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Daredevil and Performative Catholicism in American Politics
When a fictional superhero is a real Catholic but powerful politicians betray the faith
Lenten greetings and Happy Sunday from the self-destructing empire, friends and fellow Catholics. It’s surreal here.
The new season of one of Marvel’s most famous Catholic superheroes debuted on Netflix during Shrovetide while the world’s wealthiest immigrant has become an antiprophet for MAGAvangelical nativists.
“Daredevil: Born Again” airs throughout Lent and will conclude during Holy Week.
Meanwhile, two of America’s most prominent politicians, J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio, are seemingly competing to be the most publicly hypocritical Catholics. They are self-serving, pick-me turncoats, but “border czar” Tom Homan seems even more heartless.
Daredevil is a fictional Irish-American lawyer raised by a priest after his dad refused to take a fall in a rigged boxing match. He’s one of the good guys.
His Catholic ethos compels him to fight for Hell’s Kitchen. Nowhere else in New York, it seems, but his public service is vastly, quantifiably more Christian than the performative Catholicism of Vance or Rubio, or Homan’s cruel immigration policies.
