Pope Francis: �son of the Church␝

By Betty Clermont
The Daily Kos
December 07, 2013

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/07/1260848/-Pope-Francis-Son-of-the-Church?detail=hide#

On the July 28 flight back to Rome from Rio de Janeiro’s World Youth Day and in a widely publicized interview in September with a Jesuit magazine, when asked for his opinion on abortion and same-sex marriage, Pope Francis said his position was identical to that of the Church. “I am a son of the Church,” he explained.

He is a son of the Church as restructured by his two predecessors, Pope John Paul II and his head of doctrine, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI.

Fr. Jorge Mario Bergoglio was promoted to bishop, archbishop and cardinal by Pope John Paul II who preached: “The globalized economy must be analyzed in the light of the principles of social justice, respecting the preferential option for the poor who must be allowed to take their place in such an economy, and the requirements of the international common good.” John Paul condemned, “Whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide…whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind.”

Yet he backed Latin American dictators and worked with the CIA, Reagan and right-wing Catholic groups to counter the actions of progressive clerics in Latin America. The CIA thought Wojtyla would be "a perfect vehicle for U.S. foreign policy."

Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected pope by a College of Cardinals comprised entirely of men appointed by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Benedict taught: “Democracy will attain its full actualization only when every person and each people have access to the primary goods (life, food, water, health care, education, work, and the certainty of their rights) through an ordering of internal and international relations that assures each person of the possibility of participating in them.” And “Commitment to promoting effective social justice in international relations demands of each one an awareness that the goods of creation are destined for all, and that in the world community economies must be oriented toward the sharing of these goods, their lasting use, and the fair division of the benefits that derive from them.”

Yet when polls showed a tie between Pres. George W. Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry in 2004, he sent a letter to the U.S. episcopate instructing the bishops to deny communion to Kerry. After favoring Gore in 2000, Catholics voted 52 percent for Bush versus 47 percent for Kerry. “Throughout the 2004 campaign, Rove maintained that, if Bush won the Catholic vote, he would be reelected. Rove was right.”

Since his election, Pope Francis has spoken about mercy and compassion. His first papal exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, has won enthusiastic praise for his “special concern for the poor and the need for state intervention to promote economic justice.”

Yet his first official act as pontiff was the appointment of a group of eight cardinals to help him govern the Church. Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriquez Maradiaga who, as head of Opus Dei in that country, helped overthrow the progressive and elected president, Manuel Zalaya, in 2009 is the group’s coordinator. Several other members are also close to Opus Dei.

Like his two predecessors, Pope Francis shielded pedophile priests and prelates and tried to deny justice for their victims.

In order to understand their actions, it is necessary to know why and how John Paul and Benedict appointed the current leadership of the Catholic Church.

Since the Emperor Constantine built the first basilica on Vatican Hill, the Catholic Church’s headquarters has been in Rome and, with few exceptions, had an Italian pope and an Italian Curia (bureaucracy). Even when Pope Pius XII died in 1958, jet travel was a rarity and most communication was by mail. Because of the restrictions of limited travel and communications, by necessity popes had a somewhat laissez faire attitude towards non-European national churches. The pope appointed a nuncio (ambassador) or delegate (when there is no formal diplomatic relations) and relied on their advice to select that country’s bishops in consultation with the local prelates.

Left to themselves, by the 20th century American prelates were mostly the working-class sons and grandsons of immigrants – Irish, Italian, Polish; their flock, pro-labor big-city Democrats.  

The cardinals who gathered to elect a new pope in 1958 were a diverse lot more interested in their own affairs than the Vatican’s. Like much of the world’s population, they worried about the U.S. and U.S.S.R. nuclear arsenals capable of destroying the planet in a matter of hours.

Cardinal Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli was elected and distanced himself from the virulent anti-communism of his predecessor. As Pope John XXIII, he and his successor Paul VI (Giovanni Montini) both favored ostpolitik, a normalization of relations with the Soviets.

Paul VI appointed the Belgian Archbishop Jean Jadot as his delegate to the U.S. in 1973 and at the pope’s direction, Jadot approved bishops who were anti-war, pro-civil-rights liberals. The hero of progressive U.S. Catholics, Jadot was responsible for naming 103 new bishops and 15 promotions to archbishop.

In the U.S., the 1960s was a tumultuous decade. Not only were Americans shaken by the Cuban Missile Crisis, but also we were losing a war, there were anti-war and civil rights demonstrations and three national leaders were assassinated. In 1969, Nixon coined the phrase “the silent majority” to describe the population who were experiencing angst that the good old days of the Father Knows Best-style society was being destroyed and many blamed the liberals.

The Northern white working class was as bitter about leaving their urban neighborhoods to avoid court-ordered busing to attain racial equality in their schools as Southern whites were afraid of African-American equality. Pat Buchanan later described how he and Nixon had discussed how it might be possible to unite these two demographics as staunch Republicans.

A group of intellectuals – Irving Kristol (often referred to as the “godfather of neoconservatism”), Allan Bloom, Francis Fukuyama and their followers - seized upon this discontent and alarm to formulate a new ideology. They equated liberty (which they defined in terms of divorce, the sexual revolution, children born out of wedlock, demonstrations) with licentiousness. What differentiated them from other conservatives was their emphasis on social issues. Initially they were able to promulgate their views through the many publications Kristol founded and/or edited.

These early neoconservatives were proponents of the philosophies of University of Chicago professor, Leo Strauss. Strauss taught that within societies “some were fit to lead and others to be led.” Strauss considered religion necessary to pacify the populace, a political tool used by rulers to control the masses. “Any religion, as long as it was monotheistic, patriarchal, hierarchal and authoritarian would serve the purpose,” according to academic and political commentator Shadia B. Drury (Leo Strauss and the American Right).

Other tyrants throughout history had reached the same conclusion about the role of religion. Egyptian pharaohs and Roman emperors declared themselves to be gods. Confucianism was considered essential to an orderly society. Even Napoleon reversed revolutionary anti-clericalism and made a concordat with the pope. Vladimir Putin aligned the Kremlin with the Russian Orthodox Church.

Kristol et al were joined by hawks who favored keeping the country in a constant state of war-readiness and engaged in small-scale conflicts. They profited from the military-industrial complex, wanted a Third World available for unfettered exploitation and included Zionists advocating the defense of Israel. These hardliners demanded a bellicose stance against any politician or country not actively engaged in insuring American domination.

The term “neoconservative” was first used by liberals to describe their associates who abandoned their domestic policy positions to assume an aggressive posture in foreign affairs. Ardent pro-Israel staffers of Henry “Scoop” Jackson (D-Wash.), including Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle (both later architects of the Iraq war), joined Republicans in opposition to the Democratic pro-peace 1972 nominee, George McGovern. When Kristol and others endorsed Nixon for re-election, any remaining ties to the Democratic Party were severed.

Both Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney were influenced by Strauss protégé, Robert Godwin, and all three became advisers in the Ford White House. Kristol urged them to form a “Counter Establishment” to be funded by the Smith Richardson and Earhart Foundations and the Scaife Family Trust, all dedicated to the interests of big business. (Tevi Troy Intellectuals and the American Presidency)

As the nation celebrated its bicentennial, separation of church and state was such an established principle that there was virtually no public debate on the subject. The Founding Fathers and most colonists had considered the European religious wars and persecutions as sufficient warning against America becoming a confessional state.

The Southern Baptist Convention had reaffirmed its Resolution on Separation of Church and State:  “[T]he Church should not resort to the civil power to carry on its work….Christian ministries should be supported exclusively by the churches.”

Candidate John F. Kennedy had been accused of being subject to a foreign power – the pope - so the Catholic bishops gave a wide berth to anything which even hinted of direct interference in politics. Like the Baptists, they wanted no government handouts for their schools and ministries which they were sure would come with strings attached.

“Family values” meant discussions about the ease of obtaining a divorce and the media glamorization of casual sex and violence. The 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that the matter of abortion should be left between a woman and her physician was acceptable to most Americans who knew about the deaths and mutilations from illegal abortions. It was a subject avoided by the majority of politician’s. Gays were still in the closet so homosexuality was not a pressing issue. Defense of Israel based on Scripture was a subject few had even heard of.

Creation of the Religious Right

During the 1970s, the Republican establishment was being challenged by the amoral, take-no-prisoners, neoconservatives totally focused on shifting this country’s wealth into their own pockets by whatever means possible. Stephen Eric Bronner, professor of Political Science at Rutgers University, identified the neocons’ “brutal reliance on power and propaganda. They are counter-revolutionaries intent on undoing the progressive political achievements of the twentieth century.”

The creation of a Straussian “religion” promoting acceptance of the populace to rule by a “Christian” elite and tolerance of an economy in service to big business formed the ideational framework for the religious right. It was an audacious and brilliant decision to convince conservatives that they were actually choosing the “moral” alternative as they voted for our economic enslavement.

There were important factors favoring the success of their plan. Clergy, unlike politicians, are treated with deference by the media, a presumption of their sincerity so as not to offend their followers. As long as they promote issues – carefully constructed as abortion, gay rights and support for Israel - and not candidates, religious leaders are immune through their 501(c)(3) tax code from any requirement of financial disclosure or accountability. Donors are assured of complete anonymity and get a tax deduction to boot. Money spent on politicking is untaxed.

We’ll probably never have a complete history of the backroom plans and deals, but this is what we do know.

Both Protestant and Catholic conservative voters were needed to constitute an electorate large enough to determine election outcomes. Capturing the Catholic vote also had certain advantages.

The number of Catholics exceeded the membership of the next 12 denominations combined. They also voted in greater numbers – though 23 percent of the population, they constituted 30 percent of the national electorate. At the time, Catholics were concentrated in the states with the largest number of electoral votes: California, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Ohio, Illinois and Michigan.

Unlike the independent evangelical pastors, the Catholic Church is a tightly controlled organization. The pope appoints the bishops. The bishops appoint the priests. The only way to change the Church is to change the pope. Another distinction - the pope is the dictator of his own country, immune from any law enforcement agency, legislature or court.

In the 1970s the U.S. was the richest and most powerful nation the world had ever known. Americans were/are the largest donors to the Vatican and the global Church. To establish an alliance between the wealthiest and most powerful religion and government would be not only an important step in the neocon plans to control America but also a great support for the global plutocracy. (In fact the pope’s influence covers only Europe, the Western Hemisphere, the Philippines and Australia, but I will continue to use the term “global” rather than recite this distinction every time.)

Other advantages to a neocon Church are that a pope receives more media coverage than any other religious leader, more than most other heads-of-state and certainly the most deferential.  The Church has worldwide media outlets and messaging second to none in sophistication due to Opus Dei’s Joaquin Navarro-Valls, John Paul’s head of communications – a position now held by Opus Dei’s Greg Burke and former Fox News correspondent under Francis.  

Considering all governments, the Catholic Church has, if not the largest, than the most tightly-controlled global organization with hundreds of thousands of agencies. The pope rules over 3000 dioceses each controlled by a Vatican-appointed bishop and each with a large number of organizations and groups controlled by that bishop. (There are over 40,000 bishop-controlled entities in the U.S. alone.)

No other religion has a global financial network capable of moving “dark money” wherever needed among hundreds of thousands of these organizations to serve its geopolitical goals. (Pope Francis was just named the fourth Most Powerful Person in the World by Forbes. In comparison, Charles and David Koch were No. 31 on Forbes’ list.)

As far as Strauss’ specifications - monotheistic, patriarchal, hierarchal and authoritarian - the Catholic Church is the closest match and has the historical expertise from past church/state alliances such as the Holy Roman Empire, Ancien Régime and with other monarchs, tyrants, and dictators. Additionally, there were already two organizations for international plutocrats, the Knights of Malta and Opus Dei.

Knights of Malta

The Knights or SMOM (Sovereign Military Order of Malta) traces its history back to the Crusades. Its modern form took shape when aristocrats banded together to protect their wealth and ancestral privileges by maintaining Catholic monarchies and royal houses during the 19th century democratic and nation-building movements sweeping across Europe.

Originally requiring a noble pedigree, the Knights agreed to accept America’s nouveau riche in 1907. John J. Raskob, Chairman of the Board of General Motors and leader of a fascist plot to overthrow FDR, was an early invitee.

World War II-era European SMOM members were allied with the Falangist groups in Spain, the Catholic integralist-Vichy French, Italian fascists and the German-Austrian supporters of Adolf Hitler. Some American Knights were among those who conducted commerce with the Nazis.

Post-war members belonged to many of the militant anti-communist organizations.

CIA directors John McCone, William Colby and William J. Casey were Knights of Malta.

Several Knights were members of the Nixon administration but Chief of Staff Gen. Alexander M. Haig and William Simon (Citicorp), who served as both treasury secretary and “Energy Czar” - having both launched and administered the Federal Energy Administration – are the most notable.

During the grooming of Ronald Reagan as a neocon presidential candidate, Knights Henry Salvatori, one of the founders of the National Review, and Patrick J. Frawley Jr., who founded the National Catholic Register, a reactionary weekly promoting Roman Catholic hegemony, were members of the “Businessman’s Taskforce” to elect Reagan. Salvatori and Frawley were also members of the American Security Council, an organization for leaders of the military-industrial complex.

In the Reagan administration, SMOM members included William Casey, reported to have planned the “October Surprise” resulting in Reagan’s election; Vernon Walters, ambassador at large; Dame of Malta, Clare Boothe Luce, member of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board which oversees covert operations; James Buckley, undersecretary of state for security assistance (and his more illustrious brother, William Buckley, Jr., editor of the National Review); and both of Reagan’s ambassadors to the Holy See, William Wilson and Frank Shakespeare.

Knights of Malta and members of Opus Dei were instrumental in providing money and materials to pro-American Latin American military dictators.  

The power of the Knights of Malta seems to have waned in the last several decades as Opus Dei has ascended as the more powerful group of international plutocrats. But their presence in the military has been confirmed by veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh. Hersh stated that Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Vice Admiral William McRaven and others in the Joint Special Operations Command (the group responsible for the assassination of Osama Bin Laden) were members of the Knights of Malta and Opus Dei. “They do see what they're doing -- and this is not an atypical attitude among some military -- as a crusade, literally,” Hersh stated. "They see themselves as the protectors of the Christians. They're protecting them from the Muslims [as in] the 13th century. And this is their function." He added that members of these societies have developed a secret set of insignias that represent "the whole notion that this is a culture war" between religions.

A German noble and Knight of Malta, Ernst Von Freyburg, was named president of the Vatican Bank by Pope Benedict XVI and has kept the job under Pope Francis so far.

Opus Dei

“The Work” was founded in Spain in 1928 by Fr. Josemaria Escriva. He recruited followers among male university students and graduates in order to form an organization attracting who he considered to be the best and the brightest. Held back by the disruptions of the Spanish Civil War and WWII, Escriva’s intentions become clear in the post-war period.

The Spanish journal, Tempo, outlined the steps taken by Escriva in the 1950s and 60s to achieve a “Catholic nationalism” in Spain, a unity of church and state under the control of Opus Dei. The pattern should be familiar to Americans knowledgeable about the neocon takeover and may even have been a template for U.S. neocons in constructing their own “Christian nationalism.”


•    Escriva blamed liberals for the growing secularization of Spain, portrayed as damaging the morals of the nation.


•    Opus Dei professors created new research institutes.


•    Escriva founded his own publishing house for his multiple publications. “We must wrap the world in printed paper,” he wrote.


•    Members of “The Way” were given government appointments starting with the Ministry of Propaganda by the fascist Francisco Franco who appreciated their zeal for his dictatorship. Franco went on to give members’ financial authority and they steered the Spanish economy into dependence on international financial interests. As Martin A. Lee noted, by 1983 ten of 19 Franco cabinet positions were held by men affiliated with Opus Dei.


•    Opus Dei created their own schools (independent of the government Catholic school system) including colleges and universities.

Escriva always intended for his organization to be global and it has branches in at least 80 countries and is generally reported to have 83,000 members. The top echelon is now mostly transnational financiers, bankers and businessmen. (Robert Hutchison Their Kingdom Come: Inside the Secret World of Opus Dei)

“What give Opus Dei its importance is the influence it wields and also that it deploys its immense financial resources…Opus Dei knows very well that money rules the world and that religious hegemony of a country or a continent is dependent upon obtaining financial hegemony,” noted Javier Sainz Moreno, professor of Law at Madrid University. (Hutchinson pp 261-262)

Unlike the Knights of Malta, membership in Opus Dei is secret unless the member admits to it. SMOM in composed entirely of lay men. The names of priests and prelates ordained into the Opus Dei religious order are public.

Changing the Pope

The grooming of Karol Wojtyla might have been the first concrete step in creating an American religious right. An obscure hierarch of no great distinction from an impoverished country began making public appearances in the U.S. and across Europe. Who sponsored Wojtyla? Martin A. Lee tells us Opus Dei invited him to give addresses at their centers throughout Western Europe. Did they also pay for and plan his U.S. tours? On his last official trip to the U.S. as cardinal in 1976 – which included appearances in New York, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Baltimore, St. Louis, San Francisco and Los Angeles - Wojtyla was introduced at Harvard as “the future pope” by one of Nixon’s Council of Economic Advisers, Hendrik S. Houthakker. (Bernstein & Politi His Holiness pp147-149)

When Montini died in 1978, Cardinal Albino Luciani was elected. The “Smiling Pope,” the kindly, pastoral Pope John Paul I died after only 33 days into his pontificate. The Vatican refused an autopsy and to allow his hurriedly embalmed remains to be exhumed and tested for poison.

The cardinals who gathered to elect Popes John Paul I and II, although still parochial, were an even more diverse group since they included liberals appointed by Roncalli and Montini as well as the old guard still around from the Pius XII papacy. However, as I described in Chapter 5 of my book, The Neo-Catholics, a contrived dispute between the frontrunner candidates for pope, Cardinals Siri and Benelli, designed to embarrass them both, appeared in a newspaper just before the conclave began. Inside the conclave, Siri’s and Benelli’s supporters took sides; Wojtyla – who had been hyped by Opus Dei - was introduced as the compromise candidate and elected.

“The CIA, which knew that another John XXIII could spell disaster for U.S. foreign policy, doubtless brought its influence to bear on the election [of Cardinal Wojtyla] through Opus Dei and the Knights of Malta. Thus far it seems likely that the agency is, on balance, fairly pleased with the pope's performance,” wrote Martin A. Lee in 1983.

“The pope's deeds often do not reflect his words,” is how Lee began relating how Pope John Paul II, with the help of the CIA, Opus Dei and Knights of Malta, secretly supported Pres. Reagan’s slaughter of Latin American freedom fighters in order to keep U.S.-backed military dictators in power.

The CIA Connection

From World War II to at least the end of the Cold War, the American intelligence community worked closely with right-wing members of the Vatican Curia in executing their shared geopolitical objectives.

The alliance began during World War II with Allen Dulles, OSS (precursor of the CIA) station chief in Bern, Switzerland, who shared business interests with the U.S. Eastern Establishment moguls who had continued trading with the Third Reich throughout the war. When an Allied victory seemed likely, the Nazi businessmen with U.S. contacts made plans to protect their assets with Dulles’s help. The Vatican, also heavily invested in Nazi companies and Swiss banks, (John F. Pollard Money and the Rise of the Modern Papacy) contributed its diplomatic immunity “to ensure absolute secrecy in moving foreign currency and ownership documents out of Switzerland.” Dulles's accomplice was James Jesus Angleton, member of the OSS counterintelligence branch in Italy. (Aarons and Loftus Unholy Trinity: The Vatican, The Nazis, and The Swiss Banks)

Dulles became director of the CIA in 1953 and Angleton chief of the CIA’s counterintelligence staff in 1954. As already mentioned, several CIA directors were Knights of Malta.

CIA dirty tricks and secret funding helped elect the Vatican-supported Christian Democrats in the 1948 Italian election. The agency founded and maintained Operation Gladio, a secret paramilitary army including saboteurs in post-war Italy supposedly to resist a Soviet invasion but whose members were used in the 1970s “strategy of tension.” Italian civilian targets like the Bologna train station were bombed and made to appear to be the work of communists. The CIA also worked with the Vatican in installing Catholic Pres. Ngo Dinh Diem in Buddhist-majority South Vietnam as well as money and “black ops” for military dictatorships in Latin America.

Coors and Weyrich

Beer magnate, Joseph Coors, was looking for a way to commit his fortune to the neoconservative cause. Paul Weyrich, an aide to a Colorado Republican senator, met with Coors and then invited fellow-Catholic, Edwin J. Fuelner, Jr., chief of staff to a Republican congressman, to join what would become the Heritage Foundation. Established in 1973, it would become the prototype for the neoconservative think-tank and is still among its most influential. The Heritage Foundation was initially funded by Coors and Richard Mellon Scaife.

Weyrich founded, co-founded, or held prominent roles in a number of other notable conservative organizations. Per Wikipedia, he was founder of the Free Congress Foundation (FCF), an organization that trained and mobilized conservative activists, recruited conservative candidates, and raised funds for conservative causes; founder of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an organization of state legislators; co-founder of the Council for National Policy, a strategy-formulating organization for social conservatives; co-publisher of the magazine Conservative Digest; and national chairman of Coalitions for America, an association of conservative activist organizations.

Funding

In 1976, Nixon’s former treasury secretary, Knight of Malta William Simon, was appointed head of the John M. Olin Foundation. Along with the Sarah Scaife and Smith Richards foundations (both conduits for CIA money), it became a “clearinghouse” for corporate donations.

The plan was straightforward and simple. Wealthy conservatives would support foundations that would in turn cultivate conservative voices in universities, in the media and of course, religious politics. The goal was to change not only the message, but the entire political landscape by disguising the message to make it appear more centrist than it actually is.  A unified message on any given subject would descend intact from the think tank, complete with talking points, directly to the pundit whose job is to get that message into the daily discourse and finally to the political candidate who campaigns on it as an issue. Repetition and unity has become the hallmark of their success even if the facts are incorrect. (Penny Lernoux, “Who’s Who? Knights of Malta Know” National Catholic Reporter May 5, 1989)

The “New” Christian Right that emerged in the late 1970s was defined by a wave of institution building that targeted multiple realms of American society, especially education, broadcasting, and politics. Dobson, for example, founded Focus on the Family in 1977 for the purpose of promoting conservative, “family-friendly” ideologies and public policies. The same year, Pat Robertson founded Christian Broadcasting Network University (now Regent University). In 1979, Jerry Falwell founded the Moral Majority with the goal of mobilizing conservative Christians into a voting bloc to advance a rightward shift in American politics, most immediately by supporting Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign. Falwell went on to found Liberty University, now the largest Christian university in the world.

By the mid-1990s, with the Moral Majority long gone, Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition became the established power broker that Falwell’s organization had aspired to be, and Christian conservatives dominated the Republican National Convention in 1996. Their influence was so strong that two prochoice Republican governors - William Weld of Massachusetts and Pete Wilson of California - declined to speak because of content restrictions.


[The Christian Coalition’s] successes at political mobilization - pushing apolitical religious conservatives to become voters, voters to become activists, and activists to become candidates -have become woven into the fabric of our national political life, particularly within the GOP.

The Christian Coalition and other groups worked hard for the Republican ticket….The Christian right became more active in Midwestern Republican parties. Bush won a majority of these states, but Gore carried some of the most populated, including Michigan and Illinois….Christian conservatives have always been active in the West, despite the strong liberal -- and libertarian -- tendencies of these states. It may be, however, that these very tendencies have brought moral traditionalists into Republican Party politics in force….In this sense, the Christian right has been "spreading out" across the states, especially in the South, Midwest and West.

Notice that the manual begins with the adoption of the fundamental fact of Machiavellianism: "This essay is based on the belief that the truth of an idea is not the primary reason for its acceptance. Far more important is the energy and dedication of the idea's promoters - in other words, the individuals composing a social or political movement. It urges conservatives to reassess their position in American society and to consolidate their position by focusing on building conservative institutions with the goal of "taking over political structures."


Heubeck makes a number of pragmatic arguments, such as "Good Results Are More Important than Good Intentions." Also:


1) Falsehoods are not only acceptable, they are a necessity. The corollary is: The masses will accept any lie if it is spoken with vigor, energy and dedication.


2) It is necessary to be cast under the cloak of "goodness" whereas all opponents and their ideas must be cast as "evil."


3) Complete destruction of every opponent must be accomplished through unrelenting personal attacks.


4) The creation of the appearance of overwhelming power and brutality is necessary in order to destroy the will of opponents to launch opposition of any kind.

If their agenda was hidden 15 years ago, today it is in full public view. Just take a look at their Web sites, where they document in considerable detail an agenda on a wide range of issues: judicial nominations, same-sex marriage, and faith-based issues – and an agenda that, let us be clear, goes well beyond legitimate engagement in controversial social and political issues to a fundamental usurpation of all that America represents.


Excerpts from an address by Abraham H. Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League

No president in recent American history has taken such a strong interest in the “Catholic vote” as Bush. Advisers believe that in several swing states, socially conservative Catholic voters hold the key to reelection in 2004. Hence, Bush has reached out to the American bishops, and in July 2001 he went to Castle Gandolfo to meet the pope.


“We increased the Catholic vote by 10 percent in the election of 2000 compared to 1996,” Bush’s ambassador to the Holy See, James Nicholson, said. “We did it the old-fashioned way, by going after it. We got lists of Catholics and mailed to them, telephoned them. I think President Bush’s positions are appealing to Catholics.”

Bush strategist Karl Rove identified the Catholic vote as central to his long-term plan to convert swathes of traditional Democratic voters, thereby transforming the Republicans into the majority party. Throughout the 2004 campaign, Rove maintained that, if Bush won the Catholic vote, he would be reelected. Rove was right.


Rove sought to turn out several million additional Catholic voters. Catholic turnout was 63 percent, up from 57 percent four years earlier, and constituted more than one-in-four voters nationwide, voters disproportionately distributed in key battleground states such as Ohio and Florida. Bush, a Methodist, impressively won 52 percent of the Catholic vote versus 47 percent for John Kerry, only the third Catholic to win a major party's presidential nomination. Only one Democrat since 1952 (Walter Mondale in 1984) had previously lost the Catholic vote by such a margin…..


As a result, it is unquestionably clear that this tactic is not going away, but will only intensify.

We see [the struggle for religious liberty] in the use of antidiscrimination statutes to force religious institutions, businesses, and service providers of various sorts to comply with activities they judge to be deeply immoral....


We view [restrictions on the free exercise of religion] as an ominous development, the overweening authority of the state.

Faith and Freedom Coalition founder Ralph Reed, launched what he described as the "largest voter registration, voter mobilization and get-out-the-vote effort ever targeted at evangelical voters," specifically those who would be new additions to the voter rolls…. Romney staff also made sure that the former Massachusetts governor's meeting last week with the Rev. Billy Graham and his son, Franklin, was well-circulated. "Romney had to work harder because of his Mormon faith," Southern Baptist leader Richard Land said. "Ryan, they love the guy," particularly for his anti-abortion record.

For his party to survive, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich believes the GOP needs to broaden its appeal beyond "the infamous 47 percent." Conservative activist Ralph Reed would rebrand the Republican Party as a force of compassion – feed the poor and clothe the naked. Republican strategist John Feehery says the GOP craves a populist leader – "a happy warrior."


"What Francis is doing," Reed said, "is rebalancing the Catholic Church's message to stress the pastoral mission of good works and service to people before getting to ideology. What he's not doing is jettisoning the Catholic doctrine. What about that is not a model for the Republican Party?”

The Wisconsin Republican confided to a Post reporter that he has been “quietly visiting inner-city neighbourhoods”...and consulting with all the usual suspects in the capital's right-wing think tanks. He wants everyone to understand that he is seeking to figure out the problems faced by poor folks and how he can help.


As a 2016 presidential hopeful, Ryan evidently intends to rebrand himself as a “compassionate conservative” - the same propaganda meme deployed by former President George W. Bush and Karl Rove during the prelude to the 2000 campaign for president - at a moment when the Republican Party badly needs appealing new images and ideas  

In a recent speech, Lee called for “a new, bold and heroic offensive in the war on poverty” - hardly the language of your average tea party rally….


Lee has been proselytizing for a “comprehensive anti-poverty, upward-mobility agenda” -making him one of the few Republican politicians talking in any sustained way about stalled economic mobility, stagnant middle-class wages and economic inequality. To this, Lee has added a dollop of populist “anti-cronyism,” proposing to simplify the tax code and rein in the big banks…..


“American conservatism, at its core, is about gratitude and cooperation, and trust, and above all, hope. It is also about inclusion. Successful political movements are about identifying converts, not heretics.” he recently told a Heritage Foundation audience.

To go out into the streets and give food to the poor and pray with prisoners is somewhat humanitarian, but it does not solve the problem of social exclusion that afflicts many of the world’s countries.


Nor does it solve the problem of governments which create poverty and injustice. In this light it becomes clear that his election was, beyond doubt, part of a geopolitical offensive involving competing interests and a balance of forces within the Catholic world.


The See of Peter and the Vatican State are positioning their pieces in the world game of chess in order to empower political projects championed by the North and its allies in the South. In a certain sense, the South is being co-opted by the North. A Church leader who comes from the South will help balance the forces in the world chess game, which have been displaced a good deal in recent years by left-leaning governments in Latin America and by the struggles of many movements -- among them Latin America's feminist movements, whose demands annoy the Vatican

These crimes and cover ups have gone on for centuries quietly and decades publicly. Only decisive action can help, not more studies and committees and promises. No institution can police itself, especially not an ancient, secretive, rigid, all-male monarchy….Like his predecessors, the pope knows precisely what must be done to protect kids and expose the truth. Like his predecessors, he lacks the strength of character to do it. Clergy sex crimes should be dealt with by secular authorities. And more could be done if the pope punished bishops who conceal these crimes and ordered bishops to publicly disclose their child molesting clerics.