According to “Letters from Leo,” a Substack run by former Democratic nominee for Congress Christopher Hale, a large swath of Catholics are furious that Cardinal Timothy Dolan went on Fox News last week and called Charlie Kirk a “a modern-day St. Paul.” He also referred to Kirk as a “a missionary, an evangelist, a hero.”
Paul is one of the most important figures in the history of the Christian faith, responsible for large, crucial segments of the New Testament. Charlie Kirk was a racist demagogue who raked in tens of millions of dollars pushing hateful, divisive rhetoric. The two men could not have been more dissimilar.
Hale writes that many Catholics are “appalled that Dolan would elevate Kirk to saintly status” because of his “divisive and hateful track record.” Kirk was Evangelical, not Catholic, and Hale states that his “incendiary rhetoric” was clearly “at odds with Catholic social teaching.”
In his piece, Hale also points out that Kirk called Leo’s predecessor Francis a “Marxist who calls himself the head of your church.” No cardinal should be heaping praise on a man who attacked the leader of his church, but clearly Dolan is more interested in the culture war than in upholding his duties to the Church.
Kirk also went after Leo, stating that he “was retweeting George Floyd propaganda” before he became Pope. Clearly, Kirk had no respect for the Catholic Church, which has increasingly come into conflict with MAGA over Donald Trump’s cruel anti-migrant policies.
Hale also slammed Kirk for his racist remarks including his shockingly bigoted assertion that Black women “do not have the brain processing power… to be taken really seriously” and have to “steal a white person’s slot” through affirmative action. Kirk also smeared MLK Jr. as “awful” and “not a good person.”
Hale went on to contrast Dolan’s skin-crawling, fawning discussion of Kirk with Pope Leo’s far more evenhanded, yet still compassionate approach. While Leo has avoided discussing the murder personally in public, the Holy See Press Office stated that he is “is “holding Charlie Kirk and his family in prayer,” and that he “expressed concern about political violence.”
Crucially, the Pope Press Office also urged people to “refrain from rhetoric and instrumentalization that lead to polarization rather than dialogue.” That kind of rhetoric is exactly what Cardinal Dolan is engaged in. By elevating Kirk to the level of sainthood, Dolan is tacitly endorsing all of the vile things that Kirk said over the course of his life.
“Catholics are left in dismay, wondering how any church leader could see a man who sowed so much division as a latter-day Paul,” Hale writes about Dolan.
Thankfully, Dolan submitted his “obligatory retirement letter” to Pope Francis earlier this year when he turned 75. Pope Leo will now get to pick his successor.
According to Hale, the “top candidate” is Bishop Daniel Flores who is stationed in Texas and has carved out a reputation for himself by confronting gun violence and the border “crisis.”
“Don’t tell me that guns aren’t the problem, people are. I’m sick of hearing it,” Bishop Flores tweeted after the horrific Uvalde mass shooting. “The darkness first takes our children who then kill our children, using the guns that are easier to obtain than aspirin. We sacralize death’s instruments and then are surprised that death uses them.”
Flores has also pushed back against Trump’s immigration policies—
“I feel that as a (bishops’) conference, we must express ourselves more strongly when it comes to the dignity of immigrants, to say that they are not criminals, that they are vulnerable families and we need to invite all the governments involved, not just the U.S., to defend the migrant as a human being, to not cast the person aside as someone who doesn’t matter and is a problem,” he said to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).
Flores would be a massive improvement over Dolan, who seems to have missed his calling as a far-right podcaster. His record is littered with disturbing remarks. He rushed to defend American police in the wake of the George Floyd protests, and stated that while “black lives matter” “all lives matter” and “police lives matter” too. He also argued against removing statues of Confederates and slave owners. The sooner he’s replaced, the better.
About the Author
