How neofascism is taking the world’s religions hostage

We are witnessing a wave of neofascism that has changed the relationship between politics and religion. Specifically, the three monotheistic religions — Judaism, Christianity and Islam — are today being taken hostage by various systems of domination and their leaders.

By necrocapitalism — a term describing an economic order organized around death and dispossession — which exercises the most necrophilic form of structural economic violence in history against the popular majorities.

It fills the world with corpses through the voracious accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few, dissolves the state and hands it over to global markets and capital, deliberately excludes impoverished people (the “throwaway culture,” as Pope Francis called it), and seeks to enlist religions to legitimize the interests of the wealthy.

By Trump’s Christo-neofascism, which has placed God at the service of the Empire. In February 2025, Trump signed an executive order re-establishing the White House Faith Office and appointed Pentecostal preacher Paula White-Cain — widely described as an evangelical pastor — to lead it, as reported by Religion News Service and Word&Way.

It enjoys the support of fundamentalist Christian movements to legitimize its warmongering, xenophobic, racist, supremacist, sexist and homophobic policies, which violate international law and run counter to Gospel values and human rights.

Two of the most outrageous actions by US Christian hierarchies in support of Trump — which shame both Democrats and Christians — were the prayer and blessing offered to Trump by evangelical pastors, and the prayer bestowed on him by Catholic bishops 12 days before the midterm elections. Both events took place in the Oval Office.

The first took place on March 5, 2026, when about 20 evangelical leaders, including Paula White-Cain, Robert Jeffress and Ralph Reed, gathered around Trump at the Resolute Desk, some laying hands on him, and prayed for U.S. success during the escalating war with Iran,as reported by multiple outlets including the Christian Post and Baptist News Global.

The second took place on Oct. 22, 2026 — twelve days before the Nov. 3 midterms — when 12 US Catholic bishops, including Denver Archbishop James Golka, prayed over Trump in the Oval Office, as reported by the National Catholic Reporter and America Magazine.

The U.S. bishops’ conference said afterward that it had not organized the gathering, and at least two of the bishops involved later said they regretted attending, saying they felt “exploited.”

I trust that Christo-neofascism will be weakened by the resounding defeats Trump suffered at the ballot box in the Nov. 3 midterm elections and Flavio Bolsonaro suffered in Brazil’s Oct. 25 runoff election, after which he fled to the United States rather than comply with a Supreme Court order to surrender his passport, as reported by Reuters and AFP.

By Christian Zionism, which supports the genocidal colonialism Israel imposes on Palestine, relying on the exclusionary principles of “Chosen People” and “Promised Land,” understood in a fundamentalist manner and without contextualization.

By Netanyahu’s Zionist neofascism, which has caused more than 74,000 deaths in Gaza according to the Hamas-run health ministry’s count as of early November 2026, as reported by Press TV and other outlets citing that ministry, along with deaths and the occupation of land in the West Bank by Jewish settlers, and deaths in Lebanon.

It appeals to texts from the Jewish Bible to justify its hatred of the lives of Palestinians and Lebanese people — a hatred it claims is grounded in the image of a violent God.

By the warmongering Catholicism of Colombia’s president, Abelardo de la Espriella, who took office amid a strong religious presence and militaristic atmosphere, closing a formal address with the phrase “¡Viva Cristo Rey!” (“Long live Christ the King!”),as reported by Colombian outlets including Blu Radio andPublimetro.

A Bogotá court has since ordered him to refrain from official acts implying religious adherence, citing the constitutional principle of state secularism. He is determined to bring the nation back to God and has framed his government around a “cultural battle” to restore traditional family values.

By Saudi Arabia’s petro-Islam, which spreads a fundamentalist and extremist interpretation of Sunni Islam, in its Wahhabi form, internationally. This interpretation is disseminated through the country’s massive oil exports and constitutes one of the greatest perversions of original Islam.

By the Russian Orthodox Church, led by Patriarch Kirill, which supports and blesses Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and has provoked outrage within the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

By techno-feudalism, which economist Yanis Varoufakis describes in his book Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism as a new order in which “cloud capital” has displaced markets and profits, capitalism’s traditional pillars — the Spanish edition’s subtitle renders this as “the stealthy successor to capitalism.”

It turns us into new serfs, makes technology an instrument of global domination, governs citizens’ lives through algorithms, nullifying their freedom, and widens inequality gaps.

By Nayib Bukele’s illiberal and repressive politics in El Salvador, blessed by evangelical pastors and, according to critics, in tension with the country’s own constitution.

He has positioned himself as the nation’s savior, becoming, in human rights groups’ assessment, the jailer not only of gangs but also of dissidents, turning the country’s mass-incarceration policy into a defining feature of his rule.

By necropolitics — a term, drawn from the work of philosopher Achille Mbembe, describing the power to decide who may die — the coalition of all powers to decide who may die among the popular majorities and who must live.

The latest manifestation of necropolitics in Spain was the deaths of migrants from Morocco and sub-Saharan Africa attempting to reach the city of Ceuta by swimming on July 30–31, 2026.

The death toll is disputed: Spanish and Moroccan authorities recorded roughly 77 to 88 confirmed deaths, while the migrant-rights group Caminando Fronteras estimated at least 141 deaths, as reported by TASS and other outlets.

They were anonymous people whom very few of us mourned, remembered or felt compassion for.

By femicide-driven patriarchy, which, based on hegemonic masculinities, discriminates against half the world’s population, puts God on its side to justify intersectional discrimination and violence against women out of hatred for their lives, and causes thousands of murders of women, many of which go unpunished by patriarchal justice.

In Spain, by the alliance between the political, social, cultural and economic far right (Vox, Manos Limpias, Falangist parties, among others) and fundamentalist Christian movements (fundamentalist evangelical churches, HazteOír, a socially conservative advocacy group, the Association of Christian Lawyers, among others).

These groups roll back human rights, deny gender-based violence and climate change, and claim to defend the authentic values of Christianity when, in fact, they are replacing those values with their opposites.

Trump, Netanyahu, Bukele and De la Espriella have become the theologians of neofascism, which is neutralizing the liberating interpretation of the foundational texts of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

The result is the creation of a new international monotheistic religion characterized by hate speech against feminism, gender theory — which it disparagingly labels “gender ideology” — LGBTQ+ groups, abortion, the denial of gender-based violence, sexual and reproductive rights, sex education, and international law and human rights.

The systems of domination described above and their leaders, who profess to be Christians, Jews or Muslims, have replaced love with hatred, forgiveness with revenge, and the defense of life with murder and genocide.

They have replaced the social friendship of which Pope Francis spoke with the friend-enemy dialectic, and hospitality with xenophobia and aporophobic — a term coined by philosopher Adela Cortina meaning fear or rejection of the poor — racism.

They have replaced fraternity and sisterhood with discrimination against women, respect for others with intolerance toward people and groups considered “different,” and compassion for victims with insensitivity to the suffering of innocent people.

They have replaced recognition of the dignity of all human beings with national priority, which denies the dignity and human rights of migrants and is the most insidious form of “ethnic cleansing.”

Is there a response to such a takeover? Is it possible to deconstruct Christo-neofascism and recover liberating Christianity?

Can religions contribute to rebuilding the social fabric and shaping interreligious, intercultural and interethnic societies that show compassion for the victims of the systems of domination described above?

I believe there are experiences of solidarity and collective projects — many of them led by young people, both within religions and in society — moving in that direction and giving us reason to hope for ANOTHER POSSIBLE WORLD.

This is a translated and edited version of the column that first appeared on Religion Digital and has been republished with permission. The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of Global Catholic.