‘I’ll End the War on Christians’: Trump Pledges Task Force to Tackle Anti-Christian Bias
A former U.S. president is calling out the Biden administration for targeting Catholics and discriminating against Christians. At a speech in Iowa on Tuesday night, flanked by Christmas trees, Donald Trump excoriated the Biden Justice Department for such actions as raiding the home of pro-life Catholic Mark Houck and pledged to create a federal task force to tackle anti-Christian bias. “As soon as I get back in the Oval Office, I’ll also immediately end the war on Christians,” the former president declared. “Under crooked Joe Biden, Christians and Americans of faith are being persecuted and government has been weaponized against religion like never before.”
“Biden and his corrupt Department of Injustice have sent SWAT teams to arrest pro-life activists, they’ve targeted conservative parents at school board meetings who don’t want filth taught to their children, it’s filth, what they’re teaching in schools, it’s filth,” Trump stated. He continued, “And now the communists, Marxists, and fascists are going hard after Catholics, even plotting to send spies into Catholic churches. … Just like in the Soviet Union from days gone by.” He asked, “If you’re a Catholic, why would you vote for a Democrat, with what they’re doing to Catholics? I don’t know what’s going on with the Catholics, but they’re really being persecuted.”
“A new report from the House Judiciary Committee proves that the Biden FBI actually targeted Catholics as potential domestic terrorists,” The former president noted. “And you know, evangelicals will not be far behind, because when that starts, it starts happening on a very major scale.” The report Trump referenced was released earlier this month and revealed that FBI agents had actually interviewed at least one Catholic priest and had planted informants in Catholic parishes. The report details how a memo — which was leaked earlier this year — was crafted in order to designate traditional Catholics as “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists” and spy on parishes celebrating the Tridentine Mass, the form of the Mass celebrated prior to the Second Vatican Council.
One of the congressional report’s most jarring findings was that the two FBI analysts who wrote the memo knew that the sources they were citing — namely, left-wing magazines Salon and The Atlantic and the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) — were biased. The SPLC actually places “radical traditional Catholics” on a “hate list” alongside the Ku Klux Klan and “neo-Nazi skinheads.” The congressional report found that both FBI analysts “knew they were citing unreliable sources with a political bias.”
In addition to laying out detailed plans to infiltrate and spy on American Catholics, the Biden administration has harassed and prosecuted pro-life Catholic father Mark Houck for defending his adolescent son, allowed countless Catholic churches to be vandalized and even firebombed with little effort to investigate or prosecute, shrugged off the targeting of conservative parents attending school board meetings, and advanced new foster care rules that would essentially block Christians from fostering children.
Trump announced Tuesday, “When I’m back in the White House, never will your government be used to target Christians and other religious believers. Upon taking office, I will create a new federal task force on fighting anti-Christian bias to be led by a fully reformed Department of Justice that’s fair and equitable.” He explained, “Its mission will be to investigate all forms of illegal discrimination, harassment, and persecution against Christians in America. … Americans of faith are not a threat to our country. Americans of faith are the soul of our country and they have been from the beginning.”
In comments to The Washington Stand, director of Family Research Council’s Center for Religious Liberty Arielle Del Turco said, “It’s about time that someone takes hostility against Christianity seriously. We are seeing a consistent rise in crimes against churches, the FBI is focusing on traditional Catholic churches for heightened scrutiny, and pro-lifers are being targeted for their activism.” She continued, “It would be good for a federal task force to investigate these concerns in a systematic way and ensure that religious freedom is being protected for all Americans.”
The 45th president also mocked Biden for not mentioning the birth of Christ during the White House Christmas events over the past few years. “He completely failed to even mention the birth of Jesus Christ, which is hard to do if you’re celebrating Christmas, right?” Trump noted. “He didn’t mention Jesus Christ in his remarks, not for three years he hasn’t mentioned that, and barely mentioned God.”
S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.