Church Militant The Vortex Feed

TRANSCRIPT

As you learned at the Deposit of Faith Coalition press conference last week, the U.S. bishops are deeply in bed with the U.S. government and promote Democrat causes like gun control, illegal immigration, climate change and censorship of free speech.

Any long-time listeners of Church Militant will know this has been going on for decades. Sadly, everyday Americans largely remained in the dark on this until now.

The press conference, which only happened thanks to your generous support, did something never seen before in the age of social media: It alerted the secular conservative media and the American public (who aren't beholden to the bishops like most Catholic media is) that the USCCB is and has been marching in lockstep with the religious Left.

Tons of stories about our presser can be found all over the internet, on the radio and even on TV. Here are some highlights from just one of these interviews, wherein I had the privilege of speaking to John Hines of One America News.

TRANSCRIPT

Somewhere along the way, the U.S. bishops got this crazy notion in their heads that the billions of dollars they squirrel away belong to them — like it's their personal slush fund.

They have completely lost touch with the truth that they are simply custodians of all that worldly wealth — the administrators, the stewards, of it.

They don't get to spend it however they want, even though they do.

What we should say for clarity is they can and do spend it however they want, but not without incurring grave sin for which they will be held accountable at their personal judgments.

The money they have is given to them and accrues wealth for the world of the Church — the main mission, of course, being the salvation of souls. And yes, prudential judgments need to be made at various points on how best to utilize the great fortune they collectively control.

That said, what is never licit or moral is to use the money to cover up crimes, abuse victims, water down the Faith and so forth.

Yet this seems to be the focal point — the North Star, the guiding principle in determining how they spend money.

Likewise, while they are not required legally to do so, one would think they are under a moral obligation to give a usual-and-clear account to the people of God of how their money is being spent in service of the mission of the Church.

Don't hold your breath for that one.

For example, is there a normal, average, pew-sitting Catholic who has the slightest idea how many hundreds of millions of dollars have been paid to the bishops' attorneys and law firms trying to screw over sex abuse victims and keep them from receiving some measure of justice? No!

As the dollar figure bandied about approaches $5 billion in costs to the Church (let that sink in: $5 billion — that's with a B for billion dollars!) what percentage of that has gone to attorneys?

Does it strike anyone that there is something a little bit shady and a lot immoral about paying enormous sums to attorneys to help revictimize survivors and cover up the crimes of the clergy?

Why not take that $5 billion and simply admit the errors and evils and pay it to the victims instead of taking that same amount and giving a huge chunk of it to lawyers engaged in 'Operation Clerical Coverup'?

The latest official reports from the bishops last year: another $200 million up in smoke in the sex abuse cases.

A few hundred million here, a couple billion there. This stuff starts to add up after a while.

The whole problem — of which the lack of transparency in regard to sex abuse finances is just a prime example — is this: The U.S. hierarchy rejects any and all notions of transparency — that they have any moral obligation to reveal anything.

That's wrong.

If it was their personal money, well, OK. But it's not. It's the patrimony of immigrants and our parents and families of previous times who died and left those sums for the Faith, not a slush fund for the bishops to work out backroom deals with lawyers.

The bishops have a moral duty to release their financials every quarter in every single diocese and clearly show how these enormous sums are being spent.

Instead, when you ask or inquire, you get told politely to go to hell, and then they say they will pray for you. And that's if you get any answers at all.

When Michael Hichborn of the Lepanto Institute recently inquired why money from Catholics was being given to groups that support abortion and contraception and so forth, he got a polite kiss-off letter from Bp. Timothy Senior — the auxiliary bishop of Philly with oversight of the matter.

Senior told Hichborn — essentially — "Mind your own business. I've checked with the very people you're accusing and they tell me they're squeaky clean."

And, of course, there's the ending with the always galling and fantastically hypocritical line: "Know of my prayers for you."

That's insulting, degrading and revolting.

The same is true when it comes to even larger sums of money they get from the State — federal, state, county and municipal governments — hundreds and hundreds of millions every year poring into the coffers of so-called Catholic Charities thanks to the political lobbying efforts of the USCCB and its multi-tentacled leviathan.

Once again, here too, the bishops feel no compulsion or moral obligation to give an account of how that money is spent.

So they take Catholics' money and use it to cover up their crimes. And they use Americans' money, and it destroys the republic by spending it on the agenda of the Marxist Democrats.

That's why we felt it necessary last week in Washington to hold that press conference for the politically conservative media — not to talk about Catholics being bilked out of money, but American taxpayers.

First, we'd like to say a very generous thank-you to all of you who pitched in to make that a resounding success. It was a grand slam, home-run event.

The goal was to inform conservative media outlets of the threat to the republic of the bishops taking tax dollars and giving it to Marxist causes.

Much of the media present, as well those with whom we spoke in advance, knew nothing of this. They do now, thanks to you.

Being a lifelong media guy, I know the importance of getting the word out — informing the public through honest reporting about what's going on.

No one in the Catholic media cares at all about the bishops essentially stealing your money to cover up their crimes.

Most of the so-called Catholic media are owned — bought and paid for by the bishops — and nothing gets reported that they don't want reported.

The small, trad-world media are too busy publishing clickbait headlines about Francis.

So we decided, along with our Deposit of Faith Coalition partners, to skirt that entire mess and go straight to the secular media and then the politically conservative secular media and talk to them about tax dollars, not collection-plate dollars.

Here are the results so far. Online we did interviews on:

On the airwaves we did four interviews — with about six more to come — including syndicated and nationally syndicated radio interviews with:

Collectively, those electronic media reach tens of millions of viewers and listeners each week.

Then on the print side of the house, we talked to Epoch Times and PJ Media, whose articles about our press conference are out right now. Other media organizations that attended our presser — most in person and some virtually — include:

Religion News Service also showed up. They, of course, wrote a hit piece titled "In targeting Catholic Charities, Republicans amplify right-wing Catholic fringe."

Media 'works,' so to speak, by getting the conversation going. Honest media (I know that sounds like a contradiction, but they do exist) will learn and then report.

That's what the whole point of D.C. was last week.

Think of it this way: One week ago, tens and tens of millions of people had never heard this story about the bishops taking U.S. tax dollars and using those funds to undermine the republic.

One week later, those tens of millions now know.

And for the record, that's only the first step.

Once the media is informed and reports, now we start the business of following up. And given how crooked the bishops are and how they spend those tax dollars to undermine America, there will be a nonstop flow of information and stories to keep coming out.

It's interesting to point out — to put what we call a 'bow' on this — the politically conservative media got the exact same stonewalling from the bishops (when asked about all this) that they give to Catholics when asking about the collection-basket money being misspent.

However, it's one thing to tell inquiring Catholics to kiss off and pull rank on them.

It's an entirely different thing to think you can do that forever with media representatives who are now wise to your game and have the power of the pen.

Game on!

Today's Vortex features a July 10 talk Michael gave at a Lakes Area Tea Party event. It exposes the cunning and profoundly evil enemy of the State and the Church — Marxism.

TRANSCRIPT

For more than a dozen years, Church Militant has been talking about, and producing loads of material on, the relationship between the U.S. bishops and the forces of Marxism operative in multiple institutions throughout the nation.

Back in the day, it still had a feel of historical or academic curiosity to it. But with the collapse of the Church and culture reaching epidemic proportions, there is today a much greater urgency to understand all this.

One glaring example was the complete and total throwdown the Catholic establishment had when it came to making sure Obama became President. Their tactics worked: 54% of U.S. Catholics cast their vote for that Marxist, America-last, child-killing you-know-what.

But that's just the final outcome.

What you really need to understand is the mechanism, the machinery, that the U.S. bishops and their agents put in place to ensure that outcome. Church Militant spent more than 500 hours producing one of our early investigations, which we entitled "Obama's Counterfeit Catholics."

It is well worth the watch, and if you aren't outraged learning this information and the bishops' complicity in the destruction of America, then something is deeply wrong.

Michael Voris speaks outside the U.S. bishops' headquarters in Washington, D.C., about the USCCB and its facade of being a Catholic organization.

Michael Voris talks about the thankfulness we ought to have for getting Donald Trump in 2016 and describes a world without his Supreme Court picks. 

Today's Vortex features Michael's July 18 interview with The American Journal, where he talks with Harrison Smith about the U.S. bishops' billions and their political activism for the Democrats.

TRANSCRIPT

A large — very large — percentage of Catholics have no idea the incredible wealth the nation's bishops have at their disposal, and we are talking billions of dollars.

If you were to look at the bishops collectively as a corporation, there's no doubt that would register in the Fortune 500. Inside the Church, they have amassed a multibillion-dollar slush fund, as Church Militant has reported on before, in a tidy little operation in Omaha, Nebraska, called "Catholic Mutual."

They require every diocese to pay regular premiums for almost anything they need in terms of insurance and so forth — auto insurance, health plans, everything. And as you might imagine, they are pretty skinflint about paying out. Estimates are that fund has billions upon billions in it because each diocese is not allowed to shop for cheaper rates, nor is any parish. They have a "captured market." Not bad if you can swing that.

Then there are the infamous diocesan tax rates on every parish, which vary in percentages according to which diocese you are in. But 10% is a decent average to think of. That goes supposedly toward funding the chancery, but what you don't normally hear is a percentage of that money goes to, you guessed it, the U.S. bishops' conference to fund that bloated liberal Democrat-loving bureaucracy in D.C.

Then there are the "special collections" of the bishops nationally, as well as the special collections on the diocesan level. The national ones amount to tens of millions each year — again straight to the bishops' conference in D.C., while the local special collections help make up the shortfall from your collection-basket money going to feed the D.C. machine.

It's a racket of unimaginable proportions, which, if the Church was doing well and you saw mass conversions and tremendous catechesis and faith formation and all that, you could understand. But the reality is that while the bishops are awash in cash, the Church is on life support, and even then, barely.

But all of that is inside the Church, a careful crafty game of shifting money around — and none of the movement of these billions is traceable because the bishops will not and are not required to reveal any of it. So much for them being "transparent."

Again, that's all Catholics' money, given by them to their corrupt leaders, and it isn't required to be made public. However, as we have been talking about for the past number of days, the bishops, unsatisfied by the billions they bilk out of Catholics, are also taking billions from Uncle Sam, hundreds of millions each year, all under the cover of "social justice" programs, which support the Democratic agenda of undermining and destroying America.

In short, the bishops are bilking billions to fund their bloated bureaucracy in D.C., which could not exist if it weren't for the government handouts and NGO contracts.

Here, in a nutshell, is how it works. Aside from the tens of millions gotten from Catholics in the pews each year, tens of millions more are awarded to the USCCB in the form of government contracts year after year.

The USCCB has an annual operating budget, according to its latest filings, of about 200 million annually. Sixty-seven million comes directly through government contracts, largely for operations involving illegal immigration, a Democratic Party top priority.

But of the 100 or so staff at the USCCB, the vast majority of their work is wrapped up in lobbying Congress for their monies, for which, of course, a cut goes to administrative costs to keep the bishops' bureaucracy chugging along. The bishops' conference is nothing but a congressional lobbying firm that relies on those contracts to give itself an excuse for existence.

If the government money were to dry up, so too would the conference; it's just that simple. You can't lose 25%/30%/40% of your revenue and keep the lights on. And once the lobbying effort aimed at keeping the money flowing in to keep the bureaucracy going to keep the money flowing in to keep the bureaucracy going was to cease, maybe they could get down to their real business of evangelization (the bishops, that is).

Those millions and millions of dollars are not only destroying the Church in a secular setting, because the Church is directly tied to the Marxist Democratic agenda and reliant on it for its existence, but it's also destroying the nation. So to challenge and try to cut off these funds is a double duty for faithful Catholics, both for the nation as well as the Church.

That's the entire point of the upcoming Deposit of Faith Coalition event this Thursday in D.C. The prayer rally is to focus on the spiritual, and the press conference is to draw politically conservative media attention to the temporal. The bishops get all this money because of the lobbying efforts on Capitol Hill of their USCCB staff, true, but also because they do not rock the boat with the Democrats on touchy issues like abortion and so forth, and carry their water for them on illegal immigration, gun control, shutting down freedom of religious speech and raging against fossil fuels.

It's quite the quid pro quo they've got going on.

And remember, the bishops' conference was among the first to come out in support of "Obamacare" back in 2009 and 2010, even with its provisions for abortion and contraception. They only reversed course at the very last minute, a day late and a dollar short, which, of course, they knew.

New York cardinal Timothy Dolan even gave a national TV interview extolling the "health plan," saying the bishops have wanted something like this for a hundred years. That was telling. The USCCB is the greatest well-funded enemy of "America first" that you never knew you had.

So we have decided to take this fight to them, the political fight as well as the spiritual one.

As a reminder, on Thursday, July 20, the Deposit of Faith Coalition will sponsor, first, a prayer rally outside of the headquarters of the bishops' conference in D.C. at 11 a.m. that will go to 11:45.

To find out all those details, just click on the Deposit of Faith graphic and scroll to the bottom and click on the prayer rally button.

Then, starting at 1 p.m., the coalition will be hosting a large press conference with politically conservative media outlets to explain to them how the bishops are using U.S. tax dollars to help destroy America by pushing the Democrats' agenda under the guise of social justice.

Church Militant will be livestreaming all of it beginning at 12:30, and wrapping up our coverage at 3 p.m. ET. All that information and further details are available by clicking on the provided link.

To help us financially with this much-needed endeavor and make a donation, please use the form below, where you can make your tax-deductible gift to help choke off the bishops' money supply of your tax dollars.

If you are in or around D.C. that day, please come to the prayer rally in front of the bishops' headquarters. Then feel free to attend the press conference at the National Press Club at 1; seating will be on a first-come, first-served basis.

For those who cannot attend, again, you can watch the entire coverage, wall to wall, right here on Church Militant as we livestream this historic challenge to the U.S. bishops' destruction of the American Republic.

Please donate whatever you can to help us turn this thing around. The time has come to defund the bishops.

And let's hope the politically conservative media understand how the tax-exempt status and privilege of the religious Left is being used to undermine the nation, not just from the pulpits but also on Main Street.

TRANSCRIPT

Every Catholic who cares knows the Church is a flippin' dumpster fire. Decades of moral, theological, liturgical and financial corruption by the hierarchy and many priests have finally come together in a hurricane-sized storm of massive loss of faith.

One of the side effects, to put it in a somewhat crass term, was the sexual abuse by priests of thousands (perhaps tens of thousands) of altar boys. It was a male-on-male sexual abuse crisis where the majority of victims were physically mature teenage boys being preyed on by adult males with collars on.

That horror show would still be going on if it were not for one thing — the secular media.

It was the reporting in 2001 by The Boston Globe that blew the lid off that evil. There was zero appetite on the part of the bishops to reform anything. Almost all of them lied and said they knew nothing of this, but as the years advanced and lawsuits and depositions and civil trials and documents and police records revealed, they knew everything, every last thing.

What was revealed was not so much the sex abuse of teenage boys, as wicked and revolting as that was and is, but the much larger evil of bishops creating a complex system, an almost industrialized network, of not just covering it up but actually promoting it.

Even Pope Benedict, while correctly pointing out the likely motives of the secular media, acknowledged it was their reporting which exposed it all. So let's switch lanes now to the need today for the secular media, the politically conservative media, to once again report what's going on — this time with the destruction and undermining of the United States.

Pitifully few people, even various politicos we've spoken with, are even aware that the U.S. bishops receive hundreds of millions in U.S. tax dollars each year (actually billions in the last number of years). Those tax dollars are used to promote the downfall of the republic by the implementation of the agenda of the communist Democrats in Washington, D.C.

Which, of course, makes sense: the Democrats get their agenda pushed by these men and, in return, these bishops get billions of dollars. It's a nice job if you can get it and you don't care about being damned.

Part of the problem in reporting this story for politically conservative media is the almost total lack of transparency of the political activities of the bishops. As an aside, the whole nutty notion of the separation of Church and State has had the horrible side effect of leaving both Church and State to be held completely unaccountable.

We all know about the wickedness of many politicians and all Democratic Party leaders, but the same is true over on the Church side of the wall separating them as well. Does anyone really think that the very same men that propagated and covered up the sexual abuse and rape of tens of thousands of teenage boys would somehow not be just as immoral when it comes to managing billions of dollars in "free" money?

Evil-minded men are evil-minded men. They are about money and power and bolstering their institutions to keep the machine of Catholic Inc., well oiled. Period. The USCCB, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, is little more than a political-lobbying organization that traipses up to Capitol Hill each day to petition for money and get bills passed, which enriches their coffers.

The lay staff at the USCCB are political liberals; they have been for years. And they are the real money-making machine behind the bishops. They, of course, have the bishops' blessing of their work, and when the prelates head back to their dioceses, they have what amounts to this giant lobbying machine doing their fundraising for them. And rest assured, getting money for the good of souls and the Faith is the absolute last thing on their minds.

The USCCB is the greatest, best-funded enemy of "America first" that you never knew you had. So we have decided to take this fight to them — the political fight as well as the spiritual one.

As a reminder, on Thursday, July 20, the Deposit of Faith Coalition will sponsor, first, a prayer rally outside of the headquarters of the bishops' conference in Washington, D.C., at 11 a.m., which will go to 11:45.

Then, starting at 1 p.m., the coalition will be hosting a large press conference with politically conservative media outlets to explain to them how the bishops are using U.S. tax dollars to help destroy America by pushing the Democrats' agenda under the guise of "social justice."

We will have four expert speakers making presentations in each of the following areas where the bishops have been complicit in undermining America:

Church Militant will be livestreaming all of it beginning at 12:30 and wrapping up our coverage at 3 p.m. ET. All that information and further details are available by clicking on the provided link.

This is a first-ever kind of event in the Catholic world, a press conference highlighting all of this, with non-bishop-controlled media covering it. It's high time someone pushed back against all of it.

The bishops embraced Saul Alinsky way back, and it's been a nonstop love affair ever since for decades — and almost no one has told that story. Now we are seeing all over America the fulfillment of that wicked alliance as the nation crumbles under the weight of communism, with the bishops stepping on the gas under the guise of "charity."

This is a monumental effort on the part of us involved, and taking this on has a hefty price tag, as you can imagine. To help us financially with this much-needed endeavor and make a donation, please use the form below where you can make your tax-deductible gift to help choke off the bishops' money supply of your tax dollars.

There are three avenues where the bishops can be hit financially.

First, they can simply have their funding cut off by Congress, where various appropriations committees shovel hundred of millions of dollars to them each year.

Second, the IRS code can be amended so that the bishops are required to file public tax returns known as 990s, just like every other religious nonprofits. Currently, they are exempt from that, so it is nearly impossible to track the mountains of tax dollars handed to them. That is wrong. Americans should be able to know exactly how and where their money is being spent, no matter who is getting it.

And third, their tax-exempt status can simply be revoked. They are deeply involved in politicking — for the Democrats. And that kind of blatant political engineering runs afoul of the entire spirit of the tax-exempt status.

If you are in that neck of the woods, please come to the prayer rally in front of the bishops' headquarters on Thursday, July 20, at 11 a.m. ET.

Spectators are also invited to attend the press conference at the National Press Club at 1. Seating will be on a first-come, first-served basis.

For those who cannot attend — again, you can watch the entire coverage, wall to wall, right here on Church Militant as we livestream this historic challenge to the U.S. bishops' destruction of the American Republic.

Please donate whatever you can to help us turn this thing around. Time to defund the U.S. bishops.

And let's hope the politically conservative media understand how the tax-exempt status and privilege of the religious Left are being used to undermine the nation, not just from the pulpits but also on Main Street.

TRANSCRIPT

We've been highlighting the U.S. bishops' betrayal of foundational American values like the country's borders and freedom of speech, especially religious speech. There are two more we'd like to focus on and will be highlighting during next week's Deposit of Faith Coalition press conference in D.C. Those are the destruction of America's economic might as it relates to fossil fuels, and the second issue is the Second Amendment. Heck, if you gave the bishops enough time, they'd wipe out all ten amendments to the Bill of Rights.

In a democratic republic, people are "free" to work to undermine it. But in the case of the U.S. bishops and their fellow Marxist travelers, they are using tax dollars to do it. Billions of tax dollars over the past few years. Again, we've already highlighted the issue of borders and free speech.

Today, it's guns and the weather, or more to the point, destroying America's energy independence by being anti-fossil fuel under the phony-baloney claim of climate "justice" and being charitable toward the poor. Guess that's why the bishops all fly to the semi-annual meetings and spend a million dollars on each event — because they are so despondent over the poor.

On the issue of guns and the Second Amendment, Cdls. Dolan, Cupich and Tobin have all come out and said Americans need to give up their guns freely. In essence, negating the Second Amendment in a backhanded way. For the record, no, your eminences. We will not be handing in our guns with a Marxist state running the show, a Marxist state you get hundreds of millions in funding from to carry their water.

Switching over to the topic of energy independence and the accompanying economic might, the USCCB has hopped on the climate change train and has two dozen groups under its umbrella pushing the cause. This effort ultimately results in weakening the U.S. economy and having the exact opposite effect of helping the poor, as the cost of a gallon of gas skyrockets. And the gas per gallon cost is just one of the massive detriments to the economy.

It doesn't matter what it is, free speech or the borders or the meltdown of our economic might or giving up our guns, the bishops are right there out in front pushing for the entire Marxist agenda. So we have decided to take this fight to them, the political fight, as well as the spiritual one.

As a reminder, on Thursday, July 20, the Deposit of Faith Coalition will sponsor a prayer rally outside of the headquarters of the bishops' Conference in D.C. from 11 a.m. until 11:45. Then, starting at 1 p.m., the coalition will be hosting a large press conference with politically conservative media outlets to explain to them how the bishops are using U.S. tax dollars to help destroy America by pushing the Democrats' agenda under the guise of social justice.

We will have four expert speakers making presentations in each of the following areas where the bishops have been complicit in undermining America: the illegal immigration issue, the climate change issue, being pro-gun control and going along with anti-free speech initiatives that impact directly on religious speech. Church Militant will be live streaming all of it beginning at 12:30 p.m. and wrapping up our coverage at 3 p.m. ET. All that information and further details are available by clicking on the provided link.

This is the first time ever in the Catholic world that there will be a press conference highlighting all of this with non-bishop-controlled media covering it, and it's high time someone pushed back against all of it. The bishops embraced Saul Alinksy way back, and it's been a nonstop love affair ever since for decades, and almost no one has told that story.

Now we are seeing all over America the fulfillment of that wicked alliance as the nation crumbles under the weight of communism — with the bishops stepping on the gas under the guise of charity. This is a monumental effort on the part of us involved and taking this on has a hefty price tag, as you can imagine.

To help us financially with this much-needed endeavor and make a donation, please use the form below where you can make your tax-deductible gift to help choke off the bishops' money supply of your tax dollars. There are three avenues where the bishops can be hit financially.

First, they can simply have their funding cut off by Congress, where various appropriations committees shovel hundreds of millions to them each year.

Second, the IRS code can be amended so that the bishops are required to file public tax returns known as 990s, just like every other religious nonprofit. Currently, they are exempt from that, so it is nearly impossible to track the mountains of tax dollars handed to them. That is wrong. Americans should be able to know exactly how and where their money is being spent, no matter who is getting it.

And third, their tax-exempt status can simply be revoked. They are deeply involved in politicking and only for the Democrats, and that kind of blatant political engineering runs afoul of the entire spirit of the tax-exempt status.

If you are in that neck of the woods, please come to the prayer rally in front of the bishop's HQ on Thursday, July 20, at 11 a.m. ET. Spectators are also invited to attend the press conference at the National Press Club at 1 p.m., and seating will be on a first-come-first-serve basis. For those who cannot attend, you can watch the entire wall-to-wall coverage right here on Church Militant as we livestream this historic challenge to the U.S. bishops' destruction of the American republic. Please donate whatever you can to help us turn this thing around. It's time to defund the U.S. bishops.