Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its long-awaited ruling about the U.S. presidency, that the president has absolute immunity for all “official acts,” no matter if they would be deemed criminal if done by any other American. This affects the federal prosecution of former President Donald Trump which is being conducted under the auspices of the Department of Justice by special counsel Jack Smith. He has charged the ex-president with inciting an insurrection against the U.S. Capitol and its members of Congress while they attempted to make a peaceful transfer of power on January 6, 2021. It now appears this case will not go to trial before the election this November, and it may never do so. Yet, most Americans believe Trump did commit that crime.
This Supreme Court Ruling Will Extend Further
But this ruling by SCOTUS goes further than with Donald Trump. It may set aside the Manhattan jury’s determination that he committed 34 felonies in his 2016 election interference to become president in the first place. Weeks before that election, Trump paid off a porn star to keep her quiet about an alleged one-night stand they had, and he hid the payment which was a violation of election campaign laws.
But this SCOTUS ruling has far greater implications than making it easier for Donald Trump to regain the White House soon and use his new powers to exercise vengeance on his political enemies. For, that is what he has been stating publicly this year that he intends to do if he becomes president again. How so?
Justice Sotomayer’s Dissenting Opinion Is Right
This ruling is being explained by all sorts of legal experts, including the SCOTUS leading dissenter and liberal Catholic Justice Sotomayer. In her dissenting, written opinion, in which she was joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson (all three of them women I’d like to point out), it says, “The court effectively creates a law-free zone around the president, upsetting the status quo that has existed since the founding” of our nation. She continued, as she read her opinion out loud, “Ironic isn’t it? The man in charge of enforcing laws can now just break them.” She concluded that this ruling makes the U.S. president “a king above the law.” That is exactly what the colonists fought against in the American Revolution which resulted in the formation of the United States of America. Justice Jackson called this ruling, which favors authoritarianism against democracy, “a five alarm fire.”
Justice Sotomayer concluded in her dissenting opinion, “This majority’s project will have disastrous consequences for the presidency and for our democracy. With fear for our democracy, I dissent.” Congrats to this liberal Catholic justice who I believe sees correctly into the future of the United States of America regarding this issue.
It’s Due to the Authoritarianism of the Papacy
Why has our Supreme Court gone so astray from its very foundation—the concept of government of the people, for the people, and by the people—by making our president like a king who is above the law? The U.S. has always been a nation of laws in which every citizen is deemed equal before the law, including the president. It has been a democratic republic that eschews such a king who is not subject to the laws to which everyone else is subjected. However, this viewpoint began to change in our nation in the latter part of the last century. For one thing, the Office of Legal Counsel in 1974, in the aftermath of President Nixon’s resignation, stated that the president cannot commit a crime. But this opinion was never challenged, especially in our courts.
I submit that a major reason why the U.S. Supreme Court so ruled yesterday, regarding presidential immunity, is that five of those majority justices, in this 6 to 3 decision, are conservative Roman Catholics! The religious affiliation of these nine justices is as follows: the five Catholics in the majority are Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, plus a liberal Catholic Justice Sotomayor, and then Justice Kagan a Jew, and Justice Ketanji Brown a Protestant. All of these six Catholic justices were raised Catholic. This Court having six Catholics is the most that SCOTUS has ever had in the nearly 250-year history of this country.
Roman Catholicism exhibits the height of authoritarianism in Christianity by having a pope, whereas just about all other church denominations reject that papacy. The Roman Catholic Church in its history has pretty much asserted papal infallibility even though this was not made an official doctrine of the Church until 1870. That basically means the pope can do no wrong, just like SCOTUS has now ruled that the U.S. president cannot commit a crime.
Jesus’ Teaching on How to Be First & the Greatest
In my opinion, Roman Catholics have the misguided notion that the apostle Peter was the first pope, the vicar, the head of the Church, and that this authority, which they call “apostolic succession,” must be passed down always thereafter as an office—the papacy.
Not so! Jesus taught the exact opposite. He once said to his apostles, “‘What were you arguing about on the road?’ But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest. Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, ‘If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all'” (Mark 9:33-35 NIV).
Later, the mother of James and John asked Jesus to “grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom” (Matthew 20:21). “When the ten heard about this, they were indignant with the two brothers. Jesus called them together and said, ‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant'” (vv. 24-26).
Being Catholic and Republican Makes It Worse
It seems to be the same with abortion. Being Catholic apparently is partly why SCOTUS overturned Roe v. Wade, since the RCC has always opposed abortion.
I’m Not Against the Roman Catholic Church
Now, I’m not against the Roman Catholic Church itself. It has been instrumental in spreading the Christian gospel that Jesus died for our sins and rose from the dead. And there are many Catholic people who follow the teachings of Jesus, thus making him Lord of their lives. And the Church has many astute, biblical scholars ,and theologians. But I am against some of the Church’s teachings, perhaps foremost its papacy, even though I think some of the popes have been genuine Christians.
But American Colonists Were Against Catholics
So many of the early American colonists who settled this country had escaped religious persecution in Europe which had been foisted upon them mostly by Roman Catholics, due to the church-state governments in Europe. Many of these colonists were Christian Protestants so that their anti-Catholicism linked back to the Protestant Reformation.
For a long time, one of the main places where the early colonists settled and began developing this country, Massachusetts, would not allow Catholics to live there. And some of the original thirteen colonies forbade Catholics from holding elected office in government. They were so opposed to Roman Catholic authoritarianism. Roman Catholicism was first introduced in the Thirteen Colonies in Maryland. But even it eventually outlawed Catholic schools and Jesuits. And for a long time in the colonies, freedom of religion only existed in Rhode Island.
It now appears from this new decision, foisted upon America yesterday by the majority opinion of SCOTUS, that we Americans are going to suffer under a more authoritarian presidency that has been engineered by Roman Catholic justices who have been influenced since their upbringing by the authoritarianism of their Church.