Frank Pavone: Trump Conference Call with Religious Leaders Points the Way for Church and State Alike

Guest Post by Pro-life Leader Frank Pavone, National Director, Priests for Life

It’s pretty exciting to have a live phone call with President Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.

Yet that’s what about ten thousand faith leaders experienced this past Monday, as the White House held the inaugural Faith Office National Conference Call.

Pastor Paula White-Cain and Jenny Korn, who lead the Faith Office, hosted the call.

The first thing to note about it was that the call reflected how integral faith is to this Administration. The Faith Office is not in a distant building or a remote location. It is there where the President is. On the call, we were treated to a surprise greeting from Secretary of State Marco Rubio precisely because of the proximity of all this activity to the Oval Office.

Secretary Rubio expressed on the call, as he does publicly, his faith that it is only through God that we can see the accomplishments being made for the good of our nation and the security of the world.

And President Trump, of course, reaffirmed everything we have heard him say and seen him act on publicly, such as the fundamental importance of religion to the very functioning of American government, the need to protect peaceful prolife activists from weaponized prosecution, and the need to eliminate anti-Christian bias. President Trump has established a task force precisely for that purpose, as well as a new Commission on Religious Liberty.

Even more telling than his words, however, was the fact that the President took time to be on this call in the midst of his intense negotiations with Republican Senators in the final hours leading to the vote on the Big Beautiful Bill, which has been everyone’s top priority for months now. He would have had a very understandable reason for not having time to get on the call. But he made time. And he told us it was because of the importance he places on Faith.

Yet as exciting as the call itself was, all of us have reason to be even more excited at the fact that people of faith have a place at the table more than ever before. Faith is back, the freedom to express it publicly is back, and this is true not only because of the long list of Executive actions taken by President Trump, but also because of the momentous Supreme Court decisions that have been coming out over the last few years right up to the last few days.

The Court, whether by its decision a few years ago to finally overturn the ridiculous “Lemon test” warning against “excessive entanglement” of the state and religion, to the most recent decision upholding parental rights to opt their children out of LGBTQ indoctrination in our schools, has put America back on a path of vigorous strength when it comes to the exercise of religion and conscience.

Moving forward, I would point out another dimension of this battle.

From the start of his first campaign in 2015, President Trump has told pastors that America needs their voices. He has consistently spoken against “the Johnson Amendment,” which makes pastors think they can’t speak about politics and elections. He has taken executive action to correct that mistaken notion.

And many leaders, myself included, are eager to work with Congress to repeal this vague and – as many would argue, unconstitutional – provision of the tax code.

But here’s the deeper problem: the Church has proven to be a bigger obstacle than the government. Self-censorship in the Church is as great a threat as government censorship against the Church. As I pointed out in my 2015 book Abolishing Abortion, Catholic dioceses issue memos to their priests at election time instilling totally baseless fears about the entire Church losing its tax-exempt status because a sermon or bulletin insert might directly or indirectly paise or disparage a political party or its positions.

Welcome to fantasy land.

Bishops tell their priests to shut up about politics, and punish those who, precisely out of religious conviction, warn the Democrat Party and its candidates of how evil their policies are.

That is the polar opposite of the kind of leadership we need. What good is religious freedom, granted by the State, if it is going to be suppressed by the Church?

On the other hand, President Trump is exactly the kind of leadership we need – leadership that frees the conscience from oppression, frees the tongue from unwarranted restraint, and frees the spirit to proclaim the faith from the rooftops and apply it to the issues of the day, including in politics.

Yes, we have begun the Golden Age of America. And as religious freedom once again flourishes under the Trump Administration, may the Churches themselves carry out the lesson.

Prolife Leader Frank Pavone is the National Director of Priests for Life and President of Prolife Vote.

For more information on the political work of Priests for Life, see our c-4, ProLife Vote.

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