William Barr is an (oddly) Catholic liar. He lies about America’s “Christian past.” He lies about ordering the violence of federal officers against peaceful demonstrators to give Trump a photo-op.
I use that uncomfortable phrase “Catholic liar” because Barr’s lies, as amply demonstrated in his Notre Dame speech, originate in his chosen ideology. To him, his lies are serving a “higher doctrine” (God’s “Natural Law”) than upholding American law.
Attorney General William Barr spoke to a closed group of Notre Dame undergraduates, law students and faculty on Oct. 11 2019 at the Notre Dame Law School. “I think we all recognize that over the past 50 years, religion has been under increasing attack,” Barr said. “Secularists and their allies have marshaled all the forces of mass communication, popular culture, the entertainment industry and academia in an unremitting assault on religion and traditional values.” That is a lie. Evangelicals are in charge under Trump as they were under Bush. They aren’t victims, but abusers.
Barr’s faith justifies repeated lying. That’s also why Barr can stomach the self-evident disgustingness of Trump too, because Catholic ideology demands that women, “secular” Americans, gays, Jews, abortion rights, Muslims, must be crushed in Barr’s hoped for biblical theocracy. To Barr, a few lies, and Trump himself are mere stepping stones to America becoming the Kingdom of God, a kingdom more or less modeled on a bizarre combination of Vatican City, ancient Israel and modern day theocratic Iran. In other words, Barr is not a very good American, but a terrific 12th Century crusader.
