A Last Response from Douglasstein

When Chesterton was on his journey to Christianity, one of the things he marveled at was how its enemies subjected it simultaneously to such completely opposite attacks:

Thus, certain sceptics wrote that the great crime of Christianity had been its attack on the family; it had dragged women to the loneliness and contemplation of the cloister, away from their homes and their children. But, then, other sceptics (slightly more advanced) said that the great crime of Christianity was forcing the family and marriage upon us; that it doomed women to the drudgery of their homes and children, and forbade them loneliness and contemplation. The charge was actually reversed. Or, again, certain phrases in the Epistles or the marriage service, were said by the anti-Christians to show contempt for woman's intellect. But I found that the anti-Christians themselves had a contempt for woman's intellect; for it was their great sneer at the Church on the Continent that "only women" went to it. Or again, Christianity was reproached with its naked and hungry habits; with its sackcloth and dried peas. But the next minute Christianity was being reproached with its pomp and its ritualism; its shrines of porphyry and its robes of gold. It was abused for being too plain and for being too coloured. Again Christianity had always been accused of restraining sexuality too much, when Bradlaugh the Malthusian discovered that it restrained it too little. It is often accused in the same breath of prim respectability and religious extravagance. Between the covers of the same atheistic pamphlet I have found the faith rebuked for its disunion, "One thinks one thing, one another," and rebuked also for its union, "It is difference of opinion that prevents the world from going to the dogs." In the same conversation a freethinker, a friend of mine, blamed Christianity for despising Jews, and then despised it himself for being Jewish (G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy [San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1995] pp. 95-96).

Thus, if we may take Chesterton's experience with Christianity as representative, we learn that when a person is simultaneously subjected to diametrically opposite attacks, that is a good indication that he is "on to something," as it were. This is an encouraging sign for me personally. For I have been attacked both as one who whitewashes the Talmud and as one who smears the Talmud. Yet more, I have recently been informed, I am both an anti-Semite and a Jewish racist.

The one calling me a Jewish racist is of course Robert Sungenis. Sungenis is engaging in projection here; every time he is exposed as having one fault or another, he responds by trying desperately to pin that fault on his critics. The fault may be racism, plagiarism, having a messiah complex, being mentally unstable, using double standards, or even engaging in projection. Anyway, Sungenis is certainly the first person to accuse me of being a Jewish racist, and he may well be the last. Hopefully that is so. And to express a more remote and distant hope, hopefully his essay "Catholics Falling for Jewish Errors" (against which the present essay is written in response) will mark the last time he says this.

Sungenis' essay opens with a few veiled jabs at Roy Schoeman. These charges have been answered a sufficient number of times that it is not necessary to rebut them here. In fact most of his essay simply regurgitates the same tired old arguments he has been using for months. So, I will not spend the time which would be required to respond to his 58 page screed point by point; I will merely hit the high points, or rather low points, more properly speaking.

Near the beginning, Sungenis defines Jewish racism as the belief that "basically, nothing has changed since the Old Testament." I've tried once before, without success, to point out to Sungenis his inconsistency here. I will try once more. The most Sungenis could argue against someone who held that nothing had changed since the Old Testament would be that he is theologically wrong. Sungenis cannot accuse him of being a racist, since if the belief that the Jews are the chosen people of God is, in principle, racist, Sungenis would be a racist too. He himself acknowledges that under the Old Covenant the Jews were the "chosen and special people above all the other people of the world." And truth does not change. If it is a racist idea to believe that one nation has a special divine election today, it is racist to say that one nation had a special divine election many years ago. Sungenis must drop this line of argumentation unless he is going to take it to its logical conclusion and repudiate the Old Testament. That would put him in the company of neo-Marcionites like Israel Shamir, David Duke, Carol Valentine, and Christopher Jon Bjerknes, all of whom attack the Old Testament to varying degrees, especially its doctrine that the Jews are the chosen people (Hoffman and Pike, to their credit, at least are not such savage critics of Judaism as to not spare even Sacred Scripture). Incidentally, the reader will note that, by the same standards which Sungenis has applied to Roy Schoeman, I could now call Sungenis a Marcionite and tell the world he believes that the Old Testament is racist. After all, he has constructed a premise from which this conclusion logically, inexorably follows.

Sungenis goes on to make the absurd claim that his critics have attacked his wife and children. Not surprisingly, no quotations are provided. This is because no one has ever attacked his wife and children. It was Sungenis who tried to bring his wife into this debacle by claiming her as an independent witness to the events surrounding Michael Forrest's departure from CAI. Even then, Sungenis' critics never attacked her, they simply asked him questions with a view to establishing whether she really was an independent witness, or whether she got her information second-hand from him. Not surprisingly, Sungenis was very cagey about answering their questions. As Jacob Michael discovered, this is because he had already admitted that she was only a second-hand witness in his essay "Jacob Michael and the Jews":

"Mr. Forrest never denied to me that he had a gig or a promoter for the gig around the beginning of 2005. He told me these things on the phone, and my wife remembers it because I told her about the whole conversation." (JMATJ, p. 54, emphasis added)

So, once again, when Sungenis is measured by the same measure with which he measures Schoeman, he is condemned by it. Sungenis makes much of the fact that, when I tried to take Schoeman to task over what I believe to be an inconsistency in his book, Schoeman was less than helpful and never really gave a straight answer to my questions. According to Sungenis, this must mean that he is devious and hiding something incriminating. Well, Schoeman has nothing over Sungenis for refusing to give straight answers to people's questions. The above example illustrates this quite well. I can relate another similar incident. At the second conference of Catholics Defending Biblical Inerrancy, one of Sungenis' speeches consisted essentially in him reading, without attribution, Damien Mackey's article "The Toledoths of Genesis." This speech was recorded on DVD. So, I recently asked Sungenis a few times whether he had ever sold this DVD for profit. Lo and behold, he refused to give a straight answer to my simple yes or no question. Therefore, by Sungenis' own logic, he must be devious and hiding something incriminating.

A little later, Sungenis makes the fatuous observation that although I purport to be critical of Jews and Judaism, you will not see such criticisms in my essay "You maniac, etc." Well, that was not the purpose of the essay. The purpose of that essay was to take Sungenis to task for his outrageous treatment of Jewish issues. I am under no obligation to make critical mention of Jews in every single article I ever write. Two clicks away from "You maniac" can take you to four of my articles which are heavily critical of Jews. It's not difficult.

Also fatuous is Sungenis' disclaimer that much of what I said in my essay "may not be suitable for children." This is coming from a man who has posted on his website (Question 36, January 2007) anatomically explicit statements about sodomy. His double standard could hardly be clearer: these statements are entirely inappropriate for children, yet he feels no need for a disclaimer, while my essay contains nothing of this sort, yet he sees fit to attach a disclaimer. It seems Sungenis is just attempting to poison the well.

Sungenis reads the title of my previous essay and speculates whether I am having a nervous breakdown. Well, no, I am merely following suit with Sungenis. Sungenis' previous essay had been entitled, "I'm mad, and I'm not going to take it anymore." The title is adapted from the famous line in Howard Beale's 1976 movie "The Network." So, for my title, I adapted a famous line from Charleton Heston in "The Planet of the Apes" (1968). The line is (caution, mild profanity): "You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!" The reason I thought of this line is because, a few years ago, Sungenis wrote an essay called "Charleton Heston Has a Few Words for Modernist Catholics" or something to that effect, and when you clicked on the essay an audio file of the famous line played. Now, imagine what Sungenis would say about me if I had uttered such an imprecation over him! When I used the line, I changed the imprecation to a prayer, because I do not judge the eternal destination of Robert's soul, but merely worry over the sinful behavior in which he is engaging.

Moving on, Sungenis claims innocence from my charge that he sends people nastygrams, alleging that he merely sends his critics e-mails "saying I will not back down to the pressure they are trying to force upon me to stop my criticisms of the Jewish racism they are propagating." But he goes much farther than to tell his critics he will not back down from them. Below is a short representative list of the kinds of things he says:

• To Jacob Michael: You're a real devil, Mr. Michael.
• To me: Do you have any Jewish ancestry in your background?
• To Mark Shea: [Y]ou better spend less time on your blog and more time on the tread mill.
• To Michael Forrest: Judas.
• To Jacob Michael: My, my, it sounds like you are the one who considers himself a Jew first and a Catholic second.
• To me: Don't "JMJ" me because right now you are not practicing the Catholic faith.
• Of Sandra Miesel: Sandra Miesel is next on my list. I'm going to expose that Jezabel once and for all.
• To Jacob Michael: I simply don't consider you a Catholic or a Christian any longer.
• To David Palm: Knuckle buster Davido.

Sungenis goes on to speculate that I am lying when I deny having any Jewish ancestry. I suppose I will respond with James Scott IV that I am honored that he thinks I am a member of the same race as Our Lord and Our Lady. That should be enough for that.

Speaking of Jim Scott IV, Sungenis notes that the two of us have had disputes over the interpretation of the Talmud. We agree that it blasphemes Our Lord and Our Lady in places, but disagree over whether it is sexually degenerate and hateful towards Gentiles. Granted, there has been a measure of acrimony in our disputes in the past, however that was largely due to my association with Sungenis. Now that I have left CAI, it is possible for us to voice our disagreements in a brotherly manner. I am looking forward to reading his rebuttal to my Talmud article.

Interestingly enough, Sungenis goes on to admit that Schoeman highlights some of the Talmud's blasphemies on pp. 132-134 of Salvation is from the Jews. Sungenis will later complain that, "There is hardly a negative word about the Talmud in Schoeman’s book. Not once does he cite the very controversial passages in which the Talmud condemns Jesus Christ, Mary and Christianity." Yes he does, on pages 132-134. You already admitted it.

Next, Dr. Sungenis the expert Greek and Hebrew exegete evinces an inability to comprehend a simple English text. I criticized him in my previous article because he uncritically latches onto (and regurgitates on his website) every salacious claim he can find on the internet or in print about Talmudic iniquity. His response: "And what objection does Mr. Douglass have if I print all the iniquities I find in the Talmud? Should I just display 50% of them? Should I ignore the more salacious ones?" He clearly did not understand what I was saying. I have never said that one should ignore or hide any evil thing in the Talmud so long as it actually is there. What I criticised Robert for was regurgitating salacious charges about Talmudic iniquity which are not actually true. He finds these things on the internet by Hoffman and Pike, he assumes they must be true, and promptly copy-pastes them. Now, if a Protestant apologist copy-pasted every salacious claim he could find on the internet about Catholicism, Sungenis would rightly excoriate him. Sungenis' behavior is little different.

Next, Sungenis objects to my statement that he has propagated falsities about the Talmud, complaining that I bring forth no specific examples to prove my point. One has to wonder whether Sungenis even read my article all the way through before beginning to write his rebuttal, because only a few paragraphs later I in fact do exactly that. I demonstrate one falsity from Ted Pike (on bestiality) and one falsity from Michael Hoffman II (on the humanity of Gentiles). The latter claim, Sungenis regurgitated himself in the original version of "Neocons and the Jewish Connection." The former claim, Sungenis would have posted as a CAI "News Alert" except that through much belabored argumentation I managed to convince him not to.

Moving on, Sungenis demonstrates once again his inability to read plain English. I said that one must have due devotion to fairness and charity when one critiques the Talmud. His response is to object that we need give no devotion to such an evil book. He attempts a reductio ad absurdum by suggesting I give due devotion to the works of Hitler and Marx. Of course, this is all completely irrelevant. I never said that one should give devotion to the Talmud. I said that one should give devotion to justice and charity. That should be plain enough to any person who reads my words without the impediment of bad will. One should have devotion to justice and charity in everything one does. That includes critiquing evil books for which one has no devotion. As I said in my previous article, one should not spread malicious lies about anyone, whether Christ or Balaam, Schoeman or Clinton.

Next, Sungenis, who has praised my Talmud article as one of the best he has read on the subject, accuses me of ignorance of Judaism because I said that Kabbalah is an ideology, not a book. He objects that you can find books about Kabbalah in any New Age or Judaistic bookstore. Well, you can also find books about Lutheranism in any Christian bookstore. Some of them might even have the word "Lutheranism" in the title. That doesn't change the fact that Lutheranism is an ideology, not a book. My analogy holds.

Next, Sungenis repeats his futile denial of the manifest fact that he has plagiarized racists a number of times. The documentation is there for anyone willing to see, so I won't repeat it all here. But I would like to challenge the anonymous interlocutor who reassures Robert in Question 9 of this April that the charges are not true. I'd like to ask this person how and when these charges were ever disproved. Because I certainly would have liked to know it when I was defending Bob. The best defense I could ever manage was to point out that Robert didn't know who he was plagiarizing when he plagiarized the Nazi. That is to say, he did not deliberately, knowingly plagiarize a Nazi propaganda tract; he just plagiarized something he found on the internet of an unknown source, and only later found out that it was a Nazi propaganda tract which he had plagiarized. That was the sum total of my defense, besides studiously avoiding the use of the word "plagiarism." Similarly with the issue of the National Vanguard articles. The best defense of Bob I could manage is that he didn't know that the authors whom he was copy-pasting without attribution were vicious racists. The indefatigable Ed Suter (who feeds Robert a steady diet of Hoffman, Pike, Faurisson, National Vanguard, et al) e-mailed them to him, and he simply decided to post them at CAI without verification and without even knowing who wrote the things.

Of course, this is a rather flimsy defense. On the scale of egregious violations of scholarly integrity, "deliberate plagiarism of Nazi propaganda tracts" being a 10, and "plagiarism of texts of unknown origin, which for all the plagiarist knows might be written by a Catholic, a Nazi, a Sedevacantist, a Protestant Fundamentalist, a Muslim, or a Martian" would probably be a 7 or 8. To that extent, at least, I stand behind some of the things I have said in defense of Sungenis. There are a few instances in which his critics have charged him with a 10-value violation of moral law when he has actually only committed a 7 or 8-value one.

Sungenis accuses me of trying to glorify the Talmud, which I have never done. The charge is absurd on its face. He next accuses me of nit-picking Ted Pike's criticism of the Talmud. But what Ted Pike has done is equivalent to quoting one of the "objections" in the Summa Theologica and attributing the idea expressed therein to St. Thomas. One who does something like this must either be incompetent or a liar. The Talmud records, and rejects, the opinion regarding bestiality which Ted Pike has attributed to it. Sungenis thinks I should not refute lies about the Talmud, and admit "that the Talmud is simply a blasphemous book that no Christian should be exonerating." However, falsehoods deserve to be refuted no matter who is the object of the falsehood. That goes for evil people and books as well as good ones. That goes for everyone from John Paul II to Roy Schoeman to John Ashcroft. Sungenis has propagated falsehoods about all of the above, and when taken to task his typical response has been that so-and-so actually has said and done various other bad things, so it shouldn't matter if a few of the things he says about them aren't true. Completely irrelevant! If it were possible, it would be a sin to calumniate the devil himself.

Sungenis goes on to ask whether I ever use secondary sources. The answer is yes. But I reference them; I do not plagiarize them. And I do not trust them uncritically, especially when they make sensational or controversial claims. Sungenis is a scholar. He ought to know the standard practices.

Next, Sungenis tries to make something of the fact that it was 5 years ago that he plagiarized the Nazi. But he never truly apologized, and he has exhibited similar behavior recently, so the mere passage of time will never make this issue go away. C. S. Lewis noted the absurdity of older people who would laugh about the atrocious sins they committed in youth, as if mere time could wipe away guilt.

A little further on, Sungenis claims that when Jacob Michael suggested that the beast of the Apocalypse is institutional Judaism, he only meant the Judaism of the first century. That is false. Michael made this statement in the context of what we should expect in the future. Also, Michael never endorsed Scott Hahn's theory that the millennium of Apocalypse 20 began in the Old Testament. Sungenis offers no evidence to back up this claim.

Sungenis proceeds to pull out an argument from authority. He has degrees in religion and I do not, he has written books and I have not, he has been on television and I have not, etc. Bob Sungenis is the last person who should be pulling out arguments from authority. This is the man with no degrees in natural science who has seen fit to challenge the entire science establishment with his geocentrism. Essentially, he is saying that he is right about astrophysics and nearly every Ph.D. astrophysicist is fundamentally wrong. I happen to agree with him here, but I point this out in order to demonstrate that arguments from authority, coming from Robert Sungenis, are fatuous. For that matter, Robert absolutely loved my article on the NAB, in which I, who have no degrees in biblical studies, tackle the Bible produced by the Catholic Biblical Association, which is manned by large numbers of highly educated academics. And Sungenis never called me insolent for challenging people with more degrees than myself; rather, he heaped paeans on me. He was quite effusive with praise for me, in fact. At one point when I showed him a particularly egregious mistranslation in the NAB, he even encouraged me to "rip them to pieces" and assured me that God chose me for this great work. Finally, as one final nail in the coffin of the idea that Robert Sungenis can legitimately invoke arguments from authority, we might recall he has claimed that he has a mission to protect Catholics from the erroneous theology of Pope John Paul II.

Further on, Sungenis attempts to defend his cheap shots about Mark Shea's weight. One wonders if he would be so nasty to Bl. Columba Marmion, or whether he is so nasty to his own staff members Jason Corsetti and Chris Campbell. Certainly if either of these people ever leave CAI and oppose Sungenis publicly, they can expect to be called gluttons, told to buy a treadmill, or some other such denigrating things. The irony is that Sungenis isn't exactly lean and trim himself.

In my previous essay, I had noted the following extraordinary words from Sungenis: "the Jews will seek to take over and/or thoroughly weaken the Catholic religion, and perhaps someday be strong enough to place one of their own as its leader." Since Sungenis appears here to be predicting a Marrano Pope, I asked whether he will become a sedevacantist. Now he claims that he never referred to a Jewish Pope. Well, who else is the leader of the Catholic religion but the Pope? Sungenis says that the Jews will attempt to take over the Catholic Church, and perhaps someday place a Jew as its leader. If the Jews are going to place a Jew as the leader of the Catholic Church, is that not the exact equivalent of saying they will place a Jew in the papacy? How does Sungenis now deny this?

Next, since Robert expatiates once again on the issue of Schoeman's Seder meal, I will repeat the relevant material from Pope Benedict XIV (by the way, that's fourteen, not sixteen; Robert doesn't seem to realize this, given his reference to "Pope Benedict XVI's recent solemn words in Ex Quo Primum 61" in a letter to Fr. Matthew Lamb) explicitly teaches (Ex Quo, 74) that it is lawful to observe certain Old Testament ceremonial rites, so long as they are observed not as obligations of the old Law, but solely as a matter of custom or personal decision:

But others remarked wisely that some, surely, of the ceremonial rites of the old Law could be observed under the new Law if only they were not done as obligations of the old Law, which was abrogated, but as a custom, or lawful tradition, or as a new precept issued by one enjoying the recognized and competent authority to make laws and to enforce them, as Vasquez observes (vol. 3, in the 3rd part of the Summa, disp. 210, quest. 80, art. 7).

Pope Benedict XIV even repudiates, by name, Sungenis' charge that Schoeman is judaizing. He favorably quotes Leo Allatius as follows (Ibid., 67):

If a man should perform acts for a different end and purpose (even with the intention of worship and as religious ceremonies), not in the spirit of that Law nor on the basis of it, but either from personal decision, from human custom, or on the instruction of the Church, he would not sin, nor could he be said to judaize. So when a man does something in the Church which resembles the ceremonies of the old Law, he must not always be said to judaize.

Sungenis' rebuttal to these words (Question 14, April 2007) is weak. He points out that Pope Benedict XIV never deals explicitly with the issue of Jewish converts celebrating Seder meals. Granted, but he establishes principles which have a direct application to it. Sungenis recognizes the validity of the practice of taking general principles in papal documents, and applying them to issues which the original document did not have explicitly in view. For example, in his 2002 essay he alleged that "all popes prior to the [sic] Vatican II have made very strong statements against fraternizing with the Jewish religion. For example, Pope Leo XIII in the 1900 encyclical Tametsi, and Pope Pius XI in the 1925 encyclical Quas Primas and the 1931 encyclical Quadragesimo Anno are quite clear concerning these dangers." These encyclicals say absolutely nothing about fraternizing with the Jewish religion, and when Bill Cork took him to task about this, Sungenis' response was that they established a general principle, the social Kingship of Christ, which has that application. Well, if he is going to admit the legitimacy of such strained, tenuous applications of papal texts as this, he is the last person who should object to the way I have used Pope Benedict XIV.

Second, Sungenis argues that it was the Vatican which approved the Jewish-derived practices mentioned in Ex Quo, not an individual layman. But Benedict XIV never requires that people wait for instruction from the Church if they wish to do such things; so long as they are not observing their rites qua obligations of the Old Law, they may do so simply out of "personal decision." The Pope lists three reasons for which one may celebrate a Jewish ritual: "either from personal decision, from human custom, or on the instruction of the Church." The instruction of the Church, clearly, is not the only reason one may celebrate such a thing as Schoeman's Christianized Seder, but one of several.

Third, Sungenis attempts to portray Schoeman as disobedient to the Magisterium of the Church by celebrating a Seder without explicit Vatican approval. However, these educational Christianized Seders are celebrated in Catholic parishes all over the world with the full approval of bishops and nary a word of criticism from the Vatican. As Michael Forrest points out, "How many devotional practices have come from the 'top down' so to speak? The fact is, such practices regularly bubble up from the laity and only if and when the Church sees something problematic does she step in. This 'you must get Vatican approval' line is utter nonsense. The bishops of the Church have full authority to regulate such things within their dioceses if they deem it necessary." Sungenis, in his crusade to eradicate them, is the one out of step with the Catholic Magisterium.

Sungenis repeats his charge that Schoeman says that Patristic exegesis was in error in applying various Old Testament prophecies to the Church. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, suffice it to say that Schoeman never says that Patristic exegesis was in error, on this or on any other issue. Similarly with the issue of the Temple. According to Sungenis, Schoeman claims "that the Temple doesn’t refer to the Catholic Church’s spiritual temple but to national Israel’s physical temple..." Again, Schoeman has never said this. What he says is the Temple refers to both. He explicitly affirms that it refers to the Church's spiritual Temple on p. 315. He simply avers that it might have a dual application to the physical temple as well.

Next, Sungenis claims, "No, there is no prediction of a Temple to be built in Israel. This is just more Jewish-racist hermeneutic." Actually, this is Sungenis hermeneutic. The following documentation has been provided by Michael Forrest:

Sungenis: "As we have documented earlier, our Catholic saints and doctors have said the same thing. The 1911 Catholic Encyclopedia predicts that the Antichrist will come from Jewry. The 1936 Catholic Encyclopedia followed this by predicting that a Temple would be built for him in Jerusalem..."

www.catholicintl.com/noncatholicissues/politics-protestant.htm

Sungenis: "Not only do the Fathers have much to say on these eventualities (the Antichrist being Jewish), the medievals were just as informed: St. Anselm, in his Details Concerning the Antichrist, will suffice for an example: 'Towards the end of the world Antichrist will draw the hearts of the Jews to him by his great generosity and sympathetic attitude so much so that they will praise him as a demi-god;....For, the Temple which Solomon built having been destroyed, in its place he [Antichrist] shall restore it, he shall circumcise himself, and he shall give forth the lie that he is the son of the omnipotent God.'"

http://www.catholicintl.com/noncatholicissues/neo-jewish.htm

Bill Cork: "You (Bob Sungenis) say, 'the man of sin will make a pact with Israel and build the long-awaited temple during a period of three and one half years. After that time, he will turn against the Jews and reveal his true identity. Shortly thereafter, Christ will come back in judgment at His Second Coming.'

"Um, that's Hal Lindsay ... Tim LaHaye. Stay away from those Left Behind books, please. You won't find this in the Catechism."

Sungenis: "The only thing left behind here is your knowledge of the Fathers. They say the same thing. So do the medievals. I quoted some of them in my essay."

Moving on, Sungenis attempts to justify his attributing to Schoeman the utterly absurd belief that God is done saving Gentiles as of 1967. As I documented in my previous essay, Schoeman takes the phrase "until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled" in Luke 21:24 to mean "until the time for the Gentiles to have sovereignty over Jerusalem is over." Sungenis argues, on the other hand, that it refers to the time when God is done saving Gentiles. To this extent he could very well be right. But it is ludicrous for him to inject his own exegesis into Schoeman's work, combine it with Schoeman's suggestion that the times of the Gentiles were fulfilled in 1967, complete the syllogism, and pronounce that Schoeman believes no more Gentiles will go to heaven between 1967 and the end of the earth. Sungenis' behavior here is simply unconscionable.

Next, Sungenis makes a comment about Schoeman's "purportedly Catholic home." Interestingly enough, Sungenis will later claim that he has never insulted Schoeman or attacked him personally. Yet here we see him insinuating that Schoeman is not a Catholic. To a Catholic, this is one the worst insults possible. And in the past, Sungenis has been even more vicious. From "Christopher Blosser and the Catholic ADL," p. 5:

And, once and for all, I suggest my critics start listening to what I am saying about the anti-Christ, anti-Catholic and anti-Christian influence that various Jewish organizations are having on us, including but not limited to . . . the Association of Hebrew Catholics (e.g., David Moss, Roy Schoeman, etc.), and any other such organization that puts Jewish political, religious and social interests above those of the Catholic faith and the rest of the world.

That this man has the audacity to claim he has never insulted Schoeman personally is, once again, simply unconscionable. Incidentally, just to clear the record, I did not approve of this article "Christopher Blosser and the Catholic ADL" even though a few days prior, Sungenis had told me that he would no longer publish anything about Jews without my prior approval. This promise turned out to be rather empty, as he quickly posted four articles about Jews in rapid succession, against my will and over my objections. These were (1) Christopher Blosser and the Catholic ADL; (2) the review of EWTN: A Network Gone Wrong, which repeats the calumny, "Schoeman holds that those who say that the state of Israel is merely a man-made political movement that has nothing to do with Old Testament prophecy is 'of the antichrist"; (3) Chris Campbell's review of Jacob Prasch's website; and (4) Fr. Fahey on anti-Semitism. Sungenis let me edit Campbell's review. However, he never fulfilled his promise that he would edit his review of EWTN: A Network Gone Wrong so as to remove the calumny. He lied to me.

Next, Sungenis claims that Schoeman's book contains statements which are "obviously" heretical. However, if the heresy is so obvious, one wonders why none of the following orthodox Catholic organizations, periodicals, or persons see heresy in it: Fr. Fessio and Ignatius Press, EWTN, Karl Keating and Catholic Answers, St. Joseph Radio, Ave Maria Radio, the Covenant Catholic radio network, Fr. Kenneth Baker, Christendom College, Ave Maria University, Legatus, Dr. Alice Von Hildebrand in The Latin Mass, Mitchell Kalpakgian (no Zionist he; just read his laudatory letter to E. Michael Jones on p. 23 of the April 2007 Culture Wars) in Homiletic and Pastoral Review, New Oxford Review, Inside the Vatican, Mark Shea, Steve Ray, Thomas Howard, Steve Wood, Scott Hahn, Bishop Andreas Laun of Salzburg, Archbishop Burke of St. Louis, Bishop Olmsted of Phoenix, David Palm, Michael Forrest, Jacob Michael, and last of all myself, who have realized that Schoeman's book contains no heresy only recently, as one born out of due time.

For that matter, E. Michael Jones didn't see heresy in Schoeman's book at the time he wrote his review of it in 2003. He criticized the book, much like I have, for dealing at length with Jewish fidelity and its eschatological consequences, but neglecting the other side of the coin. But he praised the book in many respects, and never called anything in it heretical. It was only with the unfortunate "help" Sungenis offered him that he came to the belief that Schoeman eagerly awaited the return of the Jerusalem Temple. More fortunately, however, once I showed him that Schoeman rejects this idea, he agreed to take the claim out of his book.

Later, Sungenis argues that somehow he can believe and teach that Jews as a race are children of the devil, yet can never be accused of classifying Jews according to their race. Go figure.

Later, Sungenis objects against using the Talmud to prove that Christ is the Messiah. He offers a reductio ad absurdum: "Using the Talmud to prove the coming of Christ is like using the Koran to prove the Trinity." Actually, it is rather ironic that Sungenis would appeal to the alleged futility of proving the Trinity from the Qur'an, for this is quite a fruitful line of argumentation with Muslims. The Qur'an states in Sura 2:87 and 5:110 that Jesus was strengthened by the Holy Spirit. The latter even stipulates that it was this strengthening which gave Jesus the power to perform His miracles. Thus the Qur'an admits to the existence of a being called the Holy Spirit, and it is clearly not referring to Mohammed. Rather, the most logical interpretation is that Mohammed was simply appropriating the terms of Christian theology, without realizing that they were incompatible with the unitarian religion which he was trying to construct.

Similarly, in the Qur'an Mohammed refers to Christ with the title al-Masih. Al-Masih is an intensive form which means both Anointed One (THE Anointed One, the sine qua non of anointed ones) and one who, by virtue of this quality, has the right to anoint others (see Memsuah Mansour, "The Meaning of al-Masih"). It is an implicit confession that Christ is our sanctification. And if Christ is our sanctification, then he can be no less than God.

Finally, Sura 4:171, right in the midst of its clumsy attempt to refute the Trinity, identifies Jesus as the Word of God. Again, Mohammed must not have realized the Trinitarian implications of his words. As the Muslims acknowledge, God is perfectly simple. Therefore His intellect and His essence are one and the same thing. Therefore His mental Word cannot be something extrinsic and accidental to Himself, like our mental words, but must be intrinsic and substantial. Furthermore, since God knows Himself intimately and exhaustively, His mental Word cannot merely express a portion of His perfections, but must in turn express His perfections exhaustively. Therefore, God's mental Word can be nothing less than the perfect mirror image of Himself, a substantial Person Who expresses, and therefore contains, the whole essence and perfections of the Deity. That is to say, God's Word can be nothing other than a co-equal Son. So we see that a confession of the divinity of Christ is implicit in the Qur'an when it calls Jesus the Word of God.

This has happened by God's design, and woe to us if we refuse to take advantage of it. The Scriptures of false religions are full of unwitting and unwilling prophecies to Christ, much like the prophecy of Caiaphas, which God has arranged to be there so that we may evangelize the devotees of these religions. And this method of argumentation, far from being novel, is taken straight from the medieval Dominicans, the confreres of St. Thomas Aquinas, and more remotely from St. Paul, who quoted the pagan poet Aratus (Acts 17:28).

Next, Sungenis objects that "the express purpose of the Talmud’s prediction of a coming Messiah is to expose Jesus Christ as an imposter Messiah." Well, what the Talmudic rabbis were trying to do is irrelevant to the present discussion. What is relevant is what, by God's design, they objectively did, and that is to, unwittingly and unwillingly, confirm the centrality of Christ. And no, incidentally, it was not my devotion to Roy Schoeman which got me interested in this line of argument. I used it a year ago in my article "Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum" which was posted at CAI. At the time of that writing, I still thought that Schoeman wanted to kill sheep and goats on Mount Zion. I have recently taken a renewed interest in this type of argument, in part from reading Salvation is from the Jews, but also in part from discovering the Pugio Fidei of Raymund Martini.

What comes next in Sungenis' essay is rather humorous. He responds to my lengthy quotation from Jones' review of Salvation is from the Jews, apparently thinking that it was I who wrote these words and not Jones. Well, suddenly the man whom Sungenis has lauded as the most perceptive critic of Jewish errors on the Catholic scene today suffers a rather large demotion! Thinking he is talking about me, Sungenis accuses Jones (1) of allowing himself to be duped by Gnostic spiritual chicanery, (2) of listening to people who say "Lo, here is the Christ" in disobedience to Matthew 24:23, and (3) of buying hook, line, and sinker to a "totally absurd" idea which has been cooked up by Jewish ideologues in order to conceal Judaism's essentially anti-Christian core.

In closing, Robert sees fit to judge my heart and intentions. Of course, not only does he have no way of knowing these things, but his behavior here is in clear violation of many passages of Sacred Scripture. I suppose Sungenis will find some ingenious way to escape the force of these commands. He managed to escape the plain meaning of 1 Corinthians 6:1-2, which forbids Christians from suing each other before a secular court; he simply declared Jacob Michael to not be a Christian. Now he can proceed with suing him. So, it would not surprise me were he to construct some similar rationalization in order to justify his violation of Scripture with respect to me.

And O! How Sungenis whined when David Palm attributed to him a motivation for getting a doctorate from Calamus International University! (that he deeply craved academic and other respectable recognition) Yet he feels quite free to impute all sorts of ignoble motives to Jacob Michael, Michael Forrest, and myself! Yes, Sungenis has one standard for himself and another for the rest of the world. Should you dare to speculate on the secrets of his heart, he will protest your violation of scriptural principle. But none dare question him when he calls this person Judas, that person Jezabel, another a non-Christian and a devil, still another a Zionist agent, when he accuses some of just being out to make a name for themselves, others of putting money over loyalty to the Catholic faith, and others of subverting Catholicism in favor of a Jewish racial agenda. Yes, one would think that he has been given the grace to read souls, given that he can look at someone like Roy Schoeman, whom the rest of the Catholic world sees as a faithful Catholic, and perceive that deep down he "puts Jewish political, religious and social interests above those of the Catholic faith." He can peer into the soul of someone of such widely esteemed character as Michael Forrest, and beneath that Catholic veneer he can see the black heart of a Judas, selling his master out to the Jews for the 30 shekels of silver he'll get from his "blossoming musical career." Sungenis is blind. I count it an honor to have been defamed by him; I am in illustrious company.

Clearly, I should have left CAI a long time ago. My decision to stick so pertinaciously with Sungenis was, ironically, probably the one time I actually did put tribal loyalty ahead of my commitment to Catholic truth. I should have left CAI immediately on September 29, 2006, when I offered to negotiate with Michael Forrest on behalf of Sungenis, and Sungenis responded with the following extraordinary words: "If you want, perhaps you can make a proposal to Mr. Forrest and see how far you get with him... Mind you, Ben, this is only a test to see what Mr. Forrest's motive and objectives are." I didn't quite believe this when I read this. I sort of tucked it away in a corner of my mind, and told myself that, in spite of these words, Sungenis really was sincere in giving me his blessing to make peace on his behalf. But no, he was just using me as a probe to find out "Forrest's motive and objectives," whatever good that information would do him. It should not have surprised me when I sent Sungenis the treaty which Forrest and I hammered out, and he simply rejected the whole thing out of hand.

Robert Sungenis thinks the only reason I worked with him was to build my reputation, to ride his coat-tails to the "top of the apologetic world." He thinks I associated with him merely because he is "well-known in the Catholic world." Well, yes Bob, you are well known in the Catholic world. One might even say you are notorious. Believe me, if I were in this business for the sake of building a positive reputation, staying with CAI was the absolute last thing I would have done. CAI is on the remote fringe of Catholic apologetics; it is nowhere near the top. And of late, it has been sinking ever faster towards the bottom (this trend has only accelerated now that I am no longer in there frantically and futilely bailing water).

Sungenis seems intent on destroying himself, and my attempts to prevent this have proved ineffectual. I exhausted myself for Robert Sungenis: in public, defending him to the extent that I could; in private, writing large numbers of long, belabored e-mails trying desperately to teach him basic precepts of Christian charity which he should have internalized in CCD; and in many hours in the library, producing a body of balanced scholarship on the issues which he has been so intent on covering in such a tabloid, slanderous fashion. But I am done playing cowboy to this wild bronco who resists every restraint and kicks at everything that makes him mad. I failed to convince him to abide by basic principles of natural law and human decency, let alone Christian charity. The only result seemed to be that I was destroying my own reputation and wasting my time and energy which I could have given to others. From now on, I wash my hands of Robert Sungenis. If he wants to respond to this essay and call me a Jew, a sexual degenerate, a heretic, or anything of the sort, it is no longer any concern of mine.

Ben Douglass
April 17, Anno Domini MMVII

Appendix: Lion of the Tribe of Judah

In his essay "Ave Maria University Pushing Jewish Seder Service," Sungenis makes it out to be some sort of sin to recognize and celebrate Jesus' Jewishness. I am reminded of Pius XI's teaching in Rite Expiatis regarding Italian devotion to St. Francis of Assisi. The Pope refers favorably to those who "praised his love of country because in him Our Italy, which boasts the great honor of having given him birth, found a more fruitful source of blessings than any other country" (Rite Expiatis, 40). He asks, "Why then forbid Italians to glory in him who was an Italian, who even in the sacred liturgy is called the 'light of the Fatherland'? (Breviary of Friars Minor)" His only qualification is that they, "impelled by an excessive love of their own nation, should take care not to boast of him as a mere sign and banner of their newborn love of country, thus lessening his glorious title of 'Catholic Champion'" (Ibid., 41).

So, it would seem that similar principles would apply to those who wish to celebrate the ethnicity of Jesus. Why then forbid Jews to glory in Him who was a Jew, who even in the Sacred Scripture is called the "lion of the tribe of Judah"? (Apocalypse 5:5)

Update (5/26/2007): Pius XII clearly affirms that Jesus Himself had a natural predilection for His own nation: "Nor is there any fear lest the consciousness of universal brotherhood aroused by the teaching of Christianity, and the spirit which it inspires, be in contrast with love of traditions or the glories of one's fatherland, or impede the progress of prosperity or legitimate interests. For that same Christianity teaches that in the exercise of charity we must follow a God-given order, yielding the place of honor in our affections and good works to those who are bound to us by special ties. Nay, the Divine Master Himself gave an example of this preference for His Own country and fatherland, as He wept over the coming destruction of the Holy City. But legitimate and well-ordered love of our native country should not make us close our eyes to the all-embracing nature of Christian Charity, which calls for consideration of others and of their interests in the pacifying light of love" (Summi Pontificatus, 49).