Replies

Wait, are you saying that Hanssen was used to spy on Opus Dei or somerthing?

If Yurchenko revealed Hanssen as the mole, why wasn't he caught in 1985? Was he the one who defected, then later defected back? Was he working with Aldrich Ames?

Opus Dei was his "cover." It's called a legend in tri-letter espionage speak. To make him look conservative. Most likely there were other KGB moles sent in and they could use the already existing semi-secretive structure of Opus Dei for meeting, socializing, and advancement. When I was involved in Catholic higher education professionally there were definite advantages to being connected with Opus Dei networks. Socially, professionally, and financially.

I'll forward the links on the Hanssen/KGBmole/Yurchenko and Opus Dei safari. I suspect there's a double ironic twist. If caught, the mole helps bring scandal into an anti-Communist organization which is also Catholic. The KGB was not unaware of the prominent role of Catholics in the American conservative movement and in anti-Communist activities. There were numerous internal documents of the KGB outlining anti-Catholic strategies.

Wait, are you saying that Hanssen was used to spy on Opus Dei or something? 94 posted on 10/05/2003 12:14 PM PDT by nickcarraway

That's an interesting point. These kinds of espionage operations are planned over long periods of time. The cover established for Hanssen which would position him in certain conservative Catholic circles in the Washington metro area would certainly be useful. The KGB would not be the only organization that would spy on Catholic conservatives. Liberals do this as well. In fact, quite apart from the James Bond territory of government-sponsored espionage, intrigues, and counter-intelligence, the various splinter factions in the Church (in terms of doctrine, theology, and ideological styles of Catholicism) spy on one another and it's not uncommon for unbalanced non-Catholics to develop obsessions with Catholic matters along bizarre lines of inquiry.

Liberals (and anti-Catholics) usually engage in a lot of wild fantasies about what conservative orthodox Catholics are supposed to be up to and all about. In my professional experience in Catholic higher education, some of the anti-Catholic (or non-Catholic) liberals had a lot of bizarre ideas about what it is they think we believe and do. I had a very bizare experience once. A fairly well-educated lapsed Episcopalian woman who had attended an Ivy League university and a prestigious law school told me in conversation once that the Catholic Church was run and controlled by "the Mafia." What stuck out in her mind apparently were the Italians. On another occasion, a non-Catholic professor (an atheist) from a secular university (with an Ivy League PhD) told me that the thing that was really awful about the Catholic college nearby was that all that they talk about and study is "St. Thomas Aquinas" and they "do whatever the Pope tells them to do." There were in fact no trained "Thomists" at this institution at the time and very few orthodox Catholics on the faculty with the intellectual orientation being quite liberal and multicultural.

The tendency which seems to have originated within the narrow ideological radius of The New York Times for anti-Catholic liberals to talk about the Vatican in the same breath as "Nazis" and "Hitler" is another case in point. It's a little like Rorschach Inkblots. People see what they want to see. Their fantasies and bizarre obsessions will obscure their perspective on religious matters just like everything else. Remember that "papal monarchy" Catholics were supposed to be building in America? [IRONY] How many active "monarchists" would you say there are in the local Catholic parishes in your diocese?

Here's a prediction. Some kook will begin obsessing on Arnold ("Conan") the Terminator's Austrian and Catholic background (i.e., Holy Roman Empire) and begin outlining his path from Governor of California to Antichristhood. The unsavory and scandalous tales of his Hollywood follies and his pro-abortionism feed into this as well. With the quasi-demonic imagery of "The Terminator" in his portfolio, his film kitsch won't help much. Nor the Kennedyism of his wife. Come to think of it, his bishop should ask him to withdraw if he intends to misrepresent the abortion issue in politics.