On Catholics, Wikileaks Hits Paydirt

In general, I think most of the alleged Wikileaks scandals of recent days have been overblown. But the way in which Hillary Clinton’s top staffers talk about Catholics is a relatively serious matter. The email thread involves Hillary’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, her director of communications, Jennifer Palmieri, and John Halpin of the Center for American Progress, which was also Podesta’s and Palmieri’s home as of the date of the emails, April 11, 2011. Click to enlarge:

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This is the exchange. It starts with Halpin’s astonishingly arrogant comments:

Ken Auletta’s latest piece on Murdoch in the New Yorker starts off with the aside that both Murdoch and Robert Thompson, managing editor of the WSJ, are raising their kids Catholic. Friggin’ Murdoch baptized his kids in Jordan where John the Baptist baptized Jesus.

Many of the most powerful elements of the conservative movement are all Catholic (many converts) from the SC [Supreme Court] and think tanks to media and social groups.

It’s an amazing bastardization of the faith. They must be attracted to the systematic thought and severely backwards gender relations and must be totally unaware of Christian democracy.

Jennifer Palmieri responds:

I imagine they think it is the most socially acceptable politically conservative religion. Their rich friends wouldn’t understand if they became evangelicals.

The condescension is quite remarkable. Halpin wraps up the conversation:

Excellent point. They can throw around “Thomistic” thought and “subsidiarity” and sound sophisticated because no one knows what the hell they’re talking about.

As far as we can tell, there is no particular point to this conversation. Just a little evening dumping on conservative Catholics. It reveals, I think, how most liberals think–the narrow-mindedness, the ignorance, the condescension, the arrogance. There are still some Catholic Democrats, but frankly, I am not sure why.

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