Vincent J. Curtis
15 Oct 2016
It’s hard to keep up with all the scandalous revelations being
served up to us in the WikiLeaks document dump.
Though it happened on Wednesday, the attack upon the Catholic faith by
Hillary’s highest minions is old news by now.
However, a little time provides for reflection, and gives, perhaps, a
better understanding of the who, what, and why’s of the attack on the Catholic faith, and to see the potential for more attacks in a Hillary Administration.
The facts are these.
Long before Hillary’s campaign for president even began, in 2011 and
2012, central figures in her campaign, John Podesta, John Halpin, Sandy Newman,
and Jennifer Palmieri in particular, were involved in progressivist schemes to
subvert the teachings of the Catholic faith by attacking them from within the
Church.
Efforts by progressivism to subvert the Catholic faith is
not new; they date back to the 19th century. The encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis (On the Doctrine of the Modernists)
released by Pope St. Pius X September 8th, 1907, read “modernism”
(as progressivism was then known) out of the Catholic Church, and ordered the
placement of progressivist clerics who had infiltrated into the Church into
positions where they could do the least harm.
Progressivism needs to subvert the teachings of the Catholic faith if it expects to fully triumph.
Progressivism holds that there is no such thing as absolute truth, (a
position that is logically incoherent, but never mind) while the Catholic faith is founded upon the opposite: the knowledge that there is absolute truth
and that some, though not all, of it is knowable by man.
Behind that knowledge (as well as the exposition of some of
those truths) are the philosophical works of Aristotle, Augustine of Hippo, and
Thomas Aquinas. Some of the finest minds
mankind has ever produced have researched, contemplated, and criticized the
philosophy and theology of the Catholic faith over the last 2,500 years – a
period that includes Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. There is that, two thousand years of
experience and tradition, and a billion adherents world-wide.
Based upon philosophical pragmatism, developed in the 19th
century, progressivism holds that Christian philosophy is wrong. (Pragmatism holds that truth is whatever
works.)
The Catholic Church is surprisingly liberal in social
policy. Progressivism and the Catholic
Church are in general agreement in many policy areas. The Catholic Church supported the
unionization of labor in the 19th century (Rerum Novarum “On Capital and Labor” Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII
released May 15th, 1891), and American bishops came out for universal
health care in 1919. The Catholic Church
is the largest provider of health care in the world.
But because the Catholic faith holds to certain fundamental
truths and denies that truth is a relative and malleable, it stands as a rock
against the complete triumph of progressivism.
A couple of areas in which the Catholic faith stands against the
victory of progressivism is in abortion and in the anti-big government
principle of subsidiarity.
The principle of subsidiary holds against a big, central
government that controls everything. It
holds that local churches, charity groups, and private organizations like the
Red Cross should be allowed to make their contribution to the common good, in
accordance with their worldly mission, working hand in glove with
government. Catholic hospitals and
Catholic Children’s Aid Societies are other examples. Progressivism, which holds “everything in
government, nothing outside of government,” can’t tolerate that.
Hence, when progressivism foists abortion, gay marriage, and
transgenderism upon society, it runs head first into the rock of Catholic
teaching, Catholic social organizations, and a large number of adherents. There is no way of getting around the rock,
and the only thing progressivism can do win is to destroy the rock.
That is what the Podesta-Palmieri-Halpin emails were
about. Assuming a superior understanding
of the world, Halpin mocks Rupert Murdoch and Robert Thompson (the latter the
publisher of the Wall Street Journal) for raising their children as Catholics.
Ken
Auletta's latest piece on Murdoch in the New Yorker starts off with the aside
that both Murdoch and Robert Thompson, managing editor of the WSJ, are raising
their kids Catholic.
Friggin'
Murdoch baptized his kids in Jordan where John the Baptist baptized Jesus. Many
of the most powerful elements of the conservative movement are all Catholic
(many converts) from the SC and think tanks to the media and social groups.
It's an amazing bastardization of the faith. They must be attracted to the
systematic thought and severely backwards gender relations and must be totally
unaware of Christian democracy.
Jennifer
Palmieri <JPalmieri@americanprogress.org> wrote:
I
imagine they think it is the most socially acceptable politically conservative
religion. Their rich friends wouldn't understand if they became evangelicals.
From:jhalpin@americanprogress.org To: JPalmieri@americanprogress.org,
john.podesta@gmail.com
Date: 2011-04-11 21:10
Subject: Re: Conservative Catholicism
Excellent
point. They can throw around "Thomistic" thought and
"subsidiarity" and sound sophisticated because no one knows what the
hell they're talking about.
Having
studied Aristotlean-Thomistic Scholasticism myself, I can testify that Halpin,
Podesta, and Palmieri are shallower than reflecting pools. The greatest quality of progressivism is that
it is simple enough to appeal to second rate minds. Progressivism and pragmatism don’t require a
lot of deep study to get the sense that you know something profound. For example, it never occurs to Halpin that
“Christian Democracy” is a self-contradictory idea. Christianity is Truth, discovered by both
reason and revelation, and Halpin is suggesting through “Christian Democracy”
that the Truth discovered by reason and revelation can be changed by majority
vote. Kind of like voting to repeal the
Law of Gravity or abolish the Pythagorean Theorem! That’s how they think.
A-T
Scholasticism, on the other hand, is really hard. It takes a lot of study. It doesn’t surprise me in the least that
someone like John Halpin has no idea what the hell Scholasticism is about, and
is uncomfortable with its concepts.
As her
defence against the charge of anti-Catholic bias, Jennifer Palmieri said that
she was herself Catholic. Well, so what? These emails mean that Palmieri was telling
reporters that she believed in a politically conservative religion that is
somewhat more socially acceptable to the smart set than evangelicalism. Does she seriously believe that? I doubt it.
Besides, she neglected to say when the last time was she attended Mass. It never occurs to them in their shallow
intellectual arrogance that someone might join the Catholic Church out of
sincere faith. And the author of Summa Theologica was smarter than all of
them put together.
A second
email chain lays bare the effort by John Podesta (another self-proclaimed
Catholic who likely hasn’t attended Mass in twenty years) to subvert Catholic opposition by creating allegedly Catholic secular organizations to oppose
fundamental Catholic teaching.
From:john.podesta@gmail.com To: sandynewman@gmail.com Date: 2012-02-11 11:45 Subject: Re:
opening for a Catholic Spring? just musing . .
We created Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good to
organize for a moment like this. But I think it lacks the leadership to do so
now. Likewise Catholics United. Like most Spring movements, I think this one
will have to be bottom up. I'll discuss with Tara. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend is
the other person to consult.
On 2/10/12,
Sandy Newman <sandynewman@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi, John,
This whole
controversy with the bishops opposing contraceptive coverage even though 98% of
Catholic women (and their conjugal partners) have used contraception has me
thinking . . . There needs to be a Catholic Spring, in which Catholics
themselves demand the end of a middle ages dictatorship and the beginning of a
little democracy and respect for gender equality in the Catholic church.
Is
contraceptive coverage an issue around which that could happen. The Bishops
will undoubtedly continue the fight. Does the Catholic Hospital Association
support of the Administration's new policy, together with "the 98%"
create an opportunity?
Of course, this
idea may just reveal my total lack of understanding of the Catholic church, the
economic power it can bring to bear against nuns and priests who count on it
for their maintenance, etc. Even if the idea isn't crazy, I don't qualify to be
involved and I have not thought at all about how one would "plant the
seeds of the revolution," or who would plant them. Just wondering . . .
Hoping you're
well, and getting to focus your time in the ways you want.
Sandy
Sandy Newman,
President
Voices for
Progress
202.669.8754
voicesforprogress.org
The second email chain expresses the desire to subvert
Catholic teaching by setting parts of the Catholic Church against that
teaching. It assumes that economic power
is used to suppress the actual (and progressive) opinions of the clergy. It holds that the Catholic Church is run as a
“middle ages dictatorship” and is in need of democracy and a change in its
position concerning the roles of men and women within the Church. Sandy Newman then says that she isn’t
qualified to know if any of this makes sense, but she makes them anyway. Her goal is to subvert the Church’s
opposition to the abortion provisions of the Affordable Care Act, and to force
the Catholic Church to pay for contraception coverage for its clergy and its
secular employees. Make the Church eat
dirt for expressing its faith.
Hillary Clinton was not involved in this. But Hillary Clinton is a fanatical
progressive, and these are the people who would work for her in a Hillary
Administration. If Hillary Clinton is
elected president, these second-rate minds, these shallow people, are the ones
who would stop at nothing to destroy the Catholic Church – all with plausible
deniability for Hillary herself. With
the Catholic Church reduced to rubble, by driving Catholic charitable
organizations like hospitals, shelters for the homeless, children’s aid, and
schools from the public square, there would be no coherent, principled, and
intellectually untouchable hierarchical opposition to progressivist rule and
progressivist dogma.
-30-
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