by The Catholic Herald, Wednesday, 12 Oct 2016
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| John Podesta, left, with White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough in 2014, when Podesta advised the White House (2014) |
John Podesta said: 'We created Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good' to help change the Church.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign chief helped to create campaign groups to press for a “revolution” in the Catholic Church, according to leaked emails.
John Podesta, head of Clinton’s campaign, says he helped to found two Catholic organisations to press for change in the Church.
In emails from 2012+ released by Wikileaks and alleged to be by Podesta, he responds to an email from Barack Obama’s friend and former boss, Sandy Newman, about an “opening for a Catholic Spring”.
Newman suggests that “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 refers to this as planting the “seeds of a revolution”.
Podesta replies: “We created Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good to organize for a moment like this. But I think it lacks the leadership to do so now. Likewise Catholics United. Like most Spring movements, I think this one will have to be bottom up.”
Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good (CACG) was founded by Tom Periello in 2005. Its chairman is Fred Rotondaro. Both Rotondaro and Periello are senior fellows at the Centre for American Progress, founded by Podesta.
Rotondaro has called for the ordination of women, saying: “I have never seen any rational reason why a woman could not be a priest.” In the same article he says that “Gay sex comes from God”, and asks whether “any practicing Catholic under age 80” agrees with the Church’s teaching on contraception.
Critics have described CACG as a “Trojan Horse” for those who would undermine Church teaching. But its connections to senior figures in the Democrat party, and its intent to change the Church, have not previously been so clear.
Catholics United was also founded in 2005, by Democrat activists Chris Korzen and James Salt.
Catholics United has condemned bishops who deny Communion to politicians who support legal abortion. It describes this as “a shameful attempt to use the Catholic sacrament of Communion as a political weapon”.
Catholic writer Thomas Peters tweeted that the revelations showed CACG and other organisations were engaged in “deception” and that it showed Podesta himself had “a very active role”.
3/ CACG never used phrases like “Middle Ages dictatorship” to describe Catholic teaching … in public, that is. Deception was and is key.
— Thomas Peters (@AmericanPapist) October 12, 2016
5/ Podesta was silent in the first leaked email — in this one it is clear he had a very active, leading role in these efforts as organizer
— Thomas Peters (@AmericanPapist) October 12, 2016
5/ i’ve been writing about CACG and CatholicsUnited as fronts for the Dem agenda since at least 2010. @CatholicVote too. We were right.
— Thomas Peters (@AmericanPapist) October 12, 2016
The revelations are the second significant reference to Catholics which Wikileaks has released so far. Elsewhere, Jennifer Palmieri, now Clinton’s director of communications, and John Halpin, a co-author of Podesta’s and a former Democrat strategist, criticise Catholics who are involved in politics.
In the 2011 emails, Halpin writes: “Many of the most powerful elements of the conservative movement are all Catholic (many converts) from the SC [possibly a reference to the Republican Study Committee] and think tanks to the media and social groups.”
Halpin says the Catholics’ involvement in the American conservative movement means they must have misinterpreted Catholicism’s political tradition. It is, he says, “an amazing bastardization of the faith”.
He goes on to speculate: “They must be attracted to the systematic thought and severely backwards gender relations and must be totally unaware of Christian democracy.”
Palmieri replies: “I imagine they think it is the most socially acceptable politically conservative religion. Their rich friends wouldn’t understand if they became evangelicals.”
Halpin says this is an “Excellent point”, and goes on: “They can throw around ‘Thomistic’ thought and ‘subsidiarity’ and sound sophisticated because no one knows what the hell they’re talking about.”
The exchange was prompted by a New Yorker piece on Rupert Murdoch which observed that both Murdoch and Robert Thomson, then managing editor of the Wall Street Journal, are Catholic.
Re: opening for a Catholic Spring? just musing . . .
We created Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good to organize for a
moment like this. But I think it lacks the leadership to do so now.
Likewise Catholics United. Like most Spring movements, I think this
one will have to be bottom up. I'll discuss with Tara. Kathleen
Kennedy Townsend is the other person to consult.
On 2/10/12, Sandy Newman wrote:
> Hi, John,
>
> This whole controversy with the bishops opposing contraceptive coverage even
> though 98% of Catholic women (and their conjugal partners) have used
> contraception has me thinking . . . There needs to be a Catholic Spring, in
> which Catholics themselves demand the end of a middle ages dictatorship and
> the beginning of a little democracy and respect for gender equality in the
> Catholic church. Is contraceptive coverage an issue around which that could
> happen. The Bishops will undoubtedly continue the fight. Does the Catholic
> Hospital Association support of the Administration's new policy, together
> with "the 98%" create an opportunity?
>
> Of course, this idea may just reveal my total lack of understanding of the
> Catholic church, the economic power it can bring to bear against nuns and
> priests who count on it for their maintenance, etc. Even if the idea isn't
> crazy, I don't qualify to be involved and I have not thought at all about
> how one would "plant the seeds of the revolution," or who would plant them.
> Just wondering . . .
>
> Hoping you're well, and getting to focus your time in the ways you want.
>
> Sandy
>
> Sandy Newman, President
> Voices for Progress
> 202.669.8754
> voicesforprogress.org
N.B. Obama and Clinton and Saul Alinsky, etc.
P.S. In light of this it should be no wonder that Obama should be so friendly with the communists (e.g. the Castro's). Now the question is where the Jesuit Pontiff fits in all of this, with his misplaced "mercy" toward the communists.
P.S. In light of this it should be no wonder that Obama should be so friendly with the communists (e.g. the Castro's). Now the question is where the Jesuit Pontiff fits in all of this, with his misplaced "mercy" toward the communists.