Anti-Catholics and dissident Catholics sought to exploit Pope Francis during his recent American visit. The following is a list of some of these organizations who falsely market themselves as truly Catholic entities.

DignityUSA

  • At their 2015 annual convention (7/2-7/5) in Seattle they had as the keynote Speaker, Dan Savage, radical gay activist and virulent anti-Catholic bigot. Here is a sampling of Savage’s remarks:
  • When expressing his feelings on Pope Benedict’s opposition to gay marriage he said “the only thing that stands between my d*** and Brad Pitt’s mouth is a piece of paper.”
  • On the retirement of Pope Benedict XVI, he wrote “That Motherf***ing Power-Hungry, Self-Aggrandized Bigot In the Stupid F***ing Hat Announces His Retirement.”
  • In an open letter to Dr. Ben Carson he wrote “suck my d***. Name the time and place and I’ll bring my d*** and a camera crew and you can s*** me off and win the argument.”
  • He said sometimes he thinks about “f****** the s*** out of” Senator Rick Santorum.
  • At a high school conference he called for Christians to “ignore the bulls*** in the Bible.”

Catholics for Choice

  • Previously known as Catholics for a Free Choice, it is the most anti-Catholic pro-abortion organization in the nation. Funded by the Ford Foundation, Warren Buffett, and their ilk, it has no members: it is a front for elite anti-Catholics. It is such a fraud that it has twice been denounced by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops as a phony Catholic group.
  • Marjorie Reiley Maguire, once one of CFC’s most prominent activists, broke with the letterhead group in 1995. She labeled it “an anti-woman organization” whose agenda is “the promotion of abortion, the defense of every abortion decision as a good, moral choice and the related agenda of persuading society to cast off any moral constraints about sexual behavior.” She also admitted that its leaders never go to Mass, thus providing more proof that it is anything but Catholic.

Chicago-Women Church

  • “A past in Catholicism is common to many of us, but we reject that church’s sexism and hierarchal structure.”

CORPUS

  • The founder of CORPUS and keynote speaker at the upcoming CORPUS 2015 conference, ex-priest Anthony Padovano has written: “Selective Catholicism is the only way to become a comprehensive Catholic. Selective Catholicism respects conscience and the integrity of others. Total Catholicism is toxic. It makes a Church a slave plantation and it is terrified by the thought of freedom. Reforming the institutional Church is another form of abolition.”
  • CORPUS was one of the signatories of a March 30, 2015 letter to Barack Obama urging him to stop implementing the Helms amendment, which said: “As such, we urge you to change your administration’s unduly harsh implementation of the Helms amendment to a policy without special exemptions for those entities that would cite religious beliefs as the basis to deny women abortion care in legally permitted circumstances. Any proposal that would allow exemptions for groups asserting religious beliefs to deny abortion access creates a dangerous precedent, erodes the separation of religion and state and endangers women’s lives.”

A Critical Mass: Women Celebrating Eucharist

  • In 1997 co-founder, Victoria Rue “con-celebrated a feminist, inclusive Eucharist with 12 other women…on the former site of the Oakland cathedral in California. With this act we claimed that we are all priests.”

National Coalition of American Nuns

  • In 1984, they opposed formal U.S. diplomatic relations with the Holy See.
  • In 1989, they signed an amicus brief in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services in favor of unrestricted legal abortion.
  • In 2005, they blasted the selection of Pope Benedict XVI.
  • In 2006, they issued an “open letter” to Catholic voters in support of abortion and gay marriage.
  • In 2010, when the Catholic League protested the decision by the owner of the Empire State Building not to light the tower in recognition of Mother Teresa’s centenary, these nuns signed a letter in support of the owner (so much for the bonds of “sisterhood”).

Roman Catholic Womenpriests USA, Inc.

  • They argue that “The ordinations of Roman Catholic Womenpriests are valid because of our apostolic succession within the Roman Catholic Church. The principal consecrating Roman Catholic male bishops who ordained our first women bishops are bishops with apostolic succession within the Roman Catholic Church.”

Call to Action

  • In 2006 Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, Prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops, supported Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz’s decision to excommunicate members of Call to Action in the Diocese of Lincoln, saying that belonging to or supporting Call to Action is “irreconcilable with a coherent living of the Catholic Faith,” due to their anti-Catholic activities and stances.
  • In a press release praising the Obergefell v. Hodges decision, Jim FitzGerald, Executive Director of CTA, said: “For far too long committed LGBT partners and families have endured discrimination and marginalization. This has come from many places – but none more forceful than from some members within the Catholic hierarchy. This decision, however, reverberates God’s love of everyone and celebrates the dignity and holiness of all loving families.”

Fortunate Families

  • In the newsletter, Voices for Justice, founders Casey and Mary Ellen Lopata wrote an open letter to Pope Francis affirming support for active homosexuality saying “We don’t believe God would create humankind with a range of sexual orientations yet forbid a segment to physically express their love in relationships in ways natural to their given orientations.”
  • FF’s application to exhibit at the World Meeting of Families 2015 was denied and the following reason given by the Director of Content and Programming, Dr. Mary Beth Yount: “Fortunate Families (FF) was not accepted as an exhibitor because the FF website and associated links claim that the organization is meeting parents where they are at but then proceeds to indicate that if parents give any sense of disapproval of behavior at all (or even ambivalence), they are harming their children and even setting them up for greater risk of suicide.”

New Ways Ministry

  • 1999 – Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger issued an order at the approval of Pope John Paul II that “permanently prohibited” the two leaders (Sr. Jeannine Gramick/Fr. Robert Nugent) “from any pastoral work involving homosexuals.”
  • 2010 – Francis Cardinal George, then president of the bishops’ conference, said that “in no manner is this organization authorized to speak on behalf of the Catholic Church or to identify itself as a Catholic organization.”
  • 2011 – Donald Cardinal Wuerl and Bishop Salvatore J. Cordileone issued a statement reaffirming Cardinal George’s 2010 statement.

WATER (Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual)

  • On August 8, 2009, WATER co-director Mary Hunt wrote an article for Religion Dispatches titled “American Nuns Under the Vatican Microscope.” When discussing the investigation of dissident group Leadership Conference of Women Religious in the Religion Dispatches article, Hunt said that not only does WATER reject the Church’s teachings on ordination and marriage, but the group also does not accept the fact that Jesus is the only road to salvation:
  • “Areas of concern are the group’s views on homosexuality, the ordination of women, and the Vatican declaration Dominus Iesus, which asserts that Jesus is the unique and only road to salvation. The Cardinal’s [William Cardinal Levada] assumption is that American nuns are accepting of same-sex love, supportive of feminist ministry (including ordination of women), and embracing of persons of many and no faiths. I only hope he is as right about their views as he is wrong about how to evaluate them.”
  • “It appears that the intention of the investigation is to maintain control over women and to preserve the Vatican’s Catholic view of the world via the hot-button issues that are contested in the Church at large.”
  • “That does not deter the Vatican from its tactic to divide and conquer women in what I predict is a futile effort to consolidate its waning power.”
  • In 2010, WATER signed a statement affirming the decision by officials from the Empire State Building not to light the towers on Mother Teresa’s centenary.
  • On September 26, 2011, Hunt signed onto an open letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius titled “What the Bishops Won’t Tell You.”
  • The letter was in regards to the Affordable Care Act of 2010 and stated “we respectfully request that you eliminate the proposed religious exemptions because they are unnecessary and unjust.”

The Women’s Ordination Conference (WOC)

  • WOC unequivocally rejects the Catholic teaching on marriage, declaring: “Supporting marriage equality is the right and just thing to do.”
  • October 23, 2014 WOC Press Release about Extraordinary Synod on the Family: “A group of men who fail to protect the children of our Church from sexual abuse, and who repeatedly sacrifice children to shield the offenders, has no credibility saying anything about what families need. A group of men who have no need for contraception has no standing to deny women access to appropriate reproductive health services. A group of men without experience of wedded life has no right to legislate who should and should not be married.”
  • WOC was one of the signatories of a March 30, 2015 letter to Barack Obama urging him to stop implementing the Helms amendment, which said “Any proposal that would allow exemptions for groups asserting religious beliefs to deny abortion access creates a dangerous precedent, erodes the separation of religion and state and endangers women’s lives.”

8th Day Center for Justice

  • One of their goals is “To uphold the right to dissent against oppressive structures in church and society.”
  • In September 2011 they co-sponsored an event featuring Fr. Roy Bourgeois, radical proponent of women’s ordination, who was laicized in October 2012 for his participation in an invalid ordination of a woman in August 2008.

Ecumenical Catholic Communion

  • They reject in toto the Church’s teachings on sexuality: “We uphold the ideal of committed relationships blessed by the sacred rites of the church. We believe that all questions of sexual morality are best addressed through pastoral care and counsel.”

Southeastern Pennsylvania Women’s Ordination Conference

  • “The church, by allowing women access to all roles and positions, will cease to perpetuate discrimination, devaluation, and tacit approval of other forms of violence toward women in its structures and society.”
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