Why the silence of Ireland’s church leaders in these dark days of Donald Trump?
Dressed in purple canonicals with full all-white clerical collar and pectoral cross hanging from his neck, 70-year-old English Archbishop Jonathan Blake – who broke with the Church of England in 1994 following which he cofounded the Open Episcopal Church – spoke from the heart.
His sermon: “Trump, Maga and the Church Lead America to Hell.”
A sermon for the ages.
Delivered not on the Mount but from a much derided (and with good reason) social media platform on September 16th, 2025, yet a sermon from the Mount still apt for these dark, dark days.
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The original Biblical Sermon on the Mount, otherwise known as the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12), was in two parts. Part one: the conduct of Christians before God. Part two: our relationship to the world.
For people of a particular age and for regular churchgoers, the Beatitudes have a familiar refrain: “Blessed are …, Blessed are …, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness …, Blessed are the peacemakers.”
The second part … “You are the salt of the earth … You are the light of the world.”
Archbishop Blake’s sermon was also in two parts. The first concerned Trump’s America: he referred to 47 crazed school attacks by September last year, 19 children’s lives horrifically ended. In 12 months, 45,000 lives brutally lost from civilians using arms, 770,000 homeless people with many cites banning........
