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George Soros donates $100 million to Human Rights Watch – AOI – The American Orthodox Institute – USA

George Soros donates $100 million to Human Rights Watch

Source.

Now read what Roger Kimball (one of America’s top public intellectuals) has to say about Soros on his blog:

Meet George Schwartz, born in Hungary in 1930. The distinguished Canadian journalist Ezra Levant has the story in the Ottawa Sun:

“George’s father Theodore tried to change the family’s fortunes by changing their name to something less Jewish-sounding. It didn’t help. And soon war came.

When the Nazis took total control of Hungary in 1944, the Holocaust followed. In two months, 440,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to death camps.

To survive, George, then a teenager, collaborated with the Nazis.

First he worked for the Judenrat. That was the Jewish council set up by the Nazis to do their dirty work for them. Instead of the Nazis rounding up Jews every day for the trains, they delegated that murderous task to Jews who were willing to do it to survive another day at the expense of their neighbours.”

After the war, George moved to London, and then to New York, where he became a wildly successful financier. Forbes lists him as the 35th richest man in the world. You know George. He goes by the name his father invented: Soros.

“By collaborating with the Nazis,” Levant writes, “George survived the Holocaust. He turned on other Jews to spare himself.” And how does he feel about that? Does his conscience bother him? A reporter for 60 Minutes asked him that. “Not at all.”

“No feeling of guilt?” “No,” said Soros, adding that “there was no sense that I shouldn’t be there. If I wasn’t doing it, somebody else would be taking it away anyhow. Whether I was there or not. So I had no sense of guilt.”

Got that? It was dirty work, but someone had to do it. Levant speaks of the “moral hollowness” that has shaped Soros’s life. He’s right, but somehow that phrase seems insufficiently harsh.

As if his behavior as a “Jewish Nazi” (Levant’s apt term) weren’t enough, consider these items from the Soros dossier:

He’s a rabid critic of capitalism, but in 1992 when he saw a chance, he speculated against the British pound, causing it to crash, devastating retirement savings for millions of Britons. Soros pocketed $1.1 billion for himself. . . .

In 2002, Soros was convicted of insider trading in France, and fined millions of dollars. He admitted buying the shares, but denied it was a crime.

Last year, when he made $3.3 billion off the banking collapse, he called the world’s financial crisis ‘the culmination of my life’s work.’

This is a man who boasted he offered to help his mother commit suicide. Apparently he didn’t see enough death in Hungary.”

“Soros,” Levant concludes, “is a sociopath. But he’s a sociopath with $14 billion, and he likes to spend it on politics.” Hence the $24 million he spent in an effort to defeat George W. Bush in 2004. Hence, too, the $20,000 he gave to a woman convicted of helping terrorists.

I knew George Soros was an evil man. But until I read Ezra Levant’s devastating column, I had no idea just how evil.


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40 responses to “George Soros donates $100 million to Human Rights Watch”

  1. George Michalopulos

    I wonder when the Phanariot-enthusiasts in the Greek-American community are gonna wake up and start asking questions about some of their hierarchy and the appearance of divided loyalties?

  2. Fr. Johannes Jacobse

    George, did you catch this?

    Source: Weekly Standard

    Alexi Giannoulias, Draft Dodger?

    Would he have to renounce his Greek citizenship in order to receive classified briefings?

    Earlier this week, Big Government posed an interesting question that remains unanswered: If Illinois Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias is a dual U.S.-Greek citizen, and lived in Greece for more than a year in the late 1990s, how did he get around Greece’s military service requirement? 

    Under Greek law, all citizens must serve in the military once they turn 18. Much like in Israel, Greek citizens will perform a period of military service after high school. 

    Alexi Giannoulias was a college graduate when he came to Greece – an age meeting the requirement for military service. So how did he get around the requirement?

    As we await an explanation from the Giannoulias camp as to how he successfully dodged the draft (the Giannoulias camp won’t return my phone calls), the news that Alexi Giannoulias is a dual citizen should itself raise other questions.

    According to an August 16, 2000 memorandum signed by Assistant Secretary of Defense Arthur Money, the “possession and/or use of a foreign passport” may be a disqualifying condition to receive a security clearance. Does Alexi Giannoulias hold a Greek passport? Would he have to renounce his Greek citizenship in order to receive classified briefings?

    Greece is an ally, but we don’t share everything with every ally. Should a U.S. senator receiving some of the most sensitive information our government collects be a citizen of another country at the same time?

    1. George Michalopulos

      As an American citizen, one the things that always got my dander up was the issue of divided loyalties. You know the drill: the Neocons got us into war with Iraq because of Israel. Feith, Perle, and Wolfowitz are agents of the Israeli gov’t, etc. Now here we have a man running for Senate who has dual citizenship. Where will this end? Will he have to recuse himself from certain sensitive issues or bills dealing with the Balkans? How can we criticize Jewish Americans when we are doing the same thing? (And of course it’s delicious that he’s being hoist on his own petard regarding his criticism of Kirk’s military record.)

      This is symptomatic of a broader problem for the GOA in particular but the colonial eparchies as well. Consider: the GOA has an “Archbishop of America” who is a Greek national and draws a pension from Greece, a patriarch who is auctioning off Turkish citizenship for a select few bishops, a clerg-laity congress in which the Greek national anthem is sung first, etc.

      And let’s not forget the Antiochians: the recent demotion of diocesan bishops to auxiliary status –unique in the history of Christianity–garners nary a peep from those who have been wronged. And how many American converts are aware that monies raised in America have been disbursed by the Antiochian archdiocese to to Islamic charities in the West Bank and in Syria?

      The question is: are we a serious Church or merely a loose confederation of tribal religions?

  3. Peter Bouteneff

    The headline and the excerpt here posted are misleading.

    Both in his initial facebook posting comment, as well as throughout the entire comment thread, Bishop Savas was careful to note that he was praising only the specific instance of this donation to this specific organization. He continually tried to remind his commentators of this fact, and did not praise Soros himself.

    1. Tom Dittmer

      He also later put up a post about the darker side of Soros. Let’s not get in a tizzy quite yet.

      1. Yes, he posted that in order to appear “balanced” once AOI broke the story of how he used Soros as a noteworthy example for funding the Human Rights Watch (HRW). He also began to quickly back peddle and distance himself from the original pro-Soros piece by saying that he really did not mean to discuss Soros but only the charity he funded:

        This has so far been entirely about Soros. Would it be fair to say that nobody here has a problem with Human Rights Watch?

        Given what has been revealed about the pro-abortion and other questionable activities of Human Rights Watch, I’m not sure that was “distance” enough.

        However, Bishop Savas, did not waste an opportunity to slam the George Soros critics by labeling them as “the Right.”

        Soros is the man the Right loves to hate, just as the Koch Brothers are becoming the Left’s punching bag. Leaving them aside, does anyone have a problem with a human rights advocacy group?

        So first he posts an article that gives kudos to George Soros for funding a leftist group. Then when the facts about George Soros are revealed he distances himself from Soros, but still manages to stay positive about his HRW group. Finally, he returns to the fray by blaming conservatives for “loving to hate” Soros; in a sense contradicting his earlier position. And yet we are not supposed to notice this and consider Bishop Savas as “fair, objective, and balanced.”

        Also, it is relevant to include the comments that Soros made when he provided the $100 million to Human Rights Watch since it’s part of the blame-America and “too much freedom” for the world’s problems themes that are often indirectly endorsed by Bp. Savas on his facebook wall:

        The U.S. has lost the moral high ground that the – under the Bush administration. There’ve been many human rights violations uh, committed by Americans. And that has sort of – endangered the credibility, the legitimacy, of Americans being in the forefront of advocating human rights. That is a big, big setback for the movement. … We really have to recognize the excesses that were committed in connection with the Iraqi War and correct the record. Otherwise it’s going to weigh – on us – forever.

        How is it relevant, you ask? This comment from Bishop Savas later in the same discussion provides the critical clue:

        War is evil, too, Chris. People who deceive a nation to enter a war from which they stand to gain financially can be considered evil, too, Chris.

        Notice the similarities?

    2. Andrew

      Professor, In a facebook post on August 30, 2010. Bishop Savas linked his 2,000 plus Orthodox readers to a article on Liberation Theology. He was asked by a reader if he agreed with the following quote:

      “Liberation theology is not Marxism disguised as religion. It is Christianity presented in all its disturbing fullness.”?

      His Grace responded to the reader that he fully agreed with the quote.

      Professor, how would you respond to the above quote? Is Liberation Theology compatible with Orthodox Christianity?

      As for Bishop Savas,I continue to wonder why his official blog of the Office of Church and Society has remained empty for over a year but his facebook page is updated multiple times a day.

      Bishop Savas was wrong to celebrate Human Rights Watch. If you google the terms Human Right Watch and Abortion you can see that Human Rights Watch supportion easing abortion restrictions. A quick look at these google search results also shows that the organization believes that lack of access to an abortion is a human rights violation.

      Is any of this from Liberation Theology to Abortion Access compatible with Orthodox Christianity?

      1. Fr. Johannes Jacobse

        Andrew, you hit something I have a question about but could not comment on because I don’t have enough information yet: Why would Soros give $100 million to Human Rights Watch? From the other direction, what it is about Human Rights Watch that fits with Soros’ vision of a world without sovereign nation-states and free markets?

        I think you hit it. Human Rights Watch sees abortion as a fundamental human right. They are a homosexual activist group too it looks like. Lifesite News has some info on them.

        I have to do some more reading, but on first perusal it looks like Human Rights Watch has little to do with human rights and a whole lot to do with radical left activism.

      2. Peter Bouteneff

        Your query is irrelevant to this thread and my complaints about it. Let’s stay on topic.

        1. George Michalopulos

          Prof Bouteneff, like all foundations and charities, Human Rights Watch probably does some good things. Like The United Way. However those things that they do that we find objectionable are facillitated by donations made by well-meaning people for the things that they do like. These well-meaning gifts free up money for HRW/UW/etc. to use for purposes which they can’t get money for due to their unpopularity. What I’m trying to say is money is fungible.

      3. George Michalopulos

        Andrew, like you, I am much aggrieved by this latest foray into “Church and Society” by His Grace. As much as I like Bishop Savvas as a man, because he is a bishop, he needs to understand that despite his qualifications, his praises –however faint they may be–redound to the benefit of the honoree.

        It never ceases to amaze me how logorrheic our bishops are with fulsome praise to secular potentates/institutions in comparison to Catholic prelates. Think, how many times can you remember a pope singing the praises of a secular titan or foundation? I’m not saying it hasn’t happened, but for the life of me, I can’t think of a single instance right off the top of my head. Right now, I can rattle off several instances in which GOA/EP prelates have bestowed/received/sought honors/contact/proximity etc: last year at Coca-Cola HQ in Atlanta, at the Center for American Progress, +Demetrios giving an award to Jane Seymour for being a philanthropist, The Orthodox Observer praising Tom Hanks for having his house blessed (true story), the Obama comparison to Alexander the Great, etc. What next? instituting National Telly Savalas Day?

  4. Noël Joy Plourde

    I find it pretty pathetic and quite unfortunate, Fr. Johannes, that you chose to take a sentence of a post by Bishop Savas completely out of context in order to substantiate your own opinion:
    “Bp. Savas should stay out of the kitchen if he does not understand what’s really cooking in the oven. Or, if he does, he needs to justify why he praises Soros, especially when no context is given for the praise.”
    Speaking of one who has given no context, please provide us with the details of Bishop Savas’ “praises” of Soros. I could not find them anywhere on the Facebook page you referenced.
    Have we stooped so low as human beings that we must now use fragments of posts and sound bytes from others in order to rationalize our own opinions?

    1. George Michalopulos

      Noel, let’s play a thought-game for a second: Let’s suppose that a great Conservative philanthropist (say Richard Mellon Scaife) donated $100 million dollars to The Minutemen or Disabled American Veterans, would Bishop Savvas have waxed as eloquently about it? Would he even mentioned it? [insert crickets chirping here.]

      1. Noël Joy Plourde

        Did you read the thread? Please quote me the part where the bishop was waxing eloquently. I’m very concerned that people take statements made out of context. I certainly don’t defend the bishop; he would defend himself if he desired to do so. I do not have the emotionality that so many have about this topic, so I am not speaking to that. Please read the entire thread, and perhaps you can understand how much projection has occurred here. Thank you.

  5. Peter Bouteneff

    To make matters worse, Comment #1 then calls Bp Savas a “Phanariot enthusiast” and Comment #2 places a completely unrelated “travesty” under the same scurrilous headline. This thread ought to be removed without delay.

    1. George Michalopulos

      Peter, thank you for letting me clarify what I meant: I wasn’t talking about Bishop Savvas specifically being a “phanriote enthusiast” but the many bloggers who are vehemently pro-Phanar overlordship of North America and violently opposed to an autocephalous American Church. One of the most common arguments we American Orthodox “enthusiasts” hear is that the AOC isn’t “mature enough” for autocephaly. The irony when contrasted with the swooning and uncritical praise of our bishops for the latest Leftist fad/institution/luminary on the other hand is palpable.

    2. Andrew

      Don’t you just love how we AOI blog readers are the constant villains?

      AOI bloggers were the villains when SVS betrayed the myriad of Orthodox Christians around the world who struggle in chastity by honoring a man who belittles such living.

      AOI bloggers are now the villains when a GOA Bishop operating outside the boundaries of his own jurisdictions internet ministries calls a pro-abortion organization a good cause and lends his episcopal support to Liberation Theology.

      There are no doubt other examples as well.

      In both cases AOI did not cause these problems. AOI did not make SVS go cuckoo nor did AOI make Bishop Savas post on his facebook page. What the reasoned and balanced readers of AOI did was point out what are some glarring inconsistencies with Orthodox Tradition. There is nothing wrong with this. Any histrionics about this post are out of place.

      In the meantime, AOI deserves nothing but praise for being an island of freedom and sanity where such issues can be discussed. Thank you!

      1. George Michalopulos

        Andrew, “constant villains”. I love it! BTW, the Doonesbury character I referenced earlier was “Rev Scott Sloan.”

  6. Fr. Johannes Jacobse

    Noel, the point is there is no larger context in which Bp. Savas offered the praise, that’s what so troubling about it. George Soros pops out of nowhere and is framed as a benevolent actor presumably because Bp. Savas approves of the charity that received Soros’ $100 million. The linking of Soros with benevolence is what constitutes the praise.

    It may be that Bp. Savas does not know the destruction Soros has caused and still continues to cause. On the other hand, The GOA has been the indirect beneficiary of Soros largess when the Ecumenical Patriarch was defending global warming (before global warming research was exposed as fraudulent) and feted by such organizations as the Center for American Progress, a Soros funded think tank. Perhaps His Grace is aware of these alliances and therefore holds to a more benign opinion than what is warranted. (I sent a warning that this was a dangerous alliance almost a year ago, months before the fall of the global warming establishment.)

    His Grace has got to understand that his position as a bishop lends an authority to his comments that increases their moral weight. The proof is the reactions his initial comment immediately garnered. His respondents were so quick to respond with criticisms of their own thereby lending a counterweight to what they perceived as implicit praise. There simply is no other way to read this.

    If you are offering this defense of Bp. Savas out of concern for the man, well, that is commendable but it is also irrelevant to the point.

    Here’s another article on Soros: Holocaust Denial: George Soros vs. the Tea Parties.

    1. Noël Joy Plourde

      With all due respect, I was not defending Bp. Savas’ statements at all; I just read the entire thread and did not see what you and others seem to have projected onto the posts. I can’t imagine you read it in its entirety. That’s all.

      1. George Michalopulos

        Noel, you’re correct. What many of us find objectionable is the silence from quarters such as Bishop Savvas when it comes to the good that Conservatives do in the secular sphere. I can’t think of one word of praise. If I’m wrong please tell me.

        If I may: the first criticisms out of the traces to Savvas’ enconium were Greek-American names who are genuinely shocked, not because Soros can’t/isn’t a philanthropist and may occasionally do something right (not in this case IMHO), but these people know the very real damage that Soros has done to the Balkans, the Bank of England, etc.

        As a Greek-American, I am not concerned about the FYROM/Macedonia issue, I feel that that nation has the right to call itself what it wants, but I could be wrong about this. I haven’t really given it much thought. Why are the Greeks upset about this? Clearly there are two sides to the story. Soros however has come foursquare in favor of meddling in issues that cause very real damage to very real people and which can lead to very real wars.

  7. Peter Bouteneff

    Here’s what I see happening in this thread.

    Bp Savas takes note in a Facebook post that Soros donated a lot of money to “a good cause.”

    Despite his denial of this as praise, whether explicit or implicit, for Soros, and despite other the Bishop’s threads that draw attention to Soros’s deeply problematic positions, a headline here at AOI calls Soros “The man Bishop Savas Praises.”

    And boom, the damage is done, and the bishop is fair game. This gives people the license a) to call Bishop Savas a “Phanar-enthusiast,” b) associate Bishop Savas with a Greek senate candidate who dodged the Greek draft, c) try to veer the thread into an offensive on Liberation Theology, the Antiochian bishop “demotion”, and so on.

    This is not even to mention the character assassination, the unfounded presumption, e.g., that Bishop Savas would never mention a conservative act of charity.

    This is bizarre and worse.

    The only valid criticism I could find here is in the link between Human Rights Watch and abortion, which, if offered in a spirit of serious and respectful discourse with His Grace, would likely receive a an equally serious and respectful response.

    I realize that many people are disenfranchised by a weak showing on the part of Greek politicians and churchmen, generally speaking. But what I’m seeing here, begun by a careless headline, is a blogosphere gone haywire.

    1. Andrew

      Professor, what I see in this thread is a bishop being held accountable for his words and postings just like the readers of this blog held SVS accountable when the faculty went crazy and honored a man who says sex outside of marriage is fine. This quest for accountability is a good and healthy endeavor. It should continue.

      The bishop thinks Human Rights Watch is a good cause even though (according to them) some human persons do not have rights. This is a mistake that causes confusion among his 2000+ readers. Bishop Savas supports Liberation Theology and through his affirmation finds it to be compatible with his role as a shepherd of souls. This is a mistake that causes confusion and error.

      Bishop Savas is a intelligent man who knows that his words are broadcast to 2000+ souls and have great influence and impact. Facebook is his flock. He knows his words shape the consciences of many for better or for worse. Unfortunately, if you look at his postings from his “This is the day the lord has made” worship of Obama to his confusion that Human RIghts watch is a good cause, you can see he has been seduced by the fashionable fundamentalism of the religious left and does not provide objective Orthodox wisdom to his readers.

    2. Fr. Johannes Jacobse

      Actually, the recklessness may be doubled if it turns out Human Rights Watch is spreading the idea that unwanted human life is disposable into the Third Word (a particularly noxious form of cultural imperialism in my view). It appears His Grace did not do his homework not only about Soros, but about Human Rights Watch as well.

      Here is a quote from The Interim, a Catholic newspaper:

      Pro-life observers are not surprised at the pro-abortion slant contained within the report. Human Rights Watch is “regularly partnered with pro-abortion organizations in the UN,” said Samantha Singson, director of government relations at the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, a non-profit research institute that aims to monitor and impact the UN social policy debate.

      Human Rights Watch, along with the other pro-abortion organizations, use the “universal right to maternal health to pressure these countries to amend their pro-abortion legislation … which is outside their purview,” Singson told The Interim. They are using the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goal 5, which aims to improve maternal health, to “accuse countries of not doing their utmost to repeal restrictions to abortion”, especially those with the toughest restrictions in the world, such as Nicaragua.

      As regarding the discussion, it tends to be free-wheeling. I don’t really see any “character assassination” though. I see disgust with some of Bp. Savas’ ideas, perhaps even some contempt, but this is really no different than calling people who disagree with his views “No Nothings” and the like. The difference is that Bp. Savas posts articles where he lets others do the talking for him, and then backtracks from criticism by claiming he’s merely trying to start discussion. This is an old ploy of course and everyone sees through it, but then lots of people do it. It’s not as forthright as the AOI blog, but that’s one reason why the AOI blog is more interesting and our traffic is higher. No real “iron sharpening iron” can take place in venues where false claims to objectivity are made although the noise tends to be lower (and self-congratulation higher).

      He’ll still get challenged of course (see: Obama Defeats ‘Social Darwinists’?). And if his ideas warrant criticism, he will receive it.

      As for the tertiary charges, some need more examination (the charge about Liberation Theology, if true, betrays a poor understanding of the ideology), some are irrelevant, but mostly it’s just the nature of the medium. You see the same meanderings (sometimes as passionate) on Bp. Savas’ Facebook page too.

      Your point about weak showing on the part of Greek politicians and churchmen is a good one. This accounts no doubt for some of the skepticism expressed toward Bp. Savas. Fair or not, it’s a legacy he is burdened with.

  8. So Peter, the fact that Bp. Savas embraces Liberation Theology, which Andrew pointed out, and is 100% true (I saw that post also), in addition to the indirect praise of George Soros is irrelevant?

    1. Peter Bouteneff

      Chris, it is both inaccurate to speak of him in terms of an unqualified embrace of Liberation Theology, and irrelevant to this discussion thread, unless you see its function as a comprehensive (never mind careless) scrutiny of Bishop Savas’s every position.

      1. Peter, On August 30, 2010 in a discussion on Bishop Savas’ facebook wall that referenced an article that he posted praising Liberation Theology and describing it as true Christianity, I asked him this question:

        Your Grace, Do you believe this is true then: “Liberation theology is not Marxism disguised as religion. It is Christianity in all its disturbing fullness.”?

        Bishop Savas replied and said:

        I do, Chris.

        Is it relevant that Bp. Savas is also an admirer of Jim Wallis, and that Wallis is a big promoter of Liberation Theology, and that Wallis’ organization, the Sojourners, took hundreds of thousands of dollars of George Soros money? Is it relevant that this shows a consistent pattern of admiration and support of leftist ideas and individuals by Bishop Savas? I think it is.

  9. I must say, this is quite the ridiculous, if not purely malicious, post Fr. Johannes. To say that Bishop Savas “needs to justify why he praises Soros” is like asking for God to justify the atrocities of Hitler, in other words, there is no link between the accusations. Can you justify your accusation that Bishop Savas praises Soros in a court of law from what you posted. If you think you do, I guarantee you that you would be laughed out of the courtroom. Nor do I even see an endorsement by Bishop Savas of Human Rights Watch and ALL it does. It is a facebook comment that obviously a malicious “friend” of Bishop Savas brought to your attention in order to slander him. It is postings like these that show the absolute lack of credibility with many of the postings on this website, and the lack of credibility with anyone who supports your website. I recommend greater responsibility in your sources and postings before throwing out straw men accusations. And if you don’t know what a straw man is, I highly recommend a course in logical fallacies.

    1. Fr. Johannes Jacobse

      Justify my charge in a court of law? No. Justify my charge in the court of political discourse? Absolutely. Different standards apply,

      Bp. Savas needs to be more careful, much more careful in fact. Soros, and now Human Rights Watch it turns out, carry a lot of baggage. Ideas have consequences, and the idea that the Soros benevolence is praiseworthy (Bp. Savas’ position as hierarch amplifies his endorsements) is one that should not be accepted at face value. The consequences are too great.

      As for the rest, it’s basically finger-wagging. That doesn’t get much traction here.

    2. George Michalopulos

      John, this is what I meant by “Phanar enthusiasts”: Your uncritical defense of Bishop Savvas’ latest musings unwittingly put many well-meaning people in the GOA on the path towards Liberation Theology, just like the EP’s uncritical acceptance of anthropocentric global warming (AGW) put the GOA in the uncomfortable position of sounding like Bambi’s mother. (I say “unwittingly” because I honestly don’t see the critical thought behind these positions, just moddish posing to try and make the Phanar “relevant.” Kind of reminds me of the old Doonesbury character “Fr Scott, the hip, young priest who can talk to the young.”)

      Seriously now. Words mean things. The Roman Catholics get this. Serious theologians do as well (even on the Left, think Jim Wallis who is on board with Leftism in all its guises; misguided though he is, he at least has the courage of his Marxist convictions). Look at Fr Hans’ posting below (note #10.1) of the photograph of the late John Paul II and the Leftist priest kneeling before him. Just like with +JP’s embrace of Solidarity, the censure of this priest had long-term positive ramifications for the world.

  10. Fabio L Leite

    Just a note on Liberation Theology, with quotes from one of its fathers.

    The ex-friar Boff gave the following declaration in an article for the newspaper Jornal do Brasil, April 6th, 1980:

    “What we propose is not theology inside Marxism, but Marxism (historical materialism) inside theology”.

    And more: “The method of the Liberation Theology…is the dialectic method.” (Leonardo e Clodovis Boff, Teologia da Libertação no Debate Atual, Vozes, Petrópolis, p. 22).

    “Liberation theology starts up from this kind of interpretation of reality: social, radical and dialectic criticism, structuralist.” (L. e Clodovis Boff, Da Libertação, Vozes, Petrópolis, 4a edição , p,17).

    Boff explains the consequences of all this: “In Liberation Theory, the fundamental issue is not theology, but liberation” (L. Boff e Clodovis Boff , Teologia da Libertação no Debate Atual, Vozes, Petrópolis, 1985, p.17).

    This pseudotheology proposes liberation from what?

    “When I speak of liberation I positevely understand this: to end the system of injustice that is capitalism. It is to liberate oneself from capitalism to create in its place a new society, let’s say, a socialist society.” (Leonardo e Clodovis Boff, Da Libertação, Vozes, Petrópolis, 4a edição , p, 70).

    And more: “It is necessary to say clearly and boldly: liberation is the emancipation of the socially oppressed. It is positevely for us to overcome the capitalist system in direction of a new society of the socialist kind” (L e C. Boff, Da Libertação, p. 113).

    “If I so express myself it is because, for us, today, the Kingdom of God is positively socialism” (L. Boff e Cl. Boff. Da Libertação, p. 96).

    “The therapy presented by this radical critical conscience is not the reform of the (capitalist) system; this would be to treat the symptom without noticing the source producing the disease; we propose a new way of organizing all society over new different fundaments; no more over having capital on the hands of few, but from the work of all, with the participation of all in the means of production and in the means of power; we speak of liberation” (L e Cl. Boff, Da Libertação, pp.16-17.)”

    http://www.montfort.org.br/index.php?secao=cartas&subsecao=politica&artigo=20040729135508&lang=bra

    Who is Leonardo Boff (from Wikipedia)
    “He became one of the best known (along with Gustavo Gutiérrez) of the early Liberation theologians. He was present in the first reflections that sought to articulate indignation against misery and marginalization with promissory discourse of the faith, leading to Liberation theology. ”

    So, that Liberation Theology *is* Marxism is not a theory, but a fact declared by one of its very founders. Their understanding of the Kingdom of God is the implementation of socialism.

    1. Fr. Johannes Jacobse

      All absolutely accurate, Fabio. I read Boff and Gutiérrez years ago and this is exactly what they taught. I also remember Pope John Paul II repudiating the ideology with his public rebuke of a Nicaraguan priest in 1983 who taught the doctrine (the priest was the Minister of Culture under the Sandinista regime). It woke up the Catholic Church to the pernicious ideas that can hide inside the language of benevolence.

      About the only people left today who still believe in the doctrine are aging radicals like Jim Wallis of Sojourners or the crew at the National Council of Churches. The later got stung when their funding to Marxist radicals was exposed by Reader’s Digest in the 1980s. Wallis, it turns out, just got caught lying about the Soros money he received.

  11. Harry Coin

    Musing about this news and the various responses, to mind came the same song in a different key: Ecumenical Patriarch’s trip to Cuba and all the heaping praise on Fidel Castro complete with entourage from here. Then there is this kiss on the cheek to George Soros re: the high sounding but apparently dubiously acting Human Rights Watch.

    We see the ground zero church unrebuilt for so long it feels to me on the track to being sold so long as everyone in black has ‘plausable deny-ability’ against being ‘the one’ ‘responsible’ for it, instead of that venue being deployed as a rallying point for the ‘Easter Sprintime’ renewal in the face of devastation message Christians are given to hear so much about otherwise.

    When other people do the work of bringing this fact to light the Archbishop and the Ecumenical Patriarch are too busy touring a Greek Island to weigh in leaving a minion to speak whose primary message is ‘I wasn’t there so I don’t know’.

    We see the EP coming to the Missississippi River basin to wag his finger at the people who, like me, live on a river which over the last couple of decades has improved from a foul smelling waste dumping ground to a naturally muddy body clean enough the fish taken from it are deemed fit to eat by the various bordering statedepartments of natural resources.

    The mis-steps are so bad, so repeated, it becomes hard to credit those taking these decisions are merely badly advised.

    Why do those who do these things deem it wise?

  12. cynthia curran

    Well, remarks about Social Darwinism are simplistic since the 19th century was more complex than the left sees it. And after all, the end of the 19th h century was the beginngs of the modern welfare state in Germany and Britian. A good book dealing with this subject is Paul Johnson’s the birth of the modern. As for Soros he is the typical modern leftist that profits from Capitalism and is corrupt very different from let’s say older leftist like Ralph Nadler who is not corrupt.

    1. George Michalopulos

      Cynthia, when all is said and done, Soros is an atheist and a follower of Nietzsche’s dictum, wsas mas nicht unbrinckt, macht mir starker
      (That which does not destroy me, makes me stronger). Because he fancies himself to be The Superman, he is “beyond good and evil.” Therefore, anything he does is not subject to moral scrutiny as “good” and “evil” are moral constructs and in a non-theistic universe, there is no such thing as morality. It is for this reason that Soros can sleep nights even though he ratted out other Jews to the Gestapo.

      Of course, we Christians don’t have this luxury, do we? We know that there is good because we know that God exists, and God is good. Evil has no existence on its own but is a parasite on good. From a purely psychological POV, we can say that Soros is a sociopath. He doesn’t have a conscience.

      Forgive the ramble and disjointed thoughts. In any case, our bishops should stay miles away from this man and others like him (i.e. Fidel Castro). They can offer nothing to them because they want nothing of value. Any contact with them only debases Christians. (Remember, Zacchaeus wanted to meet Jesus, the harlot who washed Jesus’ feet with her hair was aware of her sinfulness, etc. Sociopaths like Castro and his ilk can’t see the error of their ways, because of their “dialectical materialism.”)

    2. Fr. Johannes Jacobse

      Let me ditto Cynthia’s suggestion to read Paul Johnson and suggest another good book of his too:

  13. Michael Bauman

    To me the whole thread, the outrage and the dilemas raised point up the real trouble of not having a functioning local synod to which ALL bishops are accountable. It gets to the point that any bishop can go off and say anything he wants and it becomes ORTHODOX whether it is or not. Same thing for all of us.

    In the absence of a functioning local synod, the bishops must expect that lay people and clergy will respond when their prounoucements are felt to be out of line with Holy Tradition or simple Christianity. The lack of a functioning local synod will only increase the arcimony and divisions within the Church. The likely result without bold, concrete action is the division of the Church here in the US into an offical church and an unoffical one.

    Frankly, the way things are going, I’d rather be in the unoffical Church but a schism of that kind is a terrible price to pay for the timidity, apathy and corruption of those who purport to lead us.

    We need to cry out to those who will not allow us to unite: “Let my people go!” Right now I tend to think of the Bishops as a bit like the Edgar G. Robinson character in “The Ten Commandments” movie always whining and crying and finding reasons why we should go back to Egpyt and Pharoah.

    I am tired of the machevellian, academic, power games.

    1. George Michalopulos

      Michael, I couldn’t have said it better myself. That is why we need an AUTOCEPHALOUS Orthodox Church OF America. The pusillanimity of the colonial bishops is the reason we won’t ever have one.

  14. Chris

    As far as Soros “donating to the FYROM” propaganda, the commenter should know that Soros owns most of the media in Macedonia; media which day in and day ought works against the Macedonian identity, against unified Macedonian Orthodoxy, and against the the pro-Orthodox Christian anti-secularist Macedonian government. But Greeks are too busy chomping at the bit that Soros has laid out for Greeks to notice.

    The problem in the “case of FYROM” isn’t that Soros is funding the pro-Macedonian cause, it is that Soros has fed Greeks the lie that Orthodox Macedonia is your enemy, and that Greek recognition of Macedonia would mean your destruction, while at the same time he promotes the sort of policies/politicians that have bankrupted your nation. Soros is the promoter of big government policies and over bloated bureaucracies.

    In essence, Soros keeps natural Orthodox Christian Allies divided, uses the “Macedonian Name Issue” as cover while he economically destroys Greece as the regions’ main power to bring the region into the complete One World/One Banking scheme.

    Dear Greece, How long will it take before you learn that the Orthodox Christian nation of the Republic of Macedonia isn’t your enemy. The secularists movement of Soros is?

    1. George Michalopulos

      Chris, they may never know. That’s why Soros’ entire career is so insidious, and why Orthodox bishops should stay clear of him and his ilk.

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