From Forums of the Virgin Mary [translation, unedited; views expressed are Forum’s]:
What happened to the one who infiltrated more than 1,000 Communists in Catholic seminaries and dealt with four cardinals who worked for the USSR?
In the 1930s and 1940s, a Communist infiltration strategy was [allegedly] deployed in the priestly training seminaries of the Catholic Church.
The operation was led by a lawyer named Bella Dodd, who had abdicated her faith at the university.
But there came a time when she opened her eyes, discovered the deceptions on which Communism operated, left the Party, and revealed what was happening there.
And in this moment of special fragility due to Communist persecution, she came to faith again.
Here we will talk about Bella Dodd’s conversion and how she was led back into the Church by Archbishop Fulton Sheen and a Christmas Eve Mass in 1950.
In the 1930s the USSR Communist Party ordered the infiltration of the Catholic Church.
We explain this in several videos that I leave you in the description of this video.
There we mention several testimonies of repentant ex-Communists, from various countries, who declare that this order and the infiltration actually happened.
And Bella Dodd, the most famous witness, said that she was in charge of infiltrating more than 1,100 young people into Catholic seminaries, so that they could make a career in the structure and reach bishops and cardinals.
And she further stated in the 1950s, that she had had contact with no less than four cardinals, who worked for the Communist Party.
Obviously, times are not enough for some of these seminarians to have become cardinals in twenty years, so that the infiltration of the seminaries was not the only one that occurred.
Bella Dodd explained that of all the world’s religions, the Catholic Church was the only one feared by the Communists, as it was their only effective opponent.
A guilt complex would be introduced from within, labeling the “Church of the past” as oppressive, authoritarian, full of prejudices, responsible for the divisions of religious bodies throughout the centuries, arrogant in claiming to be the sole possessor of the TRUTH.
This was necessary to embarrass the leaders of the Church and achieve an “openness to the world” and a more flexible attitude towards all religions and philosophies.
Does any of this sound familiar to you?
Unless you’ve been in a coma since Vatican II, you’ll realize that Bella Dodd was describing the state of the Catholic Church today.
A strong post-conciliar trend has led leading Church figures to wallow in guilt over the Church’s “intolerant” past, publicly apologizing for the sins of dead Catholics, though not for their own sins against living faithfully, including the cover-up of the abuses, which caused so much damage.
And also to exalt the virtues of other religions.
And how did Bella Dodd’s conversion happen?
Bella Dodd was the daughter of Italian immigrants; her maiden name was María Assunta Isabella Visono.
As an adult she rejected her faith, graduated as a lawyer, worked in the teachers’ union, and married a fellow college professor named Dodd.
She was a member of the Party until she reached the highest positions, attracted by the Party’s declared love for the poor.
Bella Dodd was in charge of the Communist infiltration in the Priestly Training Seminaries.
Then she broke with Communism, realizing that it had no such love for the poor.
And she denounced the infiltration several times before the Committee on Anti-American Activities of the US Congress in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
And finally she returned to the Church. She died in 1969.
Drs. Paul Kengor and Mary Nicholas published in 2022 the book, “The Devil and Bella Dodd: A Woman’s Struggle Against Communism and Her Redemption,” which is a biography of her life.
And there they reconstruct how their conversion was, through various testimonies.
After dedicating 21 years of her life to the enemy, she was so devastated that when her eyes were opened, she wanted to dedicate the remaining years to penance and enter the most severe penitential order.[scroll for more:]
Providentially she came to Archbishop Fulton Sheen, confessed, and placed herself under his guidance as spiritual director.
And he gave her the order to remain in the world and open the eyes of Americans to the deadly poison of Communism, atheism, hatred of God and the Church, through lectures that she would give for the rest of her life in the United States.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Bella’s life was in chaos, a battlefield against the fury the Communists had unleashed on her for withdrawing and exposing their schemes and conspiracies.
She would tell Fulton Sheen, “God reached out to me repeatedly, but I was so blind I ignored it and continued in the pattern of my own despair, not caring whether I lived or died, afraid to face each day ahead, unwilling to give back. I was adrift like a ship without a rudder.”
In the fall of 1950, Bella went to Washington to try a case as a lawyer.
And as she was walking to the Capitol, she ran into her old friend, Congressman Christopher McGrath, and they went to his office and he said, “You seem disturbed, Bella. Is there anything I can do for you?”
McGrath asked her if she wanted FBI protection. And she replied, “I don’t want any more police protection, I have them following me all the time.”
At the time, Bella was being followed by both the FBI and the KGB.
And then McGrath asked her, “Well, do you want to see a priest then?”
And all of a sudden a “Yeah!” which left her stunned.
So McGrath arranged for Bella to meet none other than Archbishop Fulton Sheen that night. In the initial conversation, Bella recounts that Fulton Sheen treated her sweetly and observed: “Dr. Dodd, you look unhappy,” and she began to cry.
And so he took her to a little chapel in his house to pray and gave her a rosary.
She recalled, “He just let me cry, and then, without realizing it, I found out that we were both on our knees before the Blessed Mother in the little chapel.”
This was undoubtedly a turning point in the life of Bella Dodd.
From there she would remain deeply devoted to the Blessed Mother.
She said that for the first time in her life she knew peace, which she had not known for many years.
And then Sheen said, “Bella, if you want to protect the people you say you love, then in order to do the right thing, you have to know something more about Christianity.”
And they arranged to meet so that Sheen would instruct her in the faith on his next visit to New York.
But by the time of Monsignor Sheen’s stay in New York, Bella had once again entered the darkness and she postponed her visit.
She calmed herself by entering churches in the city, which were the only places where her inner turmoil stopped and her fear left her.
She spent Christmas Eve dinner in 1950 with a couple of friends; they read the Bible, ate a simple dinner, and then walked her to the bus stop.
She says she doesn’t remember getting off the bus that night, but found herself at St. Francis of Assisi Church on New York’s West Side.
The choir sang Christmas hymns and she realized that these were the people she loved and wanted to serve, people of all races and ages.
Here was a brotherhood of men with meaning to her.
The midnight Mass was packed and she prayed over and over again: “God, help me. God help me.”
When the Mass ended, she walked the streets alone for hours, but she felt different; she felt a warm glow of hope.
She knew she was traveling closer and closer to home, “led by the Star” as she later wrote.
She was on a different path now. She would never return to the Dark again.
She finally returned to the Church under the guidance of Archbishop Fulton Sheen in 1952. [scroll for more:]
She became friends with the famous couple of Catholic philosophers named Von Hildebrand.
Dietrich von Hildebrand was increasingly concerned with what was called the spirit of Vatican II and once told her, “Bella, sometimes I wonder if the Church hasn’t been infiltrated.”
And his wife Alice testified that Bella replied, “Dear Professor, you fear it, but I know it.”
And then she tells him details about the infiltration.
She told them that she was responsible for the infiltration of hundreds of Judases into Catholic seminaries, young people who had no faith or morals, who had membership cards for the Communist Party or were simply young radicals.
And she also told them that she was in close contact with four Vatican cardinals who worked for the Party.
Dietrich jumped up in his seat and said, “My nephew is the German ambassador to the Holy See. Who are they?”
And Bella Dodd refused to answer because Bishop Sheen had not allowed her to reveal their names.
Well, up to here what we wanted to tell about the conversion and return to the Church of Bella Dodd, who had led the Communist infiltration in the priestly training seminars of the Catholic Church, in the 1930s and 40s. [For cautious discernment]
And I would like to ask you if you think that the priests and laity that you know believe that this infiltration actually happened or not.
[resources: “The Devil and Bella Dodd: A Woman’s Struggle Against Communism and Her Redemption,”]