Fwd: [NYTr] Alito and Opus Dei: Jackboots of the Church
Subject: [NYTr] Alito and Opus Dei: Jackboots of the Church
Date: 30 Jan 2006 23:27:57 -0600
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Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
CounterPunch - Jan 30, 2006
http://www.counterpunch.org/carmichael01302006.html
Alito and Opus Dei:
Jackboots of the Church
By MICHAEL CARMICHAEL
Is Judge Samuel Alito a member of Opus Dei?
If so, does it matter? If it matters, why?
A Senate staffer confirmed that the Judiciary Committee received
numerous "notes and letters" stating that Judge Samuel Alito is a
member of Opus Dei.
A controversial Catholic organization*, Opus Dei is now widely known
from the bestseller, The Da Vinci Code, a novel by American author Dan
Brown, soon to be a major film starring Tom Hanks that will premiere
at the Cannes Film Festival in May.
In 1928, a Catholic priest who acquired a doctorate in law, Josemarma
Escriva founded Opus Dei in Spain. Escriva's juridical attitude to
religious doctrine permeates Opus Dei and is the source of its
attraction to members of the legal profession. Opus Dei received
massive political support after the fascist victory in the Spanish
Civil War. Generalissimo Francisco Franco protected and fostered
conservative elements within Opus Dei by appointing eight ministers to
powerful positions in his government. In Spain, Opus Dei is still
regarded as a potent political force. In 2002, Escriva was canonized.
Why, then, is an Alito membership in Opus Dei of major significance?
In addition to his activist record on the federal bench and his
conservative ideology, Alito is deemed to be a menace to the balance
of power as well as the constitutional rights of Americans. Judge
Alito's affiliation with Opus Dei may be a factor in the strident
opposition from Edward Kennedy and John Kerry, both progressive Roman
Catholics who do not approve of the influence of religious dogma on
political ideology. The majority of Americans believe in the
separation of church and state, while many religious conservatives
such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell would transform America into a
theocratic state. Robertson and Falwell are staunch supporters of
Judge Alito.
While the Moral Majority, the 700 Club and a growing bloc of Christian
Conservatives have wielded a great deal of political influence in
America, two years ago these protestant fundamentalists formed a
coalition with conservative Catholics to re-elect President George
Bush. In 2004, the Vatican intervened directly into the US
presidential election to endorse their champion, George Bush. The
back-story is both fascinating and compelling, for it illuminates the
political dynamics taking shape in the nomination, possible
confirmation and conflict centring on Alito.
In June, 2004, soon after Bush's papal audience with the late pontiff,
Pope John Paul II, a letter signed by Former Cardinal Josef Ratzinger,
who now reigns as Pope Benedict XVI, threatened to excommunicate any
Catholic politician in favour of abortion as well as any Catholic
voters who would support Kerry at the polls. At that point in the
presidential campaign George Bush was trailing John Kerry by double
digits in the polls, and Bush seemed doomed to become a one-term
president like his father.
During his papal audience with the late Pope John Paul II, Bush is
reported to have complained to the pontiff and other members of the
curia, including Former Cardinal Ratzinger, that he did not have the
total support of all of the US Bishops. Ratzinger's letter swiftly
resolved that dilemma for the politically beleaguered president.
In a perceptive article titled "Holy Warriors," Sidney Blumenthal, a
former advisor to President Clinton, ascribed Bush's narrow victory
over Kerry directly to the political impact of the Ratzinger letter.
During his long career at the Vatican, Former Cardinal Ratzinger's
decisive handling of complicated problems had become a matter of
record. His official investigation of the priestly child abuse scandal
involving Catholic clerics gave him the knowledge and understanding of
the political and legal dynamics prevalent in Bush's America.
During 2002 and 2003, Former Cardinal Ratzinger had been the Prefect
of The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). In previous
centuries, the CDF was known as the Inquisition. In his official
capacity as Prefect, he was largely responsible for the Vatican's
ecclesiastical investigation into thousands of cases of priestly child
sexual abuse. Former Cardinal Ratzinger's handling of that scandal has
been the subject of substantial analysis and criticism.
At the height of the scandal, Former Cardinal Ratzinger wrote a letter
that altered official procedure by reserving all cases of priestly
child sexual abuse to the CDF. Prior to Former Cardinal Ratzinger's
letter, cases of priestly sexual abuse were not restrained in the
exclusive purview of the CDF. Attorneys for victims of priestly child
sexual abuse in Texas argued in court that Former Cardinal Ratzinger's
letter was an obstruction of justice. In a public statement, Former
Cardinal Ratzinger told the Catholic News Service, "Less than one
percent of priests are guilty of acts of this type." Many Catholics
view this statement as callous and an attempt to cover-up the scandal.
Former Cardinal Ratzinger's apparent indifference to the scandal
shocked many Catholics. Many members of the College of Cardinals
harkened to his message of minimizing the importance of the scandal.
One Cardinal attempted to place the blame for the scandal on America's
reputation for excessive litigation. He stated that attorneys were
merely seeking "to make money" from the scandal. In 2005 shortly after
his election to the papacy, Cardinal Ratzinger appeared to promise to
make amends for earlier miscalculations in handling the charges of
priestly child sexual abuse when he made a public commitment to
'attend' to the scandal. How he intends to resolve the scandal remains
to be seen.
The Department of Justice under former Attorney General John Ashcroft,
himself an ardent born again Christian, took no action in that case,
or, more accurately, those cases. Ten thousand victims of priestly
child sexual abuse were discovered in America alone, and the Catholic
Church identified four thousand four hundred and fifty (4,450) of its
own priests who had been incriminated in the United States. As a
direct result of the scandal, the Catholic Church is known to have
paid out more than $1 billion in settlements to the victims of
priestly child sexual abuse. During the past two years many new
reports of priestly child sexual abuse have surfaced in the United
States as well as in other nations. For instance, in Brazil a recent
report identified over 1,400 priests incriminated in child sexual
abuse. Whether any members of Opus Dei were involved in the scandal or
the handling of it is obscured by the secrecy screening the
organization's membership from public scrutiny. Whether members of
Opus Dei wield significant influence in the Vatican's ongoing attempts
to resolve the scandal through negotiations with American government,
law enforcement and criminal justice agencies may never be made
public.
What adds additional interest to the role of Opus Dei and the Catholic
Church in US political life is that for many years unconfirmed reports
have linked Supreme Court Justices Scalia and Thomas to Opus Dei. In
March, 2001, Newsweek reported that the wife of Justice Scalia,
"attended Opus Dei's spiritual functions." Justice Scalia's son,
Father Paul Scalia, personally mediated the conversion of Justice
Clarence Thomas to Roman Catholicism following his confirmation to the
Supreme Court.
In recent years, the ultra-conservative jurist Robert Bork has
converted to Roman Catholicism. In Washington, speculations about Bork
and Opus Dei are relatively common. Other conservative Catholic
politicians associated in the popular media with Opus Dei include
Senators Sam Brownback and Rick Santorum. While the names of priests
and officials of Opus Dei are made public, the identities of the lay
members are not matters of public record, making it appear to be a
secret organization. This situation leaves a question mark over those
markedly conservative Catholics with political prominence.
Opus Dei purports to be apolitical, but its members have been
associated with right-wing political causes since its inception. While
the vast majority of America's Catholics are moderate to progressive
in their views like Senators Kennedy and Kerry and Justice Kennedy,
there is a small but vocal minority who adhere to ultra-conservative
doctrine and dogma and consistently support neoconservative political
candidates and their causes.
The rise to power of religious dogmatists in the guise of an Opus Dei
clique on the Supreme Court through the rulings of Scalia, Thomas, and
potentially Alito is a legitimate cause for concern not only on
Capitol Hill, but also throughout America. Just imagine the outcry if
the Supreme Court had four radical Islamicists, four zealous Zionists
or four fixated followers of Reverend Sun Myung Moon. The case of
Samuel Alito raises a serious question: is George Bush attempting to
pack the Supreme Court with religious extremists?
If Alito is confirmed, his presence will create a majority of five
Catholic justices on the US Supreme Court. Justice Anthony Kennedy is
a liberal Catholic, while the recently appointed Chief Justice, John
Roberts, is another deeply conservative Catholic jurist whose devout
religious views have also given rise to speculation involving Opus
Dei. Alito would bring to four the total of ultra-conservative
Catholics on the US Supreme Court, forming an alliance that would be
legal, judicial and religious.
In his infamous text, The Way, Saint Josemarma Escriva wrote,
"Nonsectarianism. Neutrality. Those old myths that always try to
seem new. Have you ever bothered to think how absurd it is to leave
one's Catholicism aside on entering a university, or a professional
association, or a scholarly meeting, or Congress, as if you were
checking your hat at the door?"
There can be little serious doubt that the progressive Catholic
members of the Senate are well aware of this famous tenet of Opus Dei.
That may well be why they are stridently opposing the confirmation of
the arch-conservative and dogmatic Catholic jurist, Judge Samuel
Alito.
*Opus Dei, in full Prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei, was
founded in 1928 in Spain by Josemarma Escriva de Balaguer y Alba
(canonized in 2002). It is theologically conservative and accepts the
teaching authority of the church without question. It was granted
special status as the first and only personal prelature in the church
by Pope John Paul II in 1982. Opus Dei is the subject of a growing
body of academic papers, articles, books, documentaries and films
surveying trends in western religion probing its political influence
and its connection to fascist regimes.
[Michael Carmichael has been a professional public affairs consultant,
author and broadcaster since 1968, . In 2003, he founded The Planetary
Movement Limited, a global public affairs organization based in the
United Kingdom. He has appeared as a public affairs expert on the
BBC's Today Programme, Hardtalk, PM, as well as numerous appearances
on ITN, NPR and many European broadcasts examining politics and
culture. He can be reahced through his website:
http://www.planetarymovement.org]
*
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