In five years living in London, I heard America described as many things by the wannabe communist rich kids I met at art school—imperialist, evil, full of entitled, obese idiots, were some of the best (and most ironic coming from the mouths of the English bourgeoisie). But the most frequent adjective ascribed to the land of the free was “godless.” But I always thought that David Bowie had cleared all this up when he sang “I’m afraid of Americans / God is an American” on Earthling in 1997, and that everyone knew that  Americans worship money, sex, and God in that order. We’ve got drive-through marriage and drive-through spirituality ready for the fast lane. In pursuit of our McSublime, we’ve supersized our churches in the hope that God will shower us with adoration with a side of fries and a Diet Coke.

And not to be a McBitch about it, but when it comes to selling sex, drugs, and Jesus in the same sentence, we’ve conquered the Brit invasion and left the Beatles and the Stones on the side of the road in our creation of a delusional lyricism to justify our desire for divine punishment in the face of it all.

One day, I was biking to see a Doron Langberg show at Victoria Miro in Hoxton which sits in a converted warehouse next to a lot with a McDonalds, Texaco gas station and a FedEx. Before I entered the gallery, I basked in this oasis of American capitalism with its honest and functional drabness that evoked a strip mall church. There was something transcendent about this holy place that made me think of Breezewood, Pennsylvania, famous as a drive-through billboard town of meme-glory. It’s the kind of place truckers stop to shower, where people watch life go by. But this asphalt sprawl is evidence of a faith that if we build it, they will come. Especially in the truck stop showers...

Before he died, I was trying to imagine why a bunch of liberals online were obsessing over Pope Francis’s health after the election of Donald Trump, as if the Pontif had any power over the straw-haired mad man in the Oval Office. It felt like these people were in denial of the church’s true nature, how it cannibalized people like them and thought living a delusional life online was a waste of time. It became clear that after Francis’s death that these people were clinging onto a fantasy of a just world as they watched the leader of a church of 1.4 billion faithful call his partitioners in Gaza to check on them, and willed the Popemobile to be converted into a mobile health clinic servicing Palestinians under the threat of genocide by the Israeli Defense Forces.

But amidst the buzz of Papal Conclave, I found myself wondering, is the gay-loving, Filipino, karaoke queen Cardinal Tagle really salvation for a church which turned a blind eye on child sex abuse for more than six centuries, opposes women in the church, and thinks sex is bad? Part of the reason it has been reported that Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost  of Chicago was chosen to become the Malort Pope was due to the dire financial situation at the Vatican and a sense that when money is the issue, one looks from sea to shining sea at those who grew up in the shadows of the American banking system. So what does it mean that even holy men can’t escape death and taxes? And if the Vatican Bank doesn’t have more money than God, how the hell can an American fix it?

The problems facing the Vatican today are those which have plagued the American brain for decades: How do you sell something with a sexy mystery while pretending to be the Virgin Mary? One person who seemed to find that answer was the Pope of Porn, Larry Flynt who was “hustling for the Lord,” when Washington Post writer Rudy Maxa caught up with him in 1978—that’s the same year Flynt ran a cover of a crucified Easter Bunny worried about the commercialization of Christ’s resurrection. Flynt, for his darker urges towards Christian Nationalism, pointed out that it was a lack of understanding of human sexuality, a denial of human nature, that was at the heart of global violence and suffering. And while temptation, greed and capitalism have their place in causing human misery, repressing the self is something Leo XIV might be able to deal with head-on with Americana charm in one hand and the other reaching out, open, and ready to be filled with a dollar.

So maybe the first step towards salvation is admitting life is better with a black balance sheet. Or maybe they’ll open a McDonalds in the Vatican. Either way, I’ll be watching with my side of fries.