On Sunday, people around the world went on social media to offer Easter greetings. Many included photos of themselves and their family members dressed up for worship, and often people added a comment about the empty tomb, how “he is risen,” or some other theological declaration to mark the occasion. But not everyone understood the assignment.
“Happy Easter to all, including the Radical Left Lunatics who are fighting and scheming so hard to bring Murderers, Drug Lords, Dangerous Prisoners, the Mentally Insane, and well known MS-13 Gang Members and Wife Beaters, back into our Country,” President Donald Trump wrote on social media Sunday morning. “Happy Easter also to the WEAK and INEFFECTIVE Judges and Law Enforcement Officials who are allowing this sinister attack on our Nation to continue, an attack so violent that it will never be forgotten!”
Although he included the words “Happy Easter,” the message wasn’t really an Easter one. He just used the occasion to offer inaccurate attacks on those he disagrees with politically. In the rambling post, he went on to blast “Sleepy Joe Biden” as “incompetent” and falsely claim the 2020 presidential election was stolen. He then added that to Biden the “Moron,” he wishes “with great love, sincerity, and affection, a very Happy Easter!!!”
Trump then skipped church and went golfing on one of his properties (which isn’t surprising since other than funerals and inauguration events, he hasn’t attended a church service in nearly 3.5 years). Trump’s social media posts later on Easter fit his partisan tone as he defended tariffs and attacked judges who’ve ruled against him. He also offered his theology about the Golden Rule, which is no longer about treating others as you’d like them to treat you: “The Golden Rule of negotiating and success: He who has the gold makes the rules. Thank you!” And he mixed in another Easter reference with his political agenda, as if the holy day is just a talking point for imperial power: “Happy Easter. We will make America great again!”
To be clear, we don’t care if the president offers an Easter greeting. Our faith doesn’t need such affirmation from any Caesar or Pilate. But if he’s going to co-opt Easter in such grossly partisan and derogatory ways, it deserves condemnation. One of us preached on Easter and would’ve been in serious trouble if we had used the moment to call Trump, Biden, or a pastor down the street a “moron.” Yet, many MAGAchurch pastors continue to insist Trump is a righteous figure bringing a spiritual revival to the White House. They even used a Holy Week event last week to sing the praises of Trump.
“There’s been a spiritual drought in this city the last few years — and in this house,” evangelist Franklin Graham declared at a fancy White House dinner with Trump on April 16 as he thanked Trump for allegedly lifting up Easter. Despite Graham’s slander against Biden, by that point in his presidency, Biden had attended Mass eight times and went on to attend services more than any other modern president.
A few moments later, Trump spoke at the White House event organized by prosperity gospel preacher Paula White-Cain. He started his remarks by talking about his electoral support from White evangelicals and the beauty of the White House. Speaking at a podium built on the back of a golden eagle, he offered traditional Easter remarks like taking shots at Biden, talking about “securing our borders” and “rebuilding the U.S. military,” attacking transgender people, and saying he was going to “make America great again.”
Screenshot as President Donald Trump speaks at a White House Easter dinner on April 16, 2025.
“This is really, I hope, going to be one of the great Easters ever because we have something going that I don’t think this country has seen in 100 years,” Trump added after recounting what he thought his administration had accomplished. “America has put our trust in God. It will always be ‘In God We Trust.’ We will never change that. You know there’s a movement to change it? It will not happen.”
In Trump’s worldview, it seems that Easter is like any other day: all about him, his personal grudges, and his longing to be viewed as great. And the room full of evangelical and charismatic preachers set down the fine china and fancy cutlery to applaud. The sign of betraying the gospel at a Holy Week meal doesn’t always involve dipping bread.
The Trumpian Easter messages were just one side of people thinking about the holy season this year. There was a clash of Catholic values as J.D. Vance arrived at the Vatican for what turned out to be Pope Francis’s final weekend. And there were many progressive pastors who wrestled in their sermons on Sunday with what it means to believe in the promise of Resurrection even when things seem to be falling apart. So this issue of A Public Witness explores the intra-Catholic Easter weekend and multiple Easter sermons from progressive ministers.
Vance Versus the Vatican
Less than 24 hours before Pope Francis died, he briefly welcomed J.D. Vance to the Vatican. The encounter only lasted a few minutes due to the pope’s health and was focused on the exchange of Easter greetings between the leader of a faith and someone who converted to it in 2019. But it also marked two opposing sides of significant debates within Catholicism. Francis had been an outspoken critic of the anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies of Vance and Trump, calling mass deportation plans a “disgrace” and “a grave sin.”
“I have followed closely the major crisis that is taking place in the United States with the initiation of a program of mass deportations,” Francis wrote in a letter to U.S. Catholic bishops in February. “The rightly formed conscience cannot fail to make a critical judgment and express its disagreement with any measure that tacitly or explicitly identifies the illegal status of some migrants with criminality.”
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