It's time for Faithful Catholics to throw the "Faithful Citizenship" mess in the garbage

I'm a bit behind on this, but I really wanted to report on this entire "Faithful Citizenship" fiasco.There are all kinds of Democrat activists running this show; Karen Leith, and Patrick O'Bryan from Catholic Charities are two names that come up in the list of the usual suspects. I don't know how involved the Bishop is in this travesty. You can call his office at 216-696-6525, ext 2030, and voice your concerns.

I just called to find out if there are any more meetings. I heard a rumor that there is one more meeting tonight at St. Clarence Church in North Olmsted at 7pm. Supposedly the Bishop's secretary is going to call me back if there is a meeting--we'll see if she does.

Here's the email from Cleveland Right to Life which I received two days ago:
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Tuesday - September 25th 2012

Further to our press release yesterday about a series of "Faithful Citizenship" forums orchestrated by the Cleveland Diocese and intended to help Catholics understand the issues in the upcoming election, we have more evidence that they are being led by people who have strong ties to the Democrat Party. This is a problem! 

Now, having ties to the Democrat Party in and of itself is not the problem (this is America). Rather the problem is the bias of the forums due to the political leanings of the forum leaders. Here we have the leaders of the Cleveland Diocesan Social Action Office, employed and paid by the Diocese and under the direction of the Bishop's Office, hosting a "Faithful Citizenship" forum series while at the same time being openly and strongly aligned with the Democrat Party. The outcome of this forum leadership is that the "Faithful Catholic Citizen" in attendance is leaving with at best a muddled understanding of Catholic Teaching and how it applies to the issues in play during this election. But even worse, many are coming away from these forums with the impression that there is no moral hierarchy (the absolute antitheses of Catholic Teaching) and that the Truths enumerated by our Founding Fathers are no longer relevant.

One would expect the Diocese to be non-partisan; but these forums have at least the appearance of a Diocesan endorsement of the Democrat position on the issues.

Herewith some background on just two of the forum leaders namely Karen Leith, and Patrick O'Bryan. As we have previously noted, Leith has publically identified herself on FaceBook as a supporter of Obama and is also a past board member of a dissident Catholic organization called Future Church. And O'Bryan was trained in Chicago by none other than the Industrial Areas Foundation, (IAF); an organization that has the distinction of being the first community organizing group founded by Saul Alinsky. But why should we be concerned about the IAF and Saul Alinsky? Well the IAF has never deviated from its roots that include strong ties to the far left and the Democrat Party and their training still embraces methods as laid out by Saul Alinsky in his book, "Rules for Radicals". This is the same book that is dedicated to Lucifer. Hmmm .... Strange place to go for the Truth as taught by the Church!

Here are some of the groups and organizations that the leaders of these forums are associated with and/or have referenced in their presentations:

Catholics For a Greater Cleveland Congregation: On their website the GCC openly declares that they are:"part of the Industrial Areas Foundation, the nation's first and largest network of multi-faith coalitions, and we draw on their seven decades of experience winning tough battles across the nation." Remember that in 2008 ACORN which is also "part of the Industrial Areas Foundation" was doing the work now tasked to GCC in Cleveland, so one has to wonder if "elections" are the "tough battles" the GCC is referencing.

FutureChurch:The Cleveland Catholic Diocese has disavowed this group as being "not consistent with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church"

Call to Action:  

• FutureChurch is the Cleveland chapter of Call to Action
• Call to Action's members were officially excommunicated by Bishop Bruskewitz of Nebraska, a decision affirmed by the Vatican in November of 2006 with this statement: "The judgment of the Holy See is that the activities of Call to Action in the course of these years are in contrast with the Catholic faith due to views and positions held which are unacceptable from a doctrinal and disciplinary standpoint. Thus to be a member of this association or to support it is irreconcilable with a coherent living of the Catholic faith" (emphasis added).
• Call to Action supports "Catholics for a Free Choice" which the US Bishops have said is an arm of the abortion industry
• Supports Gay Marriage
• Call to Action is closely aligned with NETWORK

NETWORK: This Lobby group played a significant role in the passage of ObamaCare and has been identified by the Catholic Church as NOT representing the Catholic Church teachings. Consider these facts:

• Sr. Simone Campbell, Executive Director is a regular speaker for the Cleveland Social Action Office.
• Network wrote the now famous "nuns letter" that was instrumental to the passage of the Affordable Care Act.
• Network currently has a "Nuns on the Bus" national tour to oppose the Paul Ryan Budget. Public Relations for "Nuns on the Bus" was supplied by "Faith in Public Life" which is funded by billionaire Democrat supporter George Soros.
• Campbell spoke at the 2012 Democrat National Convention and in 2008 gave the Benediction.
• NETWORK is a partner of "Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good" of whom Archbishop Caput said in 2008: Groups friendly to the Democrat Party such as "Catholics United and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good have done a disservice to the Church, confused the natural priorities of Catholic social teaching, undermined the progress prolifers have made, and provided an excuse for some Catholics to abandon the abortion issue instead of fighting within their parties and at the ballot box to protect the unborn."

JustFaith: A discredited organization that is infiltrating the local diocesan churches with programs that are NOT supported by Catholic doctrine, such as liberation theology (rooted in Marxism), support for homosexual lifestyle, extreme pacificism and environmentalism. In addition the JustFaith program follows and is closely aligned with that followed by The PICO National Network, the Industrial Areas Foundation, The Gamaliel Foundation & Direct Action and Research Training (DART). These organizations are all members of members of the Alinskian (Industrial Areas Foundation) Network that we referenced above. Yes, the same organization whose founder dedicated his community organizing guidebook to Lucifer!

Justfaith is also a partner with NETWORK who lobbied extensively for the Affordable Care Act that has now resulted in 1^st Amendment violations against Religious Freedom with the Catholic Church as its first target.

JustFaith also in their Fall 2009 newsletter counseled readers to join the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) in working on women's issues. Well the IWPR has on their website their "Policy Update on Safe and Legal Abortion, 30 Years after Roe v. Wade".

And there is a lot more about JustFaith that should be of major concern to serious Catholics but we will leave that for a later eblast.

Evolutionary Christianity: A smorgasbord of New Age theology that has very little to do with Catholicism or a Biblical worldview.

The writing is pretty clearly up on the wall. The official Catholic Church has plainly stated they outright reject or have serious issue with the philosophies and goals of these groups and organizations. The Social Action Office of the Cleveland Catholic Diocese needs to clean house if they expect to be taken seriously by Catholics. The Cleveland Bishop should terminate the employment of anyone connected to these groups and revamp the current forums to reflect true Catholic beliefs that are rooted in Natural Law principals, Biblical moral absolutes and the principal of subsidiarity. There is no place in such forums for Moral Relativism, Humanism, Objectivism, Secularism and New Age Spiritualism. The current series has serious flaws because many of the presenters are twisting Catholic teachings to neatly fit the hymnal of the Democrat National Platform.

In 2008 Cleveland Area Catholics were given misleading counsel with respect to the issues in the election with the net result that most of the Catholic swing vote went to Barack Obama despite him being what Archbishop Caput called the "most committed 'abortion-rights' presidential candidate since the Roe v. Wade abortion decision in 1973." 

Correcting the on-going bias in the Social Action Office and Faithful Citizenship forums will not turn every Catholic vote but it will move the swing vote sufficiently to protect human life.  
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This reminds me of the CCHD debacle, but that was/is on the fund-raising side. This is obviously on the get-out-the-vote side of things and the target is Ohio Catholics.

I'm planning to go to any events I can to see them up close and report on them. I'll keep everyone posted on what I discover here. I usually try to be low key about this kind of thing, but I'm done. Obama and the left have to be defeated this November. I'll gladly stand up on Judgment Day and say "Yeah, I helped kicked these people out."