The following exchange took place following Democratic Presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche's keynote speech to a town meeting in Los Angeles Feb. 26.

Q: My question is this: Both you and I are in a similar situation, in that neither one of us has seen this film, "The Passion of the Christ." However, I am somewhat troubled, by what I have read, recently, in briefings, etc., and I would like you to assist me, to understand this better.

Let's assume for a moment, that I am a Catholic whose theology includes the belief that Christ bore, in his body, the sins of the world. This doctrine is widely believed within the Church. Let's assume further, that I'm a conservative Catholic, that I may reject some of the teachings of Vatican II. Does this, of itself-and if so, please, how?—make me a Satanist, or a Synarchist? Thank you.

LAROUCHE: Well, not quite so simple. The point is, is that sometimes the teachings, religious teachings are oversimplified, and inadequate priests, who don't really know theology—.

Let me just take one case, the American case, for example: In the post-war period, in the Catholic Church, there used to be seminaries, which were the responsibility of bishops. That is, the bishops were responsible for providing seminaries for the education of priests. And, funds were raised (from' the times the pews were not empty) from occupants of the pews, who would support these seminaries and similar kinds of institutions-hospitals, things like that, which were Catholic hospitals, for example, voluntary hospitals.

And, so then, people would go in, to take a vocation, sometimes a vocation of the priesthood, in the process. And often they knew something. But, then, the bishops found the money was short, and they hustled people off to secular universities, to prepare divinity training, and other things. And in these universities, there would be these students would be exposed to teachings based on things like William James' "Varieties of Religious Experience," and similar kinds of modernist thinking, of that type. And what happened is, they came out, not believing, because they had been given the idea of adapting to an empiricist-oriented society.

That was where the problem really occurred. Arid this resulted in a study, done in part by a friend of mine, who's since deceased, oil behalf of the bishops in the United States, as to what had gone wrong with the seminaries. And this was the problem. What happens when a priest no longer believes, and goes through the motions of believing, and continuing the function, to control the institution? This is the problem the Pope faces, of the number of priests who no longer believe, but they continue to control. They develop substitute interests, in place of that kind of control.

The Synarchist Model

Now, what happened, for example? Let's take the case of the Synarchist: The Synarchist model, in modern society-it's a form, actually, of-it's actually a non-Christian form of belief. But, it was introduced by Venice, as a weapon against the influence of the Renaissance. It was introduced by certain sections of the clergy, who were allied with the Normans, who were allied with the Cluniacs, who were allied with Mathilde of Tuscany, and her successors of the so-called Welf faction, and Venetians in general. They organized this, in an attempt to defeat the Renaissance, the 15th-century Renaissance. And, about 1480, they introduced the Inquisition into Spain, especially in Castille. They captured Isabella 1, as part of this, and they introduced the Inquisition, of the infamous Torquemada and so forth. They conducted, in 1492, the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain, which was tire model for what Hitler did with the Jews in Eastern Europe.

The same kind of victimization, contrary to Christianity, which is not a—Christianity is not a penal system. It is a system of redemption of mankind. And therefore, the essential function of the priest who is a Christian; is more missionary; he's not an enforcer, lie's a missionary. He may keep order in his own house, but he essentially is a missionary, like the missionary priests who go out in Africa, and just serve, and serve, and serve. They're concerned with their people. They do effect conversions, but the conversions are effected by this process, not by doctrinaire methods. And therefore, the teaching of the catechism and so forth, is that.

Now, people come along, and they want to destroy Christianity. A good example of that, is what happened with Venice at the beginning of the 16th century. Venice wanted to destroy the Renaissance. So, what they did, is they promoted schisms. They did all kinds of things of that sort. And you had religious warfare, throughout Europe, from 1511 to 1648, as that form, where man was beast to man, in the name of religion.

Religion as a Weapon

As a result of that, and as a result of people playing the game of religion, including political power, especially money power—wealthy families try to buy priests and bishops, and often succeed, in various ways, sometimes which are subtle, sometimes not so subtle; political power tries to use religion as a weapon. As we see in the Protestants of the United States, the right-wing Protestants. They're all used. They are all human cattle! And they're the most poor and most ignorant people, generally, or the ones who are broken-down drunks, of the type like some Congressmen who, when they became drunks, they were picked up by these religious revival groups, and they became the worst, most hateful right-wingers in Washington-as they are today, part of the neo-conservative crowd.

What happens then? Now, you've got this big money, went into this fellow Mel Gibson-and there are certain people in Hollywood, as actors, who've made careers as being Satanic. That is, the Satanic image, which is the Joseph de Maistre Satanic image, which he analysed in terms of the definition of the Executioner, using Torquemada as his model. And what has been done in this case, has been done often, is to try to use is, power tries to find some enthusiast, whom they convert as their instrument, who is used for the purpose of mass murder, or something like that. That's what this is. The Synarchists are that.

The Synarchists are a very significant, actually deviant factor, on the fringes of the Catholic Church. They're very hateful. You read their literature, you read their versions of history: They're fraudulent. I know these people very well; I know them particularly from South and Central America, where we've run into a lot of them. This was what the tradition of Maximilian is, in Mexico. That sort of thing. The Cristero War is an expression of that same kind of Synarchist tendency.

We have the same thing, from Spain now, you have the Banco Bilbao, for example. You have a group of people who have taken the view that the colonies of Central and South America, which were formerly Spanish, should never have left the Spanish Empire, and must be recaptured now, by Spain as part of the reborn Spanish Empire. This is what the Synarchist movement is, in Central and South America is, today.

This is a movement, which is based, for example, in Italy, where the leader of the movement, titular leader at least, is Alessandra Mussolini, the granddaughter of Benito. This is Jean-Marie Le Pen, in France; this is Blas Pinar in Spain. This is a whole group of these people on the continent. They're well known.

They are actually engaged in terrorist threats against the United States. Their basic organization, is based on hatred, against the United States, which they say is responsible for stealing Spain's colonies from Spain, which belong to Spain. The people of Mexico, South America, belong to Spain, in their view. And, what they're doing now, through the banks, Santander and Bilbao, which are occupying and stealing South America, through financial operations on infrastructure and so forth, this is what it is. This is what's going on. This is part of the process of foreclosing on Argentina, from the United States.

Satanic Qualities

So therefore, you judge a Synarchist, you judge Satanic qualities by either foolishness, which may be foolish Satanic qualities-people believe in foolish things, and there's a lot of that in the United States. For example, video games actually induce a Satanic state of mind, in young people. And you see that, in these cases of the outbursts of teenagers doing that. There are various levels of it. This was organized. The intention was to do that: was to create a potential army, a "reform in military affairs," to replace regular military forces, with forces of these types of SS types, recruited from people who have gone through this video kind of conditioning, to become just stone killers, of that type. Just like the Roman legions were, in their worst phase.

So, that's the problem. What we're dealing with here with Synarchism and Satanism, we're dealing with-not necessarily tendencies in society, which tend toward Satanism-we're dealing with organized forces, of a Satanic character, which are being motivated in a Satanic way for Satanic purposes.

And that's what we're dealing with. It's not a question of: Is a person who gets sucked into reading this novel, or this doctrine, that's not the question. That is a potentiality, which might be exploited by somebody. It becomes Satanic, when it's deployed as a force, as a threat to society. Then, it's Satanic.

Cheney is Satanic. He didn't get that way, just from chewing rugs.

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