship between the new prelate and the second-term president is not destined to end well. The new pontiff believes the church is a tent big enough for everyone. Trump's acolytes take the opposing view that his movement is only big enough for true believers. Trump strategist Steve Bannon (no relation) predicted that there would be friction between the two leaders. Shortly after Pope Francis' death, Trump insulted Catholics when he posted a picture of himself dressed as Pope. Prevost has criticized the president and Vice President JD Vance in the past and those disagreements are likely to intensify now that Leo is pontiff. But American Catholics solidly supported Trump last November over Kamala Harris by a margin of 59 percent to 39 percent. Ideologically, they are more sympathetic toward their president than they are toward their pope. There are distinct areas of disagreement between the Vatican and MAGA Nation, even though the members of both groups wear red hats. The issues in dispute are Trump's extremist immigration policies and the pontiff's advocacy of economic justice. Immigration is irritant No. 1. Pope Leo spent much of his life working as a missionary in Latin America. His predecessor, the Argentinian Pope Francis, was very hostile to the president's abusive treatment of refugees from Central and South America. Although Trump has taken severe steps against Hispanic and Arab immigrants and thrown some of them into a prison in El Salvador, he has encouraged White South African immigrants to enter the U.S. as refugees. In the wake of Trump's 2016 victory, Prevost reposted a homily by the archbishop of Los Angeles, Jose Gomez that criticized Trump anti-immigrant policies and stated, 'America is better than this.' I would like to think it is. Economic justice is also a point of contention. MAGA activist Lisa Loomer, the power behind the Trump throne posted an angry response to the elevation of Pope Leo XIV. She described him as 'just another Marxist puppet in the Vatican.' The Gospel of St. Matthew is still the word of God in the Vatican but an anathema in the White House. In Matthew, the poor are the salt of the earth. In MAGA World, they are the scum of the earth. The new pope took the name Leo to honor his predecessor Leo XIII who was pontiff between 1873-1903 and fought to modernize the church. Trump wants to drag the world backwards in time. Leo was the 'Workers' Pope' whose groundbreaking papal encyclical, Rerum Novarum, championed social justice and workers' rights. The relationship between the second-term billionaires' president and the new workers' pope is a cocktail for contention. The dividing line between Leo XIV and Trump on economics and immigration is in the meaning of the word 'woke.' Loomer accused the new pontiff of being 'woke,' which is a mortal sin in MAGA World. I come from a family of devout Catholics and ardent Democrats. I fervently believe both groups should fight for the same goal — social justice — which means being woke. Brad Bannon is a national Democratic strategist and CEO of Bannon Communications Research which polls for Democrats, labor unions and progressive issue groups. He hosts the popular progressive podcast on power, politics and policy, Deadline D.C. with Brad Bannon.
Wall Street Journal
30-04-2025
- General
- Wall Street Journal
My Ten-Year Journey to Becoming a Nun
Catastrophes attract a lot of people to religious orders. The first time I visited the Community of St. John Baptist (CSJB), the Episcopal convent I now lead as the Sister Superior, it was Presidents Day weekend in 2002, and in the wake of 9/11 six of us had come to explore the possibility of taking vows. We all slept in the guest wing. One of us snored so loudly I didn't get a wink of sleep the whole weekend. Ever since I was a little kid, I'd been drawn to the idea of being a nun. But in Rome, Ga., where I grew up surrounded by Southern Baptists and Methodists, becoming a nun seemed as likely as becoming an NFL quarterback. I pushed the notion deep down and spent a lifetime passing for someone else—for someone richer, for someone high-powered working in advertising, for a wife. But no matter what disguise I donned or personality I tried on, I never belonged.
