At the risk of getting ignored by all or even banned, I'd like to give my two cents worth.
As I said in my intro, I was a member of the JBS years ago & am very grateful for what I learned. I think Roscoe & a few others here have a skewed picture of the JBS. But then, they are probably going by what the JBS is now, which is a mere shadow of what it used to be.
In MHO Robert Welch was a genius & a prophet (not in the religious sense). If people had heeded him then, we wouldn't be in the mess we are now. Please hear me thro to the end, but I've often said that but for the JBS I'd be a bag lady or on welfare & my kids all on drugs instead of the successful, happy trads that we are.
Robert Welch founded the JBS in Dec. of 1958. I joined in 1973. I had noticed something wrong with the country & the church & felt quite alone. Why didn't more people see what I saw? When I went to my first few meetings I said that I had been a Bircher all my life & didn't know it. Here I met trads (who showed me the way to the traditional Latin Mass said by a saintly elderly Jesuit) & non-Catholics, who became life-long friends. They were witty, intelligent & dedicated. I devoured their books, subscribed to their newsmagazines where you got news that you never got in the controlled media, went to Council Dinners and later attended Robert Welch's Memorial when he passed away in 1985. I heard that he converted at the end which is possible as he knew some trad priests, but I don't really know. All my children attended Birch camps to their great benefit.
Dr. Larry McDonald, a Congressman from Georgia, was being groomed to head the JBS, but he was killed (murdered?) when a Soviet fighter pilot shot down the Korean Air Lines jetliner that he was on over the Sea of Japan. There was always a curious dearth of news concerning this tragedy in which 60 other Americans lost their lives in 1983. The JBS was never the same after this and went from one leader to another with at least one being a traditional Catholic.
Unfortunately the JBS went much like the Catholic Church with in-fighting and splits, and splits with splits, firings & hirings and nasty lawsuits with each side claiming to be the real JBS. Our Bookstore that I sometimes helped in was closed and by the late 1990's I no longer was a member but remained friends with the few Birchers who hadn't died or left the state. They aren't members now either. I don't know why John McManus stays as it seems that the JBS has been taken over by the Mormons. Religion was never an issue before, but the head is now a Mormon and there seems to be a lot of his family on the payroll, and perhaps his friends. The quality of the monthy Bulletin went way down and they seemed to be just spinning their wheels which may be why some on this forum call them "a controlled opposition".
'The Sword of Christendom' a book written by Rev. Fr. Stephen P. DeLallo of the SPPX has an Appendix on the JBS and one on Fɾҽҽmαsσɳɾყ and the American Republic that you might find interesting.
All in all, JBS writers were always brilliant, and I learned much from them that allowed me to protect my children from public "education" and the nonsense in the NO. I now see their feet of clay and know that only the Social Reign of Christ the King can save us. If all Catholics were informed and voted as real Catholics, this country could be turned around overnight.
The moral of this story is - do not fear the Birchers in the trad chapels. I'd make friends with them as most likely they think exactly like you do and are very informed and go-getters. At least they were way back when. Of course there always is the possibility of a nutjob here or there, as there is in every organization but I'm speaking generally. I'm just sad to see all the misinformation about them floating around. I could write more but this is getting too long. And, no, I'm quite sure that Joe Welch is no relation to Robert Welch.
Topic: THE JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY (Read 18808 times)