Reprint of an Article Discussing the Disproportionate Power Wielded by Leonard Leo and Ultra-Right-Wing Catholics in Shaping the Supreme Court and Re-Shaping American Policy
6 Supreme Court Judges Sharing an Opus Dei Seal of Approval
BY MATTHEW FOX, JUNE 29, 2022
To understand the goings on in SCOTUS today, you must understand Opus Dei, a fascist organization in the Roman Catholic Church. Why?
Because the person who forwarded five names to the senate for approval as supreme court judges is Leonardo Leo, who is an out of the closet Opus Dei operative. It was he who pushed Mitch McConnell to nominate Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett for SCOTUS. He is also “closest friends” with Clarence Thomas and has been called “one of the most powerful figures in the United States.”*
I have studied Opus Dei and its founder who was a fascist Spanish priest and ally of dictator Franco. He was rushed into canonization under Pope John Paul II faster than any “saint” in history. He also “connived” in his own canonization before he died—the only “saint” I ever heard of who did that.**
Opus Dei is about control, not freedom. Theocracy, not democracy. Part of fascist ideology is that it is fitting that men have control over women’s bodies (my book documents this). Indeed, control is what fascism and Opus Dei are all about.
Mussolini defined fascism as the “marriage of corporations and government” and we are seeing that play out in the current SCOTUS where environmental rights take second place to corporate power; and voting rights get gutted in favor of dark money from very dark corporations (NRA and Koch brothers among them).
And the Supreme Court itself becomes a cesspool of religious ideology ignoring the pluralism of American culture in favor of a far right version of evangelical and Roman Catholic Christianity committed to anti-abortion fanaticism.
Susan Sontag defines fascism as “institutional violence”– which is surely what is happening where states are bent on locking up women for miscarriages, inciting bounty hunters to chase pregnant women, forcing women and girls to term even if they have been raped or victims of incest, threatening doctors with jail terms. Cruelty rules and Institutional Violence is alive and well thanks to this unsupreme court.
Important Links:
https://www.propublica.org/article/we-dont-talk-about-leonard-leo-supreme-court-supermajority
Sheldon Whitehouse on Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society: https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/speeches/whitehouse-remarks-on-the-federalist-society-and-leonard-leo
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2023/05/04/leonard-leo-clarence-ginni-thomas-conway/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/05/05/leonard-leo-clarence-thomas-ginni/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2023/07/20/leonard-leo-clarence-thomas-paoletta/
*Matthew Fox, https://churchandstate.org.uk/2022/05/leonard-leo-opus-dei-and-the-radical-catholic-takeover-of-the-supreme-court/.
**From Michael Walsh, Opus Dei: An Investigation into the Secret Society Struggling for Power within the Roman Catholic Church (SF: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992), p.195. Cited in Fox (below), pp. 117ff.
See Matthew Fox, “Opus Dei,” in Fox, The Pope’s War: Why Ratzinger’s Secret Crusade Has Imperiled the Church and How It Can Be Saved,” pp. 106-124.
Citizens United, Mitch McConnell, Electoral College, Gerrymandering, Supreme Court life term — Things that need to disappear, Ben.
Scary stuff! This country needs to wake up !