Meet the Catholic Priest Whose Twitter Puts Trmp to Shame
On his active social accounts, Rev. James Martin, S.J., preaches that Jesus disapproves of the Muslim ban, the Mexican wall, and United’s decision to toss that doctor off the plane.
BY MIKE HOGAN
APRIL 14, 2017 12:00 PM
Donald Trump’s presidency has put a lot of liberals in an apocalyptic mood, and Rev. James Martin is here to help. At a time when the term “conservative Christian” feels increasingly redundant, the New York City–based Jesuit priest’s Twitter and Facebook accounts offer a refreshingly progressive, if scrupulously Catholic, perspective on the news of the day. So while he’s not about to sing the praises of Roe v. Wade, Martin is perfectly willing to slam Gitmo as “American apartheid,” the Muslim ban and the Mexican Wall as “manifestly unchristian and against the Gospel,” and Trump’s environmental policy as “the opposite of Catholic social teaching.” As for United Airlines’ decision to beat up a passenger who wouldn’t give up his seat, Martin said that highlighted “the morality of capitalism and the ills of the corporate culture.”
Little wonder, then, that he’s picked up over 100,000 followers on Twitter and half a million on Facebook. “My social-media strategy has changed not a bit,” he says. “It’s the world that’s turned. I think it makes what I’m saying seem more radical, but it’s always been the same message.”
That message aligns very closely with the one espoused by his fellow social-media-savvy Jesuit, Pope Francis, who earlier this week tapped Martin to serve as consultor to the Secretariat of Communication—Vatican-ese for “P.R. consultant.” “I am really on board with the way he’s proceeding and what he’s focusing on,” Martin says of Francis. “I think it’s fantastic.”
Martin, who also serves as an editor at large for the Jesuit-run America magazine, spoke to Vanity Fair in the lead-up to Easter about what the Gospels can tell us about politics in Washington, Rome, and beyond.
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/04/meet-the-catholic-priest-whose-twitter-puts-trump-to-shame
