Cliff Kincaid
Obama operative masquerades as Catholic expert
By Cliff Kincaid
Christopher Hale, of a group called Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, has emerged on CNN and Fox News as a defender of Pope Francis against Rush Limbaugh's charges that the pontiff spews Marxism.
The stories on CNN and Fox News cited Hale as a critic of Limbaugh and defender of the pope without noting his group's connections to George Soros, the billionaire atheist, and that Hale worked on the "National Faith Vote Team" for the "Obama for America" 2012 presidential campaign organization.
Hale was also an intern in the Obama White House and worked for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
Frank Walker of the conservative Pewsitter website labels the group a religious and political Trojan Horse designed to mislead Catholics and produce votes for the Democratic Party. Soros, the major financial backer of the Democratic Party's "progressive" base, also supports such causes as drug legalization, the rights of "sex workers" and felons, euthanasia, radical feminism, abortion rights and homosexual rights.
The Fox story by Lauren Green, which aired on Bret Baier's "Special Report" on Wednesday night, highlighted Hale's criticism of Limbaugh and defense of the pope, without noting that the papal document "The Joy of the Gospel" had criticized conservative economic policies, dubbed "trickle-down" by the Vatican. Green misidentified the papal document as "The Gospel of Joy."
Hale told Fox that the pope only wants "human-centered capitalism" promoting "people over profits," and that he is challenging both liberals and conservatives. But that is not how Limbaugh and other conservatives are seeing it.
The Vatican document is emerging as cannon fodder for the Obama administration as it tries to change the subject from the pitfalls of socialized medicine to "inequality," low paid workers and other social problems.
On Wednesday, in a speech to the Center for American Progress, another Soros-funded group, President Obama favorably cited the pope's remarks. Obama said, "Some of you may have seen just last week, the pope himself spoke about this at eloquent length. 'How can it be,' he wrote, 'that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?'"
But conservative Catholic writer Victor Biorseth countered, "We are already seeing how collectivism kills right here in America with the bare beginnings of Obamacare, which is a government controlled redistribution of both health care itself and health care insurance. In all likelihood people have already died, and many, many more will die, due to the critically ill losing their doctors, losing their health care facilities, being required to start treatment procedures all over again, not being able to, and losing their insurance coverage."
Biorseth calls it "trickle-down collectivism."
As AIM has reported, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good received at least $200,000 from George Soros and offered a "Health Care Reform Prayer," asking for God's help in passing Obamacare.
We noted that the executive director of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good (CACG) at the time was Victoria Kovari, a former organizer for the Gamaliel Foundation, the same group that helped launch Barack Obama's career as a community organizer in Chicago. She had also served as co-chair of Catholics for Obama.
The chairman of CACG is Alfred M. Rotondaro, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.
How Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good became a source for stories attacking Limbaugh on Fox News and CNN is itself an interesting story.
It was first promoted as a "Catholic" group that is opposed to Limbaugh, by Media Matters, which is also Soros-funded. Catholics for a Free Choice had launched a campaign to "Tell Rush Limbaugh: We support Pope Francis!" It went on, "To call the Francis a proponent of 'pure marxism' is both mean spirited and naive. Francis's critique of unrestrained capitalism is in line with the Church's social teaching."
While he found parts of the document on evangelism to be worthwhile, Catholic writer Biorseth also took issue with the pope's statement that Islam is a peaceful religion. The pope had declared that "authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence."
Biorseth countered, "No they are not. All the Koran's violent verses instructing disciples to either convert us all to the religion of Islam, subjugate us all under Islamic law, or kill us all, were the later verses, after the flight to Medina, abrogating and replacing all the earlier more peaceful verses written at Mecca. Ask an Imam. Violent jihad is preached in virtually every Mosque on earth; all good Moslems will, at the very least, give moral support and not oppose terrorist acts done in the name of jihad. That's just the way it is."
Before he issued his document on "The Joy of the Gospel," Pope Francis met in the Vatican with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the former KGB officer who now claims to be a Christian.
© Cliff Kincaid
December 6, 2013
Christopher Hale, of a group called Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, has emerged on CNN and Fox News as a defender of Pope Francis against Rush Limbaugh's charges that the pontiff spews Marxism.
The stories on CNN and Fox News cited Hale as a critic of Limbaugh and defender of the pope without noting his group's connections to George Soros, the billionaire atheist, and that Hale worked on the "National Faith Vote Team" for the "Obama for America" 2012 presidential campaign organization.
Hale was also an intern in the Obama White House and worked for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
Frank Walker of the conservative Pewsitter website labels the group a religious and political Trojan Horse designed to mislead Catholics and produce votes for the Democratic Party. Soros, the major financial backer of the Democratic Party's "progressive" base, also supports such causes as drug legalization, the rights of "sex workers" and felons, euthanasia, radical feminism, abortion rights and homosexual rights.
The Fox story by Lauren Green, which aired on Bret Baier's "Special Report" on Wednesday night, highlighted Hale's criticism of Limbaugh and defense of the pope, without noting that the papal document "The Joy of the Gospel" had criticized conservative economic policies, dubbed "trickle-down" by the Vatican. Green misidentified the papal document as "The Gospel of Joy."
Hale told Fox that the pope only wants "human-centered capitalism" promoting "people over profits," and that he is challenging both liberals and conservatives. But that is not how Limbaugh and other conservatives are seeing it.
The Vatican document is emerging as cannon fodder for the Obama administration as it tries to change the subject from the pitfalls of socialized medicine to "inequality," low paid workers and other social problems.
On Wednesday, in a speech to the Center for American Progress, another Soros-funded group, President Obama favorably cited the pope's remarks. Obama said, "Some of you may have seen just last week, the pope himself spoke about this at eloquent length. 'How can it be,' he wrote, 'that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?'"
But conservative Catholic writer Victor Biorseth countered, "We are already seeing how collectivism kills right here in America with the bare beginnings of Obamacare, which is a government controlled redistribution of both health care itself and health care insurance. In all likelihood people have already died, and many, many more will die, due to the critically ill losing their doctors, losing their health care facilities, being required to start treatment procedures all over again, not being able to, and losing their insurance coverage."
Biorseth calls it "trickle-down collectivism."
As AIM has reported, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good received at least $200,000 from George Soros and offered a "Health Care Reform Prayer," asking for God's help in passing Obamacare.
We noted that the executive director of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good (CACG) at the time was Victoria Kovari, a former organizer for the Gamaliel Foundation, the same group that helped launch Barack Obama's career as a community organizer in Chicago. She had also served as co-chair of Catholics for Obama.
The chairman of CACG is Alfred M. Rotondaro, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.
How Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good became a source for stories attacking Limbaugh on Fox News and CNN is itself an interesting story.
It was first promoted as a "Catholic" group that is opposed to Limbaugh, by Media Matters, which is also Soros-funded. Catholics for a Free Choice had launched a campaign to "Tell Rush Limbaugh: We support Pope Francis!" It went on, "To call the Francis a proponent of 'pure marxism' is both mean spirited and naive. Francis's critique of unrestrained capitalism is in line with the Church's social teaching."
While he found parts of the document on evangelism to be worthwhile, Catholic writer Biorseth also took issue with the pope's statement that Islam is a peaceful religion. The pope had declared that "authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence."
Biorseth countered, "No they are not. All the Koran's violent verses instructing disciples to either convert us all to the religion of Islam, subjugate us all under Islamic law, or kill us all, were the later verses, after the flight to Medina, abrogating and replacing all the earlier more peaceful verses written at Mecca. Ask an Imam. Violent jihad is preached in virtually every Mosque on earth; all good Moslems will, at the very least, give moral support and not oppose terrorist acts done in the name of jihad. That's just the way it is."
Before he issued his document on "The Joy of the Gospel," Pope Francis met in the Vatican with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the former KGB officer who now claims to be a Christian.
© Cliff Kincaid
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