Andy,
This isn't any attack on Catholicism, if that's what you mean. It's one of a
multitude of articles that I've encountered today about a far right secret
Catholic organization. Have you ever read any of Dan Brown's books? There
are several on BARD. He's written some novels about this particular group.
However, when he began writing them, I'm not sure that there were
connections with the Federalist Society and Evangelical Christians.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Andy Baracco
Sent: Monday, September 28, 2020 6:27 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: The Court of God: How a Catholic Secret
Society Took Over SCOTUS
When rational arguments fail, attack someone's faith.
Andy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Miriam Vieni" <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, September 28, 2020 3:10 PM
Subject: [blind-democracy] The Court of God: How a Catholic Secret Society
Took Over SCOTUS
The Court of God: How a Catholic Secret Society Took Over SCOTUS With
his latest SCOTUS nomination, Trump advances the designs of a clique
of ultra-conservatives with ties to a Catholic secret society and Cold
War stalwarts leading the US to the brink of overt fascism.
by Raul Diego
September 28th, 2020
By Raul Diego
The Trump White House wasted no time in nominating Amy Coney Barrett,
a devout Catholic, to the Supreme Court after RBG's passing gave this
administration an unprecedented third bite at the SCOTUS apple.
Barring an improbable successful challenge by Democrats, Barrett is on
her way to becoming a Supreme Court justice and tipping the scales of
the highest court in the land in favor of Conservatives by a margin of
seven to two.
As the American media lurches forward onto the predictable spectacle
that such a lopsided court will, no doubt, elicit from the
irredeemably partisan media, it is worth shining a spotlight on the
links Barrett has to an organization described by a defector as a
"totalitarian" group "imbued with fascist ideas turned to religious
purposes" with direct involvement in the darkest activities of what
some call the permanent or "deep" state.
The man who is said to vet the president's list of SCOTUS candidates,
Leonard Leo, is the executive vice president of the arch-conservative
Federalist Society, which has figured in the appointment of all but
one of the conservative justices currently sitting on the Supreme
Court, including Trump's two now-installed nominees, Neil Gorsuch and
Brett Kavanaugh.
Justice Gorsuch Federalist
Leonard Leo speaks at the 2017 National Lawyers Convention where he
introduced future SCOTUS Judge Neil Gorsuch Sait Serkan Gurbuz | AP
While the Federalist Society itself has plenty of dubious
relationships with individuals like Charles Koch and his network of
billionaire oligarchs hell-bent on reshaping American politics to
serve their ends, it is Leo's association to another organization that
reveals links to far older and more powerful networks that harken back
to the most recondite history of Cold War politics and the CIA in
their ostensible fight against communism through an "unholy alliance"
between the intelligence agency, the Vatican and the Mob.
Sordid connections
Leonard Leo is a board member of the Opus Dei's Catholic Information
Center (CIC), where sitting U.S. Attorney General, Bill Barr, and
White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, also once served. The Catholic lay
group has been described as one of the world's "most powerful and
politically committed"
secret societies, with direct ties to the Vatican as a "personal
prelature,"
an official status awarded by John Paul II that made sure the group
only answers to the Pope himself.
Founded in 1928 by a Spanish priest and lawyer, Opus Dei, wouldn't
become the agent of global fascism until later in the twentieth
century when the CIA began funneling money to an Opus Dei think tank
in Chile called the Chilean Institute for General Studies (IGS) after
it drew support for the overthrow of democratically elected president
Salvador Allende from Chilean bishops, and was a pivotal cog in the
implementation of Operation Condor - a transnational intelligence
operation running through Southcom to aid South American right-wing
dictatorships in the 1970s. Many of the members of IGS went on to
become cabinet officials in Pinochet's military junta.
The Pope's special designation was the result of Opus Dei's covert
role, assisted through William Colby's CIA, to effectuate damage
control after the collapse of an Italian bank in the late '70s led to
multiple investigations by Italian authorities that uncovered a
concerted effort to disrupt and dismantle left-leaning groups or
political parties in Europe by financing so-called "stay-behind units"
of former Nazi soldiers and other extreme right-wing elements through
a global money-laundering, drug-running and assassination network
involving the highest echelons of the U.S.
government,
the Holy See and the Sicilian Mafia.
Known as Operation Gladio, it was only as the scheme was unraveling in
the late 70s that Opus Dei began to play its vital role in covering up
the movement of billions of dollars worldwide to prop up dictatorships
in Latin America, as well as acts of subversion and sabotage
throughout the old continent. In 1984, the organization was recruited
to reorganize the Vatican's finances, which were then under heavy
scrutiny from Italian investigators.
Opus Dei POPE
Pope Paul VI is surrounded by Opus Dei personnel near Italy's
International Center for Working Youth, Nov. 21, 1965. Gianni Foggia |
AP
The five-member supervisory board that was formed to carry out this
mission included one of the most important figures in the
establishment of Gladio:
Deutsche Bank CEO Hermann Abs had been in charge of allocating
Marshall Plan funds to German industry after World War II and was set
to oversee the reorganization of the "most secret bank in the world,"
the Istituto per le Opere di Religione-Institute for the Works of
Religion, more commonly referred to as the Vatican's bank.
Abs' initial appointment to the Opus Dei advisory board was rescinded
as a result of the Simon Wiesenthal Center's protest over his role as
banker for the Third Reich and a director of the IG Farben chemical
cartel, which ran a concentration camp in Auschwitz. Abs was replaced
by Thomas Pietzcker, a Deutsche Bank director who worked under Abs.
The recent FinCEN leaks reveal that the German bank's money laundering
days continue as strong as ever.
The religion of national security
Opus Dei or "Work of God" was already a $3 billion enterprise by the
time it took over the reorganization of the Vatican's IOR and
controlled six hundred newspapers, fifty-two radio and television
stations, twelve film companies, and thirty-eight news agencies,
according to a Mother Jones investigation.
It's links to American intelligence through CIA director William Colby
and the banking establishment through members Francis X. Stankard of
Chase Manhattan and William E. Simon, Nixon's Secretary of the
Treasury, are well established and remain strong to this day through
individuals like Bill Barr, who was just awarded the Christifideles
Laici Award - a prize that recognizes "Christlike behavior" - from the
National Catholic Prayer Breakfast (NCPB), founded by Pat Cipollone
and whose president is none other than Leonard Leo.
The rise of extreme right-wing conservatism in America is all but
guaranteed by the new composition of the Supreme Court, which now
looks forward to a generation, if not more, of foundational
jurisprudence shaped by a cohort of judges selected by the most
reactionary clique in Washington, whose views were neatly encapsulated
by Barr, himself, in a speech at the University of Notre Dame in the
fall of 2019.
"Secularism," Barr proclaimed in the Indiana school, was to blame for
"the wreckage of the family" and "soaring suicide rates," among other
social ills. Opus Dei, however, did not figure in Barr's speech. The
CIA, too, prefers not to discuss its relationship with the
ultra-orthodox, secret group deeming it a matter of national security.
