In light of the recent US Supreme Court decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby -- which exempts, closely held corporations that invoke "sincerely held religious beliefs" from a preventive health care provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"). Hobby Lobby, whose owners are major bankrollers of the Religious Right, objected to the requirement that employees insurance packages provide birth control for women. I am reposting three related pieces (see below) from a few years ago regarding the five conservative Catholic justices on the High Court -- sometimes called �the Catholic Five.� In these posts, I focus on the influence of Opus Dei. -- Frank Cocozzelli

Re "A Sharp Turn for the Supreme Court on Abortion" :

I am a rheumatologist caring for a patient whose lupus nephritis is flaring. Her creatinine is rising as her platelet count falls, and she has failed to improve with pulse methylprednisolone and intravenous cyclophosphamide. I am contemplating using rituximab. I would like to refer this case to the United States Supreme Court for its guidance.      
                          -Letter to Editor, New York Times, printed, April 24, 2007

The following is the first installment of a three part sub-series regarding the influence of non-mainstream, ultra-traditional Catholics now sitting on the US Supreme Court.

The following is the second installment of a three part sub-series regarding the influence of non-mainstream, ultra-traditional Catholics now sitting on the US Supreme Court and federal judiciary.

"Opus Dei is very good at going to people of influence and promoting their own agenda. And sometimes these people don't even know they're doing Opus Dei's bidding."

That happens as well at the level of the "co-operators," she says, who are described as "supporters" of Opus Dei's work. "Define what 'support' means," she says. "You have to ask them very specific questions to get any real answers. I think Opus Dei uses the co-operators for its agenda, and they ask them for money. I talked with one man, a former co-operator, who told me he finally saw through it, and it just turned him off."
                           --Dianne DiNicola, Opus Dei Awareness Network

"The reaction of people of faith to this tendency of democracy to obscure the divine authority behind government should not be resignation to it, but the resolution to combat it as effectively as possible."--Justice to the U.S. Supreme Court, Antonin Scalia, God's Justice and Ours'

Some commentators continue to insist that the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores was no big deal. It's a narrow ruling, they insist, and there are other ways to ensure that women can get access to birth control.

Birth control is a vital component of women's health, and I find it disturbing that so many people are blithely dismissing a high court ruling that has the potential to curtail access to millions of women. Yes, generic birth control pills are cheap, but not all women can use generics. In fact, not all women can or want to use birth control pills. Other options, such as IUDs, sterilizing operations and cervical caps, tend to be more expensive.

Rev. Dr. William Barber II, the leader of the Moral Mondays movement in North Carolina gave a rousing, perhaps historic keynote speech at Netroots Nation.  Part of what makes it so remarkable is that he was featured at all -- and in that sense it may be a turning point for the liberal/left and the Democratic Party.

It was not so long ago that a pro-choice, pro-LGBTQ rights religious leader who favors separation of church & state would not have been given such a platform, let alone the many lesser platforms from which they were quietly excluded. Indeed, a few years ago, many of the 22 authors of a book I edited, Dispatches from the Religious Left: The Future of Faith and Politics in America, were marginalized because of their approaches to social justice.   In fact, the book was published partly in response to what I called at the time, creeping Religious Rightism in the Democratic Party. I told one contributor who had experienced marginalization that I was offering a platform.

This marginalization was of a piece with a certain mad pursuit of, and pandering to white evangelicals and anti-abortion Catholics who were deemed to be "gettable" by elements of the Democratic Party.  Those elements were willing to downplay or negotiate away the civil and human rights of others (see here and here, for example). Some went to far as to try to silence religious progressives who disagreed.

Those were extraordinary times. But this is a new day -- or at least I would like to think that it is. I would also like to think that the emergence of Barber as a national figure signals a trend. Time will tell.

There is no contesting the fact that high-profile religious right leaders from the United States helped set the table for Uganda's appalling anti-gay laws. Now, emboldened by "victories" in Uganda and the prospect for further discriminatory legislation in other African countries, and Vladimir Putin's anti-gay laws in Russia, some elements of the religious right appear to be setting their sights on Ukraine.

Last summer, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) issued a report titled "Dangerous Liaisons: The American Religious Right & the Criminalization of Homosexuality in Belize." Although the report focused on a dangerous situation for the LGBT community in Belize, Heidi Beirich, the author of the report and director of the SPLC's Intelligence Project, offered an overview: "Many ... American religious-right groups know they have lost the battle against LGBT rights in the United States, ... they're now aiding and abetting anti-LGBT forces in countries where anti-gay violence is prevalent. These groups are pouring fuel on an exceedingly volatile fire."

As I introduce my new Center Against Religious Extremism report Hobby Lobby Case Linked To Secretive National Prayer Breakfast Group, "The Family"),

In 2010 on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show, author Jeff Sharlet publicly accused "The Family", which hosts the National Prayer Breakfast, of being directly responsible for the notorious Uganda Anti Homosexuality Bill, signed into law in early 2014. As this Center Against Religious Extremism (CARE) special report demonstrates, The Family is also tightly linked, through its affiliate The Gathering, to the controversial Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Supreme Court case which gave broad new religious freedom rights to private corporations.

Historian Leo P. Ribuffo recently published a wise and erudite essay at History News Network. In it he discusses trends among historians regarding how to approach foreign affairs and religion generally (something he says has become fashionable) and some trends regarding the role of conservative Catholicism and evangelicalism in particular.  It is a refreshing summertime read -- a long form essay, taking the long view: undistracted by the heat of the political and religious moment and perhaps more importantly, unemcumbered by the distortions of self-interested political and religious factions.  

The recent coverage of the life and death of Richard Mellon Scaife, a transformational figure in recent American history, was pretty underwhelming. (Fortunately, our own Bill Berkowitz provided some alternative critical perspectives.) The situation was reminiscent of the truly horrible coverage of the life and death of Sun Myung Moon two years ago. It is worth recalling how quickly we forget. -- FC

The reporting and punditry in the wake of the death of Sun Myung Moon left a lot to be desired. Even long, seemingly comprehensive treatments of Moon's life and empire, such as the one that ran in The New York Times, did not delve deeply into Moon's profound far right and criminal involvements; antidemocratic politics; or even the mysterious sources of foreign cash for The Washington Times, and extensive political operations in the U.S. for decades, let alone the Moon organization's broad, insidious affects on American culture and democracy. There has also been some embarrassingly credulous material published about the nature of life in the Church itself, and some odd, unsubstantiated pooh poohery about the problem of cultism.  

Of course, history lives, despite the best efforts of some of us not to notice.

July 13th was the anniversary of our friend Jerry Sloan's confrontation on live television with Moral Majority founder, the late Reverend Jerry Falwell. This confrontation set into motion a lawsuit and the eventual establishment of the Lambda Community Center (renamed the Sacramento Gay & Lesbian Community Center) in Sacramento and from the opening of the center, many other Sacramento LGTB organizations.

As we have in years past, we are posting Jerry's remarkable and heartening story. It is important to celebrate and remember victories. -- FC

Although it happened over 20 years ago almost everywhere I go people still ask me to tell them about my confrontation and lawsuit with my former Baptist Bible College schoolmate, Jerry Falwell.

Falwell, in the height of his Moral Majority days, was in San Francisco the week prior to the 1984 Democratic National Convention, to harass the Democrats and the fairies of San Francisco.

On Friday, July 13, he flew up to Sacramento to appear on a local live morning show, "Look Who's Talking." The producer, knew I had gone to Baptist Bible College with Falwell invited me to be in the audience and gave me a bunch of tickets for my friends.

Pope Francis recently indicated he is serious about ending child sex abuse and cover-ups by Catholic prelates by defrocking a former apostolic nuncio (a nuncio is essentially a high level Vatican diplomat) for having sexual relations with young boys.

But while the Holy See should be applauded for this decisive action, there is unfinished business with the bishop of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Missouri. And the bishop in question is Robert Finn a darling of the American Catholic Right who have very little to say - at least now that he is a convicted criminal.

Long before the billionaire Koch Brothers and casino magnate Sheldon Adelson began polluting the American political landscape with obscene amounts of money, decades before the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, years before the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth mobilized a platoon of millionaire financiers to put the kibosh on John Kerry's presidential campaign, and before folks like Rex Sinquefield were bound and determined to have their money loom large over the legislative process in the states, there was Richard Mellon Scaife.

During the 1970s and 1980s, Scaife and his family were among the top donors to a myriad of right-wing organizations and causes. Back in the day it didn't take long before researchers following the money behind the conservative movement ran headlong into the Scaife clan.