Last year an essay, which appears to be an introduction to Robert Chandler’s book Shadow World, outlined how Gramsci’s passive revolution is infiltrating the Catholic Church. Cliff Kincaid, who is President of America’s Survival, Inc., and Chandler outlined the process in ‘How Marxism Has Infiltrated the Catholic Church’. Even though it’s 16 pages long, it’s a gripping read and highly recommended.
Kincaid begins by citing a report by James Tyson, who used to work for Accuracy in Media in the US. Tyson saw the Catholic Church working with Marxist Sandinistas in 1979. The US Catholic bishops strongly supported this move. Also, although Pope John Paul II and President Reagan (1980-1988) actively opposed Communism, a former Maryknoll priest, Blase Bonpane, started negotiations between the Church and the Sandinistas. Today, Bonpane speaks of his successes in this regard at lectures around the world. He advocates building an ‘international peace system’, which is also the focus of the University of Notre Dame’s Peace Studies department. Although the Contras, with Reagan’s aid, won the battle, they ultimately lost the war. The Sandinistas control Nicaragua, managing this with the support of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and the Castro-influenced Sao Paulo Forum.
Kincaid also mentions that Tyson alleged that in the 1980s, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) fell under the influence of leftist priests, notably the Revd J Bryan Hehir, known for his lecture series to the Institute for Policy Studies — a left-wing think tank — entitled ‘Matthew, Marx, Luke and John’. The IPS also gave Fr Hehir an award named after a famous Chilean Communist, Orlando Letelier. Today, Fr Hehir is a professor at Harvard University’s John F Kennedy School of Government.
So, we have American Catholic bishops and priests in synch with far-left political movements. But, regular readers will recall that there’s more to the story, namely in the United States itself. Last year, I reported on CCHD donations going to various left-wing community organisations and asked American Catholics not to donate to the annual nationwide collection in November. Some funding even goes to the nefarious ACORN.
Robert Chandler, the author of the aforementioned Shadow World, is a retired US Air Force Colonel and Vietnam War veteran. He has worked as a US Government strategist for many years. He explains how Gramscian thought is at work in the Catholic Church in the United States:
… to overturn the existing order and “Marxize the inner man,” one must create a subversive program of “counter-hegemony” against its supporting culture. The war against the existing culture would leave nothing outside of the struggle, especially Christianity, to negate the established modes of thought and ways of doing things.
Christianity is considered a prime target in preparing the way for a “Marxized America,” since religion, as an independent center of societal values, stands in the way of creating a new culture based on what is deceptively called “social justice” and “change.” Religion, in the Gramsci view, is the foundation for the Western values of individual liberty, private property, and the traditional family, and must be abolished in order for the new communist society to emerge.
Chandler notes that one of Gramsci’s leading proponents is actually a professor of English at the University of Notre Dame. His name is Joseph Buttigieg. Buttigieg has not only translated Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks but is also the co-founder and current president of the International Gramsci Society! He has also addressed Marxist and Communist fora in the United States.
Another Notre Dame faculty member with avowedly left-wing credentials as an activist and advisor to the UN is David Cortright. Cortright is a research fellow at ND’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.
And, speaking of the UN, did you know that the president of their General Assembly in 2008-2009 was one Miguel D’Escoto — like Blase Bonpane, a Maryknoll priest — who was also a former foreign minister of Sandinista Nicaragua? As one might expect, Fr D’Escoto strongly advocates liberation theology.
What does all of this mean for the average American Catholic? Chandler cites an explanation from the late conservative Catholic author, Malachi Martin:
Malachi Martin explained that Gramsci’s quiet, anonymous revolution would do everything in the name of man’s dignity and rights, and in the name of the claims and constraints of Christianity: “Accomplish that, said Gramsci, and you will have established a true and freely adopted hegemony over the civil and political thinking of every formerly Christian country. Do that, he promised, and in essence you will have Marxized the West. The final step — the Marxization of the politics of life itself — will then follow. All classes will be one class. All minds will be proletarian minds. The earthly Paradise will be achieved.”
Does ‘earthly Paradise’ by way of ‘social justice’ sound familiar? If so, avoid being Gramscied! Who else is promoting this? Rick Warren as well as the Emergent Church guys.
Chandler adds:
for nearly five decades a revolutionary Marxist fifth column has been working openly to transform American culture from one founded upon a free market and personal liberties to one that could be made amenable to a socialist governance and secularization. These subversive activities were expected to pay-off after fifteen to twenty-five years of effort — the estimated time needed for successfully instilling a new set of socialist-Marxist values in America’s youth—to “Marxize” the inner man.
He closes his essay with a warning:
When one enters a Catholic church in Europe for Sunday Mass, often the only sound to be heard is the echo of one’s own footsteps. If Americans give up Christianity to the contemporaneous Obama rush toward socialism and secularism, they will find their inner selves “Marxized” while their footsteps echo loudly in churches across the country — a hollow protest against the end of religious faith.
In light of the Emergents and Rick Warren, that would seem to hold true for Protestants, too.
9 comments
May 20, 2010 at 11:20 am
Gabriella
Hi Churchmouse,
You do well to bring this up and remind people about the harm brought about in the western world by Gramsci’s theories.
These have taken root very strongly here in Italy and in fact, until Berlusconi, the Italian Communist Party was the largest after the USSR!
You are right about Butteglieg: he translated Gramsci’s work into English and worked arm in arm with the British Communist Party to spread the ‘quiet’ revolution. I believe England, after Italy, was Gramsci’s ‘top fan’ 😉
And yes, the Catholic Church was strongly influenced. South America and Boff’s Liberation Theology are evidence enough. The harm done is so vast that it will take some time before the Church can come out of it – and I’m positive this current Pope is working at this 🙂 You’ve stimulated my interest in this and as soon as I have time, I will certainly look up Church documents on this subject.
Thank you.
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May 20, 2010 at 12:20 pm
churchmouse
Thanks, Gabriella! Thought of you when I put my research together, as I promised these posts last year. 🙂
I’ve another post on Gramsci coming up tomorrow (again, more of a US perspective) then delve into the Frankfurt School a bit and plan to continue off and on for the next week or so.
Glad that Berlusconi has had some success in stemming the red tide in Italy. For that reason, I don’t object to him as much as some people, especially in the media, do. I wonder if their criticisms would be as harsh if he were a man of the Left?
It’s shocking to see how much our generation has been influenced by Gramsci and/or the Frankfurt School. So much of what we do has their prints all over it, from the music we listen to, to the art and architecture we see, to our political and religious beliefs.
Yes, I read briefly about goings-on in this context in Britain the other day. Honestly, there is so much to read on this subject that I didn’t want to do a full debriefing, post after post. I’ll try to fit the UK side of things in a bit later on. Oh, my! 😯
I hope that the Pope can really effect change for the Church in this area. My fear is that the Vatican and bishoprics are filled with Marxists. Think of all the far-left community organisers working through urban churches and accepting CCHD funds. American bishops are actively supporting them.
I also think this excess of articles about paedophile priests is related to Gramscian theory and the Frankfurt School in a serious and concerted attempt to discredit the Catholic Church for a generation or so. That would be all the time they would need to kill it off (so to speak) in the popular mind and make more atheists out of our young people. I don’t think this will actually happen, but I do foresee a troubled time for not only Catholics but Christians in general. This could play out over a few decades.
I would also posit that militant atheism has the same root in Gramsci and the Frankfurt School. All these guys are so well-organised, and they’re really just useful idiots. And we know what happens to useful idiots …
Finally, I also believe there is a link here between pro-Islam secularists and the Gramscian attempt to whittle away at the influence of the Church. For some time, the unofficial policy appears to have been ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’. Let’s hope we never have to see the denouement of that one!
As always, it’s great to hear from you! If you do run across any Church-related links that you’d like to share, I’d look forward to reading them! Thanks!
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June 4, 2010 at 8:11 pm
MomTo8
The infiltration of the Catholic Church was very deliberate, and even the “backlash” we are seeing from priest child-abuse scandals stem from this. This was all calculated to not only destroy family and faith, but destroy the institutions themselves. This whole idea of “God is good, religion is bad” is just the same thing with a different package. Religion is structure and rules and morals. If we take away organization, we just have a “free-for-all” God that loves (i.e. approves of) us, despite any debachery we may engage in.
If you haven’t already, you should read “AA-1025 The Memoirs of an Anti-Apostle”.
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June 4, 2010 at 11:21 pm
churchmouse
Thanks, MomTo8 — funnily, enough I just had a conversation earlier today with a lifelong Catholic who is thinking of leaving the Church because of the priestly scandals. I advised against it, citing your reasons. She, although older than I, had a hard time accepting this. There must be many more like her who respond to NYT, Newsweek and UK publications.
I have read about the shocking AA-1025 and posted some excerpts here last year:
Would be happy to hear from you again with any insights you might have.
May God bless you.
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January 26, 2012 at 8:45 pm
Carol
Dear Churchmouse,
Congratulations on your successful exposure of Marxist infiltration into the Catholic Church. I feel sure that you will be interested in my recently published book on Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement (See http://www.amazon.com/Catholic-Worker-Movement-1933-1980-Critical/dp/1452078424/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325783033&sr=1-1 for details and reviews). The book is based on authentic documentary evidence that exposes the Marxist agenda of two American Catholic radicals Dorothy Day (1897-1980) and Peter Maurin (1877-1949), founders of the Catholic Worker Movement, who tried to make Socialism acceptable within the Catholic Church under the guise of “Christian Communism.”
Their collaboration with the Communist Party of the USA is well documented, as is Dorothy Day’s support for Fr Blasé Bonpane, Saul Alinsky, Abbie Hoffman, Harry Bridges, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn as well as every Socialist dictator throughout the world.
As Dorothy Day’s cause for canonization has been opened by the Vatican, there is an ongoing need to alert people to the dangers of importing into the Christian community the same revolutionary principles espoused by Lenin and his followers. This book will appeal to anyone interested in issues concerning the continued dangers posed by “cultural Marxism” to our Christian-based cultural heritage.
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January 26, 2012 at 9:28 pm
churchmouse
Thank you very much, Carol, for not only visiting here but for writing a book countering the canonisation effort for Dorothy Day. May God bless you in abundance for this great effort.
I look forward to your return visit.
To my Catholic readers, as my mother said many times, ‘Dorothy Day is no saint — she is a Communist’. Take note!
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January 30, 2012 at 11:04 pm
Carol
Thankyou, Churchmouse for your kind words and sound advice.
I note that Gabriella said she thought the current Pope is working to overcome the harm done by Latin American Liberation Theology. Alas, nothing could be further from the truth. There is now a liberation theologian in the Holy Office – Bishop Gerhard Müller of Regensberg was appointed a member by Benedict XVI to this department of the Vatican which is now called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).
What a topsy turvy Church we are living in. This is the same Pope who, as Cardinal Ratzinger, was the Prefect of the CDF and issued a lame censure to Leonardo Boff and other liberation theologians in the 1980s, only to rehabilitate them soon after.
Readers should know that Bishop Müller was a pupil of Gustavo Gutiérrez, the “father” of Latin-American Liberation Theology, and continues to be closely associated with him. He goes to Peru every year to attend the courses taught by Gustavo Gutiérrez and live cheek by with the farmers of a parish in the vicinity of Lake Titicaca, on the border with Bolivia.
Müller is tipped to be the next Prefect of the CDF, following in the footsteps of Pope Benedict. Whatever next? A Liberation Theology Pope?
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January 30, 2012 at 11:26 pm
churchmouse
Thank you, Carol, for this (unwelcome) news, which is much appreciated.
I am very sorry to read that Rome is in such turmoil. However, these days, Vatican City must be a very difficult environment, especially for Benedict XVI. I would like to think that he is under great pressure to do the politically correct / Marxist thing rather than follow what might be his own inclinations from his early Vatican II days.
If you wish, please keep us posted — my readers and I would like to know the outcome and pray that it is for the better.
Liberation theology is a serious error. What difference does it make to salvation to live according to the world? Not a jot.
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February 9, 2012 at 12:22 pm
DUMON Jacques
Churchmouse & Carol,
I feel very sad in agreeing with Carol. Though being a very kind , pleasant and lovable man, our Holy Father remains a modernist in the core. I was extremely dismayed in hearing how he almost “canonized” Luther in Erfurt, last year.
The last scandal about embezzlements in the Vatican administration we heard in january was quickly kept quiet by the clerical omerta.
This one, added with the string of previous pending scandals of paedophilia, freemasonry in the hierarchy, Legionaries of Christ, liturgical abuses, etc… leads me to think we have not yet reached the bottom of the infernal spiral our poor RCC is entangled in.
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