By DEXTER DUGGAN
An investigation of the Vatican’s social-justice agency’s involvement with an international socialist-Communist organization has evoked shock and outrage, a pro-life researcher into the agency, Michael Hichborn, told The Wanderer.
Hichborn, a researcher, activist, and commentator with the Virginia-based American Life League (ALL), appears in an ALL video about the Vatican’s Caritas Internationalis’ cooperation with and contribution of leadership to the World Social Forum (WSF).
In an October 7 news release, ALL says, “Evidence, from both primary sources and explosive video, highlights ALL’s report showing conclusively that the World Social Forum is a radically Communist and pro-abortion organization pushing for world revolution. According to both internal and primary documents, Caritas Internationalis has held a position of leadership in the World Social Forum from its inception” in 2001.
The Wanderer’s “Online Daily” site (https://thewandererpress.com) soon posted the video at its “News Around the World” column.
In a subsequent email, Hichborn told The Wanderer on October 16 about some background:
“I first discovered Caritas’ involvement with the World Social Forum in November of 2010. At the time, I was investigating Catholic Relief Services’ involvement with the WSF, and after digging a little, discovered that Caritas is actually on the governing body. I have since spent a lot of time compiling thousands of pages of information on the WSF. What I have published is just the tip of the iceberg.”
A Catholic agency has no proper place with an organization pushing Communism, Hichborn said.
“Communism has been soundly condemned by Popes Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X, Benedict XV, Pius XI, Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI. According to the continued teaching of nearly all of the Popes since Pius IX, Catholics are forbidden from joining the ranks of Communists,” Hichborn told The Wanderer.
He said his recent video report has drawn a strong response.
“By observing the press coverage and Internet comments on my research, it’s abundantly clear that Catholics are shocked and outraged by the level of cooperation Caritas Internationalis has with an international Communist organization,” Hichborn said. “La Stampa, an Italian newspaper, reported on our investigation the day after we published our findings (www.lastampa.it).
“The Italian pro-life publication Pro-Life News (www.notizieprovita.it) also covered the investigation, as did the German publication Katholisches (www.katholisches.info),” he emailed.
“Nowhere is there a defense of Caritas’ involvement with the World Social Forum, and, in fact, Caritas refused comment to LifeSiteNews after repeated requests,” he said.
The video shows Marxist flags flying at WSF events, as well as demonstrators hailing socialism, abortion, and revolution. There are sculpted images of pregnant women nailed to crosses as a pro-abortion protest of women supposedly being sacrificed to motherhood.
“We shouldn’t be surprised by this radical form of corruption in the Church; [the Japanese apparition of] Our Lady of Akita warned us about this in 1973,” Hichborn said. “She said, ‘The work of the Devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops…the Church will be full of those who accept compromises’.”
Concerning the manifestation of cardinals and bishops opposing one another, one might possibly think no further back than the recent Synod on the Family in Rome.
“It’s interesting that [Oscar] Cardinal Maradiaga, Caritas’ president, is one of the undersecretaries for the Synod on the Family and one of Pope Francis’ closest advisers,” Hichborn told The Wanderer. “As president of Caritas, Maradiaga would not be ignorant of Caritas’ involvement with the World Social Forum, nor would he be ignorant of the WSF’s promotions and activities.”
Hichborn urges Catholics “to prayerfully and respectfully contact Cardinal Maradiaga . . . and ask him to completely disaffiliate from the World Social Forum.”
The contact information: Caritas Internationalis, Palazzo San Calisto, Vatican City State, V00120; email: caritas.internationalis@caritas.va.
Speaking in the video, Hichborn says an examination of the WSF’s internal documents makes clear that the influence of the international Communist revolution and the WSF’s push for abortion and homosexuality have been present from the organization’s beginning.
“As horrible as the World Social Forum is, the most disturbing fact of all is that the largest and most influential social-justice organization in the entire Catholic Church is on the governing body of the World Social Forum,” Hichborn said.
In an email to The Wanderer, he said: “Caritas Internationalis betrays the Catholic Church by joining itself to the leadership of a Communist entity. Worse yet, Caritas is leading Catholics into the errors of Communism, abortion, and homosexuality by encouraging more and more Catholics to participate in the lies of the World Social Forum.
“Suppose, instead of Communism, the World Social Forum were pushing racism — would Caritas have a place on its governance then? I doubt it,” Hichborn said. “So, why is racism more disagreeable to Caritas than Communism?”
The ALL news release quoted Hichborn: “This is a very serious problem. Given how intimately connected the World Social Forum has been with the promotion of Communism, abortion, and homosexuality since the very beginning, it’s impossible to see how any Catholic can participate in it, or even speak positively about it, let alone have any involvement in its governance. But Caritas Internationalis does.”
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