Clearing Roy Schoeman of Sungenis' Slander

Roy Schoeman, a faithful, orthodox Roman Catholic who came to the Church from Judaism, has long been targeted by Sungenis for multiple "critiques." Until now, Sungenis' most deplorable "critique" was the one in which he had not even read Schoeman's book before feeling justified in impugning his honesty.

But more recently, Sungenis stooped to a new low by jumping to publish a fraudulent quote and attributing it to Schoeman, without first making any effort to verify it. Yet, when Sungenis learned for certain that the quote was fraudulent, he promptly published a retraction and apology and sent a personal apology to Schoeman...right?

Not exactly.

Ben Douglass recounts the sorry story.

The Clinton Connection

While watching the controversies surrounding Bob Sungenis unfold, I have repeatedly been struck by the parallels between his behavior and that of former President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary. This comparison, of course, is hardly flattering to Bob. How serious, then, to find a self-proclaimed Catholic apologist behaving in ways that so closely parallel the behavior of such individuals. And yet, it is precisely for that reason that this essay is important, I think, for character is truly the issue. As there appear to be at least a few who sincerely do not understand the nature and seriousness of the problem in this regard, it seemed to me that the use of this analogy might help to make matters clearer for them.

I do not broach this topic lightly or flippantly. But the Catholic apologetics community and the public at large really does need to know who it is dealing with when a man claims so stridently to represent the Catholic Church and her teachings. This is particularly true in regard to an issue as sensitive as Catholic–Jewish relations and most especially when this sensitive issue has been treated with reckless disregard for the truth and basic standards of decent behavior.

For example, when the information broke out that the President had been having an immoral relationship with Monica Lewinsky (whom Sungenis claimed had been sent in by "the Jews" to bring down Clinton), the President's wife was quick to attach the blame, not to her husband whom she knew full well was a serial adulterer, but rather to a "vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president" (link). Bob Sungenis has been caught citing Nazis, repeatedly plagiarizing sources, issuing threats to former CAI associates and correspondents, publishing the most bigoted language against Jews, slandering Catholic converts from Judaism and his own bishop, and much more. But he's never truly taken responsibility for his own actions. Rather, he has chosen repeatedly to spin it all as a great conspiracy to destroy him:

as soon as I began to speak critically on Jewish issues and point out the severe lack of critical Catholic judgment on them, most of my former friends and colleagues have made it their determined goal to ostracize me from the Catholic community and precipitate my financial ruin, which is particularly disturbing because I have a wife and nine children to support. Every day [sic!] for the past five years I have experienced malicious character assassinations, half-truths, set ups, deceit, gossip, hatred and assortment of distortions of my life and work that I had hardly dreamed was possible. (The Old Covenant, Revoked or Not Revoked, footnote 1, pp 1-2)

In the very image of the Clintons, Bob just can't seem to imagine that anybody would respond vigorously when he does things such as: accusing Jews of promoting pedophilia and of being inherently violent, recruiting CAI patrons to try and "out" his opponents as closet Jews, or treating Jewish converts to Catholicism as malicious subversives, to name but a few examples. Rather, he conveniently concludes that it must be everybody else's malicious nature that would cause them to respond negatively to his words and actions. Similarly, like the Clintons, he and his supporters can't seem to grasp the distinction between the immoral actions of an unjust aggressor and the moral actions of those who seek to defend the targets of that aggression.

Another common feature of the Clintons is their blatant double standards. For example, when radio shock jock Don Imus used the word "ho's" to refer to members of the Rutger's University womens' basketball team, Senator Hillary Clinton personally sent an e-mail to her supporters denouncing Imus for his "small-minded bigotry and coarse sexism." But Clinton had no problem accepting $800,000 in campaign contributions from rapper Timbaland, whose lyrics are replete with the word "ho" (link).

And with Bob Sungenis, as with the Clintons, double standards are legion. For example, while claiming to be a Catholic apologist par excellence, Bob has repeatedly adopted non-Catholic methods of argumentation and evaluation of evidence in order to deny the powerful Catholic consensus that there will be a future special conversion of Jews to Christ (see numerous examples in The Ongoing Role of the Jews in Salvation History.)

In his piece "My Ph.D. from Calamus International University" Bob sneeringly denigrated the credentials of Jacob Michael, while at the very time employing Ben Douglass—whose credentials are essentially identical to Michaels'—as Senior VP of Apologetics at CAI (see Just What the Doctor Ordered?).

Sungenis was livid when Michael Forrest went public with www.sungenisandthejews.com (after numerous attempts to remonstrate with Bob privately), blustering that, "The least you could have done with something this serious is allow me to give the other side of the story along side of yours so that the viewing public could judge for themselves" ("Michael Forrest and the Jews"). But as was pointed out in Comments on a Controversy, Sungenis never once contacted such individuals as David Moss, Roy Schoeman, and now his own ordinary, Bishop Rhoades, in order to accurately ascertain their beliefs before publicly charging them with the most extreme deviations from the Catholic faith.

Sungenis was equally livid when former colleagues were compelled by justice to make certain e-mails public in order to defend various individuals from false charges. But at the same time, Sungenis himself has been perfectly willing to utilize private e-mails. However, he did so not to defend anyone from injustice, but simply to embarrass and cajole his opponents (see An Update on the Negotiations).

For many more examples see also "More Double Standards" in Sources, Schoeman, and the Credibility of Bob Sungenis, "Double Standards Abound" in David Palm's Defense of Michael Forrest and the examples in Just What the Doctor Ordered?.

Another tendency the Clintons have is to engage in provocative behavior only to then accuse their opponent of doing the very thing they have done. Recently, for example, in order to try and blunt a win for Barack Obama in South Carolina, Bill Clinton injected racial issues into the Clinton/Obama contest in a number of stump speeches. When Obama finally was forced to respond, the Clinton campaign turned around and blamed Obama for...you guessed it...introducing race into the contest. As the New York Times reported:

Former President Bill Clinton defended himself Wednesday against accusations that he and his wife had injected the issue of race into the Democratic presidential primary in South Carolina, and he accused Senator Barack Obama of Illinois of putting out a "hit job" on him (link).

Again, the parallels to Bob's behavior are remarkable. Back when this controversy had been newly ignited by the publication of www.sungenisandthejews.com, Bob insisted that his wife was an independent witness to a critical phone conversation that he had had with Michael Forrest:

Oh sure. I'm just making all this up about Mr. Forrest having another gig opportunity in 2005! Where would I ever get the notion that Mr. Forrest had an upcoming gig and that his promoter was looking at our website, if not from Mr. Forrest?? My wife was a witness to this whole series of events, and she can't believe that Mr. Forrest is now denying this! Sure, Mr. Forrest quit his band in 2004, but what does that have to do with Mr. Forrest seeking a solo gig at a new concert in 2005?? (Sungenis, Michael Forrest and the Jews; my emphasis).

And in another place Bob even denigrated his own recollection of the events, thus magnifying the importance of his wife's allegedly independent testimony:

But regardless of our respective views on who left and who got fired, the thing that bothers me the most is HOW this all came about. Whether Mr. Forrest left or I fired him is nothing compared to the absolute betrayal I endured under Mr. Forrest's hand because of his sudden actions against me. I have forgotten many of the details of the events that transpired, but my wife was also a witness to these events, and she has a memory like an elephant. She also knows the great pain I went through when Mr. Forrest decided to betray me so suddenly. (Question 50, November 2006; my emphasis)

So he admitted that his own memory is faulty—although this never stopped him from making the most outlandish charges against Forrest with absolute certitude—but backed up his own deficiencies by resorting to his wife's memory. The obvious problem is that his wife simply does not have any independent access to the facts—she was not an eyewitness at all, but got the details of Bob's conversations with Michael Forrest from Bob himself. Here's how I presented this in my essay Sources, Schoeman, and Sungenis:

This hasn't stopped [Sungenis] from continuing to insist that Forrest is lying (most recently in a private email to me of January 20, 2007: "As the record stands, not only was Mr. Forrest going to play music at this speaking engagement, he was in the process of trying to get even more opportunities to speak and play his music. That's what he told me on the phone ... Ask him. If he denies it, he's a liar."). In the same Q & A in which he admits his own lapse of memory he brings his wife into the fray: "my wife was also a witness to these events, and she has a memory like an elephant" (ibid.).

I considered it highly unlikely that Mrs. Sungenis actually heard the phone conversation of on or around 1 March 2005; at the very least, if she had, one would have expected her to use her elephantine memory to help Bob avoid making repeated mistakes of established fact during this controversy: No Bob, there was no music gig. No Bob, there was no concert promoter. No Bob, Michael doesn't play the guitar. No Bob, Michael never said anything about his promoter being worried about CAI. Etc.

I asked for clarification of this point. Bob answered that, "My conversations on the phone are often held on speaker-phone, and my wife, since she works for CAI as a secretary and bookkeeper, is often listening to my conversations, whether by happenstance or deliberately" (private e-mail of January 20, 2007). But Bob sidesteps the crucial question: did his wife hear the specific conversation in question, in which Forrest presented to Bob his reasons for leaving CAI? Forrest, well acquainted with speaker-phones in his line of business, is quite certain that this conversation was not held on a speaker-phone and anybody who has carried on such a conversation knows that one can tell if the other party is using such a device.

But even if Mrs. Sungenis was privy to this conversation between Michael and Bob, she gave Forrest no indication that she was listening in, which is clearly an ethical breach of privacy and not at all praiseworthy. For my part, I do not believe that she was eavesdropping and thus she is in no position to be an independent witness to these matters.

As such, it seems more likely that Bob's wife parroted back to him the same distorted characterization of events he undoubtedly shared with her after his conversation with Forrest in the first place. If this counts as an "eye witness" then Mr. Michael would certainly be a credible "eye witness," since he too was in conversation with Michael Forrest both before and during Forrest's departure from CAI, and has seen both sides of the email correspondence. The obvious difference in terms of objectivity is that neither I nor Jacob Michael are married to Forrest (Sources, Schoeman, and Sungenis).

That's it. Bob brought his wife into the argument, claiming that she was an independent witness to a conversation between him and Michael Forrest. I questioned that claim and gave my reasons for so doing. How did Bob proceed to spin this? It's easy to figure it out—just ask yourself, What Would Bill Do? That's right. After bringing his own wife into the controversy and then dodging pointed questions about whether she really was an independent eyewitness to the events in question, Bob followed up—in another rant reminiscent of Bill's "hit job"and Hillary's "vast right-wing conspiracy"—by claiming, not just that we had introduced his wife into the controversy, but that we had "attacked" her:

I have been on the forefront of Catholic apologetics exposing the errors and agenda of these Jewish racists for the last five years. You can imagine what they have tired [sic] to do to me. Relentless attacks on my personal life, my academic life, my theological and biblical knowledge, my apostolate, even my wife and children ("Catholics Falling for Jewish Errors").

This is vintage Clinton...or Sungenis. But the bottom line is that we now know for certain that Bob was lying about his wife having independent access to information about Forrest, because we found where Bob himself had accidentally admitted that he gave her the details of his interactions with Forrest. Here's how it was reported at this blog:

Of course, while we're at it, let us not forget one of the more blatant personal lies Sungenis has told about his dealings with Michael Forrest. He has been absolutely adamant that his wife was an "eyewitness" to his phone conversation with Forrest before Forrest quit:

Sungenis: "Mr. Forrest yelled to me on the phone that I was an anti-semite…My wife was a witness to the whole fiasco. No one else was an eyewitness…" (Christopher Blosser and the Catholic ADL, page 3)

and in attempting to prove to David Palm that his wife actually heard his conversation with Forrest, Sungenis wrote:

Sungenis: "My conversations on the phone are often held on speaker-phone, and my wife, since she works for CAI as a secretary and bookkeeper, is often listening to my conversations, whether by happenstance or deliberately." (e-mail of January 20, 2007)

Apparently, either his mother never warned him about telling lies and the need for a good memory or he forgot her advice. Read on from October 2006, when he at least told the truth about the source of his wife's account:

Sungenis: "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)

(More Notable Quotes From Sungenis)

Another example of this propensity to accuse his opponents of the very thing he just did himself occurred back in the spring of 2007. Bob managed to coerce a CAI patron named Bill to approach Jacob Michael under cover of anonymity, to ask Jacob if he had Jewish ancestry. Frankly, this can only be viewed as the product of an extremely paranoid mind—accusing your opponents of being closet Jews is also a move right out of the Nazi play book. As an aside, the whole thing starts to take on the character of a Monty Python sketch when one finds Fr. Nicolas Gruner accusing E. Michael Jones (Sungenis' mentor and ally on "Jewish issues"), who has his own problems with anti-Semitic rhetoric, of being a closet Jew:

For his part, Father Nicholas Gruner, defender of the secrets of Fatima—and someone frequently taken to task by Fidelity for his obsession with alleged marian messages—shows his colors when he tells Cuneo that "Jones is secretly a Jew. He's a Marrano, planted in the American Church to confuse Catholics and sow hatred against people like myself. I think most of us have figured that out by now" (The Smoke of Satan, First Things, Dec 1997).

This is all the more remarkable when we consider a satire written about Sungenis entitled, “The Zionist Conspiracy Deepens” in which life comes amazingly close to imitating art; in this satire an even-more-paranoid anti-Semite ends up accusing Sungenis, who is referred to as "Robert Hanswurst", of being a closet Zionist:

The reality is, this man, who once fearlessly investigated and exposed Zionist conspiracies and plots across the globe by means of such ironclad proof as: Pope Paul VI wearing a Jewish ephod, FDR’s likely Jewish ancestry and Pope John Paul II’s secret love of bagels, is a Zionist himself...

Who else but Hanswurst is going after the Jews with such sustained intensity and notoriety? Who else but Hanswurst has even managed to elicit sympathy from our ally Louis Farrakhan toward the Jews by his constant, ferocious attacks (“Those poor Jews!” Louis Farrakhan, August 2005)? Who else but Hanswurst has clandestinely tipped the enemy off as to our real views and aims by incredibly damaging “accidents”? The truth is there for the objective to see: Hanswurst is using the same tactics he proved that the Jews used back in the days of the Holocaust: fomenting intense global distrust of and anger against the Jews with the underlying intent of eliciting sympathy which in turn will facilitate the spread of Zionism. The conclusion is thus inescapable: Hanswurst is a Zionist.

To reiterate, my intention here is not to ridicule Bob Sungenis. But perhaps a little humor is appropriate in the face of men whose paranoia is such that every adversary is suspected of being a closet Jew, while at the same time they claim vociferously not to be anti-Semitic.

Returning to the issue at hand, when Jacob uncovered the "plot" to "out" him as a Jew, he and Bill had a private heart-to-heart conversation (via e-mail) about the things Bob had been saying and doing for the past 5 years. Unfortunately, Bill sent this private correspondence to Bob. And what did Bob do? He published it on his web site, tagged with his own rebuttal. Now let's be clear. Jacob Michael did not publicize this information, Bob did. He put Jacob's accusations of anti-Semitism, made in private, in a public place where all of his readers could see them, and then proceeded to challenge Jacob, publicly, to provide the documented proof.

And so Jacob did just that - in the RSATJ post Sixteen Proofs of Sungenis's Antisemitism. At this point, Bob (again) went ballistic and (again) threatened to sue Jacob for libel.

So, let's review. Bob sent Bill to "uncover" Jacob Michael's alleged Jewish ancestry; then Bob published Jacob's private correspondence with Bill on his website; he then went on to publicly demand that Jacob prove his charges; and then he became irate and started threatening a lawsuit when Jacob did precisely what Bob demanded (providing proof). This is right out of the Clinton bag of tricks.

Another obvious parallel between Clinton and Sungenis is the amazing plasticity words have when either man needs to wiggle out of a sticky situation. When it was convenient for him, former President Clinton suddenly had difficulty remembering the basic definitions of salient words like "is" and "sex". Similarly, when it is convenient for him, Bob Sungenis has difficulty locating the dictionary definition for salient words like "anti-Semitism", "plagiarism", "vigilante", "calumny", "libel", "disavow" and even well-defined Catholic words such as "Judaizer". Perhaps even more clintonian is the fact that he accused his opponents of not defining their terms or of adopting false definitions. See Sungenis's Definition Difficulties and More Definition Difficulties.

Again, the purpose of documenting these parallels to the Clintons is not to ridicule Bob Sungenis. Rather, it is to help people more easily understand the nature of some serious character deficiencies that have resulted in some very serious injustices against both individuals and groups. Hopefully such an analysis can serve both as a warning to the Catholic apologetics community at large and also as a mirror for Bob himself, so that he might eventually come to the realization of how badly he has been behaving and amend his ways.

The bottom line is that when one presumes to lead others, whether as president of the United States or president of a purportedly Catholic apostolate, trustworthiness is absolutely vital. It really is character that counts most.

David Palm

Is Pope Benedict Guilty of a “perverse resurrection of Talmudic Judaism”?

…or is the Holy Father simply following the lead of St. Paul and Jesus?

In March, 2007, Bob Sungenis attacked Jewish convert, Roy Schoeman, for daring to use the Talmud in his book Salvation is from the Jews. For the sake of evangelizing fellow Jews, Schoeman had cited passages from the Talmud that clearly support the belief that Jesus was the Messiah of Israel.

Bob writes:

“Schoeman claims that we can look ‘to the Talmud to examine some of what it has to say about the Messiah’ (p. 111)…Schoeman’s appeal is nothing more than a perverse resurrection of Talmudic Judaism.” (Thirteen Problems with the Theology and Eschatology of Roy Schoeman, p. 2)

Then, later that same month, Bob further attacked Schoeman and Ben Douglass for defending Schoeman:

“The Talmud’s concept of a Messiah has nothing whatsoever to do with Christ, even by extraction. It doesn’t matter how close Schoeman makes the descriptions in the Talmud match Jesus Christ… Unfortunately, the young and impressionable Mr. Douglass is being sucked into all this erroneous thinking by his devotion to Mr. Schoeman.” (Catholics Falling for Jewish Errors, pp 49-50)

“Mr. Schoeman strains to show some positive prophecies because it is his express purpose to exonerate the Talmud as a Christian-accepted book when in fact it is a book of Christ-hating and Christianity-loathing Jewish scholars who hoped to see the Catholic Church destroyed. Unfortunately, Mr. Douglass, probably because of his pride in seeking to denigrate me, has allowed himself to fall for this bit of spiritual chicanery.” (Ibid, pp 49-50)

Incredibly, Bob is now defending Pope Benedict’s use of the Talmud, using arguments that almost precisely mirror those that Ben Douglass used to defend Roy Schoeman against Bob’s attacks:

“The pope is no more to be condemned for quoting the Talmud than St. Paul is for quoting a pagan Greek poet in Acts 17:28 to make his theological point to the Athenians gathered on Mars Hill…In no way can it be concluded that Paul was ‘rehabilitating an eternally condemned, anti-Christian text.’ Rather, he did what any good apologist would do -- use his opponents own arguments against himself. If it takes quoting from the opponent's true statements in his own literature, Paul will do so, for, as he says in 1 Cor 9, he becomes all things to all peoples so that he may win them to the Gospel.”

“Hence, when Pope Benedict said: ‘Does not the Talmud Yoma (85b) state: 'The Sabbath has been given to you, but you have not been given to the Sabbath?,’ he was using the same apologetic methodology as St. Paul. In fact, Pope Benedict is using the same apologetic that Jesus himself used when confronting the Pharisees. It is a classic case of using your opponent's strengths to defeat him. Granted, Jesus is not using the Talmud here, but the quote the pope cited from the Talmud is so close to what Jesus said of the Sabbath, that they are virtually the same.”

“Hence, the pope was quite correct in using the Talmud in his discussion with the Jews in France…If, in some sections of the Talmud, it can be shown that the statements therein agree with godly principles and Christian truth, it is certainly appropriate to quote them to the people who believe they are authoritative, for you show them that even their own authority agrees with you.”

“The Talmud itself, is an anti-Christian book…Christians have no basis elevating the Talmud as a divine book or even something authoritative. It is a Jewish book written for Jewish people and, in fact, in several places it repudiates Christ and Christianity. But this makes the quoting from the Talmud by the pope all the more note worthy, for if the Jews regard it as having any authority, then they must conclude that what the pope is saying about the Sabbath and its relation to Christianity must be true, for even the Talmud recognizes that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Once the Jews see this truth, then they might be able to appreciate all the other truths Christianity has to offer.”

(Pope Benedict’s Citing of the Talmud, pp 2-4)

(Ben Douglass' defenses of Roy Schoeman may be viewed here and here.)

Additionally, Douglass noted the following regarding Bob's unfair treatment of Schoeman:

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. (Article)

So, there you have it. If Jewish convert Roy Schoeman uses the Talmud to convince Jews of a Catholic truth, he is damned for a “perverse resurrection of Talmudic Judaism.” And Ben Douglass has been “sucked into all this erroneous thinking” and has “allowed himself to fall for…spiritual chicanery” by defending Schoeman’s perversion. But if Pope Benedict XVI does the same thing that Schoeman did, the Pope is merely doing something that St. Paul and even Jesus himself did.  And it is a “classic” and “completely appropriate” approach to evangelism.

Certainly, we are thankful that Bob has not launched another unjust attack on the Holy Father in this instance (although Bob has recently unjustly attacked the Holy Father in regard to another issue involving Jews - click here). But we wish that Bob could avoid the double standards that so often mar his work, especially when Jews are involved (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

We hope, therefore, that he will retract and apologize for his unjust attacks on Schoeman and Douglass, in light of his defense of Pope Benedict’s use of the Talmud. And we continue to hope that he will also publicly retract and apologize for the fraudulent quote he knows that he falsely attributed to Schoeman over a year and a half ago (see here.)

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.

Ben Douglass Reviews Salvation is From the Jews

Ben Douglass has written the following review of Roy Schoeman's book, Salvation is From the Jews:

Thoughts on Salvation is From the Jews


David Palm and Michael Forrest offer their reactions to Ben's review, below:


David Palm:

My reaction on reading this review is that it is balanced and fair. Some of the same passages which Douglass praises as profound and helpful stood out to me as well. And it is nice to see Douglass catching certain nuances of Schoeman's presentation as when, for example, he notes that, “Schoeman indulges in a terminological novum, but not a substantial novum, when he says that the Old Covenant brings the New Covenant to fruition by this mass conversion.” This is a nice turn of phrase. And as I argued in my own defense of Schoeman, the key word is "fruition"--referring to future graces poured out on the Jews--and not "fulfillment", thus positing a kind of validity of the Old Covenant apart from the New as a more hostile critic would have it.

But Schoeman's book is not above criticism, as he will readily acknowledge. There are areas in which one may legitimately question the wording of the book. For example, like Douglass, I could not agree with Schoeman that the view of supersessionism that he laid out--namely, that the Church being constituted as the New Israel meant that there was no special place whatsoever for ethnic Jews in God's plans--actually dominated Christian theology for two thousand years. With Douglass, I thought that at the very least the Catholic understanding that there will be a future special conversion of the Jews to Christ runs counter to this. That there has been a marked shift in emphasis in official and unofficial Catholic statements is clear, but that's not quite the way it is phrased in the book.

I agree with Douglass, too, that the handling of certain prophesies, such as that of the "abomination of desolation" is potentially problematic. But for the record, let it be noted that the first person to point out an incongruity in Mr. Schoeman's interpretation of the "abomination of desolation" was not Ben Douglass, nor even Bob Sungenis, but Michael Forrest in "Robert Sungenis and the Jews":

That said, in fairness, again, I can at least see where one may legitimately ask for clarification from Schoeman on some of these points. One could conceivably even argue that certain things may eventually need to be modified. I have no issues with such possibilities and consider such discussions, when handled fairly and charitably, perfectly legitimate.

For instance, the Scriptural prophecy about the cessation of the sacrifice does seem to imply that God will be displeased about this development. One may question whether the Jewish Temple could ever potentially fulfill this prophecy because we know that sacrifices now offered in the Jewish Temple could never be pleasing and efficacious in God’s eyes. There is only one such sacrifice: that of Jesus Christ which is re-presented at each and every Mass (which Schoeman would not dispute) (http://www.sungenisandthejews.com/Converts_and_Conclusion.html).

I would probably not agree with the force of certain of Douglass' criticisms concerning individual prophetic interpretations, although I think that this is the weakest part of the book. But criticisms here should be tempered by Schoeman's explicit acknowledgement, in at least three places, that his views are speculative. And I don't think Ben gave Schoeman quite enough credit for this "disclaimer".


That being said, in general Douglass has offered a fine critique of a fine book.


++++++++++++++++++++++++



Michael Forrest:

I found Ben Douglass’s review of Salvation is From the Jews to be thoughtful, balanced and reasonable. I believe it is a positive contribution to an important discussion that is taking place within the Church at this time in history.

As Pope Benedict XVI indicated in the preface to his book, Many Religions, One Covenant, the topic of the relationships between God, Israel and the Church is one that calls for further exploration and discussion. The Church has not yet spoken with absolute clarity and finality about the full nature of these relationships. As such, and as is so often the case in such situations, there are two extremes of which we should be careful.

As we have witnessed in the aftermath of Vatican II, there is a danger that those with certain personal leanings or agendas may take undue liberties in their quest for compassion and openness by effectively usurping the role of the Magisterium: prematurely declaring and forcing new quasi-dogmas and quasi-doctrines upon the rest of the Catholic faithful and condemning all of those who resist or question them as mean-spirited, reactionary dinosaurs. In the context of this discussion, a prime candidate for this first error would seem to be the promulgation of the “dual covenant” theory that proposes two separate pathways to God, one for Jews, one for Christians.

Conversely, there is an opposing, reactionary extreme that ought to be resisted as well, an extreme perhaps rooted in fear. While one may easily sympathize with the desire for absolute stability in light of some of the upheaval Catholics have endured over the past 40 years, the proper response still cannot be to effectively usurp the role of the Magisterium: prematurely stifling legitimate discussion and exploration by recklessly branding others with whom one disagrees as nefarious heretics and the like.

The Magisterium does not operate as the Urim and Thummim of old, in something of a vacuum, with truths being revealed suddenly, fully formed. The truth is generally arrived at through a complex process involving a thorough examination and sifting of many sources of information under the guidance of the Holy Spirit: from the Scriptures, to the Councils of the Church to the sensus fidelium…the sense of the faithful.

I believe that Roy Schoeman has helped to further that legitimate, important discussion. I also believe that Ben Douglass has added his own positive contribution now and I welcome it.

I find myself in essential agreement with most of Ben’s points, both positive and negative (including the issue involving the Temple…as David Palm noted, I first mentioned this back in September 2006…and the symmetry involving the identity of the Antichrist). However, I do agree with David Palm that insufficient attention was perhaps paid to the disclaimers given by Schoeman as to the speculative nature of many observations. It is also important to remember that this book was written with an eye toward helping other Jews come to Christ.

My most substantial disagreement (if it can be called that) is not directly in regard to the book really. I tend to disagree with Ben’s comparisons between the Muslim Q’ran/Hadith and the Jewish Talmud/Zohar.

I am unaware of any place wherein the Talmud or Zohar teach Jews to forcefully convert non-Jews or use violence against them if they will not convert. Even in those places where the Talmud appears to have ugly things to say about Christianity, I see no evidence that modern Rabbis appeal to and teach these passages to their fellow Jews in order to further propagate such ideas. To the contrary, I have seen evidence that, if anything, such passages are downplayed or completely ignored by today’s Jews. This does not seem to be the case with Islam, in my opinion. There seems to be no such dearth of modern Muslims who very much teach and hold to the traditional, more violent interpretation of the Q’ran and Hadith (to be clear, I do not intend to suggest this observation applies to all or even most Muslims). And we have seen the practical results in the papers and television. We need not try to divine their motives or discern conspiracies. They say it openly. But again, this is a matter of opinion and I fully respect Ben’s right to a differing one and certainly do not at all consider it evidence of bad will. While I believe I am fairly well informed, I do not claim to be an expert on these issues.

In the end, let me reiterate: I find Ben’s review to be a welcome contribution to the discussion on the relationship between God, Israel and the Church.

Sources, Schoeman, and the Credibility of Bob Sungenis (Part 2, Section 2)

Bob's Specific Charges Against Schoeman

Heresy is a deliberate, calculated and unequivocal statement to circumvent established dogma. (Sungenis, "Does the Catechism Contain a Heresy?")

Now let's tackle Bob's specific charges against Schoeman. We have already seen that, according to Bob, Schoeman claims that "the New Covenant didn't replace the Old Covenant," (source). Bob contends that Schoeman believes, "that the Old Covenant is still in force, and that the Jews are going to take over Palestine under divine mandate and offer sacrifices in Jerusalem again, and all this in fulfillment, they claim, by the words of Jesus Christ" (source). Schoeman is alleged to claim that "anyone who is opposed to the national policies of Israel is 'of the antichrist.'" (source) And he insists that Schoeman teaches that "the Catholic Church has erred for 2000 years" (source), "since her teaching that the New Covenant superseded the Old Covenant is in error" (source).

Since Sungenis is the one advancing such serious charges, the burden of proof is squarely on him to show that Schoeman is saying exactly what Bob claims and that there is no other way for his words to be taken. Bob alleges that Schoeman has said numerous erroneous and even heretical things, so the burden is entirely on him to show us exactly where he said them. Here are his own standards, as expressed here when he (correctly) defended the Catechism of the Catholic Church against the charge of heresy:

It's ambiguous, but it's not heresy. . . . I'll grant you that your reasoning COULD be a possible interpretation, but the point is that you don't know it IS the interpretation, at least not well enough to levy the charge of heresy. Heresy does not deal with ambiguities. It sanctions direct and provable statements of error. . . . I really don't have to prove anything. George is the one who has to prove something, since he is the one charging the CCC with heresy. . . . Heresy is a deliberate, calculated and unequivocal statement to circumvent established dogma. . . . I simply would not use the word "heresy" at all, . . . "Proximate to heresy" is a juridical term, and when you get into canonical jurisprudence, then you're required to give substantial evidence for the accusation and conviction. If you can't prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt, you don't have a case. ("Does the Catechism Contain a Heresy?")

Throughout the remainder of this essay, the reader should keep in mind Bob's own standards. According to him:

• If there is an ambiguity that admits an orthodox interpretation, then it's not heresy.


• Heresy consists only in "direct and provable statements of error."


• The burden of proof is entirely on the accuser.


• Heresy is "deliberate, calculated and unequivocal statement to circumvent established dogma."


• The accuser is "required to give substantial evidence for the accusation and conviction."


• And finally, unless he can prove his case beyond a reasonable doubt, the accuser has no case.

And let's anticipate his probable claim that the standards would be different for Schoeman, since Bob was defending an official ecclesiastical document. The answer, of course, is that if Bob actually brought these charges to someone with authority in the Church, rather than arrogating that authority for himself, Schoeman would be treated with exactly these same standards by the Church. From time immemorial she has always sought to put the best possible interpretation on the words of the accused (see, for example, the teaching of St. Ignatius of Loyola in the "Presupposition" to his Spiritual Exercises).

So what does Bob offer to back up his charges against Schoeman? Here is the quote from Schoeman that he provided to me to back up his assertion that Schoeman had said that "the New Covenant didn't replace the Old Covenant" and "the Catholic Church has erred for 2000 years".

We have seen how, at the very outset of Christianity, many held the mistaken belief that one must be a member of the Old Covenant (i.e., be a Jew) to be eligible for participation in the New. This error was quickly corrected, but was soon followed by another known as "supersessionism" - that the Old Covenant had been entirely replaced (or superseded, hence "supersessionism"), made null and void, by the New. This view dominated Christian theology for much of the past two thousand years. It has only recently been definitively rejected by the Church. (Schoeman, Salvation is From the Jews, 352)

Did you find the verbatim phrases "the New Covenant didn't replace the Old Covenant" and "the Catholic Church has erred for 2000 years" anywhere in that paragraph? No, because these are not the words of Roy Schoeman at all. Rather, they are Bob's paraphrase of Schoeman, put forward as Schoeman's own words. We shall see what a difference the paraphrase makes in a moment, but here let me note that this is a common device of Sungenis. Michael Forrest pointed this out in "Robert Sungenis and the Jews":

I believe Bob's primary mistake is that he repeatedly extrapolates to certain conclusions based on what Schoeman has written and treats these extrapolations as Schoeman's own express intentions, which Bob then promptly condemns. (RSATJ:4)

I agree with this assessment. It is seen nowhere more clearly than in Bob's propensity to take his interpretation of what Schoeman is saying and present this as the very ipsissima verba of Schoeman. Here are five examples:

Roy Schoeman can teach the heresy that the New Covenant did not replace the Old Covenant; and mix politics and religion to the point of saying that anyone who is opposed to the national policies of Israel is "of the antichrist," but we won't hear a word of criticism from either Mr. Michael or Mr. Forrest. (MMATJ, p. 1f.)

It's quite ironic to see these men get so fixated on me when, in fact, they give people like Roy Schoeman a free pass to say just about any heretical thing he wants, including such things as "the New Covenant didn't replace the Old Covenant," and the "Catholic Church has erred for 2000 years" and many other ridiculous things about Catholicism and the Jews. ("Christopher Blosser and the Catholic ADL", p. 3)

Schoeman believes that "Salvation is from the Jews" because, as he says in his book, the Jews who become saved in the future will "fulfill the New Covenant" by a completion of the Old Covenant, not because Jesus was a Jew. (MFATJ, p. 63)

Mr. Schoeman's so-called seeking for a "Jewish corporate identity" is nothing but a smoke screen for a much larger agenda he has in mind. ("Theology")

None of the phrases attributed to Schoeman in quotes actually appear in Salvation is from the Jews. Bob objects to me pointing out this false attribution of words to Mr. Schoeman: "No, putting words in quotes is not always 'ipsissima verba,'" ("My Reply", p. 43). How strange to have to tell this self-styled Doctor of Religion that when you assert that somebody said something and you put the words in quotes, it represents a claim that those are the verbatim words of your source. After all, that's why they call them quotation marks, right?

Bob asserts that his opponents "give people like Roy Schoeman a free pass to say just about any heretical thing he wants . . ." ("Blosser ADL", p. 3). But it is more accurate to say that Bob feels free to attribute to Roy Schoeman "just about any heretical thing he wants."

Now if somebody had actually said what Bob has laid out above, I would be the first to agree that these are serious errors. The problem is, Roy Schoeman never said those things. If one reads Schoeman's book with even an ounce of fairness, rather than with the dark suspicion and presumption of guilt with which we have demonstrated Bob reads it, there is no way that reader will come away accusing Schoeman of those things of which Bob accuses him.

Before launching into the full-blown defense of Schoeman, I do want to introduce one witness whom I will call for several times in the defense, namely, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and his book Many Religions, One Covenant (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999.) Bob has given this book absolutely glowing accolades:

This is probably the best book I've read on the subject. As I stated when Cardinal Ratzinger became pope, he is one of the best theologians with which the Church has been blessed. He understands the issues and he seeks for solutions based on both his theological prowess and the tradition of the Church. He is the most balanced theologian I know of in the midst of the controversy since Vatican II.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand the covenants of the Bible. The Cardinal also does an excellent job of showing us deep insights into how God bound himself by covenant to die for the sake of the covenant. It is the best treatise I have ever seen written on this topic. The Cardinal really knows his Bible, and I am proud to have him as Pope Benedict XVI. (Q&A Question 45, Jan 2007)

Bob also uses this book to take yet another whack at Roy Schoeman, advancing the Cardinal's book as, "opposing the statements quoted above by Roy Schoeman in his book, Salvation is from the Jews" (ibid.) We shall see.

Which Covenant?

Let's tackle Bob's allegations one at a time, the most serious first. Bob has repeated again and again that Roy Schoeman believes that "the New Covenant didn't replace the Old Covenant." We have already seen that this is not what Schoeman said. Rather, Schoeman said that it is an error to believe, "that the Old Covenant had been entirely replaced . . . made null and void, by the New" (Salvation, p. 352). The key questions here, which Bob apparently did not think to ask, are: 1) Which covenant does Schoeman have in mind? and 2) what does Schoeman mean by "entirely replaced" and "made null and void"?

Of which covenant does Schoeman speak? Bob has based the very heart of his criticism of Schoeman on the assumption that Schoeman is speaking of the Mosaic covenant. All of the magisterial and scriptural ammunition Sungenis brings to bear pertains specifically to the abolition of the Mosaic covenant by the New Covenant (hence Bob's citation of Heb 8:13, 10:8-9, the Council of Florence, Pius XII's Mystici Corporis 29-30.) Bob says, "The contexts of these passages are referring exclusively to the Mosaic law, and thus it was that covenant which was abrogated, abolished, annulled" ("Judaizers").

But what does Schoeman mean by the "Old Covenant"? He makes this plain:

To understand the drive which the Jewish people had, and still have, to maintain their distinct identity separate from the Gentiles, it is necessary to consider the intrinsic difference between the Old Covenant, which God made with the Jews through Abraham, and the New Covenant which came through Jesus. (Salvation, p. 64)

So with respect to the Old Covenant Schoeman does not speak of the Mosaic, but of the Abrahamic covenant. And Bob has on several occasions admitted that a bare assertion that the New Covenant has abolished and rendered the Old Covenant null and void would not apply to the Abrahamic Covenant:

In regards to "revoking," a distinction must be made between the Abrahamic covenant and the Mosaic covenant. Scripture and Tradition are clear that the Mosaic covenant, which is also called the Old Covenant (2 Cor 3:14), was, indeed, revoked. . . . The Abrahamic covenant, however, is treated differently. It transitions into and becomes the New Covenant. ("Judaizers")

Having said that, we can give credit to Mr. Michael for recognizing that the Abrahamic covenant cannot be revoked, as long as Mr. Michael admits that the Abrahamic covenant is not the "Old Covenant." The reason it is not, nor ever can be, "old" is precisely because it never ceases to exist, since it is guaranteed by a divine oath. ("Review of Never Revoked", p. 6)

Elsewhere Bob has insisted that, "All that remains now is the spiritual element of the Abrahamic covenant . . ." ("Judaizers"). We will see later in this essay if that claim is true. But for now suffice it to say that, even according to Bob himself, if one is speaking of the Abrahamic Covenant it is perfectly correct and orthodox to say that the Old Covenant was not "entirely replaced" or "made null and void" by the New.

What is more, Bob has actually defended Pope John Paul II for using wording that is very similar to that of Schoeman. Commenting on John Paul II's statement about "the Old Covenant never revoked by God", Bob offers this defense:

In his 1980 Mainz speech . . . John Paul II did not specify what covenant he was referring to. It certainly can't be the Mosaic covenant, since Scripture, the Fathers, and the Councils have all said that the Mosaic covenant was abolished. Otherwise, you'll be accusing John Paul II of heresy. ("My Conversation", p. 5).

And elsewhere in the same document Sungenis says:

Scholars consistently distinguish between the Mosaic covenant issued in Exodus 20 from [sic] the Abrahamic covenant issued in Genesis 12-22. The former was Law covenant, the latter was a Promise covenant. Gal 3:19 makes this distinction very clear.

When you use the term "Old Covenant" you need to distinguish which covenant from the Old Testament Scriptures you are talking about. (ibid., p. 9)

So Bob works to vindicate John Paul II from the charge of heresy by arguing that the Holy Father was speaking of the Abrahamic covenant when he speaks of the "Old Covenant". On the other hand, Bob simply assumes that when Schoeman speaks of the "Old Covenant", he means the Mosaic covenant - on this basis he has accused Schoeman repeatedly of heresy. And this even though Schoeman explicitly distinguished what covenant he was talking about, while the Holy Father did not. While I applaud Bob's charity in seeking to harmonize the words of the late Holy Father with the larger Tradition, I wish he would extend that charity to the rest of the Catholic faithful.

What is more, in seemingly stark juxtaposition to Bob's assertions we have the Catechism of the Catholic Church which says that, "The Old Testament is an indispensable part of Sacred Scripture. Its books are divinely inspired and retain a permanent value, for the Old Covenant has never been revoked" (CCC §121). Notice that when the Catechism says this, he (rightly) defends it. Notice too all that he says about heresy, its definition, and who bears the burden of proof when such an accusation is made:

It's ambiguous, but it's not heresy ... I'll grant you that your reasoning COULD be a possible interpretation, but the point is that you don't know it IS the interpretation, at least not well enough to levy the charge of heresy. Heresy does not deal with ambiguities. It sanctions direct and provable statements of error ... I really don't have to prove anything. George is the one who has to prove something, since he is the one charging the CCC with heresy ... Heresy is a deliberate, calculated and unequivocal statement to circumvent established dogma ... I simply would not use the word "heresy" at all, ... "Proximate to heresy" is a juridical term, and when you get into canonical jurisprudence, then you're required to give substantial evidence for the accusation and conviction. If you can't prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt, you don't have a case. ("Does the Catechism Contain a Heresy?").

But again, while his defense of the CCC is admirable, has he really applied his own standards to Schoeman and Salvation is From the Jews? Obviously not. For Sungenis it is always one standard for me and another for thee.

Again in seeming contrast to Sungenis, we have Card. Ratzinger's statement that: "With regard to the issue of the nature of the covenant, it is important to note that the Last Supper sees itself as making a covenant: it is the prolongation of the Sinai covenant which is not abrogated, but renewed" (Many Religions, p. 62). If that statement had come from Roy Schoeman, Bob Sungenis would be howling to high heaven about heresy (and damn the context!) But when Card. Ratzinger says it, Sungenis goes on to gush that it is "the best book I've read on the subject. . . . I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand the covenants of the Bible" (Q&A Question 45, Jan 2007). Certainly, Card. Ratzinger is saying that it is specifically in the institution of the central rite of the New Covenant that this renewal, not abrogation, of the Mosaic covenant occurs - he is not speaking about some kind of independent, ongoing validity of the Mosaic covenant. But then again, neither is Roy Schoeman. I think Card. Ratzinger's citation above makes it clear that he would agree with Schoeman....and not with Sungenis. I am sure he would agree that it is perfectly correct and orthodox to label as an "error" the proposition, "that the Old Covenant had been entirely replaced . . . made null and void, by the New".

In his response to Part 1 of this essay, Bob has pointed out that Schoeman uses the phrase "Old Covenant" in a different way on page 129:

With the destruction of the Second Temple in A.D. 70, the Jewish people lost the ability to perform sacrifices for the atonement of sins. Yet according to Christianity the efficacy of such sacrifices should already have ended at the time of the crucifixion, about forty years earlier. For it was then that the Old Covenant, with its animal sacrifices for the atonement for sins, was replaced by the New Covenant, in which Jesus shed His blood once for all for the atonement of sins. (Salvation, p. 129).

Bob himself notes that Schoeman, "then . . . quotes from Hebrews 9:1 - 10:14 from the American Standard Version, the same passages that I have used numerous times to show that the New Covenant has replace the Old Covenant" ("My Response, p. 43). This is extremely important. Bob has right there admitted seeing that Schoeman in no way contradicts the Church's magisterial teaching that the Mosaic covenant has been replaced by the New Covenant. It was on this point that his whole charge of heresy was based and he has now given the whole point away by acknowledging that Schoeman explicitly upholds the Catholic Church's teaching that the Mosaic covenant is superseded by the New Covenant. And Schoeman has upheld this in e-mail correspondence to me:

When I say that the "New Covenant will be brought to fruition by the Old" I am referring to the conversion of the Jews which is to precede the Second Coming (certainly not to the Old Testament sacramental system!). (private e-mail of 26 Jan 2007; emphasis his).

Bob points out, however, that Schoeman uses the phrase "Old Covenant" on page 352 in a way that might seem incompatible with his use on page 129. I have already stated, it is not my purpose here to declare Schoeman infallible. And Schoeman has always been open to responsible criticism of his book. Rather, it is my purpose to show that Bob Sungenis has been wildly reckless and unjust in publicly denouncing him as a heretic and hyper-Judaizer. So one could just conclude that Schoeman made a mistake here, was imprecise in his language, and this would leave Bob's charge of heresy just as dead in the water.

But let's look a little deeper. The Mosaic covenant is not a separate covenant unto itself; it exists in relation to the already ratified covenant with Abraham. It is a kind of "overlay" to the Abrahamic covenant, if you will. As St. Paul says in the Epistle to the Galatians:

This is what I mean: the law, which came four hundred and thirty years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance is by the law, it is no longer by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise. Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made . . . (Gal 3:17-19).

The Mosaic Law (covenant) was indeed temporary. And so Schoeman was correct to say on p. 129 that it was replaced by the New Covenant; the "overlay" of the Law was removed. On the other hand, as Sungenis says, the Abrahamic covenant was not "replaced" by the New Covenant but "transitions into and becomes the New Covenant." And so Schoeman is correct to say on p. 352 that the Old Covenant = Abrahamic Covenant had not "been entirely replaced . . . made null and void, by the New". As Sungenis himself admits, scholars refer to both as the "Old Covenant" and so there is nothing wrong with Schoeman doing so.

At most we can say that Mr. Schoeman could been more precise in his use of the phrase "Old Covenant", an observation with which I don't think he would disagree. But let us temper this observation with the fact that even John Paul II, Cardinal Ratzinger, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church use the phrase with various meanings, though as yet Bob has not leveled charges of heresy against them. Let us also insist that the charitable interpretation of its use on page 352 - an interpretation backed up entirely by the context and by subsequent clarifications from Schoeman himself - is that he speaks there broadly of the Abrahamic covenant and that it is perfectly compatible with Catholic teaching (not to mention Bob's own admissions) to say that the Abrahamic covenant was not "entirely replaced" or "made null and void" by the New Covenant. And let us remember, as we have seen throughout this study, that if imprecision and lapses in accuracy amount to heresy, then Bob Sungenis is an archheretic.

The bottom line is that there are elements of the Old Covenant - and this is actually true whether one speaks of the Abrahamic or the Mosaic - that are taken up into and renewed in the New Covenant. Bob would be right to question the bare phrase that, "the New Covenant didn't replace the Old Covenant", if that is what Schoeman had said. But this is a mere caricature of Schoeman's view, which Bob has wrongly attributed to him. On the other hand, it is perfectly legitimate to say, as Schoeman has, that the New Covenant does not "entirely replace" the Old Covenant and that it does not simply render it "null and void". And this renders Bob's core complaint against Schoeman null and void.

Supersessionism: What is it?

A second major charge against Schoeman is Bob's contention that he says that, "Catholic Church has erred for 2000 years". Now again, these words are found nowhere in Schoeman's book - they are a distorted paraphrase provided by Bob. What Schoeman actually said is this:

We have seen how, at the very outset of Christianity, many held the mistaken belief that one must be a member of the Old Covenant (i.e., be a Jew) to be eligible for participation in the New. This error was quickly corrected, but was soon followed by another known as "supersessionism" - that the Old Covenant had been entirely replaced (or superseded, hence "supersessionism"), made null and void, by the New. This view dominated Christian theology for much of the past two thousand years. It has only recently been definitively rejected by the Church. (Salvation , 352).

He does not say that the "Catholic Church" erred for 2000 years, as Bob alleges. He says this was an error which "dominated Christian theology". This is not, for Schoeman, a matter of a contradicted magisterial teaching. But we must ask what is meant by supersessionism. Let's first establish that supersessionism is not a Catholic word - it appears nowhere in any magisterial documents or in authoritative Catholic theological texts. It is also a word lacking a precise definition (see this article for many of the nuances of the term.) Therefore, it is only fair and reasonable that we determine what Schoeman (not Bob) means by supersessionism before we condemn his rejection of it as heretical.

Schoeman has defined supersessionism as the proposition that "the Old Covenant had been entirely replaced . . . made null and void, by the New." Schoeman calls that position an error; Bob has said that it is heresy to say so. Thus I can only conclude that Bob believes that with respect to ethnic Israel the Old Covenant has been entirely replaced, superseded, made null and void, by the New (even though elsewhere he argues differently.) The practical upshot is that, for him, it is an "illusion" to believe "that the Jews are still 'God’s chosen people.'" (source) He expands on this:

The Jews were once God’s chosen people but those days are over. They were over when Jesus died on the cross, and they have been over for the last 2000 years. The Jews have no special covenant with God; they will receive no special protection from God as they did in the Old Testament; . . . The Jews and Israel are just like any other people or nation today. (Q&A Question 45, Jan 2007)

Bob makes it clear that he rejects that notion that God is going to have anything to do with Jews as an ethnically distinctive people in the future. As such, I think this is a clear statement of what would be deemed, as Card. Avery Dulles has put it, a "crude supersessionism" ("The Covenant With Israel", First Things 157 (November 2005), 16-21; available on-line here) That being said, Sungenis does end that paragraph with a correct statement: "We will all come to God or be judged by God on the same terms - the New Covenant in Jesus Christ." And that is something with which neither I nor Roy Schoeman would disagree. Rather, as he has clarified:

Regarding Supersession, I am not saying that the Church has in no way replaced Israel. All I am saying is that it has not replaced Israel in every way -- that it is an error to claim that the role of the Jews in Salvation History is completely over now, that there is no longer any special role, or quality, to "fleshly" Israel. The Church never taught this, or any other error -- of course the Church cannot err in its official teaching -- but this erroneous view was quite common among many of the members of the Church over a long period. (private e-mail of 26 Jan 2007).

I personally disagree with Schoeman that such a "crude supersessionism" actually dominated Christian theology for the first 19 centuries of Church history. Certainly in Lutheran and Reformed Protestant circles that position has had many proponents. And he is correct to say that, for much of the history of the Catholic Church, commentary by Catholic theologians has tended to emphasize negative aspects of God's relations with the Jews, viz. their hardening (Rom 11:7ff.), rather than focusing on more positive aspects, viz. God's ongoing care for them on account of the patriarchs (Rom 11:25ff.) We both agree, however, that "crude supersessionism" has now been rejected through a reappropriation and reemphasis of those positive elements of God's revelation by the Catholic Church (cf. Nostra Aetate 4, CCC §755 and §839, and locutions of both John Paul II and Benedict XVI.)

That Schoeman means to oppose just such an extreme view is made clear in the context, since he juxtaposes this (crude) supersessionism with the likewise extreme and problematic position of the RCM document, which extrapolates two separate and equally valid covenants, one for Jews and one for Christians. This opposite extreme Schoeman rejects in even stronger terms:

With its rejection, however, a new and perhaps even more pernicious error has emerged - that the Old and New Covenants are two "separate but equal" parallel paths to salvation, the one intended for Jews, the other for Gentiles. This has been presented as though it were the only logical alternative to supersessionism, despite the fact that it is utterly irreconcilable with both the core beliefs of Christianity and with the words of Jesus himself in the New Testament. (Salvation, p. 352f.)

Rejecting these two extremes, Schoeman opts for a via media which I believe harmonizes with the constant stream of Catholic Tradition. Laying aside the technical term "supersessionism", at the heart of this is this fundamental question: Is there some specific aspect of the Old Covenant vis-à-vis ethnic Jews that is subsumed into the New Covenant? Schoeman asks it this way: "Do the Jews continue to have a role to play in salvation history following Christ; that is, between the first and the second coming?" (Salvation, p. 68). Schoeman answers that question in the affirmative. Card. Ratzinger, in the "best book . . . on the subject" according to Bob, also answers that question affirmatively:

The mission of Jesus consists in bringing together the histories of the nations in the community of the history of Abraham, the history of Israel ... This course of events has two aspects to it: the nations can enter into the community of the promises of Israel in entering into the community of the one God, who now becomes and must become the way of all because there is only one God and because his will is therefore truth for all. Conversely, this means that all nations, without the abolishment of the special mission of Israel, become brothers and receivers of the promises of the Chosen People. (Many Religions, p. 27)

And:

even if Christians look for the day when Israel will recognize Christ as the Son of God and the rift that separates them will be healed, they should also acknowledge God's providence, which has obviously given Israel a particular mission in this "time of the Gentiles". (Many Religions, p. 104)

In this same book, Card. Ratzinger goes on to explain in more concrete terms what he means by Israel's "mission," contrary to Bob's claim that "Cardinal Ratzinger doesn’t specify what the "particular mission" is except to say in the remaining pages that the Christian faith is the hope of man," and "Scripture knows of only one "particular mission" given to Israel today, and that is that their unbelief has resulted in the Gospel being given to the Gentiles, and that the salvation of the Gentiles will hopefully make some Jews jealous so that they will come to Christ" (Second Look at Palm's Website, p.1):

It is even less possible, in the present compass, to tackle the large question of the common mission of Jews and Christians in the modern world. But I think, the basic task has nevertheless become clearer without my having to do this. Jews and Christians should accept each other in profound inner reconciliation, neither in disregard of their faith nor in denying it, but out of the depth of faith itself. In their mutual reconciliation they should become a force for peace in and for the world. Through their witness to the one God, who cannot be adored apart from unity of love of God and neighbor, they should open the door into the world for this God so that his will may be done and that it may become on earth "as it is in heaven": so that "his kingdom come". (Many Religions, pp. 45-46)

So does Pope John Paul II: "This extraordinary people continues to bear signs of its divine election" (Crossing the Threshold of Hope, cited in Dulles, "Covenant")

So does the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

The Church is a cultivated field, the tillage of God. On that land the ancient olive tree grows whose holy roots were the prophets and in which the reconciliation of Jews and Gentiles has been brought about and will be brought about again. That land, like a choice vineyard, has been planted by the heavenly cultivator. Yet the true vine is Christ who gives life and fruitfulness to the branches, that is, to us, who through the Church remain in Christ, without whom we can do nothing (CCC §755; emphasis in CCC.)

The relationship of the Church with the Jewish People. When she delves into her own mystery, the Church, the People of God in the New Covenant, discovers her link with the Jewish People, "the first to hear the Word of God." The Jewish faith, unlike other non-Christian religions, is already a response to God's revelation in the Old Covenant. To the Jews "belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ", "for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable." (CCC §839)

Bob Sungenis, on the other hand, says No:

Sungenis: I have further stated in a reply to Mr. Blosser that people like Roy Schoeman teach such things because, I believe, they basically suffer from the illusion that the Jews are still "God's chosen people." As a result, they twist and turn Scripture and Church teaching to make it appear as if the Jews still have some special covenantal relationship with God over and above the rest of the world. Mr. Schoeman's book, Salvation is from the Jews, is little more than a special pleading of divine favoritism toward the Jews, and I will be writing another major critique of his book in the coming weeks. But it is all a fallacy. The Jews were once God's chosen people but those days are over. . . . The Jews and Israel are just like any other people or nation today. We will all come to God or be judged by God on the same terms - the New Covenant in Jesus Christ. Any other teaching is heresy. (Q&A Question 45, Jan 2007)

Well ... he usually answers No. Consistency, we have seen, is not one of Bob's strong suits. In an e-mail exchange with Michael Forrest in 2004 Bob admits that God does indeed continue to work with the Jews as a distinct ethnic people:

----Original Message-----

From: Sungenis@aol.com [mailto:Sungenis@aol.com]

Sent: Monday, April 05, 2004 3:26 PM

To: mwforrest@ifriendly.com

Subject: Answers to your Questions about Romans 11

MF1) Notice, the quote speaks of removing wickedness from Jacob......then right after this he says that they (the Jews) are dear to him "for the sake of the Patriarchs". In other words, he has a continuing concern for the Jews, even when they do not believe.....ergo, "for the sake of the Patriarchs".....which is a genetic identification, not dependent upon their "faith", which relates to the "remnant"/spiritual sonship theme Paul touched upon earlier.

[Sungenis]: I would flatly disagree with you about a so-called "genetic identification not dependent upon their faith" as having any significance. It was Paul who said in Romans 9:6: "For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel." The mention of "for the sake of the Patriarchs" is in answer to the question in Romans 11:1-2 as to whether God was going to ENTIRELY cut off the Jews. The answer is, no, "for the sake of the Patriarchs." For their sake, God will still move among the Jews, but that does not mean that there is going to be some explosive revival. 2000 years of "for the sake of the Patriarchs" has only given us a "remnant" of Jews who have been recipients of God's kindness to the Patriarchs.END

MF2: How can you flatly disagree that St. Paul indicated in vs. 28 that God still cares for the Jews as a genetic people by the phrase "for the sake of the Patriarchs"? What else does this passage mean?...."As concerning the gospel, indeed, they are enemies for your sake: but are touching the election, they are most dear for the sake of the fathers." What else can this mean, other than that God has a particular and continuing affection for them because they descend from the patriarchs?

[Sungenis]: I'm sorry. I think I was confused by your use of the word "genetic," as if there was something about being Jewish that attracted God. I think you mean to say "ethnic," not genetic. I do agree that there is an "ethnic" issue, and that God intends on saving Jews as an ethnic race of people. END

But wait a second. In 2004 Bob said that "God intends on saving Jews as an ethnic race of people". But now in 2007 Bob says that, "The Jews are no different than any other group of people on the face of the earth. There are no 'special relationships' with God based on one's ethnic background or heritage." Now let's tease this out a bit. Where would we find any evidence of God making a statement proving that He intends to save Italians as an ethnic race of people? How about the Irish? Ethiopians? The Chinese? It seems that the only ethnic race of people that God has ever singled out for special mention with regard to election is the Jews. And thus Bob's (correct) agreement that "there is an 'ethnic' issue, and that God intends on saving Jews as an ethnic race of people" is flatly contrary to Bob's (incorrect) assertion that "The Jews are no different than any other group of people on the face of the earth. There are no 'special relationships' with God based on one's ethnic background or heritage." Which Bob are you going to believe?

Does Schoeman Support the Practice of Jewish Rituals?

Another big part of Bob's vendetta against Schoeman has been to lump him in with certain other Jewish converts who (he claims) demand to revive various Jewish ritual practices:

Schoeman, Moss, Miesel and others have demanded that they be allowed to practice Jewish rituals of their choosing while at the same time remaining Catholic. Whether this will include a direct promotion of temple sacrifice remains to be seen. Schoeman strongly suggests that it will be so." (MFATJ, p. 24)

Bob alleges that this is all laid out in Schoeman's book plainly and that it's all in the service of the ultimate Judaizing:

Here, the goal of Schoeman’s book is laid out quite plainly for us. It is now very obvious why Schoeman was promoting Jewish rituals. It wasn’t for the purpose of making Jewish converts feel more comfortable when converting to Christianity. It was for the purpose of legitimizing the rebuilding of the Temple where Jewish sacrifices originally took place in the ancient past. Schoeman’s ultimate dream is to have Jewish rituals practiced in Jerusalem the same as they were practiced in the Old Covenant, only this time he wants these practices sanctioned by Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church. ("Theology")

In Bob's mind, it's all part of a bigger conspiracy:

Mr. Schoeman's so-called seeking for a "Jewish corporate identity" is nothing but a smoke screen for a much larger agenda he has in mind. ("Theology")

But has Schoeman anywhere "demanded" such a thing? No. Did Schoeman promote Jewish rituals, "for the purpose of making Jewish converts feel more comfortable"? No. Did Schoeman ever give even a hint that it is his "ultimate dream" that Jewish rituals be practiced in Jerusalem with the sanction of our Lord and the Church? No. Has Schoeman ever used the phrase "Jewish corporate identity", let alone promoted such an idea? No again. This is all pure fabrication from Sungenis. In fact, Bob fails to tell his readers that Schoeman explicitly distances himself from this notion of Jewish converts being "allowed to practice Jewish rituals of their choosing while at the same time remaining Catholic":

The first reason for Jews [to wish] to continue as a distinct community within the Church is the belief that God still wishes Jews to follow the Jewish laws and festivals, even after they become Christian. This view, however, must be rejected by Jews who enter the Catholic Church as inconsistent with Church doctrine as well as with a number of passages in the New Testament, including Mark 7:19, Acts 10:15, Corinthians 10:27, and Galatians 5:6. (Salvation, 69)

The fact that the Jews have a special role to play until the Second Coming does not necessarily imply that Jews who convert should avoid "disappearing" into the Church. It is useful to consider the parallel with yeast and bread. For yeast to do any good in making bread, it must be kept separate from the other ingredients until it is time to use it. But at that point in the process one must take some of the yeast away from where it has been kept separate and mix it in with the other ingredients until it becomes indistinguishable from the rest of the dough. Perhaps that is the case with the Jews. God gave them unique qualities which have a needed leavening effect on the entire Church. But for those qualities to have their effect, when God grants the grace of conversion to the Jew, He separates him from the rest of the "yeast" and mixes him in with the "dough"; that is, removes him from the Jewish community and mixes him into the Church. Just as the yeast does not lose its importance in disappearing into the dough but rather achieves it, so might the Jewish charism realize its unique importance in "disappearing" into the Church. (Salvation, 71).

And in a private e-mail to me Schoeman says:

If you permit me, allow me to point out, at least to you, that where [Sungenis] says "Mr. Schoeman’s so-called seeking for a "Jewish corporate identity"", despite the quotes, I don't think I've ever used such a term -- I'm not very enthusiastic about the idea of seeking one. It is one of the areas in which I do not, in fact, agree with all the theology espoused by the AHC and its founder Fr. Friedman. (private e-mail of 5 Feb 2007.)

We will see even more on this in the section on the rebuilding of the Temple. But yet again, Sungenis has attributed thoughts and intentions to Schoeman which are not only false, but are explicitly contradicted by the text of Salvation is From the Jews.

Schoeman Rejects the Reflections on Covenant and Mission Thesis

As we saw in Section 1 of this essay, Bob has accused Schoeman of supporting the thesis of the RCM document, viz. that the Old Covenant and New Covenant remain independently valid, so that salvation for Christians comes through Jesus Christ but salvation for the Jews comes through their participation in the Old Covenant. Bob, in his reply to Section 1 protests that he has acknowledged in at least one place that Schoeman does not hold the RCM thesis. But this is just more one more contradiction that we have see from Sungenis. For he has accused both Roy Schoeman and David Moss of holding that the Old Covenant is still in force, the first of the major problems with the RCM document:

We even have Jewish converts to Catholicism today, like Roy Schoeman and David Moss, who propagate these same sentiments by claiming that the Old Covenant is still in force, and that the Jews are going to take over Palestine under divine mandate and offer sacrifices in Jerusalem again, and all this in fulfillment, they claim, by the words of Jesus Christ. This is total nonsense, and it is one of the most pernicious and nefarious heresies the Church has ever faced. (Q&A Question 18, March 2006)

And elsewhere, as I cited in Section 1, Sungenis has lumped Schoeman and Moss right in with the RCM document with regard to the need for Jews to convert to Christ, the second major flaw in that document:

R. Sungenis: CAI has consistently taught the Church’s traditional teaching: (a) that the Old Covenant has been abolished and there is only one covenant of salvation today, the New Covenant in Jesus Christ, and (b) that the Jews must convert to Christianity in order to be saved.

Below you will see that both these teachings have been confirmed by Pope Benedict XVI in his Wednesday morning address of March 16, 2006. In one of his paragraphs the pope states:

"By their mere existence, the twelve - called from different backgrounds - have become a summons to all Israel to conversion and to allow themselves to be reunited in a new covenant, full and perfect accomplishment of the old."

As we would expect for a message that disagrees with the current consensus among 2002 "Covenant and Missions" authors (e.g., Cardinal Keeler and Jewish rabbis) and various Jewish converts (e.g., Roy Schoeman and David Moss), the only place this address was publicized was L’Osservatore Romano. ("Pope Benedict XVI Says Jews Must Convert to Christianity")

Those are the two main RCM theses that are so problematic and Bob clearly accuses Schoeman of holding both of them. So his complaint that elsewhere he says that Schoeman doesn't support RCM is only evidence of one more contradiction on his part.

The fact is that throughout the book Schoeman states categorically that Jews today are called explicitly to faith in Jesus Christ under the auspices of the New Covenant, which is contrary to both of the RCM's most problematic positions:

There can be no question about whether Jesus "intended" Christianity to be adopted by Jews in place of Judaism; the fact that he did is continually explicit throughout the New Testament. That God wished for the Jews to accept Christ is evident - remember Jesus' weeping over the tragedy that they, by and large, failed to (Matthew 23:37-39): "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is forsaken and desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'" What arrangements God makes to bring Jews to heaven despite their failure to accept Jesus we leave to His mercy, and the understanding of the Church is that such arrangements exist. But that His intention was that they follow Jesus is certain. (Salvation, p. 68)

And he repeats this several times throughout the book:

[I]t is nonsense to maintain that somehow Judaism is right for Jews, and Christianity is right for Christians, and that the truth is dependent on what group one belongs to. (Ibid., 10).

It might seem odd to refer to the entry of Jews into the Catholic Church as "the return of the Jews." It is, however, the natural image for one who sees the Catholic Church as simply the continuation (and fulfillment) of Judaism after the first coming of Jesus, the Jewish Messiah. In such a case, it is the Jews who accepted Him and became the first Christians who stayed within the core of Judaism, while those who rejected Him left the mainstream, the fullness of the truth of the religion. This concept is shared, and most beautifully expressed, by St. Paul in his image of the "ingrafting". (Ibid., 317)

[A] new and perhaps even more pernicious error has emerged - that the Old and New Covenants are two "separate but equal" parallel paths to salvation, the one intended for Jews, the other for Gentiles. This has been presented as though it were the only logical alternative to supersessionism, despite the fact that it is utterly irreconcilable with both the core beliefs of Christianity and with the words of Jesus himself in the New Testament. (Ibid., 352-3.)

Evangelization efforts aimed at Jews are most frequently seen by Jews as a threat to their religion and their people, and even compared to the Nazis' attempt to exterminate them. Yet the words of Jesus and the Scriptures themselves make it abundantly clear that God Himself, and certainly Jesus himself, very much wish the Jews to come to him. It was one of his greatest sorrows just before his crucifixion, when he exclaimed, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem... How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!" (Matthew 23:37) Not only does God seem to very much want the conversion of the Jews, but his adversary seems to very much want to prevent it (Ibid., 354.)

Of course all disrespect for the freedom of the individual is entirely wrong, as is any disrespect for the religion of Judaism, all the more so since Christians know that Judaism was God's own religion, given to the Jews by Him and followed by Him during His life as a man. Yet at the same time fear of God - that is, the desire to do His will - must always take precedence over fear of human respect, and the greatest service that anyone can do for God, or for an individual, is to bring that individual into deeper knowledge of and fuller communion with God. Jesus himself said that he will not come again "until you [the Jews] say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!'"(Matthew 23:39). It is incumbent on us, as his disciples and servants, to do everything we can to hurry that day, when both Jew and Gentile together say the words with which the "Christian" scriptures close: "Come Lord Jesus." (Ibid., 355-6).

Michael Forrest notes that Bob's charge is especially unjust when applied to Schoeman, since Salvation is From the Jews was actually written in part as a critical and negative response to the RCM thesis:

All of this is especially ironic in Schoeman’s case as he wrote his book largely as a refutation of the unfortunate "Reflections on Covenenant [sic] Mission" document that was supportive of the two covenant theory (a document strongly criticized by Moss as well). While Bob seems to almost acknowledge this fact on one occasion, in others he errantly condemns Schoeman (and Moss) as though he is in agreement with RCM (documented above). (RSATJ:4).

So again, the central question raised by Schoeman's book is not whether the Jews have an independent and separate covenant with God. He explicitly rejects that idea. Rather, he asks this: "Do the Jews continue to have a role to play in salvation history following Christ; that is, between the first and the second coming?" (Salvation, p. 68). He answers yes. So does Card. Ratzinger:

Israel still has some way to go. As Christians, we believe that they will in the end be together with us in Christ. But they are not simply done with and left out of God's plans; rather, they still stand within the faithful covenant of God. (God and the World [San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2000], pp. 148-150; cited here)

Precisely on account of the dramatic nature of this final tragedy, perhaps, a new vision of the relationship between the Church and Israel has arisen, a sincere intention of overcoming every kind of anti-Jewish attitude and of beginning a constructive dialogue in pursuit of knowledge of one another and of reconciliation. Such a dialogue, in order to be fruitful, has to start with a prayer to our God that he should above all grant to us Christians a greater esteem for this people, the Israelites, a greater love for them, for "to them belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed for ever. Amen" (Rom 9:4-5). And this is true not only with regard to the past; it is also true in the present, "For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable" (Rom 11:29). We will also pray that he may vouchsafe to the sons of Israel a greater knowledge of Jesus of Nazareth, their son, the gift they have made to us. (Ratzinger, Pilgrim Fellowship of Faith: The Church as Communion. Ignatius, 2005, pp. 272-3; bold emphasis his, italics mine.)

Note well that the Cardinal explicitly supports the idea that the Jews, as a distinct ethnic people, continue to possess a unique relationship with God as conveyed by St. Paul in Rom 9:4-5. Sungenis, on the other hand, has totally rejected any such claim, minimizing Rom 11:29 to mean nothing more than that Jews can still be saved by Christ:

R. Sungenis: Again, we see the same problem. Shawn has failed to see the difference between the Old Covenant as a legal entity and the Old Covenant as a spiritual foundation for the New Covenant. Moreover, Romans 11:29 merely says that the "gifts and calling of God" are "irrevocable," not that the Old Covenant is irrevocable. In fact, there is no statement in the Old or New Testament that says the Old Covenant is irrevocable. The "gifts and calling of God" are irrevocable because "gifts and calling" refer to God’s gift of salvation with which he calls each and every man. The whole context of Romans 11, especially Rm 11:1-2, is about whether God will still give the Jew the opportunity to be saved. The answer comes back: "Yes, they can still be saved, because the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable." ("Dialogue on Old Covenant")

If Bob is going to throw charges of heresy at Roy Schoeman for claiming that the Jews as an ethnic people still have a special place in God's plan of salvation by virtue of God's covenant, then let him extend that charge to Card. Ratzinger as well. Granted, he's already called the Cardinal, "one of the best theologians with which the Church has been blessed" (Q&A Question 45, Jan 2007). But it would not be the first time that he has completely reversed himself if he has found it useful to do so.

To recap, it is entirely the burden of Bob Sungenis to prove his charges against Roy Schoeman according to his own standards:

• If there is an ambiguity that admits an orthodox interpretation, then it's not heresy.


• Heresy consists only in "direct and provable statements of error."


• The burden of proof is entirely on the accuser.


• Heresy is "deliberate, calculated and unequivocal statement to circumvent established dogma."


• The accuser is "required to give substantial evidence for the accusation and conviction."


• And finally, unless he can prove his case beyond a reasonable doubt, the accuser has no case.

Sungenis has failed to meet every one of his own standards. He has fabricated quotes, taken material out context, ignored material in the book that runs directly contrary to his accusations, failed to make even the least effort to resolve any apparent ambiguities, interpreted every apparent weakness in the worst possible light, and arrogated to himself authority he does not possess. I consider it laughable that Bob would actually assert that he is going to bring any of this material before eccesiastical authority. But for my part, I would like to see Sungenis answer to the Church for such behavior. So Bob, please provide me with the parish in which you're registered, your pastor's name, and the name and address of your bishop. Thank you.

In my next section, I will highlight one of the main events Schoeman points to in support of God's ongoing care of and concern for the Jews, the Catholic belief that before the Second Coming of Christ there will be a significant conversion of the Jewish people to Christ.