Sinning and America

Mortal Sins

I’m not Catholic, but I’m not that far from it.  Mom was Roman Catholic, born of an Irish father and Scottish mother in England,  and into the faith.  During World War II she married my father, an American soldier of the Jewish persuasion.  Mom’s parish priest demanded that she guarantee that any offspring from the union be raised Catholic.  But that’s not what she and Dad agreed upon.  Mom’s story is that the priest showed up at a wedding party at her house to notify her of ex-communication:  forbidding her from the sacraments of the church.  My grandfather asked him to leave – with a punch in the nose.

While Dad didn’t want us kids to be Catholic, he didn’t go much beyond that.  So we were raised in the American Episcopal Church, just a few short theological steps from Roman Catholicism.  And while I’m not practicing anything now, the prayers and traditions of my childhood still echo in my memory.

So I know all about venial sins, and mortal sins.

Defining Sin  

For those who are unfamiliar with the Catholic Church, there are degrees of how bad a sin can be.  A venial sin is kind of minor, like a “white lie”.  If you were to die without having received forgiveness and absolution for venial sins, your immortal soul is not at risk.  In fact, it is likely that you will die with venial sins, and if you are unable to receive the “last rites” of the Church, you will spend time in Purgatory to “pay” for those sins.

On the other hand, mortal sins are those for which there can be no recovery, without God’s forgiveness and absolution.  If you were to die with an unforgiven mortal sin “on” your soul, you risk eternal damnation to Hell.  

Mom’s “sin”, not agreeing to raise us three kids in the Roman Catholic Church, was so grave, so “mortal”, that she was stricken from receiving the Holy Sacraments or Confession.  She could not gain forgiveness for her actions, unless she repented and brought us “up” in the Church.  Her soul was in “mortal” danger of eternal damnation.  

Thank goodness the Episcopal Church doesn’t believe in quite all that.  So Mom’s soul, might not be in Catholic heaven, but may be down the block in an Episcopal version.  I hope they still serve gin and tonics at cocktail hour, and wine at dinner.

American Sinners

So what are the “sins” politicians face here in the United States?  For what can they be forever “damned” from getting votes, and what actions can be somehow “forgiven” by the electorate?  In short, what are venial political sins, and what are mortal sins, from which there is no recovery?

It used to be that if a politician was divorced, that became a “mortal” sin, making them unelectable.  It was kind of “moral” test in America – it wasn’t until Ronald Reagan was elected President that a “divorcee” gained the office.  That didn’t mean that Presidents had to be “monogamous”.  Let’s see:  in the twentieth century alone Harding, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and of course, Bill Clinton all had affairs; some right in the White House.  I guess those were “venial” sins.

Nixon’s Sin

When Nixon was caught, on tape, leading the conspiracy to coverup the Watergate break-ins, even the leaders of his own party decided that was beyond forgivable.  They saw no need to carry out impeachment; the threat was enough to get Nixon’s resignation.  And as a “Christian” nation, the next President carried out the act of absolution, pardoning Nixon for any crime he might have committed.  But while Nixon was pardoned, he was never really forgiven.  He spent the rest of his life as the only President to resign, a disgraced figure.

But Bill Clinton got caught.  And he got caught with a twenty-one year old intern, hardly an “even” relationship.  So some in Congress determined that this sin was now mortal, and must be punished with impeachment and removal.  The problem was, many of those attacking Clinton lived in “glass houses”.  They had their own mortal sins to keep covered.  The House impeached him, but the Senate refused to convict.  After Clinton left office, he was “rehabilitated” into a “senior statesman”.  

I always thought that Clinton’s “sin” was bad enough that he ought to resign.  While I didn’t think his private behavior was impeachable at the time, I did think that he disgraced the office.  And on a more practical level, Clinton staying in office meant that someone else would pay the price for his transgressions.  That fell to Al Gore, who had to run for President in 2000 with the “status” of Clinton’s sin still unresolved.  In short Clinton stayed, and the price was George W Bush for eight years.  

A Living Sinner

Which brings us to Donald Trump.  We know he committed sexual transgressions before he ran for the Presidency.  Those, I guess, were venial sins, even if the whole going into the dressing rooms of Miss Teen America, the Access Hollywood tape, and getting spanked by a porn star were more than creepy.  We know that he was a “shady” real estate guy, always slanting the deal.  America determined that, like used car dealers, that was “just” part of the job, venial at worst.  

And we know that his campaign was ugly, starting from the “…drug dealers and rapists coming across the border,” at the bottom of the golden escalator.   But clearly his statements for many were just “plain speaking”, as if he were some kind of modern-day Lincoln.   In short, Trump was granted “electoral absolution” for all of his sins, venial or mortal, before his first election.  

Presidential Sins

And America could not reach a consensus on Trump throughout his Presidency.  He tried to ban Muslims from entering the country, he had children ripped from their parents arms at the border, he talked about “fine people on both sides” of Charlottesville.  All of those felt like “mortal sins” to one side of the nation, and were, at worst, venial sins to the other side.  Many thought those were all “good ideas”, even if ugly, or racist, or un-American.

Then there was the first impeachment, when the President, Trump, tried to leverage the power (and money) of the United State to get another nation’s leader, Zelenskyy, to investigate a political opponent, Biden.  Surely that was a mortal sin.  If not eternal damnation, at least impeachment and conviction were in order. 

But our nation is so polarized, so divided, so “loyal” to our “tribes”, that we are willing to accept the mortal sins of our side’s leader, rather than give-way to the other side.  So Trump was not convicted, and doubled-down on his sins after the trial.  He went on the “revenge tour”, cleansing the executive branch of anyone with questionable loyalty, to him.

Ultimate Sin

All leading to the election of 2020.

I am not going to relitigate what happened in 2020.  We can all do that together, watching the January 6^th Committee hearings.  We are seeing a series of Republicans, many Trump appointees, who in the weeks after the election stood up against Trump and for the Constitutional process.  They watched Trump commit the ultimate political moral sin; attacking the Constitution itself.  He threatened the very foundations of our Democracy.

And yet some, even after acknowledging that Trump committed those “mortal” sins, still say they would vote for him again.  Conservative Republican leaders like Rusty Bowers of Arizona, stood up against Trump. He held the line of the Arizona election results, and was attacked and suffered for his stand –but still says he would vote for Trump again.

I don’t get it.  I called for Bill Clinton to resign in 1998.  My membership in his “tribe” didn’t not grant absolution from any wrong.  Rusty Bowers, Mitch McConnell, say they don’t want Trump to be the nominee in 2024, but they would vote for him if he was.

There is no limit to the sins they will accept. If subverting the US Constitution, threatening our two-hundred and forty-six year experiment in Democracy, isn’t sinful enough, what is?   It must be that the alternative, “my tribe”, is so evil, awful, terrible; that any level of sin is acceptable except for one: being a Democrat. 

.