FBI says Pfleger on Watch List – By Chinta Strausberg
Putting aside his Sunday, June 22nd, sermon after Trump ordered an attack on Iran in support of Israel, Father Michael L. Pfleger told his congregation “war is good for absolutely nothing…and could lead to World War III” and that it’s being done by a “fascist cult called MAGA that has risen to power.”
Quoting from his mentor, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who said, ‘A nation that continues year-after-year and spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift that is approaching spiritual depths.’”
Pfleger made up his mind to exchange his sermon for a message of peace after learning that Trump had announced he had ordered a military strike against three Iranian nuclear sites at 6:51 p.m., Saturday, June 21st.
While it was declared as a “highly classified mission” few had knowledge of, according to Gen. Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Trump posted the attack on his social media site then called for peace to prevail. Pfleger said he couldn’t sleep most of the night.
In supporting the Israeli’s long-time fight with Iran, in the still of the night without detection by Iranian officials, according to U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, “Operation Midnight Hammer” allegedly destroyed three Iran’s nuclear sites using B-2 Spirit bomber planes that dropped 14 bunker Buster bombs that prompting Trump to declare the sites were “totally obliterated.”
Saying some people urged him not to speak out against the war much like Dr. King’s supporters who warned him not to speak against the Vietnam War, Father Pfleger said even though the FBI told him he was on their “Watch List,” he is not afraid of anyone.
Explaining, Father Pfleger said, “I am first a Christian, and I am committed to the radical revolutionary Jesus Christ. I am committed to his invigoration of Jesus Christ.” Pfleger said he is committed to speaking “truth to power.”
As an American citizen, Pfleger rejects this “co-signing of another dictator,” referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamen Netanyahu who first attacked Iran, which is his regional adversary.
Back in February, Netanyahu reportedly met with Trump and reminded him that Iran “had plotted to assassinate him,” according to an article in Time.
Netanyahu told Trump that Iran was “inching closer to crossing the nuclear threshold: increasing its stockpile of highly enriched uranium and advancing its centrifuge technology,” Time reported.
The Prime Minister then reportedly told Trump, “Look, Donald, this has to be tackled because they’re racing forward. You can’t have a nuclear Iran on your watch.” Time concluded these remarks by Netanyahu allegedly were key to getting Trump’s support to join him in attacking Iran.
Regardless, Pfleger rejected Trump’s attacking Iran in support of Israel, and he rejected the “co-signing of another dictator,” referring to Netanyahu he said, “who first struck Iran.”
Pfleger believes siding with the prime minister will only isolate U.S. allies while putting American citizens in danger.
Pointing to both political parties, Pfleger said Democrats and Republicans seem to be in a “toxin relationship with Israel and are co-conspirators in bombing and burning babies in Gaza and continuing to create and be a part of war in a warmongering spirit.”
Saying he knows some people who were watching him on the Internet and those in the church disagree with him on speaking out against Trump’s attack on Iran, Pfleger said he is led by his faith.
Referring to 50 years ago when he put his hands on the bible, Pfleger said he promised to teach the word “no matter whether in season or out of season, whether it was convenient or inconvenient,” he would be first to Jesus Christ and his word.
“Since I have been told by the FBI that my name is on the Watch List by this administration that they may raise that level, and I say raise that level.
“I am not afraid of man or woman. I have given my life to God, and he has proven for 50 years to take care of me, and I am not about to question if he can take care of me now,” said Pfleger.
While he said there are some who feel making an anti-Iranian war statement in the church is out-of-order and that it is better to “step away, close my eyes, turn off the TV and just take all that is going on,” Father Pfleger made it clear that, “The fact that you have given your life to Jesus Christ says you cannot ignore what is going on in the world.
“We have been sent into this world to transform it, to change it to make it just and righteous. Let justice and righteousness flow down like a river,” he bellowed.
“We are not called at a time for Christianity to be safe or to be casual. I put my hand on this bible, and I am too old and too stubborn to take it off now.”
Referring to a conversation he had with his nephew late last Saturday night, Father Pfleger said, “What we are watching is some kind of reality show” referring to a new episode happening every single day. “The truth is that it’s not a reality show,” said Pfleger. “It’s real life with real people, and it’s happening before us. happening to us.”
In trying to give an assessment of what is going on in America on the July 4th weekend in a historical perspective, Father Pfleger said, “Yesterday’s actions a reckless bombing
caused him to stay up most of the night to respond to the bombing.
“I always believed there were structures in place to protect this country form a fascist takeover, but the structures have become complicit and compromised by a cult called MAGA that has risen to power,” said Pfleger.
“What is worse to me is that these fascists identify themselves as Christians. It angered me last night. When Trump ended his public statement saying, ‘I thank God, and I thank Israel,’ Offended by Trump’s statement, Pfleger bellowed, “God has got nothing to do with the bombing of people. God has nothing to do with war and evil and injustice.
“Don’t you dare put my God’s name on your foolishness,” he bellowed getting a round of sustained applause from his congregation. “They don’t worship God. They worship power, money and themselves.”
Referring to Trump’s love for gold so much so that he has surrounded himself with gold in the Oval office. “That doesn’t surprise me because I’ve read the scriptures.
“I remember another time in history when Moses was up in the mountain land when the people decided to make their own god, and they built a golden calf. He and his administration are beginning to look like a golden calf who is trying to replace God and be god to themselves.
“We are watching the rights of millions of peoples jobs and First Amendment rights being snatched from them,” he warned ticking off a list of programs either reduced or eliminated including public education, medical research, history removed. “We are banning books while we are unraveling the Texans from guns.
“We see public education being removed all together so the states can control what they want and don’t want to teach. Children and adults are being snatched and deported. Protection for the poor and the elderly is ending. Free speech is being threatened.”
Pfleger said $2 billion are being taken from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). “Medicaid is being cut. Social Security is being cut. Understand hospitals will close across this country and not just in the inner cities” Pfleger said pointing to rural America and southern Illinois.
He warned that if Medicaid and Medicare are cut a hospital close, “People will die in this country because of what is taking place.”
Referring to ICE Agents ordered by Trump, who is the grandson of an immigrant, to ramp up the arrests and deportation of migrants, Father Pfleger said, “ICE is raiding homes, businesses, restaurants and now they’ve been given permission to go into churches.”
Pfleger turned his attention to the national guard whom Trump deployed 2,000 troops to Los Angeles after immigration protests were held. Pfleger objected to Trump’s use of the American military against U.S. citizen’s right to protest and even overriding the California governor and the mayor of Los Angeles.
“All of this was done breaking the Constitution and ignoring the Bill of Rights,” said Pfleger referring to the first 10 Amendments of the Constitution which gives Americans the freedom of speech, press, civil rights and religion. “And white supremacy is rising to new levels.”
“This president wants to enforce insurrection so that he can declare Marshall Law and now the bombing of Iran.”
Saying it is hard to track what is going on in this administration, Pfleger said, “People are weary. People are afraid. Some are depressed. Some are despairing, but the truth is while this MAGA maniac shouts Make America Great Again, the truth is America has never been great, better than some others, but America has never, ever been Great.
“This country was founded on aspiration, not reality,” said Pfleger. “The contradiction between what America has written to be and what America has shown herself to be is a contradiction that America has refused to acknowledge,” said Pfleger who noticed some people walking out of the church as he spoke. “Blessings to you,” he told them as they existed the sanctuary.
“This country was built on the belief that there were some people who were more worthy than others. Supremacy has always been claimed to be for some, but America’s true legacy and foundation of structure has been crafted since its beginning.
“When the foundation of the structure is cracked, everything built on top of it is doomed for failure. There is no allegiance to the notion of all people being created equal with equal rights. Rather, they believe that some were intended to be inferior.,” said Pfleger.
He referred to Paul Weyrich, who is one of three founders of the Heritage Foundation where “Mr. Trump is carrying out the Republican Project 2025. “He made it clear when he said, ‘They don’t want women to have equal rights anymore that they want Black and brown to have equal rights of whites.
“The destruction of the deep state means the destruction of the law. They believe that what they are doing is sanctioned and ordained by God. There is no more dangerous person in the universe than those who think that the evil and wickedness that they are doing that they are doing in the name of God. They are the most dangerous of all,” he said.
Reading from 1st Samuel 8th, Pfleger said the people cried out demanding a king. “God said, “They want a king? I’ll give them a king. See how that works for them.”
“We who call ourselves followers of Christ have an obligation, the responsibility now perhaps than any other time in history. We have the responsibility to do what Ephesians 6 told us, “Put on the full armor of God because our battle is not against flesh and blood but against the powers of the dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly realms.”
Also in Ephesians, it says “stand,” Pfleger said. “We must stand as Paul tells us with the buckle of truth around us. A belt holds us together. A belt holds things in place.
“Truth must be holds us in place. Truth must. Hold us together, not political correctness. Not the acceptable or easy or comfortable to go along to get along. This is not the time to go along and get along. This is the time to stand in truth. It is the key that holds us together.
“We must stand with the breastplate of righteousness in place because the breastplate of righteousness protects our house, protects our spirits and keeps them righteous when the toxicity of our world wants to throw us in so that we can meet evil with evil.
“We don’t fight evil with evil,” bellowed Pfleger. “We fight with truth and love and the spirit of the living God. We must have our feet with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. We must be in a place of peace and not let the chaos consume us.
“The devil and all his helpers want to pull us into the chaos so we respond to chaos with chaos, but we must be in a place of peace with our foot placed on the rock of Jesus and on his truths. Then take the shield of faith that can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Faith is what will hold us.
“Faith is what will protect us. Faith is what will steady us on a journey when everything is shifting from underneath us every single day. Faith will keep us from the evil one. Faith will make us stronger than the evil that wants to make us think it is stronger.
“God told me this night that it’s time to suit up as they have suited up because they will not stop until their takeover is complete.
“Either we will rose up as army and stop them or we will be walked over. Sometimes the trauma we live in wants us to close our eyes and pretend that we’re not seeing right in front of us. That is what Anne Frank said referring to the young Jewish girl who wrote “The Diary of a Young Girl” during the Holocaust where millions of Jews were killed in Germany by the Hitler regime. “The truth is we are watching our country slash and burn in real time,” warned Pfleger.
“I come as your shepherd to say believe what you are seeing because it is real.” Saying some people don’t want to watch the news anymore, but Pfleger reminded them that, “The news is still happening whether you watch it or not. It is shaping and forming us and sadly the reality of what is going on that is well said by the African proverb that says, “When elegance fight each other, the grass is what suffers.
“While these bullies of Iran, Israel, North Korea and Russia are fighting, it is the grass, it’s the poor, it’s the woman, it’s the elderly, it’s the forgotten, the elderly those are the ones who are being stomped on while these bullies ogo on with their games of madness. They are dangerous, and the grass is being stepped on.”
“I do not know what’s going to come next,” Pfleger told his congregation. “I, like many of you, are joined with David in Psalm 13 crying out ‘Hello, Lord. How long will the evil be permitted to continue its wicked ways?
“I don’t. know how long I learned a long time ago that God doesn’t act on my time. God is God and we will not surrender that Lordship.
“Here is what I do know that the God we serve is a God of light and he has placed that light inside of every single one of us and established that light in is to be the light of the world.
“When the enemy is coming, we stay. When the night is coming, we stay in the natural, we turn on the lights in our house to shadow the darkness. So it must be in the spiritual darkness that we are dealing with because evening has come in America only been living in dusk for a long time but now evening has come and when the evening has brought the evening of hate and prejudice and injustice, and evil and war and corruption, we will carry the light of Christ….
“We must be brighter than we’ve ever been. We must be stronger than ever before. We cannot be a dim light. We must be a bright light that outshines the darkness and let his light of truth and justice and righteousness and love shine brighter than it has ever shone before in history.
“This is not the time to hide or to run or to turn away. This is the time to stand up, to rise up with courage and with conviction.
“Here is what I do know that this fascist who may control the House and the Senate and the Supreme Court but he does not control the people of God and he does not control the mighty and the omnipotent God who sits on the throne, and I still know that nothing happens without his permission. He is God almighty. He is omnipotence….
“What I do know is that we have a God who sits high, doesn’t look low and throughout the history of this world has heard the cries of his people and it is those cries that delivered his children from Pharoah.
“It was those cries that caused Jesus to be born and for God to so love the Lord that he gave his only son to redeem us.
“It is those cries that came from slave ships and from plantations that rose the people up in spite of everything they tried to destroy them. They ended the legalization of slavery.
“It was those cries that elders and ancestors did not give up and crossed the Selma Bridge, beaten, broken and bloody, but they crossed the Selma Bridge.
“I know that God still hears his children. He still hears when we cry out, and I know that God will rescue his children. And I know his wrath will not remain silent. God will not be not.
“He will not allow evildoers to destroy and hate and kill and burn and do it in the name of his son. God will not be not. God is getting ready to move his hands and he will move it swiftly on behalf of his children.
If you believe our God hears the cries of his children, then I call on his children to cry out this morning,” Pfleger said inviting his congregation to join him in an intercession prayer around the altar.
“It is time for his children to cry out. If my people who have been called by his name, humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from your wicked ways, I will hear and heal them.”
At the end of his remarks, Father Pfleger passed out red door tags entitled: “Preservation of Life Campaign” with the biblical verse of Exodus 12.3-13…
And when I see the BLOOD, I WILL PASS OVER YOU…”
The door tags referenced the time when the blood of the lamb saved the Israelites from death during the Passover story. Father Pfleger asked his members to put the door tag on their doors.
