Revelations about the featured speakers at the
Boston Archdiocese’s Social Justice conference this coming Saturday are getting worse every day, and more and more Catholics from across the country are sounding the alarm bells as part of our “Boston Catholic Tea Party” protest. Today we hear more about support for gay activism and Marxism by the two featured speakers, Fr. James Massaro and Fr. Bryan Hehir, respectively. Yes, we said Marxism. Read on to see details of Fr. Hehir’s infamous talk in the “Matthew, Marx, Luke, and John” series at the left-leaning, Marxist-oriented Institute for Policy Studies. Could the Boston Archdiocese possibly pick two worse speakers to place on the speaking podium? Click on the FedUp button now to sign out letter of complaint to the Holy See.
By now, many people know that on October 9, the archdiocese is sponsoring a Social Justice Conference, featuring Fr. Thomas Massaro, SJ from Boston College along with Fr. Bryan Hehir. We told you how Fr. Massaro was one of 26 signatories to a public letter supporting the nomination of pro-abortion former Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Obama administration. Her position opposing the Church on partial birth abortion resulted in Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann asking her to not receive Communion until she repudiated her stance and make a “worthy sacramental confession.”
Marxism and Fr. Bryan Hehir
We’ll get to more on the GLBT agenda supported by the commission Fr. Massaro co-chairs, but first, the Marxism angle and Fr. Bryan Hehir.
If you’ve been reading this blog, you know about Fr. Bryan Hehir’s undermining Church teaching for nearly 40 years, and thus helping lead souls from salvation–including his presiding over Catholic Charities of Boston when they brokered adoptions to gay couples and when they honored the pro-abortion/pro-gay mayor of Boston, and his undermining Catholic teachings on abortion, Catholic conscience exemptions, women priests, and voting for pro-abortion politicians.
What you may not have known is Fr. Hehir’s past involvement with the Marxist-oriented, gay-agenda-supportive Washington, DC think tank, the Institute for Policy Studies. Fr. Hehir gave multiple talks there in the 1980s, including speaking in their Washington School series, “Matthew, Marx, Luke, and John” in October of 1983.
As you’ll see by this content on Religious Left Exposed, during the 1980s, the IPS served as a base of operations for those opposed to President Ronald Reagan’s anti-communist foreign policy. It was dedicated to the establishment of revolutionary Marxist and anti-American regimes in Central and Latin America and elsewhere and describes itself as the nation’s oldest progressive multi-issue think-tank. A 
New York Times Magazine article from April of 2001 exposes IPS as founded on radical, revolutionary and Marxist principles, talking about one contingent described by the IPS director as coming from a Marxist of almost completely comes from a Marxist or liberation basis. One IPS journal has featured “articles celebrating Communist victories in Laos and Angola.”
Anyway, so we were going through the Bryan Hehir archives and found this information about the Washington School series he spoke in (see p. 2).
Matthew, Marx, Luke and John: Theology of the Oppressed
Worldwide poverty and exploitation have brought religious ideological support for conservatism to a crisis. Liberation theologies—particularly black, feminist and Latin American—provide an ideological counterthrust on behalf of the insurgent resistance. This course, while focusing on the present through the prism of Vatican II, will discuss ancient and medieval precedents of peasant insurgency and rebellion, together with the practical and ideological leadership provided by priests and lay Christians who, basing themselves in the Bible, defined and ideology for the oppression, not the oppressors. Topics will include:
- ancient and medieval theology: practice and theory
- parallels in feminist and Latin American theology
- the Catholic Bishops’ Letter on War and Peace
- the future of the Christian alliance with Marxism
For attending that series, participants got a free pass to their series on liberation theology. Among the other speakers in the 1983 series was the radical lesbian feminist theologian, Mary Hunt. Hehir also spoke with her on a panel in a 2002 program at Regis College, where he said, “in 20th century Catholicism, teachings on sexuality have been “a chronically afflicted area.” You can read more about that program and Mary Hunt here.
In case you think this is just a matter of “guilt by association,” this was not just a one-off talk; Fr. Hehir spoke at the IPS more than once. We could go on and on about the IPS’s involvement with Marxist and Communist causes and activism. Here is a short IPS slide presentation from Religious Left Exposed that highlights a number of troubling revelations we barely have time to share.
As you can see, the IPS was involved in a wide range of left-wing activities. In 1984 they hosted “Sister Boom-Boom” of the “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence,” a group of “Queer Nuns” who mocked the Catholic Church. The history of the IPS on their website proudly conveys how “Rita Mae Brown wrote and published her path-breaking lesbian coming-of-age novel Rubyfruit Jungle while on the staff in the 1970s.”
Cardinal O’Malley, we know you see Fr. Hehir as a “trusted advisor” and Vicar General, Fr. Erikson, we know you recently described Fr. Hehir as a “good friend.” Is the background reported here not sufficient to disqualify him as a speaker at the upcoming conference? Or do we need to remind you about how he told a Boston College forum this spring he was concerned Catholic conscience rights could harm the freedom of women to get abortions? And do we need to remind you of how he praised the “intelligent and courageous leadership” of the Catholic Health Association at their conference immediately after they helped pass the Obama-backed healthcare legislation that was actively opposed by the U.S.C.C.B. because it allowed funding for abortions?
GLBT Agenda and Cambridge Peace Commission where Fr. Massaro is Co-Chair
If that isn’t enough to disqualify Fr. Hehir from speaking, and if Fr. Massaro’s support for the pro-abortion Kathleen Sebelius wasn’t enough to disqualify Massaro from speaking at an archdiocesan-sponsored forum, here’s more. In our last post we covered Fr. Massaro’s service as co-chair, of the Cambridge Peace Commission, an organization linked with the GLBT agenda which has honored several gay activists in recent years. Fr. Massaro joined the commission in 2003, and in 2006, they gave an award to Emma Howe, who “planted ‘seeds’ of diversity in Cambridge for school families and GLBT communities.” An alert reader noted that Ms. Howe played a key role introducing a GLBT curriculum to school children from kindergarten on up in a Lexington’s elementary school.
Does Fr. Massaro advocate what Emmy Howe achieved when she implemented the curriculum “Making Room in the Circle” into the Estabrook Elementary School in Lexington? Read the Bay Windows article: “Show and Tell” by Ethan Jacobs (6/22/2006 ) to see exactly what she achieved. Read the Glossary of the curriculum “Making Room in the Circle” to see how the children have been indoctrinated into the LGBT way of life! In the Bay Windows article it states: ”She praised Lexington’s efforts at creating an inclusive classroom and said schools need to accept that whatever the feelings of individual parents, same-sex marriage is the law of the land.” Emmy Howe also teaches courses in how to implement the GLBT curriculum for teaches taking courses at Wheelock College.
Fed up yet? This past May the Cambridge Peace Commission held its 12th Cambridge Peace and Justice Awards and an award was given to Sarav Chidambaram of the Cambridge GLBT Commission “for his work as an advocate and activist within the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender community.” Blogger Paul Melanson asks, “Did Father Massaro vote to award Mr. Chidambaram for his pro-homosexual activism? If so, how does he reconcile such an action with being a Roman Catholic priest who is supposed to demonstrate a submission of mind and will to the Magisterium of the Church (Lumen Gentium, No. 25).
Faithful Catholics are Fed Up with how the Archdiocese of Boston is ignoring objections and allowing this conference to proceed with these two speakers, whose history is one of dissenting from or undermining Church teachings, breaking unity with the Body of Christ, and thereby helping lead souls away from salvation. Both speakers should be removed from the agenda and whomever invited and approved Fr. Massaro as a speaker should be removed from their position.
Hit the FedUp button to send a message to the Holy See and Cardinal O’Malley about this ongoing travesty. After you send the fax, we also suggest that readers drop a dime to the Papal Nuncio in Washington, DC, His Excellency Pietro Sambi at (202)333-7121. When the nice woman, Sr. Mary, picks up the phone, let her know that you sent a fax, and ask her if she can report to you on how specifically His Excellency is handling this situation.
Bryan Hehir Exposed 
In the third paragraph of the above post, a typo was made regarding the name of the woman who was honored by Fr. Massaro, as co-chair of the Cambridge Peace Commission. Her name is Emmy Howe(not Emma Lowe).
Thanks–typo is fixed now.
Here’s a questionnaire someone might want to hand out at the conference:
Q. Do children in the womb enjoy the identical right to life and right to protection of life as you and I?
Q. Do you concur with Pope Pius XI and Pope Leo XIII that socialism “cannot be reconciled with the teachings of the Catholic Church because its concept of society itself is utterly foreign to Christian truth”? [Quadragesimo Anno (1931) Pius IX, no. 117. (also Leo XIII multiple condemnations)]
Q. Do you join with Popes Ven. Pius IX, Leo XIII and Pius XI in condemning “that infamous doctrine of so-called Communism which is absolutely contrary to the natural law itself, and if once adopted would utterly destroy the rights, property and possessions of all men, and even society itself”? [Pius IX encyclical and Syllabus, quoted by Pius XI in Divini redemptoris (1937) no. 4 (also Leo XIII called communism a “fatal plague”)]
Q. Do you concur with the Fathers and catechisms of the Church (e.g., Trent) that the sin of Sodom cries out to God for vengeance?
Q. Do you concur with St. Paul (1 Cor 9) and the Catechism of Trent that “Neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor sodomites shall possess the kingdom of God”?
When you start praising President Reagan…I get a little nervous…Didn’t he lie to all of us about our government’s activities in Central America?
I do not see this post as “praising President Reagan.” My read is that the point here is the U.S. foreign policy during that time period (under Reagan) was clearly anti-Communist, and the IPS served as a locus of activity and activism for those opposed to the U.S. anti-Communist foreign policy–whether that be in Nicaragua, the former Soviet Union, and elsewhere. Is there any question in your mind from the documentation that the IPS had a Marxist/Communist bent? Is there any question in your mind as to whether Fr. Hehir was a part of that, speaking in their program called, “Matthew, Marx, Luke, and John” and at other programs their? Do you think Hehir should be put up on a podium speaking at an archdiocesan-sponsored conference? For me, it’s a no brainer, and I commend these bloggers for their heroic job of documenting this.
Fr. Erikson of the Boston Archdiocese has asserted that the authors of this Blog have engaged in “consistently inappropriate and cruel disparagement of Fr. J. Bryan Hehir.” As readers of this Blog know full well, when pressed to cite specific examples of this “consistent” behavior, Fr. Erikson wasn’t up to the task.
Now we must ask Fr. Erikson a question. When Pius XI wrote these words in his Encyclical Letter Quadragesimo Anno, “No one can be at the same time a sincere Catholic and a true socialist,” do you think he was joking? How does one reconcile Fr. Bryan Hehir’s promotion of Liberation Theology and Marxist ideology with Roman Catholicism?
Father Erikson?
No doubt I will now be accused of engaging in “inappropriate and cruel disparagement.” Very often, those in power do not like to be questioned by those they relegate to inferior status: “They [the Pharisees] answered and said to him, ‘You were born totally in sin, and are you trying to teach us?’ Then they threw him out…Then Jesus said, ‘I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see might see, and those who do see might become blind.’ Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this and said to him, ‘Surely we are not also blind, are we?’ Jesus said to them, ‘If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you are saying, ‘We see,’ so your sin remains.” (John 9: 34, 39-41).
A sign of hope?
Minneapolis Archbishop Nienstedt Refuses Communion to Homosexuals at Modernist Abbey
http://eponymousflower.blogspot.com/2010/10/archbishop-nienstedt-refuses-communion.html
Reagan was a great president. Far better than the current one.
Dear Joan Moran:–For me, whenever former Pres. Reagan is praised, I get “nervous” about how NO-ONE, and I do mean NO-ONE, mentions the well-documented FACT, that as Governor of California in 1967 Reagan opened up the FLOODGATES to Roe V. Wade, in January of 1973, by his sighing into law the liberalization of abortion law. Only New York joined his actions in doing so by, I think, 1970. And Reagan signed that liberalization of abortion OVER THE PROTESTS of the Bishops of California. In fact he WOULD NOT LISTEN to them. May God have mercy on his soul for that ABOMINABLE ACT. GOD BLESS ALL, MARKRITE
MARKRITE,
Reagan did sign into law a liberalization of abortion law, but what you failed to mention was the rest of the story on that tragic act–namely that Reagan’s legal advisors told him it would leave the vast majority of abortions illegal and it was the ill-defined and ill-understood “health exception” that allowed for that to happen. See:
http://www.lifenews.com/nat3790.html
Revisionist History: Misrepresenting President Ronald Reagan’s Abortion Record
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
March 11, 2008
Conservative voters long for another Ronald Reagan as president and his deeply felt pro-life views are still alluring to pro-life people long after his administration. Pro-life advocates always felt Reagan was “one of us” and understood their passion to protect unborn children — but some revisionist historians would like nothing more than to confuse the record.
By misrepresenting President Reagan’s abortion record, these historians can confuse and divide the grassroots pro-life community and make it more difficult to rally around future presidential candidate.
Florida State University associate professor of history Michael Creswell is the latest to engage in the practice.
In a Tuesday editorial, Creswell accuses pro-life advocates of “remembering Reagan’s record selectively” and claimed “Reagan often embraced policies sharply at odds with conservative philosophy.”
“Almost all conservatives oppose abortion,” Creswell writes. “But in 1967, only four months into his first term as governor of California, Reagan signed into law a bill that resulted in millions of abortions due to a provision in the bill allowing abortions for the well-being of the mother.”
“Times have changed. Few of today’s conservatives would support a politician who signed a similar bill,” he adds. “Among the 10 major Republicans who have run for president this year, only Rudolph Giuliani supported abortion rights.”
Creswell conveniently tells just half of the story. And if his recounting of the history of Reagan’s abortion actions ended there, pro-life advocates would have reason to be concerned.
But the facts go well beyond Creswell’s revisionist history.
In the 2005 book “Essential Ronald Reagan,” writer Lee Edwards points out that Reagan felt duped into signing the measure because his legal advisors told him it would leave the vast majority of abortions illegal.
He writes that Reagan came to “deeply” regret signing the bill.
In a period before Roe v. Wade, Reagan didn’t have the advantage of knowing that abortion advocates and courts would misuse the health exception in the bill to allow virtually all abortions to become legal. That wasn’t Reagan’s intent at all, despite Creswell’s presentation of Reagan as an abortion advocate whom pro-life voters would distrust.
Reagan’s most able biographer, Lou Cannon, writes that Reagan have never really grappled with the issue of abortion, but that he experienced regret as soon as 1968 over signing the bill.
Reagan said that “those were awful weeks” when he realized the fallout from the legislation and that he would never have signed the bill if he had “been a more experienced governor.”
As Edwards points out and Creswell leaves out, “When legislators in 1970 proposed new liberalizations in the abortion law, Reagan successfully opposed them.”
see here for the rest of the article:
http://www.lifenews.com/nat3790.html
Reagan wrote a book opposing abortion as President. Here’s another article by him against abortion:
http://old.nationalreview.com/document/reagan200406101030.asp
Yes, he made a tragic mistake as Gov. of California. May God have mercy on his soul. But let’s also not forget the rest of the story. He publicly regretted the decision and repented, and took action subsequently to reduce abortions once he learned more about the consequences of his flawed action. That is a hell of a lot better than Ted Kennedy and the guy we have in the White House today.
Reagan always said he was duped..no excuse..he said he was duped when he broke the law in Central America also.
And what is Cardinal Sean O’Malley’s excuse for the Fr. Thomas Massaro fiasco and for the scandal of Fr. Bryan Hehir? That he was duped? That he just didn’t know?
Isn’t Cardinal O’Malley a man of excuses as well?
This Blog isn’t about Ronald Wilson Reagan. It is about Fr. J. Bryan Hehir and an out-of-control Archdiocese which appears hell-bent onpromoting dissent from Church teaching and homosexual agitprop.
In light of the following recent newspaper reports, isn’t it cruel treatment of children to teach them that the acceptance of homosexual activity is good and healthy? The news reports are:
(1)”One in Five: HIV in the American LGBT Population” by Mike Stobbe,Associated Press, Sept. 24,2020-article in Edge (a pro-homosexual newspaper)( http:www.edgeboston.com/index.php?ch=style=life&sc3=&id=110768&pf=1)
(2)”Study: 29 percent of gay/bi Bostonians with HIV unaware of their status”,by Peter Cassels,Edge contributor.Sept. 27,2010-article in Edge.(http:www.edgeboston.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=&sc3=&id=110796&pf=1)
(3)”CDC: One in five gay/bi urban men is HIV positive”, by Hannah Clay Wareham,Assoc. Editor,Sept. 24, article in Bay Windows-“New England’s largest GLBT newspaper”.(http://www.baywindows.com/index-php?ch=news&sc=glbt&sc3=110774&pf=1)
(4) CDC-Center For Disease Control and Prevention:Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report article “Prevalence and Awareness of HIV Infection Among Men Who Have Sex With Men-21 Cities, United States,2008, article appeared in CDC Weekly,Sept. 24,2010.
David, thank you for your comment! We were about to say the same thing. This blog is about exposing the words and actions of Fr. Bryan Hehir, and this post is about the upcoming conference and the archdiocese’s promotion of two speakers with public records of undermining Church teachings as described above. If people have further comments about President Reagan, we suggest you find another blog for those comments.
I agree we should not be talking about Reagan but it was the writers of this blog that first brought up his name .
Joan, the authors of this Blog brought up Reagan’s name not to rubber stamp everything he said and did but to emphasize that, “..the IPS served as a base of operations for those opposed to President Ronald Reagan’s anti-communist foreign policy.”
I cannot help but wonder why Fr. Hehir’s involvement with IPS is of little concern for you. Are you a Catholic? Have you no problem with the Marxist ideology and homosexual agitprop of this extreme leftist organization?
I am Catholic and I think this blog does some very good work by making public these terrible things that members of the local Catholic Church are saying and doing
Joan,
No offense, but please reread the title of the post, the first paragraph, and everything else in this 1,500-word post besides the three words “President Ronald Reagan.” Indeed, as David and others said, we did not rubber-stamp anything about him–we cited the factual information that the IPS opposed Reagan’s anti-communist foreign policy to exemplify how the IPS was pro-communist. All of the info we referenced shows that.
It seems that you have no problem with the Marxist-oriented, gay-agenda-supportive IPS and are not concerned with Fr. Hehir’s involvement with the IPS, so it is perfectly fine for you to simply say nothing more. If you comment again on Reagan, your comment will be moderated/deleted.
I’m glad editors nipped the hijack.
Rational people draw a distinction between people who have spent their entire lives thwarting and undermining and working against the sanctity of life and somebody who may have made a few mistakes along the way.
Our detractors will use that to undermine our credibility.
Let us take care in who we throw under the bus.
Here’s a tidbit on IPS co-founder James Warburg:
Warburg was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He has gained some notoriety for the following quote: “We shall have world government, whether or not we like it. The question is only whether world government will be achieved by consent or by conquest.”
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Warburg
J. Bryan Hehir is also a member of the CFR.
Frightening.
More frightening: Some history on the founding of the IPS by the Rubin Foundation. Samuel Rubin was a Communist (and rich American!). His daughter, Cora Weiss, is a Communist who was “instrumental” in founding the IPS. She directed disarmament rallies at the infamous NY Riverside church in the 1980’s.
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/funderprofile.asp?fndid=5348&category=79
Bottom line: The IPS is a Communist (Soviet Union) front group. For Hehir to countenance it is a clear sign that he is, at the very least, a Communist sympathizer, if not an agent. Hehir, along with many other priests and bishops, may be among the Communist infiltrators into the Church, as described by Bella Dodd in her Congressional testimony in the 1950’s. (See http://www.fatimaperspectives.com/cs/perspective235.asp )
Sarav Chidambaram and Cambridge Community Television (CCTV) have produced a film entitled “We’re Queer, We’re Here: Get Used to it” as part of the celebration of “National coming out day” which is to be held on October 11th of this year.
See here:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=14&ved=0CBoQFjADOAo&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cctvcambridge.org%2Fnode%2F58450&ei=Lp6wTIzVAZP0tgPhwKCfDA&usg=AFQjCNGKOiC6piIlWRtbw-caWJQLJ8VKGw
This is nothing less than in-your-face militant homosexual activism. I would still like to know if Father Thomas Massaro voted to award Mr. Chidambaram for his homosexual activism. I would also like to know if the Boston Archdiocese intends to investigate this matter at all.
No Father Erikson, I am not engaging in cruel disparagement toward Father Massaro. I would simply like an answer to the two questions above.
Fr. Erikson?
We are here. And we will conquer Rome for a New World of free sex. GET USED TO IT!
Sister T.
Are you enjoying your ride on the slippery slope?
You’re not dead yet, you could change your mind.
I hope I don’t end up where you’re going, unless you change your course!
I will pray for you!
Your post is spot on and I look forward to more gems from you in the future
There is more on Mr. Chidambaram, who is the darling of Fr. Massaro’s “Peace Commission,” at La Salette Journey blog.
Malachi Martin wrote all about this. John XXIII and Paul VI became good buddies with the “misunderstood” Soviet leadership. That is the “64” dollar question. Were they misunderstood or just “playin’ possum” as insinuated by Our Lady of Fatima?
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