Time to Elect a Conservative Pope

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The 20-day clock began running on Easter Monday for a conclave to convene to select a successor to Pope Francis. Liberals around the world are intensely focused on this process, and conservatives should be too.

Fortunately, the conclave meets, discusses, and votes entirely in secret, just as our Constitutional Convention was in 1787 to write our U.S. Constitution. This denies the liberal media the exaggerated influence that it has over nearly everything else.

The convening cardinals take an oath of confidentiality and seclusion in the Sistine Chapel, below the depiction by Michelangelo of God’s creation of Adam on the ceiling. None of our Founding Fathers breached their oath of secrecy during our Constitutional Convention, and none of the cardinals in a modern conclave has, despite leakers in every government today.

The deliberations are face-to-face and the casting of ballots is in-person, not by proxy or mail-in voting that have recently undermined American elections.

Only twice in this century has there been a conclave, which is comprised of cardinals who are less than 80 years old. They total 120 now, most of whom were appointed by Pope Francis himself.

The rules of the conclave are to cast one ballot the first evening to gauge initial preferences, without expecting anyone to prevail immediately. Then balloting is done multiple times each day, with a new pope typically announced within a few days.

Ballots are burned with only their smoke emanating for public view from the rickety chimney: black smoke means no winner has yet prevailed, while white smoke announces to the world that a new pope has been chosen.

A two-thirds majority is required to elect a new pope. The cardinals are housed in the same spartan quarters where the ascetic Pope Francis lived, which has been compared to a mere three-star hotel with modest meals to prevent them from getting too comfy.

President Trump announced that he and First Lady Melania will attend the funeral of Pope Francis at the Vatican, which is scheduled for Saturday. In further exercise of his leadership, President Trump has also ordered flags to be flown at half-mast in respect for the leader of 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide.

President Emmanuel Macron of France announced that he too will attend, as will the Chancellor of Germany. Prince William will represent the King of England, along with the U.K. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.

The conclave follows within two weeks of this funeral, and could be a make-or-break moment for the traditional dominance by Italians who had been selected as pope for 450 years until Pope John Paul II, who was surprisingly picked as the first Polish pope in 1978. Pope Francis was an Argentinian of Italian descent.

Pope John Paul II was a shining example that the conclave should follow today. Picked for his strong values and immense charisma, he then became instrumental in overcoming communism in all of Eastern Europe and was an invaluable ally of President Ronald Reagan.

Today’s crises of transgender activism, rampant immorality, and an imploding birth rate threaten the entire world, including the Catholic Church. Atheism and other rivals to Christianity are growing faster in some communities, and religion has all but disappeared in many aspects of the Western world.

Pundits expect a more conservative successor to Pope Francis to be chosen. The Catholic Church is booming throughout Africa, where the cardinals are so conservative that some openly criticized liberal statements by Pope Francis at the risk of being disciplined by him, which he declined to do in light of their tremendous success in evangelizing there.

The Latin Mass, a favorite of many conservative Catholics, was marginalized under Pope Francis but could find a resurgence under his successor. The word “conclave” itself comes from the Latin for “with a key.”

Africa has surpassed North America in its number of cardinals who will participate in this conclave, and it is unlikely that an American will be chosen as the next pope. Conservative Cardinal Raymond Burke, once the archbishop of St. Louis, would be an excellent choice.

The presiding cardinal will be the Italian Pietro Parolin, having an optimal age of 70, who was sharply critical of same-sex marriage in Italy. But African cardinals, such as Robert Sarah (age 79) from Guinea, are more conservative and could be a bolder choice as Pope John Paul II successfully was.

Cardinal Sarah vocally opposed blessings on same-sex couples, in defiance of Pope Francis. The 76-year-old African Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana, is also a leading contender.

A sentiment in the last conclave was to pick a pope from South America, which resulted in the election of Pope Francis. This time, it might be Africa’s turn and that would result in a turn to the right, too.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

More Trump than Trump at the White House

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

A surprise visit by the president of El Salvador to the White House on Monday was like a breath of fresh air from south of our border. Nayib Bukele, recently reelected by a landslide as Latin America’s most popular leader, was more Trump than Trump in defying media demands to return to the U.S. a Salvadoran whom Trump recently deported.

Federal judge Paula Xinis had ordered the return to the U.S. of the deported Salvadoran, to which Trump’s Attorney General Pam Bondi replied that it is “up to El Salvador if they want to return him.” Identified as Kilmar Abrego García, he had been allowed in 2019 to remain in the U.S. based on his alleged fear of retaliation by a gang in his homeland.

“How can I return him to the United States?” El Salvador President Bukele responded to the liberal media. “I smuggle him into the United States or what do I do? Of course, I’m not going to do it. The question is preposterous.”

Bukele’s charming graciousness at the White House stood in stark contrast with other foreign visitors. Bukele declared that it is an “honor to be here” and that “we’re very eager to help” President Trump reduce terrorism and all crime.

Bukele praised Trump’s work on the border as “remarkable.” Bukele himself has achieved a sharp reduction in crime in El Salvador, which he attributes in part to prayer.

Trump effusively praised Bukele prior to their meeting, in a posting on Truth Social. “President Bukele has graciously accepted into his Nation’s custody some of the most violent alien enemies of the World and, in particular, the United States,” Mr. Trump posted.

Trump’s Department of Justice has informed Judge Xinis of El Salvador’s unwillingness to return this illegal alien to the United States. Attorney General Bondi pointed out to the press that this alien was in our country unlawfully, so what’s the big fuss about trying to return him to his homeland?

It is unclear what Judge Xinis’ next move will be, and she held a hearing late Tuesday afternoon to indicate that she would elaborate on her court order for the Trump Administration to “facilitate” the return of Garcia from El Salvador. Courts rarely order a president to do something, particularly something that may not even be within the president’s power to do, and whatever she orders will surely be appealed back to the Supreme Court.

Courts do not have any way to enforce their orders without the support and cooperation of the Executive Branch, as run now by President Trump. So far he has promised to obey the law, but many federal courts have been continuing to issue orders that test Trump’s willingness to cooperate, and deportation pits federal courts directly against Trump’s authority as president.

Last weekend in Maine, a federal court ordered Trump to restart federal funding of Maine schools despite how they are defying his Executive Order against transgender athletes playing in girls’ sports. This was the focus of a sharp exchange between Trump and the Democrat Maine governor during a luncheon at the White House seven weeks ago.

Subsequently a federal judge ordered Trump to jump through some bureaucratic hoops before even trying to cut off this federal money from Maine schools. Neither Trump nor our country has the time for that as transgender activism swiftly marches ahead.

A total of 11 states have announced that they will not comply with directives from Trump’s Department of Education to stop using DEI or else lose federal funding, which sets up additional lawsuits against presidential authority.

In Ecuador, voters just elected their own conservative equivalent of Trump on Sunday. The liberal media laments how successful the conservative movement is in sweeping across Central and South America today.

Less than a generation ago, the countries south of our border were fertile ground for the spread of communism. Hugo Chavez rose to become a communist dictator in 1998 in Venezuela and ruined it before succumbing at a young age to cancer, as hospitals in communist countries including Cuba were ill-equipped from the poverty that communism causes.

The news show 60 Minutes analyzed the backgrounds of the group of Venezuelans and El Salvadorans deported by Trump to El Salvador, and about a dozen have been charged with murder, rape, assault, or kidnapping. More than one-fifth of the group has a criminal record somewhere, although mostly for non-violent crimes.

Courts are forcing our president to spend an inordinate amount of time on the fate of a few hundred illegal aliens who never should have been here in the first place. Recent surveys show that most American citizens are concerned about the economy, and it is not helping to keep illegal aliens here when jobs are scarce for Americans.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

Lawfare Versus Trump and Our Country

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

The Left has filed more than 170 lawsuits against President Trump despite his commanding margin of victory last November. Lawsuits by liberal nonprofits frustrate the will of the People by blocking Trump’s ability to deport dangerous foreigners, downsize government, and end the funding of harmful projects.

On Monday night, the Supreme Court gave Trump a partial victory on his deportation of Venezuelan gang members, but included enough loopholes for the Left to continue its interference with his executive authority. The Court properly tossed out Democrat-appointed D.C. federal judge James Boasberg’s class-action certification for illegal aliens, but allowed immigration groups to sue in Texas instead.

The Court invited individual lawsuits to be brought on behalf of every single person whom Trump tries to deport. Lawsuits take years to litigate, and the practical result is that only a handful could be deported.

An essentially infinite amount of money and free legal time is available on the Left to try to thwart Trump at every turn. Biden, Obama, and Clinton filled the federal judiciary with hundreds of judges who welcome these lawsuits.

The response by Judge Boasberg on Tuesday was alarming. He ordered the submission of additional briefs in the Venezuelan deportation case, rather than dismiss it for lack of jurisdiction as the Supreme Court held.

In a separate ruling Monday, the High Court suspended an order by another Obama-appointed judge requiring the government to bring back an alien deported to El Salvador. Newly confirmed Solicitor General John Sauer won his first case right out of the gate when Chief Justice Roberts quickly granted Sauer’s emergency application for a stay of the order requiring Trump to bring back an alleged MS-13 gang member from El Salvador.

Sauer has arrived in D.C. just in time as the emergency appeals to the Supreme Court in the next 60 days may decide the ability of Trump to enact the mandate of the People who elected him. After the Supreme Court refused to stay an injunction against one of Trump’s defunding orders, last Friday night a 5-4 ruling allowed Trump to cut off a small amount of educational funding to states.

On March 24, Biden-appointed Judge Deborah Boardman had issued a 68-page preliminary injunction that prohibited the Departments of the Treasury, Education, and OPM from sharing data with DOGE, which is Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency in charge of downsizing. The court surprisingly invoked the 51-year-old Privacy Act of 1974 to interfere with federal agencies sharing information with each other.

Quickly appealed by the Trump Administration to the Fourth Circuit, a fortunate random selection of 2 Republicans and 1 Democrat were assigned to this case and they issued a stay of the activist ruling pending appeal. Next a Democrat-appointed panel judge requested a hearing en banc, which was defeated by an 8-7 vote such that the good decision stands.

But Democrats have a commanding 7-4 active-judge majority on the D.C. Circuit, where many of the challenges to Trump go on appeal. In a nearly unprecedented move, the D.C. Circuit just went en banc to reverse a panel decision that had allowed Trump to fire a member of the National Labor Relations Board, and a member of the Merit Systems Protection Board.

Even left-leaning Politico called this order by the D.C. Circuit as “highly unusual.” This tees up another case for Sauer to argue in the Supreme Court, perhaps on an emergency basis, in order to restore the authority of the president to fire high-ranking federal officials.

On Tuesday the Supreme Court held in favor of Trump by staying an injunction against his firing of 16,000 federal probationary workers. By a 7-2 margin, the High Court found that the plaintiff organizations lacked standing to object to these terminations, such that these firings can proceed.

The Leftist lawfare is “popping up every single day, trying to control his executive power. ... It’s basically a game of whack-a-mole with these District Court judges ... But that’s why we’re appealing all of these cases ... up to the Supreme Court,” Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News Sunday.

On Tuesday morning, the ACLU quickly filed a new lawsuit in New York to invoke the right established by the Supreme Court on Monday night for illegal aliens: a right of habeas corpus to challenge their detention. But their detention is only temporary before they would be deported and attain freedom back in their homeland.

John Sauer, the man who overcame the lawfare against candidate Trump such that he could be elected president, is the new Solicitor General in charge of cases before the Supreme Court. He is certainly going to be very busy in appealing and overturning the activist rulings by Democrat-appointed lower court judges against Trump’s program to Make America Great Again.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.

Supreme Court’s Getting Busy

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

Suddenly the Supreme Court has a pile of cases that could decide the future of the MAGA movement, on everything from deportation to transgender policy to firing federal workers. The queue stacks up at the High Court with appeals of judicial activist rulings against Trump.

Liberals are shrewd enough to file their lawsuits against Trump in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth, First, and D.C. Circuits, which rule for them nearly every time. The anti-Trumpers then hedge their bet by filing multiple identical lawsuits within additional left-leaning Circuits, while meticulously avoiding the Republican-dominated Fifth and Eighth Circuits.

While a candidate, Trump heroically overcame lawfare against him which has blocked presidential candidates in Brazil, Romania, and most recently in France. “That sounds like this country,” Trump complained about the French judge who recently banned Marine Le Pen from running for president while “she was the leading candidate.”

The Ninth Circuit just ordered Trump to allow transgender soldiers to remain in our military. The Democrat-majority Ninth Circuit denied a request by Trump to stay a ruling by a federal court in Tacoma, Washington, that blocks Trump from eradicating the transgender culture that has crept into our Armed Services.

San Francisco is a venue favored by liberals for their lawfare against Trump, and one of the many Democrat-appointed judges there just blocked the revocation of temporary protected status (TPS) for 350,000 Venezuelans. Through this TPS status, which should never have been granted by the Biden Administration, Trump is being prevented from deporting these non-citizens back to their homes.

It is onward from these activist courts to the Supreme Court, which traditionally has deferred to the president on military issues, as he is the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces. But the Supreme Court has been wobbly on the transgender issue, and Chief Justice Roberts may seek a compromise middle ground where there is none.

On Tuesday, Democrats controlling 23 states and Washington, D.C., filed a new lawsuit against Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and its Secretary, RFK Jr., over their cancellation of $12 billion in funding. “The COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago,” HHS announced.

RFK Jr. has proven to be one of Trump’s finest Cabinet picks, firing 10,000 employees from the bloated HHS bureaucracy while shifting it away from its hidden agenda to promote the pharmaceutical industry. Vaccine stocks fell on Monday after the departure last Friday of the FDA official who oversaw the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines.

This week the Court is already tackling the issue of deporting illegal aliens to Venezuela, as Chief Justice Roberts ordered a speedy response by 10 a.m. on Tuesday from the plaintiffs who persuaded Judge James Boasberg to block deportations by Trump. Already before the High Court are cases concerning Trump’s suspension of funding of DEI programs in schools, his termination of birthright citizenship, and his firing of probationary federal employees.

The acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris, who formerly clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas, wrote in her brief to the Supreme Court, “Does a single district-court judge who likely lacks jurisdiction have the unchecked power to compel the government of the United States to pay out (and probably lose forever) millions in taxpayer dollars?”

“This court should put a swift end to federal district courts’ unconstitutional reign as self-appointed managers of executive branch funding and grant-disbursement decisions,” she argued.

Meanwhile, the abortion shield law enacted by the State of New York has resulted in a court clerk there refusing to register a judgment obtained by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton against a New York abortion provider. The judgment is based on a New York physician prescribing chemical abortion pills to someone in Texas contrary to Texas law.

The blue states of California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington have all enacted laws to shield their abortionists who expand their services into red states that restrict abortion. When there is enforcement of pro-life laws against out-of-state abortion providers, the blue states refuse to allow the registration of judgments from other states.

Louisiana has issued a criminal indictment against the same New York abortionist on charges of illegally prescribing chemical abortion to a teenager in Louisiana. The Democrat New York Governor refuses to extradite the defendant to Louisiana.

These pro-abortion shield laws violate the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which commands states to recognize each other’s court rulings. Not since before the Civil War has there been such open defiance by one group of states against another, and the Supreme Court will be asked to resolve this, too.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.