Tim Kaine’s Radical Roots in Honduras

Catholic Vote ^ | October 5, 2016

[NYer]

SUMMARY

In media appearances since he was named the Vice Presidential running mate of Secretary Clinton, Tim Kaine has continuously referenced his time in Honduras as the decisive period that helped shape both his political and religious views. The facts surrounding this “mission trip,” however, raise grave and serious concerns, particularly given his continued relationships with the successors of a number of political and religious extremists.

Catholic voters and leaders are entitled to the truth about this decisive period in Kaine’s life. This memo has been published based on extensive research and reporting in an effort to help all people of good will better understand the background, people, places, and ideology that Tim Kaine has personally cited as integral to his public life.

BACKGROUND

Much has been made of Senator Tim Kaine’s mission trip to Honduras in 1980. Kaine, who took a leave of absence as a Harvard Law student, spent nine months in Honduras on a purportedly faith-inspired mission to assist Jesuit missionaries serving peasant farmers. According to a 2010 CNN interview, Kaine described his time in Honduras as “the turning point in my life.”1

Kaine’s trip is touted in news reports, on stage, and on his social media channels, yet a deeper dive on what transpired there raises significant questions and concerns. During his stay in Honduras, Kaine openly embraced liberation theology, a controversial political ideology cloaked in Catholic teaching, but radically at odds with the Catholic Church and with the United States. At the time, this extremist ideology was adopted by activists and even some clergy who were openly hostile to the Church, the Pope, and the United States. The Marxist elements of this ideology were condemned by the Vatican in the 1980’s and 1990’s.2 During his time in Latin America, Kaine was surrounded by radicals and their influences took root in the version of Christianity he adopted. According to the New York Times, it was this theology that set him on a "left- veering career path" influencing his politics to the present day.3

Although the Marxist roots of liberation theology were condemned by the Church, the new theology did have the support of another superpower – the Soviet Union. Scholars of the period, and the top Cold War defector to the West, have shown the Soviets created liberation theology to undermine the Church and advance the Soviet cause against the United States. In Honduras, the phony Marxist-tinged theology was planted to manipulate poor Catholics, instigate terrorism, and stir up a violent revolution in Honduras -- then the key ally of the United States opposing Communism in the region.

The New York Times reports that while in Honduras, Kaine took a bus trip into northern Nicaragua before walking several miles on foot to meet with Fr. James Carney, one of liberation theology’s most radical proponents.4 Carney believed that violence was part of God’s plan for social and political change. In his book, Carney wrote: “I invite all Christians who read this to get rid of any unfair and un-Christian prejudices you have against armed rebellion, socialism, Marxism and communism.” (440) Carney’s dedication was so complete that he renounced his American citizenship and eventually left the priesthood because they “did not permit a Jesuit to be a guerrilla fighter.” (440) Fr. Carney later joined the Sandinista rebel army and supported action as a “chaplain” against the United States’ efforts to oppose Communism in Latin America. Three years after meeting Kaine, Carney died during an invasion of Honduras with a group of approximately 100 fellow communist insurgents, trained by communists in Nicaragua and Cuba.5

Before his death, Carney helped found Radio Progresso, a socialist-inspired radio outlet that continues to broadcast today. Kaine remains in touch with Father Carney's successor, Jesuit Father Ismael Moreno Coto (known as ‘Father Melo’). Father Melo, who has called for the redistribution of land in Latin America by 2021, told listeners in 2015 “to follow [Father Carney’s] footsteps and memory of struggling to continue to build a more just and equitable society.”6

Given Father Carney’s identification with terrorists and his participation in an armed invasion of Honduras, Father Melo’s call to action begs an important question: has Father Melo disavowed the radical agenda of his predecessor? And what is Tim Kaine’s relationship today to the Melo/Carney ideology?

1 http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1012/26/sotu.01.html
2 http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19840806_theology-liberation_en.html
3 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/03/us/politics/tim-kaine-honduras-jesuit.html?_r=0
4 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/03/us/politics/tim-kaine-honduras-jesuit.html
5 https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1983/11/22/honduran-army-defeats-cuban-trained-rebel-unit/9258e14f-ea05- 43e3-aefc-2f7ea4420a40/
6 http://radioprogresohn.net/index.php/comunicaciones/noticias/item/2394-conmemoran-32-a%C3%B1os-de-desaparici%C3%B3n- forzada-del-%E2%80%9Csacerdote-de-los-campesinos%E2%80%9D

---

Kaine and Father Melo remain friends and allies. In 2014, Kaine announced in a press release that he had met again with Father Melo to discuss his work in Honduras. Kaine remarked, “I think of El Progreso every day. The people, aside from my family, are the most important in shaping who I am today.”7 Kaine met with Father Melo and called him a “friend” in Honduras in 2015.8

Father Melo also provided commentary on Tim Kaine for Univision during the recent Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

Important questions remain about the influence of certain persons and their ideology during Mr. Kaine’s time in Honduras. The experience, according to Kaine, was hugely significant in shaping his religious and political life. But the Marxist-socialist ideology he embraced there complicates the narrative offered to the public of a good will humanitarian missionary trip to Honduras.

Catholic voters and all Americans deserve to know the truth about Kaine’s political philosophy and the role that revolutionary Marxist theology played and may continue to play in the shaping of his political views today.

FATHER CARNEY

As mentioned above, the New York Times cited Kaine’s interest in Father Carney, including a bus trip to Nicaragua and walk of several miles to spend a ‘memorable’ evening with the exiled radical Marxist. That Kaine made the effort to seek out and spend time with Carney is troubling.

Some notable excerpts from Carney’s biography:

• Fidel Castro was “inspired and led by the Holy Spirit.”(307)

• He applauded Castro’s statement that the axis between Marxists and revolutionary Christianity was “not a tactical but a strategic alliance.” (307)

• He embraced the need for violent revolution: “One has to enter on the side of the poor in the struggle against the capitalist and imperialist exploiters, because the liberation of the poor will only come by way of the struggle to form a new society without social or economic classes. Efficacious love for the oppressors also demands this armed struggle to take the guns away from them by which they are sinning, repressing the poor, and thus, to liberate the oppressors also.” (312)

• He renounced his U.S. citizenship and became a Honduran in 1973 because: “I have freely chosen to belong to the oppressed class in order to be side by side with the peasants in their fight for liberation ... Christ is working in the revolution for the liberation of the oppressed; I want to help him and not be with the bourgeois middle class or with the selfish capitalists who are in favor of the unjust status quo.” (318)

• Declared violent revolution was part of God’s plan for the world: “My studies of Chardin and Juan Luis Segundo made it clear that God’s plan for the evolution of this world and of human society is obviously dialectical, involving conflict and at times even armed revolution.” (312)

• Believed Marxism and Christianity were synthesized in his mind by liberation theology:

“I no longer found a contradiction between Marxism and Christianity, but rather a great convergence and complementarity. The writings of certain liberation theologians helped me to understand how the gospel needs the mediation of the social sciences in order to be able to apply it to our lives, that is, to learn how to put the gospel, ‘the good news for the poor,’ into practice in Honduras and the third world.” (312)

• He had to leave the Jesuits because they “did not permit a Jesuit to be a guerrilla fighter.” (440)

Father Carney concluded his book by inviting all Christians to join the violent revolution, writing: “I invite all Christians who read this to get rid of any unfair and un-Christian prejudices you have against armed rebellion, socialism, Marxism and communism. ... There is no contradiction whatsoever between being a Christian and a priest, and being a Marxist revolutionary.” (440).

Though Carney had renounced his U.S. citizenship in 1973 to become a Honduran citizen, his radical ways resulted in his being deported from Honduras, and he ended up in Communist-sympathizing, Sandinista-controlled Nicaragua. The Nicaraguan Sandinistas ran the most repressive country in the hemisphere outside of Cuba. They were closely allied with the Soviet Union, East Germany and Cuba. Among other things, they were trained by East German agents in "terrorism" and were known as a haven for terrorists. They also allied with Islamic terrorists in Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East. In addition, Sandinista Nicaragua was known as a haven for Communist militants (terrorists) from around the world and also exported terrorism around the world.9

This is where Kaine sought out Father Carney. His violent revolutionary views were already well known.

After their meeting, Carney left the Jesuits, and ended up serving with an armed Communist force of nearly 100 Cuban-trained men that invaded Honduras under the command of the Cuban-educated Jose Reyes Mata, one of Che Guevara’s lieutenants from the Bolivian insurgency. This group of communist insurgents were funded and trained by the Cubans and Nicaraguans, who in turn were funded and trained by the Soviet Bloc, particularly the East Germans.

Their intent of the revolutionaries was to instigate terrorism and violent revolution within Honduras to topple its government.

READ MORE

[NYer]

Catholic ping!

[HiTech RedNeck]

This would be “good grief” to any serious flavor of Christianity.

[HiTech RedNeck]

And even worse. Exactly where does this ungodly “Christianesque” version of Marxism leave our dear Timmy wanting to go?

This looks to me more like the Incredible Hulk than it does like Jesus. I’m a Crazy Evangelical and as such don’t buy in to everything the Roman church has come up with. But almost all the problems with this Liberation Theology junk are in areas where Crazy Evangelicals agree with the Roman church.

[Fred Hayek]

Just like Warren Wilhelm.

[GreyFriar]

Yes, he is the legacy of politically corrupted priests in Central and South America. They were subverted by the Communist plan to change them, suttelly, from following Jesus to following Marx. Ion Pacepa has written much about this subversion of the Catholic Church in Latin America by the KGB. We see this now in the US via the “social justice” and “humanist” movement that attack Catholic and Protestant Churches here.

[ETL]

"The New York Times reports that while in Honduras, Kaine took a bus trip into northern Nicaragua before walking several miles on foot to meet with Fr. James Carney, one of liberation theology’s most radical proponents.

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, 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
____________________________________________

God D*** America, U.S. to Blame for 9/11

--Rev Dr. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's "Black Liberation"(Communist) pastor for 20+ years

"America’s chickens... are coming home... to ROOST!"

[trisham]

I had no idea that Kaine was so radical a leftist. Thanks for posting this, NYer.

[GreyFriar]

Thank you for reminding me of “Liberation Theology,” I forgot to include that in my post #6. I recall it beginning in the 1960s and was prevalent among the MaryKnoll Fathers in Central & South America. I recall a couple of the priests at the Catholic men’s college I attended in the late 60s mentioning them and the non-Catholic/Christian Liberation Theology.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Yes... if it even vaguely reflects the Lord, these worldly schemes hate the dickens out of it and try to repurpose them to an idolatry of man, to greater or lesser success.

Roman Catholic churches and Protestant/Evangelical churches are affected. It’s easy to put a scheme of man (that in turn the devil wants) in the place that we should accord to Jesus, and the result is disaster and tragedy.

The Protestant piece of the church should not be saying ah, this is only a Catholic issue, we don’t need to care. Because the same devil is knocking on the door of both houses.

[ETL]

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://web.archive.org/web/20090321190904/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://web.archive.org/web/20090321190909/http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=460782B7-35CC-4C9E-A2C5-93832067C7CD

************************************************************

Re: James Cone, founder of "Black Liberation Theology":

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
______________________________________

The Black church and Marxism: what do they have to say to each other
by Cone, James H. 1938- . Harrington, Michael 1928-1989

https://archive.org/details/TheBlackChurchAndMarxismWhatDoTheyHaveToSayToEachOther
______________________________________

REVEREND 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..."

[Byron_the_Aussie]

[ETL]

Liberation Theology and the KGB

Jay Richards | February 2, 2010

http://www.aei-ideas.org/2010/02/liberation-theology-and-the-kgb/
_________________________________________

More on Liberation Theology and the Soviets

Catholic News Agency ^ | 5/15/2015 | Alejandro Bermudez

(Excerpt) Read more at catholicnewsagency.com ...

[Savonarola]

Some of the liberation theologians have switched costumes and now style themselves “Eco-theologians” (e.g., ex-priest Leonardo Boff and Rev. Sean MacDonagh). Their slant is embodied in places in the global warming encyclical, Laudato Si’, where one also finds applause for Teilhard de Chardin.

[HiTech RedNeck]

It was mentioned in the lede article too, but it bears a stern warning about — it’s never gotten so close to the leadership of the USA as it has now.

Just because it got instigated in the Roman Catholic part of the church doesn’t mean that it won’t echo in other parts of it too. If you care about Christ to the point of understanding that He is most definitely Savior, it’s so easy for sinners to yet recast Him as some kind of human centered punk, and we would go down the erroneous alley that Peter did when he chopped off the centurion’s ear. His salvation plan is SUPERnatural and frankly it looks like something the world never, ever expects to see.

[HiTech RedNeck]

As the bible says, bad enough to even “deceive the elect [inasmuch as] possible.”

It will mimic the style of whatever part of the church it is going after.

[Salvation]

For later.

[longfellow]

And yet this communist was trying to say Russia was bad.

[Bigg Red]

Mark

[RetiredTexasVet]

“... purportedly faith-inspired mission to assist Jesuit missionaries serving peasant farmers. ...”

Missions run by communist Jesuit priests and nuns, in Central and South American countries, to run guns, support local communists, and generally try to overthrow the governments there.