Church Militant The Vortex Feed

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At the core of every human being is the desire to feel and be safe. It's not to be loved, at least on its own. It's to be safe, to be protected. Those are by-products of love, what love ultimately leads to.

Providing safety — is there any better way to describe authentic masculinity? The entire patriarchy, in fact, is centered on this very notion. Loving men sacrifice for the safety and security of those around them. But to focus on the issue of being safe, when a human being (or even a pet) believes rightly or wrongly that he is not safe, all hell breaks loose.

People go off the rails — angry, confused, self-doubting, developing feelings and thoughts of not being able to be loved or cared for. In short, the diabolical moves in for the kill. The spiritual and emotional pump is primed for a demonic takeover of the person. This is not necessarily a physical possession but an operational control of the person.

Knowing you are safe is the absolute bottom root desire of every human being. And, again, it's so basic that even our dogs and cats revolve their relationships with us around that.

So what is "safe"? In sum, it means you can never be harmed, hurt or unaccepted. Safety is summed up in Scripture in one of the most beautiful ways (it's one of my personal favorites) in the reference from St. John's Apocalypse, "And I will wipe away every tear from your eyes. And there will be no more mourning or pain, for the old order has passed away."

Our Lord tells us that unless we become like little children, we cannot see the kingdom of Heaven. So picture it — there we are, each of us, as little children again, little children sitting in our Dad's lap as He wipes away all our tears and we feel completely and totally safe. And here's the point: We'll feel that way because we will be that way.

When I was a little boy of about 2, my dad and the family were stationed at a U.S. Air Force base just outside Paris in Chambley. There were lots of little back roads through cow pastures and hedgerows. My dad would take me out and put me on his lap and let me steer, or at least let me think I was steering, and he operated the clutch and pedals obviously.

He would say to me, "Look at the moo-moos," and I was in Heaven. Talk about completely safe. A couple of years later, when we were back in England, my grandad would grab me and my brother by the hand right after Mass and take us to Wigan Park to feed the ducks. No one in the family was allowed to come near us. That was his sweet grandad time with us, and he sat us on the grass next to him and always brought a little bag of crusts for the ducks.

As Our Lord said to His followers, if you who are wicked know how to provide for those you love, how much more will your Heavenly Father provide for you? My dad and my grandad were not even close to wicked, and those moments are hard for me to imagine ever being surpassed as far as being safe.

Why does even the most hardened heart melt at the sight of little children happily and joyfully playing and smiling and being happy? Because we know and, at those moments, plug into the reality, that that is our eternal destiny.

This is what Satan and his demons want to deprive you of. They hate you with a hate, an enmity, beyond all possibility of comprehension.

Fight them. Fight them everywhere you encounter them. Even if they get the best of you every now and then, never forget Who and what you were created for.

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There is a very strong current running through groups of faithful Catholics in these days of confusion and bewilderment. It's the tendency to go chasing after prophecies and apparitions and seers and so forth, instead of knuckling down to do the hard — and, yes, shall we say it — frustrating, even boring life of day-to-day Catholicism.

It's the Catholic version of the Protestant phoniness of "signs and wonders." In the Catholic world, this psychological phenomenon is born out of an almost desperation to have certain worldviews ratified by any charlatan or disturbed that comes along.

Here's a gut check: If you are using or appealing to an unapproved "apparition" or the words of a supposed "seer" to back up your worldview, then your worldview is likely wrong.

On one level, the same is true of actual approved apparitions and how various faithful use them to support their view of things.

Yes, of course the approved apparitions themselves are likely true, but the interpretations of those by various folks with their own worldviews and the following application of them to warn us about the coming end of the world or whatever, not so fast.

But this episode is about the phony or imagined apparitions and seers and mystics and so forth; NOT how approved apparitions and messages are distorted and misapplied to prop up someone's personal agenda or narrative.

Just a short while ago, for example, the account spread like wildfire all over the Catholic internet that Pope Benedict appeared to a Columbian nun with the secret message that he was the legitimate pope up until he died, meaning Francis wasn't and isn't and, therefore, there is no pope right now.

Weak-minded folks who want to believe Francis isn't pope immediately seized on the phony apparition as other folks have seized on other apparitions or privately deciphered "prophecies" and on and on, all in a misguided attempt to make sense of the world around them, to provide themselves some kind of psychological cushion between the evils of the world and their world.

But retreating into piety or "prophecy" is not an authentic Catholic response. The great saints of the Church did not do that, even ones who actually experienced true apparitions. The great religious orders were not built by people in psychological retreat. The missionaries who spread out to every land in the world were not hunkered down in their own spiritual safety space. They went out into the world and confronted it and defeated it.

The Catholic life, meaning evangelizing and working for salvation, is not a private, mystical, apparition-driven affair (and this especially includes unapproved apparitions). To disregard the Church and cling to something Catholic-looking, how is that any different than Protestants poring over Scripture and deciding for themselves what's true and not.

If the Church hasn't approved it, have nothing to do with it. If others who profit in any way from promoting such things are encouraging it, run away and be done with them. Be especially careful when internet Catholics who promote certain narratives start seizing on apparitions and interviewing "prophets" and mystics to support their worldviews begin advancing more and more strange ideas.

This kind of stuff is spiritual poison.

Of course, there is always the possibility that a Catholic must consider that some of these apparitions and actors and so forth are not just nutty or looking for fame, but might be demonic.

Certainly, Hell would have a vested interest in deceiving people and leading them to a point of disobedience against the Church. That's essentially the battle plan of the diabolical from the get-go anyway. Why would they not pull that arrow out of their quiver when convenient?

Back in the 1970s, there was a smash hit book among certain Protestant circles called The Late Great Planet Earth, by a fellow named Hal Lindsey. It was total bunk because it was his personal opinion, or salesmanship, dressed up to sound all authoritative and scholarly — as he plumbed various Scripture passages and the book of Revelation and discovered prophecies and how they "applied" to the current days.

None of it was true, and here we are, half a century later, with none of his gnostic fancies having been borne out. This is a problem with Catholic and Protestant "prophets" and "seers" and "discerners" of secrets and hidden messages and apparitions: They are seldom around to be held accountable when their predictions don't pan out.

It's not good, as the Holy Spirit warns in Scripture, to plumb too deeply the mysteries of God. Frankly, if the Church is silent on such things, how do you know if you're right? All of this sort of thing — the "appeal" of knowing how things will play out, the desire to have discerned prophecies (even legitimate ones) — is a dangerous game on many levels.

But one level worth pointing out is that it often serves as a great distraction to the real work of the gospel; again, the laborious, even tedious, work in the vineyard. The world of apparitions and prophecies, let's face it, is much more sexy than confronting a fallen-away family member.

It also has the dangerous quality of puffing up someone, making them feel they are more informed about things of the spiritual world. Danger Will Robinson, danger!

The Catholic life for almost everyone is a slow growth, a day-to-day walk. Always looking for the hidden this or the as yet undeciphered that — what's the point? How are you increasing in holiness, or even attempting to, trying to mesh phony apparitions into Catholic conspiracy theories?

It would be much better to simply pick up and read The Life of Christ by Bp. Sheen than to spend one moment in the world of signs and wonders and prophecies and apparitions. We aren't Protestant. What any of us individually arrives at without the Church's seal of approval is completely pointless and, perhaps, even spiritually dangerous.

The Church provides for us seven spiritual works of mercy and seven corporal works of mercy.  Nowhere on either of those lists is included poring over prophecies and/or checking out the latest apparition claims. Be Catholic. It's just that simple, even if it isn't necessarily sexy and exciting every day.

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One of the nation's most prolific serial abortionists is on his deathbed, Church Militant has learned. 82-year-old Dr. LeRoy Carhart of Bellevue, Nebraska, is reportedly suffering from major heart issues, and according to Church Militant sources close to his case, has been given just a few days left to live by physicians. In fact, we received word a short while ago that he has now been moved into hospice care and that the end is very near. This Vortex has one goal: to ask for prayers for Carhart that he repent before he dies.

As vial and murderous as he has been for most of his professional life, none of us should ever want anyone to go to Hell. There is no human being walking the face of the earth who cannot be prayed for, especially at a moment like this.

Carhart and his abortion zealotry twice made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where he won a notable case in 2000, Stenberg v. Carhart, where he challenged a Nebraska abortion law. Seven years later, in 2006, he was back in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Gonzales v. Carhart, where he challenged and lost in seeking to overturn the partial-birth abortion ban.

Carhart owns and operates two abortuaries, one in Nebraska and the other in Maryland, and he travels back and forth between them performing abortions late into the third trimester. Witnesses Church Militant has spoken to say that he was in Maryland as recently as a couple of weeks ago. He's been in the abortion business for more than 30 years, and estimates place his killing toll well in excess of 30 thousand babies.

And for the record, Carhart himself uses the term "baby" on his website, in his brochures and even during a BBC documentary about him. He says that, of course, it's a baby; it just doesn't have any rights as long as it's in the uterus — his phrase. 

He was in the U.S. Air Force, and it was during his time there that he went to medical school and eventually wandered into the abortion industry after visiting one killing center. He actually trained other physicians for a period in how to perform abortions and has been praised and honored by the pro-abortion lobby for his dedication and willingness to work 28 out of 30 days a month to kill babies.

He opened his abortion office and studied late-term practices under the infamous George Tiller, whose late-term abortion numbers were so prolific that he earned the nickname "Tiller the Killer." Tiller was gunned down in 2009 by a disturbed zealot, which made Tiller's case a kind of cause célèbre among pro-abortion fanatics.

After Tiller's killing, Carhart essentially stepped up his presence and picked up where Tiller had left off. And now, approximately 15 years and thousands of killings later, America's most recognized late-term abortionist is on his deathbed in a Nebraska hospital.

When we pray for people, how we feel about them is of absolutely no consequence. How we feel or even think about who they are or what they've done doesn't matter at all. Our Lord did not instruct us to feel giddy and pray only for people we like when we're praying. He commanded us to pray for our enemies and do good to those who persecute us.

In the next few days, LeRoy Carhart will stand at his judgment — as every single one of us will do. If you can, have one Mass or more offered for him so that he be given and accept the grace of repentance. If you cannot arrange for a Mass because of the somewhat short notice, include the same intention in your Rosary or Divine Mercy Chaplet. Faithful followers of Our Lord never want anyone to go to Hell. No one.

Today's Vortex has Michael sitting down with award-winning actor Sean Patrick Flanery, the star of the new psychological thriller Nefarious, to talk about what it was like for him to play a demon.

Today's Vortex features an interview with the Catholic creators of the psychological thriller Nefarious and the exorcist who advised them. This episode may be disturbing to some viewers, as it discusses demonic possession as well as diabolical attacks on the movie's cast and crew.

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Throughout all of Catholic history, there have been multiple conversions of the intellectual kind. Saint Augustine, of course, immediately springs to mind, along with Anglican prelate John Henry Newman and so forth.

Of course, behind the scenes, grace is always operative, but that grace operates on some aspect of the person, and, quite often, that is immediately the intellect.

In the here and now, a couple of prominent personalities come to mind. One is Dr. Jordan Peterson, who more and more with every utterance is sounding as Catholic as can be.

And then there's Tucker Carlson, who, it would appear, is in the middle of an intellectual conversion of his own to Catholicism, whether he realizes it or not. Last week, he gave the closing remarks at a two-day summit at the Heritage Foundation and sounded exactly like a Catholic intellectual.

The cause? Since he appears to be a man of goodwill, he's simply looking around the world and realizing that everything playing out politically is, in truth, not politics at all; it's actually spiritual. As Church Militant has been saying for years now, based on our Catholic faith, everything is a spiritual war. We're thankful to see others begin to plug into this.

Interestingly, on the specific point of religion itself, Tucker full-on admitted his own Episcopalianism is completely and utterly insufficient in the face of this evil.

It's a very small step for someone like Tucker to then understand that all of Protestantism is insufficient in the face of this evil and then one more step to realize that the philosophical underpinnings of the Protestant heresy are actually the cause of this evil; it opened the door to every bit of it.

And for the highly sensitive and easily offended, we are not talking about individual Protestants; we are talking about the heresy of Protestantism. 

Tucker, like so many well-intentioned people, used to begin with a basic assumption when assessing politics and policy. That assumption was that we all agree on the desired outcome. What we are arguing about is the method: Which policy is the best to arrive at the agreed-upon outcome?

However, the culture has become so rotten and so morally bankrupt that Tucker, like every good Catholic, has discovered that assumption is wrong. One of the two sides is not on board with the good; it seeks an evil outcome. That makes political discourse now fruitless.

While trying to avoid direct theological terms while speaking of the current state of affairs, Tucker found it unavoidable, whether he realized it or not. "Good" and "evil" are theological terms, Tucker. In fact, they are part of the foundational vocabulary of theology. They are, in fact, the hallmarks of describing spiritual war. But that's okay. He's a smart dude. He'll come to understand that. 

It is extremely rewarding to watch a good mind move to and embrace truth. It's tremendous, in fact.

So allow us to ask you, in your daily Rosary, to make a virtual intention for Tucker to cooperate with the necessary graces and come into the Catholic Church.

For a man with goodwill, truth is irresistible; it is, in fact, intoxicating. It is, at the end of the day, Christ Himself, and He can be found nowhere more completely and fully than in the Church He established and died for and remains with to this day.

And if you see this, Tucker, by some chance, baby steps eventually need to turn into man steps. Keep walking, and, if we may, consider these two quotes from a fellow very intelligent man of his day, Juan Donoso Cortés, a 19th-century Spaniard who wrote in his Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism and Socialism (1879): 

Don't tire yourself in seeking a place of security against the chances of war, for you tire yourself in vain; that war is extended as far as space and prolonged through all time. In eternity alone, the country of the just, can you find rest, because there alone there is no combat.

And this one we have frequently quoted from the same work:

Catholicism is the law of life, the life of the intelligence, the solution of all problems. Catholicism is the truth, and everything that departs from it one iota, is disorder, deception, and error. 

Enjoy the journey, Tucker. It is well worth it.

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Only those born before roughly 1985 will have any experiential knowledge of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States. But the idea of a Cold War may soon become very real to those born after 1985.

And frankly, this Cold War, which, in various ways has already begun, will be a lot costlier; and that's because it isn't just between Russia and America this time around. "Cold War 2.0" will feature the United States versus both Russia and China.

You heard that right: No one, even a superpower, wants to fight an alliance of two major opponents — and just how much of a superpower America is these days is a little doubtful. Yes, we are, but let's just say, a lot of the luster has been taken off since the Soviet Union collapsed on the day after Christmas, 1991.

The hammer and sickle flag came down over the Kremlin and the Russian flag went up. It was historical to behold. So why all the talk now of an arms race and a new cold war?

Because China has been buddying up with Russia, the nations have formed an unofficial alliance (the goal of which is first to gain parity with the United States and then supplant us). To that end, China has been on a global world tour, shaking hands and kissing babies with anyone that will welcome it.

The goal of the new accord between Russia and China and the global diplomacy push is to strike agreements and understandings that weaken the U.S. dollar so that it is no longer the world's reserve currency.

While there is still a ways to go, that is already beginning to happen as various countries, including France, for example, have said publicly that America's exalted currency status needs to be brought to an end.

Communist China is making big diplomatic strides in the Middle East where various Islamic states see America as the "great Satan." China was able to negotiate a deal with Saudi Arabia, for example, to cut oil production by a million barrels a day. When Joe Biden asked the Saudis to restore production, they politely told him to kiss off. That sent his White House diplomats scrambling to Venezuela.

Likewise, Biden's sanctions against Russia have actually created the new alliance between Moscow and Beijing. For example, China is the one buying Russia's deeply discounted oil, and since the pullout from Russia of nearly 50 car manufacturers, 11 of the remaining 14 are Chinese.

That translates into nearly four out of every five new cars sold in Russia being Chinese vehicles. In short, China is cleaning up on Biden's sanctions against Russia. This is a lot of nitty-gritty, but it's the necessary background to understand that a weakened American economy is the perfect background for China and Russia to launch a nuclear arms race.

While America is still the dominant economy in the world ($26 trillion a year in gross domestic product, according to the International Monetary Fund estimates), China is gaining ground, with the second largest GDP, coming in at $19 trillion a year. Of course, a gap of $8 trillion is nothing to sneeze at, but an arms race could result in a major change in that list.

While China is still far behind in the sheer number of nuclear weapons compared to the United States and Russia, Beijing is in hurry-up mode, currently quadrupling its manufacture of them. They are also rapidly expanding their weapons-delivery systems.

They are also bringing a new reactor online this year that will greatly speed up what is an already impressive acceleration. Bottom line: While China wants parity with both the United States and Russia, it is at the same time speeding around the globe engaging in actions to weaken the U.S. dollar, in an attempt to weaken the U.S. economy.

Joe Biden apparently isn't doing that fast enough all on his own for Beijing, so they are lending him a little help.

When the Soviet Union collapsed more than 30 years ago, there were enormous savings realized in the U.S. economy. No more did hundreds of billions of dollars have to flow into the nuclear build-up. Those savings were called the "peace dividend," and that redeployment of U.S. wealth is what was largely responsible for Bill Clinton's being hailed as some economic wonderboy. He was just in the right place at the right time and got to slash military spending.

But now, the Biden White House, thanks to its own ineptitude and foreign policies as well as economic insanity, has created a monster in Beijing. Biden is now looking to install plans to spend $2 trillion on nuclear weapons build-up over the next 30 years to offset the China–Russia alliance that he helped create.

That's $66 billion in additional spending on nuclear arms each year for 30 years. And the long run is what this whole thing is about — both sides ramping up until who knows what. And if you think this is all far and away, take a look at these pictures.

Did you even know that there exists in Congress a Select Committee on the CCP and that last week they went through tabletop war game exercises to get a feel for a nuclear-strike invasion of Taiwan by China in the year 2027, to gauge American readiness?

Various congressmen assessed the reality of China's ability and desire to strike. A number of factors are at play as we look at the Chinese Communist Party war clouds gathering on the horizon, but they all first involve a weakening of America from within. You get weak, and your enemies get stronger.

There's a lesson here for Church leaders, but that war won't be limited to nuclear destruction. It will be far worse.

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They often say in politics that a president's legacy is whatever legislation he signs into law or the justices he gets on the U.S. Supreme Court. Long after he's left office, the stamp he may have placed on the high court will long survive him.

If you scoot across the Atlantic and land in Rome, you'll see that a similar happening is underway when it comes to Pope Francis naming cardinals.

In what appeared to be a much longer stay last month in the hospital for Pope Francis — and what also looked like something much more serious, up to and including a heart attack (and may very well have been) — talk began circulating about his dying and then, of course, who would be the next pope.

As it stands right now, there are 123 cardinal electors (meaning cardinals under 80) who are eligible to vote in the conclave. Pope Francis created 81 of them, which, at 65.8, is a hair away from 66%. That's important because you need two-thirds of the votes to win election by your fellow cardinals. That, of course, presumes that if you are one of the 81 Francis cardinals, you would vote for yourself.

However, by the end of this year, nine of these cardinals will turn 80 and will not be able to vote. That will shrink the number of electors down from its current 123 to 114. That means the arithmetic will have changed as well. Then, there will be 114 cardinal electors, meaning Francis will have created more than 68% of them — more than two-thirds.

Be that as it may, there is actual talk in Rome these days about a possible consistory — meaning when more men are raised to cardinal. The Roman rumor mill says that may happen as well before the end of the year, with at least two, and likely more, becoming cardinals.

If that happens, depending on the number, Pope Francis will have cemented a hold on the College of Cardinals approaching 3 out of every 4 who will elect the next pope.

That would virtually guarantee (as much as such things can be guaranteed) that the next man in white to emerge onto the loggia with white smoke belching out of the Sistine Chapel will be Pope Francis II.

In short, with the stacking of the deck, so to speak, some expected curial reforms on the way and some refining of the rules of the election of a pope – Francis' shadow may be cast over the Church for quite the time to come.

Of course, for some Catholics, that will be bad news, perhaps even greatly disturbing. But regardless of how one might feel about it, Pope Francis II is the most likely outcome once this Francis has gone to his judgment.

But there is also much talk in Rome these days of the "weariness" factor, the curia and others fed up with all the intrigue and drama and bad PR surrounding this papacy. Many, in fact, long for a return to more sedate times — whatever those are in the Church.

There is no doubt that the next pope would be able to bring more drama to the Vatican than this one has. Entire industries it seems have arisen in his wake, with commentators and internet types scoring big numbers of eyeballs by merely discussing anything about him.

That said, a "Francis fatigue" seems to be setting in, and that is causing the sensationalists on the internet to come up with even more clickbait headlines — which of course perpetuates the whole cycle. More headlines, more fatigue. More fatigue, ratchet up the headlines and around we go.

It is hard to believe that all this will not be at least a factor — if not a heavy one — when the cardinals next gather for the conclave. Even among less orthodox cardinals, as well as curia members, we hear they are sick and tired of all this, one drama after another after another.

Another factor in the lead-up to the next pope is this: The percentage of cardinals who are from Europe now stands at its lowest number ever, 41%. And for the first time ever, it's exceeded by cardinals from the Global South, at 45%.

The Global South is comprised of parts of Asia, Africa and Latin America. And it does seem appropriate when you consider that the largest numbers of Catholics are from there, hands down, more than the first-world industrialist nations.

This also means that the odds are better than they have been in a long while that the next pope may not be Caucasian, Italian or even European. But it is a safe bet that he will emerge from the crop of Francis cardinals, and what that combination may portend for the Church is anyone's guess.

It's no secret that many faithful Catholics would have no problem if Cdl. Robert Sarah was the next pope, but he turns 79 this June. It's not about color; it's about orthodoxy. What we do know is this: The next conclave may be the most examined and speculated on in a very long time.

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Looking at the collapse of the culture as well as the Church, many people are left scratching their heads — especially those of us who grew up in a very different America.

But just as it's intellectually off base to blame the crisis in the Church on Pope Francis, it's just as off base to blame the collapse of the nation on just one or a few influencers.

The collapse of the Faith stretches back decades — many more decades than most people stop to consider.

For example, Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven were two radical professors of sociology at Columbia University back in the 1960s. The aim of the husband–wife duo was to manufacture a crisis by overwhelming the welfare system with a flood of new applicants.

They correctly reasoned that this would force the government to adopt various policies that were radical leftist at their core, disguised as wanting to "help the poor."

Always beware of those who want to "help the poor," especially when they live in luxury. What we are witnessing in America today is their plan coming to fruition — actually, more than coming to fruition, nearing its completion.

The heart of the Cloward–Piven plan is this: violent revolution for the sake of socialism is not needed when, instead, you can simply so burden the welfare system that it collapses under its own weight.

The resulting crisis then creates the opportunity for the government to institute socialist policies like universal healthcare (e.g., Obamacare), the takeover of various key segments of the economy (which we see in the push for climate change initiatives, also done in the name of the poor, who socialist leaders always claim are "disproportionately injured by climate injustice"), and other socialist doctrines like guaranteed income (which is being discussed more and more frequently).

It's all unfolding right before our eyes. And, of course, the Marxist couple didn't just drop out of the sky in the 1960s. All of this was being formulated during World War II and the 1950s — like we said, much further back than almost anyone realizes or stops to think about.

Every one of these leftist programs is a parasite on the body of a nation. Yes, they start off small, but, in the end, they will overwhelm and destroy the host, no matter how strong it was in the beginning.

That was the entire point of the plan, from the beginning: overwhelm and destroy.

It's everywhere you look: Marxists declaring some group is deprived of this and deserves to be given it for free in the name of "justice." So defund the police, make billions in reparations payments, expand welfare, don't enforce laws, let criminals go free. 

Every year, more and more money from working people goes to fund a rapidly expanding social justice apparatus, and the cost of everything begins to go up. What never goes up, however, is the strength of your paycheck, because more and more you are paying for these programs while, at the same time, the consequences of these programs weakens the buying power you have.

There's only so much weight a civilization can carry before it's crushed beneath it. Streets, neighborhoods and schools become less and less safe as the host begins to die. It essentially turns into a battle for who can be the bigger victim and who thus deserves the largest handout from those deemed to be the "oppressors."

Communism always based itself on creating a class war and then exploiting it. It was difficult to do that in America because there was such a thriving middle class here. Workers were nowhere near as subjected to those who owned the means of production as they were in other nations, and they were able to live much more comfortable lives than many other people around the world.

Consequently, the cries of revolution fell on deaf ears in America. Instead of bringing communism to the nation from the ground up, it would have to be delivered, imposed from the top down. While it would require much longer than in Russia, for example, it has proven to be very effective.

The strategy was simple: Create victims and make them a new class and then appeal to an innate sense of justice, exploit it and move in for the kill. It needs to be sadly noted that one of the largest players in this entire enterprise was America's Catholic leaders. 

The bishops have bellyached about "social justice" for decades and decades  — of course, without mentioning much that they themselves are the recipients of huge amounts of this largesse, hundreds of millions a year. In fact, given the gigantic sums they receive from Washington, D.C., it is very safe to conclude that without government money, the U.S. bishops' conference may have gone bankrupt and disappeared out of existence long ago.

Half the operation of the USCCB traces directly back to liberals in Washington, D.C., handing them over enormous sums to buy their allegiance.

In their work, Cloward and Piven likely had not planned on enlisting the help of official Catholic structures to help tear down a Christian nation, but they struck gold when that help came anyway.

The bishops have marched in lockstep with nearly every radical socialist policy introduced by the Democrat communists, wrapping it in the cloak of religiosity and appealing to a twisted sense of "love thy neighbor" — all while banking some nice coin.

Here at Church Militant – we never stop talking about the intersection of faith and politics, and how deadly it proves to be to people's souls.

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There's a secret attack going on against religion, and it's being launched by the bishops' favorite Catholic — the one their silence helped get into the Oval Office.

For everyone who thinks Congress and the White House and the courts are three coequal branches of government, then you must be living in a state that has legalized pot. The imperial presidency is running amok in a war against God (which is to say, more specifically, Christianity and, directly, Catholicism).

The executive branch, meaning the president and all his cabinets and departments, wields enormous power and is able to use that power almost secretly — through an instrument known as "notice of proposed rulemakings."

What that translates down to for all the non-bureaucrats out there is this: Of the millions of rules and regulations that exist that began with Congress or the White House, each executive department is able to go into those rules and "amend" them. That means redefine, broaden, narrow the scope, and so forth.

In order to do that, they first drum up a change. Then they serve notice that they will be having public hearings, which gives the public a chance to offer their input. The media never really covers any of this because they're in bed with Biden and like his changes.

So the public doesn't really hear about these meetings — and even if they did and showed up, they'd get the polite "thank you" and then be ignored anyway. What almost no one knows is just how many of these notices of proposed rulemakings are going on and, then, that the rules are being changed, with religion getting screwed severely in the process.

For example, and there are many, there are currently not one but two proposals in place aimed directly at violating the conscience rights of workers at religious hospitals. Health and Human Services will soon require them to perform abortions and gender reassignment surgery.

Those types of rules have already been rejected by federal courts on the grounds of religious liberty being trampled, but Biden and his commie God-hating friends don't care. They, unlike most conservatives, just keep battering the wall until it collapses.

Of course, this means that health care providers and workers will shortly have to choose between their professional obligations and their faith. Yes, of course, it will go to court again, and after years of litigation and millions of dollars in legal fees, who knows?

Then there are the changes coming via Biden's education department whereby proposed rules will extend the definition of "sex discrimination" so that it includes not just speech, but also conduct that could be interpreted — and here is the key — subjectively as discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and also identity.

Biden's education bureaucrats are also targeting the Religious Liberty and Free Inquiry rule. That protects religious student organizations from universities going after them because of their beliefs. 

While the stated purpose of the existing rule is to protect religious groups from college administrators, Biden's goons are turning it inside out and saying it gives "preferential treatment" to those students and therefore needs to be changed, meaning the groups would have to accept members who don't agree with their beliefs.

But wait, there's more.

Faith-based social-help groups are going to see their efforts greatly curtailed because the government is going to stop giving them money to help with the homeless, soup kitchens, warming centers and so forth, if they don't change their religious viewpoints.

In short, get in line with the Party, or get your tax dollars chocked off. Screw the marginalized who depend on you for help. There are many other proposed rule changes — sounds so boring and innocuous, doesn't it? — that are also coming down the pike.

This is all being done to marginalize religion and religious beliefs. And what's especially galling for Catholics is that it was the silence of the bishops that helped get that walking Catholic cadaver in the Oval Office to begin with.

So it will be interesting to see, when the money is held in front of them as a carrot, what rationalization they will come up with to keep taking it. Remember what they did when pandemic hit. Never forget that. It's your blueprint.