The Origin of the Schoeman Forgery Revealed, Sungenis up to Old Tricks

The Sungenis and the Jews controversy is the controversy that will not die. Granted, the ugly beast has been lying dormant for the past several weeks, and few have been happier with this development than I. So, I have a measure of trepidation about poking it with a stick, lest it wake up roaring, bleary-eyed, and angrier than ever. Nevertheless, Roy Schoeman deserves to be finally exonerated of the forged quote which Robert Sungenis has attributed to him, and I have received new information which enables me to do so. Furthermore, I gave Sungenis an opportunity to do the right thing and publicly retract and apologize for the quote himself, and he refused. Still more, I waited until Michael Forrest also had opportunity to remonstrate with him, but Sungenis refused Forrest as well. So, the truth will out, here.

The forged quote reads as follows:

Unfortunately, I would say tragically, the Jews who are converting are not by and large finding their way to the Catholic Church- the conversion is largely coming from Protestant circles, notably those associated with Messianic Judaism. I believe this is due in large part to the Catholic Church having dropped the ball by eliminating all the Jewish festivals from Pesach to Sukkhot. As a result, when through the workings of Grace Jews are opened up to the truth of Jesus, rather than finding their way to the one true Church, they get scooped up by our separated brethren, who have generally adopted a more open and receptive attitude toward celebrating Jewish festivals.

A young man named Steve Tolles sent this quote to Sungenis, and Sungenis promptly and without verification published it as sure evidence that Roy Schoeman is indeed a Judaizer. Soon after, Sungenis' own most devoted defender, Mark Wyatt, googled the quote and discovered that it was patched together from some of Schoeman's actual words in a speech called "Was it Odd of God to Choose the Jews?" and other material of unknown origin. In the genuine quote, Schoeman attributes the Catholics Church's meager success in converting the Jews to the Church's failure to preach the Gospel and the salvific necessity of Christ to them. He says nothing about Jewish festivals.

Sungenis' reaction was truly reprehensible: he stated that he would assume the quote was genuine until proven otherwise, he requested a signed affidavit from Schoeman swearing that he did not write the words in question, and he suggested that perhaps Schoeman changed his original words at the Association of Hebrew Catholics conference before putting them on the AHC website.

Well, Steve Tolles recently contacted me and explained where the quote came from. Tolles had been arguing with a Messianic Jewish friend over the propriety of Christians celebrating Jewish festivals. The Messianic Jew forged the Schoeman quote and sent it to Tolles in order to bolster his case that Christians should in fact be celebrating everything "from Pesach to Sukkhot." He, obviously, never considered that Tolles would then give the quote to someone who would publish it and use it to attack Schoeman.

After Sungenis published the quote, and it was exposed as a forgery, Sungenis sent Tolles a series of increasingly bizarre and threatening e-mails. In the first, he simply urgently requested the source of the quote. Tolles was away from his computer, so he did not respond immediately. Second, Sungenis threatened to publish Tolles' e-mail address, blame the quote on him, and invite everybody and their brother to write to him asking the source of the quotation:

from cairomeo@aol.com
to stolles25@gmail.com [Tolles has disabled this address; see below]
date Mar 6, 2007

Steve,

Since you have not written back and verify the quote from Schoeman, I'm going to put a notice up on our website that I think the quote is false, and I'm going to attribute it to you and give your email address so that people can write to you and ask where you got the quote.

I hope that is satisfactory to you.

Robert Sungenis

Interestingly, here we have documentation proving that already, by March 6, Sungenis thought that the quote was fraudulent. In spite of this, he proceeded to publish, on March 7, the revised version of his article "David Palm: Still Confused and Calumniating" in which he states (p. 9) that he "must assume" that the quote is genuine, and that if anyone wishes to dispute this, he ought to get an affidavit from Schoeman!

Third and finally, Sungenis outdid himself with one of the most extraordinarily vicious and deceptive messages which I have ever read:

from cairomeo@aol.com
to stolles25@gmail.com
date Mar 6, 2007
In a message dated 3/6/2007 8:48:25 AM Eastern Standard Time, stolles25@gmail.com writes:
This is an automated response. I will be out of the office until March 19.

Hey, Mr. Shea and Mr. Michael.

Nice try. You thought this wouldn't be traceable.

Stooping pretty low, I see.

That's par for the course.

Now I know who I'm dealing with.

These incredible words merit several observations. 1) It is rather ironic that Sungenis complained over how everyone was running roughshod over poor Mr. Tolles' reputation by insisting that the fraudulent quote was fraudulent, whereas meanwhile, he was using such vicious, strong-arm tactics with him. 2) Sungenis claims that he has traced the e-mail to Jacob Michael and Mark Shea, and that he knows it is them writing behind the Steve Tolles pseudonym. This is obviously a bold-faced lie. a) Sungenis has admitted to me that he has no certain knowledge of the identity of the person writing to him as Steve Tolles. As of August 12, he still refers to "Steve Tolles, if he exists..." b) It is impossible to trace an e-mail to Jacob Michael and Mark Shea; they live thousands of miles apart. By claiming to have traced the e-mail to them, Sungenis is claiming to have done something intrinsically impossible. Therefore, he cannot have done it, and his claim to have done so can only be a deliberate lie. c) I know with a moral certainty that Steve Tolles is neither Shea nor Michael, since both of the above are honest men who would not set Sungenis up using a pseudonym, and furthermore Tolles' writing style is entirely different from either of theirs. In sum, when Sungenis claims that he has traced Tolles' e-mail to Shea and Michael, he is lying. There is no way he could have done so. As if more proof was needed that Sungenis is willing to stoop to lies in his desperate attempts to vindicate himself, here it is.

Once Tolles received these e-mails, he contacted his Messianic Jewish friend, who admitted that he had forged the quote. At this point, Tolles should have sent someone a message explaining where the quote came from. However, Sungenis' bizarre and threatening e-mails scared him into hiding (he closed his e-mail account), so he has not come forward until now. He still refuses to reveal his contact information to Sungenis, and is afraid that Sungenis is trying to find him. Nevertheless, Tolles gave me permission to tell the story, and apologize to Schoeman on his behalf, which I did.

Well, after I received this information, I passed it along to Sungenis and invited him to do the right thing and apologize to Schoeman for attributing a fraudulent quote to him (for that matter, he ought to apologize for leaving it up on his website after it was exposed as false, and for suggesting that Schoeman may have falsified the text of his own speech when he put it on the internet; he also ought to apologize to Tolles for the bizarre and threatening messages, and to God for lying). Nevertheless, Sungenis has refused to apologize to Schoeman, or anyone else for that matter ("I am not moving any further on this") unless Tolles first personally apologizes to Schoeman, with a copy to him. Sungenis forgets that, when one has unjustly violated another's reputation, one has a moral obligation to apologize and make reparations to that person regardless of who else may have also unjustly violated someone's reputation and may also owe apologies and reparations. When one has sinned, one does not condition one's own repentance and reparation on another sinner repenting and making reparations as well. It doesn't matter who else has sinned, and what other sinners there are who are withholding apologies: if you've sinned, you apologize. Someone else withholding apologies when apologies are due in no wise justifies you withholding due apologies. I tried to remind Sungenis of this, and his response was that he no longer takes advice from me since I've ruined our relationship. Sungenis forgets that the status of our relationship is irrelevant to the objective truth of the basic Catholic moral principle which I am articulating.

Tolles and I both read Sungenis as attempting to pin as much of the blame as possible on Tolles, before he admits to any wrongdoing himself. However, Tolles' wrongdoing in this situation is in no way comporable to Sungenis': Tolles erred by giving the quote privately to one person; Sungenis erred by publishing it and thereby passing it along to thousands. Note also, Sungenis is in his fifties and the head of a purportedly Catholic apostolate. How much more is he morally culpable than one who appears to be a frightened young man of no particular Catholic status or education? Sungenis ought to have known better than to rush to print with any old thing he could get his hands on and use to attack a Jew.

Ben Douglass
September 8, Anno Domini MMVII