Communist infiltration of the Church – an introduction

Nearly two years ago to the day, Churchmouse Campanologist published a précis of the Communist infiltration of the Roman Catholic Church.  The post concerned the memoirs of a Communist agent:  AA-1025: The Memoirs of an Anti-Apostle.  Please consult the post for shocking revelations and a link to further excerpts from the agent’s book.

A number of my Protestant readers might take exception to the Catholic Church for various theological and scriptural reasons.  In many aspects, I would agree with them.  However, whatever infiltration or weakening happens in the Catholic Church occurs in Protestant denominations, too.  Communist infiltration was also occurring in Protestant churches in America as far back as the 1930s.

Personally, I believe that the methods of Communist influence are both direct and indirect today.  The paedophilia scandal in the Catholic Church could not have happened without years of subversion and the co-opting of useful idiots as enablers.  And it would not surprise me if the same dark forces which engineered this perversion in the seminaries and parishes then decried all of it as corruption in the Church.

Similarly, in the Protestant churches we have more entertainment and feel-good preaching than solid study of Scripture.  From praise bands to the Emergent Church movement, our worship moves us inevitably closer to Man than to God.  Again, my hypothesis is that this is a combination of conscious subversion with the co-opting of useful idiots.

Protestant subversion

As far as the Protestant situation is concerned, theologians drifted into Modernism, a notionally Christian offshoot of Marxism, and was furthered by leftists.  A few brief excerpts from this post will help set the scene:

Walter Rauschenbusch (1861 – 1918), Professor of Church History at Rochester Theological Seminary, is known as the ‘Father of the Social Gospel’.  You might be interested to know that John D Rockefeller funded this seminary, along with many others in the United States.

Dr Rauschenbusch grew up in a German Lutheran family but became a Baptist pastor prior to his professorship.  His status as a professor gave him the platform to become an influential theologian.  He wrote two books, Christianising the Social Order and A Theology for the Social Gospel.  He considered himself steeped in ‘higher criticism’ and well-versed in socialism.  He proposed a more relevant and compassionate Gospel designed to change the emphasis and direction of American Protestantism.  He also introduced the idea of an earthly Kingdom achieved through socialism. He posited that Jesus didn’t come to save sinners but had a ‘social passion’ for society.

In 1907, he met with the Fabians (socialists) in England … they proposed propaganda and infiltration to achieve their goals.  In Rauschenbusch’s case the  targets were to be universities, seminaries and churches.

A year later John D Rockefeller helped Rauschenbusch and the Fabian Revd Harry Ward — remember this name — to fund the establishment of the Federal Council of Churches. This would eventually become the National Council of Churches. We now have the World Council of Churches, which is very much aligned with the United Nations and global agendas.

In 1953 the Revd Harry Ward’s name popped up in the McCarthy hearings on Un-American Activities.  Here is what the transcripts from July 1953 said (emphasis in the original).

Manning Johnson, a former senior member of the Communist Party, answered questions from Robert Kunzig, Chief Counsel for the committee.  What follows is part of his testimony:

– William Z Foster, General Secretary of the Communist Party USA, said, ‘Communists must ever be keen to cultivate the democratic spirit of mutual tolerance among the religious sects … A still greater lesson for us to learn, however, is how to work freely with religious strata for the accomplishment of democratic mass objectives… A very serious mistake of the American left wing during many years … has been its attempt arbitrarily to wave aside religious sentiments among the masses.  Reactionary forces [mainly concerned Christians] have already known how to work take advantage of this shortsighted sectarian error … In recent years, however, the Communist Party, with its policy of ‘the outstretched hand’ has done much to overcome the harmful left-wing narrowness of former years and to develop a more healthy cooperation with the religious masses.’

– Deceit was a major policy of Communist propaganda and activity:  ‘They made fine gestures and honeyed words to the church people which could be well likened unto the song of the fabled sea nymphs luring millions to moral decay, spiritual death and spiritual slavery.’

– The Revd Harry F Ward also headed the Methodist Federation for Social Service, or the Methodist Federation for Social Action.  He ‘was invaluable to the Communist Party … because through it the Party was able to get contacts with thousands of ministers all over the country … Quite a few ministers, for example, participated in the united front known as the American League Against War and Fascism … In fact, they were so deeply involved through Harry F. Ward that they became the spokesmen — the advocates, the builders and the leaders of this most important Communist front that engaged in everything from simple assault on a government to espionage, sabotage and the overthrow of the Government.’

– The Communists infiltrated and poisoned the religious organisations of America wherever possible: ‘Once the tactic of infiltrating religious organisations was set by the Kremlin, the actual mechanics of implementing the ‘new line’ was a question of following … the church movement in Russia, where the Communists discovered that the destruction of religion could proceed much faster through infiltration of the church by Communist agents operating within the church itself … The infiltration tactic in this country would have to adapt itself to American conditions … In the earliest stages it was determined that with only small forces available it would be necessary to concentrate Communist agents in the seminaries and divinity schools.  The practical conclusion drawn by the Red leaders was that these institutions would make it possible for a small Communist minority to influence the ideology of future clergymen …  The idea was to divert the emphasis of clerical thinking from the spiritual to the material … Instead of emphasis toards the spiritual matters of the soul, the new and heavy emphasis was to deal with those matters which, in the main, led toward the Communist program of ‘immediate demands’ [or ‘felt needs’].

Catholic subversion

Agent AA-1025’s account, published posthumously after the nurse tending him found the manuscript among his effects when he died in hospital, described his own indoctrination into Communism and entry into the priesthood:

[When young, Michael, the future agent] decided to run away from home and met a friend who introduced him to his uncle who was a high-ranking official in the Russian Secret Police.

Michael had completed 6 years of study and by now was 20 years old. He was called to the office of The Uncle who told him: ‘I am now going to send you to practice a militant and international atheism. You will have to fight all religions, but principally the Catholic, which is better organized. To do so, you will enter a seminary and become a Roman Catholic priest… ‘

The Uncle gave further instructions to Michael: ‘The ten persons who will be directly under your orders will never know you. To reach you, they will have to pass through me. Thus you will never be denounced. We already have in our service numerous priests in all countries where Catholicism is implanted, but you will never know one another. One is a bishop. Maybe you will enter into contact with him, it will depend upon the rank that you reach. We have spies everywhere and particularly old ones who follow the press of the whole world.’

Agent AA-1025 — Michael — already foresaw the vagaries of Vatican II, the most heinous reform to ever take place in the Catholic Church:

‘Some day, you will see married priests and mass said in vernacular tongues.’ I remember with joy that I was the first one to say these things in 1938. That same year, I urged women to ask for the priesthood…

… Someone was charged to watch attentively all the Vatican writings, in order to detect even very small details capable of displeasing one category of individuals. The quality of those who criticize the Pope does not matter, the only important thing is that he be criticized. The ideal thing, of course, would be that he displeased everybody, that is, reactionaries as well as modernists.

I also prophesied, and we were then in 1940, the disappearance of altars, replaced by a table completely bare, and also of all the crucifixes, in order that Christ be considered as a man, not as a God. I insisted that Mass be only a community meal to which all would be invited, even unbelievers…

Mass must only be a community meal for the greatest welfare of human fraternity…

…The Saints must disappear before God, although it is much easier to kill God than His Saints… Then, we will proceed to suppress Judgement, Heaven, Purgatory and Hell. This is all very easy… Many are well disposed to believe that the Goodness of God surpasses all crimes. AIl we have to do is to insist on this Goodness. A God Whom no one fears, quickly becomes a God about Whom no one thinks. Such was the end to be reached.

Always drive minds towards a greater charity, a larger fraternity. Never talk about God, but about the greatness of man. Bit by bit, transform the language and the mentalities. Man must occupy the first place. Cultivate confidence in man who will prove his own greatness by founding the Universal Church in which all good wills shall melt together…

We could try to rationalise these developments over the past century, but we would be mistaken.  It has happened and is happening.  Those pointing to an absence of Scripture or doctrine must look further back than the present to see what is happening.

Monday: More Catholic testimony about Communist infiltration