Maddow reveals the likeliest reason the Pope fired this ultraconservative bishop
MSNBC's Rachel Maddow reported on Monday about Pope Francis' decision to fire Joseph Strickland, a far-right Texas bishop who spent months attacking him as illegitimate — and suggested that there might be another reason, beyond his public insubordination, that the Vatican might want to be rid of him.
"You might remember that just before the January 6th attack on Congress, like three weeks before that, in mid-Dec. 2020, there was another day of crazy right-wing pro-Trump violence in the streets of Washington, D.C.," said Maddow. "Dec. 12, 2020. A number of people were stabbed. There were brawls in the streets of Washington, running, fistfights and battles. This was the day when a Black Lives Matter banner was stolen and burned from a D.C. church ... The largest event pro-Trump forces had organized was something called the Jericho March. This was a Mike Flynn thing, where Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the pro-Trump right-wing paramilitary group the Oath Keepers, who is now in jail on sedition charges — this is where Stewart Rhodes, at this event, called for Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act to use the military in American streets to keep Trump in power."
It was violence and radicalism were the warm-up for the Jan. 6 attack, she explained.
"And that event, the Jericho March, the headline event of that day, included an address, a speech from a sitting Catholic bishop, from Bishop Joseph Strickland from the Diocese of Tyler, Texas," Maddow continued. "A serving bishop speaking at an event that was calling for the overthrow of the U.S. government, calling for the overthrow of the U.S. election results, including by the use of the Army, the U.S. military against U.S. citizens on U.S. soil."
This extremism is not even unique within certain factions of the Catholic Church, Maddow noted. "Among ultra-right Catholic priests right now, things have been kind of bananas," she continued. "We have got, for example, one ultra-right priest in the state of Wisconsin calling for Pope Francis to be assassinated. Calling for the Pope to be murdered."
Moreover, there are historical analogs, she continued, including the infamous "Radio Priest" Father Charles Coughlin, who built up a nationwide following in the 1930s and grew more radical.
"By 1936, he was telling listeners when the ballot became useless in the United States, he would urge them to use bullets instead," said Maddow, recalling a Catholic leader she brings up in her podcast "Ultra," recently published as a book. "He openly endorsed what he called 'the road of fascism.' By 1938, Coughlin was defending pogroms and Nazi mass violence against Jewish people in Germany. By 1939, he was depicting Jews as a life-sucking octopus strangling the United States. By 1941, he was cheering on Nazi military victories in Europe, saying the end result would be that Hitler would create, 'a United States of Europe,' which he said would 'appeal to Americans despite all the propaganda aimed at disparaging it.' So, therefore, Americans should root for Hitler to win."
Eventually, Maddow noted, the Catholic Church demoted him, deciding he was "too much against their values" — and evidently, they've made a similar decision with the bishop in Texas.
In an interview, Strickland said that he was being removed because he challenged "the powers that be."
Watch the video below or at the link here.
Rachel Maddow on the Pope firing a right-wing bishop www.youtube.com
Ripped up note from Johnny McEntee to Trump (Photo: National Archives via Jan. 6 Committee)Ripped up note from Johnny McEntee to Trump (Photo: National Archives via Jan. 6 Committee)
John Oliver photographed with giant mechanical pūteketeke (Photo: Screen capture)John Oliver photographed with giant mechanical pūteketeke (Photo: Screen capture)