By Father Larry Swink

Father Larry Swink

Click here for the audio of “An Evil Law Against Freedom of Religion.

Background:

Soros-funded Fake “Catholic” Groups in Retreat; Catholic Church Rejects Surrender Terms from Obama

By Cliff Kincaid – January 30, 2012

My Catholic priest, Father Larry Swink, delivered a homily on Sunday that I told him would make headlines. In the toughest sermon I have ever heard from a pulpit, he attacked the Obama Administration as evil, even demonic, and warned of religious persecution ahead. What was also newsworthy about the sermon was that he cited The Washington Post in agreement—not on the subject of the Obama Administration being evil, but on the matter of its abridgment of the constitutional right to freedom of religion.

What is happening is extraordinary and unprecedented. The Catholic Church is in open revolt against the Obama Administration, with Fr. Swink noting from the pulpit that priests across the archdiocese were joining the call on Sunday to rally Catholics to resistance against the U.S. Government. He said we are entering a time of religious persecution and that Catholics and others will have to make a final decision about which side they are on.

The issue is what the Catholic Bishops have called a “literally unconscionable” edict by the Obama Administration demanding that sterilization, abortifacients and contraception be included in virtually all health plans.

At a time when the media are full of reports about who is ahead and behind in the polls, and who will win the next Republican presidential primary, this incredible uprising in the Catholic Church is something that could not only overshadow the political campaign season, but also may have a major impact on the ultimate outcome – if Republicans know how to handle it. This matter goes beyond partisan politics to the growing perception of an unconstitutional Obama Administration assault on religious freedom. To hear the Catholic Bishops and Priests describe it, our constitutional republic and our freedoms hang in the balance.

The administration claims there is a religious exemption in the mandate, but the bishops say it is so narrow that it fails to cover the vast majority of faith-based organizations, including Catholic hospitals, universities and service organizations that help millions every year. “Ironically,” they say, “not even Jesus & his disciples would have qualified.”

The bishops go on, “Now that the Administration has refused to recognize the Constitutional conscience rights of organizations and individuals who oppose the mandate, the bishops are now urging Catholics and others of good will to fight this unprecedented attack on conscience rights and religious liberty.”

Obama is at war with the Catholic Church

Interestingly, The Washington Post, as Father Swink indicated, agrees with the bishops. The paper said, “In this circumstance, requiring a religiously affiliated employer to spend its own money in a way that violates its religious principles does not make an adequate accommodation for those deeply held views. Having recognized the principle of a religious exemption, the administration should have expanded it.”

So why would the administration pick a major fight with the Catholic Church? There are two main reasons. (1) The administration wants to please its progressive and feminist, secular pro-abortion base. (2) The administration believes Catholics are divided on the issue and will ignore their leaders and follow Obama.

Support for the latter explanation comes in the form of the Obama Administration’s efforts to co-opt the Catholic Church, primarily through appointing nominal Catholics to high-level positions in government and keeping funding going to the church for “social justice” causes. Another player in this effort is the hedge-fund billionaire George Soros, an atheist who nevertheless has found groups that are “Catholic in name only” to accept his financial largesse. These groups, including Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, are designed to give the impression that Catholics are less concerned about issues like stopping abortion and protecting the sanctity of traditional marriage than passing government health care.  The Obama/Soros gamble may be backfiring.

It’s true that the bishops went along with Obama’s health care scheme, even lobbying on its behalf. But now they seem to be realizing that the plan was a Trojan Horse designed to force population control measures on the people of the United States. It will be difficult for the bishops to continue working with the administration on other issues, like immigration. They have drawn a line in the sand. They cannot back down.

Father Larry Swink of Jesus The Divine Word Catholic Church in Huntingtown, Maryland, is not alone in his tough language. Pittsburgh Bishop David A. Zubik posted a letter on the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh’s website that said, “It is really hard to believe that it happened. It comes like a slap in the face. The Obama administration has just told the Catholics of the United States, ‘To Hell with you!’ There is no other way to put it.” He added, “This whole process of mandating these guidelines undermines the democratic process itself.  In this instance, the mandate declares pregnancy a disease, forces a culture of contraception and abortion on society, all while completely bypassing the legislative process.”

You know it’s serious when the bishops are talking about heaven and hell.

Indeed, Fr. Swink opened his discussion of what he described as the evil nature of the Obama Administration by reading from scripture about Jesus casting out demons. He saw the order on health care coverage as the start of religious persecution. The congregation joined him in calls of “Amen” when he challenged them to stand tall with the church.

You cannot expect the secular Washington Post to go along with such rhetoric. But even its liberal editorial writer saw the ramifications of the health care order, perhaps anticipating the confrontation that we now see developing. From the point of view of this liberal paper, the Obama Administration is not only undermining religious freedom but risking a major backlash to its overall “progressive” agenda and even a second term in office.

Some may see this battle as just another church-state dust-up that will be resolved through litigation. But when apocalyptic imagery is used, such as what I heard at my church on Sunday, one must wonder if there is an awakening on the part of the Catholic community and if there is something else going on here besides politics as usual. In short, is the Catholic Church beginning to finally recognize the real nature of the Obama Administration?

Surrender Terms from Obama

By Cliff Kincaid – January 30, 2012

My Catholic priest, Father Larry Swink, delivered a homily on Sunday that I told him would make headlines. In the toughest sermon I have ever heard from a pulpit, he attacked the Obama Administration as evil, even demonic, and warned of religious persecution ahead. What was also newsworthy about the sermon was that he cited The Washington Post in agreement—not on the subject of the Obama Administration being evil, but on the matter of its abridgment of the constitutional right to freedom of religion.

What is happening is extraordinary and unprecedented. The Catholic Church is in open revolt against the Obama Administration, with Fr. Swink noting from the pulpit that priests across the archdiocese were joining the call on Sunday to rally Catholics to resistance against the U.S. Government. He said we are entering a time of religious persecution and that Catholics and others will have to make a final decision about which side they are on.

The issue is what the Catholic Bishops have called a “literally unconscionable” edict by the Obama Administration demanding that sterilization, abortifacients and contraception be included in virtually all health plans.

At a time when the media are full of reports about who is ahead and behind in the polls, and who will win the next Republican presidential primary, this incredible uprising in the Catholic Church is something that could not only overshadow the political campaign season, but also may have a major impact on the ultimate outcome – if Republicans know how to handle it. This matter goes beyond partisan politics to the growing perception of an unconstitutional Obama Administration assault on religious freedom. To hear the Catholic Bishops and Priests describe it, our constitutional republic and our freedoms hang in the balance.

The administration claims there is a religious exemption in the mandate, but the bishops say it is so narrow that it fails to cover the vast majority of faith-based organizations, including Catholic hospitals, universities and service organizations that help millions every year. “Ironically,” they say, “not even Jesus & his disciples would have qualified.”

The bishops go on, “Now that the Administration has refused to recognize the Constitutional conscience rights of organizations and individuals who oppose the mandate, the bishops are now urging Catholics and others of good will to fight this unprecedented attack on conscience rights and religious liberty.”

Obama is at war with the Catholic Church

Interestingly, The Washington Post, as Father Swink indicated, agrees with the bishops. The paper said, “In this circumstance, requiring a religiously affiliated employer to spend its own money in a way that violates its religious principles does not make an adequate accommodation for those deeply held views. Having recognized the principle of a religious exemption, the administration should have expanded it.”

So why would the administration pick a major fight with the Catholic Church? There are two main reasons. (1) The administration wants to please its progressive and feminist, secular pro-abortion base. (2) The administration believes Catholics are divided on the issue and will ignore their leaders and follow Obama.

Support for the latter explanation comes in the form of the Obama Administration’s efforts to co-opt the Catholic Church, primarily through appointing nominal Catholics to high-level positions in government and keeping funding going to the church for “social justice” causes. Another player in this effort is the hedge-fund billionaire George Soros, an atheist who nevertheless has found groups that are “Catholic in name only” to accept his financial largesse. These groups, including Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, are designed to give the impression that Catholics are less concerned about issues like stopping abortion and protecting the sanctity of traditional marriage than passing government health care.  The Obama/Soros gamble may be backfiring.

It’s true that the bishops went along with Obama’s health care scheme, even lobbying on its behalf. But now they seem to be realizing that the plan was a Trojan Horse designed to force population control measures on the people of the United States. It will be difficult for the bishops to continue working with the administration on other issues, like immigration. They have drawn a line in the sand. They cannot back down.

Father Larry Swink of Jesus The Divine Word Catholic Church in Huntingtown, Maryland, is not alone in his tough language. Pittsburgh Bishop David A. Zubik posted a letter on the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh’s website that said, “It is really hard to believe that it happened. It comes like a slap in the face. The Obama administration has just told the Catholics of the United States, ‘To Hell with you!’ There is no other way to put it.” He added, “This whole process of mandating these guidelines undermines the democratic process itself.  In this instance, the mandate declares pregnancy a disease, forces a culture of contraception and abortion on society, all while completely bypassing the legislative process.”

You know it’s serious when the bishops are talking about heaven and hell.

Indeed, Fr. Swink opened his discussion of what he described as the evil nature of the Obama Administration by reading from scripture about Jesus casting out demons. He saw the order on health care coverage as the start of religious persecution. The congregation joined him in calls of “Amen” when he challenged them to stand tall with the church.

You cannot expect the secular Washington Post to go along with such rhetoric. But even its liberal editorial writer saw the ramifications of the health care order, perhaps anticipating the confrontation that we now see developing. From the point of view of this liberal paper, the Obama Administration is not only undermining religious freedom but risking a major backlash to its overall “progressive” agenda and even a second term in office.

Some may see this battle as just another church-state dust-up that will be resolved through litigation. But when apocalyptic imagery is used, such as what I heard at my church on Sunday, one must wonder if there is an awakening on the part of the Catholic community and if there is something else going on here besides politics as usual. In short, is the Catholic Church beginning to finally recognize the real nature of the Obama Administration?

Atheist Soros Funds Catholic Groups

By Cliff Kincaid

The critical role of the Catholic Church in passing national health care reform legislation is coming under serious media scrutiny. But the story has taken a strange turn. It has now been revealed that George Soros, the billionaire hedge fund operator and well-known atheist, has been pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into “progressive” Catholic groups that are significant players in the national debates over health care and immigration.

On the surface, it would appear that Soros would be opposed to many positions of the Catholic Church. A major financial backer of the ACLU, Soros supports such causes as drug legalization, the rights of “sex workers” and felons, euthanasia, radical feminism, abortion rights, and homosexual rights. He does all of this in the name of promoting an “open society.”

But a review of the records of his Open Society Institute finds that a group calling itself Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good (CACG) has received $200,000 over the last several years.

James Todd of the Pewsitter.com web site, which represents traditional Catholics, calls such groups “CINOs,” or Catholics In Name Only. He explains, “This group and several others have sprung up recently — I suspect purposely organized and funded  — to counterbalance the growing influence of the faithful Catholics AND to try to deceive and mislead the middle of the road Catholics that have determined the last 13 Presidential elections.”

An investigation also finds, however, that Soros money has gone into the Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC), an organization established by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops back in 1988. It has received at least $530,000 from the Open Society Institute.

The two issues merge in the fact that the Catholic Bishops are demanding that national health care legislation cover illegal aliens.

In a story headlined, “Religious Leaders Seek Healthcare for Illegal Immigrants,” the Los Angeles Times recently quoted Kathy Saile, director of domestic social development with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, as saying that illegal immigrants should be included in any healthcare reform plan. Father Richard Estrada of Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church in Los Angeles was described as being part of a religious service and phone bank “to urge congressional leaders to include illegal immigrants in any healthcare reform plan.” His church has in the past offered sanctuary to illegal immigrants.

CACG played a role in House passage of H.R. 3962, the bill known as Pelosicare and boasts that it had joined with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Catholic Health Association, and “dozens of other Catholic and faith-based groups in celebrating this historic vote.”

The group’s blog even offered a “Health Care Reform Prayer,” asking for God’s help in passing federal legislation.

John Gehring, CACG media director, said that, “We have been primarily focused on highlighting the moral dimensions of this issue and articulating how Catholic social teaching addresses health care as a human right central to a just society. Along with other faith-based groups like PICO National Network, Faith in Public Life, Sojourners and others we brought citizens and faith leaders to Capitol Hill several weeks ago to meet with representatives and they emphasized the urgency for reform and specifically the critical issue of affordability. For example, Fr. Joseph Shad, S.J., a hospital chaplain at Mercy Hospital in Portland, Maine, came to Capitol Hill and met with representatives. He shared stories we have collected from citizens across the country as part of our project, Voices for Health Reform.”

On the passage of the Affordable Health Care for America Act, H.R. 3962, CACG said, “As Catholics, we applaud the efforts of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Bart Stupak, and others who helped extend current restrictions on federal funding of abortion to health plans participating in the public [health] exchanges.”

But Judie Brown of the American Life League says the provision doesn’t go far enough and accuses the Bishops who lobbied for passage of wanting “mandatory, government-run health care for one and all more than it desires the protection of all vulnerable human beings’ right to life.”

The anti-abortion restrictions, Brown points out, still permit federal funding of abortions in some circumstances.

Meanwhile, Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute says that “Catholics should be outraged at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops” because while they succeeded in getting a pro-abortion provision dropped from the bill, they “abandoned the Church’s doctrine of subsidiarity by endorsing the rest of the Democrats’ plan to centralize power in Washington.” Cannon says his grandfather served as counsel to the Bishops.

But the Soros-funded Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good has high-level connections of its own. The Treasurer-Secretary is Francis Xavier Doyle, a former top official of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and the Executive director is Victoria Kovari, a former organizer for the Gamaliel Foundation, the same group that helped launch Barack Obama’s career as a community organizer in Chicago. The chairman is Alfred M. Rotondaro, a senior fellow at another Soros-funded group, the Center for American Progress.

Although CACG describes itself as “a lay Catholic organization that works to promote the common good and the broad spectrum of Catholic social teaching,”Frank Walker of the conservative Pewsitter website labels it a religious and political Trojan Horse designed to mislead Catholics and produce votes for the Democratic Party.

One purpose of the Soros money, Walker says, is to play down the importance of the issue of abortion to Catholics and even make abortion rights a “respectable” Catholic position.

Walker notes that, “The CACG is run and advised by powerful Democrats.  Their board, staff, and advisory committee include top fundraisers and strategists as well as major labor union representation.” He adds, “Catholic Church Leadership from the Sisters of Mercy, the Jesuit order, the government-funded Catholic Charities and Catholic Relief Services are also represented at CACG.  Catholic academia has a strong presence.”

Indeed, the CACG advisory council includes figures from the Service Employees Union (SEIU), AFL-CIO, Catholic University of America, Georgetown University, and Boston College.

In addition to health care reform, other big issues for CACG are “immigration reform” and “worker justice.” The latter links to a group promoting a bill, the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for unions to gain members.

The SEIU representative on the CACG board is Tom Chabolla, who serves as assistant to SEIU President Andy Stern. Before joining SEIU, he was associate director of programs for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD), the agency of the Bishops that funded ACORN to the tune of $7.3 million over the last decade. Funding of ACORN – but not to groups like Gamaliel – has been suspended by the Bishops.

Gamaliel says on its website that says, “Barack H. Obama, former Gamaliel organizer, is the 44th president of the United States,” and that this makes the organizing community proud. It also has a story about Obama friend and White House adviser Valerie Jarrett speaking to a Gamaliel event in Washington, D.C. of 2500 activists. Jarrett is the official who said that “we” had recruited communist Van Jones to the White House. Another speaker was Melody Barnes, Obama’s Director of the Domestic Policy Council.

Before coming to the White House, Barnes was the executive vice president for Policy at the Soros-funded Center for American Progress (CAP).  Van Jones also worked at CAP before going to the White House. CAP CEO and President John Podesta, who served as President Clinton’s chief of staff, is a major “progressive Catholic” and member of the ACORN advisory council who served as a professor at Georgetown University.

Interestingly, Tom Chabolla of the SEIU and formerly of the CCHD was on the dinner committee for the 33rd Annual Hubert H. Humphrey Civil Rights Award Dinner, which was held on May 7, 2009 in Washington, D.C.

One of the award winners was none other than Van Jones.

On Saturday, November 21 and Sunday, November 22, Catholics across the country will be asked to support the CCHD with their financial offerings. Gamaliel is appealing for support, saying that it is “under attack from those with a partisan agenda to de-fund groups committed to organizing for social justice.” It says. “Many Gamaliel Foundation affiliates rely on funding from CCHD to serve their communities.”

But Gamaliel also relies on George Soros. His Open Society Institute provided $300,000 to the organization in 2008.

Here’s how the Post story by Katherine Shaver began:

“Katy Jamison strode toward her graduation from Catholic University on Saturday wearing the requisite black robe and mortar board €” plus a neon green message to House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). ‘Where’s the compassion, Mr. Boehner?’ said the 8-by-10-inch sign pinned to her chest.”

Catholic Socialist John Sweeney, AFL-CIO President Emeritus

Jamison, it turns out, was one of “about 30” involved in this “protest,” out of 1,500 students receiving bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral graduates. And this is what the Post decided to emphasize. It is a case study of liberal media bias through deliberate distortion. The purpose was to portray Boehner as not only heartless but out of step with the teaching of the Catholic Church. But the ploy failed, based on the paltry numbers of protesters, according to the paper’s own account.

Boehner was selected, CUA said, because he is “A strong supporter of Catholic education in the District of Columbia, particularly the inner-city Consortium of Catholic Academies, [and] he co-chairs an annual dinner to benefit the organization.”

Boehner has long been an advocate of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (DC OSP) to provide poor or low-income students an opportunity to receive a scholarship to attend a D.C. private school of their parent’s choice. He invited some of the students benefiting from the program to be his guests at the State of the Union. One of the students, Lesly Alvarez, was described as an outstanding eighth-grade student who attends Sacred Heart School, a private Catholic school where 100 percent of eighth-graders graduated on-time during the past three years. “Without the OSP scholarship,” noted a report on WUSA in Washington, D.C., “Alvarez would not be able to attend the private school that charges around $8,100 per child.”

But President Obama, who sends his children to exclusive secular private schools, opposed the Boehner initiative.

Giving poor parents the ability to send their children to a private Catholic school so they can get a better education doesn’t qualify as “social justice” to the students and their faculty advisers putting on the anti-Boehner protest.

The attack was not unexpected; the Post had already run an article in advance of Boehner’s appearance noting that a group of liberal Catholic professors had taken issue with the House Speaker’s desire to cut government spending and debt.  Not surprisingly, the Shaver article regurgitated what had already appeared, in order to make it appear that the protest of about 30 students was the dramatic culmination of what the professors had set in motion. In truth, the protest demonstrated that most students wanted no part of this political show.

House Speaker John Boehner, CUA President Garvey, and Cardinal Wuerl

The show was staged by a group of liberal professors, led by Stephen Schneck, director of the Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies, who decided to use the university and manipulate students for the purpose of serving as cannon fodder against the Republican Party as 2012 rolls around.

The Post of course cannot be counted on to point out that Schneck is a board member of the George Soros-funded Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good (CACG), a “progressive” front group that is designed to counter the conservative and pro-life tendencies that many Catholics, including John Boehner, embrace. Schneck, who does not include this outside affiliation on his official CUIA bio, works closely with White House official Alexia Kelley, former executive director of CACG and a speaker at his recent conference.

The CACG has been described by some observers as inactive, but in fact it continues to organize support for “progressive” Catholic functions at places like CUA.

There was a new development, as far as the Post was concerned. “A letter signed by 83 students and sent to university president John Garvey on Thursday said Boehner was an inappropriate keynote speaker because the fiscal 2012 budget resolution that he had championed severely cut funding for food assistance, programs for low-income children and help for the homeless,” the paper said.

Out of a total enrollment of 3,470 undergraduate and 3,240 graduate students, the liberal-left could muster only 83? This was big news for the Post, desperate to make Boehner look bad.

The number of signers in fact “swelled” to 86 in the final version, which attacked Boehner for opposing illegal immigration and several federal welfare state schemes.

The Post failed to note that the campus student paper took a very different view than those 86, editorializing, “Finally, a speaker allowed to come to the University that we can be proud of.”

Less than two weeks earlier, Schneck and his allies had organized a campus forum in tribute to “social justice” featuring former AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson, both of them members of the Democratic Socialists of America.

Sweeney accused university officials of union-busting — a charge that the university dismissed as a gross misrepresentation. Meyerson, a non-Catholic, told the forum that he was a follower of Michael Harrington, the Catholic-turned-atheist. He thought this was a good role model for students on campus to follow.

What the campus socialists tried to do under the nose of CUA President

Garvey was undermine and taint the commencement address by House Speaker Boehner and put this great Catholic University into the  Obama for President camp. They failed, despite the Post’s feeble attempt to pump some life into this pathetic “protest.”

True to form, Boehner broke down in tears as he described to the CUA students his Catholic upbringing. For Garvey, however, it is not a time for tears but action. The politically “progressive” Obama supporters at CUA who masquerade as professors tried to ruin the university’s commencement ceremony. Garvey — and CUA alumni — may not forget that.

A Washington Post story about Catholic professors challenging Rep. John Boehner’s Catholic faith with an open letter to the House Speaker ignores the role of one of the key signers in a George Soros-funded group.

The letter to Boehner says, “Your record in support of legislation to address the desperate needs of the poor is among the worst in Congress,” Ignoring the Catholic tradition of subsidiarity, or decentralized government, and voluntarism, the letter claims Boehner’s votes against expansion of the federal welfare state are anti-Catholic.

Soros puppet Schneck

Letter signer Stephen F. Schneck of the Catholic University of America (CUA) is a board member of the Soros-funded Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good (CACG). Because of the significant funding the group has received from Soros, an atheist, CACG has been called a “fake Catholic” group designed to undermine official Catholic teaching on abortion and homosexuality and promote Obama Administration Big Government policies. The former CACG executive director, Alexia Kelley, now works for the Obama Administration.

A major financial backer of the ACLU, Soros supports such causes as drug legalization, the rights of “sex workers” and felons, euthanasia, radical feminism, abortion rights, and homosexual rights.

In addition to helping organize the protest against Boehner, Schneck recently hosted two socialists on the CUA campus at a one-sided forum on how and why the Catholic Church should be promoting liberal and pro-union social policies.

The focus of the anti-Boehner article by Post religion reporter Michelle Boorstein is the letter that she notes was “organized by faculty at Catholic University, the national university of the Catholic Church in Northeast Washington.” She adds, “Of the nearly 80 signers, about 30 are from Catholic University, including faculty from the schools of law, nursing, history and theology, among others.”

What this means, of course, is that CUA has become a hotbed of liberal social activism designed to benefit the national Democratic Party.

Nevertheless, Boehner has been invited to speak at the CUA Annual Commencement Ceremony on May 14 on the east steps of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

“Catholic faculty question Boehner’s record on poor before commencement address” is the Post headline. “John Boehner Draws Catholic Criticism for Record on the Poor” is how ABC News covered it. Fox News ran with, “Catholic Professors Slam Boehner Over GOP Budget Cuts.”

Not surprisingly, the anti-Boehner letter was quickly picked up by Think Progress, a blog associated with the Soros-funded Center for American Progress.

Hiding behind the mantle of being an academic and a professor, Schneck, director of CUA’s Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies (IPR), makes no secret of his anti-conservative views on many social issues. He was the host of a recent CUA event featuring socialist John Sweeney, former President of the AFL-CIO, who argued that Jesus Christ was pro-union.

Another speaker at Schneck’s conference, attended by representatives of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, was Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson, a vice-chair of Democratic Socialists of America who offered his mentor, socialist Michael Harrington, a Catholic-turned-atheist, as an example for others to follow. Meyerson told me that he received a good reception from the Catholic audience, which included several priests. “I think Michael’s religious impulses infused his secular beliefs,” he claimed, “and that even when he found himself no longer able to believe in God, he nonetheless carried a kind of religious moral charge to his entire life.”

White House official Kelley, whose official title is Director of the Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships at the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), was also a speaker at the CUA forum organized by Schneck. At HHS she works with the notoriously pro-abortion Catholic HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

Kelley, when she ran Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, was a participant in a news conference to complain that Catholics in favor of “the Catholic social tradition” of social justice have not gotten as much press coverage as conservative religious activists. The news conference was timed to coincide with the release of a report, “Left Behind,” issued by the Soros-funded Media Matters organization.

White House official Alexia Kelley, a “progressive” Catholic working in cahoots with the Soros-funded Media Matters

The Catholic University of America (CUA) may have thought that AFL-CIO President Emeritus John Sweeney’s May 2nd speech on campus would be non-controversial. But Sweeney, a Catholic who doesn’t hide his commitment to socialism and a progressive takeover of the Democratic Party, promised controversy from the start. He attacked conservatives, in particular Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, and told the event that opponents of organized labor were out-of-step with the teachings of the church and Jesus Christ Himself. Then, however, Sweeney unloaded on the sponsors of his appearance, attacking university officials as union busters.

Perhaps Sweeney thought his comments would go unanswered, out of deference to the fact that he was a featured speaker and was showered with praise by the liberal organizers of the event as a brilliant labor organizer. But CUA officials struck back, issuing a statement basically accusing Sweeney of lying and having the statement read aloud as Sweeney sat in stunned silence. The sordid affair has had the unintended result of revealing the hand of left-wing billionaire George Soros in the affairs of the national university of the Catholic Church.

This extraordinary development, a major embarrassment for both Sweeney and the CUA, was shocking enough. But university officials then went into damage control, failing to respond for several days to repeated email requests from the press for a complete and unedited copy of the statement refuting Sweeney. Finally, Accuracy in Media was told that Victor Nakas, associate vice president for public affairs at CUA, was handling the controversy. But he was busy with other matters and was unavailable.

CUA officials were apparently operating on the assumption that the conference had been ignored by the press and that reporters would have no immediate access to what Sweeney had said and what the university said in response.

In fact, a recording of the event turned up and demonstrates that the statement issued by CUA officials takes issue with almost everything said by the former labor boss and accuses organized labor of manipulating and abusing workers at this institution of higher learning.

The two-day conference was sponsored by Catholic University’s Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies (IPR) and titled “120th Anniversary of Rerum Novarum: Church, Labor, and the New Things of the Modern World.”Rerum Novarum, a papal document on labor and capital, is behind much of the “social justice” teaching that animates “progressive” Catholics these days who support Obama and want to overlook his anti-Catholic record on matters such as abortion and homosexual rights. Not surprisingly, the Obama Administration sent a representative, Alexia K. Kelley, deputy director, White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, to speak at the event. Officials of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops also participated.

“Earlier this year,” said Sweeney, “politicians began taking America’s anti-union, anti-worker crusade a step even further by trampling the rights of public employees and boldly trying to eliminate their unions altogether. I’m sure most of you are familiar with what happened in Wisconsin, where a newly elected conservative governor forced state as well as municipal unions to concede health care and pension benefits, and then outlawed collective bargaining.”

“Labor Priest” Kiley: accused of protecting a pedophile priest

In order to “restore Catholic social teaching to the center of the American Church — a position it still holds in Church doctrine — and renew the partnership between the Church and labor,” Sweeney said that the organized labor movement must become “what amounts to an action arm of Catholic social teaching.” Threatening confrontation, he said, “We need the help of every Catholic leader as well as every Catholic parishioner, not just in matters of public policy, but in direct action that we from time to time must undertake.”

“But I am concerned that the Church’s support for workers and unions has become muted and even confusing,” he said.

Far-left publications, including the Communist Party’s People’s World, praised Sweeney’s address, calling the former labor boss “one of the Catholic Church’s most prominent laymen.”

One speaker, a Chicago Priest by the name of Cletus Kiley, has been more outspoken than Sweeney, having been featured in a viral video because of his opening prayer at the AFL-CIO’s 2011 National Building Trades Legislative Conference. In this “prayer” he denounced the “Wall Street gamblers” and the “ultra-wealthy,” adding, “They say our unions have too much voice in political life, but pretend that we don’t see the hand of the Koch brothers and other billionaires underwriting their efforts.” Kiley warned the IPR conference to beware of the Tea Party’s support for small government.

But Kiley’s support for “social justice” has been undermined by accusations that he was among a number of Chicago-area Catholic officials who played down the testimony of a sex abuse victim in the church in order to protect a priest who later resigned in disgrace

Sweeney, who praised Kiley’s approach to organized labor, spoke on May 2 of the IPR conference, while Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson, president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, spoke on May 3 at an evening function. Sweeney, who had been head of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) before taking over the AFL-CIO, shared the dais with Turkson on the second day as well and was in fact allowed to respond to his remarks. Turkson, in contrast to Sweeney, emphasized that Rerum Novarum was opposed to socialism.

Although Rerum Novarum is a controversial document and has elements that are both pro-union and anti-socialist, the IPR conference was completely one-sided, ignoring conservative American Catholics who favor the free enterprise system. The event featured not only Sweeney, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), but Harold Meyerson, a DSA vice-chair and Washington Post columnist. Meyerson is not a Catholic and used the occasion of the event at CUA to pay tribute to his mentor, socialist Michael Harrington, who completely abandoned the Catholic Church and became an atheist.

Sweeney’s membership in DSA put him close to Obama, who was supported by the Chicago DSA in his political campaigns for office. As president, Obama gave Sweeney the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The AFL-CIO hailed this as the nation’s highest civilian honor.

However, before Sweeney’s response to Turkson was allowed to occur at the CUA event, Stephen Schneck, director of IPR and associate professor of politics at CUA, said that he had to read an official statement denouncing Sweeney for his attack on university officials. It was clear that he had been ordered to do so. Sweeney, on the dais with Turkson and Bishop Stephen E. Blaire, chairman of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, had to sit through the tongue-lashing, which took place before an audience of about 100 people, including several priests.

The controversy stemmed from Sweeney’s remarks on May 2. Sweeney had said, “I’m reminded of the time not too many years ago when we scheduled a demonstration here at this university over a dispute between the workers’ union and the administration. The then-president of CUA called a certain member of the hierarchy, who then called me and asked me to cancel the demonstration in exchange for a promise to deal with our issues. I canceled the demonstration. But I never heard back from either of themI share that little story not to disparage our esteemed leaders — my calls for help from the hierarchy have most often been answered.”

But the “esteemed leaders” and the hierarchy ordered Schneck to read a statement taking issue with almost everything Sweeney had said about them and the union problems at CUA.

Keeping in mind that CUA President John Garvey had introduced the conference and has emphasized intellect and virtue during his inaugural year at CUA, Schneck read a university statement that essentially accused Sweeney of abandoning those values:

“During his remarks about a labor issue at Catholic University that began in 1999, he implied that the then- president of the Catholic University refused to engage in a dialogue with him about the matter. In fact, the president of the university along with one of his vice presidents met face to face with Mr. Sweeney to discuss the labor issue.

“Mr. Sweeney also stated that the conflict was between the university administration and the workers union. In September 1999 approximately 130 CUA custodial and maintenance workers were involuntarily transferred from one union to a local of the Service Employees International Union. They protested their incorporation into SEIU not just through the university administration but also to the National Labor Relations Board and petitioned the latter to decertify SEIU. The university adopted a position of neutrality over the matter of union representation, stipulating only that the workers have an opportunity to make a free choice by a secret ballot election. SEIU opposed this position, pressuring the workers to accept their forcible incorporation. Eventually when SEIU concluded that the university would not be swayed from its position, it agreed to a secret ballot election conducted by a neutral third party. The election was held on February 2, 2001, and SEIU lost.”

In an understatement, the university officials went on, “Our recollection of events differs from Mr. Sweeney’s.”

Not only were there different recollections, the controversy suggests that someone was lying — and that someone, according to CUA, was Sweeney. Significantly, Sweeney had nothing to say in response to the scathing CUA statement that was read aloud in front of him.

None of this seemed to bother the group called Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good (CACG), which distributed Sweeney’s speech without noting that the university had condemned some of his remarks. It turns out that the CUA’s Schneck is on the CACG board, that White House official Alexia Kelley served as the group’s Executive Director and co-founder, and its current chairman, Fred Rotondaro, is a Senior Fellow at the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C.

In another interesting development, CACG is itself funded by Soros, an admitted atheist.

Perhaps conservative Catholics will want to take a closer look at what is happening at a Catholic institution of higher learning that describes itself as “faithful to the teachings of Jesus Christ as handed on by the Church.”

Click here and view our Powerpoint Presentation Matthew, MARX, Luke and John: Marxism in the Catholic Church

The host of a national Catholic TV talk show says that Catholic Bishops have to come clean on their funding of groups that undermine traditional values and promote radical social change.

Raymond Arroyo, host of Catholic television network EWTN’s “The World Over” program, says that the evidence indicates that groups funded by the Bishops through the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) are actually “subverting” Catholic teaching on matters such as homosexual rights and abortion. He regrets that money being spent on such causes is coming at the expense of Catholic schools and hospitals facing funding shortfalls and possible closure.

Arroyo

Arroyo, whose November 13 show featured  two major critics of the CCHD, is a graduate of the National Journalism Center (which also produced ACORN whistleblower Hannah Giles). He is a conservative who has a worldwide Catholic audience and can shake up the Bishops and the Vatican itself.

A regular guest on the Laura Ingraham radio show, where he comments on moral and religious issues, Arroyo has risked the wrath of the Catholic Bishops by devoting his EWTN program to exposing alleged corruption in the church. The Bishops are meeting in Baltimore this week.

An on-air caller to the EWTN show read a statement from a local Catholic Bishop claiming that EWTN is “not a good source of Catholic information” and disputing some of the allegations against the CCHD. But Arroyo shot back, quoting from an October 2 memorandum from Bishop Roger P. Morin, chairman of the CCHD, admitting that CCHD had funded groups in support of abortion rights and same-sex marriage, contrary to church teaching.

The timing of Arroyo’s show was important. The annual CCHD collection is being held in churches this coming weekend — November 21 and 22. The theme of this year’s collection is “Families are struggling. Faith is calling.”

But Arroyo wanted Catholics to know that the CCHD has been plagued by charges of mismanagement and scandal. A group called Reform CCHD Now is urging Catholics to put coupons in collection plates, rather than money, informing the Bishops that the CCHD must be thoroughly overhauled.

In a video, the American Life League (ALL) has labeled the CCHD the “Catholic Campaign for Anti-Catholic Activities.”

Arroyo noted that the evidence shows that while the bishops have been defending traditional marriage in states where it has been under attack, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is funding pro-homosexual organizations through the CCHD.

EWTN’s coverage of this controversy has to be extremely worrisome to the Bishops. If there is one thing they do not want, it is another sex-related candal.  The sex abuse scandal involving pedophilia by Catholic Priests reportedly cost the church more than $1 billion.

But in another shocking development that adds to the current controversy, a blogger at the Free Republic has uncovered a convicted child pornographer on the staff of a Baltimore group, Alternative Directions, Inc. (ADI), which has received funding from the Baltimore CCHD. The group has received additional funding from the national CCHD for an ADI project called Out for Justice.

“I really don’t want money from my church collection paying a child pornographer’s salary,” the blogger said.

Michelle Kelly of ADI said, “I don’t know,” when asked if the staffer in question had been convicted as a child pornographer. The Free Republic blogger says the staffer is a registered sex offender in Maryland because of the child pornography conviction.

Kelly tried to differentiate between ADI and Out for Justice, even though the latter is described as a project of the former in the Fall 2008 ADI newsletter. She said Out for Justice is applying for its own separate legal status. Under further questioning, she hung up the telephone.

On the website of the Baltimore CCHD, the groups are listed together as one entity and in receipt of $30,000.  It declares, “A second year CCHD organizing grant will enable this project to continue to address and empower largely unrepresented persons inside and outside the prison system, with special attention on reentry into society.”

Out for Justice is listed as being located at the same offices as ADI.

Out for Justice is listed as the recipient of $30,000 from the national CCHD. The organization is described as former prisoners, “a largely unrepresented group in the political and social arenas.” One of their legislative goals is a bill to have the state of Maryland adopt a policy to encourage the employment of ex-convicts. Another is to deny private landlords the right to ask about the criminal background of an individual and deny housing based on that background.

Responding to this legislative priority, the Free Republic blogger, a Catholic, said he didn’t want his money going to change the law so sex offenders “can live near me or my children.”

Both Alternative Directions, Inc. and Out for Justice collaborated with the Open Society Institute, a George Soros-funded organization, on a report, Bearing Witness, from the Justice Policy Institute. The recommendations include stopping the practice of sending drug criminals to prison and developing “alternatives to incarceration.”

Dixon

Another one of the contributing organizations to the report was listed as “Mayor Sheila Dixon’s Office of Criminal Justice.”

Dixon is currently on trial on charges of stealing gift cards intended for Baltimore’s needy families.

While federal funding of the corrupt organization ACORN has been the subject of much press attention, money being provided to ACORN and other controversial groups through the Catholic Church has been mostly hushed-up by major media organizations.

But the Catholic Bishops themselves have suspended funding to ACORN, after disclosing that $7.3 million was given to the organization and its affiliates by the CCHD from 1998-2008.

It turns out that ACORN, however, is just one of several controversial “community organizing” groups that have been funded by the CCHD. Another is the Gamaliel Foundation, which originally sponsored Barack Obama’s work as a community organizer in Chicago and recently held a conference in Washington that featured Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett as a speaker. Gamaliel still gets CCHD money.

It is into this controversy that Arroyo, whose web site features photographs with top Catholic officials and politicians, has stepped.

Arroyo’s guests on the program were Michael Hichborn of the American Life League (ALL) and Rob Gasper, founder of Bellarmine Veritas Ministry, which has been responsible for some of the eye-opening exposes of the CCHD. Together, they are members of the ReformCCHD now coalition.

The CCHD is said to be dedicated to fighting poverty, but Arroyo noted that it doesn’t fund any groups involved in providing direct services to the poor such as soup kitchens. Instead, the CCHD mission is said to be “to address the root causes of poverty in America through promotion and support of community-controlled, self-help organizations and through transformative education,” its web site says.

Arroyo wondered how his guests had unearthed the shocking information about church funding of anti-Catholic causes. They replied that they simply went to the websites of the CCHD and the organizations being funded and put the information together.

Hichborn of ALL says either the CCHD is incompetent in how it awards grants and is therefore unworthy of funds or “is being run by pro-homosexual, pro-abortion socialists who got caught” and doesn’t deserve the money in that case. Either way, he concludes, “this funding must end.

The critical role of the Catholic Church in passing national health care reform legislation is coming under serious media scrutiny. But the story has taken a strange turn. It has now been revealed that George Soros, the billionaire hedge fund operator and well-known atheist, has been pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into “progressive” Catholic groups that are significant players in the national debates over health care and immigration.

On the surface, it would appear that Soros would be opposed to many positions of the Catholic Church. A major financial backer of the ACLU, Soros supports such causes as drug legalization, the rights of “sex workers” and felons, euthanasia, radical feminism, abortion rights, and homosexual rights. He does all of this in the name of promoting an “open society.”

But a review of the records of his Open Society Institute finds that a group calling itself Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good (CACG) has received $200,000 over the last several years.

James Todd of the Pewsitter.com web site, which represents traditional Catholics, calls such groups “CINOs,” or Catholics In Name Only. He explains, “This group and several others have sprung up recently — I suspect purposely organized and funded  – to counterbalance the growing influence of the faithful Catholics AND to try to deceive and mislead the middle of the road Catholics that have determined the last 13 Presidential elections.”

An investigation also finds, however, that Soros money has gone into the Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC), an organization established by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops back in 1988. It has received at least $530,000 from the Open Society Institute.

The two issues merge in the fact that the Catholic Bishops are demanding that national health care legislation cover illegal aliens.

In a story headlined, “Religious Leaders Seek Healthcare for Illegal Immigrants,” the Los Angeles Times recently quoted Kathy Saile, director of domestic social development with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, as saying that illegal immigrants should be included in any healthcare reform plan. Father Richard Estrada of Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church in Los Angeles was described as being part of a religious service and phone bank “to urge congressional leaders to include illegal immigrants in any healthcare reform plan.” His church has in the past offered sanctuary to illegal immigrants.

CACG played a role in House passage of H.R. 3962, the bill known as Pelosicare and boasts that it had joined with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Catholic Health Association, and “dozens of other Catholic and faith-based groups in celebrating this historic vote.”

The group’s blog even offered a “Health Care Reform Prayer,” asking for God’s help in passing federal legislation.

John Gehring, CACG media director, said that, “We have been primarily focused on highlighting the moral dimensions of this issue and articulating how Catholic social teaching addresses health care as a human right central to a just society. Along with other faith-based groups like PICO National Network, Faith in Public Life, Sojourners and others we brought citizens and faith leaders to Capitol Hill several weeks ago to meet with representatives and they emphasized the urgency for reform and specifically the critical issue of affordability. For example, Fr. Joseph Shad, S.J., a hospital chaplain at Mercy Hospital in Portland, Maine, came to Capitol Hill and met with representatives. He shared stories we have collected from citizens across the country as part of our project, Voices for Health Reform.”

On the passage of the Affordable Health Care for America Act, H.R. 3962, CACG said, “As Catholics, we applaud the efforts of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Bart Stupak, and others who helped extend current restrictions on federal funding of abortion to health plans participating in the public [health] exchanges.”

But Judie Brown of the American Life League says the provision doesn’t go far enough and accuses the Bishops who lobbied for passage of wanting “mandatory, government-run health care for one and all more than it desires the protection of all vulnerable human beings’ right to life.”

The anti-abortion restrictions, Brown points out, still permit federal funding of abortions in some circumstances.

Meanwhile, Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute says that “Catholics should be outraged at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops” because while they succeeded in getting a pro-abortion provision dropped from the bill, they “abandoned the Church’s doctrine of subsidiarity by endorsing the rest of the Democrats’ plan to centralize power in Washington.” Cannon says his grandfather served as counsel to the Bishops.

But the Soros-funded Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good has high-level connections of its own. The Treasurer-Secretary is Francis Xavier Doyle, a former top official of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and the Executive director is Victoria Kovari, a former organizer for the Gamaliel Foundation, the same group that helped launch Barack Obama’s career as a community organizer in Chicago. The chairman is Alfred M. Rotondaro, a senior fellow at another Soros-funded group, the Center for American Progress.

Although CACG describes itself as “a lay Catholic organization that works to promote the common good and the broad spectrum of Catholic social teaching,”Frank Walker of the conservative Pewsitter website labels it a religious and political Trojan Horse designed to mislead Catholics and produce votes for the Democratic Party.

One purpose of the Soros money, Walker says, is to play down the importance of the issue of abortion to Catholics and even make abortion rights a “respectable” Catholic position.

Walker notes that, “The CACG is run and advised by powerful Democrats.  Their board, staff, and advisory committee include top fundraisers and strategists as well as major labor union representation.” He adds, “Catholic Church Leadership from the Sisters of Mercy, the Jesuit order, the government-funded Catholic Charities and Catholic Relief Services are also represented at CACG.  Catholic academia has a strong presence.”

Indeed, the CACG advisory council includes figures from the Service Employees Union (SEIU), AFL-CIO, Catholic University of America, Georgetown University, and Boston College.

In addition to health care reform, other big issues for CACG are “immigration reform” and “worker justice.” The latter links to a group promoting a bill, the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for unions to gain members.

The SEIU representative on the CACG board is Tom Chabolla, who serves as assistant to SEIU President Andy Stern. Before joining SEIU, he was associate director of programs for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD), the agency of the Bishops that funded ACORN to the tune of $7.3 million over the last decade. Funding of ACORN – but not to groups like Gamaliel – has been suspended by the Bishops.

Gamaliel says on its website that says, “Barack H. Obama, former Gamaliel organizer, is the 44th president of the United States,” and that this makes the organizing community proud. It also has a story about Obama friend and White House adviser Valerie Jarrett speaking to a Gamaliel event in Washington, D.C. of 2500 activists. Jarrett is the official who said that “we” had recruited communist Van Jones to the White House. Another speaker was Melody Barnes, Obama’s Director of the Domestic Policy Council.

Melody Barnes

Before coming to the White House, Barnes was the executive vice president for Policy at the Soros-funded Center for American Progress (CAP).  Van Jones also worked at CAP before going to the White House. CAP CEO and President John Podesta, who served as President Clinton’s chief of staff, is a major “progressive Catholic” and member of the ACORN advisory council who served as a professor at Georgetown University.

Interestingly, Tom Chabolla of the SEIU and formerly of the CCHD was on the dinner committee for the 33rd Annual Hubert H. Humphrey Civil Rights Award Dinner, which was held on May 7, 2009 in Washington, D.C.

One of the award winners was none other than Van Jones.

On Saturday, November 21 and Sunday, November 22, Catholics across the country will be asked to support the CCHD with their financial offerings. Gamaliel is appealing for support, saying that it is “under attack from those with a partisan agenda to de-fund groups committed to organizing for social justice.” It says. “Many Gamaliel Foundation affiliates rely on funding from CCHD to serve their communities.”

But Gamaliel also relies on George Soros. His Open Society Institute provided $300,000 to the organization in 2008.

The media furor over the alleged White House state dinner crashers ignores the convicted felon who was invited to attend with the approval of Obama’s inner circle. The ex-convict, Robert B. Creamer, is a friend of White House adviser David Axelrod and the husband of Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois. A major Democratic Party political strategist, he is the author of a 628-page book that describes how the Democrats can become the permanent majority party by passing a national health care bill and giving amnesty to illegal immigrants.

Creamer

With the support of major elements of the “faith community,” the first part of Creamer’s plan is on track.

Creamer’s “Stand Up Straight! How Progressives Can Win,” is the book “penned in the pen,” as one observer described it. “I did much of the preliminary work on this book while spending five months on a forced sabbatical at the Federal Prison Camp at Terra Haute Indiana,” Creamer says. Creamer emerged from federal prison in November 2006 after serving five months for financial crimes. His prosecutor was the famous Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who also nailed disgraced former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.

But this didn’t stop Creamer from being invited to the White House for the first state dinner. Indeed, it makes complete sense in view of the fact that Creamer’s book is full of praise for Obama and even reprints Obama’s 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote address.

The acknowledgements section of Creamer’s book describes how he, like Obama, was influenced by Saul Alinsky, described as “the legendary community organizer.” Book endorsements are featured from David Axelrod; Greg Galluzo of the Gamaliel Foundation, which originally sponsored Barack Obama’s work as a community organizer in Chicago; and Andy Stern of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

Creamer notes in his book that Bush aide Karl Rove had predicted in 2004 a “permanent majority” in Congress for the Republican Party. That prediction fell apart just two years later, in 2006, when the Democrats picked up 30 House seats and 6 Senate seats. Nevertheless, Rove subsequently landed a job as a Fox News political analyst.

Creamer’s predictions have turned out to be more accurate. Released in 2007, Creamer’s book said that a successful campaign “to reshape the structure of one-sixth of the American economy,” the health care sector, would depend on getting 60 Democratic votes in the Senate and the election of a “progressive Democrat” in the White House. Today, of course, the Democrats have that significant advantage.

Cardinal McCarrick

Creamer can take some credit for these developments. His firm, Strategic Consulting Group, still boasts an impressive client list that includes ACORN, SEIU, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and dozens of other “progressive” or Democratic Party state organizations.

Creamer, who went to prison for ripping off non-profit entities, emphasized using “the faith community” to mobilize support for universal health care by highlighting the morality of providing medical care to people in need.

It has not worked out as planned, but it has worked out. As we saw in the House, when the bill was in trouble, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi agreed to a demand from Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who was in Rome, to hold a vote on an anti-abortion amendment introduced by Rep. Bart Stupak, a Catholic pro-life Democrat. At the same time, Cardinal Francis George, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), told House Republican Leader John Boehner, a faithful Catholic, not to undermine the amendment. Boehner complied. As a result, the amendment passed, 240-194, with 64 Democrats and 176 Republicans in favor. This provided conservative Democrats enough cover to ignore the other objectionable aspects and vote for the final bill.

Washington Times religion reporter Julia Duin confirmed all of this, but noted in a story filed from the recent USCCB meeting in Baltimore that “Cardinal McCarrick walked away when I approached him about his call from the Vatican…”

Pelosi and many “progressives” acquiesced in the anti-abortion ploy, realizing that the provision could eventually be nullified through subsequent legislation.

Nevertheless, the Bishops are pursuing the same strategy in the Senate. Their chosen vehicle for anti-abortion language in this version of the bill appears to be Democratic Senator Robert Casey, a so-called “conservative” and “pro-life” Catholic Democrat from Pennsylvania. Casey says, however, that if his effort to water down the pro-abortion tone of the legislation fails, he may still vote for the bill.

It looks probable, therefore, that the Senate health care bill will pass. Then, the two versions will be combined in a congressional conference and the compromise will come before Congress for a final vote.

Cardinal George

If passed, as Creamer understands, this will hook millions of Americans on another federal program, and they will depend on – and vote for – Democrats to grant them more benefits.

It is important to note that the Bishops, who have a reputation among some commentators as being politically “conservative,” have not been objecting to the “public option” in the Senate plan. Indeed, they have long favored a government guaranteed “right” to health care and federal funding to make that a reality.

The latest USCCB statement on the health care legislation urges Senators to “improve the Senate health care bill in the key areas of affordability, immigration, federal funding and coverage of abortion and conscience rights.” Translated into common-sense language, this means coverage for illegal aliens and more federal funding, in addition to the pro-life language that will enable some “conservative” Democrats and possibly some Republicans to vote for it.

Creamer himself spoke in his book of a “public plan,” which is supposed to guarantee that “right” to health care and which eventually became the “public option” in the actual legislation. In a speech captured on YouTube, Creamer’s wife, Rep. Schakowsky, candidly said that a public option is a Trojan Horse for a complete federal takeover.

Next is the immigration battle. Creamer explains that this “will have an enormous impact on the battle for power between the progressive and conservative forces in American society.” He explains that, “If the Democrats continue to stand firmly for immigrant rights, the issue will define immigrants’ voting loyalties for a generation. If we are successful, a gigantic block of progressive votes will enter the electorate over the next 15 years – a block that could be decisive in the battle for the future.”

As we can already see, however, there is an overlap into the health care debate. And again, the “faith community” is playing a major role.  In fact, the Catholic Bishops are not only vigorously lobbying for giving illegal immigrants access to a national health care plan but favor amnesty for them. In his recent testimony before the Senate, Cardinal McCarrick called it “legalization for the undocumented.”

Axelrod

It looks bleak for Republicans if the Bishops have their way and continue to play Creamer’s tune. GOP agreement with the Bishops on a pro-life provision in the bill should not distract attention from how this part of the “faith community” has become a major component of the “progressive” base that elects Democrats and keeps them in power. The facts show that most Catholics voted for Obama, and half or more of the Bishops, according to Catholic TV host Raymond Arroyo, voted for him, too. The USCCB staff is known to be overwhelmingly left-wing.

This is why some conservative Catholics think that the Catholic hierarchy is pursuing a strategy on health care that pays lip service to the pro-life cause but plays directly into Obama’s (and Creamer’s) hands.