Cardinal Dolan, Bain Capital, and Archbishop Romero
Frank Cocozzelli printable version print page     Bookmark and Share
Fri Aug 24, 2012 at 10:26:51 AM EST
The Republican Party is putting a Catholic face on the kick off of the Romney-Ryan campaign for the White House.  The face is none other than Cardinal Timothy Dolan, President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops who will give the closing prayer at the Republican convention in Tampa.

While Dolan's appearance broadly implies that  he supports Romney's candidacy, it serves as a distraction from something the Republicans would rather we not know; or if we do, forget; and for those of us who will never forget, help ensure that we are never heard.  Thirty years ago Mitt Romney sought the financial backing of those who bankrolled the murder of priests, nuns and an archbishop.

When we see the face of Timothy Dolan at the GOP presidential nominating convention, there are other faces we also need to see:

These are the faces of four Catholic nuns murdered by El Salvadoran right-wing death squads in 1982.

And these:

The faces of six Jesuit priests and two of their young assistants murdered by similar thugs.

And finally this face:

Archbishop Oscar Romero, who simply called for an end to the senseless killing.

These other Catholic faces are the faces of Catholicism at its very best: seeking justice for and reaching out to the marginalized with love and compassion.

But as Cole Stangler and Ryan Grimm recently reported for the Huffington Post when Mitt Romney sought start-up funds for Bain Capital, he went to the people who most benefited from, and perhaps most responsible for their murder.

In 1983, Bill Bain asked Mitt Romney to launch Bain Capital, a private equity offshoot of the successful consulting firm Bain & Company. After some initial reluctance, Romney agreed. The new job came with a stipulation: Romney couldn't raise money from any current clients, Bain said, because if the private equity venture failed, he didn't want it taking the consulting firm down with it.

When Romney struggled to raise funds from other traditional sources, he and his partners started thinking outside the box. Bain executive Harry Strachan suggested that Romney meet with a group of Central American oligarchs who were looking for new investment vehicles as turmoil engulfed their region.

The GOP presidential contender cannot, however, plead ignorance of his backers' unsavory past:

Romney was worried that the oligarchs might be tied to "illegal drug money, right-wing death squads, or left-wing terrorism," Strachan later told a Boston Globe reporter, as quoted in the 2012 book "The Real Romney."  But, pressed for capital, Romney pushed his concerns aside and flew to Miami in mid-1984 to meet with the Salvadorans at a local bank.

As Stangler and Grim further reported, "The Central Americans provided roughly $9 million -- 40 percent -- of Bain Capital's initial outside funding" adding, "they became valued clients."

Prominent among these "valued clients" were members of the Salaverria family whose connections to the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), founded by death-squad leader Roberto D'Aubuisson were established not only by Stangler and Grim, but by The Boston Globe and Los Angeles Times.

Before their execution, the four Maryknoll sisters were raped and tortured. Their bodies were then buried in a shallow grave. The six Jesuits were also tortured before they were murdered and left in the courtyard of their residence to serve as a warning to others who dared speak out against injustice and violence. Archbishop Romero was gunned down while saying Mass.

Cardinal Dolan and those on the Catholic Right who now bless the Romney campaign are depending on our forgetting the faces of the victims of Mitt Romney's original investors.

UPDATE: If you want to register your outrage at Cardinal Dolan's decision, contact him and let him know. Here's how to reach him: Office of Communications at: 212.371.1000 Ext. 2990. By e-mail: communications@archny.org




Display:
This from the Jesuit journal America:

The cozy relationship between a sizable portion of U.S. bishops and the Republican Party should be cause for concern, and not just among progressive Catholics. For the church to be able to live out its role as prophet, it cannot be tied to one political party. Cardinal Dolan's appearance in Tampa will damage the church's ability to be a moral and legitimate voice for voiceless, as those who view the Catholic Church as being a shill for the GOP have just a bit more evidence to prove their case.



by Frank Cocozzelli on Fri Aug 24, 2012 at 10:28:22 AM EST
I wonder if lay Catholics, not the progressive or conservative activists, just ordinary Catholics, are going to feel about Cardinal Dolan's endorsement of the Republican Party. I don't think that it can be taken as anything other than endorsement. If they were just looking for "a priest", they could have requested a Tampa diocese priest to deliver an invocation. Using a local priest would be the expected thing, nod to host city.

by NancyP on Fri Aug 24, 2012 at 10:59:27 AM EST
Parent


Bill Lindsey recalls that Jeane Kirkpatrick implied that the murdered sisters were being "political" and that they somehow "deserved" their murder. One thing I've wondered in recent years is the extent to which D'Aubuisson and ARENA members might have been involved in Opus Dei or Legionaries of Christ, although I know the latter group's financial angels were predominantly from Mexico. Tom Fox of National Catholic Reporter rightly criticizes Dolan in an editorial. Dolan and company aren't even providing a fig leaf of political neutrality.

by khughes1963 on Fri Aug 24, 2012 at 12:53:42 PM EST

Our Project Via Crucis delegation met with Rafael Sivatte at the Romero Center in the UCA in October 1990, less than a year after the massacre of the Jesuits, their housekeeper, and her daughter. He had been teaching part time before the assassinations and went full time afterwards. Talking with him, seeing the photo albums that supporters had assembled of the bloodied and tortured bodies, then going out to pray in the rose garden planted by the husband and father of the two murdered women, were almost more than I could bear. The nausea and disgust I feel while reading that Romney was dealing with those who financed the death squads is almost overwhelming.

I note that, while the video is correct, the text has a couple of errors regarding the four women religious. They were assassinated on December 2, 1980, not 1982. And only two of the four ~ Ita Ford and Maura Clarke ~ were Maryknolls. Dorothy Kazel was an Ursuline, and Jean Donovan was a lay worker. Ita, Maura, Dorothy, Jean ~ presente!

We don't have images of their faces, but we should also remember the nearly 1000 villagers of El Mozote, massacred over a two-day period in 1981 by the US trained Atlacatl Battalion. And the tens of thousands more ~ catechists and public health workers, village mayors and school teachers ~ bodies dumped in the streets or simply disappeared. This is what Romney helped to finance? Has he no conscience? Has he no shame?

I don't recall his name any more, but it was widely rumored that the Bishop of San Miguel in the late '80's and early '90's was a member of Opus Dei. He was a "military chaplain" and seemed to prefer appearing in his military uniform rather than his bishop's robes.

by MLouise on Fri Aug 24, 2012 at 11:57:56 PM EST
Thank you for the clarifications and sharing your thoughts. Please speak out against the cardinal.

by Frank Cocozzelli on Sat Aug 25, 2012 at 01:37:11 PM EST
Parent


Dolan is also reportedly going to be doing the obligatory God-bothering at the Democrats' convention next week.

by Pierce R Butler on Wed Aug 29, 2012 at 11:03:13 PM EST

It is hard but I do read material that is deviant from what I see as the right and proper way.  Outdoor Recreational Sports Infrequently does it seem nicer, like this article on Cardinal Dolan, Bain Capital, and Archbishop Romero but I don't lose my ability to think.

by isabelladom on Sun Sep 11, 2022 at 11:55:28 PM EST


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