The Warmonger of Easter

Don't let evil force us back into the tomb

It is Tuesday of Easter Week. Alleluias still ring in the ears of churchgoers and the fragrance of lilies lingers in sanctuaries.

I wish I could report that the empty tomb had forced imperial powers to their knees and that the long-promised peace, the shalom of God, had become the song of all humankind.

But that’s not happening. Instead, we are shrouded by the wails of war.

Donald Trump is threatening war crimes and even genocide against Iran — “a whole civilization will die tonight.”

Only a narcissistic megalomaniac would say such a thing. I don’t post much about him because I know that many of you are traumatized and can’t bear even hearing his name. If you’ve watched even a little over the last six weeks, you’ll know that violent threats have been escalating, and seem to have reached a crescendo at Easter.

Below are two of his recent posts from Truth Social, one on the left was posted on Easter Sunday (the profanity is his and it is important to read his own words — yes, he posted that on Easter Sunday) and the second on the right is from this morning:

The promise of Easter is that empires of death hold no sway. A new world has been born from the depths and decay of human suffering:

Now the green blade riseth, from the buried grain,
Wheat that in dark earth many days has lain;
Love lives again, that with the dead has been:
Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

And that’s when the President of the United States has decided to destroy and murder — on EASTER. It is a moral horror on its own — a horror compounded by theological heresy, even blasphemy, during the holiest time of the Christian year.

During the Middle Ages, it was a sin to conduct a war during Lent and Easter. (FYI for Protestants: Easter is a fifty-day SEASON, not just a day.) A king or military commander who violated the “Truce of God” faced stiff spiritual penalties including extreme acts of penance — and the possibility of excommunication, the most fearsome tool in the church’s political arsenal.

The Catholic Church has stood firm this season against this war, insisting that Trump’s war falls beyond the traditional definitions of a just war. In an interview that aired on Easter Sunday (the same day as Trump’s offensive post), the Catholic archbishop for the military stated the church’s position clearly:

Archbishop Timothy Broglio, the head of the Archdiocese for the Military Services and one of the most conservative Catholic prelates in the United States, declared the Iran war unjust on CBS’s Face the Nation in an interview set to air Easter Sunday.

He told Ed O’Keefe that Catholic service members are not morally bound to obey every order in a conflict that fails the Church’s just war criteria — and that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s invocation of Jesus Christ to justify the war is “problematic.”

“Under just war theory, no,” Broglio said when asked directly whether the conflict with Iran is justified. The war, he explained, “anticipates a nuclear threat rather than responding to realized danger.”

….Pope Leo XIV mounted a month-long public campaign against the Iran war — calling aerial bombings a sin, demanding a ceasefire by Easter, and condemning what he called the “imperialist occupation of the world.”

Source: Christopher Hale, “Letters from Leo”

As Hale notes, Archbishop Timothy Broglio is not a liberal Catholic — he’s a conservative. And he’s not alone. Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, long-standing MAGA and Trump supporter, had had enough when she read the President’s Easter post:

“Everyone in his administration that claims to be a Christian needs to fall on their knees and beg forgiveness from God and stop worshipping the President and intervene in Trump’s madness,” she wrote. “I know all of you and him and he has gone insane, and all of you are complicit.”

If noted religious conservatives — from radically different theological traditions — like Broglio and Greene are coming out to oppose the president, this is no mere partisan thing. What is happening is, of course, political. And it is terrifying and terrible politics.

But even more, for those of us who follow Jesus, this is a serious matter of Christian discipleship. For all of us. No matter what your political party, your 2024 vote, or your church membership.

Blessed are the peacemakers, not the warmongers.

And that’s exactly who Trump has become — a warmonger.

Warmonger is an ugly word. It refers to one who lusts for war. And Trump’s action and words of recent weeks certainly evidence his insatiable craving for violence and power, to the point of murder, civilizational destruction, and genocide.

This is in stark contrast to the vision of Easter, a vision so clearly explained in Pope Leo’s Easter sermon. Please read this section:

In the light of Easter, let us allow ourselves to be amazed by Christ! Let us allow our hearts to be transformed by his immense love for us! Let those who have weapons lay them down! Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace! Not a peace imposed by force, but through dialogue! Not with the desire to dominate others, but to encounter them!

We are growing accustomed to violence, resigning ourselves to it, and becoming indifferent. Indifferent to the deaths of thousands of people. Indifferent to the repercussions of hatred and division that conflicts sow. Indifferent to the economic and social consequences they produce, which we all feel. There is an ever-increasing “globalization of indifference,” to borrow an expression dear to Pope Francis, who one year ago from this loggia addressed his final words to the world, reminding us: “What a great thirst for death, for killing, we witness each day in the many conflicts raging in different parts of the world!”

The cross of Christ always reminds us of the suffering and pain that surround death and the agony it entails. We are all afraid of death, and out of fear we turn away, preferring not to look. We cannot continue to be indifferent! And we cannot resign ourselves to evil! Saint Augustine teaches: “If you fear death, love the resurrection!” (Sermon 124, 4). Let us too love the resurrection, which reminds us that evil is not the last word, because it has been defeated by the Risen One.

He passed through death to give us life and peace: “I leave you peace; I give you my peace. Not as the world gives it, I give it to you” (Jn 14:27). The peace that Jesus gives us is not merely the silence of weapons, but the peace that touches and transforms the heart of each one of us! Let us allow ourselves to be transformed by the peace of Christ! Let us make heard the cry for peace that springs from our hearts!

I also know that on Easter Sunday many fine Protestant ministers preached bravely about God’s love and the peace brought through the power of resurrection. And millions of faithful Christians — like me — went to church with heavy hearts having read the profane post by Donald Trump. And today, we woke to the absolute horror of him threatening genocide unless his own desires are sated.

You can do something about this. You can pray. I’d suggest praying like you’ve never prayed before. And pray specifically for Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth to cease and desist through whatever legal and nonviolent means are necessary.

If you are a pastor, you might organize a prayer vigil. Perhaps write to your congregation about all this. People are hurting; people are confused; people are angry. Many are waiting for a word from their own church. I know, I know — this is your week off! But mass murder doesn’t wait on your post-Easter exhaustion. Go back and read those posts — this is a moral emergency.

If you have a GOP congress member or senator, call their office and tell them you are mortified by Trump’s behavior and the war — and tell them Congress must bring this under control. Tell them not in your name. Not in God’s name.

---

If you have a GOP congress member or senator, call their office and tell them you are mortified by Trump’s behavior and the war — and tell them Congress must bring this under control.

Call your Democratic reps and senators as well!

(202) 224-3121

---

---

If you voted for Donald Trump, you can change your mind. You don’t have to stick with him. He’s claiming powers that belong to God alone. You know that is wrong. And, in the word used by Marjorie Taylor Greene, it is evil. You are a better person than this.

Don’t let the tomb overtake the resurrection.

What Christians — real Christians from across the theological spectrum — do right now matters.

Blessed are the peacemakers.

---

---

INSPIRATION

Perhaps some part of me still believes
peace is a destination,
a place we arrive, ideally together.

I notice how shiny it is, this belief,
like a flower made of crystal,
beautiful, but lifeless,

devoid of the dust and scuff
that come from living a real day.
Meanwhile, there is this invitation

to grow into peace the way real flowers grow—
in the dirt. With blight and drought,
beetles and hail.

Meanwhile this invitation
to live in the tangle of fear and failure,
to be humbled by my own inner wars

and wonder how to find a living peace
right here, the peace that arrives
when we take just one step through the mess

toward compassion and notice
as our foot rises our heart also rises
and in that lifted moment

still scraping along in the dirt,
there is a peace so real we become light,
become the momentum that is the change.
— Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, “Toward Peace”

---

If you find the Cottage meaningful on your spiritual journey, I invite you to sign up as either a free or paid subscriber.

Thank you for your support.

---

World peace through nonviolent means is neither absurd nor unattainable. All other methods have failed.

Thus we must begin anew… Those of us who believe in this method can be voices of reason, sanity, and understanding amid the voices of violence, hatred and emotion. We can very well set a mood of peace out of which a system of peace can be built.

— Martin Luther King, Jr.

---