The “Anti-Catholic” Email: What Does It Show About Hillary Clinton

() grey wolfNow we get a little glimpse of the thinking of those working for Hillary Clinton. Wikileaks has exposed an email of John Halpin a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress (CAP) Staff.   He must know Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta. He sent him the email under discussion to his personal gmail account. He sent the same email to Jenifer Palmieri who was president of the CAP at the time.

Podesta is Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager; Palmieri is HIllary’s communications director. Both are in continuing contact with Hillary. Is she an anti-Catholic bigot?

Does she have the same attitude toward Catholics as that of the early founders of our country? Or, is she more like George Washington who had no problems with them?  One way to find out is to see her associates.

Both Podesta and Palmieri have Italian fathers. Podesta is a practicing Catholic who displays icons associated with his mother’s Greek Orthodox religion in his office.  Capieri’s father served in the U.S. Navy as a nuclear engineer and is a catholic. .To understand what motivates her you can read about her here.

John Halpin wrote this email in 2011 Under the subject “Conservative Catholicism.” It read:Ken Auletta’s latest piece on Murdoch in the New Yorker starts off with the aside that both Murdoch and Robert Thompson, managing editor of the WSJ, are raising their kids Catholic. Friggin’ Murdoch baptized his kids in Jordan where John the Baptist baptized Jesus. Many of the most powerful elements of the conservative movement are all Catholic (many converts) from the SC and think tanks to the media and social groups. It’s an amazing bastardization of the faith. They must be attracted to the systematic thought and severely backwards gender relations and must be totally unaware of Christian democracy.”

Palmieri responded:  “I imagine they think it is the most socially acceptable politically conservative religion. Their rich friends wouldn’t understand if they became evangelicals.

Halpin replied to her: “Excellent point. They can throw around “Thomistic” thought and “subsidiarity” and sound sophisticated because no one knows what the hell they’re talking about.”

It is not clear whether Podesta ever read any of this. At the time Podesta was serving as a member of the Constitution Project‘s bipartisan Liberty and Security Committee. Both Halpin and Palmieri were with the CAP. None was in government service.

Before getting to the content of the email consider this. That Podesta is seeing his emails being published should be a lesson to everyone who uses email. It is all discoverable. Whenever you write an email you must imagine it on the front page of your local newspaper. It will last forever. It may come back and bite you long after you hit the send button. Be cautious, be wise, and be alert to the dangers of emailing someone.

What is the effect of this email. One headline read:Catholics: Fire Clinton Aide Palmieri for Wikileaked Email.”

The article noted that Brian Burch the head of CatholicVote.org is quoted as saying: “there’s no evidence John Podesta ever pushed back at these smears against Catholicism . . . had Palmieri spoken this way about other groups she would have been dismissed. Palmieri must resign immediately or be fired.”

The ubiquitous Catholic League President Bill Donohue said Clinton should punish both Podesta and Palmieri for being bigots. He is quoted as saying: 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.”

I first heard about this email I believe from Newt Gringrich on Fox News. He said: “Callista and I both feel assault not just on Catholicism but on people of faith, the callousness, the contempt. Now we know what Hillary meant by deplorables. It’s people of faith.”

Talk about at tempest in a tea pot this is one of the biggest.

I used to think the lefties were the ones without a sense of humor now it’s beginning to look like the righties also lack one. Halpin was joking suggesting Rupert Murdoch and Robert Thompson seem to be the least likely type to people to be going into the Catholic Church since they did not seem like the people interested in the Church’s mission.

Palmieri suggests as a reason for them doing it was that being Catholic was more acceptable to their friends than being evangelical.  Halpin agrees saying they can use big words like “Thomasitc” thought and no one would know what they were talking about.

Where is there anything anti-Catholic in the email. I don’t know Halpin’s religion but the two Italians are Catholic so it is a real stretch calling them anti-Catholics or thinking someone would send them an anti-Catholic email.

The Catholic Church is big house: the conservatives Burch and Donohue and Gringrich represent only a small group. They are all over the news based on  a 5 years old email but have not spoken out about Donald Trump’s many dalliances.

I’d say it was strange other than it has become normal for one not to see the telephone pole in his eye while pointing to the splinter in another’s.

 

14 Comments

  1. They hit Catholics, but they really demean Evangelicals, sort of like, Mexicans are bad, but those Dominicans, yikes. Which leads me to my next point point if they remotely jiggled the race button this would be major media mayhem, but mock people of faith and it is expected, almost encouraged, except as a previous poster mentioned, Muslims. These elitist should remember that a large majority of Americans believe in God and many believe in a Biblical God as Creator, Judge and Redeemer. Which brings me to my next point Wiki leaks is revealing, but someday ALL will be revealed and according to Scripture in 1 Cor 6:2 Christians will judge the world will be judging the world and I know just the place for the Hillacrats.

    • Daniel:

      There is as you may be suggesting this undercurrent that I have noticed which runs along where believers (people of faith) have no problem with non-believers but the latter have lots of difficulties with the former. At a minimum they feel superior to them for not being shackled by believing in God.

      I knew this woman who was proud that she had no religion and was an atheist who became incensed that one of her children had joined a church. She said the child had been brain washed not recognizing that she had been brainwashing her child since birth in her non-belief. That is one of the problems I see with the atheist taking over because they are not content to live and let live.

  2. Matt

    1) Killery has nothing but hatred and contempt in her heart – it is readily observable

    2) she has aaalllwaaaays been for whatever she is saying at the moment, even if she has been against it before

    3) she has aaaalllwwwwaaaaays wanted her emails to be released – she was just waiting for Wikileaks to release them

    4) “Whenever you write an email you must imagine it on the front page of your local newspaper. It will last forever. It may come back and bite you long after you hit the send button. ”

    Except that Hildebeast deleted her emails, and used Bleachbit to do it. You know, like wiping it with a cloth.

    In her case, it was destruction of evidence and obstruction of justice, in addition to violation of national security.

    The Catholic Church does not need to speak out against the purported dalliances of Trump – the lamestream media is hyperventilating plenty about that already, in conjunction with the Killery camp, as an extension of a vicious hit campaign against Trump.

    Trump is not a threat to the Catholic Church, or to national security, or to checks and balances that built this country.

    Killery is, together with her camp.

  3. These anti-Catholic emails are indicative of the anti-White Christian heritage world of bigotry that Hillary Clinton inhabits. They are markers of her hatred of much of America. She has not distanced herself from them.

    Hillary Clinton voted against elevating john Roberts, a Catholic, to Chief Justice. She voted against Samuel Alito, a Catholic, to be a Justice. She even went so far as to attempt a filibuster against the latter. “Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them.” Matthew 7 [20] Douay-Rheims.

    Hillary Clinton represents that wing of the Democrat party that has not nominated a White Protestant to the Court since Truman, a wing that thrice blocked Protestant nominees and only Protestant nominees. This has forced Republican Presidents to peel a few Catholics off the Democrat Senate majority by nominating Catholics. Hillary Clinton is comfortable with a religious bigotry that denies circa half the population any representation on the land’s highest judicial body.

    Clinton met with and praised the Russian convicts known as Pussy Riot. These women were jailed for defiling the altar of a Russian Orthodox Cathedral with obscene, public sex acts. Hillary promoted their cause and equated their crime with free speech.

    Clinton festooned the White House Christmas tree with anatomically correct male figurines that children would be exposed to. In Hillary Hater’s circle it takes a village to corrupt a child. She later moved on to preaching the odd ideas that oral sex is not sex and that rape only happens to “nuts and sluts.” This is her agenda of systematic thought and severely forward gender relations.

    Hers is a record of ingrained religious prejudice. Hillary Clinton is biased against all things derived from America’s traditional Christian heritage. The emails are not a teapot tempest. They and her indifference to their message are the opening shots of a war she will wage against all those of Christian heritage and against practicing Catholics in particular.

    • “Mother of God, Drive Putin Away”
      Interior of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior

      On February 21, 2012, as part of a protest movement against the re-election of Vladimir Putin, five women from the group entered the Cathedral of Christ the Savior of the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow. There was no church service in session at the time, and only a few people were in the cathedral.[60] Removing their winter clothes, they put on colorful balaclavas, walked up the steps leading to the altar, and began to jump around, punching the air.[61] After less than a minute, they were escorted outside the building by guards.[62] Film of the performance was later combined with footage shot at a different church,[63] identified by Russian Orthodox Church spokesman Vsevolod Chaplin as the Epiphany Cathedral in Yelokhovo,[64] to create a video clip for the song, which they entitled “Punk Prayer: Mother of God Drive Putin Away”.[6]

      The song, which they described as a punk moleben (supplicatory prayer), borrowed its opening melody and refrain from Sergei Rachmaninoff’s “Bogoroditse Devo, Raduisya” (Ave Maria), from the All Night Vigil.[65] In the song, they invoked the name of the Virgin Mary, urging her to get rid of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and to “become a feminist”, claiming that she would support them in their protests. They alluded to close ties between the church and the KGB (“Black robes, golden epaulettes”), criticized the subservience of many Russians to the church (“Parishioners crawl bowing”) and attacked the church’s traditionalist views on women (“So as not to offend His Holiness, women must bear children and love”). They used the crude epithet “Sran Gospodnya”, which has been used to translate “holy shit” in Hollywood movies, but is rarely used in idiomatic Russian; it literally translates as “shit of the Lord”. They later explained “It is an idiomatic expression, related to the previous verse – about the fusion of Moscow patriarchy and the government. ‘Holy shit’ is our evaluation of the situation in the country.” They referred to Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill I, as a “suka” (bitch) and accused him of believing more in Putin than in God.[66][67][68]

      Growing ties between church and state in Russia were a target of criticism and protest. The Russian Patriarch, Kirill, had openly supported Putin’s 2012 re-election, calling Putin a “miracle from God”, who had “rectified the crooked path of history”. After the cathedral performance, members of Pussy Riot said the church was a “weapon in a dirty election campaign” and called Putin “a man who is as far as can be from God’s truth”.[69] This performance led to the arrest and prosecution of three of their members.[70]

      • Great comment, Elmer

        I hope I hear more out of those kids. Only the young Russians can get rid of Putin. The old people are too frightened. This war in Syria will mobilize young people. Who wants to be drafted and sent to fight in Syria, and/or, Ukraine?

        All power to Pussy Riot!

  4. wa-llahi! The Church is not a monolith. It has both right(Opus Dei), and, left, wings (Catholic Action). Celebrity converts, generally, lean to the right. They are fans of the authoritarian Church. With Paco Dos in the big seat, they don’t have much play these days. All power to Liberation Theology!

    • …anyone hear of the rumor that Hillary was a card-carrying, medallion-wearing member of the Communist Party in college……could it be true??????

      • I hope, so, but, doubt it, greatly. It wasn’t that easy to get a card, back then. I suspect, she just brushed up against one of the farm teams.

  5. I am no fan of Donahue or his group, having endured their attacks against Voice of the Faithful while trying to stop child sexual abuse by prelates, and that was compounded by the hierarchy’s miserable handling of a crisis they had created and exacerbated ..losing much of the moral high ground. But Podesta’s emails, about crafting a “Catholic Spring” are neither humorous nor a tempest in a teapot…and in the land of the blind, even someone with a telephone pole in one eye, is king!

    From a piece by Thomas D. Williams

    Sandy Newman, founder of the left-wing group, Voices for Progress, asked Podesta for advice on how best to “plant the seeds of the revolution” within the Catholic Church. In response, Podesta boasted that he had already founded two organizations for this purpose: “Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good” and “Catholics United,” a group accused in 2012 of seeking “to silence the Church from speaking to the great moral issues of our age.”

  6. In brief, the emails show Hillary’s top advisers expressing contempt and mockery for Catholicism. (They sometimes phrase it “conservative Catholicism”, by which they mean Church teachings.)
    Remember, Hillary promises to repeal the Hyde Amendment. The jihad on the unborn will continue with your tax dollars paying for abortions. Feminist President Hillary and her Supreme Court will attack religious freedoms along many fronts.

  7. Matt: You ask: “Where is there anything anti-Catholic in these emails?” Surely you jest!
    –The writers agree that Catholicism or conservative Catholicism is “a bastardization of the faith.” (“Its” can be read both ways.)
    – – They mock Catholicism for its “systematic thought and severely backwards gender relations”. You see nothing wrong with calling a religion “severely backwards”? You see nothing wrong with mocking “systematic thought”? I guess non-systematic thinking is better.
    — – They mock Catholicism for not being a “Christian democracy”, whatever that means. Let me guess. Get rid of the Pope, Cardinals, Catechism, the 2,000 year History and the teaching authority of the Church, and replace it with what? modern egalitarian Unitarianism? Let the People vote for the Pope as Corporations let the workers vote for CEOs?
    – – -They mock people for raising their children Catholic as being “unaware of Christian democracy.” They imply people choosing Catholicism are ignorant, or perhaps there is another definition of “unaware” of which I am unaware.
    – – -They describe the motives of Murdoch’s and Thompson’s “raising their kids Catholic” in social and political terms: “They must think it “the most socially acceptable politically conservative religion”. They go from criticizing “conservative” Catholicism to the “religion” itself. The emails say Catholicism appeases to their “rich friends” and they want to impress people with “Thomistic” ideas to “throw around” at cocktail parties, I assume.
    2. You say “it is a stretch” to say Catholics can write anti-Catholic emails. To the contrary: Many Catholics attack their Church on such issues as the Sanctity of Life, Defense of Marriage, Just War, Capital Punishment, Papal Authority and other teachings. Nancy Pelosi and Ted Kennedy’s positions on abortion are anti-Catholic. Historically, some of the harshest and most vicious critics of Catholicism have been professed Catholics.

  8. Matt, this may indeed be a tempest in a teapot, but consider as background the left and other recent religious matters:

    1. The left’s bending over backwards to placate and appease Muslims and Islam , especially with regard to attacks on their “religion of peace” and Islamic terrorism

    2. The left’s attacks on anyone who takes issue with 1.

    3. Obama’s refusal to accommodate Little Sisters of the Poor (and those similarly situated) with regard to Obamacare

    4. Catholic-bashing generally, from the left

    Now, I’m no C.J. Doyle of the Catholic Action League, but this email issue must be considered in the context of the above. That said, perhaps there is great oversensitivity in religious matters these days on the part of so many.

  9. Put me down as supporting the Little Sisters of the Poor in their battle of conscience against Obamacare and the courts….and as a dad of a practicing medical doctor, I am greatly concerned about his right to refrain form practices abhorrent to his religious beliefs….those are two immediate concerns we have about the left’s attacks on religious freedom evidenced among past practices and leaked emails. Perhaps USCB’s statement will be more temperate than my jottings from my heart.

    October 13, 2016

    A statement from Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, Kentucky

    President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

    WASHINGTON—At this important time in our nation’s history, I encourage all of us to take a moment to reflect on one of the founding principles of our republic – the freedom of religion. It ensures the right of faith communities to preserve the integrity of their beliefs and proper self-governance. There have been recent reports that some may have sought to interfere in the internal life of the Church for short-term political gain. 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. The Gospel is offered for all people for all times. It invites us to love our neighbor and live in peace with one another. For this reason, the truth of Christ is never outdated or inaccessible. The Gospel serves the common good, not political agendas.

    I encourage my fellow Catholic brothers and sisters, and all people of good will, to be good stewards of the precious rights we have inherited as citizens of this country. We also expect public officials to respect the rights of people to live their faith without interference from the state. When faith communities lose this right, the very idea of what it means to be an American is lost.

    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. 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.