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A Roman Catholic
Praetorian Guard
Located
on a 7,000-acre establishment next to the Great
Dismal Swamp, Blackwater trains SWAT teams, FBI,
and federal agencies, as well as the military
from foreign countries, such as Spain. Blackwater
also hires the finest Special Forces from the
militaries around the world. It is a burgeoning,
elite Roman Catholic Forces army the likes of
which is nowhere to be found anywhere else in the
world. There is no better military training
anywhere.
In
Iraq, Blackwater mercenaries have been
commanding, in certain circumstances, active duty
U.S. Soldiers in battle. –Blackwater,
118.
Erik Prince is
a Roman Catholic
Blackwater
was founded by a US Navy SEAL, Erik Prince, from
an extremely wealthy and well-connected family.
“’Erik Prince is a Roman Catholic,’
said author Robert Young Pelton, who has had rare
access to Prince. ‘A lot of people brand him
in his father’s religion, but he converted
to Roman Catholicism.’ [Kerry Candaele’s
interview with Robert Pelton,’ www.iraqforsale.org/ robert_pelton.php, accessed
November 28, 2006.] Indeed, many of the
executives who would later form the core of
Prince’s Blackwater empire are also
Catholics, and when Prince’s first wife,
Joan, died, Catholic Mass was celebrated for her
both near her hometown outside Schenectady, New
York, and near where the family lived in McLean,
Virginia. [Joan Nicole Prince obituary from
Herrick District Library obituary file; Obituary,
the Albany Times Union, June 24, 2003.] In
1997, Lt. Erik Prince, U.S Navy SEAL. blurbed a
book called Christian Fatherhood: The Eight
Commitments of St. Joseph’s Covenant Keepers…The
book’s author, Stephen Wood, is the founder
of Family Life Center International, a Catholic
apologist organization…
Major Funding
of Extremist RC
Organizations
“…Prince
became a major funder of extremist fringe
Catholic organizations. In 1999 he contributed
$25,000 to Catholic Answers, a San Diego-based
Catholic evangelical organization founded by the
Catholic fundamentalist Karl Keating. Keating
dedicated his life to apologetics and defending
Catholicism at all costs….
“The
following year, Prince provided funding to the
right-wing Catholic monthly magazine Crisis. He
also gave generously to several Michigan
churches, including $50,000 to Holy Family
Oratory, a Kalamazoo Catholic Church, and
$100,000 to St. Isidore Catholic Church and
school in Grand Rapids, as well as Catholic
churches in Virginia.
Blackwater’s
Immense Political Power
Secretive
Council for National
Policy (CNP)
“But
Erik Prince’s philanthropy has certainly not
been limited to Catholic causes. The Prince
family was deeply involved in the secretive
Council for National Policy, described by the
New York Times as ‘a little-known
club of a few hundred of the most powerful
conservatives in the country [which has] met
behind closed doors at undisclosed locations for
a confidential conference’ three times a
year ‘to strategize about how to turn the
country to the right.’ The Council was
started in 1981 by the Rev. Tim LaHaye, one of
the founders of the modern right-wing Christian
movement in the United States and author of the
apocalyptic Left Behind novels. The idea
was to build a Christian conservative alternative
to the Council on Foreign Relations, which Lahaye
considered too liberal. CNP membership is kept
secret, and members are instructed that ‘The
media should not know when or where we meet or
who takes part in our programs, before or after a
meeting.’ [David D. Kirkpatrick, ‘Club
of the Most Powerful Gathers in Strictest
Privacy,’ the New York Times, August
28, 2004.] While memberships lists are not
public, CNP meetings have been attended by a host
of conservative luminaries like Jerry Falwell,
Phyllis Schlafly, Pat Robertson, Tony Perkins,
James Dobson, Gary Bauer, and Ralph Reed. Holland
H. Coors of the beer dynasty and Wayne LaPierre
of the National Rifle Association, Richard and
Dick DeVos, and the likes of Oliver North, Grover
Norquist, and Frank Gaffney are also affiliated
with CNP. Guests are allowed to attend ‘only
with the unanimous approval of the executive
committee.’ George W. Bush addressed the
group in 1999, seeking support for his bid for
the presidency.” Blackwater, 15, 16.
Vice
president Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld, John Bolton, John Ashcroft, Tom Delay,
Bill Frist, have all attended. “Edgar Prince
served a stint as vice president of the CNP from
1988 to 1989, and CNP vice president at the time
of his death.” [Blackwater, 17]. Erik
Prince has donated money to the CNP, and is close
to many of its key players.
Freiheit
Foundation & Colson
Prince
has a Freiheit Foundation, German for “liberty,”
which gave $500,000 to Prison Fellowship in 2000,
a prison reform organization that advocates for
“faith based prisons.’ Prison
Fellowship is the brainchild of Charles Colson.
By
late 2006, 22,308 Prison Fellowship volunteers
operated in over 1,800 U.S. prisons, with 120,000
prisoners participating. Blackwater, p.
18.
Bush and
Colson – A Regular
Advisor
President
Bush, when governor of Texas, turned over a part
of the prison unit in Sugar Land – Tom
DeLays’s district, to Chuck Colson’s
faith program. Since Bush has been US president,
Colson has been a regular advisor to the
president.
Blackwater’s
Vision: Evangelicals and Catholics
Together
The
History of ECT
Colson the
Driving Force For
Unification
of Protestantism and
Catholicism
Chuck
Colson has been the driving force in fulfilling
the following Spirit of Prophecy quote regarding
Protestantism stretching her hand across the gulf
to grasp the hand of the Roman power:
“When
Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the
gulf to grasp the hand of Roman power, when
she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands
with Spiritualism, when, under the influence of
this threefold union, our country shall repudiate
every principle of its Constitution as a
President and Republican government, and shall
make provision for the propagation of papal
falsehoods and delusions, then we may know
that the time has come for the marvelous working
of Satan, and that the end is near.”
–Testimonies,
vol. 5, p. 451.
Evangelicals
and Catholics Together
It
started, as an initiative of Colson’s to
launch a theological discussion group known as
Evangelicals and Catholic Together. “Initially
the group’s purpose was to minimize
hostility and maximize cooperation between these
two polarized pillars of the Christian world in
the mission field. Subsequently the group took on
the scholarly role of examining, narrowing down,
and if possible reconciling the theological
and doctrinal differences between Roman Catholics
and Protestant Evangelicals.” Jonathan
Aitken, Charles W. Colson: A Life Redeemed. Colorado
Springs, CO; Waterbrook Press, 2005, p. 378.
(emphasis mine)
Neuhaus the
Most Important
Influence
on Colson
“The
most important influence on Colson that caused
him to become involved in ECT was his friendship
with Richard John Neuhaus.” Ibid., 378, 379.
Neuhaus is the leader of the neocons, who have
directed the policies of the current George W.
Bush administration. Neuhaus had been a Lutheran
pastor and author, who converted to Roman
Catholicism and became a Roman Catholic priest.
Colson’s
Marriage to an RC
Caused
Him to Want to Heal
The
Rift
Colson
had been a Baptist with Reformed Theology, but he
was married to a Roman Catholic, Patty Hughes,
who came from an Irish family. John Kennedy had
dated her briefly. This marriage caused Colson to
want to heal the rift between Catholicism and
Protestantism.
Neuhaus
Invites Colson; Colson
Receives
Personal Manifestation
Of
“Holy Spirit”
The
Roman Priest, Neuhaus, in 1992 invited Colson to
a symposium to discuss the growing rift between
evangelicalism and Catholicism in Latin America.
During the symposium convened by the priest
Neuhaus, Colson received ‘a personal
manifestation of the Holy Spirit.” Ibid.,
380. Note now carefully how the direction of
the Holy Spirit was perceived.
Colson Calls
for Common
Ground
Against Postmodern
Secular
Naturalism
On the
second day of the symposium Colson widened the
discussion to include ‘the possibilities for
greater understanding and unity on the issues
where there was common ground instead of fighting
about denominational differences that divided
them. Those differences were far less important
than the urgent need to champion the biblical
worldview of God’s creating and redeeming
work against the growing postmodernist view of
militantly secular naturalism.” Ibid., 380.
RCs Have Sense
of “Being Led”
This
caused the dynamic of the meeting to change. The
24 Roman Catholic and evangelical particants had
a sense that they were “being led.”
Ibid.
Colson
Encounters “Direct
Personal
Experience of the Power
of
the Holy Spirit,’” Calls for
Bold
Statement
That
afternoon Colson ‘encountered what he
believed to be ‘a direct personal
experience of the power of the Holy Spirit.’
Describing this phenomenon in a letter to
Neuhaus two days after the meeting. Colson wrote:
‘Somewhere
during the second afternoon I sensed a real
moving of God’s Spirit. I think we all
became aware that perhaps this was not just
another symposium but that we might be, as you
put it, on the edge of something very historic,
an opportunity, a window in time if you will. Dare
we believe that God is calling us to make a bold
statement that could influence the course of His
church in the decades to come?’” Ibid.,
380, 381.
Colson “On
Fire”
Colson
got very enthusiastic and “on fire’ and
declared in ringing tones, “’Together
we can do it!’” Ibid. Colson put this
down to ‘the Holy Spirit in the room,
‘inspiring us, driving us all forward.’”
Ibid. The Jesuit Avery Dulles was present.
ECT Drafting
Committee Drafts
Initial
Statement
The
next few months the ECT drafting committee met
regularly to prepare an initial statement for
public endorsement. The committee consisted of
Colson, Neuhaus, Kent Hill (a leading evangelical
theologian) and George Weigel (the pope’s
biographer).
ECT
Convergence and
Cooperation
The
theme of ECT’s first public statement
released in New York on March 29, 1994, was ‘”
convergence and cooperation between Evangelicals
and Catholics.’ The principle subheading
of the statement – ‘We search together,’
‘We affirm together,’ ‘We contend
together,’ ‘We witness together.’…”
Ibid.
Endorsed By RC
Luminaries and
Evangelical
Leaders
The
statement was endorsed by Roman Catholic
luminaries such as the Jesuit Avery Dulles,
Cardinal John O’Connor of New York,
Archbishop Francis Stafford of Denver, Michael
Novak (another leading theocon), and Bishop
Carlos Sevilla of San Francisco. Evangelical
leaders such as Pat Roberson also joined.
Evangelicals
Initially Accuse
Colson of
“Overturning the
Reformation,”
Betraying
Justification,
Attacking Gospel
But
the initial backlash of evangelicals was
terrific, accusing Colson of “overturning
the Reformation,” “striking the most
devastating blow against the gospel in the past
1,000 years,” and “betraying the
doctrine of Justification by Faith.” R.C.
Sproul and D. James Kennedy attacked fiercely.
Colson argued back that the Catholic and
Protestant interpretations of sola fide, (faith
alone) could be reconciled, that he was not the
betrayer or compromiser.
Sproul
Declares RC Not a
Christian
Church
“R.C.
Sproul would have none of it. On one occasion he
publicly declared in a lecture at Colson’s
hometown of Naples that ‘the Roman
Catholic Church is neither a Christian body nor a
Christian church.’” Ibid, 385.
Colson shot back that if are going to write off
900 million Catholics, then you have to write off
the Orthodox 300 million, as well as the
Episcopalians and mainline Presbyterians, leaving
but a small, select group to defend against 2
billion pantheists and 1 billion Muslims.
Justification by Faith
Alone
Just
here is important in the extreme that God’s
true remnant people clearly understand the great
truth of Righteousness by Faith in Jesus Christ alone,
Justification by Faith, the great truth that
launched the Protestant Reformation of the
Sixteenth Century.
We are
saved by grace through faith, and that not of
ourselves, it is the gift of God. (Ephesians 2:8)
The only righteousness that God will
accept in the judgment is the righteousness of
Jesus Christ. We are clothed with the great
garment of Christ’s righteousness as we
surrender our heart, mind, and will to Jesus
Christ, and by faith accept the great gift of
Christ’s righteousness.
“But
now without (separately, asunder, apart,
alone) law a righteousness of God has been
revealed, having been witnessed by the law and
the prophets, a righteousness of God
through faith in Jesus Christ upon all the
ones believing, for there is no difference –
for all have sinned and come short of the glory
of God, being justified freely through His
grace through the redemption which is in Christ
Jesus, Whom God placed before a propitiation
(expiation) through faith in His blood as a
demonstration (sign, proof) of His righteousness
through the passing over of the sins happening
before in the patience (forbearing) of God, for
the demonstration of His righteousness in the
present time, in order for Him to be just and
the One justifying the one who believes in Jesus.”
Romans 3:21-26. (Greek.)
The
difference in the matter of justification between
the true gospel of the Reformation and Roman
Catholicism, is the true righteousness by faith
in Christ, or justification, has not one
thread of human devising in it, depending solely
upon Christ and His righteousness alone,
while Rome’s position includes human
devising.
When
one gives up the great Biblical Reformation truth
of justification by faith in Christ alone,
one has no defense whatever against sin, and has
gone over to the camp of Rome.
J.I. Packer’s
Support of Colson
Turns
Tide; RC and Evangelical
Scholars
Support ECT
The
ECT wars rolled on. The Roman Catholic leaders
got very little flak. As time passed, Colson’s
side pulled ahead in the battle. Dr. J.I. Packer’s
support of Colson turned the tide of battle in
Colson’s favor. ECT gained momentum in
scholarly circles. More and more Catholic and
Evangelical theologians engaged in ECT seminars.
Publications grew in stature and numbers, publishing
papers on sola fide, sola scriptura, communion
of saints, role of the Virgin Mary, scripture in
the Catholic tradition, tradition in life and
thought of twentieth century Evangelicals, and
sanctification.
Cooperation
Becomes
Respectable
The
waves and ripples of this widened and spread.
Cooperation between Catholics and Evangelicals
became respectable from prison ministries,
mission service, and local parishes. Courses were
offered, such as Alpha Course, an evangelical
course running in over seven hundred Catholic
parishes, with the blessing of the hierarchy,
cardinals, and archbishops.
ECT Communio Sanctorum:
An
Extraordinary
Realignment of
Religious
Alliances
By
2002, when ECT put out Communio Sanctorum, there
was little criticism from any quarter. Neuhaus
declared that ECT would not have happened without
Colson. On March 30, 2004, the New York Times
credited ECT with providing the major impetus of
“’an extraordinary realignment’
of religious alliances within the
American Christian community.” Ibid., 388.
(Emphasis mine).
In
the midst of all this, in 1997 the Roman Catholic
Church and the Lutheran World Federation signed
the historic “Joint Declaration on the
Doctrine of Justification: Lutheran World
Federation and the Catholic Church.” Martin
Luther would have rolled over in his grave, had
he known.
Sea
Change
The
result of Evangelicals and Catholics together has
been profound. Campus Crusade, the Navigators,
Young Life, and Promise Keepers, reached out to
Catholic as never before. The Jesuit Cardinal
Avery Dulles has continued the dialogue with ECT.
The change has been described as a ‘sea
change.” Ibid., 411. Colson is the one
who influenced George W. Bush to set up an Office
for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. (Ibid.,
411). Colson and his evangelicals, along
with the Roman Priest Neuhaus and the theocons
have dictated national policy on issue after
issue.
RC Talk Show
Hosts Now
Controlling
Congress
Today
Roman Catholicism and Evangelicalism are united
on issue after issue, as they fight the culture
wars together, aided and abetted by a mass of
Roman-trained and oriented talk show hosts, whom
Trent Lott declared, are now controlling
congress.
This battle that will
end in the triumph of the Image of the Papacy,
and Rome’s principles in this country, and
the ultimate decree regarding the Mark of the
Beast. It is prophecy unfolding before our very
astonished vision. And Blackwater is in the thick
of it.
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