I wasn’t surprised at John Podesta’s famous 2012 email. My Church has long suffered from “fifth columns”: groups within a larger community that collaborate with an outside enemy to weaken their community from within.

Sandy Newman, president of the nonprofit Voices for Progress, had written Podesta calling for  “a Catholic Spring, in which Catholics themselves demand the end of a middle ages dictatorship and the beginning of a little democracy and respect for gender equality in the Catholic church.” Essentially, he wanted to use Catholics against their bishops’ opposition to the contraceptive mandate, abortion, and other favored causes of the left. A non-Catholic, he wanted a Catholic to “plant the seeds of the revolution.”

The Planned Infiltration Didn’t Work

Podesta, now chair of the Clinton/Kaine 2016 campaign, is a professing Catholic. He admitted to Newman that the two dissident Catholic groups he’d created had already begun a planned infiltration of the Church to which he belongs. But it was not working. “We created Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good to organize for a moment like this. But I think it lacks the leadership to do so now. Likewise, Catholics United.”

He agreed with Newman’s proposal for a dissenting “Catholic spring.” But, he said, “like most Spring movements, I think this one will have to be bottom up.” It was a covert operation to undermine the Church — his Church. He wanted to create a public forum, in which dissenting Catholics could foment rebellion to hurt the Church and cause a scandal. That is what Podesta and his collaborator referred to as their attempt to instigate a “Catholic Spring.”

We can easily guess what kinds of old teachings this hoped for liberal “Catholic Spring” is supposed to replace. The most obvious is the fundamental human right to life and the dignity of every human person up to and including a natural death. This teaching cannot and will not ever be changed. The Catholic Church proclaims that it is written in the Natural Law, confirmed by science and revealed by God. The “Spring” is expected to bring “choice” and “reproductive freedom.”

The second most obvious is the truth taught by the Catholic Church about the nature of marriage as solely possible between one man and one woman, intended for life, open to children and formative of family. The Church proclaims this also is written in the Natural Law and revealed by God — and that its wisdom is confirmed by social science. Here the “Spring” is epected to bring “marriage equality.”

A Strategy to Undermine the Catholic Church

These leaked emails disclose one strategy to undermine the Catholic Church and convince Catholic citizens that they can deny the right to life of children in the womb and even support partial-birth abortions.

“Devout” Catholic Podesta wants Catholics to support the repeal of the Hyde Amendment, which has prevented federal dollars from being used to fund procured abortions, and the imposition of the contraceptive mandate. He wants Catholics to accept the government’s restrictions of the freedom of religion the Church and other Christian bodies enjoy under our Constitution.

This same John Podesta now runs Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

I called the hoped-for “Catholic Spring” a “fifth column.” Another way to describe it is as the presence of a new “know nothing” movement right within the Catholic Church. The Know-Nothing Party was rooted in the anti-Catholic bigotry present in some parts of America before the Civil War. Its members answered “I know nothing” when asked about the group.

This new anti-Catholic group is a little different, though. It’s designed so that its member can honestly say “I know nothing” about its real purpose. They may honestly think they’re part of a new “Catholic Spring,” when they’re really part of a secret attempt to advance one political party’s positions.

That’s what the infamous Podesta email reveals. He’s a fifth columnist creating a new Know-Nothing Party within his own Church, all behind the scenes so his fellow Catholics wouldn’t know. Holy Scripture warns us about those who operate in the darkness.