Does President Donald Trump Have a Prayer?
Donald John Trump resumes the Office of President of the United States amid sentiments of deliverance at home but signs of a looming World War III everywhere else.
January 22, 2025 by Fr Gordon MacRae
At the very moment I am typing this on the day of Donald Trump’s second Inauguration as President, he has just arrived at Saint John’s Episcopal Church across Liberty Park from the White House for a pre-inauguration prayer service. I wrote about this very place just months before the election of 2020 at the end of President Trump’s first term. I wrote about media coverage of an event outside that same church. A U.S. Cardinal and much of the mainstream news media had conspired in a lie. My post was, “The State of Our Freedom, the Content of Our Character.”
The state of our nation was ablaze in urban riots then, triggered by the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer. The shocking video seemed to be broadcast almost around the clock. As we watched cities burn, the news media told us that these were “mostly peaceful protests.” Across the rest of the nation, we were forced into masks that turned out to be nearly useless. Draconian Covid restrictions on “non-sanctioned” events such as attendance at Catholic Mass, seemed not to apply at all to urban rioters. We were to accept that Covid was much more contagious in churches than in public protests.
It all seems so long ago now because so much has happened since. The nation has no appetite for looking backward right now, but eventually we must. I will link to the above post again at the end of this one. Seeing where we have been presents a cautionary tale that just might influence where we go next.
But there is another matter invading my thoughts. As I watch this inauguration unfold this morning, the Bidens are just about to host the Trumps at the White House for a “pre-inauguration tea.” This gives me just enough time for a brief side trip into my own personal discontent. I cannot not write about this.
The June 15 edition of The Wall Street Journal is just beside my typewriter unfolded to an op-ed by Bob Livingston entitled, “A Letter to Merrick Garland.” It is making my blood boil and I now cannot help seeing Trump’s entire second term — or perhaps rather his “Second First Term” — in light of this op-ed.
Bob Livingston, age 81, is a U.S. Navy veteran who subsequently served in Congress for 22 years. After Congress he formed a lobbying firm that represented defense, education, and international clients. He dutifully registered his firm with FARA, The Foreign Agents Registration Act, and filed periodic reports as required. Bob had done nothing illegal or unethical, but his was a strong Republican voice in Washington during the Biden presidency. In 2022, FBI agents showed up at Bob’s home and interrogated him for hours. He was told that he was a target for felony charges and they demanded that he “talk.” Bob had done nothing wrong, and he could not learn the specific nature of the inquiry except that he was “a target.”
In 2023 another FBI agent harassed his firm’s compliance officer, David Lonie, a former congressional staffer on the House Rules Committee. Bob Livingston’s WSJ op-ed describes what happened next: “Lonie was an honorable and decent man, the epitome of integrity and honor. The agent nevertheless told him that if he knew what was good for him he would talk.” The agent was aggressive and assailed this good man with foul language. “Dave was scared to death. He went to bed on Dec. 31, 2023 and did not wake the next day. His family is devastated.”
“My company and I were innocent of all charges, and while I am pleased this Kafkaesque harassment is over, I am not content to simply shrug my shoulders and move on … . I am convinced the [Justice] Department’s actions were political and malicious, targeting me as a lobbyist who has supported Donald Trump and been critical of President Biden.”
The open letter to Merrick Garland continues:
“Under your leadership, Mr. Garland, the Justice Department has been guilty of lopsided enforcement. Hunter Biden was nearly given a sweetheart immunity deal following receipt of millions of dollars from foreign forces for which he did not file income tax returns or acknowledged his probable obligations under FARA. He was subsequently convicted for only a few of his crimes but has now been given a blanket pardon by his father. Members of the Trump administration and Mr. Trump himself have been hounded and arrested … . Mr. Trump has prevailed over attempts to destroy him, but others have been less fortunate. … As a matter of justice, Mr. Garland, you owe us and the American people a profuse apology.”
— End of Mr. Livingston’s WSJ op-ed
Moments before leaving the Oval Office for the final time to attend President Trump’s inauguration, outgoing President Joe Biden issued a blanket pardon for his brother James, and all other family members who have been suspected of being a part of Hunter Biden’s business dealings in the U.S. and foreign countries going back to Joe Biden’s term as Vice President until the present time. Multiple news headlines in just the last few weeks have emphasized that Donald Trump now assumes, without precedent, the Office of the President of the United States as “a convicted felon.” Several people have taken pain to point this out to me. The irony is not lost on me that I, too, am a “convicted felon,” but most of those throwing Trump’s new title at me also claim to profess that the title was bestowed on me without either truth or justice. I wrote about this midsummer in the months before the 2024 election, but some of our readers may have been on vacation. I hope that for the sake of truth and justice, you will not miss that post, which we will again link at the end of this one. It is “Neither Donald Trump nor I Should Wear That Scarlet Letter!”
Thus ends the content of our current nation’s character — or at least the character that has so reduced our Justice Department and news media as Mr. Trump resumes office. But please read on. This was not my only parting shot.
The State of Our Freedom
Just days before Christmas, and weeks before the Inauguration of President Donald Trump, The Wall Street Journal weekend edition on December 21, 2024 assailed us with an ominous feature headline: “Has World War III Already Begun?”
The long article laid out the elements of an international union that has become, from the point of view of America at least, a new “Axis of Evil.” China, Russia, Iran and North Korea have formed history’s newest version of the Iron Curtain with a single common paranoia: the United States. This developed while much of our politics of the last four years had a laser focus on more frivolous pursuits. I notoriously described them a while back in “The ‘Woke’ Have Commenced Our Totalitarian Re-Education.”
There are few living eyewitnesses to the onset of World War II, the most devastating war in human history, but the elements of its eruption seem eerily familiar now. It is widely accepted by historians that one key element led to the onset of the Second World War: the formation of an Axis Coalition against the West. That was the trigger that fired the gun. I described what happened then in a most fascinating exchange with Dorothy Rabinowitz of The Wall Street Journal in “‘Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth’.”
All four of the nations identified in my second paragraph above have developed, or are on the brink of developing, nuclear weapons of mass destruction. Three of the four — Russia, North Korea and Iran — are already at war and have openly threatened to use nuclear weapons against western nations. This Axis Coalition took greater shape in 2024 when North Korea sent 10,000 troops to fight on behalf of Russia in Ukraine. Three of these axis nations officially profess and promote atheism while the fourth, Iran, professes militant Islam. The world is more dangerous now than at any time in living memory.
About 70% of the weekly readers of this blog live in the United States. About 20% more typically come here from Canada, the UK, Australia, and the European Union. Since our friend Max Moontri became our emmisary in Thailand, we also see larger than usual numbers of readers from Southeast Asia, India, and China. Of interest, in the days before the presidential election of 2024, visitors from other nations comprised a much higher percentage than usual.
It would take much more pretending than I am capable of to not write anything about the state of affairs of our world. Some would prefer that I never broach political matters, but to accomplish that I would have to live on another planet. Besides that, there is perhaps no one more vested and interested in the direction of our politics and the outcome of our elections than a prisoner who is wrongly imprisoned.
So, with all that in mind, I was moved to write a few posts before the election of 2024. One of them that stirred a lot of interest and just a little disdain was my October 30, 2024 pre-election post, “When God Deployed a Sinner to Save a Nation: The Biblical Precedent.”
We saw a demonstration of that during public responses to the inauguration ceremony this week. Tears began to flow when a military choir sang the Battle Hymn of the Republic. In an unscripted moment prior to his invocation prayer, the Rev. Franklin Graham said in the presence of both Donald Trump and Joe Biden, “Mr. President, the last four years there are times, I am sure, you thought it was pretty dark, but look what God has done!” This was met with tears and applause from throughout the chamber.
When President Trump said “I declare a revolution of common sense,” that too was met with cheers and applause. And then he said “It will henceforth be the official policy of the United States Government that there are only two genders, male and female.” This too was met with loud applause and cheers from throughout the chamber.
I have just learned that since November U.S. sales of the Bible have increased 25 percent. Despite the darkness in which I live, there is much reason for hope for me and for you. In the world’s largest and strongest democracy, cancel culture is cancelled.
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Note from Father Gordon MacRae: Catholic League President Bill Donohue has posted a response to the Washington, DC Episcopal bishop who reprimanded President Trump post-inauguration, for his positions on transgender and LGBTQ issues. We are linking to it here:
Open Letter to DC Bishop Who Lectured Trump
Thank you for reading and sharing this hope-filled post. You may also like these related and timely posts from Beyond These Stone Walls:
The State of Our Freedom, The Content of Our Character
Neither Donald Trump nor I Should Wear That Scarlet Letter!
Cultural Meltdown: Prophetic Wisdom for a Troubled Age
When God Deployed a Sinner to Save a Nation: The Biblical Precedent
The Eucharistic Adoration Chapel established by Saint Maximilian Kolbe was inaugurated at the outbreak of World War II. It was restored as a Chapel of Adoration in September, 2018, the commemoration of the date that the war began. It is now part of the World Center of Prayer for Peace. The live internet feed of the Adoration Chapel at Niepokalanow — sponsored by EWTN — was established just a few weeks before we discovered it and began to include in at Beyond These Stone Walls. Click “Watch on YouTube” in the lower left corner to see how many people around the world are present there with you. The number appears below the symbol for EWTN.
Click or tap here to proceed to the Adoration Chapel.
The following is a translation from the Polish in the image above: “Eighth Star in the Crown of Mary Queen of Peace” “Chapel of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at Niepokalanow. World Center of Prayer for Peace.” “On September 1, 2018, the World Center of Prayer for Peace in Niepokalanow was opened. It would be difficult to find a more expressive reference to the need for constant prayer for peace than the anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.”
For the Catholic theology behind this image, visit my post, “The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of God.”