National Catholic Reporter criticizes John-Henry Westen and others for attending Mar-a-Lago prayer fest

OPINION

Barry’s Bay resident and Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief of ultra-right conservative media blog LifeSite News, John Henry Westen, recently made a black tie pilgrimage to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate for a Catholic prayer event. LifeSite News published an article on Mar.20th, 2025 glorifying his attendance at the second annual “Catholic Prayer for America” gala where suspended* Bishop Joseph Strickland led prayers for the conversion to Catholicism of Donald J. Trump. Above: Mar-a-Lago (L Photo: wikipedia) and John-Henry Westen in black tie in Mar-a-Lago (R Photo: Facebook)

Michael Sean Winters, writing in the National Catholic Reporter, described the event in an opinion piece for NCR Voices on Mar.24th entitled Catholics for Catholics host schismatic gala at Mar-a-Lago. He provides quotes from an interview given by Westen to a LifeSite News reporter: “It was a wonderful evening which brought 100 priests to the house of the President in a historic gathering of prayer.” Winters goes into detail about why observant Catholics should be horrified by this behaviour. “Going to the private home of the president, who is not Catholic, having Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament in his ballroom, engaging in the kind of sycophancy that is required in Trumpland, the fervency of the devotion to the president set against the schismatic nastiness directed at [Pope] Francis, all these evidence a very un-Catholic approach to the relationship of the sacred and the profane.” He concludes his article by saying, “What happened at Mar-a-Lago was not patriotic and it wasn’t Catholic. It was idolatrous and it was appalling.”

The Current has previously reported on Westen’s activities in relation to LifeSite News. Specifically, we disclosed information concerning various of his conspiracy theories which were identified by the Canadian Anti-Hate Network. As just one example, see the first item entitled “National anti-hate group questions Seat of Wisdom policies and links to conspiracy theorists” LINK: April 5 2021 | Madawaska Valley Current  

On the subject of hate, Canadians have recently been targeted by a leading perpetrator of hate, Donald Trump. Much publicity has been given about the backlash his tirades have generated amongst Canadians who, among other things, find his lust for Canada to be utterly repulsive. A few days after returning from Mar-a-Lago, during an episode of his videoblog Faith and Reason, Westen discussed Trump’s comments about making Canada the 51st state. While acknowledging that Trump could possibly be trying to “jumpstart a real conservative movement” in Canada, Westen added, “It would be very useful for him to have Canada because there’s tons of natural resources that are untapped. We’ve got only 38 million people, they’ve got 380 million,” he said. “And the fact is, Canada is one-and-a-half times the United States’ size. We have huge untapped resources for oil in Alberta.” Westen also said that although the Liberal Party of Canada had benefited from increased support since Trump’s aim to annex Canada was publicized, this is a “false patriotism that ignores the country’s Catholic roots.”

Clearly Valley folks shouldn’t count on “black-tie pilgrims” like John-Henry Westen to join them as fellow “Elbows Up” Canadians.

* I use the term “suspended” for Strickland because the American Catholic served as the Bishop of Tyler in East Texas from 2012 until 2023 when Pope Francis removed him from office.