The Scandal of the MAGA Celebrity “Convert”

This is… unpleasant and weird, but also, I think, important to be aware of. (Click on the pic.)

In a nutshell, Candace Owens, another flaming crazy Catholic convert who appears to have gotten no catechesis but a lot of “OOOH! A FAMOUS PERSON CONVERTED!” bum’s rush into the Church from some idiot is now gaining dominance in the Cult with unalloyed Julius Streicher levels of anti-semitism and conspiracy theory kookery and the rest of the Cult are bowing and scraping before her. One of the commenters notes that it is very much like the way Trump was initially rejected by the GOP but came to dominate it. It’s because, I think, at the end of the day, the GOP has destroyed its immune system to the worst of the worst in this freak show and and now always opts for Maximum Crazy because the influencers exploiting the Cult are now riding the Tiger and praying they do not wind up inside.

I believe the burden of responsibility for countering the Catholic converts bringing disgrace to the Name of Christ lies particularly heavy on the shoulders of us, their fellow converts. So let me make clear: Candace Owens is a nutjob and a raging anti-semite and her malignant lies are to be repudiated by every person of common decency and, most especially, by every disciple of Jesus–especially her fellow Catholics.

Together with JD Vance, another “convert” embarrassment who has merited rebukes from not one but two popes in the last year alone, she demonstrates that celebrity converts need longer, not shorter, periods of catechesis and scrutiny from the Church, as well as an oath of silence on matters of faith and morals for several years after their “conversion”.

Why do I say this? Because the massively bloody Taiping Rebellion began when Hong Xiuquan, a kook with the most dangerous weapon in the world–a passing knowledge of Christianity–proclaimed himself to be the brother of Jesus Christ and attempted to found the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. It killed 20 to 30 million people, roughly 5-10% of the population of China.

Now this apocalyptic lunatic is the primary guru for JD Vance, who fancies himself the Caesar and Savior of the world, anointed by Providence to rule and reign over God’s earthly Imperium once Julius Trump passes from the scene.

Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the “mystery of iniquity” in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.

676 The Antichrist’s deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatalogical judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the “intrinsically perverse” political form of a secular messianism.

677 The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection. The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God’s victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven. God’s triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgment after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world. – Catechism of the Catholic Church