Deal Hudson

A group calling itself ‘Catholic Answers’ is publishing a book called ‘A Voter’s Guide for Serious Catholics’. The group is affiliated with FreeRepublic – which is heavily connected with the Republican Party and various protestant church organizations – such as the Baptists, the Anglican Church and the Mormons.
‘FreeRepublic’ reported recently that a Catholic Bishop in Florida ended association with a radio program by ‘Catholic Answers’ that featured a discussion of Deal Hudson’s recently published article – ‘The Catholic Press: Friend or Foe?’
Deal Hudson was until recently a highly visible ‘Catholic’ who had direct contact to the electioneering campaign of George W. Bush for 2004. He is no longer publicly associated with that campaign as he has been disgraced by revelations regarding his personal behavior – including drinking excessively with and having sex with his students while teaching at a Catholic University in New York.
I recently saw this book on the desk of one of my friends. Some of the notions put forth by this group in the name of ‘evangelizing’ for the Catholic Church appear to be a confused paste of personal ideas which have been attached to Church teachings.
The veracity of the Church is damaged by association with these groups – both ‘FreeRepublic’ and ‘Catholic Answers’. As Deal Hudson clearly infiltrated the Catholic lay hierarchy, either by intent or circumstance, he encouraged a ‘moral vacuum’ in which these misguided individuals in the name of the Church, unabashedly represent their scatterbrained views as the doctrine of the Catholic Church. In fact the document – ‘A Voter’s Guide for Serious Catholics’ on several pages states that Catholics MUST vote a certain way – most of which are contrived or bend Church teachings.
The most dangerous thing about these groups is that they are associated with individuals wary, suspicious and jealous of the Catholic Church and is drawn from men and women in organizations who look on the Catholic Church as evil and the Pope as a messenger or the actual embodiment of Satan.
The current wave of outrage against Catholic Priests has been in no small way fanned by groups such as this – to the point that individual and localized problems have been blown out of proportion that it appears even to loyal Catholics that there is a ‘crisis’ in the Church.
The current wave of personal attacks against Catholic Priests is taking advantage of a few isolated incidents and is being used by clever and cynical individuals to discredit the moral voice of the Catholic Church as was done in the 1930’s in Nazi Germany by the public attacks that came to be known as ‘The Immorality Trials’.
The positions of Prescott Bush and George Bush, the president’s grandfather and father on abortion are well known.
There is not much I can do about it. When you bring this to the attention of these Catholics that are gravitating towards evangelism and ‘end-of-days’ prophetic Protestantism it causes them to become verbally violent or to ‘shut down’.
The present Republican Party has done nothing of substance to lower the abortion rate. Nor world hunger. They started and are maintaining a war of men and machines. They have done little or nothing about drug abuse and poverty has increased in the United States.