by Tucker James Hoffmann 

Tucker James Hoffmann is a graduate student at the University of Georgia in the Rhetorical Studies program housed in the school of Communication Studies. During his undergraduate tenure at the University of Dayton, Tucker worked closely with Drs. Susan and Bill Trollinger to analyze Turning Point USAs history and involvement in the evangelical Christian and white Christian nationalist movement. Tucker has his eyes set on the future as he continues his work studying far-right Christianity as a political movement in the US. He is enrolled as a Masters student and has the goal of securing a PhD in Rhetorical Studies. 

A notable landmark between my hometown of Louisville, Kentucky and Cincinnati, Ohio is a waste management plant in Walton, Kentucky. Atop an overgrown waste dump is a huge American flag with a semi-truck trailer below that usually brandishes pro-conservative slogans. From 2016 to 2022, it featured the standard “TRUMP: Make America Great Again” banner. To my mind, the juxtaposition of a huge American flag and slogans on behalf of the former White Christian Nationalist president on an odorous dump speaks volumes about politics in the US.  

This past June, as I was returning home from a wedding in Dayton, Ohio, I noticed something more peculiar than the usual evangelical, White Christian Nationalist messaging I’ve grown accustomed to on my drive. Behind the tree line of the highway a new flagpole appeared, this one flying a flag divided into four quadrants separated by a white cross. The center features a heart pierced by a spear and surrounded by thorns, topped by a cross engulfed in fire. 

The Sacred Heart of Jesus is a symbol that was adopted by the Catholic Church as early as the 7th century. In the 12th century, Christ’s bleeding heart was a common homiletic tool for Franciscan and Dominican Friars preaching across the world. According to the Sacred Heart Basilica in Hanover, Pennsylvania, the preaching of these friars made the focus of Christ’s heart the marquee symbol of Divine Love. According to the Catholic Church, during an apparition to St. Margaret Mary, Jesus Christ revealed his heart, saying “My Divine Heart is so passionately in love with humanity, and with you in particular, that it cannot keep back the pent-up flames of its burning charity any longer. They must burst out through you.” It was from this apparition of Christ that the illustration of the Heart itself originated. 

So what is the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a Catholic symbol meant to encapsulate the everlasting love of Christ for humanity, doing next to an American flag in rural Kentucky? Why did it appear in June of 2024? Why did those who select the flags to fly in this location choose this symbol to hoist and not, say, the Christian flag that appears in so many Protestant churches?

To answer such questions, we don’t need to go back to the 12th century or Pope Pius XI. Rather, we only have to go back to early June of 2024 and Martha-Ann Alito, wife of Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito. Mrs. Alito was recorded expressing extreme frustration with her Virginian neighbors who were flying an LGBTQ+ Pride flag for Pride month. In the secret recording taken by Lauren Windsor, an American progressive political consultant and self-described “advocacy journalist,” Mrs. Alito said she wanted to fly a Sacred Heart of Jesus flag because she had “to look across the lagoon at the Pride flag for the next month.” After being told explicitly not to fly the Sacred Heart as a symbolic retort to LGBTQ+ rights advocacy by her husband, she went on to exclaim in the six-minute recording that she wanted to “send them a message every day, maybe every week.” She aimed to do so by “changing the flags,” and even developing her own flag featuring yellow and orange flames emblazoned with the word “Vergogna,” which means “Shame” in Italian. 

When the recording of Mrs. Alito reached The New York Times on June 10th, it had an effect on political iconography as a whole, refiguring the meaning of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in popular culture. 

Historically, the Sacred Heart of Jesus symbol has traditionally referred to the Catholic tradition of Saint Margaret Mary, her vision of Jesus Christ and the message He had for all of humanity – love one another as much as God loves humanity. However, when Martha-Ann Alito used the Sacred Heart of Jesus as a way to engage in a counterprotest against her neighbors’ pride flag, she effectively shifted the message. That is, instead of serving as a symbol of God’s love for all, she put it to use for the message that God’s love has limits, especially when it comes to the LGBTQ+ community. To Martha Ann-Alito, God’s love does not extend to gender and sexual minority groups, and God frowns on their presumption to celebrate their identities and advocate for their rights.  

When Franciscan and Dominican Friars proclaimed that Christ’s heart bled out of love and sacrifice for humanity, they did so with the message of love and compassion for all. To quote John 13:34, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” For centuries, the meaning of the Sacred Heart of Jesus has been about loving one’s neighbor just as God loves humanity–enough even to incarnate and sacrifice His only Son. The Sacred Heart of Jesus was understood by Catholics to embody Christ-like loving.  

When Martha-Ann Alito hoisted a flag featuring the Sacred Heart of Jesus in protest of signs celebrating Pride month, she was equating Jesus with her conservative social and political views. The anti-LGBTQ+ movement in the United States is led by evangelical Protestants and conservative Catholics. When Mrs. Alito chose the Sacred Heart of Jesus as her response to the Pride flag, she equated this Christian symbol to the message many Americans experience each Sunday in church, a message that says that the expansion of rights to the LGBTQ+ community is something to fear, something to hate. 

Mrs. Alito’s usage of the Sacred Heart of Jesus as an anti-Pride symbol combined with her now-public rant against LGBTQ+ people aim, in my opinion, to refigure the symbol from a symbol of God’s universal love to God’s very conditional love. That is to say, for Martha-Ann Alito and her ideological soulmates, the Sacred Heart of Jesus is not about loving or caring for our fellow human beings. Instead, it is but another tool to continue the oppression of a historically marginalized group. 

So what we have here is yet another effort by a conservative Christian to turn Jesus’ teachings and the message of love he brought to humanity inside out.