Because Donald Trump only hires the best people, he has Jabba the Hut Sam Clovis as his campaign co-chair. And, though it was a mighty strain, Clovis’s magnificent intellect was able to manufacture a Unified Theory Of Trump’s Grotesquely Misogynistic Statements. This theory explains everything Trump has said and offers us an opportunity to believe that Trump no longer holds those views.

Clovis, if you’ll recall, has a history of selling Trumpian babysh** as butterscotch. The best example is his defense of Trump supporters fighting with protesters to CNN’s Alisyn Camerota

Camerota: What do you think about the idea that he was suggesting that there would be violence? Threatening that there would be violence?

Clovis: I don’t think he said violence, he said riots…

Camerota: Riots are violence, by definition.

Clovis: I don’t accept that.

Transcript via CNN

“Those of us that have gotten to know him know the journey that he has been on to his faith,” Clovis said on The Mike Gallagher Show. “And I think that this was one of those episodes that occurred at a time in his life before he had a turned the corner on this. I think he’s, as I think Jerry Falwell has said and James Dobson and others have commented on the fact that he is a new Christian.”

Clovis continued, “This is a person who has revitalized his faith over just recent years. And for many of us who have been on a faith journey for a long time, we all understand this. We all understand how this evolves and I think that’s why evangelicals are sticking with him regardless of the gutter talk that took place on that set.”

It is up to you to decide if you believe this or not. Sure, there is more rejoicing in Heaven when one sinner repents than over the actions of all the righteous. But, ironically, St. Paul gives us more information in today’s Mass readings:

Now the works of the flesh are obvious:
[I]mmorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions, occasions of envy, drinking bouts, orgies, and the like.

I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God.

In contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

It seems pretty obvious in which category even the modern Trump falls.

I have no special insights into Evangelical Protestantism and it certainly would not be my place, as a Roman Catholic, to comment on the subject. But I suspect that most self-identified Evangelicals are sticking with Trump, not because of his growth in faith but for the same reason that most self-identified Northeast and California Roman Catholics routinely vote for immoral, pro-abort, pro-sexual-perversion Democrats: their religion is more of a cultural artifact than an actual faith.