President Donald Trump and his supporters have turned the US Government into a juggernaut that uses cruel and often immoral and illegal means to amass power and protect and increase the wealth of a select few, notably Trump himself.

Vital health programs that protect millions of poor Americans are under threat. Researchers into diseases, climate change and other crises have been fired. Disaster relief from wildfires, storms and flooding is itself a disaster with budgets and personnel cuts. Aid to poor parts of the world has been ended without warning, explanation or alternative planning.

The world’s trade system is in turmoil because of capriciously applied tariffs. International friendships and alliances are undermined by erratic policy shifts and imperialistic claims toward Canada, Greenland and Panama.

Government departments are headed by men and women whose only qualification is unswerving loyalty to their leader’s latest swerve.

Loyalty to the leader over justice, aptitude and common sense has subverted the Republican Party and turned it into a parody of European dictatorships like Stalinist Russia where loyalty to the party and its loyalty to a leader overrules loyalty to the nation, let alone the demands of justice.

The evil dysfunctionality of the regime is most dramatic in the ham-fisted and racist way in which the problem of undocumented migrants is handled.

Nations in Europe and elsewhere also face influxes of people fleeing violence, poverty, and natural disasters.

A rational and humane approach to the situation calls for a concerted effort on the part of attractor countries to ameliorate the situations that drive people from their homes to face danger, death, and exploitation on their treks.

Instead, in the US, such migrants and refugees are now being vilified and rounded up in ways reminiscent of Nazi and communist state police. A chief criterion for the seizure, detention and expulsion of people is racial, mainly targeting Latin Americans. Commentators point out the irony that Trump’s latest wife violated immigration laws when she first came to the US.

More than 62 million Americans identify as Catholics, and many of them supported Trumpism. Among those who have fostered this regime either tacitly or explicitly are bishops. Now that they may be having second thoughts, might we expect them to mobilise America’s Catholic millions to force an end to the inhumanity?

In fact, what some bishops and their conference have done is hire lawyers to litigate on behalf of individuals, families, and organisations that are falling victim to what is increasingly a cult of personality and cruelty that has without hyperbole been called fascistic.

Why have they resorted to lawsuits as their response? Why have they not mobilised America’s Catholics? Why have the Catholics among the supporters and perpetrators of dictatorship not been denied the Eucharist or been publicly excoriated by their bishops as happened in the past to politicians who did not unquestioningly support the bishops’ position on abortion? Why are bishops who were once vociferous about abortion now quiet? Why has their conference not wholeheartedly and publicly backed those few bishops who have protested?

One reason may be embarrassment. Bishops and at least one cardinal who fawned upon Trump in the past are understandably reticent today. Some may even continue to support him.

The sad truth is that the bishops must rely upon lawyers because they no longer are able to lead America’s Catholics. They cannot lead because they no longer have followers. They are no longer heard, let alone heeded.

The biggest cause of alienation between Catholics and the bishops is undoubtedly the scandal of sexual abuse. Bishops moved predators from place to place without regard for the safety of children and other vulnerable people. Various “safeguards” have been put in place, but the bishops have yet to hold themselves accountable for their own actions, inactions and personal behaviour.

In addition, while the rest of the Catholic Church, under the leadership of Pope Francis, moved toward synodality, care for creation and a pastoral approach to issues of family life, gender and such, the American bishops fixated upon pelvic theology, an obsessive focus on the region between the navel and the knees. They ranted about abortion, gender and sexuality to the exclusion of the Church’s broader teaching and their monotonous negative droning alienated huge numbers of Catholics, driving many from the Church altogether.

The US bishops opposed Francis on synodality, sexual issues, etc. and ignored him on immigrants. Now they are scrambling to deodorise the stench of their politicisation.

But having lost the ability to lead, the bishops are now reduced to using lawsuits and declarations, that few will hear or read, in an attempt to arouse the Catholic people. They are trying too late to rectify years of negligence.

Apart from a wholesale reconstitution of the American hierarchy, it is unlikely that the Church in the US will become a prophetic presence at a time when prophets are more needed than ever. The laity must take charge of their leaderless church.

The Japanese have a saying that sums up the bishops’ lawsuits and statements: “Squeezing one’s buttocks after a fart.”

Those who find themselves among the American bishops would be well-advised to wear a gas mask.

Republished from UCA news, 4 August 2025

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.