John Halpin, Sr. Fellow, Center for American Progress
Recently released emails by Wikileaks has uncovered a shocking anti-Catholic attitude within the upper echelon of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign which has erupted into a firestorm across America.
The Catholic News Agency (CNA) is reporting on the email thread entitled “Conservative Catholicism” in which three people tied to the Clinton campaign made bigoted comments about Catholics and Catholicism.
The thread began with an email from John Halpin, Senior Fellow at the far-left think tank, Center for American Progress (CAP), which was sent to John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, and Jennifer Palmieri, the campaign’s communications director. In it, Halpin ridicules News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch and Wall Street Journal managing editor Robert Thomson for raising their children Catholic.
“Friggin’ Murdoch baptized his kids in the Jordan where John the Baptist baptized Jesus,” Halpin sneers.
John Podesta, Clinton Campaign Chairman
He goes on to say that “Many of the most powerful elements of the conservative movement are all Catholic (converts) . . .” and calls Murdoch and Thomson’s choice to raise their children Catholic “an amazing bastardization of the faith.”
“They must be attracted to the systematic thought and severely backward gender relations and must be totally unaware of Christian democracy,” he opines.
Palmieri chimes in, accusing Murdoch and Thomson of raising their children Catholic because “it is the most socially acceptable politically conservative religion. Their rich friends wouldn’t understand if they became evangelicals.”
As CNA’s Addie Mena blogged, “Never mind the possibility that Murdoch and Thompson could maybe – just maybe- be raising their children Catholic because they believe it to be true. No, the faith is purely seen in conservative/liberal terms and, more so, that faith is a tool of politics.”
Podesta makes matters worse when he chimes in, “They can throw around ‘Thomistic’ thought and ‘subsidiarity’ and sound sophisticated because no one knows what the hell they’re talking about”, a comment that reveals his total ignorance of Catholic teaching.
“Please, Mr. Halpin, Ms. Palmieri, Mr. Podesta, all the researchers at CAP and anyone who needs a very, very basic introduction to the fundamentals of Catholic thought: crack open a catechism,” Mena advises.
Jennifer Palmieri, Clinton Campaign Communications Director
The Catholic League’s Bill Donohue was even more tough.
“These anti-Catholic remarks are bad enough, but it makes one wonder what else Clinton’s chiefs, and others associated with the campaign, are saying about Catholics and Catholicism,” Donohue writes. “If Trump’s inner circle spoke with derision about transgender persons, the sirens would be sounded by the mainstream media and his operatives would be hung out to dry.”
Trump’s camp responded to the brouhaha, reminding the populace that Clinton has spent the last 30 years harboring open and extreme hostility toward Catholic beliefs.
“She is for partial birth abortion and thinks taxpayers should pay for it,” says Joseph Cella, the Catholic Liaison to the Trump/Pence Campaign, in a statement. “She also supports denying full and free exercise of the Catholic faith of the Little Sisters of the Poor, who have taken care of the elderly poor since 1839, through Obamacare’s HHS mandate, recently struck down by the Supreme Court. The mandate would have forced these Catholic sisters to pay for contraceptives and abortion pills in their health care plan or else face crippling government fines that would have shut their doors and ended their charitable work if they refused to abide by this onerous and unconstitutional rule.”
The leaked emails reveal the depths of the hostility of Hillary Clinton and her campaign toward Catholics, Cella continues, accusing this attitude of being akin to “turning back the clock” to the days in America when Catholics were severely discriminated against.
“Hillary Clinton and her campaign should be ashamed of themselves and should immediately apologize to all Catholics and people of good will in the United States.”
Thus far, the Clinton campaign has not responded to the scandal.
© All Rights Reserved, Living His Life Abundantly®/Women of Grace® http://www.womenofgrace.com
