Email chain allegedly shows Clinton aide mocking Catholics, Evangelicals

Participants in an email chain purportedly belonging to aides to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton mocked “conservative Catholicism” as “backwards.”

The 2011 email chain, released by WikiLeaks, shows a conversation that allegedly took place between Clinton campaign communications director Jen Palmieri and Center for American Progress fellow John Halpin. Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta was copied on the email chain.

Jennifer Palmieri, director of communications for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's campaign, sits on board the campaign plane while traveling to a Miami rally on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Halpin sent an email to Podesta and Palmieri mocking the Catholic faith of News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch and Wall Street Journal managing editor Robert Thomson.

Halpin wrote, “Friggin' Murdoch baptized his kids in Jordan where John the Baptist baptized Jesus.” He went on to argue:

Many of the most powerful elements of the conservative movement are all Catholic (many converts) from the SC and think tanks to the media and social groups. It's an amazing bastardization of the faith. They must be attracted to the systematic thought and severely backwards gender relations and must be totally unaware of Christian democracy.

Palmieri replied, “I imagine they think it is the most socially acceptable politically conservative religion.”

“Their rich friends wouldn't understand if they became evangelicals,” she wrote.

Halpin wrote that Palmieri had an “excellent point.”

“They can throw around ‘Thomistic’ thought and ‘subsidiarity’ and sound sophisticated because no one knows what the hell they're talking about,” Halpin wrote.

“Thomistic” thought is a reference to the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, a doctor of the church. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “subsidiarity” is a principle of Catholic teaching that “sets limits for state intervention.”

In a statement, Bill Donohue, president and CEO of the Catholic League, slammed the Clinton campaign over the exchange and argued that Clinton has “a moral obligation to sanction Podesta and Palmieri immediately.”

“These anti-Catholic remarks are bad enough but it makes one wonder what else Clinton’s chiefs and others associated with the campaign are saying about Catholics and Catholicism,” Donohue said.

A spokesperson for the Clinton campaign did not immediately return TheBlaze’s request for comment.

The exchange gained attention on social media.