Dietrich von Hildebrand: "Mein Kampf Gegen Hitler"

I am currently reading a great new book, My Battle Against Hitler, a collection of entries by Dietrich von Hildebrand in his memoirs translated and edited by John Henry Crosby with John F. Crosby. It's very intense and informative; it details von Hilebrand's intellectual war against National Socialism as well as the events in his own life which occurred around the time of Hitler's ascendancy. These events have to do with basically getting in the middle of fierce arguments and near-brawls with anti-Semites and fascists, having his wife get threatening phone calls, finding out the Nazis wanted to kill him and finally having to flee the country to save his life. And I'm only on page 60! Since I am not very far in the book I'm not ready to review it, but I will be excerpting sections from it here and in the weeks to come. This is from an introductory chapter titled "A Fateful Decision":

What might von Hildebrand have called this volume? We will never know, and given his humility he might have suggested a title which honored his collaborators rather than himself. But he did, unwittingly, provide the title. Searching the pages of his memoirs, we discovered that he had entitled an outline for part for part of his memoirs "Mein Kampf Gegen Hitler"—"My Battle Against Hitler". Thus was the present volume christened.

A lot of his intellectual lectures and argumentation which I've read so far have been against contemporaries who had an idea that collectivism of some type — usually national socialism but sometimes communism — can and should be compatible with Christianity and, in some way, the collectivist concept of community is actually a Christian idea and should be pursued for that very reason. Von Hildebrand referred to this misconception as an overemphasis of the notion of community at the expense of the individual. Here is his response to the erroneous idea:

My talk was the fruit of all the investigations which formed the subject of my book The Metaphysics of Community which had been published two years before. In the talk I sought to make very clear that every attempt to establish a community at the expense of the individual person is not only in itself false but necessarily leads to a misconception of the true nature of community. I pointed out the horror of antipersonalism and totalitarianism, showing their absolute incompatibility with Christian revelation, and I criticized the false thesis of Hegel who held that the state is a higher entity that the individual. Only the individual person is a substance in the full sense, while the state is only a quasi-substance.

At the same time, I stressed the reality and dignity of true community in contrast to every kind of false liberal individualism. All of this was philosophically grounded with great case, yet there was no chance of convincing the other members of the committee, who were not very acute philosophically and who had allowed themselves to be swept away by the Zeitgeist.

The spirit of the age in these encounters mirrors the intellectual bankruptcy and moral corruption in our own. And yet there was something much more threatening at that time because of the will to enact horrible evils in the form of direct violence upon individuals and institutions on the part of Hitler and his followers. I have a friend who invariably brings up Hitler whenever the two of us discuss Obama and his awful policies. Recently I took issue with him. I said "OK, I know what you mean, but you are going to lose at least 50% of the people if you compare Obama to Hitler. Obama isn't scratching people off left and right for opposing him." Hitler was elected, but years before he ever was made chancellor he was organizing fascist attempts at government takeovers. He was way beyond political dirty tricks; he was into violence, threats of violence and destruction to achieve his ends. Reading this book really reveals the fear of that time and place and brings it home to me in an incredibly personal way as a Catholic and as someone with a family.

"Plan A seems to be just to keep talking."

That's my favorite line from this dismal report on the LCWR. (The L-Word is leadership... I think.) Here are some other low-lights:

In April 2012, the Vatican released the findings of a multi-year doctrinal assessment of the women's conference, which raised concerns of dissent from Church teaching on topics including homosexuality, the sacramental priesthood and [...drumroll...] the divinity of Christ.

Oh, yeah. The whole "Divinity of Christ" thing. That's kind of important.

“LCWR leaders realize the organization would lose many of its members if its canonical status were revoked, so they don’t want that to happen. On the other hand, they do not want to implement the mandate, either. So Plan A seems to be just to keep talking,” she said.

Insert chauvinistic remark here.

At the annual assembly, the LCWR presented the conference’s Outstanding Leadership Award to Sister Elizabeth Johnson, C.S.J., a theologian whom the U.S. bishops have criticized for serious doctrinal errors, including misrepresentations of Church teaching on [...drumroll...] GOD!

For any non-religious readers, let me just say that, like, the teaching about God is, like, a huge big deal in most religions, I mean like totally.

Sister Johnson doubled down against the oppressive patriarchy in her acceptance speech.

Sr. Johnson used her acceptance speech to strike back at her critics, claiming that the U.S. bishops’ assessment of her book misrepresented it. She said Cardinal Muller and his staff appear not to have read her book or her response to the concerns about it.

She contended that both her book and the LCWR were the objects of “institutionalized negativity.” She suggested that criticism of the LCWR was the product of several factors, including centuries-old historical tensions between religious orders and the bishops and an alleged “patriarchal structure where authority is exercised in a top-down fashion” which prioritizes “obedience and loyalty to the system.”

If reading this is too painful, the accompanying photo (also painful) tells you all you need to know.

The silver lining that most Catholics don't pay any attention to these perpetually angry females is mentioned in the article. Another silver lining may be that there is no way a priest or bishop can hang out with these women and regret his vow of celibacy.

I think these nuns on the bus sorts kind of want to push the CDF to revoke their status to reinforce their persecution-complex and their radfem street-cred, but at the same time they know that would make their continued existence completely pointless. They are some of the most confused people in the world, let-alone the Catholic church.

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."