Posted on 06/06/2016 5:24:02 PM PDT by ebb tide
Before answering the title question, let's look at a few facts drawn, for the most part, from an episode on Saul Alinsky and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) produced by Church Militant T.V. Find it here: http://www.churchmilitant.com/video/episode/ciax-2010-03-07. The broadcast dates back to 2010, but Catholics, Protestants, and religious skeptics alike should watch it because the fruits of the Alinsky-USCCB partnership have ripened.
In 1938 when atheist Saul Alinsky was working with juvenile delinquents in Chicago, he struck up a friendship with two Catholic brothers, Joseph and Msgr. Peter Meegan who together acquainted Mr. Alinsky with the inner workings of the Diocese of Chicago. Msgr. Peter Meegan happened to be secretary to Bishop Bernard Sheil, and was in a good position to help Alinsky make connections.
In 1939 Alinsky started his Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council (BYNC) and Bishop Sheil spoke at its inauguration. Alinsky understood that uniting the world of organized labor with the well-ordered ranks of obedient Catholics would create a powerful political force. He succeeded in establishing an alliance between Bernard Sheil, Auxiliary Bishop, and John Lewis, President of the Congress of Industrial Organizations. The triple alliance of church, labor, and Alinskyism (socialism/communism) received its imprimatur when Bishop Sheil and the labor organizer, John Lewis, shared the stage at a rally held the day after the launch of the BYNC. Ten thousand work-a-day Catholics got the idea that the church sanctioned Alinsky's kind of activism. Alinsky's goal was to "effect constructive changes in the life of the Back of the Yards Neighborhood...." Of course, readers will recognize the term "change" as one used by Barak Obama in 2008.
In 1947 Alinsky cemented his relationship with the Roman Catholic Church through his friendship with yet another prelate, Msgr. Jack Egan. Egan was so taken by Alinsky's program, as outlined in Reveille for Radicals, that he set about establishing groups to train young Catholics in community organizing – you'll recognize this term too as another favorite of President Obama's. Michael Voris of Church Militant points out that the term is a euphemism for revolution planned by professional radicals who want to bring down the system and seize power – ostensibly to share it with the hoi polloi.
Egan furthered Alinsky's work with such devotion that the press referred to him as "Saul's priest intern." In 1968 Cardinal Cody, newly assigned to the Diocese of Chicago, ordered Egan to shut down his operation at the Chancellery Office. However, Egan was rescued by Fr. Hesburgh of Notre Dame University and offered sanctuary there for fourteen years. Egan spread the Alinsky model across the nation. Why not? He now had the academic bona fides of one of Catholicism's showcase universities. Priests arriving for training in the tactics of change were instructed by Alinsky himself. These priests carried the socialist gospel to hundreds of dioceses.
Conservative Catholics, Protestants, Baptists, and freedom lovers should be growing alarmed at these revelations. The work of these men represents a union of spiritual, political, and academic forces dedicated to promulgating a socialist public policy in every sector of society. What would another 40 to 50 years of this bring? We now know.
Enter the Evil Triumvirate
It would be hard to imagine a more efficient mechanism for delivering social change on demand than the combination of the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) and its clone organizations; the United States Council of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and its Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD); and the Democrat party. Let's take them in order.
Saul Alinsky began the IAF in 1941. It is a school for professional radicals. The training it provides is exactly the same kind of training Barak Obama received when he was cutting his community organizer teeth. Alinsky's style of training has been replicated all over the country through groups like ACORN, the Midwest Academy, and the Center for Community Change. Many of its graduates head up unions, non-profits, and church groups bent on shaping America into a socialist state. Strangely, IAF receives support every year from the CCHD, a program of the USCCB.
In 1969 the USCCB decided to conduct a national crusade against poverty on the recommendation of Msgr. Jack Egan. He had been charged with crafting a response to the Black Manifesto on reparations. At the time America was pressing forward with its Great Society initiatives and many churches were joining in.
The bishops wanted to raise 50 million dollars over several years to give to the poor. The bishops turned to the men and women in the pews (some of whom were poor themselves) to raise the funds. Parish churches across the nation were asked to set aside the Sunday before Thanksgiving to pass the plate as part of the bishops' national campaign. The bishop's haul that first year was $8 million. The campaign that should have lasted 6 or 7 years has lasted nearly 47 and shows no sign of let up.
You see, fighting poverty is good business. By judiciously dispensing largesse, the bishops get to make the world over in their image, all the while telling the flock that they are aiding the poor. Sixteen percent of CCHD funds automatically go to the IAF, Alinsky's brainchild. Much of the rest reaches the poor through the Democrat party and the Alinsky-styled spin-offs that are run by Democrats for Democrats. If you've noticed a quid pro quo at work here, you're right. But don't worry; the Democrats are the party of the little people. They are doing God's work, or if not exactly God's, at least that of the Catholic bishops. Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, and Joe Biden have been doing the bishops' work for years, while true believers have been praying for their conversions, never realizing that these Democrat operatives and the USCCB share the same vision for the country. Of course, it should also be mentioned that $50 to $60 million of the USCCB's $140 million dollar operating budget comes from government grants. Somebody should start screaming about the separation of church and state at this point, but don't hold your breath waiting for lefties to start the hue and cry.
The Democrat party is America's socialist party. It is also, in many ways, America's Catholic party. It did not get that way by accident. Democrat party ranks swelled after the influx of Irish Catholic immigrants in the mid-19th Century. With the introduction of unionized Catholic workers to its membership rolls in the early to mid-20th Century (my relations among them), the party formed a reliable voting block – large enough to swing any national election.
Although it is true that thousands of Catholics peeled away from the Democrat party in the 1980's because of its pro-abortion stance, many others remained, assuaging their consciences with the gobbledygook coming from the Catholic bishops. Cardinal Bernardin, for example, as Archbishop of Chicago, promulgated the "Seamless Garment Theology." He declared that ending poverty or war was just as important as ending abortion or fighting euthanasia. Incidentally, Cardinal Bernardin served as the General Secretary (1968-72) of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, an earlier name for the USCCB, and was in on the ground floor of the CCHD. Bernardin's tenure was sponsored by Cardinal Deardon of "Call to Action" fame.
What mattered most to these men was fighting for social justice, a euphemism for establishing state control of every aspect of our lives. For example, Bernardin believed that health care was a right. He sowed confusion on moral questions, dulling his people's perceptions about what constitutes an intrinsic evil. Further, the USCCB has for years issued voting guidelines that continue to muddle questions between moral and social issues. The result is that millions of Catholics have voted for men like Barak Obama with a clear conscience.
The bonds between the CCHD and the Dems are intimate. Here are a few examples. John Carr was the Executive Director of the CCHD and worked for the Carter Whitehouse. Tom Cheboya was a Director of the CCHD and on the board of the Center for Community Change at the same time. He also worked for the Obama campaign. After he moved on to the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), he was instrumental in securing a $60 million dollar donation for Obama from his new employer. Mary Kay Henry was the advisor to the bishops on health care and served as president of internal affaires for SEIU. Ralph McCloud as Director of the CCHD gave a speech to the Center for Community Change (CCC) lauding Obama's election victory. Fifteen of the most radical groups that fall under the CCC's umbrella have received $1.5 million from the CCHD. From 1994 to 2008 ACORN received $8 million from the CCHD. Forty years into the project the bishops had given away $280 million dollars. The figure stands higher today.
The most important take-away here, however, is that IAF-styled organizations, the USCCB, and the Democrat party have been working tirelessly to give us an Alinsky-styled radical for president and they have succeeded. In fact, they have celebrated their victory before the whole world.
When Barak Obama received on honorary degree from Notre Dame University in 2009, he was receiving a pat on the back from Msgr. Jack Egan and Cardinal Bernardin and Fr. Hesburgh for carrying the baton across the finish line. It had been a long race, but their concerted effort had paid off. Barak Obama extolled the memory of the late Cardinal Bernardin and went on to outline the goals that he and men like those who had contributed to his success hoped to achieve in the future. While conservative Catholics were mounting protests and going to jail, the real power brokers were applauding their man.
Obama is the Pope's Man
What can we conclude but that Obama is the Pope's man? If you find this too far a stretch, consider that the Roman Catholic Church operates as a centralized, top-down-managed command center that may be apprised in an instant of what is happening on the ground anywhere in the world where there is a Catholic church – and that's everywhere. If the Vatican had wanted to stop the USCCB in its bid to transform America by funding a fifth column within the U.S., it could have done so. Good Catholics can argue that the church has been infiltrated by communists bent on her destruction, and there is evidence to that effect in the years following Pope Pius XII's death in 1958. However, the doors were thrown open to Alinsky well before that. Further, when a bishop (Sheil) shares the stage with a union leader (John Lewis) known to have Soviet advisors, it is not a case of infiltration – it is a case of treason. If one thousand communist agent-priests took the helm at parishes across the nation, is there any reason to believe that men like Bernardin would bar the door? Further, are we to believe that Msgr. Jack Egan and Cardinal Deardon and Cardinal Bernardin and Fr. Hesburgh were KGB agents? That thousands of homegrown Catholic activists were planted by Soviet spies? That thousands more were turned into radicals by agents teaching at Catholic colleges like Notre Dame? And remember, the Catholic Church always has the veto power of the polling booth. All it has to do is instruct its bishops and priests to tell Catholic voters that they may not vote for any pro-abortion politician without committing a mortal sin. The church has done no such thing. Liberals need never fear that she will.
No, the church does what she wants to do in this world because she claims to have the right to rule in both the temporal and spiritual realms. If that were not so, the beloved John Paul II would not have addressed the U.N. to request a new world order in 2004 (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jan/02/catholicism.religion). The supposedly conservative Benedict the XVI would not have done the same (Christmas speech 2005, Caritas in Veritate 2009, and other occasions). Remember that the Alinsky-styled president is serving at the same time as the openly socialist Pope Francis. This is no coincidence.
If we think of the papacy as not only one man, but as a system; and recognize the European Union for what it is, the socialist dream of the Vatican, we should not be surprised. Those pictures of Pope Francis' visit with President Obama this past September show two men who delight in each other's company because they are in agreement on political matters. Barak Obama is advancing the Pope's agenda by bringing European-styled socialism to our shores and driving us to our knees. If we have any sense at all while we our on our knees, we will pray to the God of heaven to deliver us.
Back in the 1960s,the Catholic comic book Treasure Chest ran a multiple month election story that in its final page revealed the new President-elect to be a black man. The Treasure Chest was a highlight of my 4th and 5th grades . But I do question if the Roman Catholic Church has spent too much effort acquiring worldly wealth and power but too little doing what Jesus commissioned.
The latest Pope begs a new answer to the question, “Is the Pope a Catholic?”
Cathokic voting patterns in presidential elections have supported more dems than reps. Catholics have certainly assisted in the rise of socialism in the US.
You bet. Here, and in central and south america.
I would say yes. With welfare the church has less church wealth going to the poor and they probably get 10% of the welfare check as well.
No question. And don’t leave out the Libtard wing of Protestantism either. Short walk from Social Gospel to Social Justice.
My sister in a law a retired teacher, is a devout Catholic. She attends mass daily. She also is a devout Democrat. I asked how she could vote Democrat when they are pro-abortion (which she is against). She said well, Republicans are for capital punishment. I just went huh? Adults convicted of crimes, sentenced to death, more likely then not, did commit the crime vs. a fetus, baby being shredded out of the womb of a woman. I said at least those on death row get additional 10-20 years to live, with appeals, before dying unlike the unborn who get no time and no appeals.
They (religious organizations) get federal money to take in and care for illegal immigrants, billions of dollars. Follow the money.
Since the catholic church didnt have to pay for it, they didn’t mind all that much, as long as their bingo parlors got built and they could leech the dying generation and add to their donation plate via the illegals...
Nome of them believe in that g#d sh#t anyways...
Apologies to ann barnhardt on that last quote.
Your sister sound like a cafeteria catholic...
Tell your sister-in-law that Jesus Christ, after immeasurable agony in the garden, passively accepted His death sentence. And she would not have a shot at Heaven, if He had done otherwise.
That I seriously doubt. Catholic church-collection giving is on average way, way below 10%. Catholics are the lowest-level givers of almost any denomination, and I'm pretty sure welfare recipients would be below that low average.
The Catholic Church is paying for it big time: Pope Francis.
I remember it well.
Frankie the America hater sure makes it look like it.
Sis is devout but totally ignorant, and among Catholics that is not uncommon today, given the liberal catechesis that is epidemic.
Innocent life in the womb is a first class priority, as you clearly point out. The death penalty is grave matter, but heinous crimes that give certainty that others may be likewise harmed or others likewise influenced to murder may be put to death.
Sis is missing the hierarchy of crimes against the innocent far preceding the death penalty of those of age and accountability.
Even Father Coughlin, the "notorious right winger" of the 1930s and 40s, was actually on the extreme Left of the pro-Axis and isolationist movements. He stated he was opposed to both capitalism and Communism and said the government had the right to curb "individualism."
And before everyone merely assumes "there he goes again," it needs to be pointed out that European Catholic conservatism was very different from British and American Protestant conservatism. Some of it seems strange to us, but on the other hand much Protestant (especially Calvinist) conservatism is highly socially Darwinistic--a strange position for people who believe everything is ordered by the Divine Will, regardless of how many of them try to justify it. And many social Darwinist economic individualists were atheists and freethinkers, such as Herbert Spencer and the notorious Robert Green Ingersoll.
American conservatism has no organic/communitarian component, and I believe one reason American Catholics historically supported Democrats and socialism was simply because in this country it was the closest thing to European Catholic right wing ideology--since the real thing didn't exist here. Had American Catholics had the opportunity to support a party that held to European Catholic conservative ideology, I'm sure our history would be very different.
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