George Soros' legacy of bigotry

By Catholic League president Bill Donohue  

Few persons have done more damage to free societies than George Soros, the Hungarian-born billionaire. Yet in left-wing circles, the 92-year-old is regarded as a hero. That may have something to do with the fact that his Open Society Foundations have been greasing them for decades. Less well known is his record of bigotry. 

Soros is known as a "self-hating Jew." As a young man in Hungary he became a Nazi collaborator. In a "60 Minutes" interview, Soros admitted that he helped confiscate property from Jews. He told Steve Kroft that he never regretted doing so. When asked if this was difficult, Soros said, "Not, not at all. Not at all." Stunned, Kroft said, "No feeling of guilt?" "No" came the reply. 

The hatred that Soros has for Israel is indisputable. He funds groups such as Bend the Arc, a far-left Jewish group that supports anti-Semites such as Rep. Ilhan Omar and Rep. Rashida Tlaib. He also throws considerable money at the BDS movement (boycott, divestment and sanctions) which is trying to bankrupt Israel. By funding Amnesty International and the Human Rights Watch, he is instrumental in branding Israel an "apartheid" racist state, the two bodies promoting this cause. 

Soros has a long history of supporting anti-Catholicism. Catholics for Choice is the oldest anti-Catholic "Catholic" entity in the modern era. Though no organization has given it more money than the Ford Foundation, Soros' foundations have not been miserly. This letterhead has a history of lying about the Church's official teaching on abortion. 

In January, Catholics for Choice vandalized the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. At a prayer vigil that was held there before the March for Life, the Soros-funded entity desecrated the Basilica by using light-projecting technology to post anti-Catholic messages on it. 

When President Obama was in power, the atheist billionaire threw his weight behind Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good and Catholics United, two Catholic front-groups founded to manipulate Catholic voters. 

Both of the two anti-Catholic "Catholic" groups were founded in 2005, following the defeat of John Kerry the year before. Kerry lost to President George W. Bush in part because of the "values voters," mostly Catholic and evangelical Protestants who stood for traditional values. Soros wasn't happy with these traditionalists, or the outcome, and sought a corrective by establishing phony Catholic groups to alter the political landscape. 

It was a stealth campaign to end all stealth campaigns. There was nothing Catholic about either of these entities, but they gave the impression to the public that one could be a Catholic in good standing and oppose the Church's teachings on marriage, the family and sexuality. In 2016, they came crashing down. 

That is when the Wikileaks revelations became public. Leaked emails showed that John Podesta, Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, sought to create mutiny in the Catholic Church by funding Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good and Catholics United. One of Podesta's associates, Sandy Newman, said there was a need for a "Catholic spring," and that the goal should be to "plant the seeds of the revolution." Made possible, of course, with Soros' money. 

There is one other aspect to this story worth mentioning. After Obama was elected in 2008, the IRS contacted me to say that the Catholic League was under investigation for violating IRS strictures for non-profit organizations. After the probe was finally finished, we received a slap on the wrist. I promised the IRS official I would not stop hammering pro-abortion anti-Catholic politicians, and that he should inform his superiors of my pledge. 

More important, I told him that I knew who was behind the attempt to destroy me. Just before the 2008 election, a CNN staffer sent me copies of a long document detailing news releases I had sent that allegedly violated IRS rules. She did this because the person who sent it to her tried to get me kicked off TV; he sent the document to validate his request. 

When the IRS complaint was sent to me before Thanksgiving in 2008, I quickly concluded that it looked amazingly like the document forwarded to me by the CNN employee. It was sent to her by Catholics United. 

In other words, Soros was behind the attempt to silence the Catholic League. He lost. It's too bad he hasn't lost more often—his legacy of hate has done much harm.