As Christians celebrated Holy Week around the world, messages from activists at Good Friday peace events and statements from Pope Leo contrasted starkly with the shamefully bizarre words coming out of the Trump administration. The imagery drawn from Christianity was used in a manner so contradictory, it’s difficult to believe they were referencing the same religion.
Holy Week commemorates the passion of Jesus Christ: His arrival into Jerusalem on a donkey on Palm Sunday, betrayal by Judas, Last Supper, condemnation by Pontius Pilate, and crucifixion on Good Friday. The week culminates on Easter Sunday when Jesus is believed to have risen from the dead to save humanity from sin and permanent death.
Activists Condemn Violence
Peacemakers prayed at the perimeter of the Pentagon on Good Friday morning, holding crosses, signs, and a banner of Saint Oscar Romero, the Archbishop of San Salvador murdered by a U.S.-backed death-squad 46 years ago while he said mass. The witness sought an “end to modern forms of crucifixion as vast numbers of God’s global family are crucified to a cross of war, militarism, racial hatred, discrimination and economic exploitation” according to Art Laffin, a member of the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker in Washington, DC, organizers of the action.
Similar themes were echoed in local Good Friday events. Quakers from the Friends Meeting at Cambridge held a silent vigil on the Boston Common. A handout lamented the violence in Gaza, Iran, and Ukraine and attacks on immigrants in the US. “We bear witness to the humanity of each other. We witness the need to assert that in our actions and lives, and to resist attempts to dehumanize others, here and abroad. Our beliefs lead us to renounce all violence,” it read.
Shortly afterwards, the Stations of the Cross were observed outside the Massachusetts State House. At the 35th annual event, organized by the Agape Community, local Catholics used each of the fourteen stations as opportunities to identify current injustices and pray for redemption. Attendees held a banner which read, “We repent the sin of violence” and a large wooden cross. Traditionally, the Stations of the Cross reenact Jesus’ route along the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, where he is believed to have been forced to carry the cross upon which he was crucified.
Topics included the struggles of the unhoused; abduction, imprisonment, and murder by ICE; national propaganda; and especially, the continuous expansion of violence in the Middle East.
“Gaza is dead, hung from the cross of ignorance, greed, violence and delusion,” said photographer and writer, Skip Schiel, at the 13th station. After pointing out that the genocide has cost US taxpayers $21.7 billion so far, he lamented that “Through lack of awareness and action, the moral fiber of humanity is threatened.”
“Gaza is the moral compass of the world, and humanity has failed Gaza. We have descended into barbarism,” said John Schuchardt from the House of Peace in Ipswich. “The churches have been hijacked by the Pied Pipers of patriotism leading the rising generation to believe in war or at least be in thrall to moral passivity.”
Later that afternoon, an event called “Solidarity is Sacred” focused primarily on immigration justice within the United States. Sponsored by peace and justice groups from various Christian denominations, clergy and attendees held a rally and march near City Hall. Worship
pers held signs with messages like, “My faith demands solidarity” and “Dignity, not deportations” and sang, “No more crosses, no more violence, break every yoke, set the captive free. Oh God, what we want is a world of peace. Make us now your hands and feet.”
Opposite Messages from Washington and Rome
In the Woody Allen film Hannah and Her Sisters, Max Von Sydow plays Frederick, an artist who has been flipping through television channels and comes upon a televangelist. “If Jesus ever came back and saw what was going in his name,” he tells his girlfriend later, “he’d never stop throwing up.”
That distortion of Jesus’ message was on full display in Washington last week.
The day after promising to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Age” in his meandering prime-time speech, Trump attended a private “Easter lunch” at the White House. There, Paula White-Cain, who works in the White House Faith Office, conflated Donald Trump and Jesus. “You were betrayed and arrested and falsely accused,” she said. “It’s a familiar pattern that our Lord and Savior showed us…And sir, because of His resurrection, you rose up. Because He was victorious, you were victorious.”
Wearing a pure white gown and a white cape which seemed to be decorated with small silver feathers, the multi-millionaire televangelist concluded by claiming that God personally instructed her to tell Trump, “because of His victory, you will be victorious in all you put your hand to.”
At the same event, which occurred four days after over eight million people attended No Kings rallies in the United States, Trump referenced Palm Sunday. “Jesus entered Jerusalem as crowds welcomed him with praise honoring him as king,” he said. “They call me king now. Can you believe it?”
Seeing himself as divine is nothing new for Trump. Two years ago, Trump had compared himself to Jesus as he sat inside a courtroom six days before Easter, on trial for giving hush money to former adult film star Stormy Daniels. The following day, he took to X. “Happy Holy Week! Let’s Make America Pray Again,” began his pitch, as he hawked the “God Bless the USA Bible” for $60 apiece.
Trump wasn’t the only member of his administration exploiting Christianity recently. Two weeks ago, Secretary of Defense and former Fox News host, Pete Hegseth asked Pentagon officials to pray for “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy” in Iran and elsewhere “in the name of Jesus Christ.” He called on God to “snap the rod of the oppressor” and “break the teeth of the ungodly.”
As he spoke, he held a Bible—not Trump’s “God Bless the USA” monstrosity—but one marked with the Latin words, Deus Vult: “God wills it.” The battle cry of the First Crusade in 1095, these words have become a slogan for Christian nationalism today. They’re tattooed on Hegseth’s arm between an American flag and the Arabic word “kafir,” which means “infidel.”
His words at the Pentagon drew reaction from Pope Leo XIV. The Pope claimed that no one can use Jesus, whom he called “the King of Peace,” to justify war. “He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war but rejects them.”
“Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen,” he continued quoting the Book of Isaiah. “Your hands are full of blood.”
Throughout Holy Week, Pope Leo continued to condemn Middle East violence. In anticipation of Trump’s address to the nation on Tuesday, the Pope told reporters, “I hope he’s looking for an offramp. Hopefully, he’s looking for a way to decrease the amount of violence and bombing.”
“Every person in authority will have to answer to God for the way they exercise their power,” he warned on Good Friday.
The contrast between the messages coming from Rome and Washington reached its crescendo on Easter.
“Let those who have weapons lay them down. Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace. Not a peace imposed by force, but through dialogue. Not with the desire to dominate others, but to encounter them.” said Leo XIV, speaking from the Vatican.
“We cannot continue to be indifferent. And we cannot resign ourselves to evil.” he added.
Trump, on the other hand–the man who claims God spared his life to make America great again–took to Truth Social at 8:03 a.m. on the holiest day of the Christian calendar to mock Islam and threaten war crimes: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F*ckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”
Trump and his administration will undoubtedly continue to amplify the rhetoric of religion in order to manufacture consent for a botched campaign of U.S.-Israeli dominance of the Middle East. Meanwhile, in what can only be described as comically tragic, a deranged would-be dictator who hawks Bibles, basks in his pretend divinity while swearing and threatening war crimes, in a lead up to his warning on Tuesday that “a whole civilization will die tonight.” His Defense Secretary justifies mass murder in the name of a figure who advocated humility, loving our enemies, and turning the other cheek and who was crucified for it by an imperialist empire. Such hypocrisy can only leave us feeling more and more nauseous.
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By Jeannie Connerney
