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      The Psychedelic Evangelist

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      Before he died last year, Roland Griffiths was arguably the world’s most famous psychedelics researcher. Since 2006, his work has suggested that psilocybin, found in magic mushrooms, can induce mystical experiences, and that those experiences, in turn, can help treat anxiety, depression, addiction and the terror of death.Dr. Griffiths and his colleagues at Johns Hopkins University received widespread recognition among scientists and the popular press, helping to pull the psychedelic field from the deep backwater of the 1960s hippie movement. This second wave of research on the hallucinogenic compounds bolstered political campaigns to decriminalize them and spurred biotech investment.Dr. Griffiths was known to friends and colleagues as an analytical thinker and a religious agnostic, and he warned fellow researchers against hype. But he also saw psychedelics as more than mere medicines: Understanding them could be “critical to the survival of the human species,” he said in one talk. Late in life, he admitted to taking psychedelics himself, and said he wanted science to help unlock their transformative power for humanity.Perhaps unsurprisingly, he held a vaunted, even prophetic role among psychonauts, the growing community of psychedelic believers who want to bring the drugs into mainstream society. For years, critics have denounced the outsize financial and philosophical influence of these advocates on the insular research field. And some researchers have quietly questioned whether Dr. Griffiths, in his focus on the mystical realm, made some of the same mistakes that doomed the previous era of psychedelic science.Now, one of his longtime collaborators is airing a more forceful critique. “Dr. Griffiths has run his psychedelic studies more like a ‘new-age’ retreat center, for lack of a better term, than a clinical research laboratory,” reads an ethics complaint filed to Johns Hopkins last fall by Matthew Johnson, who worked with Dr. Griffiths for nearly 20 years but resigned after a charged dispute with colleagues.Roland Griffiths, director of the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research at Johns Hopkins, in 2021.Matt Roth for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Iowa Pastors Say Video Depicting Trump as Godly Is ‘Very Concerning’

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      A viral video praising former President Donald J. Trump has offended a key Iowa constituency in the lead-up to next week’s critical Iowa caucuses: faith leaders.The video, which Mr. Trump first posted to Truth Social last Friday and then played before taking the stage at several rallies in Iowa over the weekend, is called “God Made Trump.” In starkly religious, almost messianic tones, it depicts the former president as the vessel of a higher power sent to save the nation.“God looked down on his planned paradise and said, ‘I need a caretaker,’ so God gave us Trump,” begins the video, which appears to use artificial intelligence to mimic the voice of Paul Harvey, a conservative radio broadcaster who died in 2009. Mr. Trump, it adds, “is a shepherd to mankind who won’t ever leave nor forsake them.”Since the video was posted, it has been widely shared, racked up millions of views and drawn a lot of attention. But much of that attention has been negative, particularly among Iowa’s pastors, some of whom said they were shocked and offended by the content.“It was very concerning,” said Pastor Joseph Brown of the Marion Avenue Baptist Church in Washington, Iowa, a town of 7,500 people about 40 minutes south of Iowa City. He took issue, he said, with how it used language plucked from the Bible — such as describing Mr. Trump’s arms as “strong” yet “gentle” — to compare Mr. Trump directly to God, rather than a servant of a higher power.“The original sin of Satan or Lucifer is not that he wanted to take over God’s position but that he wanted to be like God. There is only one god, and it’s not Trump or any other man,” said Mr. Brown, who voted for Mr. Trump in 2016 and 2020 but says he will not this year.The opinions of religion leaders like Mr. Brown carry considerable weight in Iowa. More than three-quarters of the state’s population identifies as Christian, according to the Pew Research Center, and 28 percent of the population describes themselves as evangelicals — both measures are well above the national average. What’s more, the preponderance of voters in Iowa primary elections have historically been evangelicals.Mr. Trump, who rarely attends church, has nonetheless managed to gain the support of a large swath of the nation’s faithful — particularly less traditional, non-churchgoing Christians. But the cohort has not universally embraced him.A high-profile example came in November, when the Iowa evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats endorsed one of his rivals in the primary race, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.For pastors like Darran Whiting of Liberty Baptist Church in Cedar Rapids, who say they would never vote for Mr. Trump, the video only underscores why.“God has ordained servant leadership, not the arrogant, self-serving righteous leadership that particular video portrays,” said Mr. Whiting, who plans to vote for Mr. DeSantis. He noted that while Mr. Trump’s campaign did not make the video, the former president’s decision to share it speaks to his endorsement of its message.The clip’s authors are members of the Dilley Meme Team, an organized collective of video producers who call themselves “Trump’s Online War Machine.” The group’s leader, Brenden Dilley, describes himself as Christian and a man of faith, but says he has never read the Bible and does not attend church. He has said that Mr. Trump has “God-tier genetics” and, in response to outcry over the “God Made Trump” video, he posted a meme depicting Mr. Trump as Moses parting the Red Sea.Other members of the meme team frequently express religious faith, and one, a musician named Michael Beatty, has recorded several albums of original Christian songs. Multiple passages in “God Made Trump” hew closely to language from the Bible, and they are delivered in a voice that sounds nearly identical to Mr. Harvey’s when he spoke at the 1978 Future Farmers of America convention. That speech was called “So God Made a Farmer.”A different oratory by Mr. Harvey, 1965’s “If I Were the Devil,” is the seeming inspiration for another video created by the Dilley Meme Team that went viral last summer. Called “If I Were the Deep State,” it also features a voice-over that sounds like Mr. Harvey, a symbol of Midwestern practically and old-fashioned conservative values, in this case delivering ominous lines about fraudulent elections, corrupt prosecutors and the medical establishment.“If I was the Deep State, you would fear to ever resist me,” the video intones. “If I was the Deep State, you would wish I was really the devil.” More

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      Why Fundamentalists Love Trump

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      I just finished reading Tim Alberta’s masterly new book, “The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism.” It’s a powerful and emotionally resonant account of the transformation in evangelical politics that has brought us to the current moment: A godless man, Donald Trump, may now possess more devoted support from white evangelical Christians than any other president in the history of the United States. And most worrisome of all, that support is now disproportionately concentrated among the most churchgoing segment of the Republican electorate.One of the troubling aspects of the Trump era for me, as a churchgoing evangelical, has been watching the evolution of his support among white evangelicals. During the 2016 primaries, I took some solace in the fact that Trump’s support seemed to decline the more a voter went to church. According to the 2016 American National Election Studies Pilot Study, he received majority support from white evangelicals who seldom or never attended church, but he received barely over a third of the votes of white evangelicals who attended weekly.As we headed into the general election, a self-justifying narrative emerged. Countless churchgoing evangelicals told friends and neighbors that Trump had been their last choice among Republicans but that they had to vote for him against Hillary Clinton as the only pro-life option remaining.Soon enough, however, the churchgoing dynamic flipped. I noticed the change among people I knew before I saw it in the data. After Trump won, folks in the pews warmed up to him considerably, especially those who were most firmly ensconced in evangelical America. Most home-schooling families I knew became militantly pro-Trump. I watched many segments of Christian media become militantly pro-Trump. And I always noticed the same trend: the more fundamentalist the Christians, the more likely they were to be all in.Then the data started to confirm my observations. In 2018, Paul Djupe, a Denison University professor, and Ryan Burge, a statistician and associate professor at Eastern Illinois University, reported that Republican approval for Trump was positively correlated with church attendance: The more often people went to church, the more likely they were to strongly approve of Trump. By 2020, white evangelicals who attended church monthly or more were more likely to support Trump than evangelical voters who attended rarely or not at all.I’m certainly not arguing that all regular churchgoers are fundamentalists, but in my experience fundamentalists are virtually always regular churchgoers. To understand why they support Trump, it’s important to understand fundamentalism more broadly and to understand how Trump fits so neatly within the culture of fundamentalist Christianity.For some readers, that might be a head-spinning idea. How on earth could a secular, twice-divorced, philandering reality television star fit in neatly with fundamentalist Christians? It makes no sense until you understand that the true distinction between fundamentalism and mainstream beliefs isn’t what fundamentalists believe but how fundamentalists believe. As Richard Land, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, once told me, “Fundamentalism is far more a psychology than a theology.” That’s why, for example, you can have competing Christian fundamentalisms, competing Muslim fundamentalisms and secular movements that possess fundamentalist characteristics.I grew up in a church that most would describe as fundamentalist, and I’ve encountered fundamentalism of every stripe my entire life. And while fundamentalist ideas can often be quite variable and complex, I’ve never encountered a fundamentalist culture that didn’t combine three key traits: certainty, ferocity and solidarity.Certainty is the key building block. The fundamentalist mind isn’t clouded by doubt. In fact, when people are fully captured by the fundamentalist mind-set, they often can’t even conceive of good-faith disagreement. To fundamentalists, their opponents aren’t just wrong but evil. Critics are derided as weak or cowards or grifters. Only a grave moral defect can explain the failure to agree.That certainty breeds ferocity. Indeed, ferocity — not piety — is a principal trait of every truly fundamentalist movement I’ve ever encountered. Ferocity is so valuable to fundamentalism that it can cover a multitude of conventional Christian sins. Defending Trump in 2016, Robert Jeffress, the pastor of First Baptist Dallas, an evangelical megachurch, explained, “Frankly, I want the meanest, toughest son of a gun I can find. And I think that’s the feeling of a lot of evangelicals.”Alberta captures this rage well in his book. He tells a gut-wrenching anecdote about receiving a nasty note in 2019 at the funeral of his father, a pastor. After Alberta spoke at the service, he was handed the note from a member of the congregation condemning him as part of an “evil plot” to “undermine God’s ordained leader of the United States” and demanding that he seek absolution by investigating the “deep state.” This would be a strange message to direct at a journalist under any circumstance. But to do so at his father’s funeral is grotesque.Yet certainty and ferocity are nothing without solidarity. It’s the sense of shared purpose and community that makes any form of fundamentalism truly potent. There is an undeniable allure to the idea that you’re joining a community that has achieved an understanding of life’s mysteries or discovered a path to resolving injustice. As angry as fundamentalists may feel, at the same time, there is true joy among comrades in the foxhole — at least as long as they remain comrades.I’m reminded of an infamous quote by Mike Huckabee, a former Baptist pastor, regarding the necessity of loyalty. Explaining Trump’s hostility toward Ron DeSantis, Huckabee said, “I think there are two virtues — loyalty and confidentiality. Be loyal to the people who helped you and learn how to keep your mouth shut.”Again, that’s not piety. It’s solidarity.When you recognize the psychology of fundamentalism, fundamentalist Christian enthusiasm for Trump makes considerably more sense. His fundamentalist supporters are certain that he is fulfilling a divine purpose. They are ferocious in their response to opponents, especially those Christians they believe to be weak or squishes. And they experience great joy in their motivated, activist solidarity.But the keys to fundamentalist success are also the source of its ultimate failure. Certainty, ferocity and solidarity can combine to create powerful social and political movements. They can have a steamrolling effect in institutions because their opponents — almost by definition — have less certainty, less ferocity and less solidarity.We’ve seen this phenomenon in both secular and religious spaces across the political spectrum. A small number of extremely confident and aggressive people can turn an organization upside down. Political activists who possess fundamentalist intensity can push through resistance — at least until their inherent intolerance creates sufficient backlash to trigger real opposition.That’s how fundamentalism fails. Certainty, which gives so much purpose, ultimately struggles in the face of complex realities. Ferocity, which allows fundamentalists to bully and intimidate opponents, also limits the ability to win converts. And solidarity, which creates community, can become stifling, as it encourages conformity and punishes those who raise good-faith questions.Why do so many fundamentalists love Trump? Because in his certainty, ferocity and demands of loyalty, he’s a far more culturally familiar figure than a person of restraint and rectitude such as the departing senator Mitt Romney, who has the piety of a true believer but does not possess the ferocity of the fundamentalist. Thus Romney was culturally out of step with the millions of Christians who wanted, in the words of Jeffress, “the meanest, toughest son of a gun” they could find.That’s why Trumpism, too, is ultimately doomed to fail. It’s engineered to destroy, not to build. The very characteristics that give it life also plant the seeds of its destruction. And so as we watch the continued marriage between Trumpism and fundamentalism dominate the right, the proper question isn’t whether fundamentalism will permanently remake American culture in its own image. Rather, it’s how much damage it will do before it collapses under the weight of its own rage and sin. More

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      Javier Milei, el candidato de Argentina que ha insultado al papa

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      El candidato favorito para ser el próximo presidente de Argentina tiene un largo historial de ataques contra uno de sus compatriotas más famosos.Javier Milei, un libertario de extrema derecha que lidera las encuestas en las elecciones presidenciales de Argentina este mes, ha hecho muchas declaraciones polémicas en los últimos años como cuando afirmó que los humanos no causaron el cambio climático, cuando dijo que la gente debería poder vender sus órganos o cuando aseveró que la moneda de su país “no sirve ni para abono”.Pero, para muchos argentinos, ha hecho algo mucho peor: atacar al papa.En 2020, Milei, quien se identifica como católico, calificó al papa Francisco de “imbécil” y dijo que “es el representante del maligno en la Tierra”. El año pasado, Milei dijo que el papa siempre está “parado del lado del mal” porque apoya los impuestos. Y el mes pasado, en una entrevista con el expresentador de Fox News Tucker Carlson, Milei dijo que el papa “tiene afinidad por los comunistas asesinos” y viola los Diez Mandamientos al defender la “justicia social”.Son palabras atrevidas para un hombre que intenta ser el presidente de Argentina, donde casi dos de cada tres personas se identifican como católicas, donde el Estado es oficialmente católico y el papa argentino es, para muchos, un héroe nacional.Pero Milei —quien cantó en una banda que tocaba versiones de los Rolling Stones, además de ser un economista libertario, comentarista de televisión y político— no es el típico candidato presidencial.Se ha postulado con poca estructura de partido a su alrededor. Ha prometido diezmar el gobierno que aspira a dirigir. Promete fuertes recortes en los servicios sociales. Quiere deshacerse de la moneda nacional.Y en vez de hacer campaña con su esposa e hijos, la familia inmediata de Milei está formada por su hermana (que dirige su campaña), su novia (una actriz que se hizo famosa por imitar a su archirrival política) y sus cinco perros mastín (que son clones de su anterior perro).El planteamiento es poco ortodoxo, pero funciona. En agosto, Milei ganó las primarias abiertas del país con el 30 por ciento de los votos, por delante de los candidatos del partido de centroizquierda que gobierna el país y del partido conservador tradicional. Desde entonces, ha seguido liderando las encuestas y los analistas dicen que es probable que logre los votos necesarios en las elecciones del domingo para pasar a una segunda vuelta o ganar los comicios.Pero sus comentarios del pasado aún lo persiguen.“Habló mal del papa”, dijo María Vera, de 47 años, vendedora de empanadas en una villa miseria llamada Villa 21-24, en el sur de Buenos Aires. “Si Milei no quiere tener respeto al padre, no sé a quién”. Ella no va a votar por él, dijo.En una carretera que conduce a un barrio popular, las paredes estaban cubiertas de carteles con el rostro del papa y un mensaje claro: “Milei lo odia. El pueblo lo ama. ¿Vos dónde te parás?”.Carteles en una villa ensalzando al papa y afirmando que Milei lo odia.Sarah Pabst para The New York TimesEl Vaticano ha guardado silencio sobre el asunto y no respondió a una solicitud de comentarios. Pero en Argentina, los líderes eclesiásticos están contratacando.El mes pasado, algunos de los principales sacerdotes católicos de Argentina organizaron una misa en la Villa 21-24 para expiar los “insultos indignos” de Milei hacia el papa. Levantaron un altar afuera de la iglesia y 30 sacerdotes leyeron una declaración de apoyo al papa Francisco, mientras los feligreses llenaban la calle.El líder de la iglesia, el padre Lorenzo de Vedia, conocido como padre Toto, dijo que gran parte de su rebaño sigue sacando a relucir los comentarios de Milei. Afirmó que incluso la gente que no está tan involucrada en la vida cotidiana de la Iglesia, está ofendida, todavía más que “tiene posibilidad de ser presidente”, dijo.Sus oponentes han intentado aprovechar la polémica.Sergio Massa, ministro de Economía argentino, que aparece en las encuestas en segundo lugar, después de Milei, aprovechó su única oportunidad de interpelarlo durante un debate celebrado este mes para preguntarle sobre el papa. “Ofendiste al jefe de la Iglesia” , le dijo. “Quiero pedirte que aproveches estos 45 segundos para pedirle perdón al papa, que es el argentino más importante de la historia”.Milei trató de desestimar sus comentarios diciendo que los hizo antes de entrar en política, aunque varios han sido hechos desde que fue elegido para el Congreso en 2021. También dijo que se había disculpado con el papa, aunque el Times no pudo encontrar un registro de eso y su campaña no pudo proporcionar detalles específicos.“Si me equivoco, no tengo problema en repetir que estoy arrepentido”, dijo Milei a su oponente en el debate. “Dejá de chicanear y dedicate a bajar la inflación”.El padre Lorenzo de Vedia en la iglesia de la que es párroco en la Villa 21-24 de Buenos Aires. Dijo que sus feligreses se habían sentido ofendidos por los comentarios de Milei sobre el papa.Sarah Pabst para The New York TimesAlgunas personas que alguna vez fueron cercanas a Milei han criticado sus comentarios sobre el papa. Eduardo Eurnekian, uno de los empresarios más prominentes de Argentina y antiguo jefe de Milei cuando era economista dijo en una entrevista de radio que los comentarios de Milei “están completamente fuera de lugar”, y añadió: “El papa es el papa, tiene una responsabilidad enorme y además hace 2000 años que estamos respetando la figura por sus principios religiosos y sus ideas”.Pero otras personas —y votantes— parecen menos inquietas con sus declaraciones.En la pequeña localidad de Chicoana, al norte de Argentina, Daniel Mamani, de 64 años, ha representado por más de una década a Jesucristo en las celebraciones de Pascua de la población.Aunque los comentarios de Milei sobre el papa lo hicieron sentir incómodo, dijo, tiene la intención de votar por él porque el país necesita un cambio. “Tendrá que pagar por sus deudas, ¿no? O sea, con el Señor de arriba”, dijo Mamani, un mecánico. “Me interesa en la parte que nos traiga a la Argentina un bienestar”.Daniel Mamani, un mecánico, afirma que planea votar por Milei pese a las opiniones del candidato sobre el papa.Sarah Pabst para The New York TimesLilia Lemoine, amiga de Milei y peluquera que se postula al Congreso en su partido, dijo que ella y Milei han hablado durante mucho tiempo sobre lo que describió como las posiciones izquierdistas del papa.“Pienso exactamente lo mismo que él”, dijo refiriéndose a Milei. El papa “apoya el comunismo y la ideología de género, y no creo que en eso consista el catolicismo”. Y añadió: “Javier se disculpó por lo que dijo, pero yo no lo haría”.Lemoine dijo que Milei también se había ido alejando de la Iglesia católica de otras maneras. Afirmó que él “ahora estudia cábala”, una forma de misticismo judío. “Se hizo muy amigo de un par de rabinos”.De hecho, después de que Milei ganara un escaño en el Congreso de Argentina en 2021, varios medios de comunicación argentinos lo citaron diciendo que estaba considerando convertirse al judaísmo y que aspiraba a “llegar a ser el primer presidente judío de la historia argentina”. La campaña de Milei negó que hubiera dicho eso.En agosto, en una entrevista con el diario argentino La Nación, Milei dijo que, en muchos sentidos, se sentía judío. “No voy a la iglesia, voy al templo’’, dijo. “No hablo con sacerdotes, tengo un rabino de cabecera y estudio la Torá. Se me reconoce internacionalmente como amigo de Israel y como estudioso de la Torá”. El mes pasado, Milei dijo que fue a Miami a pasar el sabbat con amigos y luego voló a Nueva York para reunirse con un rabino.Sin embargo, ha seguido describiéndose como católico, y ha apostado por posiciones más en línea con la política del Vaticano que sus oponentes, incluyendo el objetivo de prohibir el aborto, que fue legalizado en Argentina en 2020.El papa Francisco nació como Jorge Mario Bergoglio en Buenos Aires en 1936. Desde 1998 hasta su elección como papa en 2013, fue el más alto funcionario católico de Argentina, conocido por su trabajo con los pobres.El papa Francisco, entonces cardenal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, en el metro de Buenos Aires en 2008. Es el primer papa del continente americano.Pablo Leguizamon/Associated PressNo es la primera vez que el papa ha tenido tensiones con algún político. Su firme apoyo a las posiciones del Vaticano en cuestiones sociales como el aborto, el matrimonio entre personas del mismo sexo y las adopciones por parte de parejas homosexuales, también lo convirtieron en una especie de rival político de Néstor Kirchner y Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, expresidentes de izquierda de Argentina.En 2010, cuando el gobierno de Cristina Fernández de Kirchner apoyó la legalización del matrimonio igualitario, Francisco, que aún no era papa, calificó la ley como “una maniobra del diablo”. Kirchner replicó que la postura de la Iglesia era “medieval”.Las críticas de Milei han sido mucho más duras. Ha llamado al papa Francisco “zurdo asqueroso”, “comunista impresentable” y un “potato” (el nombre en inglés del tubérculo papa).Durante sus 10 años como el primer papa del continente americano, Francisco ha visitado todos los países vecinos de Argentina, pero no ha regresado a su patria. Se ha especulado ampliamente que ha evitado su país de origen para mantenerse al margen de su política polarizante.Pero Francisco afirmó que planea volver a casa el próximo año.¿Quién podría darle la bienvenida? Milei.Natalie Alcoba More

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      Milei Called the Pope a ‘Filthy Leftist.’ He Could Be Argentina’s Next President.

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      Javier Milei is leading the race to be Argentina’s next president. But he is dogged by his past broadsides against a fellow countryman: Pope Francis.Javier Milei, a far-right libertarian leading the polls in Argentina’s presidential election this month, has made a lot of contentious statements in recent years: Humans did not cause climate change; people should be able to sell their organs; his nation’s currency “is not even good as manure.”But, to many Argentines, he has done something far worse: attacked the pope.In 2020, Mr. Milei, a self-identifying Catholic, called Pope Francis an “imbecile” and “the representative of the Evil One on earth” because he defends “social justice.” Last year, Mr. Milei said the pope “always stands on the side of evil” because he supports taxes.And last month, in an interview with the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Mr. Milei said the pope “has an affinity for murderous communists” and is violating the Ten Commandments.Those are bold words for a man trying to become president in Argentina, where nearly two out of three people identify as Catholic, where the state is officially Catholic and where the Argentine pope is, to many, a national hero.But Mr. Milei — a Rolling Stones cover band singer turned libertarian economist turned television pundit turned politician — is not your average presidential candidate.He has run with little party structure around him. He has vowed to decimate the government he is vying to lead. He promises deep cuts to social services. He wants to discard his nation’s currency.And instead of campaigning with a spouse and children, Mr. Milei has an immediate family that consists of his sister (who runs his campaign), his girlfriend (who gets paid to impersonate a political archrival) and his five Mastiff dogs (which are clones of his previous dog).The approach may be unorthodox, but it is working.In August, Mr. Milei won open primaries with 30 percent of the vote, ahead of candidates from the center-left party running the country and the establishment conservative party.Since then, he has continued to lead polls and analysts say he is likely to attract enough votes in the election on Sunday to either head to a runoff or win the presidency outright.But his past comments are still shadowing him.“He talked trash about the pope,” said Maria Vera, 47, an empanada seller in a large slum called Villa 21-24 in southern Buenos Aires. “If Milei doesn’t have respect for our holiest priest, I don’t know whom he’s going to have respect for.” She is not voting for him, she said.On a road leading to the slum, walls were covered with posters of the pope’s face and a clear message: “Milei hates him. The people love him. Which side are you on?”Posters near the Villa 21-24 slum in Buenos Aires read, “Milei hates him. The people love him. Which side are you on?”Sarah Pabst for The New York TimesThe Vatican has stayed quiet on the issue and did not respond to a request for comment. But in Argentina, church leaders are pushing back.Last month, some of Argentina’s top Catholic priests organized a mass in Villa 21-24 to atone for Mr. Milei’s “shameful insults” toward the pope. They erected an altar outside the church, and 30 priests stood and read a statement supporting Pope Francis, as parishioners filled the road.The leader of the church, the Rev. Lorenzo de Vedia, known widely as Padre Toto, said much of his flock continued to bring up Mr. Milei’s comments. “Even people who are not so involved in the daily life of the church are really offended,” all the more so, he said, now that Mr. Milei “has a chance to be president.”Mr. Milei’s campaign declined to make him available for an interview.His opponents have tried to seize on the controversy.Sergio Massa, Argentina’s finance minister, who is polling just behind Mr. Milei, used his one chance to question Mr. Milei during a debate this month to needle him about the pope. “You insulted the head of the church,” he said. “Please use these 45 seconds to ask for forgiveness to the most important Argentine in history.”Mr. Milei sought to dismiss his past comments, saying he made them before he entered politics, though several have come since he was elected to Congress in 2021. He also said he had apologized to the pope, though The Times could not find a record of that and his campaign could not provide specifics.“I have no problem apologizing if I am wrong,” Mr. Milei said to his opponent at the debate. “Stop taunting me and focus on lowering inflation.”The Rev. Lorenzo de Vedia at his church in the Villa 21-24 slum. He said his parishioners had been offended by Mr. Mille’s comments about the pope.Sarah Pabst for The New York TimesSome people who were once close to Mr. Milei have criticized his comments about the pope.Eduardo Eurnekian, one of Argentina’s most prominent businessmen and Mr. Milei’s former boss when he was an economist, said in a radio interview that Mr. Milei’s comments were “totally out of line,” adding that “the pope is the pope, he has a huge responsibility, and we’ve been respecting his figure for over 2,000 years.”But plenty of other allies — and voters — are less troubled by his comments.In the tiny town of Chicoana in northern Argentina, Daniel Mamani, 64, has played the role of Jesus Christ in the town’s Easter celebration for more than a decade.While Mr. Milei’s comments about the pope made him uncomfortable, he said, he plans to vote for him because the country needs change. “He will have to pay for his debts, won’t he? That is, with the Lord above,” Mr. Mamani, an auto mechanic, said. “I’m interested in the part that is going to help Argentina’s well-being.”Daniel Mamaní, a mechanic, says he plans to vote for Mr. Milei despite the candidate’s views on the pope.Sarah Pabst for The New York TimesLilia Lemoine, Mr. Milei’s friend and hair stylist running for Congress on his ticket, said that she and Mr. Milei had long spoken about what she described as the pope’s leftist positions.“I think exactly the same as he does,” she said of Mr. Milei. The pope “supports communism and gender ideology, and I don’t think that’s what Catholicism is.” She added, “Javier apologized for what he said, but I wouldn’t.”Ms. Lemoine said that Mr. Milei had also been moving away from the Catholic church in other ways. “Now he is studying kabbalah,” a form of Jewish mysticism, she said. “He became really close friends with a couple of rabbis.”In fact, after Mr. Milei won a seat in Argentina’s Congress in 2021, several Argentine news outlets quoted him as saying that he was considering converting to Judaism and aspired “to become the first Jewish president in the history of Argentina.” Mr. Milei’s campaign denied that he had ever said that.In August, in an interview with the Argentine newspaper La Nación, Mr. Milei said that, in many ways, he felt Jewish. “I don’t go to church, I go to temple,” he said. “I don’t talk to priests, I have a head rabbi and I study Torah. I am internationally recognized as a friend of Israel and a Torah scholar.” Last month, Mr. Milei said he went to Miami to spend Shabbat with friends and then flew to New York to meet with a rabbi.Still, Mr. Milei has continued to describe himself as a Catholic and has staked out positions more in line with Vatican policy than his opponents, including aiming to ban abortion, which was legalized in Argentina in 2020.Pope Francis was born as Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Buenos Aires in 1936. From 1998 to his election as pope in 2013, he was Argentina’s highest Catholic official, known for his work with the poor.Pope Francis, then Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, on the subway in Buenos Aires in 2008. He is the first pope from the Americas.Pablo Leguizamon/Associated PressThe pope has clashed with politicians before. His staunch support for the Vatican’s positions on social issues, including abortion, same-sex marriage and adoptions by gay couples, also made him a sort of political rival to the former left-wing presidents of Argentina, Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.In 2010, when Mrs. Kirchner’s government supported legalizing same-sex marriage, Francis, who was not yet pope, described the law as “a maneuver by the devil.” Mrs. Kirchner fired back that the church’s stance was “medieval.”Mr. Milei’s criticism has been much harsher. He has called Pope Francis a “filthy leftist,” an “embarrassing communist,” a “piece of shit” and a “potato.” (The Spanish word for “pope” also means “potato.”)During his 10 years as the first pope from the Americas, Pope Francis has visited all of Argentina’s neighbors — but not Argentina. It has been widely speculated that he has avoided his home country to keep out of its polarizing politics.But Francis has said he plans to return home next year.Who might be welcoming him? President Milei.Natalie Alcoba More

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      One Reason the Trump Fever Won’t Break

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      The more I consider the challenge posed by Christian nationalism, the more I think most observers and critics are paying too much attention to the wrong group of Christian nationalists. We mainly think of Christian nationalism as a theology or at least as a philosophy. In reality, the Christian nationalist movement that actually matters is rooted in emotion and ostensibly divine revelation, and it’s that emotional and spiritual movement that so stubbornly clings to Donald Trump.Three related stories illustrate the challenge.First, Katherine Stewart wrote a disturbing report for The New Republic about the latest iteration of the ReAwaken America Tour, a radical right-wing road show sponsored by Charisma News, a Pentecostal Christian publication. The tour has attracted national attention, including in The Times, and features a collection of the far right’s most notorious conspiracy theorists and Christian populists.The rhetoric at these events, which often attract crowds of thousands, is unhinged. There, as Stewart reported, you’ll hear a pastor named Mark Burns declare, “This is a God nation, this is a Jesus nation, and you will never take my God and my gun out of this nation.” You’ll also hear him say, “I have come ready to declare war on Satan and every race-baiting Democrat that tries to destroy our way of life here in the United States of America.” You’ll hear the right-wing radio host Stew Peters call for “Nuremberg Trials 2.0” and death for Anthony Fauci and Hunter Biden. The same speaker taunted the Fulton County, Ga., prosecutor Fani Willis by shouting: “Big Fani. Big fat Fani. Big fat Black Fani Willis.”Then there’s Thursday’s report in The Times describing how an anti-Trump conservative group with close ties to the Club for Growth is finding that virtually nothing is shaking Trump voters’ confidence in Trump. As the group wrote in a memo to donors, “Every traditional postproduction ad attacking President Trump either backfired or produced no impact on his ballot support and favorability.” Even video evidence of Trump making “liberal” or “stupid” comments failed to shake supporters’ faith in him.And finally, we cannot forget the astounding finding of a HarrisX poll for The Deseret News, showing that more Republicans see Donald Trump as a “person of faith” than see openly religious figures like Mitt Romney, Tim Scott and Mike Pence, Trump’s own (very evangelical) vice president, that way. It’s an utterly inexplicable result, until you understand the nature of the connection between so many Christian voters and Donald Trump.In the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection, there was a tremendous surge of interest in Christian nationalism. Christian displays were common in the crowd at the Capitol. Rioters and protesters carried Christian flags, Christian banners and Bibles. They prayed openly, and a Dispatch reporter in the crowd told me that in the late afternoon Christian worship music was blaring from loudspeakers. I started to hear questions I’d never heard before: What is Christian nationalism and how is it different from patriotism?I’ve long thought that the best single answer to that question comes from a church history professor at Baylor named Thomas Kidd. In the days before Jan. 6, when apocalyptic Christian rhetoric about the 2020 election was building to a fever pitch, Kidd distinguished between intellectual or theological Christian nationalism and emotional Christian nationalism.The intellectual definition is contentious. There are differences, for example, among Catholic integralism, which specifically seeks to “integrate” Catholic religious authority with the state; Protestant theonomy, which “believes that civil law should follow the example of Israel’s civil and judicial laws under the Mosaic covenant”; and Pentecostalism’s Seven Mountain Mandate, which seeks to place every key political and cultural institution in the United States under Christian control.But walk into Christian MAGA America and mention any one of those terms, and you’re likely to be greeted with a blank look. “Actual Christian nationalism,” Kidd argues, “is more a visceral reaction than a rationally chosen stance.” He’s right. Essays and books about philosophy and theology are important for determining the ultimate health of the church, but on the ground or in the pews? They’re much less important than emotion, prophecy and spiritualism.Arguments about the proper role of virtue in the public square, for example, or arguments over the proper balance between order and liberty, are helpless in the face of prophecies, like the declarations from Christian “apostles” that Donald Trump is God’s appointed leader, destined to save the nation from destruction. Sometimes there’s no need for a prophet to deliver the message. Instead, Christians will claim that the Holy Spirit spoke to them directly. As one longtime friend told me, “David, I was with you on opposing Trump until the Holy Spirit told me that God had appointed him to lead.”Several weeks ago, I wrote about the “rage and joy” of MAGA America. Outsiders see the rage and hatred directed at them and miss that a key part of Trump’s appeal is the joy and fellowship that Trump supporters feel with each other. But there’s one last element that cements that bond with Trump: faith, including a burning sense of certainty that by supporting him, they are instruments of God’s divine plan.For this reason, I’ve started answering questions about Christian nationalism by saying it’s not serious, but it’s very dangerous. It’s not a serious position to argue that this diverse, secularizing country will shed liberal democracy for Catholic or Protestant religious rule. But it’s exceedingly dangerous and destabilizing when millions of citizens believe that the fate of the church is bound up in the person they believe is the once and future president of the United States.That’s why the Trump fever won’t break. That’s why even the most biblically based arguments against Trump fall on deaf ears. That’s why the very act of Christian opposition to Trump is often seen as a grave betrayal of Christ himself. In 2024, this nation will wrestle with Christian nationalism once again, but it won’t be the nationalism of ideas. It will be a nationalism rooted more in emotion and mysticism than theology. The fever may not break until the “prophecies” change, and that is a factor that is entirely out of our control.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Theme Park’s Selective History Appeals to a New Spanish Nationalism

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      Puy du Fou España has drawn visitors with spectacular shows about Spanish history. But part of its success lies in what goes unsaid.Moving through the darkened holds of a replica of Christopher Columbus’s ship, visitors on a recent afternoon marveled at the tangle of compasses, cordage and barrels. They stumbled as the ship swang and creaked with the swell of the sea. At last, a voice shouted “Land!” and the white sands of America appeared.“Our journey has changed the world. May it be for the greater glory of God,” Columbus was then heard telling Queen Isabella I of Castile. Referring to America’s Indigenous people, he added, “I apologize in advance if iniquities or injustices are committed.”And so ends one of the shows at Puy du Fou España, a historical theme park that is all the rage in Spain today, with over a million visitors expected this year.The popularity of the park has come as a surprise in a country that has long been shy about celebrating its history. Nationalist sentiments were largely taboo after the dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco, who died in the 1970s.But the time that has elapsed since Franco and the recent secessionist movement in Catalonia, which threatened to fracture the country, have helped spur a resurgent nationalism in Spain. It may now give a lift to conservatives and their far-right allies when Spaniards vote in a general election on Sunday.The theme park expects more than a million visitors this year.Samuel Aranda for The New York TimesThe park is filled with hallowed symbols like the cross and the flag, and most of the shows feature conquests and glorious battles to defend the country. The more questionable aspects of Spain’s past — from the bloody conquest of America that followed Columbus’s trip to Franco’s repressive rule — do not appear in more than 10 productions.“What we’re trying to do is present a history that’s not divisive,” said Erwan de la Villéon, the head of the park, noting that historical taboos continued to run through Spanish society.But the approach has raised concerns about the history that the park is highlighting instead — pageantry that emphasizes Spain’s Catholic identity and its unity against foreign invaders — and how it may shape visitors’ views.“This is a selective history,” said Gutmaro Gómez Bravo, a historian at Madrid’s Complutense University who has visited the park twice. “You can’t or shouldn’t teach that to people. History is not gratuitous — it carries major political weight.”The park was launched in 2019 after the founders of the original Puy du Fou in France, the country’s second most-visited theme park after Disneyland Paris, decided to take their concept abroad.Historians have long criticized the French park as promoting nationalist views. It similarly glosses over some of the most painful episodes in France’s past, such as its history of colonialism, and highlights the country’s Catholic identity.The founder of the French park, Philippe de Villiers, whom Mr. de la Villéon called “a mentor” and “a genius,” is a prominent far-right politician.Erwan de la Villéon, the head of Puy du Fou España, said he had sought to find unifying aspects of Spain’s history, and it was “too soon” to mention Franco’s dictatorship.Samuel Aranda for The New York TimesMr. de la Villéon denied that the Spanish park promoted any political line. But he called supporters of Catalan independence his “enemies” and railed against the former prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, a Socialist who passed a memory law to honor victims of the Civil War and Franco’s repressive rule.Spain, Mr. de la Villéon said, proved an ideal place for a new park because of the country’s “great historical trajectory” of invasions and conquests. He chose to build it in Toledo, he said, because the ancient city south of Madrid once stood at the crossroads of Europe’s kingdoms.There, some 200 million euros, about $220 million, have been invested to create an impressive complex of castles, farms and medieval villages filled with terra-cotta vases and whitewashed houses with exposed beams.But it is the historical stage productions, performed in large amphitheaters, that are the big draw.“The Last Song” takes place in a rotating auditorium and follows El Cid, a knight and warlord who became Spain’s greatest medieval hero, as he fights enemies appearing successively behind large panels that open onto the semicircular stage. In “Toledo’s Dream,” the flagship evening show retracing 15 centuries of Spanish history, Columbus’s life-size ship emerges from a lake on which characters were dancing moments before.Supporters of the far-right Vox party at rally in Barcelona, Spain, in July. The party is expected to increase its vote in Sunday’s general election.Samuel Aranda for The New York TimesBoth shows received the IAAPA Brass Ring award for “Best Theater Production,” considered one of the international entertainment industry’s most prestigious prizes. On a recent afternoon, visitors were ecstatic about the experience.“Great — it’s just great. I didn’t know that history could be so appealing,” said Vicente Vidal, 65, as he exited a show featuring Visigoths fighting Romans. In the park, children could be seen playing sword-fighting, shouting, “We’ll fight for our country!”Mr. de la Villéon, who is French, said the success of the park reflected a desire among Spanish people to reclaim their past. “People want to have roots, that’s the first need that the park’s success reveals,” he said. “You come here and you think, ‘Man, it’s cool to be Spanish.’”Modern Spain has an uneasy relationship with its history because of chapters such as the Inquisition and the colonization of the Americas, said Jesús Carrobles, head of Toledo’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts and Historical Sciences, who was consulted on the park project.The Cross of Burgundy, on prominent display at the park, is a longstanding symbol of the Spanish monarchy that has also been embraced by some on the far right.Samuel Aranda for The New York Times“The park allows you to reclaim an idea of your past that you can be proud of,” Mr. Carrobles said. “A beautiful past, a past that’s worth remembering.”But it has also proved to be a selective past.The shows depict Isabella I as a visionary and a merciful queen, making no mention of her order to expel Jews during the Inquisition. The Aztecs appear once in a dance scene, but their deadly fate at the hands of the conquistadors is omitted.Perhaps most telling is the park’s treatment of the Spanish Civil War, whose legacy continues to divide the country. The conflict is only vaguely mentioned at the end of “Toledo’s Dream,” when a woman mourns her brothers who “killed each other.” The scene lasts one minute, out of a 75-minute performance, and the show ends without mentioning the subsequent four-decade dictatorship of Franco.“Too soon to talk about it,” said Mr. de la Villéon, noting that memories of Francoist Spain were still raw.Some 200 million euros, or about $220 million, have been invested in creating a medieval atmosphere.Samuel Aranda for The New York Times“It’s a very consensual show, which has glossed over the questionable aspects of Spanish history,” said Jean Canavaggio, a French specialist in Cervantes who reviewed the script of “Toledo’s Dream.” He added that the park could not have succeeded had it taken a “critical look” at Spanish history, given how politically fraught that remains.Mr. de la Villéon said that he had looked for events illustrating Spain’s unity. In Puy du Fou España, they revolve around a central element: Catholicism.Nearly every show features clerics and soldiers dedicating their fights to God. In “The Mystery of Sorbaces,” a Visigoth king converts to Catholicism as his troops fall to their knees and a church rises from underground, to the sound of emotional music.Mr. de la Villéon — who makes no secret of his faith and had a small chapel set up in the park — argued that Catholicism was “the matrix” of Spanish history.A replica of Christopher Columbus’s caravel. Catholicism is central to the park’s shows.Samuel Aranda for The New York TimesMr. Gómez Bravo, the historian, who specializes in the Civil War and Franco, said the park presented the Catholic reconquest of Muslim-ruled Spain as the foundation of Spanish unity. “This a very politically charged idea because it was promoted above all by Franco’s regime,” he said.Still, many in the Spanish park seemed to embrace the park’s mission.“Spain is a great country!” said Conchita Tejero, a woman in her 60s, who was seated with three friends at a large wooden table in a medieval-style tavern adorned with imperial flags. “This park is a way to reclaim our history.”Her friend, Esteban Garces, a supporter of the far-right Vox party, said he saw the park as a counterpoint to the “other history” that portrayed Spain as needing to make amends for its past.Exiting the park after nightfall, Mr. Garces said he had been delighted with “Toledo’s Dream.”“The true history,” he said.The idea that Spanish unity was founded on the Catholic reconquest was “charged,” one historian said, because that was the narrative promoted under Franco.Samuel Aranda for The New York Times More

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      Trump’s Judges: More Religious Ties and More N.R.A. Memberships

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      A new study also found that judges appointed by the former president were more likely to vote for claims of religious freedom — unless they came from Muslims.When Donald J. Trump was running for president in 2016, he vowed to appoint Supreme Court justices who would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. Three justices and six years later, he made good on that promise.Mr. Trump also made a more general pledge during that campaign, about religion. At a Republican debate, a moderator asked whether he would “commit to voters tonight that religious liberty will be an absolute litmus test for anyone you appoint, not just to the Supreme Court, but to all courts.”Mr. Trump said he would, and a new study has found that he largely delivered on that assurance, too. Mr. Trump’s appointees to the lower federal courts, the study found, voted in favor of claims of religious liberty more often than not only Democratic appointees and but also judges named by other Republican presidents.There was an exception: Muslim plaintiffs fared worse before Trump appointees than before other judges.“There seems to be a very big difference on how these cases come out, depending on the specific religion in question,” said Stephen J. Choi, a law professor at New York University, who conducted the study with Mitu Gulati of the University of Virginia and Eric A. Posner of the University of Chicago.Another part of the study explored what was distinctive about Mr. Trump’s appointees to the lower courts, considering 807 judges named by seven presidents as of late 2020.The study found, for instance, that judges named by Mr. Trump had “stronger or more numerous religious affiliations” with churches and other houses of worship, with religious schools, and with groups like Alliance Defending Freedom and First Liberty, which have won a series of major Supreme Court cases for conservative Christians.Trump appointees were also much more likely to be members of the Federalist Society, the conservative legal group, than other Republican appointees: 56 percent versus 22 percent.For appeals court nominations in the Trump administration, the study found that membership in the group was “virtually required,” with a rate of more than 88 percent, compared with 44 percent for other Republican appointees.Mr. Trump made another pledge at another 2016 debate about the judges he would appoint. “They’ll respect the Second Amendment and what it stands for, what it represents,” he said.The new study did not try to measure how Mr. Trump’s appointees voted in gun rights cases. But it did find that more than 9 percent of Trump appointees were members of the National Rifle Association, compared with less than 2 percent of other Republican appointees and less than 1 percent of Democratic appointees.“In light of the polarizing nature of gun rights and the N.R.A.’s association with extreme views on gun ownership,” the study’s authors wrote, “jurists who seek a reputation for impartiality would normally want to avoid membership in the N.R.A.”The study did document how Mr. Trump’s appointees voted in cases on claims of religious liberty, examining some 1,600 votes in more than 500 cases in the federal appeals courts from 2000 to 2022.Trump appointees voted in favor of plaintiffs claiming that their right to free exercise of religion had been violated about 45 percent of the time, compared with 36 percent for other Republican appointees and 33 percent of Democratic appointees. The gap grew for cases that involved only Christians, to more than 56 percent, compared with 42 percent for other Republican appointees and 29 percent for Democratic ones.And the numbers flipped when it came to Muslims, with Trump appointees at 19 percent, compared with 34 percent for other Republican appointees and 48 percent for Democratic ones.“The pattern that emerges,” the study said, “is consistent with conventional wisdom: Democrats tend to protect minority religions, and Republicans tend to protect Christianity (and possibly Judaism).”The study considered a common critique of Trump appointees: that they are less qualified than other judges. It found that the evidence did not support the charge, at least on average and at least as measured by the prestige of the law schools the judges attended, whether they had served as law clerks and ratings from the American Bar Association.“We find little evidence that Trump judges break the historical pattern of judicial appointments,” the study’s authors wrote. “Women and minorities are less well represented among Trump judges than among Democratic judges, but that reflects a historical partisan difference; Trump judges do not differ much from Republican judges in this respect.”“A few more Trump judges received top A.B.A. ratings, but not quite as many Trump judges attended top-10 law schools,” the study said. “Our view is that the data do not support the view that Trump’s judges were less qualified than judges appointed by other presidents.”But the study’s main finding, on religion, was that Mr. Trump was true to his word.“Trump is not known to be personally religious,” the study’s authors wrote, “but he appears to have believed that he could obtain votes by promising to appoint religious judges, and he kept his promise.” More