Jacob Michael the Prophet?

8) Attributed a bogus quote to Einstein

R. Sungenis: No, the quote was two sentences from Einstein's paper that were separated by ellipses. The words were said by Einstein and no one else.

Here is a challenge I proposed to Mark Wyatt at the Envoy forum, which he failed to respond to. Let's see if Bob does any better:

I have not looked at [the Einstein quote] in depth, but it appears to come from the true quote, and Bob still stands behind it. I know that Forrest feels it is misconstrued.

Unacceptable, Mark. Ante up or fold your cards. Here is the quote exactly as Bob has given it to us:

"Anti-Semitism is nothing but the antagonistic attitude produced in the non-Jew by the Jewish group. The Jewish group has thrived on oppression and on the antagonism it has forever met in the world...the root cause is their use of enemies they create to keep solidarity."

This quote appears currently at CAI in no less than three separate articles and one QA.

Here are the actual, scanned pages of the magazine in which the quote is purported to appear (which, by the way, is not the source Bob used, per his own admission):

page 1

page 2

page 3

page 4

Read those pages Mark, and then come back here and tell me: which page(s) does this quote appear on?

I will be interested in hearing Bob's response, if, that is, he doesn't do what Mark Wyatt did and simply ignore the challenge.

-------------------------

Those are the words that I wrote on March 29, 2007. It is now April 11, 2007. After two weeks, Bob has still not answered the challenge, just as I predicted he would not. Certainly, his lack of response is not due to ignorance of the challenge - I sent him the article after I wrote it, and he responded, so I know he has seen it. He simply chooses to ignore it - which, again, is exactly what I said he would do.

There is no need to speculate. He has ignored the challenge because he has no answer. He knows the quote is bogus, and he simply will not admit it.

Enough said.

Refusing to Admit the Obvious: Sungenis's Einstein Quote is Fraudulent

Recently, Robert Sungenis wrote an article in which he further entrenched himself in anti-Jewish conspiracy theories. The vast majority of his article serves as its own rebuttal, but there are a few issues that may eventually be addressed. Because of the disturbing parallel to what Bob has done to Roy Schoeman (eagerly accepting and using a fraudulent quote to attack him), Bob’s tortured, continued defense of his blatantly fraudulent Einstein “quote” at CAI will be addressed first. He writes:

R. Sungenis: No, the quote is not “fraudulent,” it is merely put together with ellipses from what Einstein himself said. I have thoroughly rebutted Mr. Forrest’s claims.

R. Sungenis: Mr. Forrest has his facts wrong. The quote was separated by ellipses, and thus it was not “cobbled together.”

(Article)

Once again, here are the facts:

A) Bob first claimed that he found this “quote” from Collier’s magazine (Article). He did not. After being confronted, he eventually admitted that he found it somewhere else but refused to disclose where:

“Let me admit to you that I did not get the original quote. I copied the quote from another source. Regardless of the source…” (Article)

Although, he later contradicted himself and misstated the facts when David Palm also brought up the fraudulent Einstein quote:

“I didn’t admit anything. I said the quote was from Collier (sic) magazine, and nothing more.”
(Article)

In his latest response, he simply declined to interact with this specific issue at all (the source for the “quote”). Again, a simple google search reveals white supremacists, Neo-nazis, and other anti-Semites as the most common purveyors of this fraudulent quote: Google Search

If you have difficulty bringing up this search, it is because Google filters it due to the objectionable nature of the material. You have to disable the filter.


B) The actual Collier’s issue in which the article appeared was tracked down, purchased and a scanned copy of each page was provided for Sungenis and everyone else: (Article). The direct links are:

Page 1,
Page 2,
Page 3,
Page 4


C) Here is the fraudulent “quote” as used repeatedly by Robert Sungenis to “prove” that the charge of anti-Semitism is “nothing but a clever ploy” and that Albert Einstein thought so as well:

“Anti-Semitism is nothing but the antagonistic attitude produced in the non-Jew by the Jewish group. The Jewish group has thrived on oppression and on the antagonism it has forever met in the world…the root cause is their use of enemies they create to keep solidarity.”
Article 1, Article 2, Q and A #26, July 2006, Article 3

Is Bob’s latest attempted defense true, that this quote is “not fraudulent”, “not cobbled together” and “merely put together with ellipses”? Examine Bob’s “quote” again (directly above), and then review what Einstein actually wrote, in greater context. I have put in bold italics the fragments that Bob’s source used:

The members of any group existing in a nation are more closely bound to one another than they are to the remaining population. Hence, a nation will never be free of friction while such groups continue to be distinguishable. In my belief, uniformity in a population would not be desirable, even if it were attainable. Common convictions and aims, similar interests, will in every society produce groups that, in a certain sense, act as units. There will always be friction between such groups-the same sort of aversion and rivalry that exists between individuals…

The formation of groups has an invigorating effect in all spheres of human striving, perhaps mostly due to the struggle between the convictions and aims represented by the different groups. The Jews too form such a group with a definite character of its own, and anti-Semitism is nothing but the antagonistic attitude produced in the non-Jews by the Jewish group. This is a normal social reaction. But for the political abuse resulting from it, it might never have been designated by a special name.

At this point, eight paragraphs of material are written by Einstein in the article, eventually leading to this:

In the foregoing I have conceived of Judaism as a community of tradition…
perhaps even more than on its own tradition, the Jewish group has thrived on oppression and on the antagonism it has forever met in the world. Here undoubtedly lies one of the main reasons for its continued existence through so many thousands of years.

Quite a different story. We can see that it was certainly not Einstein’s intent to paint anti-Semitism as a “clever ploy” of the Jews concocted to cow gentiles, as Bob framed it. This is sophistry, plain and simple. Einstein was merely making general sociological observations and applying them to Jews as well in the first two paragraphs. Minority groups that do not readily assimilate and instead hold to their distinct identity tend to create friction with the larger population. This is normal and expected. However, in the case of Jews, that friction has resulted in particularly serious political abuses…such as those witnessed in Nazi Germany.

In the third paragraph quoted above (again, eight paragraphs removed from the other two), Einstein speaks of the fact that oppression can strengthen. As an explanation for why the Jewish group has survived for so many thousands of years, Einstein says, "Perhaps even more than on its own tradition, the Jewish group has thrived on oppression and on the antagonism it has forever met in the world." (Collier's, p. 38) In other words, while the Jews have (like many other ethnic groups in history) met oppression and antagonism at the hands of other ethnic groups, the Jews have (unlike other ethnic groups in history) been strengthened and invigorated by that antagonism - apparently, it activates their strong drive to survive. In fact, a similar thing may be said of Christianity. It has historically thrived on oppression rather than crumbling under it.

One will inevitably note several important facts:

1) The third fragment of Bob’s “quote” (“the root cause is their use of enemies they create to keep solidarity”), arguably the most important for firmly establishing the meaning Bob sought, is completely fabricated. It does not exist, period. Bob has yet to even simply acknowledge this documented fact.

2) As you can see, the first two sentences of Bob’s “quote” are actually fragments of longer sentences in the Einstein article. Yet they are presented in Bob’s “quote” as complete sentences. This is also false. Ellipses should have appeared both before and after each of these sentences and they don’t.

3) Not only are the first two sentence fragments fraudulently presented as whole sentences, they are presented as though one follows immediately after the other. This is another outright falsehood. Bob’s fraudulent quote has absolutely no ellipses between them. Again, eight paragraphs separate these two fragments in Einstein’s article.

4) The only ellipses in Bob’s “quote” (ellipses are typed as “…” in order to denote that text has been omitted) are between the second sentence and the third:

The Jewish group has thrived on oppression and on the antagonism it has forever met in the world…the root cause is their use of enemies they create to keep solidarity

The problem, again, is that the third sentence does not exist in Einstein’s article at all. So the ellipses here obviously don’t help Bob.

5) Even if Bob’s quote did use ellipses in the correct places (which it does not), this would still be completely illegitimate. First, to use ellipses to join two sentence fragments, making them appear as a continued train of thought, when in actuality they are separated by eight paragraphs, is ridiculous. As demonstrated above, the context surrounding the two fragments is different. Einstein was addressing two distinct issues in the context of those sentence fragments.

To give you a more concrete idea of what Bob is defending, let’s try this with the Bible and one of Bob’s books:

First, from the Bible:

“All who are of Israel are Israel. They shall be called children of the living God…for the Jews will always be more loved by Him than the Gentiles.”

(First sentence taken from Romans 9: 6, second sentence taken from Romans 9:26, followed by a completely fabricated phrase)

One doubts Sungenis would defend this particular “quote” (and neither would we).

Now let’s extract a “quote” from Sungenis’s book, How Can I Get to Heaven?:

“God is pleased with us. It is a personal righteousness that God can recognize…because we attack Jews without ceasing.”

Again, one hopes Bob would not defend this “quote.”

(First sentence taken from page 45, second from page 48, followed by a completely fabricated phrase).

In any case, the fact is that Albert Einstein never indicated in any way that the charge of anti-Semitism is “nothing but a clever ploy” concocted by Jews to cow gentiles. It’s plain nonsense and, sadly, that doesn’t seem to matter to Bob.

The question is, how long will Bob leave this blatantly fraudulent quote up on his website? He has been informed about the problem for 7 months now. Perhaps Roy Schoeman should be pleased that it only took Bob a couple of weeks to remove the fraudulent quote he used to attack Roy.

At this point it might be worth a quick review of Bob’s accuracy and source problems:

Without sufficient corroboration, any information, especially in these kinds of sensitive areas, is as good as false. We have all learned our lesson, . . . (apology from the Mr. X affair, c. May 2003).

[L]et me offer my sincerest apologies…I know that some of the words I chose and some of the sources I used tended to incite offense. I can assure you that such will be the case no longer. (Open Letter dated 18 Sept 2006.)

I already told them that I would check and recheck my sources and speak charitably in my critiques (Question 60- jews?)

...our sources and facts will be checked and rechecked… (Question 55- Michael Forrest and the boys, emphasis his)

Our sources will be checked and rechecked, and if there is a questionable source, we will inform our reader so that he can judge the content and the source for himself. (Question 16)

As we do so, CAI is going to make a concerted effort to clear up the so-called “source problem,”…plan to silence the “source critics” once and for all.
("Christopher Blosser and the Catholic ADL")

Especially for those who remember the “Mr. X” debacle, this is all particularly ironic. Bob intended to attack William Webster for his purportedly illegitimate use of ellipses. He claimed that Webster used them in such a way as to seriously distort the meaning of what the Early Church Fathers wrote.

One standard for me, another for thee.

Michael Forrest Apologizes and Offers a Correction

An Apology and Correction from Michael Forrest

In September of 2006, when I published Robert Sungenis and the Jews, I did not accuse Robert Sungenis of being anti-Semitic. I still believe that the term is over-used and abused. In fact, I have defended Bob against the accusation until now. But after the past few months, I am forced to say that I was wrong. If Robert Sungenis is not an anti-Semite, then the term has little or no usefulness.

It has been suggested that a Catholic can reach a fair understanding of what constitutes anti-Semitism by simply substituting the word “anti-Catholic” for “anti-Semite.” If the roles were reversed, would we Catholics consider it anti-Catholic? I think this is a sensible approach. And if we apply this simple standard to Bob Sungenis and his writings, I believe we come to the conclusion that he is anti-Semitic (at least materially).

As has been documented in great detail, Robert Sungenis has continually broad-brushed, singled out and stereotyped Jews while sometimes plagiarizing white supremacist, Nazi and other Anti-Semitic sources. Bob does not merely engage Zionism, nor merely Judaism. It is often one’s very ethnic identity as a Jew that is targeted.

Two recent and related events illustrate this most clearly and have prompted this latest response. The first comes to light in Bob’s recent essay against David Palm.

Bob had this to say on page 4:

Mr. Palm, Mr. Michael and Mr. Forrest have all admitted, in one form or another, that they are coming from the supposition of being sympathetic to the Jews at large and the nation state of Israel. Whether these three men have ethnic ties to the Jews, I don’t know, but I suspect that one or more of them do but they are not admitting it.

Bob’s first sentence is a falsehood. But that aside, consider what Bob is saying in the last sentence. He had already made a similar implication about David Palm’s ancestry in an earlier piece:

Sungenis: “David Palm, a layman with no particular distinction or recognition who has decided to take up the Jewish cause. Whether Mr. Palm is Jewish himself I do not know.” (emphasis added) (Article, page 3).

I find Bob’s transparent intentions to be seriously disturbing. His approach is reminiscent of Nazi Germany or pre-civil rights America where one might attempt to smear or taint another by implying they have Jewish or “Negro” blood. To Bob, Forrest (or Palm, Michael or whomever) is one of them, not one of us!

In fact, Bob has exhibited such objectionable tendencies before. This is all part of a long-established pattern. For those who may have missed or forgotten it, here are some of the statements and charges leveled by Bob against Jews:

1) In support of his apparent belief that Jews are morally degenerate and responsible for the moral decline of our society, he claimed that Walt Disney had a policy of not hiring Jews and implicitly acknowledged the wisdom of such a policy.

Sungenis: “A telltale sign in the movie industry of the shift in mores was demonstrated no better than in the Walt Disney Corporation. Founder Walter Disney was well-known in the 50s and 60s for wholesome family entertainment. Interestingly enough, Walt had a policy of not hiring Jewish people.”
(Article)

2) He accused Franklin D. Roosevelt of betraying his country, allowing Pearl Harbor to occur, because Roosevelt is purported to have had a very partial “Jewish ancestry”.

Sungenis: “President Roosevelt had a part in (the Zionist conspiracy) himself. Being of Jewish ancestry, he was sympathetic to their cause...Roosevelt brought America into World War II by allowing Pearl Harbor to take place, for he had known way in advance that the Japanese were planning to attack.”
(Article)

3) Bob has used fraudulent quotes of Albert Einstein (Jewish) to “prove” that the charge of Anti-Semitism is “nothing but a clever ploy” concocted by Jews to cow gentiles (click here to see proof that this quote is fraudulent). A google search strongly suggests that this “quote” was found on a racist or other extremist website.

Sungenis: “The charge of ‘anti-Semitism’ is nothing but a clever ploy…Albert Einstein finally recognized after dealing with his own people: ‘Anti-Semitism is nothing but the antagonistic attitude produced in the non-Jew by the Jewish group. The Jewish group has thrived on oppression and on the antagonism it has forever met in the world…the root cause is their use of enemies they create to keep solidarity’ (Albert Einstein, Collier’s Magazine, November 26, 1938).”

link 1, link 2, link 3(#26)

4) Bob has singled out, broad-brushed and condemned Jewish professionals of very diverse backgrounds, ideologies and beliefs:

Sungenis: “Today we get deviant sexual advice from such Jewish matrons as Dr. Ruth Westheimer, and questionable behavioral advice from Dr. Laura Schlesinger, Ann Landers (formerly Esther Friedman Lederer) and her sister Abigail van Buren (Pauline Esther Friedman Phillips).” (Article)

Has anyone ever heard Dr. Ruth express a position on Zionism? And if anyone has ever listened to Dr. Laura Schlesinger, they would know that “Dr. Laura”, while far from perfect, regularly chastises Catholics who do not take their faith seriously.

5) Bob has singled out Jews for being incredibly ruthless in leadership:

Sungenis: “when (Jews) come into power…they can be some of the most ruthless people on the face of the earth.”
(Q and A #8)

6) Bob has singled out and implicated a Jew in the assassination of JFK:

Sungenis: “We also know through the exhaustive effort of Michael Collins Piper’s new 738- page book, Final Judgment, how Bronfman (note: a Jew) is implicated in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.”
(Article)

7) Bob has charged that “real” Jews tend to be violent and that these “real” Jews consider non-Jews to be less than animals:

Sungenis: “Christianity is certainly not inherently violent, but unfortunately, Judaism tends to be, because real Judaism considers all non-Jews goyim that are less than animals, and this precipitates a loathing and violence against non-Jews.”
(Q and A #8)

8) Bob has singled out such evil men as Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin for their Jewish ethnicity. None of these men were Zionists. None of them were followers of Judaism. Trostky was only ethnically Jewish. Lenin was only partially of Jewish ethnicity. And Stalin was even once a Christian seminarian. Yet their Jewish ethnicity is singled out in relation to their infamy.

Link 1, Link 2, Link 3

9) Sungenis has leveled the charge that "the Jews" are plotting to take over the world and the Catholic Church:

Sungenis: “The Jews…do intend to rule the world. And now the problem is that they want to rule the Catholic Church, too.”
(Q and A #47)

So, I hope after reiterating some of the evidence, it is clear to all that Sungenis’ recent charges about David Palm’s, Jacob Michael’s or my alleged Jewish ancestry are part of a long, consistent pattern. If you are Jewish, if you are partly Jewish, if you even may be Jewish, that is enough to create serious suspicion in the eyes of Robert Sungenis. To reiterate, if these kinds of things were said about Catholics, would we all consider them anti-Catholic? I would think so.

What leads an intelligent man to make such statements, especially without a shred of evidence? And how should someone respond to such accusations? Should one provide a family tree? And would that even suffice for Sungenis? Or would it merely “prove” that one is a clever Jew who can hide his ethnicity?

In the end, no, I will not dignify such a transparently ugly charge with an answer. If Bob and his followers feel better believing that I, Jacob Michael, David Palm, Art Sippo, John Novotny, Patrick Morris, Michael Lopez, Matthew Anger, Pope Benedict XVI or anyone else is a Jew in order to explain away our reactions to him, then so be it. How can one argue with a man who also attempts to defend the veracity of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion by appealing to the fact that Jews vigorously oppose it? (see Article, p. 16)

For such conspiracy theorists, every denial ultimately leads to suspicion of an ever wider, deeper and more nefarious conspiracy. I pray that at least those Catholics not similarly enamored of Jewish conspiracy theories will clearly see the deep ugliness and irrationality in all of this.

The second incident involves Roy Schoeman, a Catholic author of Jewish descent. I recommend visiting Patrick Madrid’s Envoy Forums here to view more information about it. As those who have been following events know, Bob began heavily criticizing Schoeman back in April 2004 before even reading his book, going so far as to impugn Schoeman’s honesty in the process. Since then he has written numerous other harsh condemnations (at least four featured essays on his site, multiple Q and A’s and articles for The Latin Mass and Culture Wars magazines), condemning him as a purveyor of the most pernicious and nefarious heresies the Church has ever faced and accusing him of being a Jew first and a Catholic second (see article). Even still, he found it necessary to pen yet one more lengthy critique recently.

Most recently, Bob used a blatantly fraudulent quote in order to prove his oft-repeated (and unsubstantiated) charge that Roy Schoeman is pushing for the re-establishment of the Jewish festivals in the Catholic Church. The following is from Bob's article, David Palm: Still Confused and Calumniating:

Mr. Palm: Will you defend him here when he has repeatedly accused Roy Schoeman of having "demanded" that Jewish converts be allowed to practice various Jewish ceremonies, when in fact Schoeman explicitly rejects that in the book?

R. Sungenis: Mr. Palm needs to get up to snuff. Schoeman does not “explicitly reject” it. Here are Schoeman’s recent words on the subject:

"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 comingfrom 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.” (CAI, QA board, March, 2007)

This quote stands in stark contrast to everything else Schoeman has written publicly and privately on the matter. Upon reading it, my immediate reaction was that it made no sense that Schoeman would write such a thing.

It turns out my reaction was well-founded. Ironically, Mark Wyatt, a persistent Sungenis promoter, defender and CAI patron who helped Bob with his latest book on Galileo, was the first to ascertain that the quote is fraudulent. In fact, Bob’s "quote" turns Schoeman’s actual quote on its head. Below is the authentic quote:

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 in a surfeit of sensitivity to hurting Jewish feelings as a result of the Holocaust, the interaction between the Church and the Jewish community has recently been dominated by a running away from any “threat” of conversion, at times going so far as to assert that Jews have no need for Christ, that God just wants them to remain faithful to their “original” covenant. 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, which is far more Jewish than any of the Protestant denominations, they get scooped up by our “separated brethren”.
(Article)

Notice, there is nothing at all in the authentic quote about Jewish festivals. In fact, Schoeman even blames the lack of Jewish entry into the Church on Catholic over-sensitivity to the Holocaust, an opinion that Sungenis would certainly be expected to enthusiastically support.

The purported source for this fraudulent quote was a CAI patron who claimed to have a copy of the “Salvation is From the Jews Newsletter.” (March 2007, #5 and #43) The problem is that there is no such publication and never has been: a very easily verifiable piece of information for one inclined to do even minimal research. This "quote" was apparently taken from the Association of Hebrew Catholic’s publication, The Hebrew Catholic, Winter-Spring 2005. The original quote appears to have been purposely mangled by excising some things Schoeman actually wrote, inserting some things he didn’t, and putting sentences together that were originally separated by other material.

For those who have been reading everything to date, a parallel will likely come to mind, namely, what Bob did with a fraudulent quote from Albert Einstein. In that case, Bob claimed to have found a quote from Albert Einstein in Collier’s magazine. Eventually he admitted he found it from a secondary source, not Collier’s. He refrains from disclosing where he got it, although a simple google search readily turns up White Supremacists, anti-Semites and other extremists.

Bob attributed to Einstein a fraudulent quote that was an amalgam of two actual sentences, separated by eight paragraphs, cobbled together to appear as if one followed directly after the other, topped off with a totally fabricated sentence that appears nowhere in the article at all (a sentence that is key to establishing the meaning Bob desired). All of this to “prove” that Albert Einstein agreed that the charge of anti-Semitism is “nothing but a clever ploy” concocted by Jews to cow gentiles. It is nonsense. And it is essentially the same thing he has now done to a brother Catholic, Roy Schoeman.
(You can visit RSATJ, Section 2 item 9B and this document toward the end for a fuller explanation of Bob’s use of Einstein.)

To date, Bob has refused to pull down the false Einstein quote in the various places he has used it at CAI. In fact, in what seems to be a recurring theme, he even vigorously defended what he did:

Link 1, Link 2 (page 26), Link 3 and Link 4 (#26)

His false quote of Schoeman likewise remains at CAI as of the writing of this piece. This is in contrast to the standard that even avid CAI supporter Mark Wyatt agreed to be correct:

You are right, the quote should not have been aired- but it was.

Under those circumstances, Bob should (in my opinion):

1. Remove the quote asap

(see here)

This also stands in contrast to Sungenis’ own standards as enunciated after the unfortunate “Mr. X” affair:

Sungenis: “Without sufficient corroboration, any information, especially in these kinds of sensitive areas, is as good as false. We have all learned our lesson…” (Apology from the Mr. X affair, c. May 2003)

It is sad enough that Bob has found it necessary to behave like a reporter for a tabloid in his personal attacks on Einstein and others (in fact, given Bob’s well-documented habit of plagiarizing, his charge against Einstein for plagiarism shows a great deal of chutzpah). But now he has gone so far as to use fabricated evidence received from one of his patrons to attack another Catholic.

Ironically, all this does is reaffirm a point I made in September of 2006 in the introduction to RSATJ:

3) (Bob) continues to evidence a propensity to uncritically seek out and accept unsavory, dubious and/or negatively biased information in regard to Jews and has drawn others with similar proclivities to his website.

While I do not at all intend to insinuate that this is the case for all CAI supporters, I believe it is no mere coincidence that people with an animus toward Jews find themselves drawn to CAI.

Bob has demanded of those whom he perceives to have done him wrong that they give “an unconditional apology” (question 50) and that one should not even dare contact him until that has been done. While it is unlike Bob himself to offer such an unconditional apology on anything more than a minor issue, I believe justice requires at least this much.

Bob demands opportunity after opportunity without so much as a genuine apology or retraction after his very public, harmful behavior. He also demands to be taken seriously as a Catholic apologist and scholar after such repeated, serious breaches of decency and scholarly standards.

As a former supporter of Robert Sungenis, I can understand how a strong, unwavering, and supremely confident Catholic can appear very appealing in these days of often-weak leadership and scandal. But the answer to our difficulties cannot be to follow, defend and support what amounts to a self-appointed bishop who hurls condemnations and charges of heresy in ways that would make Torquemada blush. I also think of a warning my father gave to me when I was young: Beware of a person who thinks he knows the answer to everything.

I believe that, as was once true of myself, Bob’s supporters share a certain amount of the blame for all this. If they would stop making excuses for such harmful behavior, sometimes going so far as to actively defend and promote it, he might be led to eventually confront the troubling reality of what he has done and continues to do to very real human beings.

But, ultimately, this is not “about” Bob Sungenis. It is about the people he unjustly attacks, condemns and maligns with impunity. It is about standing up against a bully, an unjust aggressor. And just like bullies often do, he cries foul when he is finally confronted and told that his behavior will no longer be tolerated in silence. And at least some of those who have sought to align themselves with him have reacted predictably as well. When one has invested heavily in a bully, it’s hard to see his standing taken down. One’s own fortunes somewhat inevitably follow him. This is simply the childhood school-yard replayed on a bigger field.

I sincerely ask those who are harboring what I believe is a mistaken compassion for Bob to consider the heat the Church has taken for Pius XII because some people believe that he did not do enough to resist the Nazis. How are we as Catholics to validly defend ourselves against such charges in our own day if we do not stand up and repudiate the ugliness directly and undeniably perpetrated by one of our own against Jews (or against any ethnic group for that matter)?

The proof is there for all to see now. For the sake of everyone he attacks, confuses, misleads and even, for his own sake…enough is enough.

Please pray for Bob this Lent.