I found online at the website of Church Militant, an online tabloid for reactionary Catholics, an article about the “Nationwide Novena of 5,400 Masses for President Trump.” It is customary when you ask a priest to celebrate a mass for a special intention to give him a stipend or, as is now the preferred term, an offering. This offering is not required, but it is the traditional and common practice. The amount of the offering is determined by the local bishop. Checking online revealed that a lot of dioceses have set $10 for a mass offering. So, for 5,400 masses we are looking at $54,000. The Republican National Committee should be easily able to cough up $54,000. However, there is a less expensive way. In the Archdiocese of Cincinnati the sum set for mass offerings is $5.00. So if all the masses can be celebrated in the Cincinnati archdiocese, the RNC can get by with $27,000, a big saving. I should not perhaps ridicule the politics of right-wing Catholics, but readers of Church Militant are the ridiculous playthings of anyone who strokes their morbid fear of change by calling for a return to the “good old days” or, as our preppy Senator Hawley says, to “small town values.”

The ads on the Church Militant site are noteworthy. The Militants advertise subscriptions to their site: “GET THE TRUTH never miss a news update and deepen your faith Join Church Militant” and “sign up for premium access and become the best catholic you can be” There’s an ad from Real Estate for Life that urges “Find a Faith-based Realtor,” and, from Retreat at Sea, an invitation “Join us in 2021!” with a photo of a luxury cruise ship.  

But it’s the articles that are really striking. The lead article is “SATAN’S SUGAR DADDIES: The Billionaires Funding the Left.” There are two pieces to relay warnings from the reactionary Cardinal Müller: “Cardinal Drops Bombshell on ‘Beijing’ Biden” and “Cardinal Warns of LGBT Endgame: Ultimate destruction of marriage and family.” Carlo Maria Viganò (the guy who is permanently pissed off because he didn’t make cardinal) also gets in on the action, claiming: “If Trump loses, the final kathèkon (“restraint”) [2 Th 2:6] will fail and a New World Order will be unleashed.” And the report on an “apolitical” letter of the Archbishop of Denver entitled “Religious Freedom is on Your Ballot” has the headline “US ARCHBISHOP: HUMAN LIFE IS ON THE LINE IN NOVEMBER” accompanied by a photo of someone holding a poster that says “MOST PRO-LIFE PRESIDENT. EVER.” with a portrait of you know who.

However, enterprises like Church Militant are not funny. The Catholic Right is a pernicious conspiracy of virtual schismatics, a group pathologically aggrieved by its loss of power and ready to do anything to get it back.