Father Thomas J. Reese
President Barack Obama has named Jesuit Father Thomas J. Reese as the newest member of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), which serves as an advisory panel to the federal government on protecting religious freedom abroad. [1] If you know anything about Jesuits, you know they are the enemy of any religious freedom. Like it was pointed out by the Forerunner Chronicle, doing something like this is the moral equivalent to “hire a den of lion to be advocate for veganism.” [2] Fr. Reese joins three fellow Catholics on the commission: chairman Robert P. George, a bioethicist and Princeton University professor; James Zogby, the founder and president of the Arab American Institute; and Mary Ann Glendon, a Harvard University law professor and former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican. Former commission members include Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Bishop William Murphy and Most Reverend Ricardo Ramírez. [3] Thomas J. Reese, SJ, brother of Edward A. Reese, SJ, is an American Roman Catholic Jesuit priest, author, and former editor in chief of America, a weekly Catholic magazine. Fr. Reese resigned after seven years as the editor of America due to pressure from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of the Vatican. [4] Over a period of five years, the congregation objected to various editorial decisions made by Reese concerning certain issues addressed in the magazine, notably priestly celibacy and the ordination of women. [5] When he finally left “America” Reese deferred editorially to Fr. Thomas Smolich, a Jesuit Provincial at the time. Following his resignation, Reese spent a year-long sabbatical at Santa Clara University before being named a fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center in Washington, D.C. The center is scheduled to close on June 30, 2013 due to a lack of Jesuit staff. It was Reese who, in 2011, informed the world of Pope Benedict’s Marxist leanings, saying the pontiff supported the Occupy Wall Street protestors and was politically to the “left” of both Obama and Nancy Pelosi. Reese will serve alongside three fellow Roman Catholics who already serve on the commission. Also discussed are recent comments by Pope Francis on the flood of illegal immigrant children. The Pope is calling for America to embrace them with open arms, and to avoid racism and “xenophobic attitudes.” But could this have something to do with the fact that 90% of these illegals are said to be Catholic? For those who are sceptical of the good faith of a Jesuit to be the gatekeeper of religious freedom, the good father have this to say:
Religious freedom is a fundamental human right of every person on earth. It has been recognized by international accords and by the Second Vatican Council. But religious liberty is under attack in many countries around the world. [6]
It is well known that the Jesuits have their very own definition of “Religious Freedom.”
Father Thomas Reese, from the point of view of pure christianity is considered as an impostor, False Prophet, because the man is obviously part of the Emergent Universal Church… We can tell by its pragmatism concerning the diversity issues. Talking about Obama’s new policies requiring that federal contractors cannot discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, Jesuit Father Thomas Reese, writing in The National Catholic Reporter, observed that:
. . . . the new requirement may affect Catholic Relief Services, Catholic hospitals, Catholic education and other Catholic charities that receive federal funds. These institutions normally provide services to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people without discrimination, but problems have arisen with regards to adoptions by gay couples and spousal benefits for gay employees. [7]
Fr. Reese recounts the history, at the state level, of Catholic agencies cutting or closing their services rather than agree to abide by non-discrimination policies:
“. . . in 2006, Catholic adoption programs were closed in Massachusetts and San Francisco because the state and city said the agencies could not receive funds if they refused to sponsor children with gay couples. Dioceses in Illinois pulled out of adoption services for the same reason in 2011. . . .
“In 2010, the Washington archdiocese also got out of the adoption business when gay marriage became legal in the city. It was also threatened with the loss of funding to help the poor when the city council required that employers with city contracts provide spousal benefits to gay employees. Instead, the charities eliminated spousal benefits for all future employees. Since heterosexual employees would not receive spousal benefits, the agencies could not be accused of discrimination.” [8]
But he also notes a case that has long been forgotten. The case shows a rare example of pragmatism, especially coming from a bishop who would eventually become the prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Fr. Reese explains:
‘In 1997, San Francisco Archbishop William Levada tried a different approach. He allowed Catholic agencies to offer benefits to one other person living in the employee’s household, which might be a dependent parent, child, sibling or partner. Since the focus was not on domestic partners, he found this acceptable. But once gay marriage was legal, this solution fell apart.’ [9]
The man is a pragmatist. For the pragmatist there are no absolutes; nothing is absolutely good or absolutely true. Truth and morality float on a sea of human experience and is changing all the time. If an exhausted swimmer can lay hold of a belief or an ethic, well and good; it may keep him afloat till he can get to shore; then it only encumbers him, so he tosses it away. A pragmatist usually feels no responsibility to cherish truth for its own sake. It is there to serve him; he has no obligation to serve it. As a Jesuit, it seems that father Reese position himself along those lines. He’ll be an Obama apologist and troublemaker on the U.S. Commission. You can count on it.
In addition to Father Reese, Obama named Eric P. Schwartz to the commission. He is dean of the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. He has held positions as deputy special envoy to the U.N. Secretary general for tsunami recovery; on the staff of the National Security Council and has been active in an assortment of human rights and social services organizations. Also appointed for a term that began in mid-May was Daniel I. Mark, an assistant professor of political science at Villanova University, who was named by Boehner. Mark is a faculty associate of the Matthew J. Ryan Center for the Study of Free Institutions and the Public Good, and also works with the Tikvah Fund, a Jewish educational center. Other commissioners who were reappointed this spring include vice chairs Katrina Lantos Swett, founder and president of the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice, who was reappointed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, a physician who is the president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. He was reappointed by McConnell. Zogby has another year in his two-year term. [10]
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