January 23, 2021
The Damnatio Memoriae of Donald Trump
By Rev. Peter M. J. Stravinskas
Back in my high school English classes, we were treated to one Shakespearean play each year and were required to commit to memory a soliloquy from each. I can still recite the whole of Portia’s hymn to mercy from The Merchant of Venice. Sophomore year, the play was Julius Caesar, so as to coincide with our Latin course which had us translate Caesar’s De Bello Gallico. Marc Antony’s panegyric for Caesar sprung to mind as one after another former friend and supporter of President Donald Trump flipped sides, essentially engaging in a favorite ancient Roman exercise of damnatio memoriae (the damnation or cancellation of the memory of someone). I pray that I have been sufficiently inoculated against that terrible virus.
Sometimes friends are irked by my refusal to paint persons and situations with a broad brush, even bringing up good traits in otherwise bad individuals. I attribute that “flaw†of mine to a profound sense of justice, which is generally defined as giving to each person his due. That’s why, for example, I refused to get onboard the “cancel McCarrick†train as I pointed out all the good he had done (particularly as Archbishop of Newark, where he reclaimed Seton Hall University from secular control; banned General Absolution; brought Catholic schools back from the brink; packed the seminaries; returned the Archdiocese to full communion with the Catholic Church – all done to undo the immense damage done by his predecessor.)
I find myself in a similar place with the now-former President Trump. I do so with no small degree of trepidation, fearing that I might be opening myself up to the “deprogramming†called for by Katie Couric for members of the “Trump cult.â€
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https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/01/the_emdamnatio_memoriaeem_of_donald_trump.html
