Having been raised Catholic and in a liberal area of the country, it was not until I was in middle school that I was exposed to the abundance of anti-Catholic propaganda that is so characteristically ound in American society. As I grew, I learned that there are a LOT of people who have some rather strange ideas about the Catholic Church and what it teaches. For instance, neither me nor any Catholic that I have ever known have never worshipped the Blessed Virgin, and somehow I was now being told that I have been worshipping her for all these years. The same is with the Eucharist, which we were taught has (with the communion wine) following consecration the Real Presence- body, blood, soul, and divinity- of Jesus really present in it and it has been backed up by countless miracles- and now I was being told that I was “worshipping a cookie.”
I remember my first time I went to a “Christian” book store. I was about 19, and while I had been to “Catholic” book stores before I had never visited a Protestant one because I simply had no need to. I headed straight for the book section, and I was shocked to see what I found. It was not so much of what I read, because so much of it was, well, intellectually dishonest and outright diatribe against the Catholic Church. It is one thing to be critical- I understand that. I also understand that people will not always agree. That is well and good too. But the literature seemed like it was venom spiced with the occasional fact or two and wrapped up in a colorful package with big letters and lots of pictures.
Many of the names are well-known. Alexander Hislop. Loraine Boettener. Jack Chick. John Rice. There are also many of the “prosperity gospel” and, for lack of a better word, “social Christian preachers”- people whose idea of “church” and “Christianity” is conceived around and wholly American-centric, thus making their beliefs a little more than a modified extension of American national culture and interests. As I had come to learn, many of these people’s works or for those still living, missions, have had considerable influence in aiding the spread of these outlandish theories and at the expense of fellow Catholic (who they all deny are Christians) in order to fill their congregations with more members and ultimately, increase their 501(c)3 tax-free donations.
Why do I call them outlandish? Because their “theories” are often little more than poorly-concealed hatred at something they either do not understand or do not like for an emotional, non-rational reason in most cases. There are those who hate the Faith for reasons of malice, but they are not the majority.
But yet, there are also real problems- even conspiracies- within the Catholic Church. Jesus was killed as part of a conspiracy between the Jewish Sanhedrin and Judas. If God himself who came to dwell among men would be affected by a conspiracy against Him, why not His Church?
There is no better critic- and for that matters as well- conspiracy theorist than a faithful, dedicated, well-informed Catholic. Indeed, we were the original conspiracy theorists. Why bother with fairy tales when you can read about the real thing?
Here are a list of five excellent books about conspiracies in the Catholic Church. There have been many more written throughout history. However, at the same time, these describe events of particular significance to the American and Western European minds. Most of them involve Freemasonry, which is not only well-documented in their work against the Church, but is of course a scandal to most Americans because of the deep connections that this country has to the Freemason organization.
Memoirs Illustrating A History of Jacobinism
Written in 1793 by Fr. Augustin Barruel, this book is a must read for every Catholic who wants a fundamental understanding of how Freemasonry and her respective societies were behind the anti-Catholic French Revolution and subsequent revolutions. This book was the first book to expose the Freemason connection to the revolution and was so influential that it caused a Scottish Protestant Professor John Robison to research and confirm Fr. Barruel’s claims in his own book, Proofs of a Conspiracy, published in 1798. Fr. Barruels’ book caused riots in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, and helped to found the anti-Mason party, which lasted from 1828 to 1838.
Since Fr. Barruel wrote the book in England as an exile from France due to the revolution, he not only wrote it in French, but English Catholics translated and published it in English. The late Fr. Stanley Jaki republished it and it under the publisher Real View Books.
Written by former National Catholic Reporter writer Paul Fisher, this book gives an excellent history of the Freemason infiltration of the United States and specifically, the US judicial system. Going back through the personal papers of many different statesmen, archived material, and in particular the files of Freemason Judge Hugo Black, he traces how Freemasons restructured through the court system certain functions of the U.S. Government for the purpose of undermining and destroying the mission of the Catholic Church with an eye towards the legal abolition of Chrisitianity in the USA as a long-term goal.
A must read. This is Fr. Malachi Martin’s classic book about the corruption of the Vatican II synod by communists, Freemasons and satanists. What is most disturbing about this book is that while it is classified as fiction, the entire story is real except names and a few places have been changed. In true Catholic fashion, Catholic have decoded the names and places used so that you can read the real history of Vatican II uncensored.
The Permanent Instructions of the Alta Vendita
Written by Giuseppe Mazzini of the anti-clerical Carbonari in the 1870s, this document details a plot to put liberal, “modernist ideas” into the Church to destroy it from within. Bl. Pope Pius IX and Pope Leo XIII specifically requested this document to be divulged and propagated. It was likely in part behind St. Pope Pius X’s famous encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis against the flow of liberal, modern thought into the Church. Most disturbingly, much of what it describes has come to pass post Vatican II. It can be purchased or read online for free.
Fatima Priest- The Story of Fr. Nicholas Gruner
Fr. Nicholas Gruner died in 2015. I had the pleasure of meeting him in late 2013 at one of his last appearances. This book is not only the story of his life, but it is the story of the Fatima message (which I will be writing more about here), which has been cited as one of the most important prophetic messages of recent history and is also one of the most ignored, manipulated, and outright lied about events as well. It can be purchased or read online.