Donald Trump v. The Archbishop of Satan

In October 2012, from the pulpit of the traditional Catholic Church I attend, our priest posed a timely question: Can a Catholic in good conscience vote for a Mormon? All things being equal, the priest advised against such a vote. But, he added, when the Mormon is running against the “Archbishop of Satan,” a Catholic not only can vote for the Mormon, but should.

The Mormon, of course, was Mitt Romney, the Archbishop Barack Obama. The priest saw Obama not as Satan himself, but rather as his representative in the here and now, the shepherd of Satan’s intersectional flock, the harvester of the culture’s lost souls. (READ MORE from Jack Cashill: ABC Exposes Kamala Harris’s J6 Achilles Heel)

In 2024, as it happens, Donald Trump has emerged as “the Mormon,” the candidate whose commitment to Christian orthodoxy voters are not quite sure of. On the issue of abortion, this uncertainty has pro-lifers justifiably troubled.

And puzzled. Although never known for his piety, Trump was the first sitting president to appear at the annual March for Life, the first to single out Planned Parenthood for defunding, and was quick to reinstate policies prohibiting the funding of abortions overseas. Of more lasting importance, Trump succeeded in placing three conservatives on the Supreme Court, enough to overturn the “settled law” of Roe v. Wade.

In overturning Roe, the Court honored the Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and returned the power to make abortion law back to the states and to the people. Ah yes, the people. Sovereign they may be but sinless they are not. As Solzhenitsyn reminded us, “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart.”

The U.S. Constitution, as John Adams understood, is as fragile as the human heart. The republic was less than a decade old when then President Adams expressed his concern in a letter to a friend. “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people,” wrote Adams. “It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Freed from the implied constraints of Roe, abortion advocates turned evangelist. From the moment the Dobbs decision was leaked — the first such breach in Supreme Court history — they have used Planned Parenthood’s money and the media’s mindless clout to seize American hearts and minds. The pro-life movement has had no effective counter.

“It’s a tragedy that pro-lifers don’t have a true standard bearer in either party,” said Marc Short on X. Short was the chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence. Pence reposted Short’s quote. Right below Short’s post on Pence’s X feed is a post that shows a solemn Pence beside the quote, “I’m pro-life. I don’t apologize for it.”

Yes, and Achilles may have been pro-Greek, but as long as he remained brooding in his tent, the Trojans ruled the battlefield. Pence knows who the enemy is. His X feed is filled with attacks on Kamala Harris and the Democrats, but from his perch on the team bench he attracts pathetically few readers.

Like the other pro-lifers on the sidelines, Pence watched the Democratic National Convention. Had John Adams seen it, he would have pulled out his few remaining hairs. The convention was a parade of horrors, from the pop-up abortion mill to the prancing abortion pills to the cavalcade of lies propping up the whole unholy affair. As was evident to anyone with eyes to see, the overturning of Roe unleashed the Democrat id and has turned the party into a full blown death cult

True, if Satanism is a religion, that condition set by Adams might have been perversely satisfied, but no moral argument could be made for Planned Parenthood’s demonic boast of 25 dead babies in just two days. Chicago archbishop Cardinal Blase Cupich, who shamelessly delivered the invocation at the convention, chose not to notice.

Although Cupich seemed to be auditioning for the spot, Kamala Harris had already been installed as the new Archbishop of Satan. If elected with a majority in both houses, Harris will make pro-lifers pine for the good old days of Roe v. Wade. Yes, Trump is being too cute by a half on a subject that defies cuteness. His positions change daily and seem as fruitlessly calculated as Kamala’s position on fracking, but unlike Pence and others he is in the arena. That bullet hole in the ear provides ample proof of the same.

Why Trump Must Win

No war is more worthy than that for life, but Trump has a more immediate battle to fight, and that is the battle for the rule of law. If he loses the election, that battle is lost. A ruling elite that now imprisons pro-life protestors and indicts even reporters like David Daleiden with impunity will feel free to criminalize pro-life speech, indeed any protest that might displease. (READ MORE: Obama Still Accusing Trump of ‘Completely Ignoring Science’)

For the last three-plus years the Department of Justice has given America a preview of coming attractions with its treatment of the January 6 protestors. In my book, Ashli: The Untold Story of the Women of January 6, I profile ten women who participated in that protest, virtually all of them pro-lifers. The eight who survived that day have all been incarcerated. The worst real crime any of them committed was to break a window, and that woman, a mother of eight, is now serving a four-year sentence.

More typical is the case of Christine Priola. An ardent pro-lifer, Priola walked into the Capitol through an open door carrying a sign, reading, “The Children Cry Out for Justice.” In October 2022, during her sentencing hearing, Priola got the sense that the recently decided Dobbs did not sit well with Judge Tanya Chutkan. “Is this about abortion?” Chutkan snapped in the middle of Priola’s allocution.

Priola’s lawyer pleaded for mercy. He argued that she had done no harm in the Capitol, had no negative interactions with law enforcement, had cooperated with the authorities, and had zero chance of reoffending. Having lost her home and her job with Cleveland schools, Priola, now fifty and living in her mother’s basement, had suffered enough.

Not so, said Chutkan, who sentenced Priola to fifteen months in prison, part of that time shared in a cell with a man pretending to be a woman. For too many Americans, Solzhenitsyn’s world has already become their own but with a perverse twist even a Stalin could not have imagined.

Today, the fight for justice precedes the fight for life. The two cannot be separated. Trump has never postured as a moral leader, but he is a fighter. That said, America needs moral leaders. As the battleground moves to the states, leaders like Mike Pence will be invaluable but only if they acknowledge the enemy and embrace their allies.

For conservatives to fight among themselves is to make the Archbishop of Satan smile. On particularly disputatious days, I’m told, her cackles can be heard echoing all the way down to hell’s ninth circle.

Jack Cashill consults regularly with Kansans for Life and co-produced the film Thine Eyes, which documents the 2009 March for Life.

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