Two recent speeches by prelates, a moral justification for Bush torture policies, renewal of the infamous wafer watch and the presentation of a pro-life award to the former president are sure signs that Catholic rightwingers are gearing up for the 2010 elections.
Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput gave a speech at Houston Baptist University on March 1 on the usual historical reinvention: the U.S. was founded and intended to be a Christian nation. Less than a week earlier, Chicago Cardinal Francis George spoke at Brigham Young University on another familiar theme of the Religious Right: any rejection of their control over the morals and mores of our society constitutes an infringement of their religious freedom. Both occasions were calls for political unity.
Former Bush speechwriter, Mark Thiessen, defended torture as compatible with Church teaching during an interview on the orthodox Catholic media network, EWTN. Their programming, which specializes in apologia for Republican and Catholic atrocities, reaches 110 countries by television, their radio signal is transmitted worldwide and millions access their website daily.
Randall Terry, former leader of Operation Rescue who renamed his group Insurrecta Nex after his conversion to Catholicism, heads off to Rome on March 17 with a letter of introduction by Texas Bishop Rene Henry Gracida to demand that Vatican officials reaffirm the instruction Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) gave the U.S. bishops during the 2004 presidential election campaign. Ratzinger wrote that Catholic politicians not in lockstep with Church doctrine should publicly be denied communion, only part of the reason why aligning Catholic positions with the Republican Party has been such a vital project for the past thirty years.
The kick-off event for this election year was a meeting held on February 4 in California by Legatus, self-described as an "international Catholic business executives' organization." The highlight was a rare appearance by George W. Bush to receive the "2010 Pro-Life Award." Cardinal George - being the only U.S. hierarch since the clerical sex abuse scandal broke into the headlines who, after being informed that one of his priests was sexually abusing children, kept the cleric in contact with school children where he assaulted more kids until he was arrested by the Chicago police - was also recognized for his "pro-life" work.
Speakers and featured guests included Newt Gingrich, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Thomas Donohue, businessman Frank Hanna III, and New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan.
"The former Speaker of the House has participated in various Catholic forums recently, fueling speculation that began with his conversion in March [2009] that he intended to develop a base of support within the Catholic Church for a run for president in 2012," noted Katharine Q. Seeleye in the New York Times. Like Randall Terry, Gingrich's switch to Catholicism is an acknowledgement of the premise of my recent book, The Neo-Catholics: Implementing Christian Nationalism in America, i.e. Roman Catholics founded and still direct the Religious Right. Legatus is a prime example that Catholics have the money, global commercial connections and historical expertise in the union of church and state which American evangelicals lack. The source of the story about Terry is PR Newswire United Business Media. At the meeting, Gingrich introduced his new movie about Pope John Paul II which "was backed by Citizens United, which financed the anti-Hilary Clinton film that led to the Supreme Court's recent ruling that allowed corporations to spend unlimited sums in political campaigns." according to Seeleye.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce was one of the biggest winners in the January decision. "Under CEO Tom Donohue, the Chamber has perfected a strategy of using the Chamber as a 'pass-through' for corporations looking to run issue campaigns, but wary about having their names tied to the effort.... And a recent report made clear that the Chamber had played just this role on behalf of health insurers in a bid to stop health-care reform," wrote TPM's Zachary Roth. On March 9 Employers for a Healthy Economy, "a coalition of 248 business groups, led by the U.S Chamber of Commerce, said that over ten days they will spend up to $10 million on ads aimed at putting the screws on members of Congress to vote against health care reform," noted Bill Moyers and Michael Winship at consortiumnews.com. The Court's decision was provided by the usual five-vote majority of rightwing Catholics - Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
Frank Hanna III is an investment partner with his father and brother. After a sorry history of converting Georgia Blue Cross/Blue Shield to a for-profit group then selling it to WellPoint Health Networks at a huge profit (Frank LoMonte, Savannah Morning News), and then buying a subprime credit card company the same year, the Hanna's were among the first to profit from the 9/11 tragedy. Within three months after the attack, they had formed the Paladin Capital Group with well-known members of the intelligence field in order to provide venture capital to the new "Homeland Security" industry. R. James Woolsey, former head of the CIA and adviser to President Bush, was the director. Woolsey tried to promote a connection between the 2001 anthrax attack and Saddam Hussein. Before the FBI could narrow its investigation to one lone scientist, one of Paladin's first investments was $10.5 million in AgION Technologies which specializes in bio-terrorism contraventions. Hanna was named co-chair of Bush's Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans even after Paladin invested in VistaScape, a company contracted with the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection to provide surveillance equipment along the U.S. border with Mexico.. (Antony Barnett and Solomon Hughes, The Observer) Hanna spoke to the Legatus group about his new book on business ethics.
Archbishop Dolan, representing his Wall Street donors in honor and praise of George Bush, and Archbishop Emeritus of St. Louis and Vatican official Raymond Burke, known for his dishonest anti-Obama fearmongering , will be elevated to cardinal this year according to Italian newspapers, thereby giving the official Vatican blessing to energizing the 2010 Republican Catholic campaign.