Obama’s Catholic Church Gambit: Lessons from American Communists

Crisis Magazine ^ | 02-20-2012 | Paul Kengor

[veritas2002]

A fascinating theory has been advanced by Dick Morris, which, in turn, is being considered by Rush Limbaugh and other leading conservatives. Morris speculates that the Obama HHS mandate on contraception, sterilization, and abortifacients is a fight with the Catholic Church that Team Obama wants — and with the focus based narrowly on contraception, not abortifacients.

Dick Morris may be right. It seems no accident that Obama publicly noted that the vast majority of Catholic women use contraception. Yes, the vast majority does, but the vast majority does not support abortifacients — that is, “contraceptive” drugs that cause or induce an abortion.

Obama is underscoring “contraception” generally, not abortifacients specifically. Sadly, our superficial media, which reflexively ramrods everything into a 10-second sound-bite, is aiding and abetting his tactic. Again and again, I hear reporters refer to Obama’s mandate not as a mandate on “contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs” (which it is), but as simply one on “contraception.”

If Obama can successfully frame the debate that way, which should be easy with the American public, he can make great headway on this assault on the Roman Catholic Church. He will appeal to many apathetic Roman Catholics as well as many Protestants who disagree with the Catholic Church on contraception. Among non-evangelical Protestants, Obama will find lots of sympathy from the liberal mainline denominations that flew off the hinges decades ago, and some of which are members of the hideous Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. Their split with Rome over matters of birth has roots in the Episcopal Church’s embrace of contraception a century ago.

Speaking of a century ago, if this is indeed a gambit by Obama to pit religious believers against the Catholic Church, it would be nothing new from the radical left. Consider some examples: In my book, Dupes, I shared the case of Anna Louise Strong. Strong was an editor to the flagship publication of the communist front Friends of the Soviet Union, which masterfully manipulated progressives like Upton Sinclair. We published a photo of Strong and Sinclair together on the “Friends” editorial page, where a stoic Sinclair vows to “expose the lies and slander” against poor old Joe Stalin — maligned by those mean American anti-communists.

Anna Louise Strong was a loyal American Bolshevik. In a July 1953 report, Congress described her as “one of the most active agents for the Communist International.” She did dutiful propaganda work for Moscow, shamelessly arguing that Stalin had “conquered wheat,” even publishing a widely read pamphlet by that name, when, in fact, Stalin launched a famine that killed millions. Among Strong’s propaganda work was to enlist Protestant clergy against the Catholic Church. One egregious example was an incendiary letter to the editor Strong placed in the October-November 1941 issue of The Protestant. There, she made the claim that the Vatican was calling for religious freedom in the USSR not because the Soviets were blowing up churches, killing priests, and gulaging nuns, but because the Church was seeking control of Russia. This was ludicrous, but it was just what some anti-Catholic Protestants wanted to hear.

That letter from Strong was so deceptive and such blatant Soviet propaganda that it was highlighted by Congress in a major report on subversive activities by American communists.

Among the communist organs that Anna Louise Strong wrote for was the Chicago Star, known to locals as the “Red Star.” The editor-in-chief and co-founder of the Star was Obama’s childhood mentor,Frank Marshall Davis, who was a card-carrying member of Communist Party USA. Davis, too, targeted the Catholic Church. He wrote articles with titles like “The church’s weakness,” reprimanding Rome, the American bishops, and the Catholic laity for their anti-communism. In an October 1947 piece, Davis growled that “the Catholic hierarchy” had launched a “holy war against communism.” Indeed it had. As communists knew well, the Roman Catholic Church had been issuing scathing indictments of communism since the publication of Marx’s Communist Manifesto in 1848 — yes, that far back — not to mention in encyclicals by Pope Leo XIII, Pope Pius X, and others. Communists were furious when the Catholic Church issued a brilliant, blistering 1937 encyclical on atheistic communism, titled Divini Redemptoris, which called communism a “satanic scourge.” Committed communists like Frank Marshall Davis thus took on the Catholic Church.

Davis left the Chicago Star in 1948 to head for Hawaii, where he wrote for another communist-controlled newspaper, the Honolulu Record, and where he continued to confront the Catholic Church. In one column, titled “Challenge to the Church” (September 29, 1949), Davis framed communism as friendly to Christianity and anti-communism as un-Christian. An atheist, Davis painted an image of Judgment Day, where anti-communist Christians would be called to account for opposing communism. “The Christian churches, and the Catholic church in particular,” asserted Davis, “are making a grievous error in their shortsighted belief that the major enemy of Christianity is Communism.” Not only was Soviet Russia not anti-religious, insisted Davis, but Stalin had spared the planet of Hitler’s “anti-Christian paganism.” Christians ought to thank Stalin, not criticize him.

In another typical column from this period, Frank Marshall Davis referred to anti-communist Christians as “the Pontius Pilates of 1949.” In short, American communists and the radical left generally have long targeted the Roman Catholic Church. They know their enemy, one that is both spiritual and eternal. They have long attempted to pit Protestants and Catholics against each other. It’s an old art, really, that’s today totally forgotten.

And so, is this tactic being resurrected right now under Barack Obama? Is this more of the “fundamental transformation” we were promised — elected by oblivious Americans in November 2008?

If Obama can frame his mandate as a matter of contraceptive freedom — rather than an obvious constitutional affront on religious liberty — he may be able to successfully pit large numbers of Protestants and even many Catholics against the institutional Catholic Church. It would be the kind of religious agitation that would make the Marxists of the last century — particularly Obama’s mentor — very proud. How’s that for “hope” and “change”?

[veritas2002]

Is it too too late? Will Catholics AND Protestants wake up in time for November's election?

Will Americans begin to realize that we have a Marxist in the White House?

And if ANY persons of faith think they are safe from the government, beware!

[Rannug]

I reckon you beat yourself posting today. :-)

[LearsFool]

We’ve allowed them to choose the battlefield. That’s worrisome in itself.

[STJPII]

Wondering the same thing.......is it too late?

[Erik Latranyi]

I expect in a few weeks that this story will fall off the radar, leaving the mandates in place.

This administration has a habit of stirring things up, then moving on without stopping.

[Jerrybob]

It’s called a red herring. Diverts attention away from a bigger issue.

[Alas Babylon!]

Oh how different things would be had this been a Republican president doing this!

The media would be howling in outrage, with interviews from every bishop and seminarian, and long-winded stories about how this tears the Constitution in half.

But alas, the media-creature Obama, a very liberal democrat, is the president, not a Republican, and therefore the media has NO TIME for such stories, interviews and editorials.

They will comply with whatever the Administration wants them to do....

Or perhaps it is not the president who is doing this, but rather the media elites are dictating the process to the White House, who knows? The media and the democratic party are so wrapped and intertwined between each other I can't see where one ends and the other begins.

I just wish more people would react to the lies the media keeps telling them, and be outraged.

[ETL]

SEAN HANNITY: But Reverend Jeremiah Wright is not backing down and has not for years and in his strong stance on the teaching of black liberation theology is nothing new. He had the same things to say last spring when he appeared on "Hannity & Colmes:"

WRIGHT: If you're not going to talk about theology in context, if you're not going to talk about liberation theology that came out of the '60s, systematized black liberation theology that started with Jim Cone in 1968 and the writings of Cone and the writings of Dwight Hopkins and the writings of womynist theologians and Asian theologians and Hispanic theologians, then you can't talk about the black value system.

HANNITY: But I'm a — reverend

WRIGHT: Do you know liberation theology, sir?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,354158,00.html
__________________________________

"Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal".--James (Jim) Cone,
African American Religious Thought: An Anthology (Paperback)
by Cornel West (Editor), Eddie S. Glaude Jr. (Editor)
__________________________________

Obama's Church: Gospel of Hate
Kathy Shaidle, FrontPageMag.com
Monday, April 07, 2008

In March of 2007, FOX News host Sean Hannity had engaged Obama’s pastor in a heated interview about his Church’s teachings. For many viewers, the ensuing shouting match was their first exposure to "Black Liberation Theology"...

Like the pro-communist Liberation Theology that swept Central America in the 1980s and was repeatedly condemned by Pope John Paul II, Black Liberation Theology combines warmed-over 1960s vintage Marxism with carefully distorted biblical passages. However, in contrast to traditional Marxism, it emphasizes race rather than class. The Christian notion of "salvation" in the afterlife is superseded by "liberation" on earth, courtesy of the establishment of a socialist utopia.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=30CD9E14-B0C9-4F8C-A0A6-A896F0F44F02
____________________________________________

Catholics for Marx [Liberation Theology]
By Fr. Robert Sirico
FrontPageMagazine.com | Thursday, June 03, 2004

In the days when the Superpowers were locked in a Cold War, Latin America seethed with revolution, and millions lived behind an iron curtain, a group of theologians concocted a novel idea within the history of Christianity. They proposed to combine the teachings of Jesus with the teachings of Marx as a way of justifying violent revolution to overthrow the economics of capitalism.

The Gospels were re-rendered not as doctrine impacting on the human soul but rather as windows into the historical dialectic of class struggle. These "liberation theologians" saw every biblical criticism of the rich as a mandate to expropriate the expropriating owners of capital, and every expression of compassion for the poor as a call for an uprising by the proletarian class of peasants and workers.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=460782B7-35CC-4C9E-A2C5-93832067C7CD

[ETL]

The Real Story Behind Rev. Wright's Controversial Black Liberation Theology Doctrine
Monday , May 5, 2008
FoxNews/Hannity's America
[special Friday night edition--original airdate May 2, 2008]

(some key excerpts)

["(Jose) Diaz-Balart is the son of Rafael Diaz-Balart y Guitierrez (a former Cuban politician). He has three bothers, Rafael Diaz-Balart (a banker), Mario Diaz-Balart (a US Congressman) and Lincoln Diaz-Balart (also a US Congressman). His aunt, Mirta Diaz-Balart, was Fidel Castro's first wife."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jose_Diaz-Balart]

JOSE DIAZ-BALART, TELEMUNDO NETWORK: "Liberation theology in Nicaragua in the mid-1980's was a pro-Sandinista, pro-Marxist, anti-U.S., anti-Catholic Church movement. That's it. No ifs, ands, or buts. His church apparently supported, in the mid-'80s in Nicaragua, groups that supported the Sandinista dictatorships and that were opposed to the Contras whose reason for being was calling for elections. That's all I know. I was there.

I saw the churches in Nicaragua that he spoke of, and the churches were churches that talked about the need for violent revolution and I remember clearly one of the major churches in Managua where the Jesus Christ on the altar was not Jesus Christ, he was a Sandinista soldier, and the priests talked about the corruption of the West, talked about the need for revolution everywhere, and talked about 'the evil empire' which was the United States of America."

REV. BOB SCHENCK, NATIONAL CLERGY COUNCIL: "it's based in Marxism. At the core of his [Wright's] theology is really an anti-Christian understanding of God, and as part of a long history of individuals who actually advocate using violence in overthrowing those they perceive to be oppressing them, even acts of murder have been defended by followers of liberation theology. That's very, very dangerous."

SCHENCK: "I was actually the only person escorted to Dr. Wright. He asked to see me, and I simply welcomed him to Washington, and then I said Dr. Wright, I want to bring you a warning: your embrace of Marxist liberation theology. It is contrary to the Gospel, and you need, sir, to abandon it. And at that he dropped the handshake and made it clear that he was not in the mood to dialogue on that point."

Source: The Real Story Behind Rev. Wright's Controversial Black Liberation Theology Doctrine:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,354158,00.html

[ETL]

"Their founding document [the Weather Underground's] called for the establishment of a "white fighting force" to be allied with the Black Liberation Movement" and other "anti-colonial" movements[1] to achieve "the destruction of US imperialism and the achievement of a classless world: world communism."..."-Berger, Dan (2006). Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground and the Politics of Solidarity. AK Press, 95.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weatherman_Underground#cite_ref-Berger_0-0

Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground and the Politics of Solidarity (Paperback) by Dan Berger
http://www.amazon.com/Outlaws-America-Underground-Politics-Solidarity/dp/1904859410
____________________________________________

From the New York Times, August 24, 2003

"they [the Weather Underground] employed revolutionary jargon, advocated armed struggle and black liberation and began bombing buildings, taking responsibility for at least 20 attacks. Estimates of their number ranged at times from several dozen to several hundred."

Article: Quieter Lives for 60's Militants, but Intensity of Beliefs Hasn't Faded
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F04E4DE1539F937A1575BC0A9659C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2
____________________________________________

Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright and Dr. William Ayers
are greeted by Rebekah Levin with the Committee
for a Just Peace in Israel and Palestine.
(Chuck Berman/Chicago Tribune / May 17, 2009)
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-ayers_wrightmay18,0,6689521.story

[deoetdoctrinae]

LET'S PUT THIS THING IN OVERDRIVE,
AND BRING THIS FREEPATHON HOME!


We're almost there
Click the Pic
Honk if you love Free Republic

[the invisib1e hand]

Hear, hear. Failing to see current events in terms of Communism vs. Catholicism is myopic.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

——I expect in a few weeks that this story will fall off the radar, leaving the mandates in place.
This administration has a habit of stirring things up, then moving on without stopping.——

I’d be surprised if that didn’t happen.

We need to adopt this technique when we take power.

Keep piling on initiatives so by the time they start reacting to the first one, we’re on to the next.

Well, at least I can dream.

[Mach9]

I’m not convinced Obama knew exactly what he was igniting. What were the odds that the Church would FINALLY say no to a Democrat edict? History was on O’s side. But not only did the Catholic Church stand firm, it was joined by rivals! This issue may not on its own constitute O’s unmaking, but it’s going to help.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

"Is it too late"

It looked that way in the 1930s. The communists in FDR's posts were prolonging the depression, probably intentionally. There were mass anti-capitalist movements and it really looked like freedom was going to be gone for good. But we rallied and reduced the red scourge. It took a Congress with enough courage to create HUAC.

Since their losses then, the commies have successfully pushed "political correctness" making it a mortal sin to be judgmental about anything, even tyranny and despotism. So Congress probably does not have enough strength anymore to investigate leftist/progressive/communist control of the nation the way it did in the early 50s.

I pray to God it is not too late and we can pull out of the suicidal nose-dive we are in.

[Buckeye McFrog]

This was used for years very successfully as a wedge issue in Ireland. One of the reasons Protestants in the North fought so vociferously to remain part of the UK is that they did not want to have to live under the very sharp restrictions on contraceptives in the Republic of Ireland.

My understanding from family on that side of the pond is that Ireland was forced to jettison these restrictions and adopt something similar to the Obama policy as the price of joining the EU.