These violent Christian fundamentalists are no more "followers of Jesus" than ISIS fundamentalists are followers of Mohammed.

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Readings for Pentecost Sunday: ACTS 2:1-11; PS 104: 1, 24, 29,-31, 34; I COR 12: 3B-7, 12-13; JN 20: 19-23.

We all saw it last Thursday, didn't we?

A rich white septuagenarian president stood (ironically) in a garden before a crowd of other rich white old men. He bravely announced a decision whose negative repercussions will be mostly felt after all of them are dead. What courage!

"We're withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord," the speaker fearlessly proclaimed. "We're putting ourselves first! It's the American way! It's the capitalist way! America first! America first!"

The old men in the audience wildly applauded the ignorant dolt at the lectern who probably can't remember the last time he cracked a book. And why not? They're just uninformed dolts themselves. And yet, they have to gall to contradict the near-unanimous conclusions of the smartest people on the planet.

Can you spell "arrogance?" Can you smell it? Or maybe you can hear it. It sounds like this: "U.S.A! U.S.A.! We're putting ourselves first! We're making America great again!"

None of them seem to care, do they? As I said, they won't bear the brunt of their egotistical stupidity -- of their ecological terrorism. Instead, their children and grandchildren will be stuck with the unpayable tab. And so will ours. Our children and the grandkids we know and love will be the ones whose lives will be immiserated by these fools.

"But Who cares about them?" the rich old white men say by their actions. "To hell with children everywhere. To hell with the planet for that matter. We'll be long dead when the hurricanes blow, the heatwaves desiccate, and the forest fires rage. We'll be gone when the waves of refugees swarm the globe in search of water, food, and shelter after the rising seas have destroyed their homes and livelihoods. Good luck with all that, kids! We don't care about you. We care about what's really important: MONEY! Can't get enough of it!"

No wonder Noam Chomsky calls this rogue group of Christian terrorists (the Republican Party) "the most dangerous organization in the history of the world."

Yes, that's what Chomsky said. That's what I just said. Yes, be reminded, on this Pentecost Sunday that these people call themselves Christians, and they're more dangerous than ISIS. Most of them, I suppose, have been baptized and confirmed. They believe they have received Jesus' Holy Spirit. Evidently on this day of Pentecost, they hear that Spirit saying:

• Before all else, be separate; be individuals; God is not everyone's Parent -- just yours.
• There is no such thing as the common good; the earth belongs only to those who can pay for it -- or fight wars to steal it.
• Your country is an island specially blessed by God.
• So put yourselves first just as Jesus did.
• Despise foreigners just like the Master.
• Ignore the suffering of others; that's the Christian way.
• And if they threaten you in any way, kill them just as Jesus killed his enemies.
• And even if they don't, (as a Great Woman once said) "Let them eat cake!"

It's all so familiar. But, of course, such belief has nothing to do with Jesus or his Holy Spirit celebrated in Pentecost's liturgy of the word. There the whole thing is about human unity, mutual responsibility and care for the most vulnerable.

Look at that first reading. It depicts the Holy Spirit as uniting people from across the globe. No "Me First," no "Us First" here. The list of God's children is long and diverse for a reason: Parthians and Medes and Elamites, Mesopotamians, Judeans, Cappadocians, and people from Pontus and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, Egypt, Libya, Cyrene and Rome, Jews and converts to Judaism, along with Cretans and Arabs. The list's length means that everyone is included. Everyone (as the Responsorial Psalm puts it) is a beloved creature of the Great All-Parent. No one is dispensable in God's eyes.

The reading from First Corinthians makes the same point. There Paul reminds his friends that they are all members of a single Body of Christ. That's Paul's favorite image. We are all one body, he said, made one by Jesus' Spirit -- whether we're Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, woman or man. There's no room for "Romans First" here -- not even "Jews First."

But then, today's gospel reading reminds us that God does in fact play favorites. God has made a "preferential option" putting the welfare of some ahead of others. The preferred ones, Jesus indicates, are the very ones who will be most harmed by climate chaos. They are not the septuagenarians who usually end up running empires. Instead, they are empire's wounded victims. That's the meaning of the risen Christ's showing his wounds to his apostles. He once again discloses himself as the tortured victim of capital punishment -- as present in the planet's most vulnerable. By showing his wounds, Jesus reinforced what he's recorded as saying at the end of Matthew 25, "Whatever you do to the least in my family, you do to me."

Could anything be more contradictory to what was said and celebrated last Thursday in the imperial Rose Garden? Could anything be further from "To hell with children; to hell with the planet, to hell with the poor who will be the first to suffer from climate change?"

On this Pentecost Sunday, every baptized and confirmed person should be outraged at the hypocrisy.

Authors Website: http://mikerivageseul.wordpress.com/

Authors Bio:

Mike Rivage-Seul is a liberation theologian and former Roman Catholic priest. His undergraduate degree in philosophy was received from St. Columban's Major Seminary in Milton Massachusetts and awarded through D.C.'s Catholic University. He received his theology licentiate from the Atheneum Anselmianum and his doctorate in moral theology (magna cum laude) from the Academia Alfonsiana in Rome where Mike studied for five years. There he also played club basketball for Eurosport and a team within Rome's Stella Azzurra professional organization. In 1972 he served for a year as coordinator of volunteers in Monsignor Ralph Beiting's Christian Appalachian Project. Then for 40 years, Mike taught theology and general studies at Berea College in Kentucky receiving its Seabury Award for excellence in teaching, Berea's highest faculty award. At Berea, Mike founded its Peace and Social Justice Studies program. He and his wife, Peggy, also organized and started the Berea Interfaith Taskforce for Peace. For years, he periodically taught liberation theology in a Latin American Studies Program in Costa Rica sponsored by the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. In Costa Rica Mike and Peggy were fellows at the liberation theology research institute, the Departamento Ecumenico de Investigaciones (DEI) headed by the great Franz Hinkelammert. In Mexico, they also served as fellows and program directors in San Miguel de Allende's Center for Global Justice. Mike's studies and teaching have brought him to countries across Europe and to Cuba (on 10 occasions), Nicaragua (12 occasions), Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Israel, India, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Brazil where he and Peggy were associates of Paulo Freire. Mike's languages include Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, Italian, German, Portuguese, and Spanish. For three years he was a monthly columnist at the Lexington Herald-Leader in Lexington Kentucky. He has contributed more than 400 articles to the online news source OpEdNews where he is a senior editor. He has also published in the DEI's Pasos Journal, in the National Catholic Reporter and Christianity Today. His scholarship has been cited in the New York Times. Mike has authored or edited 10 books including one of poetry and a novel based on his experiences in Cuba. His latest book is The Magic Glasses of Critical Thinking: seeing through alternative fact & fake news (Peter Lang publishers). He blogs at http://mikerivageseul.wordpress.com/ Attempting to appropriate his identity as an ordained exorcist (all Catholic priests are), Mike also reads Tarot cards. He is a lifelong golfer and Chicago Cubs fan.