.
By
Kay Ebeling
 |
| Paul Ryan, Catholic |
It
was his Catholic conscience that caused Sargent Shriver* to create the Peace
Corps, Job Corps, and Head Start in the 1960s.
In 2011 it was his Catholic conscience that moved Paul Ryan** to oppose
Social Security and claim a passion for Ayn Rand’s Objectivist theories. Republican Newt Gingrich converted to
Catholicism so he could marry his third wife and run for president as someone
who is prayerful.
When
it comes to pedophile priests, on the right the Catholic League defends the “high
number of falsely accused priests,” along with David Pierre whose website and
books criticize SNAP for its “left wing” politics, as if it's a given that
left-wing means something bad.
What
happened to the socially conscious Catholics, the politically compassionate such as the Kennedys? This century Catholics are part
of the most extreme elements of the Republican Party in the USA, and somehow
siding with the priests in the pedophile crisis got tagged onto this right wing Catholic
phenomenon.
A Self-Perpetuated Authority
The pedophile priest apologists end up running each other’s talking points on each other’s websites. They self-publish books, and review each other's self-published books, and give the appearance that Catholics are Republicans who think pedophile priests have gotten a bad rap. A kind of legitimacy results from the redundancy.
Last summer during the Philadelphia priest abuse trial, NPR interviewed pedophile priest defender Pierre.
***************
The reporter who interviewed him, NPR's Barbara Bradley Hagerty, is part of this new Catholic right wing herself. So much for Left Wing Bias in the news, especially at NPR:
More troubling still is [Hagerty’s] association with Howard Ahmanson's Fieldstead and Co. and Fieldstead Foundation. Ahmanson is a California millionaire who uses his trust fund to finance right-wing Christian, anti-gay, anti-evolution groups and politicians. He was previously associated with Christian Reconstructionism, which advocates a Biblically-based governement for the U.S. (Neither Ahmanson nor his philanthropic endeavors have their own websites. Make of that what you will.)
Hagerty has spoken twice at the Summer Institute of Journalism, a program run by the Council for Christian Colleges and University and funded by the Fieldstead Foundation. Student reactions to her talks are here.
Hagerty has spoken twice at the Summer Institute of Journalism, a program run by the Council for Christian Colleges and University and funded by the Fieldstead Foundation. Student reactions to her talks are here.
Hagerty's keynote address to the 2003 National Student Media Conventionwas also sponsored by Fieldstead and Co. In 2003 she also spoke at theBaptist Press Student Journalism Conference, along with Terry Mattingly, a Scripps-Howard reporter who is also a Fieldstead grant recipient. ( per http://betterangels.blogspot.com/2004/05/ballad-of-barbara-bradley-hagerty.html )
*****************
Some in the new right in the U.S. show a religious reverence in their political ideals. Republican candidate for President Mitt Romney and his running mate Ryan’s belief in the individual above the village seems to be as significant to them as accepting Jesus Christ as your lord and savior.
************************************
New Right Catholics Entering a Vacuum
A
lot of level headed persons are leaving the Catholic Church in the shadow of
its cover up of a pedophile priest crime spree in the U.S. Still actual membership numbers are for the
most part staying stable in the Catholic Church nationwide and in some
geographic areas, such as Los Angeles, parish membership numbers are even
rising.
Who
are these wandering souls entering the vacuum of the emptying Catholic Church? Who wants to come in while so many others are
leaving? And why are so many of the defenders
of pedophile priests also part of the extreme ring wing of politics?
As
one of the pedophile priest victims, I see these new right wing Catholics as slick opportunists. A guy like Gingrich can write checks to a
parish and soon be leading his own version of Bible study.
What
really scares me about this embrace of the Catholic Church by the right is to
me, with my moderate knowledge of history, the movement resembles Germany in
the post World War II era when Hitler was rising to power. Like this from Wikipedia:
Raised by a skeptic Catholic father and a devout Catholic mother, Adolf Hitler ceased to participate in the sacraments after childhood. In his book Mein Kampf and in public speeches he often made
statements that affirmed a belief in Christianity.[1][2] Prior
to World War II Hitler had promoted "positive
Christianity", a
movement which purged Christianity of its Jewish elements and instilled it with Nazi
philosophy.[3]
Today’s
new right Catholics seem determined to rid the Church of liberal and
progressive thinkers, which apparently includes anyone who defends the victims
of pedophile priests instead of the priests.
The new right wing Catholics seem to refer to progressives and pedophile
priest victims with the same disdain the Nazis had for Jews.
* ABOUT SARGENT SHRIVER:
A devout Catholic, Sargent Shriver attended daily Mass and always carried a rosary of well-worn wooden beads.[11]
During [John F ] Kennedy's presidential term, Shriver founded
and served as the first director of the Peace Corps.[4] Shriver then served as Special Assistant to
President Lyndon Johnson where he created the Office of
Economic Opportunity. Shriver is known
as the "architect" of the Johnson administration's "War on Poverty".[4] Shriver founded numerous social programs and organizations,
including Head Start,[14] VISTA, Job Corps, Community Action, Upward Bound, Foster Grandparents, Legal
Services, the National Clearinghouse for Legal Services (now the Shriver
Center), Indian and Migrant Opportunities and Neighborhood Health Services, in
addition to directing the Peace Corps. He was active inSpecial Olympics, founded by his wife Eunice. (Per Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sargent_Shriver )
** RE PAUL RYAN:
Catholicism grounds his thinking about politics and the basic
relationship between the individual and the state. He has invoked a principle
called "subsidiarity" in justifying his view that people are more apt
to flourish under government that is limited in its size and reach. ( Per
Wall Street Journal August 17 2012 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444233104577595400789196454.html )
***
Plus it figures The Vatican’s new PR guy is a former
Fox News correspondent. The extreme
right neo-fascists are certainly finding a welcome home inside the emptying
Catholic Church, kinda scary actually.
mediabistro.com
- 14 hours ago
Greg Burke has
left Fox News Channel, where he's been a ... It was just last
month that TVNewser interviewed Burke in Italy, where he ...
STLtoday.com - 9 hours ago
Morning Sentinel - 20 minutes ago
More on the NPR Reporter:
DELETED
PARAGRAPHS:
Funny
thing is I get it.
I
get what Ryan and Gingrich are going through.
As
a pedophile priest victim, part of my own personal PTSD was a misdirected
passion for politics that was almost sexual in nature, much like today’s
neo-right-wing religious devotees in the U.S. seem to be experiencing.
In
late 1970s Texas, at the height of my acting out as a pedophile priest crime
victim, a lot of Texans broke from the Democrats to become Libertarians and
Republicans. I somehow became part of
that movement and there was sexual excitement mixed in with my foray into right
wing politics.
It
was revolutionary, it broke new ground, it was part of my compulsion, it was
breakthrough it was, it was-
For
example, I embraced Ayn Rand and her philosophy too. I voted for Ron Paul when he first ran for
Congress in Houston. I know there was a similarity
in my short-lived romance with the right wing, to Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead
where Howard Roark blows up his construction project rather than allow any
left-leaning sympathies in its design.
The
confused mess in my brain was connected to the mish mash placed in there in
1953 by Father Horny, when he diddled me between the legs when I was five years
old. That sexual excitement entered and
confused everything I did in my life. So
my safari into right wing politics in the late 1970s had an element of sick
sexual perplexity attached to it.
I
just wonder what sick demented thing happened to right wingers like Paul Ryan
and Newt Gingrich that made them so passionate about their political theories
as they connect to their Catholic religion.
ONE
MORE DELETED PARAGRAPH:
As
a damaged former Catholic, watching in the last twenty years the legal
maneuverings of attorneys for the church in courts, and their manipulation of
the news media, I don't see how anyone can consider Catholicism a legitimate
religion anymore.
-Posted By Kay Ebeling, producer, City of Angels Network
.
The City of Angels is Everywhere
.
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