Thread: Public piety, private contempt for Hillary Clinton and aides

Public piety, private contempt for Hillary Clinton and aides

By Mercedes Schlapp - - Thursday, October 13, 2016

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

In public, Hillary Clinton talks about how she would represent all Americans and pushes the “Stronger Together” campaign theme. But behind closed doors, there is no room for people of faith in her America. Privately, the Democratic nominee and her campaign advisers are pushing a liberal agenda hostile to religion and targeting faith organizations that do not adapt to their liberal “religion.”

The Clinton campaign is no friend of the cause of religious liberty. Internal emails exposed by WikiLeaks showed how her top campaign aides mock believers and view evangelicals and Catholics as backward in their beliefs. Mrs. Clinton herself even said publicly “deep-seated cultural codes and religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.”

Well, her staff certainly seemed ready and willing to do just that, particularly Chief of Staff John Podesta.
Top Hillary Clinton advisers ridiculed individuals for raising their children Catholic, referring to Catholics as being “systematic in thought and severely backwards.” It was disturbing to read about how liberals characterize conservative Catholics as being responsible for an “amazing bastardization of faith.”

Catholics and evangelicals should be troubled by Mrs. Clinton’s hidden agenda to influence and alter the tenets of Christian and Catholic orthodoxy. Perhaps what is most disturbing is that Mrs. Clinton’s team will pander publicly on the stump to Catholics, Christians, Southerners and Hispanics, and then take a very different stance behind closed doors from the comfort of their keyboards. There they express vicious contempt for the very voters they need to win the election.

In an email exchange with Mr. Podesta, Voices for Progress President Sandy Newman wrote, “There needs to be a Catholic Spring, in which Catholics themselves demand the end of a middle ages [sic] dictatorship.” He then proceeded by asking how to “plant the seeds of a revolution.” Mr. Podesta replied, “We created Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good to organize for a moment like this … likewise Catholics United.”

It’s shocking that liberals and Mrs. Clinton’s advisers think they can hatch a “Catholic Spring,” a revolution within the Church carried out by liberal political groups who strongly oppose the Rome’s fundamental teachings. This “revolution” talk is similar to the Soviet anti-Catholic campaigns, where Communist leaders tried to undermine the role and stature of the Catholic Church in Eastern Europe during the Cold War.

Would a President Hillary Clinton and her liberal allies suspend the tax-exempt status of churches deemed “not friendly” to her administration? It is within the realm of possibility considering their hateful beliefs.

Mr. Podesta boasts that “we” created the Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good. His email clearly reveals that liberals and the Clinton campaign are focused on altering Catholic doctrine through political organizations that push a liberal agenda.

The leaked emails show Mrs. Clinton’s communications director, Jennifer Palmieri, directly mocking both Catholics and Protestant evangelicals. Some conservatives are turning to Catholicism, she wrote, because “they think it is the most socially acceptable politically conservative religion. Their rich friends wouldn’t understand if they became evangelicals.”

Such comments reflect an elitist mentality contemptuous of genuine religious conviction. It’s both discouraging and insulting to millions of evangelicals and Catholics who just want to live their lives according to their faith.

Has Ms. Palmieri not heard about religious liberty? Her comments contradict the very essence of the First Amendment, and are anti-American to boot. If people of faith stay silent and on the sidelines during this election cycle, this liberal theology will win, and traditional churches will lose.

We cannot afford another four years of liberal Democratic rule in the White House, a White House that has focused its energy on forcing nuns to offer contraception despite their religious beliefs and forcing churches to defend lawsuits on transgender rights where they are being unfairly classified as public places. The Obama administration, cheered on by Mrs. Clinton, is the first administration in history to sue Catholic nuns for their religious beliefs.

Installing an activist liberal majority on the Supreme Court will put religious liberties at risk for generations to come.We will be left with the state telling the church how to behave, and that is why people of faith need to stop Mrs. Clinton’s anti-religious agenda — now.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...lary-clinton-/

About that Catholic group Podesta created...

Current Issue: Politics
Fake Catholic Groups and the "Catholic Spring" Emails


October 13, 2016

It is now impossible to deny that Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good and Catholics United have worked for years to undermine and manipulate Catholic leadership

Anne Hendershott

John Podesta smiles after meeting Pope Francis after the canonization Mass for Sts. John XXIII and John Paul II in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican April 27, 2014. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

Beginning in 2007, orthodox Catholic writers including myself wrote dozens of articles in an attempt to expose the funding and duplicitousness of two fake Catholic groups: the George Soros-funded Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good and Catholics United. (For example, see here and here and here.) Now, with the release of the leaked emails this week from longtime Democratic Party operative and current Clinton campaign chair, John Podesta, there is confirmation that Podesta personally helped to launch these two progressive groups to infiltrate the Catholic Church in an attempt to provide a liberal revolt against the US bishops. Calling it a “Catholic Spring,” Podesta acknowledged that he “created” these groups to begin a progressive revolution in the Catholic Church.

In a 2012 email to Podesta—with the subject line of “opening for a Catholic Spring?”—a progressive activist named Sanford Newman, President of Voices for Progress, conspired with Podesta to create 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.” Podesta responded to the suggestion by claiming that he had already created Catholic groups ready to act when needed: “We created Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good to organize for a moment like this.”

This is not a surprise, but it is vindication for those of us who have been warning about these groups for nearly a decade. In 2008, some of us began to expose the source of the funding for Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good and Catholics United, as well as the devious activities they engaged in as they attempted to diminish the authority of those bishops opposing the Affordable Care Act. Some of us were punished by the Obama administration for our journalistic work through punitive political audits by the IRS. But most of us continued to defend the Church and her leaders against what we knew then was an orchestrated attack by the Obama administration. In a 2009 Wall Street Journalop-ed, I wrote that “when Mr. Obama was running for president, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good and Catholics United tried to neutralize the abortion issue throughout his campaign—suggesting that his proposals on social justice issues like poverty were the real way to reduce abortion rates without restricting abortion rights.”

In the leaked emails to Podesta, Democrat activist Newman suggests that they exploit the US bishops’ opposition to the Affordable care Act’s mandate for contraception and asks whether the Catholic Health Association would side with progressives in their offensive against the Church. We know now that Sr. Keehan, as leader of the Catholic Health Association, did indeed side against the USCCB in helping to pass Obama’s health care act—an act replete with funding for abortion and mandates for contraception.

Once President Obama was elected, he appointed Alexia Kelley, formerly the founding Director of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, to head his Obama’s Center for Faith Based and Community Initiatives. Her office became heavily involved in helping to pass the Affordable Care Act—despite protestations from the USCCB. Kelley brought a decade (1993-2002) of experience of working on the Catholic Campaign for Human Development for the Bishops Conference—during which time she helped funnel more than seven million dollars to ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). Under criminal investigation in several states, ACORN’s voter registration drives helped to elect President Obama. Chris Korzen, then the leader of Catholics United—the sister organization of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good—and a leader of the Catholic Voting Project in 2004 (another Democrat funded organization), organized support for pro-choice Kathleen Sebelius’s appointment as secretary of Health and Human Services by gathering signatures for an online petition titled “Catholic for Sebelius.” Enlisting the help of progressive Catholic leaders like Sr. Carol Keehan, and Catholic Sen. Robert Casey (D) to persuade people that the Affordable Care Act was “pro-life legislation,” these organizations attempted to marginalize anyone who presented an alternative narrative.

While Sr. Keehan claimed that President Obama’s health care reform “draws on Catholic social teachings,” and was an “ethical necessity, a building block for the common good of the nation,” the bishops realized that the health care act had contraception mandates that included abortifacients and could not be allowed.

For all of her lobbing efforts, Sr. Keehan was awarded one of the signing pens from President Obama when he signed the Affordable Care legislation. In June 2015, President Obama was asked to give the keynote address at the Catholic Health Association's annual conference in Washington, D.C. “It has been my privilege,” said Sr. Keehan in introducing Obama, “to work with the president and his team over the past seven years”.

Korzen, as Director of Catholics United, claimed that his organization was simply a non-partisan Catholic social justice organization interested in “following Church teachings”. Yet his statements and activities have always contradicted his assertions. The Catholics United website revealed that the organization began its advocacy work in the spring of 2004 when “a group of Catholic activists and friends formed the Catholic Voting Project to promote the U.S. Catholic bishops’ 2003 document Faithful Citizenship: A Catholic Call to Political Responsibility.” Claiming that the mission of the Catholic Voting Project was to encourage a public dialogue about faith and politics, the Voting Project was criticized early on by orthodox Catholics such as Catholic Answers founder Karl Keating as a “front” for electing Senator John Kerry as President.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Kelley teamed with Democratic Party operatives James Salt, Korzen, and other leaders of Catholics United to help neutralize the abortion issue by casting it in pro-Democratic Party terms, claiming that reducing poverty was the better way to reduce abortion. Kelley was joined at Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good by other colleagues from the USCCB, including John Gehring, Tom Chabolla and Francis Xavier Doyle. Gehring parlayed his position as assistant media director at the USCCB to a communications position at Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good. Today, Gehring works as a senior writer and Catholic outreach coordinator at Jim Wallis’ Soros-supported Faith in Public Life where he continues his attacks on the Catholic bishops who disagree with his progressive politics. Gehring, who wrote a 2015 book about Pope Francis’ “radical” challenge to the “American Catholic Church”, was assisted in his work to helping to elect progressive politicians at the offices of Faith in Public Life by Nick Sementelli, another former employee of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good.

Like Alexia Kelley, Tom Chabolla worked at the USCCB’s Catholic Campaign for Human Development before he went to work as the assistant to the president of the SEIU, the Service Employees International Union. Chabolla served as one of several union leaders on the Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good Advisory Board. The highest level “graduate” of the USCCB is Francis X. Doyle who was the associate general secretary of the USCCB before he became the treasurer-secretary of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good. In this capacity, Doyle played an important role in helping to pass the Affordable Care Act. Publicly identifying himself as a former associate general secretary of the USCCB, Doyle always implied that he speaks for Catholics.

During the time Korzen led Catholics United as a lobbying organization (501c4), he used bullying tactics against faithful Catholic writers who attempted to expose his questionable activities. Korzen was instrumental in triggering the political audit of William Donohue, the leader of the Catholic League.
Donohue found out about Korzen’s role in triggering the audit from a CNN reporter. It is likely that Korzen also played an important role in triggering my IRS audit also—although the Obama administration has refused to respond fully to three Freedom of Information Act requests from Atty. Charles LiMandri on my behalf.

Now, with the release of the Podesta emails, there is confirmation that the claims of the two organizations were lies from the start. The two groups were never created to help support the bishops. On the contrary, they were created from with the intention of provoking a revolt against the bishops who are, as Sanford Newman snidely wrote, still “stuck in the Middle Ages.” While Korzen seems to have disappeared from politics, Alexia Kelley is now ensconced as the leader of yet another major Catholic philanthropy organization. And Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good continues its commitment to electing Democrats primarily through its newest initiative Millennial—a journal founded and funded through Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good targeted to young Catholics. Like its parent organization, Millennial continues the misleading claims that they “aim to move beyond partisan and ideological divisions, bringing together all those who support the global common good and the worth and dignity of the human person.” While they have attempted to remove all traces of their connection with Podesta’s Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good on their website, their donor page is still hosted on the Catholics in Alliance website.

Newman, in his February 11, 2012 e-mail to John Podesta, wrote:

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.

Yes, there needs to be a “Catholic spring”, but not the sort envisioned by the clueless Newman (who admitted his “total lack of understanding of the Catholic church”), and Church leaders need to continue the fight, even if some of them lack a stomach for the so-called “culture wars”. It will require, among other things, an attentiveness to how underhanded, misleading, cynical, and even bigoted are the constant political machinations.

Thankfully, some do understand. In an essay posted earlier today on the First Things site, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput recounts being approached in 2008, prior to the Obama-McCain presidential election, by two Catholics United operatives:

They voiced great concern at the manipulative skill of Catholic agents for the Republican Party. And they hoped my brother bishops and I would resist identifying the Church with single-issue and partisan (read: abortion) politics.

It was an interesting experience. Both men were obvious flacks for the Obama campaign and the Democratic Party—creatures of a political machine, not men of the Church; less concerned with Catholic teaching than with its influence. And presumably (for them) bishops were dumb enough to be used as tools, or at least prevented from helping the other side. Yet these two young men not only equaled but surpassed their Republican cousins in the talents of servile partisan hustling. Thanks to their work, and activists like them, American Catholics helped to elect an administration that has been the most stubbornly unfriendly to religious believers, institutions, concerns and liberty in generations.

As Archbishop Chaput notes, “I never saw either young man again. The cultural damage done by the current White House has—apparently—made courting America’s bishops unnecessary.” Perhaps. But what is necessary is a clear vision of the serious challenges facing Catholics now and far into the future from those who work to not only influence the Church but to manipulate and mislead her under the guise of “Catholic” labels.

http://www.catholicworldreport.com/I...ng_emails.aspx

News Briefs > US

After 'Catholic Spring' email leak, US bishops warn American ideals at risk


October 14, 2016 10:56 AM

Washington D.C., Oct 14, 2016 / 11:56 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Following a leaked email from prominent political actors about a possible “Catholic Spring” movement to plant “seeds of the revolution” within the Church, the U.S. bishops' conference has rebuked interference in the Church and a political discourse that marginalizes the faithful and demeans women.

“There have been recent reports that some may have sought to interfere in the internal life of the Church for short-term political gain,” said Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, the U.S. bishops’ conference president. “If true, this is troubling both for the well-being of faith communities and the good of our country.”

“In our faith and our Church, Christ has given us a precious gift. As Catholics, we hold onto our beliefs because they come to us from Jesus, not a consensus forged by contemporary norms,” he said Oct. 13.

“We also expect public officials to respect the rights of people to live their faith without interference from the state,” the archbishop continued. “When faith communities lose this right, the very idea of what it means to be an American is lost.”

Archbishop Kurtz did not directly mention the controversy over a leaked email exchangefrom Feb. 10-11, 2012 between Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s current campaign manager, John Podesta, and Sandy Newman, president of the progressive organization Voices for Progress.

Newman appears to have initiated the email exchange, titled “Opening for a Catholic Spring? Just musing.” He cited the controversy over Catholic objections to mandatory coverage of contraception in employers’ insurance plans, which would force Catholics to provide drugs, including some abortion-causing drugs, the use of which they recognize as sinful and unethical.

“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,” Newman said, asking whether contraception coverage could be a rally point for such a movement.

Newman told Podesta he has a “total lack of understanding of the Catholic Church,” adding, “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…”

Podesta’s email suggested that two political organizations were intended for such advocacy.

“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,” he said. “Likewise Catholics United. Like most Spring movements, I think this one will have to be bottom up.”

Podesta suggested consultation with Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, former Lt. Governor of Maryland and daughter of Robert F. Kennedy. Townsend has served on the board of the National Catholic Reporter and gave a 2008 keynote address to the national conference of Call to Action, which dissents from Church teaching on issues of sexuality and women’s ordination.

The emails were released by the anti-secrecy site Wikileaks as part of an ongoing leak of emails reputedly hacked from Podesta’s email account. Podesta has echoed rumors that Russian intelligence officials were responsible for the hack. He has further alleged that some of the emails may not be authentic.

For Archbishop Kurtz, the controversy was a time to reflect on the state of political life.

“Politicians, their staffs and volunteers should reflect our best aspirations as citizens. Too much of our current political discourse has demeaned women and marginalized people of faith,” he said. “This must change. True to the best hopes of our founding fathers, we are confident that we can and will do better as a nation.”

He encouraged Catholics and all people of good will to be “good stewards” of the rights of Americans.

“The Gospel is offered for all people for all times. It invites us to love our neighbor and live in peace with one another,” the archbishop continued. “For this reason, the truth of Christ is never outdated or inaccessible. The Gospel serves the common good, not political agendas.”

The political players involved in the email exchange have had great influence. Newman, the originator of the “Catholic Spring” suggestion, once hired a young Barack Obama to run a voter registration project in Illinois in 1993.

Podesta is past president of the Center for American Progress think tank and served as chief of staff for President Bill Clinton.

In recent years, the Center for American Progress has taken hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants from the Arcus Foundation to “reclaim” religious freedom as a progressive value that “includes LGBT equality and women's reproductive health and rights.” The Center for American Progress also hosts Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson as a senior fellow. The first openly gay bishop’s 2003 election as Bishop of New Hampshire caused massive rifts within the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion.

Christopher Hale, the current executive director of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, told CNA Oct. 12 that the emails “do not reflect the mission of the organization.”

“I’ve think we’ve proven during my time here that we are a strong messenger for the full social magisterium of the Catholic Church,” he said. “We fought against the HHS mandate, we fought against Planned Parenthood when the tapes were released in 2015. We fought time and again for the dignity of the unborn child.”

“If our job is to be a front group for the Democratic Party, then we’re doing a pretty terrible job at it,” Hale said.

Hale acknowledged that in the past, the organization has received funding from philanthropist and liberal activist George Soros. He claimed that the organization has not received a grant from Soros in 10 years.

Catholics in Alliance’s associated group Catholics United, however, has taken funds from wealthy LGBT activists such as the Gill Foundation, founded by the wealthy businessman Tim Gill, and billionaire heir Jon Stryker’s Arcus Foundation. Grant listings and annual reports from the foundations show grants from 2012 through 2015.

The Newman-Podesta emails concerned the Obama administration’s Department of Health and Human Services rule, first announced in late 2011, that health care plans must include coverage for sterilization and contraceptives, including some drugs that can cause abortions. The move caused widespread outcry among Catholics across the political spectrum. The Obama administration has gradually made various purported accommodations that have appeased some objectors.

Hobby Lobby, which is owned by a Christian family with objections to abortifacient contraceptives, successfully challenged the rule. It won a 5-4 Supreme Court decision in 2014 that said religious freedom protections apply to closely-held private businesses.

However, some Catholic organizations, dioceses, and other non-profits are still challenging the HHS mandate on religious freedom grounds, including the Little Sisters of the Poor and CNA’s parent organization, the EWTN Global Catholic Network.

In a May 2016 unanimous decision, the Supreme Court sent the Little Sisters’ case back to lower courts and their case is still pending, though opponents of the HHS mandate took encouragement from the decision.

http://www.catholicworldreport.com/N...at-risk-45679/