Hallow and the New Evangelization Project, Part 5
Money Money Money Money!
"When we launched Hallow, we never could have imagined God making such a powerful impact on so many lives so quickly through this app"
12 Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all those engaged in selling and buying there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves.*
13 And he said to them, “It is written:
‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’*
but you are making it a den of thieves.”
God told Jones to use “world class content” to claw back lapsed Catholics and other Christians.
In a November 3, 2021 article on Yahoo’s News Outlet, Alex Jones discusses the formation of Hallow.
Our goal was to find a structure that allowed us to best achieve our mission and build what we think God is asking us to build … to continue partnering with faith-based creators to build world-class content, make more of its over 3,000 meditations available for free, add new languages, and reach out to a broader group of unaffiliated or fallen-away Catholics and Christians.
One aim of Hallow is central to the New Evangelization game plan. To convert.
Using “world class content.”
God Wanted Hallow to be a Public Benefit Corporation
Jones makes clear in a post on the Hallow website that in the early days of the formation of Hallow, God was calling the shots, and God was guiding Jones in discerning whether to make Hallow a Public Benefit Corporation. What is a “public benefit corporation?” Public Benefit Corporations (“PBCs”) are, in theory, formed around a mission to provide a benefit to the public but which, unlike non-profit corporations, are also designed to earn a profit. They are primarily or exclusively formed for social, educational, recreational or charitable purposes by like-minded citizens. Public Benefit Corporations, generally speaking, have two purposes: they serve the public good and they generate profits.
Our goal was to find a structure that allowed us to best achieve our mission and build what we think God is asking us to build. We wanted a structure that supported building a great product, bringing together a world-class team, and achieving great scale to impact as many people as possible as quickly as possible, while always staying accountable to our mission and values…
Because Public-Benefit Corporations are a subset of C-Corps, they are able to raise growth capital and use equity to attract talent. At the same time, though, the structure allows for the organization to have two equal purposes in its legal charters, enabling (and actually legally requiring) them to prioritize both shareholder value and their social mission.
This fairly honest explanation should disturb any Hallow App user.
They didn’t want to have to raise money for the app.
They wanted to receive money from non-philanthropic entities.
They wanted to make a profit.
God wanted them to have “two equal purposes”: Spreading the word of Jesus and enriching shareholders. Christ in action. They Hallow team made it happen.
$52 Million is a Lot of Money
The April 4, 2022 Washington Times announced the $52 million investment and named some of the principals who gave the Hallow App its wings.
A pair of Christian-oriented smartphone apps aim to move users closer to God — and even help believers fall asleep at night.
And the spiritual apps Hallow and Abide have attracted venture capitalists and corporate acquisition with their millions of downloads.
Hallow is aimed primarily at the Catholic market and has attracted $52 million in venture capital from a number of sources including PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel
It’s a big story. $52 million is a lot of money.
The Hallow Men Who Invest in the “Prayer App”
It is entirely possible that in his naivete Jones, an engineer, believed he was just designing a meditation app, a meditation aid not unlike the Thich Nhat Hanh, Catholic Centering Prayer apps I use a few times a week. Alex Jones may not have set out to invent an app designed to beef up right-wing Catholicism, but that’s what Hallow is; and whether he got there deliberately — or boiling frog style— Jones is now in league with the integralist set.
There are a number of reasons for billionaires to be interested a Catholic prayer app. One is that they want to buy the data — I would not even know about Hallow if if Hallow had not been using my data to find me on social media. (I figure they were picking up on my (frequent) use of the word “Catholic” on Twitter.) Another is that the greed of the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, in the United States at least, gives predatory capitalists cover.
The Hallow App investors, content providers and to a lesser extent the designers of Hallow are aligned politically with the Christian right in the United States. Most of these anti-woman, anti-queer, (often discreetly so) white supremacist, triumphalist, and integralist Catholics see the “greed is good” feature as essenial to increasing the Catholic fold amid a mass exodus of Catholics in the wealthiest nations of the world, nations who fund “New Evangelization” in the (still) “developing world.” Missions cost money. Tithes in wealthy sectors of Latin America, Western Europe and the United States fund the colonizers in regions wherein the Catholic Church is growing pay for missions. Progressives, especiall educated Gen Xers and Millennials in Western Europe and United Stares are leaving the roman Catholic Church. Most of these are unlikely to raise children in the Roman Catholic Church.
Because the institutional Roman Catholic Church has been able, historically, to help white supremacy along in the United States, political conservatives, wisely so, know that conservative Catholics can be counted on the challenge “woke-ism,” “socialism” and so forth.
Like most of the Unites States bishops, who are neither accountable nor honest with the pewsitters who bankroll them, right-wing Catholic integralists are campaigning to bring secular law in line with Roman Catholic law. It is for this reason so many held their noses and boosted Trump. This explains their toleration of death maven so-called “pro-life” politicians like governors Greg Abbot (Texas) and Ron DeSantis.
It is impossible to know exactly how much dark money both the bishops and groups like Regnum Christi, the Napa Institute, Federalist Society, Legatus, Acton Institute the Catholic Information Center provide to secular right-wing political lobbies, but it is obvious that with the help of obscenely wealthy fascist weasel Leonard Leo, they have been successful at compromising the Supreme Court of the United States. Whether these groups are officially Opus Dei is not important (for reasons I discuss elsewhere on Indie Theology. Tge question to ask is whether the aforementioned groups —and Hallow— are religiously and politically mission-aligned with Opus Dei. The answer is “yes.” .
The Hallow App team has thrown in with these groups. The roster of their content providers is permeated by this cast of players. Those who use the app boost them, hand them their data, and, in some cases, consent to be sung to sleep by them.
We can never know for certain whether the sale of our data was part of the plan God whispered in the ear of Alex Jones as he was designing the app, but we can be reasonably certain that if we are using Hallow, the billionaires are hoovering up our data, and hoping that the content itself will bring us over to the free market, Christian nationalist side. If we are falling asleep to Hallow, we can be sure the allies and proxies of Christofascism are communicating their Christus Victor messaging in our ears as they soothe us to sleep, whispering, perhaps in the manner God whispered “Hallow” into the ear of Alex Jones.
Scott Malpass who has been caring for the Notre Dame endowment for more than three decades is a Hallow App investor. (Thank God—or more to the point, Satan—for Hedge Funds!) Malpass is on the Board of Directors at Paxos, a crypto currency corporation (So much for Laudato Si.) and on the Board of Superintendents for the Vatican’s Institute for Religious Works aka the corruption-beshitted “Vatican Bank.”
Malpass is perfect for Hallow, because he sees his work as a financial expert as part of his personal “evangelization” mission, as he told a reporter in an April 30, 2017 interview in Crux:
“As a life-long committed Catholic, I can’t imagine many things more important for me to support in any way I can the life of the Church and its mission of evangelization in this way … Just as my faith life gives expression to other aspects, I have found that service to the Church illuminates my vocation more broadly.”
The “New Evangelization” effort is both expensive and usury-friendly.
Another Hallow App investor is Teamworthy Ventures. Stephen Schmalhofer, a partner in Teamworthy, works as a writer when he’s not working as a money guy. Some of his writing on religion could be said to skew right. He has something of a special interest in the “new liturgical movement” (a movement which is somewhat ecumenical but has a trad focus) and has written for politically conservative, borderline trad publication First Things.
Thomas Leherman, another Teamworthy partner, has held positions in the United States State Department, has ties to the Beckett Fund, and has sat on the boards of Charter Schools projects, at least one of which is the scandal-mired Kipps network. Although these two partners appear to lean right, it is useful to note that Teamworthy invests in a variety of companies.
The big Hallow App money appears to come from J.D. Vance and Peter Thiel. What could be more in line with the mission of Jesus of Nazareth than filling the pockets of these usurers?
Peter Thiel and J.D Vance are ultra wealthy neofascist venture capitalists. Thiel donated more than $20 million during this election cycle to right wing GOP candidates, J.D.Vance among them.
Time prohibits me from summarizing the moral decrepitude of Vance (who just became governor elect of Ohio) here but to summarize, this: A “never-Trumper,” who once characterized Trump as a “Hitler” now praises him as “The best president of my lifetime.”
Vance, a Catholic favors strong Daddy fascism, likes Viktor Orban, Vladimir Putin, the “great replacement theory,”and money. He has profound “Mommy issues” — something that draws lots of men to conservative Catholicism. He hates immigrants (“The media calls us racist for wanting to build Trump’s wall.” ) Vance is one hopes and presumes his brown wife and children are the exception to this rule.
The neofascist, largely Opus Dei -funded Catholic outlet Eternal World Television did a little spot for J.D. Vance in which the Trump’s and Thiel’s “sit-stay-speak” bitch and governor elect of Ohio summarized his Catholic integralist approach to governing, and overstated his anti-abortion views — an issue on which he has history of waffling on this issue. Due to Mommy issues and wanting to win elections.
Hallow is selling pigeons in the temple.
While researching the Hallow app, I clicked on the link hoping for find a blog post that appeared to provide details regarding Hallow funding. Instead I found a page with a menu: that including a merch tab, a tab for gift cards, and a(n alarming) tab for “parishes and schools.” I came to the link to read about the new funding and found no discussion of new funding:
It turned out this “news” at the top of my Google search feed was not “news.” I followed the link and there was nothing but this landing page for hawking merch (pictured below):
Hallow is selling pigeons in the temple.
Hallow has no need for transparency. They are on a mission from God. They’re scooping up souls and legal tender in their duc ad altum nets. They want your money. They want your data and your money. They want your data so they can sell it to sell to right-wingers and venture capitalists in Christ’s name. They want your money so they can make Hallow bigger and give the shareholders big-ass paydays. The guys who buy your data want your money. They want to sell you merch, so you can can boost their patriarchy, male supremacy, Christian hegemony,, their church corruption denial, their hate-your-neighbor triumphalism and neofascist vision. They want to sing you sleep, as you drift off thinking of Catholic angels. Don’t buy it. Incense and mirrors. Bells of Saint Mary.
Hallow be thy name. Give us this day your daily “bread.”
Order some integralist / dominionist / merch for the Christian nationalists on your Christmas list!
Here is the explanation of Hallow Plus:
We believe Hallow can help you as it’s helped all of us on the team to build a habit of prayer through daily prayer reminders and a journal to help you keep track of your journey. There is a free version of the app available and an optional upgrade to Hallow Plus that starts with a 2-week free trial and then is either $8.99 per month or $59.99 per year (20% less than the leading meditation apps). For every one subscription purchased, one will be given away for free to those who can’t afford it, but are looking to grow in their faith lives (e.g., candidates in adult Christian formation programs, those who can’t afford it)
Hallow is not selling customers a way to pray better. They are selling integralism, Catholic entitlement and Catholic exceptionalism.
According to Jones, the average user is around the age of 34.
Hallow, which is funded in great part by climate change deniers, men who want to strip even non-Catholic women of their medical rights, vulture capitalists, white supremacists, anti-semites, misogynists, homophobes, transphobes, clergy child rape accessories and accomplices, and people aiming to slash public education, punish migrants and bust unions; is clearly targeting Catholics of childbearing age, and non-Catholic Christians on the hunt for more muscular, neofacsist orthodoxy.
“We have users like me, who have young families, and teenagers who want to build habits, and we’ve got folks who are retirees or who are nearing the end of their life who are trying to use that time to dive deeper into their relationship with God,” he said. “God can reach out to everybody at any stage of their lives.”
The mod graphics and Catholic swag, the Our Lady of Guadalupe T-shirts — Pause a moment to ponder this phenomena: white Christo-fascists making a buck off of Our Lady of Guadalupe! That’s Hallow. Jones is the boy wonder situated by the Lord in Silicon Valley so as to help his fresh-faced caucasian ilk join the Team New Evangelization.
The app launched just before the COVID-19 pandemic, but Jones said God’s timing for the creation of Hallow could not have been more perfect.
On the page in which Alex Jones explains why some of the 5000 pieces of content are available on a paid basis (Hallow Plus) offers his reasoning relative to electing to make Hallow a Public Benefit Corporation and not a Non-Profit one, Jones offers this reassurance:
In the spirit of this mission, in addition to this Public-Benefit structure decision, my wife & I have committed to donating any personal earnings beyond what is necessary to provide for our family, back to the Catholic Church and Her mission.
The worst part of this statement is that it might be true. Once the shareholders hoover up their cuts, the rest goes back into the Vatican Crime Syndicate. One could almost think of it as money laundering Gen X style.
It’s not the first time I have written about my Roman Catholic Church and come back to the poem “ poem by e. e. cummings, “i sing of Olaf glad and big”
Olaf (upon what were once knees)
does almost ceaselessly repeat
"there is some shit I will not eat" …Christ(of His mercy infinite)
i pray to see;and Olaf, too
Catholics! Don’t buy it.
Don’t eat this 700 Club shit.
MMS
November 5, 2022; updated November 9, 2022.