By Carl E. Olson | catholicworldreport.com

Over on the Laetificat blog, Elizabeth does some diggin into the over-hyped (and now concluded) “Nuns on the Bus” tour:

After going to see the Nuns on the Bus in Janesville, WI, I found on facebook a video the Sinsinawa Dominican Sisters had recorded of Sr Simone Campbell earlier the same day, in which Sr Simone described candidly that “we asked for help in DC, and our colleagues, all the big players, they came together and helped us brainstorm this.” Certainly made me wonder who were “the big players” in DC that helped make this happen. Well, we can now verify one of them: Faith in Public Life, the George Soros-funded, Center for American Progress-associated political progressive organization that is also engaging in a media campaign against the Fortnight for Freedom, as shown in this recent Advisory Memo to Journalists from the USCCB. Among other efforts, they put out talking points to try to get journalists to politicize the Fortnight for Freedom and trip up bishops — see also Fr Z’s coverage and commentary of the Advisory Memo. …

When I met up with the Nuns on the Bus in Janesville, Casey accompanied Sr Simone closely and her media role was obvious. As I queried Sr Simone about her views on the HHS Mandate and the Fortnight for Freedom while she walked back toward the bus following the brief press conference, and she mainly only reiterated, as described above, that “it’s complicated”, Casey was also responding to me, for instance insistently correcting my perception of something eyebrow-raising I thought I heard Sr Simone say and hurrying Sr Simone away from me. The photo at the top of this post shows Casey accompanying Sr Simone to where CNN had set up for an interview.

So what is “Faith in Public Life”? It’s bad news, and certainly does not have Catholic concerns faithfully at heart. As Sr Mary Ann Walsh of the USCCB quoted from this page that has all the details, they are “a group founded with help from a pro-abortion group long directed by John Podesta called the Center for American Progress. . . (CAP); like the CAP it has received funding . . . from billionaire atheist  George Soros. . . . ”

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