The most sacred ceremony conducted at the Trump inauguration undoubtedly for Donald Trump personally, with its mystical meaning elevating him to his greatest height as an emperor, was the prayer for Fred Trump. Father Frank Mann, a retired priest from Brooklyn, offered a blessing to the ruthless real estate operator who made his fortune in the borough and bankrolled his son’s pilgrimage over the Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan to blow a half-billion dollars through six bankruptcies and the financial collapse of the Taj Mahal hotel and Trump Castle casino in Atlantic City, and a blessing for Fred’s wife, too, without whom “this day would never be the miracle that has just begun”.
Father Frank had struck up a relationship with Donald after he sent him a photograph of how he had weeded the Trump family gravesite at the Lutheran All Faiths Cemetery. A single tombstone marks not only Donald’s parents, but also Fred’s father and mother, Donald’s original immigrant grandparents – Friedrich deemed an undesirable in Germany – and Fred Jr, subject of Fred’s abuse that helped drive him into alcoholism and his early spot in the family plot. “From their place in heaven,” intoned Father Frank, “may they shield their son from all harm by their loving protection and give him the strength to guide our nation along the path that will make America great again”.
