The John Mason Talk-Walk, April 10, 2026

I speak today about the trump regime threatening the Pope, and the dangers of uniting religious institutions with the State.

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SPEAKER_00 1:08

Hello, hello, hello. How is everybody? This is John Mason. Tomorrow is Mother's Day. And that is the time we pay our respects to all the women in our lives, our mothers and our wives, and our girlfriends, and our sisters, and every other woman that we come across. Happy Mother's Day, ladies. And if we want the best for the women in our lives, we must protect our reproductive rights. There are all these states go around that places the most onerous restrictions on abortions. Like you only have an abortion after so many weeks before you even know the woman even knows that there's a fetus inside of her. And you remembered uh Katie Brett, the senator from Arkansas, who had this very ham bad case of ham acting after Biden's uh State of the Union address. Is that the best Republicans can do? Well anyway, she has this bright idea of a database. She's proposing this bill that would establish a database for all women who are pregnant. Hello, hello, hello. John Mason. How is everybody? Hope you're all well. Re the free press has revealed an incident in January where a Defense Department official named Obridge Colby called Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican's ambassador to the United States, and kept berating the good Cardinal about the almighty military power of the United States and demanding that the Vatican and the Pope all get uh get on the ro hit their side. And this report came after uh after uh Pope uh Leo uh uh in his Urbi et Orbi uh proclamation that uh condemning uh uh the war the war in Iran and the use of military force. It sounds pretty ominous. We have a a president and a secretary of weird of war uh defense who they all believe that might makes right. That with enough muscle, enough bullying, enough terror, enough threats, you can get away with anything. Is is the Pentagon under Hagseth uh deliberately, consciously discriminating against Catholics? A couple weeks ago, uh Hagseth ordered a uh a prayer meeting at the chapel of the Pentagon. It was only for Protestants, no Catholics. So and you and you know uh uh J.D. Vance, Trump's vice president, not ours, uh always kept speaking about his uh conversion to Catholicism and his book hyping uh you know about that process. There is a grave, grave danger to religious institutions getting too close to uh the state. Because they'll be taken over by the state. It is not for nothing that the founding fathers, uh the authors of the Constitution, who include in the Bill of Rights free the right to worship as people may choose. It see they know perfectly well how Europe was divided into religious factions and went at war with them. They went at war with each other, and what is Trump trying to do? I mean, he's not a particularly religious man to say the least. I mean he he insults and makes fun of his evangelical uh Christian supporters. He he's totally ignorant about uh religious practices that he clues he calls the uh the communion waiver a little cracker. And don't get me started about how in 2020 when there are demonstrations against police uh violence, and the one in Washington where where Trump strode manfully to uh uh through through a cordon of uh police, riot police and all, and and help up a Bible the wrong way, just holding it there. Of course he knows that he should he's trying to get the evangelical Christians on his side, and they've been a solid uh voting base. But what about now? So many people are though the mangas are turning against Trump because he promised them no foreign interventions, no war, and goes and attacks uh Iran. The point is I current uh currently I'm reading the per ka vote in the well we're in a we're in the middle of the Umer season. That's the um that's a little compentium from the uh from the uh from the Talmud showing how which we read during the Umer period uh trying to teach people how to live a decent life. And part of that is don't get uh too close to the uh uh to religious institutions not to get too close to state institutions, kind of state institution, because a state institution will use the religious institution for its own purpose. So and being of a religious minority, I have to worry about that. We all have to worry about that. Hageseth is close to a Christian nationalist uh sect. The uh the communion of reformed evangelical churches, and is strictly Christian nationalists. They want the nation to be governed by according to their interpretation of the Bible, not anyone else's. I was originally brought up in the United Methodist Church, a very mainstream Protestant denomination. And so where where am I where would that leave? Would the United Methodist Church be Christian enough for them? But we have an opportunity. Democrats have been winning state and local elections in notoriously beat-red districts all all through the country. We have some losses, but the momentum is ours. We have the right and the duty, the duty to go to the voting booths and stand up for our rights and vote. That's the key. Vote, vote, vote. That's what we gotta do to uh stop the rise of fascism. That's what this is, fascism. A part of fascism is uh the merge merging of uh religious bodies into the state and the alliance of corporations, private corporations with the state, according to the uh the Italian author Umberto Echo. Those those are the signs of those are the two of the signs of fascism. Like I said, let's get out there and vote. Okay, I'm all talked out now. Advertisements. All this work I do on my podcast and my blog and my YouTube channel, my poetry, my fiction, they're all work. And I need to be compensated for my work. So please get on my website, johnomason.com, and click either the PayPal button or the Buy Me a Coffee button and see what you can give. I would greatly, greatly appreciate it. Thank you. And also, Himperific is a lovely little CBD product store located on Snyder Avenue near 15th Street in South Philadelphia. There you'll find some of the finest cannabis-infused products, gummies and candies, and drinks, and teas, and lip balm and flour and hand sanitizer and dog trees. Yeah, dog trees. Look them up, please. Himperificlc.com. And also my beloved career and business coach Michelle Snow. Michelle is excellent in helping you develop your professional career or small business. Let you know what you're doing right where you need work and help you network with other up-and-coming entrepreneurs and professionals. Please look her up. Growwithsnow.com. Okay. And I must remind people of the Avignon papacy. It was a period in the 14th century where the where the papal court, the uh the Holy See, was located, not in not in Rome, but in the city of Avignon, in France, a section that was under the domain of the Holy Roman Empire. It was that way that the French monarchy could maintain control of the church. Again, like I warned, state control of religious bodies is dangerous. And we must fight that. And getting out there and voting sure helps. Thanks. Have a good week ahead of you. Shalom. Bye.