1. Anti-Catholics for Clinton, Via email, campaign advisers show contempt for people of faith, It’s no secret that progressive elites despise religion, but it’s still striking to see their contempt expressed so bluntly as in the leaked email chains that include Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, The Wall Street Journal, October 13, 2016, Pg. A12, Review & Outlook.
This is a window into the intolerant secular soul of the Democratic establishment and perhaps explains why it has done so little to accommodate requests for religious liberty from the Little Sisters of the Poor. Team Clinton apparently views religion merely as a justification people adopt for their views on politics and gender. Don’t Clinton campaign advisers think it’s at least possible that a person might be motivated by sincere belief?
Clinton advisers would also rather force the church to accept their teachings. In 2012 activist Sandy Newman emailed Mr. Podesta to say there “needs to be a Catholic Spring, in which Catholics themselves demand the end of a middle ages dictatorship.” As if people are forced to believe at the point of a gun. Mr. Podesta responds with an update on what he’s been doing to prepare “for a moment like this.”
This disdain for people of faith helps explain today’s political polarization and why so many people are willing to support a blunt, avenging force like Donald Trump. Religious Americans know that much of the political establishment detests them.
Imagine the media bonfire if emails surfaced from the Trump campaign with similar comments about Islam, but the anti-Catholic emails have received little media attention. To the progressives who dominate American culture and politics, anti-Christian views are the most socially acceptable form of bigotry.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/anti-catholics-for-clinton-1476315156
2. Clinton camp adds to ‘deplorables’, By Ben Wolfgang, The Washington Times, October 13, 2016, Pg. A1.
Long before Hillary Clinton called millions of Americans a “basket of deplorables,” her top campaign advisers and liberal allies openly mocked Catholics, Southerners and a host of other groups, according to newly released emails that offer a stunning window into the vitriol inside the Clinton world less than a month before Election Day.
The emails, published by WikiLeaks after a hack of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s private account, also show Clinton campaign officials and Democratic leaders disparaging supporters of Sen. Bernard Sanders as “self-righteous” whiners, calling Hispanic party leaders such as Bill Richardson “needy Latinos,” labeling CNN anchor Jake Tapper “a d—k” and even lambasting longtime Clinton ally Sidney Blumenthal.
The Clinton campaign’s biggest problem may be its assault on Catholics. Prominent Catholic organizations called on Clinton campaign spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri to resign after the surfacing of messages showing her making fun of the faith. The campaign of Republican nominee Donald Trump seized on the opportunity to appeal to religious voters.
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican who is Catholic, also blasted the Clinton campaign.
“If anything, these statements reveal the Clinton campaign’s hostile attitude toward people of faith in general,” Mr. Ryan said in a statement. “All Americans of faith should take a long, hard look at this and decide if these are the values we want to be represented in our next president. If Hillary Clinton continues to employ people with biased and bigoted views, it’s clear where her priorities are.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/oct/12/hillary-clinton-campaigns-wikileaks-emails-reveal-/
3. D.A. sues fetal tissue firms cited in undercover videos, Accused of profiting from sales with Planned Parenthood, By Bradford Richardson, The Washington Times, October 13, 2016, Pg. A6.
The District Attorney’s Office of Orange County, California, has filed a lawsuit accusing two medical firms with ties to Planned Parenthood of profiting illicitly from the sale of human body parts from abortions.
The lawsuit filed Tuesday names DaVinci Biosciences and sister company DV Biologics, both of whom were mentioned in the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) undercover video investigation accusing the nation’s largest abortion provider of profiting from the sale of human body parts from abortions. Planned Parenthood has denied the allegation.
District Attorney Tony Rackauckus said at a Wednesday press conference that the legal action was motivated by neither political nor moral questions surrounding the issue of abortion.
“This case is not about whether it should be lawful to sell fetal parts or whether fetal tissue research is ethical or legal,” Mr. Rackauckus said. “This lawsuit is aimed at taking the profit out of selling body parts.”
The lawsuit alleges the companies impermissibly profited from at least 500 transactions between 2012 and 2015, overcharging for shipping and processing while generating $1.5 million in revenue directly from the sale of fetal tissue between 2013 and 2015.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/oct/12/orange-county-d-charges-fetal-tissue-clinics-impli/
4. Hacked email about Catholics sparks Republican outcry, By Steve Peoples, The Associated Press, October 12, 6:03 PM.
Donald Trump’s campaign called Wednesday for Hillary Clinton to apologize and fire senior campaign officials involved in an email exchange that Republicans condemned as “breathtaking anti-Catholic bigotry.”
The April 2011 email exchange details a brief conversation between current Clinton Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri and John Halpin, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a Democratic think tank with close ties to the Clinton campaign and the Obama White House.
Halpin wrote that “the most powerful elements of the conservative movement are all Catholic” and described their positions as “an amazing bastardization of the faith.”
“They must be attracted to the systematic thought and severely backwards gender relations and must be totally unaware of Christian democracy,” Halpin wrote.
5. Clinton campaign under fire for critical emails on Catholic Church, By Crux Staff, Crux, October 12, 2016.
In a campaign that keeps getting stranger by turns, Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign drew sharp criticism from Catholics this week for emails from campaign staffers seen as mocking and hostile to the Catholic faith.
Catholic Vote, a group which last week took Donald Trump to task for his widely publicized remarks about women, this week took on the Clinton campaign for comments its senior staff made about Catholics.
In one 2012 email exchange, Neera Tanden, formerly a Clinton staffer, sends Clinton an article she wrote for The New Republic. The article discusses how Clinton – in a meeting attended by Tanden, Planned Parenthood, and others – hit upon the idea of putting contraception into health plans.
“And if that debate took place in a way that demonstrated the extremes of the anti-choice position-so be it,” states Tanden’s article.
Tanden’s article makes clear its unhappiness with Catholic resistance to the HHS contraception, sterilization and abortifacient mandate, and notes that strategy of using contraception as a wedge issue “was also successful as a political cudgel, helping isolate extreme anti-choice advocates from the mainstream.”
Clinton replied: “Can you believe we are still fighting this battle?”
6. Stockholm’s Bishop Preps for Pope’s Visit, Angelo Stagnaro, National Catholic Register, October 12, 2016.
Bishop Anders Arborelius of Stockholm, Sweden, is eagerly awaiting Pope Francis’ visit to Sweden Oct. 31 for a much-anticipated apostolic visit to solemnly mark the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation initiated by Martin Luther.
The Diocese of Stockholm ministers to approximately 150,000 Catholics in 44 parishes. And, as the shepherd of the lone diocese in this traditionally Lutheran but increasingly secular Scandinavian country, Bishop Arborelius, a convert, is the first native Swedish bishop in the country since the Reformation.
Bishop Arborelius spoke with Register correspondent Angelo Stagnaro about the papal visit.
What was your involvement in this upcoming papal visit? Did you recommend the visit to the Pope?
“The initiative to invite the Holy Father came from the Lutheran World Federation and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. From their side, they asked the local Lutheran and Catholic churches of Sweden if we would support His Holiness’ visit. Once we gathered this information, I sent a personal invitation from our diocese to Pope Francis. He gladly accepted the invitation, and, now, here we are waiting for this incredible, historic event. It would have been otherwise inconceivable to believe a Catholic pontiff [would be] co-sponsoring an ecumenical event marking the Protestant Reformation.”
http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/stockholms-bishop-preps-for-popes-visit
