No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
— Matthew 6:24
As reported here previously, on October 17, 2016
a presentation was given at St. Ann Catholic Church Arlington, Virginia on “Refugee Resettlement in the U.S.: A National and Local Humanitarian Response”. The event was organized jointly by the Catholic Diocese of Arlington and the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services.
The presentation was led by Anastasia Brown, the Director of the Division of Refugee Services in the Office of Refugee Resettlement. Ms. Brown is also the former Director of Refugee Programs for Migration and Refugee Services of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
After the presentation Major Stephen Coughlin (US Army-ret.), the author of Catastrophic Failure: Blindfolding America in the Face of Jihad
Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for uploading and subtitling this audio:
Transcript (using times from the full audio file):
| 1:31:22 | You said there’s absolutely, positively no proselytizing. | |
| 1:31:26 | Yes? For the Church, I mean in terms of… | |
| 1:31:30 | I mean going out and helping refugees. I understand | |
| 1:31:34 | that the first thing to do is not to try and convert them. That’s an entirely | |
| 1:31:38 | different thing than saying, as a religious organization, | |
| 1:31:42 | the USCCB has to forswear the Great Commission as a condition of getting into that program. | |
| 1:31:46 | And so my question on that is: | |
| 1:31:50 | at what point do you [think the Church is (garbled)] | |
| 1:31:54 | taking note of the fact that there is an intense intertwinement between USCCB | |
| 1:31:58 | and HHS. So, I could talk about a revolving door here. | |
| 1:32:02 | My question becomes: At what point does | |
| 1:32:06 | surrendering the mission of the Church, for a government program, | |
| 1:32:10 | where everything seems to relate back to government policy, | |
| 1:32:14 | put the USCCB in a situation, where they can’t say they’re doing it, | |
| 1:32:18 | to bring the people to God, which is their primary mission, | |
| 1:32:22 | then falling back on HHS documents or talking points, | |
| 1:32:26 | at what point does this become something about, a question where | |
| 1:32:30 | you’re acting as an intermediary, who actually got a policy | |
| 1:32:34 | and puts a buffer between — | |
| 1:32:38 | I could not speak for USCCB I no longer work for USCCB. | |
| 1:32:42 | But you did? —I did, but I do not… I would not be | |
| 1:32:46 | a spokesperson on behalf of the USCCB. The Federal Government | |
| 1:32:50 | does have regulations about how federal funding can be spent, | |
| 1:32:54 | and the regulation would not preclude | |
| 1:32:58 | a religious organization from their mission. | |
| 1:33:02 | What it does, you would say that, those that you are serving | |
| 1:33:06 | with the federal government funding at the same | |
| 1:33:11 | … | |
| 1:33:15 | in the same time or place you cannot… religious | |
| 1:33:19 | how to say, religious lessons | |
| 1:33:23 | so there’s nothing there that’s saying that the USCCB or any of the | |
| 1:33:27 | religious organizations could not carry on their mission, it’s simply | |
| 1:33:31 | that at the time you are providing the federal service, | |
| 1:33:35 | you’re not at the same time providing a religious service. | |
| 1:33:39 | Yes. |
To keep up-to-date on refugee resettlement news, read Refugee Resettlement Watch.
” ….at the time you are providing the federal service you’re not at the same time providing a religious service.”
That answers the question.
Any time that the organisation is involved with these “refugees” is the time that they are providing the federal service.
Anyone knowing their world history, that is REAL world history, cannot fail to appreciate that the Catholic Church is in fact two entities. One side presents itself as a saviour of mankind while doing good deeds, while the other side is at the root of all evil.
Does anyone realize that the Jesuits were the originators of Communism, and in fact had set up a commune as early as the 17th Century at a native village in South America?
Does anyone realize that Marx and Stalin, along with many other names of noted infamy, were trained by the Jesuits?
Coughlin needs to delve a little deeper to get a wider appreciation of the BIG picture and the system that has controlled the world for millennia.
Actually, various theories of ‘communistic’ communities trace back at least as far as Plato’s thought experiments in his Republic.
And quite a number of Jesuits were responsible for developing philosophical and theological defenses of truly free markets (Faith and Liberty: Economic Thought of Late Scholastics, by A. A. Chafuen). They were preceded by many medieval theologians (O. Langholm, Economics in the Medieval Schools: Wealth, Exchange, Value, Money & Usury according to the Paris Theological Tradition 1200-1350).
The Church in the West (as in the East) has a very complex history, some splendid and some warped, but its failures are always due to specific persons at specific times and places.
In no way is it ‘the root of all evil.’ In fact, the number of my and your ancestors in past centuries would be enormous who considered themselves to be firm members of that society supposedly founded by Christ.
The Church, like so many institutions composed of imperfect flesh and blood human beings has had, and has, its ups and downs and ins and outs.
Best regards,
Leon, it was the Jesuits who perfected the system now known as Communism and it was the Jesuits who vetted pupils, such as Marx and Stalin, at Catholic schools for their ‘idealistic flair’ that could be moulded into their ultimate goal.
I stated that the Church is really two entities, one side that presents itself as the doer of good, and which it does in most part, and another side that is the root of all evil. It is this side that the Jesuits inhabit and their foul deeds against Popes, Kings and whole nations that have wished them gone, is a fact of history.
The Jesuits have been referred to by some as the Catholic Church’s SS.
The killing off of the Merovingian Kings, the Cathars, the barbarity of the Inquisition are all down to the Catholic Church. Have you asked yourself why that was done? Did those who were killed off possess a secret the Church did not wish to share with the rest of us? And while the Church began to exercise more humane practises after the Reformation that saw the founding of the Jesuits, maybe you could look up the reasoning behind why the Vatican would provide assistance in seeing some of the most wanted Nazis escape to all points of the compass toward the end of, and after the Second World War came to its conclusion via the Vatican Ratlines?
There became two Churches, one in the East and the West because the Eastern Orthodox Church held fast to Christ’s teachings while the Western Church buried most of them at the Council of Nicea.
I ask of you this question. Who is it that runs the Vatican?
Who runs the Vatican? Probably the same strange entity that inhabits and governs your severe paranoia…it’s an interesting story, Nemesis, and perfect food/fodder for those who feed on paranoia. But it’s your story about my faith so I’ll take it with a large grain of Catholic salt, thank you very much.
The Church was here before Islam and it will still be here after Islam is gone…and long after Pope Francis has gone to his reward, whatever that might be.
You don’t even consider that one of the most bitter pills I have had to swallow concerning my own faith is what I write about?
Have you have never wondered how the history as we have been shown it has come about?
Paranoia? Maybe better to suffer a little from that than to be blinded by a faith that has no basis in reality and has been responsible for much of our violent history and the undermining of the American Republic – and by faith I do not refer to the Roman Catholic Church and to real Christian beliefs and values.
my last sentence should read – and by faith I refer to the Roman Catholic Church and not to real Christian beliefs and values.
You are swallowing whole hog a lot of concocted narratives that don’t stand up to meticulous historical analysis.
If you actually believe that Marx obtained his fundamental ideas concerning class warfare, along with his utilization of principles from Hegel (who epitomized, coming after Kant, a commitment to the supposed absolute supremacy of German nationalism as having been conditioned by the Lutheran reformation) from going to what was a Jesuit high school, you are making a extremely ill-founded hasty generalization.
The same could be said about all your other examples as well, but I can’t waste my life trying to dissuade you from your presumption of having profound historical knowledge due to having read the concocted narrative of one or two people who have cut and pasted their own interpretations of things together out of a blind hatred of the Western Church.
The complex events that followed in the wake of Nicea surely do not indicate that the Eastern Orthodox emerged as having a monopoly on Christ’s teachings in contrast to the Western Church.
As for who runs the Vatican, to tell the truth, it is such a typically disheveled disaster, more often than not, that would be hard to tell.
But I’m sure you have read someone who claims to infallibly know exactly who has been doing so for at least the last 1000 or so years.
Best regards.
Thank you Leon for your response to what has taken me many years of research to realize. The only Church still associated with true early Christendom is now the Russian Orthodox Church, which is also known as the Church of the East.
You dismiss my claim out of hand yet also dismiss refuting it. Does that mean you are;
a. Completely convinced of your own belief regarding the Roman Church that your mind is now closed to other possibilities, especially possibilities that tend to tie many historical loose threads together when one chooses to seek real history or;
b. You do not wish to uncover what may be the most bitter pill one will ever swallow in their lifetime when it comes to human values?
Churchill once quipped, that when people get to realize who controls the world and after they pick themselves up and dust themselves off, they carry on as if nothing happened. Or, words to that effect.
I believe the Church’s history, especially that of the violence it is associated with speaks for itself. There are many recorded clues hidden within the many actions that the Church has deemed necessary to take that are there to explore, if one has the courage to do so.
Best regards to you also.
Oh, I suspect Maj. Coughlin is well aware of his question and its suggestion.
-West
Commune is not a dirty word. As long as the participants are there of their own free will, and as long as this form of local government is not forced on those who eschew it.
Kibbutzim are Jewish egalitarian communes established in Israel since early in the 20th century. Some have evolved to a non-egalitarian model, some have retained their original charter. People are free to leave, while joining is subject to communal wish. So they are communist, but not despotic. Totally removed from oppressive socialism.
y. You present a system that is set up for a common purpose and goal that everyone is supposed to share in – the Commune. That system may be reflective of what Communism represents to some thinkers, but it is still a system that does not take into a account the varied personalities and ideals of all individuals. That kind of system will only work when everyone within it conforms to one view (survival) and one rallying point (national identity) and is prepared to give up their individuality and rights to the common good of all involved.
The Kibbutz is a classic example of a successful commune but, what is generally forgotten in those who champion such a system is that when the work and the guarding of the area are over everyone is free to do as they please within the confines of the Kibbutz.
Try doing that in a full blown Communist country like China or the old USSR.
That is why any form of ‘democracy’ within a commune will always see the system fall apart – Communism and Democracy are completely incompatible as one aspect will always conflict with the other.
I do so appreciate Maj. Coughlin’s enormous contributions to exposing how Islam is being seeded and burrowed into our societies in the West — and that by our very own governments.
The church exists to proclaim the Gospel; all other good works are secondary to that. Why the USCCB should involve itself in an arena in which it cannot bring the good news of Christ suggests a number of troubling questions regarding its motivations; at the very least, its theological confusion is concerning.
USCCB: Water boys.
If the purpose of the USCCB is to provide a service which is totally removed from any religious connotations – then the the USCCB should not be approaching religious establishments to provide that service.
It’s called “Politically Correct Religion.” Rome has always been good at that. Read how Origen changed the straight wording of the Gospels. Personally, I am not surprised. The RCC has been of this world for the past 1,700 years. As for being forbidden from proselytizing, it’s just as well. Rome’s version places Church dogma above the Word of God. Martin Luther ‘nailed’ them for that 499 years ago yesterday. His cry of “Sola Fides, Sola Gracia, Sola Scriptura” is what should be cried aloud in the street to really scare these Laeodocian apostates who have no qualms about selling out to the government while baking cakes to the Queen of Heaven (Mary and the Eucharist).
Happy All Saints Day, including those of New Orleans. 🙂
Ah…in Nawlins, they know how to celebrate feast days…the genius of the Liturgical Year with its feast days appeals to the Creole nature of that town. A French (several varieties), Spanish, black and Indian (native American indian) melange gives New Orleans its distinctive celebratory and corrupt nature. There is no other place on the planet quite like it, especially as you get further back in bayou country…
John Kennedy O’Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces remains the definitive story:
http://amzn.to/2eolcOy
After Mr O’Toole committed suicide bec of his failure to get the book accepted, his mother started her own campaign for the book. Eventually a respected writer (Walker Percy) took pity on her, read the massive mess, and knew it needed to be published. I have linked the mass market edition. IIRC, it has Percy’s backgrounder.
An Englishman called Pastor D who runs an orphanage in Bulgaria,has been arrested for deportation back to England . 18months ago he posted in advance the Popes encyclical on his you tube channel.Welcome to the NWO and the end of biblical truth being expressed.We are now in a fascist totalitarian world system run by luciferians.The bible predicts,one world government,one world religion,and a one world currency,and the removal of christians who believe Jesus is the ONLY way.Pastor Ds arrest signals a dramatic end to freedom of speech.Does anyone still believe that this Pope is a christian?As it says in Revelation,Come out of her my people.
Arrested by whom, Bimsy? Not sure the RCC is that powerful, particularly in Orthodox Bulgara.
Pastor D had a copy of the encyclical before it was released by the Pope.He talked about the encyclical on you tube in advance,also.In hindsight he now believes he was foolish and possibly set up as someone sent him a copy through the post.As a result of this he was sacked from his government job.At that time he was in London,but he moved to Bulgaria after having his church infiltrated by m15 and later a threat was made to kill him and his sister.At that point he fled to Bulgaria to set up a school in a very deprived area,only now to be imprisoned prior to deportation for trial in London.Stephen Ben De Noon has also been threatened and told not to talk about matters relating to the vatican,and he said so 2 days ago on his you tube channel when speaking in support of Pastor D. Join the dots it is not rocket science were it leads back to.
You haven’t answered my question. Deportation to London by what civil authority, charged with what crime under UK law?
Actually the Curch is doing the islamic missonary work for the Muslims.
Intended or not.
The involved churches are participants in the Hijra, no doubt, and so are its individual participants, knowingly or not, just as you say.
I always had a bad feeling about organized religions. I do not have a problem with a priest or preacher directly working with a local community, as most of them are great people and they are essentially the original therapists. But the organization is a completely different type of animal. Corruption increases as the levels goes up, more and more prevalent the religion control aspect and not the spiritual side.
If it would be up to me all religious organization should be disbanded and only individual practitioners (preachers, priests) would have left supported by only their communities.
Crossware: I agree with you. Local churches in local communities. No Nat.’l HQ, church councils or any denominational hierarchies. Power corrupts and controls. Protestant churches that have gone independent of any control are few. Ours is small but not controlled by anyone. Preachers have full time jobs during the week. We are not a 501c3. Tax Exempt churches and their nat. hq are controlled by gov. on what they can preach and must be pol. correct. Liberal protestant church groups are helping resettle Muslims in the USA along with the Catholic groups.
The notable exception is Calvary chapel, each franchise independently owned and operated (giggle). They serve the Word of God straight up and are 501.3C. Our branch in Chino Hills is on the front lines with evangelism and holding California’s toes to the fire. The recent mess with California ordering pro-life centers to refer people to planned p-hood and carrying a health insurance rider for elective abortions is being challenged in court. We led the fight for Prop 8 and broadcast our services around the world. The pastor has about the same income as I do and works longer and harder, (I’d like to know how he does it). So there you go, there are a few of us who are serious (Sirius) about the Word of God. We had to build the church building we did back in 2004 because people kept coming and we ran out of room. They are still coming and we are out of room again. All we do is preach the Word, in season and out, unlike those churches with empty parking lots that are sponsored by the government.
I would like to over simplify my view on the current situation of the Catholic Church. In the nineteen fifties, the Catholic Church felt that they have to, somehow, get into some understanding with the Jews. There was the guilt feeling about their alleged cooperation with Hitler and there was the unprecedented phenomenon of the revival of a political Jewish entity in the holy land. However, being who they were, they could not bring themselves to do that and open bilateral negotiations with the Jews on equal terms. Instead, they proposed ecumenical efforts towards dialogue with other religions (to use their own language) regardless whether such other religions were interested or not.
The problem was that by doing so, instead of getting to a meaningful understanding with the only group that was really interested (i.e. the Jews) and be done, they opened themselves to continuous pressure from within and from the outside to relax their standards and they ended up selling the whole store and their soul. No wonder that it looks to us like they worship Mammon rather than God, because this is what they do.
ZTF
Well, I must say the commentariat here was very interesting. I don’t know enough about it so I simply read it. I haven’t been to church in two years (since my husband’s stroke) so I guess I’m still a bit mad at God himself. . . and I know it’s stupid of me but I do have my stupid side (despite my relatively high IQ — not genius leve, but at least supposedly intelligent).
However, kudos to you, Baron and Dymphna, for entertaining some of these varied but interesting topics. It’s why I keep coming back every day. As soon as I recover from paying for a couple of education bills for grandchildren, I will send you a contribution. I had no idea that the grands would be so expensive! But I’m learning.