By Bill Donohue
This article was originally published by Newsmax on October 13, 2016.
Yesterday, I stopped short of asking Hillary Clinton to fire John Podesta, her campaign chairman. In light of the latest Wikileaks revelations, she has no choice but to cut all ties with this man. The man is hell bent on creating mutiny in the Catholic Church and must therefore be fired.
We have long known that George Soros is the single most influential donor to dissident, and anti-Catholic, organizations. Now we know from Wikileaks what I long have suspected: John Podesta has been the most influential point man running offense for Soros.
Together, they have sought to manipulate public opinion against the Catholic Church.
In 2012, Sandy Newman, founder of the left-wing group, Voices for Progress, asked Podesta for advice on how best to “plant the seeds of the revolution.” The revolution he sought was an attempt to sunder the Catholic Church.
Newman, who is Jewish, confessed that he was a rookie at trying to subvert the Catholic Church. But he was determined to do so. “There needs to be a Catholic Spring,” Newman told Podesta, “in which Catholics themselves demand the end of a middle ages dictatorship and the beginning of a little democracy and respect for gender equality in the Catholic Church.”
Podesta not only endorsed the plan to create a revolution within the Catholic Church — he boasted that he had been working on this for years. “We created Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good to organize for a moment like this,” he said. “Likewise Catholics United. Like most Spring movements, I think this one will have be bottom up.”
He recommended that Kathleen Kennedy Townsend be consulted on this effort.
The evidence is indisputable: Both of these groups, Catholics in Alliance and Catholics United, were created by Podesta, and funded by Soros, for the express purpose of staging a revolt within the Catholic Church. In 2008, Archbishop Charles Chaput, then of Denver and now of Philadelphia, accused both entities of doing a “disservice” to the Catholic Church.
Catholics in Alliance is known for sponsoring dissident Catholics, including priests, to give talks around the nation. Catholics United was the force behind a contrived effort by the IRS to go after me in 2008.
The latter story is illuminating.
On Oct. 23, 2008, I appeared on CNN to discuss the George Soros connection to Catholics United. Before I went on, Chris Korzen of Catholics United contacted CNN in an effort to have me booted. Fortunately, he was so stupid as to share with a producer a lengthy document (it was leaked to me) detailing how unfair I had been to Barack Obama, especially noting his rabid support for abortion.
I say Korzen was stupid because when the IRS contacted me the next month, right around Thanksgiving, I recognized the complaint: it was basically the same as the one that Korzen’s lawyers had sent to CNN.
(The IRS probe finally ended without penalties.)
See the connection: Podesta creates Catholics United; Soros funds Catholics United; and Catholics United sponsors an IRS complaint against me (after trying to get me kicked off CNN). Their attempt to intimidate me was a monumental failure, but the fact that they tried is what counts.
Podesta’s recommendation that Kathleen Kennedy Townsend be consulted as a source to create havoc in the Catholic Church was a good one. On March 29, 2012, I quoted her saying that the Catholic Church’s teachings “encourage bigotry and harm.”
Any Catholic who thinks that the Podesta-Soros connection is just another activist alliance is kidding himself. They are creating and funding a campaign to promote a revolution in the Catholic Church.
Dr. William Donohue is the president and CEO of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. The publisher of the Catholic League journal, Catalyst, Donohue is a former Bradley Resident Scholar at the Heritage Foundation and served for two decades on the board of directors of the National Association of Scholars. He is the author of seven books, and the winner of several teaching awards and many awards from the Catholic community. Read more of his reports — Click Here Now.
