From the cheapest seats, far removed from the National Cathedral, the chatter on socials was all a-twitter (or would it be all an-X?), about Bishop Mariann Budde speaking to the re-president, aka 45/47. She spoke from her heart, not for herself, but for those who have the fewest advantages and who are the most economically and socially vulnerable.
It made 45/47 uncomfy in his hard church chair. The attention was not the sort that he required. Because he was not praised, the bishop displeased him. She asked for mercy for those who have no voice, and so he pronounced the service bad and not exciting. He wants an apology.
45/47 is predictable, so it was no surprise to see his standard expressions on full display: glancing around to check the “temperature” of the room, sleepy boredom, and menace like we saw in his mugshot and in his presidential portrait.
The people of most interest to me, though, were JV Dance and his wife. Yes, the misspelling is intentional. He’s “JV” because he’s not the varsity player he wishes to be, and he’s “Dance” because he did a mighty big two-step a few years ago to get into 45/47’s good graces.
And there he was in all his JV splendor, listening to the bishop describe the fear of migrants as he sat between two women: one an immigrant, and the other, his wife, the child of an immigrant. What a pained expression he wore! Not because he felt the plight of those that the bishop described. No, he was indignant. Dance’s brow looked like it had just been planted in rows of potatoes. His cheeks were puffed full of indignation, and the thought bubbles wrote themselves.
“Come on!” said one.
“This is ridiculous,” said another.
“Are you kidding me?” said yet another.
And finally: “I’m a Catholic, and I should not have to listen to a woman in a pulpit.”
Turning to his wife, Usha, he muttered, and I am putting words into his whispers, yes, but surely it went something like: “I’m sorry you have to hear this, dear.”
But Usha was transfixed by the bishop’s words or maybe she just wanted to put some distance between her body, which was still and engaged, and her husband’s, which was poised for revolt.
Usha is Buddhist, but JV, by his own admission, drags her and their children to mass with him. Maybe this was the first time she’d heard concern for the dispossessed and disenfranchised. Maybe she thought the bishop was onto something. Maybe she had a chance to hear the gospel as the good news it is meant to be.
Afterward, the CINOs (Christians-in-Name-Only) raged loudly about the bishop’s entreaty. How dare she? Entirely inappropriate to talk about to the president about “those people” in a church! Blasphemy!
45/47 said, “She brought her church into the World [sic] of politics in a very ungracious way.” First, it’s not her church. Bishop Budde serves the church. He can only think in terms of ownership.
Second, his sentence structure reveals an unintended truth. What he surely meant in his criticism was that she brought politics into the church and not the other way around. The church to him is nothing. He wants to be a god, and God’s house refuted his power. The church was only useful when he held a Bible outside of one on a cold January day four years ago. He certainly couldn’t be bothered to put his hand on it as he was sworn in.
The reaction of the re-president to Bishop Budde bespeaks 45/47’s desire for a clear separation between church and state, yet millions of his followers hope that he will marry the two as one. This is a man at odds with his constituents or with himself. Which is it, I wonder?
Joan Zwagerman writes from Storm Lake.
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