Pete Hegseth’s Pastor Wants to Ban Catholic Processions in America
Doug Wilson preached at the Pentagon last month. His vision of a Christian nation would outlaw public Masses, Marian processions, and Corpus Christi devotions — and Pete Hegseth calls him a mentor.
Dear friends —
Pete Hegseth’s pastor and mentor, Doug Wilson, wants to ban Catholic processions in America. He preached at the Pentagon last month — and the Department of Defense defended it.
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At Letters from Leo, we stand with the millions of American Catholics — service members, families, and communities of faith — who refuse to accept a vision of America where their processions are banned, and their Mass is called idolatry.
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This is the fastest-growing Catholic community in the country because people understand that authentic Christianity cannot coexist with the persecution of other Christians. That truth has never been more visible than it is right now, with Doug Wilson preaching from a Pentagon stage.
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On February 18, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth welcomed Pastor Doug Wilson to the Pentagon’s auditorium to lead a worship service broadcast live on the Department of Defense’s internal television network.
Wilson, a 72-year-old pastor from Moscow, Idaho, who co-founded the denomination Hegseth belongs to, stood before American service members and delivered a 15-minute sermon about putting Jesus Christ first. Hegseth praised him publicly from the stage: “Thank you for your leadership, your mentorship for the things you’ve started, the truth you’ve told, the willingness to be bold.”
Here is something Pete Hegseth’s mentor has been bold about: banning Catholic processions in America.
Wilson has stated plainly that in his vision of a Christian nation, anything Protestants consider “public displays of idolatry” would be prohibited. Catholic parades and processions fall squarely within that definition.
He has also declared that “the public spaces would belong to Christ” — meaning his particular Christ, interpreted through his particular Reformed theology, enforced by the coercive power of the state.
Under Wilson’s framework, the Corpus Christi procession that Catholics have carried through their towns for eight centuries would be outlawed. So would the rosary walks and Marian processions that mark parish life across this country, along with the Eucharistic processions that Pope Leo XIV has called Catholics to embrace with renewed devotion.
Wilson is not some marginal crank shouting into the void. He runs Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, the flagship congregation of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches. He operates Canon Press, a publishing house with national reach.
He helped build the classical Christian school network that Hegseth credits with transforming his family’s life. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell confirmed that Hegseth is “a proud member of a church affiliated with the Congregation of Reformed Evangelical Churches,” which Wilson co-founded, and that the Secretary “very much appreciates many of Mr. Wilson’s writings and teachings.”
Those writings and teachings include a book titled Papa Don’t Pope: Why I’m Not a Roman Catholic (and Why the Future is Protestant).
They include Wilson’s characterization of the Mass as “idolatry,” his description of Catholic devotion to Mary as “Mariolatry,” and his labeling of the papacy, the veneration of images, and the entire Catholic sacramental system as areas of “covenantal rebellion” against God. Wilson once compared the Catholic Church to “an adulterous husband” — technically still married to Christ, but “cheating on Him.”
This is the man the United States Secretary of Defense invited to preach to American troops.
Many of those troops are Catholic. Roughly 25 percent of the U.S. military identifies as Roman Catholic, a proportion that has held steady for decades. Catholic chaplains serve on every major installation. The man Hegseth chose to address these service members believes their faith is idolatry and their most sacred public devotions should be outlawed.
The Pentagon’s response to the backlash was remarkable for its brazenness.
