Originally posted at Talk to Action.
In my last post I examined conservative criticism of Laudato Sii, (“Praised Be”), Pope Francis’s encyclical on the environment and poverty. Indeed, some of the loudest howls of disapproval have arisen from Catholic Right pundits and think tanks. But clearly, there are other sources as well.
Is some of this criticism being fossil–fueled by the Koch Brothers? Well, let’s follow the money!
Movement conservatives who have become accustomed to the pronouncements of recent pontiff s as fuel for their culture war diatribes now find themselves in the awkward position of being at odds with Church teachings on the environment. For the first time many movement conservative Catholics are now forced to choose between God and the mammon of their financial backers – and mammon seems to be winning the day. A lot that mammon comes from the Koch Brothers Family foundations as well as Koch allies.
One of the Catholic Right climate change skeptics challenging Francis on the new encyclical is Catholic League president Bill Donohue. Whether it be a coincidence or not, it is worth noting that Donohue is an adjunct scholar for the Heritage Foundation. The conservative think tank is heavily funded by Koch Brothers money.
Another Catholic Right climate change skeptic organization working overtime to blunt the effects of Laudato Sii is ultra-libertarian think tank the Acton Institute . As the website Source Watch noted :
The Acton Institute’s strong support for both Catholicism and free market economics has come under strain as Pope Francis has actively criticized global inequality and unfettered capitalism. In May 2014, the Pope’s Twitter account posted a tweet saying “Inequality is the root of all evil.” Joe Carter, a senior editor at Acton, tweeted in reply, “Seriously, though, what was up with that tweet by @Pontifex? Has he traded the writings of Peter and Paul for Piketty?”, referring to economist Thomas Piketty, author of the 2014 book Capital in the 21st Century, a critique of growing economic inequality.
Action features a page on its web site filled with blog posts critical to varying degrees of the pope’s stand on climate change.
Acton also receives significant funding from Koch Brothers foundations. According to Greenpeace, between1997 to 2011 the Kochs kicked-in about $423,750 to Father Sirico’s organization.
Then there is self-described Koch Brothers ally billionaire Foster Friess. ABC News has dubbed him as “ The Man Behind Rick Santorum’s Money ” :
Friess is a born-again Christian who, along with his wife, Lynn, has given millions to conservative and Christian causes, including $1 million to Koch-brothers-related causes, as well as non-political charities, including raising money for children orphaned in the Haitian earthquake.
As I pointed out in my last piece, Santorum criticized Francis’s encyclical by complaining that the Pope is not competent enough to discuss matters of science.
But the t w o infamous libertarian siblings are funding those attacking the Pope ’s environmental ism from outside of Catholicism as well as from within. For example, there is the Chicago-based Heartland Institute. S ourcewatch describes Heartland as “ a nonprofit “think tank” that questions the reality and import of climate change, second-hand smoke health hazards, and a host of other issues that might seem to require government regulation. ” More importantly, the organization is strongly linked to and heavily funded by Charles and David Koch.
The Heartland Institute seems to be particularly threatened by the Pope’s stance on climate change. The organization has not only dedicated a page on its website to disputing Francis on global warming but even sent a contingent to protest the issuance of the encyclical .
Fred Koch, Charles and David’s father and founder of the Koch Family empire once did contract work in Stalin’s Soviet Union during the 1920s. Indeed, it was Stalin who sarcastically remarked in 1935, ” The pope! How many divisions has he got? ” A little more than a half a century later it would be another pope that would play a significant role in bringing down Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe.
Perhaps Charles and David Koch understand that when it comes to climate change they are now up against a force truly to be reckoned with. Here is a pope who can not only rally liberal and moderate Catholics but a significant number of religious conservatives too. Perhaps unlike Stalin they know not to underestimate his nontraditional source of power. And, they appear to be spending an awful lot of money to make sure that they do not repeat the Soviet mistake.
Filed under: Catholic Right, Catholic social teaching, Religion and Politics | Tagged: Acton Institute, Bill Donohue, Catholic Right, Charles Koch, climate change, climate change skeptics, David Koch, Foster Friess, GOP, Heartland Institute, Laudato Sii, Pope Francis, Rick Santorum | Leave a comment »
Bill Donohue Mum While Andrew Napolitano Calls Pope Francis “A False Prophet”
Originally posted at Talk to Action.
Catholic League president Bill Donohue goes after anyone he believes is engaging in anti-Catholic behavior, real or imagined. But as we have come to see, Donohue’s criteria for response depends less on the content of a statement as who makes it. And if the anti-Catholicism emanates from a religious libertarian conservative such as Fox News analyst Andrew Napolitano, mum’s the word. Donohue has frequently demonstrated this double standard since the ascendancy of Pope Francis.
What I did not realize was just how much more brutally ugly these comments would become – while at the same time the self-proclaimed Guardian of all things Catholic looks the other way.
On Thursday, September 24 I learned of this post at Daily Kos. Therein, the author links to this op-ed posted on FOXNews.com in which the network’s judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano accused Pope Francis of being quite possibly – among other things — “a false prophet.” Napolitano’s colorful comments included gems such as:
And then:
For now, let us put aside the fact that the pope has never “reworked the Peronism of his youth” but is instead following basic Catholic doctrine on economics. Donohue’s language is nothing new for the Catholic Right. But what is new is this:
As the author in the aforementioned Daily Kos post noted, this is nasty stuff. The use of the description “false prophet” has its roots in the past anti-Catholic rhetoric.
And as the writer correctly concluded of such intentions, “That is why this Pope must be marginalized at all costs.”
Where is Bill?
And all this raises the question, where is Catholic League president Bill Donohue? After all, this is the same man who sees anti-Catholicism in the way the Empire State Building does its nightly illuminations.
To his credit though, Donohue did properly condemn George Will for using his Washington Post column to conflate Catholic economics with Neo-Luddism. But then again, Will is an atheist; those on the Religious Right, however get preferential treatment. Donohue may well be attacking Will as an indirect way of attacking non-believers.
Interestingly enough, one of Donohue’s criticisms of Will went like this: “More important is his twisting of the pope’s position on materialism to mean that he is anti-electricity.”
That particular criticism carries a great deal of hypocrisy. More than likely it is an allusion to a passing reference in the recent encyclical on the environment Laudato Sii, (“Praised Be”). As I pointed out in an earlier post, it was originally the Catholic League President himself who attempted to make the document be about the condemnation of air conditioning. In reality, air-conditioning is mentioned only once in passing, in the book-length document.
Nor does Donohue complain about the absence of three conservative Catholic US Supreme Court justices — Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito — when Pope Francis spoke before Congress. That is a rather odd reaction from a man who would attack a liberal or moderate Catholic just for sneezing the wrong way.
But then again, there is a likely explanation: Scalia and Thomas are Opus Dei cooperators and Opus Dei has little or no love for the openness of the Jesuits (I have found no links between Alito and Opus Dei). For the record, the Catholic League board is loaded with Opus Dei sympathizers and actual members.
So, where is Bill Donohue on these instances of conservative disrespect and anti-Catholicism?
Where he always is — looking the other way. As I have pointed out again, again and again, this is his modus operandi.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: anti-Catholicism, bible, Bill Donohue, Catholic, catholic commentators, Catholic League, Catholic social teaching, church reform | Leave a comment »