According to Dr. R. T. Ravenholt, presidential candidate Jimmy Carter made a deal on August 31, 1976, with a group of Catholic bishops headed by Archbishop Joseph Bernadin in which the bishops, by agreeing not to endorse Carter’s opponent, Gerald Ford, received major concessions in terms of Catholic political appointees who dismembered and crippled the State Department’s family planning programs. Ravenholt, who was serving as director of AID’s global population program, was removed.

John Paul II has become the first Pope to set foot in the White House after greeting US President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn.

The meeting of the 39th President of the United States with the 264th Roman Pope broke a 200-year-old tradition which has seen few US politicians publicly courting the Catholic Church.

Before turning to the stealth campaign of extremist Protestants in America, it is well to examine the railings of both Ultraright Roman Catholics and the Religious Right against "Liberalism."  We naturally tend to associate this with licentiousness, which is as abhorrent to us as to any other Christians; but mark the following, which was taken from a Catholic schoolbook, "Manual of Christian Doctrine, by a Seminary Professor," printed by J. J. McVey, Philadelphia, 1915, and carrying the sanction of the Catholic Censor and the seal of the Church:

"What name is given to the doctrine that the state has neither the right nor the duty to be united to the Church to protect it?

     "This doctrine is called Liberalism. It is founded principally on the fact that modern society rests on liberty of conscience and of worship, on liberty of speech and of the press.

     "Why is Liberalism to be condemned?

     "Because it denies all subordination of the state to the Church." - pp. 131-133.  (Facts of Faith, p. 260, emphasis added)

An essay in the  issue of the Wanderer Newspaper online (www.thewandererpress.com), dated March 6, 2002, by Arthur M. Hippler, director of the Office of Justice and Peace in the Diocese of La Crosse, Wis., was titled "Lucifer, The First Liberal."  Here are the opening and closing paragraphs:

In his encyclical on The Nature of True Liberty (Libertas Praestantissimum), Leo XIII makes the remarkable claim that liberalism is diabolic in its origins. "But many there are who follow in the footsteps of Lucifer, and adopt as their own his rebellious cry, I will not serve; and consequently substitute for true liberty what is sheer and most foolish license. Such, for instance, are the men belonging to that widely spread and powerful organization, who, usurping the name of liberty, style themselves liberals" (Libertas Praestantissimum, n.14). Although the Holy Father’s comparison may seem hyperbolic, nonetheless the principles of liberalism mirror the Devil’s original revolt. . . .

While many understand liberalism as a freedom for certain political equality and civil rights, more fundamentally liberalism is a freedom from the moral law and the teaching authority of the Church. One cannot speak of "Catholic liberals" without contradiction, or at the very least, equivocation. Liberalism, like socialism and Communism, has been condemned by Pope after Pope in the social encyclicals. If we are tempted to minimize the evils of this error, we would do well to remind ourselves that Pope Leo XIII presents Lucifer to us as the original liberal.

Now, as to the political union  between Rome and the Evangelicals, here is an excerpt from "Catholics and the religious right - Watch on the Right - Column," Humanist,  March-April, 1996,  by John M. Swomley:

There is a widespread assumption that the Christian Coalition and many of its allied far-right groups are Protestants of fundamentalist or evangelical persuasion. The Christian Coalition in December 1995 reinforced that assumption in public statements by its executive director, Ralph Reed, urging Catholics to unite with the coalition.

As a matter of fact, the religious right has always been deeply involved with Roman Catholics, who have played decisive roles in formulating its ideology and strategy. The first of these leaders was conservative writer William F. Buckley, Jr., who founded Young Americans for Freedom at his Sharon, Connecticut, estate in 1960. He was also very influential in the 1964 organization of the American Conservative Union, which was the forerunner of a number of existing rightist groups, such as the Conserve [s/b Conservative] Caucus and the National Conservative Political Action Committee.

Another Roman Catholic, Father Paul Marx, founded Human Life International in 1981 and persuaded Dr. Jack Wilke, a lecturer on sex education, to become involved in anti-abortion work. Wilke later became president of the National Right to Life Committee and is also a member of the board of directors of the Catholic Campaign for America, which serves as a kind of central committee for Catholic Republicanism.

Probably the most influential of the early Catholic leaders is Paul Weyrich, whose Free Congress Foundation lent support to the "lengthy campaign" which led to the Vatican's disciplining of liberal Seattle Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen. It was Weyrich, together with Ed McAteer and Howard Phillips, who spent a day with Jerry Falwell persuading him to take on "the issue of abortion'" As Connie Paige notes in The Right to Lifers, out of that meeting also came the idea for the Moral Majority, the single most crucial entity since the Catholic church in making the right to life movement a dangerous force on the right."

At that meeting in Lynchburg, Virginia, in January 1979," Paige continues, "Paul Weynch was the one who articulated exactly what it was they all were trying to accomplish." Richard Viguerie, in his book The New Right, put it this way: "Paul Weyrich and Howard Phillips spent countless hours with electronic ministers like Jerry Falwell, James Robison, and Pat Robertson, urging them to get involved in conservative politics."

Jerry Falwell acknowledged his indebtedness to the Catholic ultraright in an interview in the February 1988 San Francisco Focus: "I went to see some Catholic leaders and political people in Washington and then formed the Moral Majority." Falwell also indicated that at the time the Moral Majority had a membership of 30 percent Roman Catholic and 20 percent fundamentalist evangelicals; the rest were Mormons, Jews, and others.

Richard Viguerie was himself a Roman Catholic political activist, influential in recruiting rightwing Protestants.  (Emphasis added.)

Two vast movements that involved millions of non-Catholic Americans set the stage for the rapid acquisition of power in America by the Vatican.

The first, which began in earnest more than two decades ago, is the ecumenical movement. This movement has pretty much ceased to make any forward advances. Many of the earlier leaders have dropped out, recognizing that the Protestant groups made virtually all the compromises. Some have dropped out in disappointment, fully recognizing that they have been completely duped by their Catholic counterparts.

The second vast movement involved the political mobilization of fundamentalists by the Vatican. According to Paige, the Reverend Edward Bryce, National Conference of Catholic Bishops' director of right-to-life activities, has presided over the transformation of the [Roman Catholic] Church into a right-to-life political machine. Bryce admits that the expenditures on abortion are much larger than the records show and that most of this is buried in bishops" discretionary funds and individual diocesan ledgers. No doubt, much of this "hidden" money of which Father Bryce speaks goes into the election campaigns of both Catholics and non-Catholics who cater to the needs of the Vatican.

"The Pastoral Plan was a brilliant blueprint," states Paige.

The message of the plan was absolutely clear: the Roman Catholic Church was getting into the business of electoral campaigns in a big way. It was as if the bishops had switched on an enormously powerful political engine that then appeared to run on its own. But the perpetual-motion machine is a thing of the imagination. A closer look at the right-to-life machine revealed that fuel and labor costs, maintenance, body work, lubrication, and replacement parts right down to the last screw all remained very much under firm pastoral guidance.

The machine went into high gear, NCHLA organizers created and developed grass-roots right-to-life PACs, which they called "congressional district action committees," in almost half of the country"s 435 congressional districts. The CDACs involved thousands of sympathetic Catholics in right-to-life activity, including letter-writing, meeting with elected officials, conducting candidate and voter education projects, and developing efficient phone networks.17

The New Right, which is dominated by [Roman] Catholics such as Richard Viguerie and which answers to the Vatican, drew the fundamentalists in under the guise of religion - but for explicitly political purposes.

"However heartfelt, opposition to abortion was simply part of the plan."  (Center for Research on Population and Security Website, emphasis theirs.) . . .

The Reagan Administration is clearly being manipulated by the [Roman] Catholic Church, apparently with the president's blessing. In an April 1982 speech before the National Catholic Education Association, Reagan made the incredible statement,

"I am grateful for your help in shaping American policy to reflect God's will ...., And I will look forward to further guidance from His Holiness Pope John Paul II during an audience I will have with him in June."

Mr. Reagan is obviously leaning on the Vatican for a lot of help, and he's getting it - much of it not in the best interest of the United States. If the United States government shows no more willingness to deal with illegal immigration than has been shown by the Reagan Administration, then a migration from Latin America of the magnitude described above is certainly imminent. A [Roman] Catholic majority in the United States and Vatican control of our government would greatly enhance the power of the Church not only in this country but worldwide.

The Abortion Movement

In 1980, Federal Judge John Dooling, United States District Court, Eastern District of New York, declared that the Hyde Amendment, which prevented Medicaid payment for abortion, was unconstitutional. (Copies of Judge Dooling's 328-page decision in McRae vs. HEW are rare. During a recent conversation with the Brooklyn United States District Court, I was told that their copy had disappeared and, for this reason, they were not in a position to reproduce it.)

Judge Dooling had spent a year gathering evidence and studying the anti-abortion movement, and his findings showed that the anti-abortion movement was essentially a Roman Catholic movement with a little non-Catholic window dressing. The amendment, says Dooling bluntly, was a ploy by anti-abortion congressmen frustrated in their attempt to pass a constitutional amendment that would override the Supreme Court's 1973 pro-abortion decision; its purpose was quite simply to circumvent the Court's ruling and prevent as many abortions as possible.

Dooling, a practicing Catholic, makes short shrift of the anti-abortionists' pretensions to be a spontaneous grass-roots movement that owes its political victories to sheer moral appeal. He confirms that the right-to-life's main source of energy, organization, and direction has been the [Roman] Catholic Church, and he describes in detail how the movement uses one-issue voting to put pressure on legislators, candidates, and the party organizations that nominate them - a tactic that gains influence far out of proportion to its numbers. Please see appendix one for excerpts from Judge Dooling's decision in McRae vs. HEW.

What is most significant in this extract is Judge Dooling's finding that the anti-abortion movement's main source of energy, organization, and direction has been the [Roman] Catholic Church.

The bishops' Pastoral Plan prompted the creation of the Moral Majority.

Richard A. Viguerie, a Catholic, is the man most responsible for the development and success of the New Right, and he will be the first to claim that honor. He was also involved in the original discussions that led to the creation of the Moral Majority and, as its fundraiser, can be credited with its financial success.

Paul Weyrich, a [Roman] Catholic, claims credit for originating the idea for the group and the name itself. In their search for an attractive front man for the organization, they chose Jerry Falwell, who, according to intimates, has an insatiable lust for power - and, thus, Moral Majority, Inc., was born.

It is inconceivable that these Catholic laymen were not responding to the bishops' Pastoral Plan. Much went into avoiding public disclosure of the role of the [Roman] Catholic Church in the creation of the Moral Majority.

Maxine Negri, in "A Well-Planned Conspiracy," exposed involvement of the [Roman] Catholic hierarchy in the Moral Majority. Then, the June 21, 1982, issue of U.S. News and World Report noted:

At the heart of Moral Majority is a direct-mail operation..... Membership claims.... put the number of Moral Majority's active supporters at roughly 4 million Roman Catholics, Protestant fundamentalists, and orthodox Jews. The organization says its "hardcore contributors," numbered at more than 400,000, include a cadre of 80,000 priests, ministers, and rabbis organized into fifty autonomous chapters.

This claim of autonomy should not be taken seriously. What is described here is exactly the organization described in the Pastoral Plan of Action down to the details. None of us who has ever worked extensively with fundamentalist churches or lived among fundamentalists ever took the claim that the Moral Majority was a fundamentalist organization seriously.

One characteristic common among fundamentalists is a keen sense of individualism, and individualists are often fundamentalists because of this trait. There is self-selection. They strongly resist the "herding" that characterizes other major denominations such as the [Roman] Catholic Church. . . .  (Ibid., pp. 43-44, Emphasis theirs)

"The New Right, which is dominated by Catholics such as Richard Viguerie and which answers to the Vatican, drew the fundamentalists in under the guise of religion-but for explicitly political purposes".  (Ibid. p. 207, emphasis theirs.)

AMERICAN CONSERVATISM vs. THE RADICAL RELIGIOUS

"If we didn't know the Pope agrees with us, we Catholics in the New Right would have serious conscience problems. I would never work counter to the Church's official position." -Paul Weyrich, founder Moral Majority Christian Voice Religious Roundtable

The radical religious in our country, the so-called New Right, religious right, religious conservatives, and the Moral Majority, according to Paul Weyrich, will be guided by policy established in the Vatican. To ensure that the Moral Majority does not act in ways in which the pope would not approve, the opinion of Weyrich and other Catholics in the organization must bear considerable weight in decision-making by the Moral Majority organization. They must be in positions of leadership. We have discussed earlier the Vatican's control over faithful laypersons, and Weyrich is apparently in this mold. Weyrich and his Catholic colleagues control the Moral Majority. The Vatican controls Weyrich and his colleagues. Thus the Vatican controls the Moral Majority. It is a fact that the American Catholic bishops described the Moral Majority in their 1975 Pastoral Plan of Action (appendix two), four years before Jerry Falwell was asked by the Catholics who named the organization to head it.  (Ibid. p. 203, underscored emphasis theirs, bold print emphasis added.)

All of this does not surprise Seventh-day Adventists who are still  students of Bible prophecy.  Guided by the light of prophecy, notable Church leaders like A. T. Jones and Christian Edwardson laid the groundwork for our understanding of current events.   From the Bible these men received the wisdom to discern the conception in the mind of Leo XIII of the original grand design to subvert and destroy the Constitution of the United States of America. They discerned the future workings of papal policy in the politics of this nation.  What they revealed is confirmed not only by the quotations exposing the role of Rome in the politics of the Religious Right; but also by the following quotations which expose the scope of the late Roman Pontiff's ambitions and the role of the Catholics in manipulating the news media in this country.

From the Humanist, November-December 1997, Watch on the Right, "The Pope Versus the Bible," by John M. Swomley:

The Vatican has begun a multimillion dollar project that will strengthen its influence in the United States. After about ten years of planning, construction began this past September on what the July 23, 1997, Washington Times reported is a $50 million Pope John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington, D.C. The 100,000-square-foot center is being built next to the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and is being financed by a Detroit foundation.

The key to the purpose of this center is found in its focus on the teachings of the current pope and on such issues as abortion, birth control, euthanasia, assisted suicide, and ordination of women. It was described as “part interactive museum and part think tank.” In other words, “it is intended to be akin to a presidential museum for the Pope” and also a right-wing propaganda agency to supplement the already Catholic-led Heritage Foundation, National Empowerment Television, and Free Congress Foundation. These have been promoting right-wing Vatican ideology in the American political sphere ever since Paul Weyrich, deacon in the Catholic church, founded them and turned over the leadership of National Empowerment Television to William Bennett of the right-wing Catholic Campaign for America. Bennett is the former secretary of education under the Reagan administration and the nation’s leading advocate of vouchers for private schools.

The Washington Times also reported that Detroit’s Cardinal Adam Maida said the pope wanted this memorial in Washington. It did not speculate about a pope who would build such a memorial to himself instead of using such funds for efforts like eliminating poverty, war, disease, and other forms of injustice. As many progressive Catholics and others have long known, the Vatican is primarily a political and financial power institution functioning behind the pope’s facade of spirituality.

The author also focused on the hypocrisy of the Vatican in its pro-life campaign:

If it is argued by the pro-life movement that the Vatican has changed in recent years, it is only necessary to note that, since 1975 when the bishops wrote their pro-life pastoral, the Vatican has been involved with its Maronite militia in Lebanon and the thousands of murders of suspected communists and political dissidents in Argentina described by Emilio F. Mignona, a Roman Catholic, in his book Witness to Truth: The Complicity of Church and Dictatorship in Argentina.

The greatest danger to democracy in any nation is theocracy. It can occur in any society where a powerful religious organization or combination of organizations is the decisive voice in a political or judicial system. In spite of our constitutional system of separation of church and state there is substantial evidence of theocratic influence and efforts to control in the United States today.

It is evident in a well-documented alliance of the Republican National Committee under George W. Bush’s leadership with the Cardinals and Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church, and the silence or collusion of some largely Protestant organizations. This conclusion is based largely on the remarkable investigative reporting by a progressive democratic Roman Catholic organization of the actions of Bush and the Catholic hierarchy of the United States in the Summer 2001 issue of Conscience, a journal of Catholics for a Free Choice.

On its cover page is a color picture of five red-clad, smiling Cardinals applauding a smiling George W. Bush in front of the newly dedicated Pope John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington on March 21. The description under the picture is “TOGETHER AT LAST: CONSERVATIVE CATHOLICS AND THE GOP.” The word “conservative” should be “right wing,” as most dictionaries describe a conservative as one who wants to maintain the status quo or existing system of government. The programs advocated by the new alliance go instead in the direction of extreme or radical change.  "The Threat of Theocracy?,"

One of the least known and most dangerous of the far-right organizations is the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. It is little known because it masquerades as a civil rights organization; it is dangerous because it redefines religious and civil rights as opposites to those normally understood as constitutional rights. Chiefly, its commission is to censor or suppress any activity, language, speech, publication, or media presentation that it considers offensive to the papacy, the Vatican, or the Catholic church in America.

The Catholic League was organized in 1973 by a Jesuit priest, Virgil Blum, who in 1959 had organized Citizens for Educational Freedom to launch the campaign for government funding of parochial schools through tax vouchers. In 1993, William Donohue took over the leadership of the Catholic League, with the assistance of Robert Destra as general counsel. Donohue has worked hard to redefine civil liberties away from individual rights so as to oppose affirmative action, gay rights, women’s rights, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press. . . .

The league, however, is not simply a collection of right-wing individuals. It claims “the support of all the U.S. cardinals and many of the bishops” and exists in response to Canon 1369 of the Code of Canon Law:

A person is to be punished with a just penalty, who, at a public event or assembly, or in published writing, or by otherwise using the means of social communication, utters blasphemy, or gravely harms public morals, or rails at or excites hatred of or contempt for religion or the Church. . .

The Catholic League claims that any criticism of the pope, the hierarchy, and the Vatican is bigotry. The league says it has attacked CBS’s 60 Minutes for a January 22, 1995, broadcast featuring the progressive Catholic group Call to Action. The league also attacked NBC Nightly News for referring to Catholics for a Free Choice and another Catholic group, Dignity. When the Associated Press mentioned that a federal appeals court judge who barred doctors from engaging in assisted suicide is a Catholic, the league launched a protest that resulted in an AP apology. That apology prompted Donohue to boast in the May 1995 Catalyst that the league “will not have to call attention to such errors in the future.” In other words, the league’s threat to the American press is clear: it is not permissible to identify public servants as Catholics when their public actions uphold papal teachings.

MUZZLING THE PUBLIC PRESS

Dr. McGinnis also spoke of their plans regarding the daily papers. He said: "We may consider briefly the program of the International Catholic Truth Society in reference to two great agencies in the formation of the minds and hearts of the great American people, - the press and the public libraries.

     "Our daily press...mold[s] the thought and influence[s] the will of the country....We do demand that the great Catholic Church, in her saving doctrines and in her marvelous activities, should be brought more prominently before the American public." - Id., p. 419.  (Facts of Faith, p.249)

SOCIAL POLICIES ENMESHED

It may be an over-simplification to state that the social policies of the Church of Rome and the Religious Right mesh perfectly together.  Perhaps this is partly due to the fact that, in a descriptive term observed on one website, there is so much "hypocrisy and cant" in the Church of Rome.  Also, in all fairness, not all Catholics in the United States subscribe to the papal policies and objectives described in this document.  However, there is solid evidence of a link between the social policies of Rome as enunciated in successive papal encyclicals, and of the Religious Right as influenced by the Christian Reconstructionists.  It will be demonstrated in another segment of this document that the policies have become intertwined in the presidency of George W. Bush under cover of "Moral Values" and "Compassionate Conservatism."  Our primary purpose in examining these governmental policies is to expose the dominance that the Church of Rome and the Religious Right have achieved over the government, in violation of the Constitution of the United States.

In Christian Democracy, the name and the reality have two very different histories, and therefore they must be carefully distinguished.

THE REALITY

What Christian democracy is was authoritatively laid down by Pope Leo XIII in his Encyclical "Graves de communi" wherein it is declared to be the same as "popular Catholic action". Such a definition is certainly intensive so that not everything done by Catholics, among the people or for the people, can be technically termed Christian democracy, or popular Catholic action. Action in this definition is taken to mean an organized movement with a definite programme to deal with the pressing problems that come before it. Popular has reference to the people, not inasmuch as they are a nation or collective whole, but as the fourth estate: the plebs, the tenuiores, and the tenuissimi of classical antiquity. Lastly, Catholic (and therefore Christian through and through) signifies that this organized action in favour of the people (plebs) is the work of Catholics as such. Popular Catholic action, therefore, means that the scope mapped out for the activity of the organization is the well-being of the people; and that the movement proceeds along Catholic lines, under the guidance of Catholic leaders. Having stated this, it is easy to understand that the existence of Christian democracy is not a thing of yesterday. In the very nature of Christianity, in the spirit of the Church, in the mission of the clergy (cf. Benigni, Storia sociale della Chiesa, Milan, 1907, I) lies the germ of popular Catholic action technically so called; in other words, of Christian democracy. As soon, therefore, as political and social circumstances allowed it, the Church set her hand to this work, and she has continued without interruption her traditional action in behalf of the people. To prove this there is no need of distorting the facts of history. Even if we exclude the marvellous economic organization of the Church of the first three centuries (see the last part of the "Storia" referred to above), it is certain that from the time of Constantine the Church began the practical work of Christian democracy, when the clergy showed their zeal in establishing hospices for orphans, for the aged and infirm, and for wayfarers.  Constantine in a period of famine chose the bishops rather than the civil officials to distribute corn among a starving people, and thus showed his appreciation of Christian democracy.   (Emphasis added.)

In these two quotations can be seen a basic similarity between the social principles of Rome and the Religious Right, which is a fundamental shift away from the civil government to religious control over the welfare of the people.

The emergence of the Religious Right in the United States can be seen as the ultimate fulfillment of the vision of Leo XIII.  As documented above, it was Rome's objective to "gain favor among Protestants, and not to be suspected as propaganda."  Wherever we turn in society at large today, and even within the Seventh-day Adventist Church, it is manifest that Rome has gained favor.  This is particularly evident in the political collaboration between an extremist branch of Protestantism and ultraright Roman Catholicism, in which the Protestants are the spearhead of advocacy for papal aims and objectives.  Not only have the religio-political forces of Protestantism imbibed the principles of Roman Catholicism; they have also, whether wittingly or unwittingly, adopted the stealth methods of Rome.

Today, Dominionists hide their agenda and have resorted to stealth; one investigator who has engaged in internet exchanges with people who identify themselves as religious conservatives said, "They cut and run if I mention the word ‘Dominionism.’"[11] Joan Bokaer, the Director of Theocracy Watch, a project of the Center for Religion, Ethics and Social Policy at Cornell University wrote, "In March 1986, I was on a speaking tour in Iowa and received a copy of the following memo [Pat] Robertson had distributed to the Iowa Republican County Caucus titled, "How to Participate in a Political Party." It read:

"Rule the world for God. Give the impression that you are there to work for the party, not push an ideology.
"Hide your strength. Don’t flaunt your Christianity.

Christians need to take leadership positions. Party officers control political parties and so it is very important that mature Christians have a majority of lead"ership positions whenever possible, God willing."[12]

Dominionists have gained extensive control of the Republican Party and the apparatus of government throughout the United States; they continue to operate secretly. Their agenda to undermine all government social programs that assist the poor, the sick, and the elderly is ingeniously disguised under false labels that confuse voters. Nevertheless, as we shall see, Dominionism maintains the necessity of laissez-faire economics, requiring that people "look to God and not to government for help."[13]

It is estimated that thirty-five million Americans who call themselves Christian, adhere to Dominionism in the United States, but most of these people appear to be ignorant of the heretical nature of their beliefs and the seditious nature of their political goals. So successfully have the televangelists and churches inculcated the idea of the existence of an outside "enemy," which is attacking Christianity, that millions of people have perceived themselves rightfully overthrowing an imaginary evil anti-Christian conspiratorial secular society.  (Emphasis added.)

THE ROMAN HIERARCHY AND THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT
UNITED AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS OF GOVERNMENT

The First Prince of the Theocratic States of America

It happened quietly, with barely a mention in the media. Only the Washington Post dutifully reported it.[1] And only Kevin Phillips saw its significance in his new book, American Dynasty.[2] On December 24, 2001, Pat Robertson resigned his position as President of the Christian Coalition.

Behind the scenes religious conservatives were abuzz with excitement. They believed Robertson had stepped down to allow the ascendance of the President of the United States of America to take his rightful place as the head of the true American Holy Christian Church.

Robertson’s act was symbolic, but it carried a secret and solemn revelation to the faithful. It was the signal that the Bush administration was a government under God that was led by an anointed President who would be the first regent in a dynasty of regents awaiting the return of Jesus to earth. The President would now be the minister through whom God would execute His will in the nation. George W. Bush accepted his scepter and his sword with humility, grace and a sense of exultation.

In the April, 2001, Special Issue of WWN, we provided our own documentation of the Religious Right's takeover of the Republican Party.  We identified some of the individuals and organizations who were involved.  One was the Christian Reconstruction movement.  We also identified Marvin Olasky, who conceived the term "Compassionate Conservatism," as a mentor of President Bush.  What we did not know at the time was that Olasky is a Christian Reconstructionist, and that the ideology of Christian Reconstructionism pervades the White House governing policies.

From "Talking with Mark Crispin Miller, Author of Cruel and Unusual:  Bush/Cheney's New World Order," interviewed by Buzzflash.com, a website of daily headlines, we quote:

What's most significant here, and yet gets almost zero coverage in our media, is the fact that Bush is very closely tied to the Christian Reconstructionist movement. The links between this White House and that movement are many and tight.  Marvin Olasky -- a former Maoist who is now a Reconstructionist -- coined the phrase "compassionate conservatism," and was hired by the Bush campaign in 2000 to serve as their top consultant on welfare.  Olasky's entire career has been financed by Howard Ahmanson, the California multimillionaire who has said publicly that his life's goal is "to integrate Biblical law into all our lives."

Christian Reconstructionism is a maverick theological movement.  It's far more activist and radical than most Christian Evangelism is.  For the most part, Christian Evangelicals generally have chosen to deplore this world in their expectation of Jesus' return, whereupon this world will be improved.  The reconstructionists believe that it is the obligation of every Christian to do whatever he or she can do to make this a Christian republic with an eye toward making the other nations of the world Christian republics. . .

This means replacing the Constitution with the Pentateuch -- the first five books of the Old Testament.  It is an anti-pluralist movement, which would entail the disenfranchisement all non-Christians, and the establishment of a common law based on Leviticus. If you want a sense of what the theocrats are after, read that book, and also read The Handmaid's Tale. Although the reconstructionists don't believe in violent tactics to get their way, and many of the Islamists obviously do, the world envisioned by the former seems to be more punitive that the global caliphate imagined by al Qaeda.

And in fact we are now dealing with an adversary whose world-view is opposed to ours completely. They are nostalgic for the Middle Ages, or at least for the colonial theocracies of the 17th and early 18th centuries.

The Christian Right has shown impressive resilience and has rebounded dramatically after a series of embarrassing televangelist scandals of the late 1980s, the collapse of Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority, and the failed presidential bid of Pat Robertson. In the 1990s, Christian Right organizing went to the grassroots and exerted wide influence in American politics across the country.

There is no doubt that Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition gets much of the credit for this successful strategic shift to the local level. But another largely overlooked reason for the persistent success of the Christian Right is a theological shift since the 1960s. The catalyst for the shift is Christian Reconstructionism--arguably the driving ideology of the Christian Right in the 1990s.

The significance of the Reconstructionist movement is not its numbers, but the power of its ideas and their surprisingly rapid acceptance. Many on the Christian Right are unaware that they hold Reconstructionist ideas. Because as a theology it is controversial, even among evangelicals, many who are consciously influenced by it avoid the label. This furtiveness is not, however, as significant as the potency of the ideology itself. Generally, Reconstructionism seeks to replace democracy with a theocratic elite that would govern by imposing their interpretation of "Biblical Law." Reconstructionism would eliminate not only democracy but many of its manifestations, such as labor unions, civil rights laws, and public schools. Women would be generally relegated to hearth and home. Insufficiently Christian men would be denied citizenship, perhaps executed. So severe is this theocracy that it would extend capital punishment beyond such crimes as kidnapping, rape, and murder to include, among other things, blasphemy, heresy, adultery, and homosexuality.

Reconstructionism has expanded from the works of a small group of scholars to inform a wide swath of conservative Christian thought and action. While many Reconstructionist political positions are commonly held conservative views, what is significant is that Reconstructionists have created a comprehensive program, with Biblical justifications for far right political policies. Many post-World War II conservative, anticommunist activists were also, if secondarily, conservative Christians. However, the Reconstructionist movement calls on conservatives to be Christians first, and to build a church-based political movement from there.

For much of Reconstructionism's short history it has been an ideology in search of a constituency. But its influence has grown far beyond the founders' expectations. As Reconstructionist author Gary North observes, "We once were shepherds without sheep. No longer."  (Emphasis added.)

The reader will have noted that among the capital crimes included in the Christian Reconstructionist ideology are "blasphemy" and "heresy."  Either of these could be applied in fulfillment of Rev. 13:15.

Much of the modern conservative agenda ties in closely with Reconstructionist beliefs, and are frequently in lock-step with them. Some examples:Welfare - Reconstructionists believe that the state has undermined the church by many of its duties, specifically aid to the poor, indigent, and those unable to provide for themselves. Tom Albrecht, an avowed Reconstructionist, summarized this belief in a Usenet posting as follows:

The purpose of the state, on the other hand, is to be a minister of justice (Rom 13:1ff). It alone is given the sword of power to inflict vengeance on those who would violate the law of God as expressed in the laws of the state.

In our society the state has, to a large extent, usurped the "gracious" role of the church by involving itself in areas that are the exclusive domain of the church or family; ministries to the poor and needy, education of children, etc. This is a form of paganism in which the state becomes god to many people under its ever expanding sphere of influence.  (Emphasis added.)

"Falwell Says Evangelicals Control GOP, Bush's Fate"

This was the headline of a Cox News Service report by Scott Shepard dated September 25, 2004, which appeared in the San Diego Union-Tribune.  The article went on to report:

The Rev. Jerry Falwell said yesterday that evangelical Christians, after nearly 25 years of increasing political activism, now control the Republican Party and the fate of President Bush in the November election.

"The Republican Party does not have the head count to elect a president without the support of religious conservatives," Falwell said at an election training conference of the Christian Coalition.

Falwell said evangelical Christians are now "by far the largest constituency" within the Republican Party, their route to dominance beginning in 1979 with his founding of the Moral Majority, a precursor to the Christian Coalition.

"I tell my Republican friends who are always talking about the 'big tent,' I say make it as big as you want to, but if the candidate running for president is not pro-life, pro-family . . . you're not going to win," he said.

We have already seen that the Religious Right, and by the pervasiveness of its ideology within the Religious Right, Christian Reconstructionism, are ultimately under the control of the Pope himself: "If we didn't know the Pope agrees with us, we Catholics in the New Right would have serious conscience problems. I would never work counter to the Church's official position." -Paul Weyrich (Emphasis added.)

It remains only to give some examples of how Catholic a president George W. Bush is, Protestant though he be in name.  We begin with reports from early in his presidency.  In an article in the Washington Post, by staff writer Thomas B. Edsall, dated April 16, 2001, and titled "Bush Aims to Strengthen Catholic Base - Republicans Seeking Solid Majorities Among All White Religious Voters," was the following statement:

The effort to recruit Catholic voters has led to a striking change in the political climate in Washington.  George [earlier identified as a Roman Catholic and Princeton University political scientist] noted in an interview last week that "in 1960, John Kennedy went from Washington down to Texas to assure Protestant preachers that he would not obey the pope.  In 2001, George Bush came from Texas up to Washington to assure a group of Catholic bishops that he would."

Republican advocacy of "compassionate conservatism" meshes well with Catholic doctrine, in contrast to more hard-edged Republican themes of free-market conservatism and the libertarianism promoted by groups such as the Cato Institute, Hudson [Deal Hudson, publisher of the Catholic magazine Crisis] and George both argue.  (Emphasis added.)

In late March, President Bush traveled to an obscure corner of Washington, D.C., to give one of the most striking and underreported speeches of his presidency. It wasn't about education reform or tax cuts. In fact, it had little to do with Bush or his administration at all. It was rather a simple, eloquent, Christ-drenched tribute to Pope John Paul II, offered to commemorate the opening of the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center at Catholic University. "The pope reminds us," Bush told the gathered clergy, politicians, and civic leaders, "that while freedom defines our nation, responsibility must define our lives. He challenges us to live up to our aspirations, to be a fair and just society where all are welcomed, all are valued, and all are protected. And he is never more eloquent than when he speaks for a culture of life. The culture of life is a welcoming culture, never excluding, never dividing, never despairing, and always affirming the goodness of life in all its seasons. In the culture of life we must make room for the stranger. We must comfort the sick. We must care for the aged. We must welcome the immigrant. We must teach our children to be gentle with one another. We must defend in love the innocent child waiting to be born." Pro-choice Democrats in attendance, like Ted Kennedy, shifted uncomfortably in their seats. But the rest of the audience rose in a standing ovation.

It was a remarkable moment, but not an isolated one. Bush has courted the Catholic vote more doggedly than any modern president, explicitly-and often eloquently-placing "compassionate conservatism" within the context of the Catholic tradition of aiding the underprivileged and protecting the sanctity of life.   (Emphasis added.)

"Before I get to the business of why I've called you," I said to President Bush's political guru Karl Rove, "I would be grateful if you would give your President a message from me." Rove was most obliging. "Tell him that he has mastered the art of Catholic governance," I said. Rove replied: "That's pretty good for a Methodist."

Rove went on to say that President Bush understands the Catholic principle of subsidiarity. I am not the only one who believes this is the case. The American Society of Tradition Family and Property (TFP), a very traditionalist group, says privately that Bush is more Catholic than any Catholic President who is electable in this country. . .

The principle of subsidiarity requires that when you minister to someone in need you begin with the unit closest to home. Only if you cannot satisfy the need at that level do you move beyond to mediating structures. If those structures fail, you would move to government, but you would begin at the local level. And again, if local government can't satisfy needs, only then would it be permissible to turn to the next level of government and so on. The bias in this principle is in favor of the family as the basic unit of society. Beyond the family, private institutions have the next bias, if you will, and government is only favored when private institutions fail completely, and then the bias is in favor of government which is closest to the people. . .

Already this President has been misjudged and misunderstood. I suspect that unless his friends and critics alike begin to understand his Catholicity, George Bush will continue to confound people. The Washington press corps isn't much schooled in theology. Before this Presidency concludes they may have to be.  (Emphasis added.)

In contemporary Western debates, this idea of unity between faith and political allegiance often puts Opus Dei-inspired politicians on the right.

Santorum was a forceful champion of this view. He told NCR that a distinction between private religious conviction and public responsibility, enshrined in John Kennedy’s famous speech in 1960 saying he would not take orders from the Catholic church if elected president, has caused “much harm in America.” . . .

Santorum told NCR that he regards George W. Bush as “the first Catholic president of the United States.”

“From economic issues focusing on the poor and social justice, to issues of human life, George Bush is there,” he said. “He has every right to say, ‘I’m where you are if you’re a believing Catholic.’ ”

Paul Weyrich’s Secret Manual on How to Win Politically

Since the writing and posting of my essay, The Despoiling of America in February 2004, there is more and more evidence that not only has a cultural war been launched, but that the plotters are winning it. “Dominionism” now looks more like a term that is applicable to both right-wing-religious believers and to the neo-cons who were created and born in an astonishing resurgence of an immoral Machiavellianism: both groups believe in domination and control. While religious adherents adopted a decidedly heretical Christian doctrine,[1] the neo-cons continue to use the American churches to help execute their cabal. It was expressed this way by a Yurica Report talk board participant:

“One of the more sinister aspects of the current crisis is the influence of Leo Strauss on the pro-war, “neo-cons” who are determining so much of our foreign policy. While the Christian right thinks it is running the show, Leo Strauss’ irreligious philosophy is actually in control. Strauss believed that the rulers should not be religious, but should use religion to manage the people — which he evidently regarded as a stupid herd. He also believed that a state of war was great for controlling and directing the masses. So it’s all come together: the weirdest book of the bible [Revelations], with its mysterious disasters; the scheming behind the scenes warmongers and an incident of terrorism that has served admirably as the Project for a New American Century’s hoped-for ‘new Pearl Harbor.’” Adrien Rain

Americans and the main-stream media have been very slow in catching on to the fact that we are in a war—a war that is cultural, religious and political. One document not mentioned in The Despoiling of America is the closeted manual that reveals how the right wing in American politics can get and keep power. It was created under the tutelage of Paul Weyrich, the man who founded the Free Congress Foundation. Conservative leaders consider Weyrich to be the “most powerful man in American politics today.” There is no question of his immense influence in conservative circles. He is also considered the founder of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank made possible with funding from Joseph Coors and Richard Mellon-Scaife. Weyrich served as the Founding President from 1973-1974.

One does not have to think very hard to recall multiple demonstrations of this plan of action in and out of the election campaign season.  We have provided documentation earlier in this document of the tactics of intimidation by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights in muzzling the press; tactics that are not far removed from the above plan of action.  It bears reiteration that Weyrich has said, "If we didn't know the Pope agrees with us, we Catholics in the New Right would have serious conscience problems. I would never work counter to the Church's official position."

It is left to the reader to make the connections between the Bush administration's economic policies and the Roman Catholic principle of subsidiarity.  Santorum makes it easy.  Here is further evidence that the social policies of Roman Catholicism and the Christian Reconstructionist Religious Right are enmeshed in the current governance of the United States.

Election Results Manipulated?

President Bush was so eager for a meeting with Pope John Paul II that he recently flew overnight to Rome to cram in a visit before the pontiff--who said he couldn’t rearrange his schedule--left town the next day. While there, Bush was greeted by angry anti-war protesters and had his knuckles rapped by the pope over the war in Iraq.

Why would Bush subject himself to this? Answer: Bush badly needs Catholic votes.

The congealing conventional wisdom is that super-religious, born-again Protestants—a.k.a. the religious right—carried President Bush to victory in 2004. A new Beliefnet analysis of the election data reveals this is only half right.

There was indeed a flood of evangelicals to the polls-—but it now appears that the shift in the Catholic vote was just as important and, in crucial states, probably more so. . .

Bush’s strong performance among Catholics, it turns out, was crucial to his victory. Bush won Catholics 52%-47% this time, while Al Gore carried them 50%-46% in 2000. If Kerry had done as well as Gore, he would have had about a million more votes nationwide. According to Gallup Polls, only one Democrat since 1952 (Walter Mondale in 1984) lost the Catholic vote by this large a margin.

The Catholic impact was starker in key states. In Ohio, Bush got 55% of the Catholic vote in 2004 compared to just under 50% of them in 2000. That means a shift of 172,000 votes into the Republican column. Bush won the state by just 136,000 votes this year.

In Florida, Catholics made up 26% of the electorate in 2000. This year, they made up 28%. In 2000, 54% of Catholics went for Bush; in 2004, 57% of them voted for him. The combination of those two factors meant a gain of 400,000 voters in the Sunshine State—about Bush's margin of victory.

Bush also did better among Hispanic Catholics, getting 42% of the vote in 2004 compared to 31% in 2000.

Purging voter lists is just the beginning: the U.S. has embraced a form of electronic voting that is unreliable, unverifiable and funded by the radical Christian right. . .

Helping America Vote Right

“The Christian worldview is the answer.  We need Christian statesmen who press for the Crown Rights of Jesus Christ in all areas of life.  This isn’t political salvation or an overnight fix.  It will take decades of mobilization and confrontation to undo a century of godless socialism.  It must be a grassroots movement that starts in individual families and churches and then moves outward to take dominion.  It must encompass every area of life and not just the political arena.  Finally, it must start soon, for there isn’t much time left.  The Florida elections have taught us that the Democrats with their liberal/socialistic worldview will stop at nothing to seize control of the government.”

– Dr. Val Finnell, published by the Chalcedon Institute

If the connections between Hagel and ES&S seem suspect, the origins of America’s largest electronic voting machine companies may be just as distressing, especially for those who venerate the separation of church and state.  The convoluted system of renaming and buyouts of America’s voting system companies is a complicated story.  However, once the various corporate trails have been followed, a disturbing picture comes into focus.

Brothers Bob and Todd Urosevich founded American Information Systems.  Bob is currently president of Diebold, and Todd Urosevich is Vice President of Aftermarket Sales for ES&S.  (In 1999, American Information Systems purchased Business Records Corp to become ES&S.)

American Information Systems (AIS) was primarily funded with money from Ahmanson brothers, William and Robert, of the Howard F. Ahmanson Co.  The majority stake in ES&S is still owned by Howard F. Ahmanson and the Ahmanson Foundation.

Howard Ahmanson belongs to Council for National Policy, a hard right wing organization, and also helps finance The Chalcedon Institute.  As the institute’s own site reports, Chalcedon is a “Christian educational organization devoted to research, publishing, and promoting Christian reconstruction in all areas of life…. Our emphasis on the Cultural or Dominion Mandate (Genesis 1:28) and the necessity of a return to Biblical Law has been a crucial factor in the challenge to Humanism by Christians in this country and elsewhere....” Chalcedon promotes Christian Reconstructionism, which mandates Christ’s dominion over the entire world.  The organization’s purpose is to establish Old Testament Biblical law as the standard for society. . . .

The 2004 election will be the first to use nation-wide electronic voting.  With the purging of voter lists, secrecy surrounding voting machines, the lack of a verifiable paper trail combined with voting machine companies with strong Republican ties and funding from the radical right, a Bush victory is all but inevitable.  Welcome to the machines.  http://www.tom-davis.org/activism/unverifiable-voting/voting-summary.html (Emphasis added.)

Asked about his re-election, he replies, "I think over the Christmas holidays it'll all sink in."

As he says this, George W. Bush is about to set a political record.  The first TIME poll since the election has his approval rating at 49%.  Gallup has it at 53%, which doesn't sound bad unless you consider that it's the lowest December rating for a re-elected President in Gallup's history.  (Emphasis added.)

The 2004 U.S. presidential election is over.  Once again there is a false sense of peace and tranquility on the political scene.  Evidence of probable massive fraud, unprecedented in the history of the Republic, has been met with deafening silence.  Who among us could ever  have imagined such a quiet death for the greatest constitutional democracy that the world has ever seen!