THE TED CRUZ THING: TRADITIONAL CATHOLICS ARE "PARASITES"

By Tim Rohr

Recently, Senator Ted Cruz has been in the crosshairs of Catholic commentators for endorsing a social media post alleging that a “'foreign'” cabal of Papists is taking over the Republican Party," and that its leaders are "parasites." The title of the post is:

The Long Game and the Conservative Right: How a Network of Political Catholic Integralists, Russian Ideologues, and Media Provocateurs Are Systematically Dismantling the Evangelical Foundation of the American Right

It's a long read - over 10,000 words, and I am going to take a crack at reading the whole thing, commenting on it as I go along with my comments in red. Some may think that, as a Catholic, I should be offended by the post and by Cruz's endorsement of it. I'm not. In a way that neither the author of the post nor Cruz could possibly anticipate, both the author and Cruz are making the case for the sanity of the pre-Vatican II Church, including why the Society of Saint Pius X ("SSPX") should not only survive, but be taken very seriously. 

Note: The characterization of traditional Catholics as "parasites" does not appear in this particular section of the post. It can be found in the full post, and I'll comment on it later.

So let's begin:

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The conventional framework for understanding the convulsions tearing through American conservatism treats them as a foreign policy argument. Israel or no Israel. Aid or no aid. “America First” versus “globalism.” This framing is wrong in the most important possible way.

What is happening is not a debate. It is a demolition.

The men and women at the center of this operation are not primarily interested in the 2026 midterms or even the 2028 presidential election. They are interested in a question that will take a decade or more to fully answer: Who controls the ideological and theological DNA of the Republican Party’s base?

For seventy years, that answer has been evangelical Protestant Christians. Roughly 30 percent of the American electorate, 80 percent of whom vote Republican, motivated by deep biblical conviction, organized through tens of thousands of local churches, and bound together by a theological commitment to the Bible have been in the driver's seat of the conservative movement.

Right off the bat, the author drives headlong into a mess, and that's this: While the "tens of thousands of local churches" may be "bound together by a theological commitment to the Bible," there is, in fact, as many versions of their theology, and thus their "commitment" as there are "tens of thousands of churches," each interpreting the "Bible alone" ...alone. In other words, there is no central authority in Protestantism, thus the reason for the very word ("protest-antism"). In this sense, non-Catholic Christian churches (Protestants) are very much like Islam, wherein theological interpretation depends on individual imams, and present-day Judaism, wherein theological interpretation depends on individual rabbis. In other words, there is no "bound together"; thus, everything that follows is based on this faulty premise. Let's explore anyway. 

Remove it, or transform it, and you have a different party. Not a party with different policies. A party with different gods.

That is the actual objective.

In other words, the author is admitting that the Republican Party is, and should be, a Christian fundamentalist party, and as we shall see, a Zionist party.

I am going to map out what I think is the most sophisticated attack in modern political history and all of its corresponding vectors — institutional, intellectual, theological, generational, and media — and explain how each one feeds into a single ten-year project: the replacement of evangelical Protestant political theology with a Catholic integralist or ethnonationalist framework that views Jews, Israel and Protestants not as covenant partners but as adversaries of Christian civilization.

I'm not so sure about this being an "integralist or ethnonationalist" thing, nor about it being "a single ten-year project," but she (the author) is right about one thing: Catholicism, orthodox Catholicism, traditional Catholicism, has never viewed "Jews, Israel and Protestants...as covenant partners," but neither has it ever viewed them as "adversaries." Traditional Catholicism has always viewed all of the above, in one form or another, as "separated brethren," in need of conversion and salvation.

In the Good Friday liturgy, Catholics have special prayers ("solemn intercessions") for both Jews and non-Catholic Christians. The current (post-Vatican II) versions are toned down, but there is still a hint at conversion:

The current "Novus Ordo" solemn intercession for the Jews:

"Let us pray also for the Jewish people, to whom the Lord our God spoke first, that he may grant them to advance in love of his name and in faithfulness to his covenant...Almighty ever-living God, who bestowed your promises on Abraham and his descendants, hear graciously the prayers of your Church, that the people you first made your own may attain the fullness of redemption. Through Christ our Lord." 

The current solemn intercession for non-Catholic Christians is innocuously titled "For the Unity of All Christians."

"Let us pray also for all our brothers and sisters who believe in Christ, that our God and Lord may be pleased, as they live the truth, to gather them together and keep them in his one Church...Almighty ever-living God, who gather what is scattered and keep together what you have gathered, look kindly on the flock of your Son, that those whom one Baptism has consecrated may be joined together by integrity of faith and united in the bond of charity. Through Christ our Lord. R. Amen."

It is worth noting the contrast between the post- and the pre-Vatican II versions of these two prayers. And I will say why it is worth noting after I set out the pre-Vatican II prayers. 

Pre-Vatican II intercession for the Jews (as amended by Pope Benedict XVI in 2008 for use in the 1962 Missal):

"Let us pray for the Jews: May our God and Lord enlighten their hearts, so that they may acknowledge Jesus Christ, Saviour of all men...Almighty and Everlasting God, who desirest that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth; mercifully grant that, as the fullness of the Gentiles enters into Thy Church, all Israel may be saved. Through Christ our Lord. Amen."

Note how the pre-Vatican II version, at the outset, calls on the Jews to "acknowledge Jesus Christ..." whereas the post-Vatican II version does not, and other than completing the prayer with "Through Christ our Lord," doesn't mention Christ at all. 

The pre-Vatican II intercession for non-Catholic Christians is radically different from the post-Vatican II version. In fact, it boasts a very confrontational title: FOR HERETICS AND SCHISMATICS.

"Let us pray also for heretics and schismatics: that our Lord God would be pleased to rescue them from all their errors; and recall them to our holy mother the Catholic and Apostolic Church....Almighty and everlasting God, who savest all, and wouldst that no one should perish: look on the souls that are led astray by the deceit of the devil: that having set aside all heretical evil, the hearts of those that err may repent, and return to the unity of Thy truth. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end." 

Wow! I set these prayers out because, more than probably anything else, these intercessions demonstrate the radical difference between pre- and post-Vatican II Catholicism, and, as we continue with this article, we will see why the author is so afraid of Traditional Catholicism, particularly as it is embodied in the aforementioned SSPX.

A Necessary Distinction: This Is Not About Catholicism or Regular Catholics but about Political Catholic Integralism

Before mapping this operation in full, one clarification is essential — because without it, the analysis will be misread, and misreading it serves the operation’s interests.

This is not about Catholics.

The 70 million American Catholics who go to Mass on Sunday, vote their conscience, pay their taxes, coach Little League, and have been reliable partners in the pro-life movement for fifty years are not the subject of this investigation. They are, in a real sense, among its victims. The political integralist Catholicism being deployed in this operation bears no relationship to the ordinary American Catholic faith — it uses the vocabulary and symbols of a faith tradition as a vehicle for a power project that most practitioners of that faith would find alien and alarming. In fact, I would argue that but for the influencer and opinion-shaper class, everyday Catholics don’t even know it's happening. (emphases added)

Wow! Traditional Catholics will not find a better champion than this author. That's the whole point! This author, in fear of losing protestant-evangelical control of the Republican Party, is desperate to save the "ordinary American Catholic." Why? Well, because, at least according to the major polls, the "ordinary American Catholic" is functionally a protestant. The "ordinary American Catholic: 1) sees Sunday Mass as optional; 2) does not believe in the very thing that makes Catholicism Catholic: the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist; and 3) picks and chooses his or her morality (e.g., "Cafeteria Catholicism"). That is exactly Protestantism. 

What is actually being deployed is a specific ideological cocktail with three distinct ingredients, none of which represent mainstream American Catholic life.

The first is integralism — a pre-Vatican II political theology that holds the Catholic Church should exercise direct authority over temporal governments, that religious liberty is a Protestant error, and that a properly ordered state must subordinate itself to Church teaching. This is not the position of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. It is not the position of Pope Francis. It is the position of a small but highly credentialed group of academic theorists — Vermeule, Ahmari, Deneen, Pappin — who have spent the last decade building intellectual infrastructure and who are quite explicit about their goal of replacing the Protestant liberal constitutional order that America was founded on. (emphases added)

Wow! Again! She is so right. The fact is, even if "the bishops" are too afraid to say it, the Catholic Church holds that because Christ is King, "all men, whether collectively or individually, are under the dominion of Christ." (Pope Pius XI) Now, even Ted Cruz says that. But, like most non-Catholic Christians, he doesn't accept the second part, which is the Catholic doctrine that the One King has only One Church, and the Vicar of Christ is its temporal head. Thus, the theology, and it's not political, "that holds the Catholic Church should exercise direct authority over temporal governments, that religious liberty is a Protestant error, and that a properly ordered state must subordinate itself to Church teaching." This is not the recent creation of "academic theorists," for a "ten-year project." It is Catholic Dogma, and a dogma specifically defined by the teaching magisterium of the Church in Pius XI's Quas Primas. So now you see what has got Ted Cruz and others like him all riled up. 

And now, the author gets to her real target, which she hopes is Pope Leo's target as well: 

The second is SSPX-adjacent traditionalism — the world of the Latin Mass hardliners, the Society of Saint Pius X, the sedevacantists and near-sedevacantists who regard the Second Vatican Council as a catastrophic betrayal and the post-conciliar Church as illegitimate or gravely compromised. Nick Fuentes operates in this world. His entire theological framework — the Apostles’ Creed imagery, the Christ the King invocations, the explicit hostility to ecumenism and interfaith dialogue — is drawn from a traditionalist Catholic milieu that the Vatican itself has repeatedly disciplined and that most American Catholics have never encountered. The SSPX was in irregular canonical status with Rome for decades. These are not mainstream Catholic positions. They are fringe positions that have been given a mass media platform. (emphases added)

This is funny. The author practically frames the SSPX as the Anti-Christ with "a mass media platform," and on the verge of completely imploding Protestant/Evangelical-Republicanism, but then goes on to squeak that they are a fringe group who "most American Catholics have never encountered." Ummm, Ms. Author, Mr. Cruz...which is it? Stupid stuff like this makes a reader wonder about the author's real motivation for writing this and just what Ted Cruz is really afraid of.

The third ingredient is imported European and Middle Eastern sectarianism — and this is perhaps the most important point, because it explains something that confuses many American observers: why does any this feel so foreign?

It feels foreign because it is foreign. America does not have a native antisemitism rooted in two thousand years of living in close proximity to Jewish communities in a Catholic or Orthodox Christian civilization. We did not have pogroms. We did not have the Dreyfus Affair. We did not have centuries of Jewish ghettoes enforced by Church law, blood libel accusations, forced conversions, and expulsions. The specific texture of European antisemitism — the theological contempt, the conspiratorial frameworks about Jewish power, the language of “Christkillers” and “usurers” and “rootless cosmopolitans” — is not native to American political culture. It had to be imported.

That importation is exactly what is happening. Dugin’s geopolitical framework is Russian. The integralist political theology is drawn from pre-Enlightenment European Catholic political thought. The SSPX traditionalism is French in origin — founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, a bishop who openly expressed sympathy for the Vichy government. The specific antisemitic conspiracy frameworks being deployed — about Jewish control of media, finance, and foreign policy — are recognizably derived from European far-right sources, recycled through American online culture and repackaged for a new generation.

The Middle Eastern dimension adds another layer. Part of what Carlson, Fuentes, and their network have successfully done is import the sectarian framing of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as it exists in the Arab world and on the European left — a framing in which Israel is a settler-colonial project, Zionism is racism, and Christian support for Israel is a form of complicity in oppression — and introduced it into evangelical spaces where it has no native roots. The Palestinian Christian angle — sympathetic pastors presented on platforms like Carlson’s as authentic voices of the Church in the Holy Land — is specifically designed to create cognitive dissonance for evangelicals who have never had to think of support for Israel as a form of Christian-on-Christian hostility.

None of this is accidental. All of it is deliberate. And all of it is being imported into a country that, uniquely among Western nations, built its founding constitutional architecture specifically to prevent exactly this kind of sectarian conflict from taking root.

I let the author ramble on here because there is no point in proving each of her points wrong, or at most, exaggerated. The author's ramble is yet more evidence that there is something else going on. (I think I know what it is.) If this particularly traditional Catholic "project" is so "foreign" to Americans, then how does it have the power she claims it has? Why is it so scary? 

The Voter Problem

There is one more thing that must be said plainly, because it reveals the desperation underlying the operation’s aggression.

Amazing. She now characterizes the "project" as acting in "desperation." Desperation is how people or groups act who are losing. But she claims they are winning. How can an otherwise astute politician like Ted Cruz even recommend reading this? I know why. When it comes to the "bible-alone" Christian, like Ted Cruz, his authority is himself. I'll let it go at that for now.

The network has infrastructure. It has influencers. It has think tanks and podcasts and academic journals and a Vice President who has yet to condemn it. Although many of us who supported him have high hopes that when it comes time he will. What it does not have — what it has never had — is voters.

Ummm...but no one has heard of them, right?

American Catholics do not vote as a bloc for Catholic nationalist candidates. They never have. Italian-American Catholics in New Jersey, Irish-American Catholics in Boston, Latino Catholics in Texas and Florida — these communities vote on economics, immigration, crime, jobs, and family. They do not vote on integralist political theology because they have never heard of integralist political theology and would not recognize themselves in it if they had.

The Groyper movement’s actual voter base, stripped of the online amplification, is vanishingly small. Nick Fuentes cannot turn out precinct captains. He cannot fill a city council race. His million livestream viewers are a media phenomenon, not an electoral coalition.

She's right. Catholics do not vote as a bloc. They don't even vote Catholic. So again, what is there to be afraid of? There must be something.

This is why the operation must convert rather than persuade. It cannot win a fair fight for the Republican base because it does not represent the Republican base. So it must change the base — by demoralizing and theologically disorienting the evangelical voters who currently constitute it, by recruiting the next generation before they have formed stable convictions, and by capturing the institutional infrastructure through which that base is organized.

The aggression of the current moment — Carlson’s escalating attacks, Bannon’s declaration that Shapiro is a cancer, the shamelessness of the Young Republicans chats — is not the confidence of a movement that knows it is winning. It is the urgency of a movement that knows it does not have voters and needs to acquire them before the window closes.

And there you go. The author herself makes her own case that this is a nothing-thing. Yet, Cruz ordered us all: "READ every word of this. It’s the best & most comprehensive explanation of what we’re fighting."

Understanding that changes everything about how the counter-operation should be run. The goal is not to win a debate with Fuentes. The goal is to ensure that the evangelical base he is trying to convert understands, with clarity and confidence, what is being done to them, why, by whom, and what is at stake if it succeeds.

They are not being invited into a new political coalition. They are being hollowed out and replaced. And the people doing it are counting on them not to notice until it is too late.

Well, I conclude, at least for this portion, that this whole thing is absolutely comical. Really? Catholics converting Evangelicals? Hey, wait a minute!