More Notable Quotes From Sungenis

There are many interesting quotes to be found in one of Sungenis’ latest “articles” Adventures in Blogland. Below you will find a small sampling:

1) Sungenis: “I am merely doing the same thing Jesus did when he confronted the sins of the Jews…Unfortunately, the Jews haven’t changed in our day. They are still the same godless racists they were in Jesus’ day. Few of them have repented of their sins.” (page 10)

2) Sungenis: “The nation of Israel has control of AMDOCS, the central telephone operation in the United States. It's one way the Mossad spies on American citizens, including you and those you talk to." (page 30)

3) Sungenis: “Do I need to say more? I have the whole history of Catholicism behind me, and these Fathers, Doctors, Saints and the God-Man himself said much worse things about the Jews than I ever have. What is really happening today folks is that we have been taken over by Jewish propaganda, and there are a few Catholic/Jewish ideologues…Many of them are paid handsomely by Zionist groups to say whatever they can to silence people like me. They are bent on promoting the godless state of Israel for some pie-in-the-sky dream they have, even against their own Catholic religion (at least that’s the religion they claim to have), and they will smear anyone who gets in their way. The Jews have done this for centuries against good people, and it continues today.” (page 19)

Of course, this “article” is also littered with the personal lies that have become the hallmark of Sungenis’s “work” in recent years as well. As mothers have been known to warn: if you lie, you had better have a good memory. Alas, Sungenis does not.

Sungenis claims he removed his articles from the racist organization National Vanguard after being contacted by his then-VP Ben Douglass and now he wonders, why all the hubbub? Well, aside from the obvious question as to why Sungenis used such an obviously racist source in the first place, even Cliff Notes would object to his severely (and conveniently) condensed version of events.

The reality is that Sungenis left the articles up by this racist organization for two weeks after being warned by his VP, Ben Douglass. It was only after Matthew Anger published an article exposing what Sungenis had done and Douglass once again vehemently objected to Sungenis about the blatantly racist nature of National Vanguard that Sungenis finally agreed to remove the material. Additionally, Sungenis neglected to inform his readers that he initially responded that he "could care less" whether National Vanguard was a racist group or not (read here).

Let us not forget the crystal clear warning Sungenis gave to Dave Armstrong who dared to put up material from a couple of conservative political commentators:

Sungenis: “If you have no political affiliation with these neo-cons, then I suggest you put a disclaimer on your site, otherwise people are going to get the wrong impression, and you can't blame them if they do. Any person with common sense who sees their names on your web site would assume that you support the political views of the aforementioned unless you say otherwise.”
(Sungenis, Q&A, January, 2005, Question 3).

Indeed. By Bob's own standard, we should naturally assume that his use of the racist National Vanguard is a sign of his personal support for their views. To date, the most he has managed to say about National Vanguard and similar sources is that they are "considered by some to be extreme". Sungenis hasn't yet told us whether he considers them to be unsavory and extreme.

Then we have the following:

Sungenis: “A few months ago I had made a quote about Michael Hoffman (Jewish critic) stating that, at this point...I would trust Michael Hoffman a lot more than I trust Michael Forrest… Obviously, Mr. Forrest is a conniving slanderer, just like Jacob Michael and Benjamin Douglass.”

It seems Sungenis can’t even remember what he himself writes any longer or be bothered to check before piling on more inaccuracies and slander. Here is the quote to which Sungenis actually referred (from March 27, 2007):

“Sungenis: Actually, as of now, I trust Michael Hoffman a lot more than I do Benjamin Douglass.”
(Page 12)

Someone might want to let Mr. Sungenis know that the “conniving slanderer” he meant to calumniate in his latest article is the man he very recently dubbed “like a brother” and showered with a great deal of praise for his scholarship and integrity: Ben Douglass, not Michael Forrest. Although, Sungenis' confusion is perhaps understandable in light of the similar stories of so many CAI VPs who are first touted by him as the best thing since sliced bread...only to later be ripped apart by him as connivers and opportunists once they've had enough of his anti-Semitic shenanigans and quit.

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)

Of course, this may be a simple matter of definitions. Perhaps Sungenis will tell us the “real” definition of “eyewitness” is someone who takes his side in an argument and that only the Zionists who want to kill him think it means something else.

Sungenis Comes Full Circle

Despite an explicit directive from his ordinary, Bishop Kevin Rhoades, to cease writing about Jews and Jewish issues (see here) and despite his own numerous promises to stop doing so (his promises are documented here), Sungenis has repeatedly returned to the topic, each time with the same blatant disregard for truth, Catholic morals, and scholarly standards. As a direct result of Sungenis’ embarrassing extremism, he has now had presentations halted by Archbishop Raymond Burke (St. Louis) and the Diocese of San Bernardino (in concert with the Knights of Columbus).

His latest salvo, however, is of particular interest because of what agitated Bob this time - a document that was promulgated by the USCCB precisely to correct the problematic positions taken by the Reflections on Covenant and Mission document in regard to the dual covenant theory and the evangelization of Jews. Incredibly, Sungenis chose to respond by re-posting (link) the scandalous 2002 “Conversion of the Jews Not Necessary?” essay that originally got him into such hot water and caused an exodus of supporters — albeit with a majority of the most egregious Nazi and white supremacist material that he plagiarized edited out (see the original version here. A side by side comparison of the remaining, plagiarized material is presented below). If anybody truly needed further evidence that Sungenis has not mended his ways, this is surely it. He is still grinding the same, anti-Jewish axe, desperately trying to prove that he was “right” all along about “the Jews.”

In this forum we have amply demonstrated that Bob Sungenis is an irresponsible and dishonest commentator on Jews and Judaism. Any good work he has done concerning the dual covenant error or any other doctrinal issue concerning Jews has been fatally compromised by his manifest bigotry and has been done better and more responsibly by others (our own contribution to the doctrinal issue may be found here.) This piece will focus on Bob’s most recent shoddy scholarship, double standards, plagiarism, and outright bigotry in regard to Jews and Judaism.

Bob begins his revised essay with a standard conspiratorial boilerplate:

Hence, as we are reading what the RCM states in this document, let no one be fooled that the Vatican fully endorses [sic] what the RCM is teaching, from the Pope to the Cardinals he has put in place to implement these changes. It would be utterly naive to think that Cardinal Keeler has not already received his marching orders directly from the Vatican. The Vatican has been at work on these changes for the last 50 or so years, and they are beginning to move forward with a vengeance. Documents such as the RCM are merely the trial balloons to gauge how the public is going to react to such monumental change in Catholic teaching ("Conversion", 7).

Incredibly, in the face of a very welcome and rather uncharacteristic clarification by the USCCB, Bob chooses to “double down” and insist that it really is part of an ongoing Jewish conspiracy, which involves everybody in the hierarchy, from the Pope on down

Coupled with the standard serving of conspiracy mongering comes the now equally standard plagiarism. Sungenis has rejected the charge in the past, based on his personal re-definition of “plagiarize”. But by the standard definition used by everyone else (including his alma mater) he has habitually plagiarized over the years (see the main examples cited in these entries.) Remarkably, Sungenis retained a significant amount of plagiarized material even in his new edited version of the “Conversion” article.

The reader is referred to our piece Sungenis’ Definition Difficulties for several overlapping definitions of plagiarism. Here is the definition from Bob’s undergraduate alma mater, George Washington University:

Plagiarism - intentionally representing the words, ideas, or sequence of ideas of another as one's own in any academic exercise; failure to attribute any of the following: quotations, paraphrases, or borrowed information. (http://www.gwu.edu/~ntegrity/code.html)

Let’s look at some examples from the present article. On page 7 of "Conversion" Bob has a long section of some 243 words concerning the Popes and Judaism:

For example, Pope Leo XIII in the 1900 encyclical Tametsi, and Pope Pius XI in the 1925 encyclical Quas Primas and the 1931 encyclical Quadragesimo Anno are quite clear concerning these dangers. Prior to that, Pope Benedict the XIV in the 1751 encyclical A Quo Primum, cites a whole line of popes previous to him who forbade Catholics from associating with the Jewish religion. He cited Alexander II [sic] as stating: “Our ways of life and those of the Jews are utterly different, and Jews will easily pervert the souls of simple fold to their superstition and unbelief” (Decretal, Ad Haec). Innocent II, in the Decretal Etsi Judaeos, states: “On the contrary, the Jews, as servants rejected by that Saviour whose death they wickedly contrived, should recognize themselves, in fact and in deed, the servant of those whom the death of Christ has set free. Benedict XIV continues: “If any should ask what is forbidden by the Apostolic See to Jews dwelling in the same towns as Christians...he has only to read the Constitutions of the Roman Pontiffs, Our Predecessors, Nicholas IV, Paul IV, Saint Pius V, Gregory XIII, and Clement VIII, which are readily available, as they are to be found in the Bullarium Romanum.”6 The Dictionnaire Apologetique de la Foi Catholique, in the article “Juifs et Chretiens” (cols 1691-1694) gives a long list of Papal Decrees condemning the Talmud and the Talmudic formation, since the Talmud became known to Catholics about 1238-1240.

The only footnote (6) is on the quote from Benedict XIV; the rest Sungenis presents as if it was his own work. But in fact, the entire section is lifted from Fr. Denis Fahey’s The Kingship of Christ and the Conversion of the Jewish Nation, pages 80-81 and 89 (source). It should be noted too that Bob used this material in a talk he gave on the same topic, which is currently for sale on the BTF web site (his tape set RCM.001), directly contradicting even Bob’s gratuitous and self-serving claim that it’s only plagiarism if you are distributing someone else’s material “for personal gain” (see here).

I brought this example of plagiarism to Bob’s attention in my article “Sources, Schoeman, and Sungenis” (see point #8), an article which he purported to read, since he responded to it. All he had to do was add footnotes to make clear that the entire section came from Fahey, but he left the plagiarism intact in his most current version of “Conversion.”

In the original version of “Conversion”, Sungenis had plagiarized a section of more than an incredible 1500 (yes, that’s one thousand five hundred) words from white supremacist author Gordon “Jack” Mohr (a self-admitted member of the Kingdom Identity Movement. On the Identity Movement, see here. See the full extent of Bob's literary theft documented here.) In the present version, Sungenis has removed most, but not all, of this material. Here are Bob’s words from page 60 of the latest version of "Conversion" on the left, versus Mohr's material from The Talmudic Effect on Judeo-Christianity! Part 8 of 11 on the right:

Sungenis: For example, Resh Lakish (d. 278) said, “A Gentile observing the Sabbath deserves death.” (Sanhedrin 58b). This refers to a Gentile who accepted the seven laws of the Noachide, since the Jews thought of the Sabbath as a sign between God and Israel alone. Rabbina, who lived about 150 years after the Church had changed the day of rest to Sunday, could not quite understand the principle underlying Resh Lakish's law, and, commenting upon it, added: "not even on Mondays [is the Gentile allowed to rest]."

Mohr: Resh Lakish (d. 278) said, "A Gentile observing the Sabbath deserves death." (Sanh. 58b). This refers to a Gentile who accepted the seven laws of the Noachidae, in as much as "the Sabbath is a sign between God and Israel alone" and it was probably directed against the Christian Jews, who disregarded the Mosaic laws and yet at that time kept up the observance of the Jewish Sabbath. Rabbina, who lived about 150 years after the Christians had changed the day of rest to Sunday, could not quite understand the principle underlying Resh Lakish's law, and, commenting upon it, added: ". . . not even on Mondays [is the Gentile allowed to rest]."

Here’s another example of material plagiarized from the same section of Mohr's work, from page 65 of "Conversion":

Sungenis: Talmudic laws discriminate against the non-Jew, ranking them as human animals. The Jewish Encyclopedia specifies that the command of Sanhedrin 59a threatens death to any Jew who reveals the Talmudic Law to a goy (Gentile). ). This order follows a discussion on cheating and getting the best of a Gentile in business dealings.

Mohr: All Talmudic laws discriminate against the non-Jew, ranking them as human animals. This thinking, of course, can become dangerous to the Jew. The Jewish Encyclopedia mentions SANHEDRIN 59a which threatens death to any Jew who reveals the Talmudic Law to a goy. This order follows a discussion on cheating and getting the best of a Gentile in business dealings.

There is also this shorter section from page 65 of Bob’s latest essay and Part 11 of 11 of Mohr's work from which he took it:

Sungenis: The Talmud declares that even the best of the goyim should be destroyed

Mohr: The Talmud says: "Even the best of the goyim should be destroyed."

Here's another example from page 65, plagiarized from The Jewish Religion: Its Influence Today by Nazi sympathizer and Hitler admirer, Elizabeth Dilling:

Sungenis: The Talmud is divided into six main divisions called "Sedarim" (orders).The Talmud is an assortment of every subject imaginable. Unfortunately, it is filled with obscenities and blasphemies of the highest order. It seeks to reverse many biblical moral teachings on theft, murder, sodomy, perjury, treatment of children and parents. It has an unrelenting and virtually insane hatred of Christ, Christians and every aspect of Christianity.

Dilling: The Talmud is divided into six main divisions called "Sedarim" (orders), but each division and each volume is a hodge-podge of every subject imaginable. The main and overall characteristics of the Talmud are: pomp, silliness, obscenity and more obscenity, a setting up of laws seemingly for the purpose of inventing circumventions, and evasions; delight in sadistic cruelty; reversal of all Biblical moral teachings on theft, murder, sodomy, perjury, treatment of children and parents; insane hatred of Christ, Christians and every phase of Christianity.

And from yet another source, lifted without attribution from The Truth About the Talmud by notorious Holocaust revisionist Michael Hoffman and Alan Critchley, Bob gives us this on page 65:

Sungenis: According to Jewish businessman Samuel Roth in the book, “Jews Must Live, “one of the first things he was taught as an European Jew was to spit when he passed a Christian church, or when the name of Jesus Christ was even mentioned. The second lesson was that it was accepted for a Jew to cheat the Gentile goyim as long as you weren’t caught at it because that would bring shame upon Judaism.

Hoffman/Critchley: According to the book, "Jews Must Live". authored by the Jewish businessman Samuel Roth, one of the first things he was taught as an European Jew was to spit when he passed a Christian church, or when the name of Jesus Christ was even mentioned. The second lesson was that it was accepted for a Jew to cheat the detested goyim as long as you weren't caught at it because that would bring shame upon Judaism.

It is interesting to note that their source for this allegation, Samuel Roth, was himself a Jew and a convicted pornographer (see here). And so one is left wondering why anti-Semites like Hoffman, Critchley, and Sungenis take his word for anything, given their view that Jews are so morally degenerate and utterly untrustworthy. Apparently any source that can be used to bash Jews is a trustworthy source – even another Jew.

Obviously, serial plagiarism is a serious problem for Sungenis (see many other examples documented here), but there are numerous additional examples of shoddy scholarship in the edited version of “Conversion”.

Bob consistently treats the Talmud in a decidedly tendentious way. Although there is material that is genuinely offensive in the Talmud, Bob seems incapable of seeing any good there whatsoever; this, I would contend, is the very definition of prejudice, namely, to pre-judge someone or something. For example on page 63 Bob states that, "Unlike the Old Testament, which commanded the Jews to show mercy to Gentiles dwelling in their midst, there is no such message in the Talmud." This is a remarkable claim since just one page later he acknowledges the Talmudic statement that, “One must provide for the needs of the gentile poor with the Jewish poor. One must visit the gentile sick as one visits the Jewish sick. One must care for the burial of a gentile, just as one must care for the burial of a Jew. [These obligations are universal] because these are the ways of peace.” But rather than simply admitting that the Talmud says, at least here, the very thing he claimed it never says, Bob launches into an extended rant plagiarized from Mohr, Dilling, and Hoffman as documented above. (For more examples of Bob's duplicity when it comes to the Talmud see Is Pope Benedict Guilty of a “perverse resurrection of Talmudic Judaism”? and More Sungenis Dishonesty and Plagiarism with Ben Douglass?

On page 40 of "Conversion", Bob cites an example of Pope John Paul II’s “cordial relations with the Jews”:

One example occurred on January 17, 1998. John Paul II organized the first ever Judaism Day in a Warsaw synagogue, where he stated: “Whoever encounters Christ, encounters Judaism.”

But a little fact checking proves this address was actually given on November 17, 1980, not January 17, 1998. It was not given in Warsaw, but in Mainz, Germany. It was not given in a synagogue. And it was not the occasion for the establishment of Judaism Day; that was done by the Italian bishops sometime around 1988 (see here, here, and here.) Four errors in a single sentence is a rather high error density, but not uncommon in Sungenis’ anti-Semitic writings.

And there is additional sloppy scholarship. Bob repeats his claim that the Antichrist will be of Jewish descent and that this is the teaching of “many” of the Fathers ("Conversion", 51.) At the same time, he again grossly mischaracterizes the patristic support for a future en masse conversion of the Jews, stating that, “Some of the Fathers took this view (Irenaeus, Justin Martyr), but not many” ("Conversion", 22; my emphasis). The problem is that he has his facts exactly backwards – something to which he has been alerted many times. The patristic witness for a future, significant conversion of the Jews to Christ is extremely strong, being supported by at least 21 witnesses of whom nine are Doctors of the Church. This is buttressed by the testimony of numerous prominent medieval and post-medieval witnesses, including several Popes and at least five more Doctors of the Church (see documentation of this here).

Even Fr. Denis Fahey, whom I think nobody will mistake for a shining example of a philosemite - especially in his later writings - after surveying the weight of the witnesses for this belief down through Church history speaks of a significant future conversion of the Jewish people as a certainty: “The conversion of the Jewish people to the true Supernatural Messias is, therefore, certain . . ." (The Kingship of Christ and the Conversion of the Jewish Nation, page 109; my emphasis.) But even after having been presented repeatedly with copious evidence to the contrary, Sungenis continues to push his personal agenda, claiming that “not many” Fathers supported this view.

On the other hand, in support of the claim that the Antichrist will be of Jewish ethnicity and that Jews will play a central role in the reign of Antichrist - which he claims is supported by “many” patristics - Bob cites exactly two Fathers: Sts. Irenaeus and Hippolytus. He includes many additional citations—four pages worth, in fact—but if one takes the time actually to read them, there is no mention of a Jewish Antichrist. Bob follows his quote from St. Hippolytus with an alleged “prophecy” from St. Nilus. But elsewhere, in a context not involving Jews, he has indicated that he knows that this source is untrustworthy (see here.) And in fact, the prophecy says absolutely nothing about Jews. Then follow twelve additional citations from Sts. Anselm, Hildegard, Bridget, Vincent Ferrer, Thomas Aquinas, Bellarmine, Pius X, and the Catechism. Only one of these, St. Anselm, actually mentions Jews, but not in support of Bob’s claim that the Antichrist will be of Jewish ancestry. From the rest, there is not a single mention of anything to do with Jews or Judaism. Yet, in another article, Bob had the audacity to make the silly (and oxymoronic) claim that “Catholic tradition… has unofficially declared that the future Antichrist will be of Jewish extraction” (see here). In keeping with Bob’s completely fabricated claim that Robin Williams is Jewish (a claim he made after Williams said some bigoted things about the Church), Bob continues the bizarre pattern of “finding” evidence against Jews wherever he looks.

Similarly, Bob seeks to bolster his criticism of the RCM document by making the extravagant claim that "all popes prior to the Vatican II have made very strong statements against fraternizing with the Jewish religion." Back in 2007 I called this “a manifest falsehood and wild exaggeration” (see here) and it remains so today. Yes, a few of the popes did make strong statements against excessive fraternizing with Jews and Judaism, but it’s proposterous to say that all 261 of the popes prior to Vatican II did so.

In addition, Bob repeats the claim that “Pope Leo XIII in the 1900 encyclical Tametsi, and Pope Pius XI in the 1925 encyclical Quas Primas and the 1931 encyclical Quadragesimo Anno are quite clear concerning these dangers”, namely, of “fraternizing with the Jewish religion” ("Conversion", 7). Here we recall that Bill Cork was the first, back in 2002, to point out to Bob that those three papal encyclicals say absolutely nothing about Jews or Judaism:

none of these documents say a thing about such "dangers."

Tametsi futura prospicientibus, the encyclical of Pope Leo XIII on Jesus Christ the Redeemer (1900) . . . never uses the word Jew, or Jewish, or Judaism, or any cognate thereof. So he couldn't have been too worried by "fraternizing with the Jewish religion."

Quas primas, encyclical of Pope Pius XI on the Feast of Christ the King (1925), only refers to "the Jews" twice, in reference to specific Biblical passages: "the Jews accused him of breaking the Sabbath," and "the Jews and even the Apostles wrongly supposed that the Messiah would restore the liberties and the kingdom of Israel." Again, he couldn't have been worried by the concerns which trouble Sungenis.

Quadragesimo Anno, encyclical of Pope Pius XI on Reconstruction of the Social Order (1931), does not use the words "Jew," "Judaism," or any cognates. (link)

Bob claims to have read Cork’s critique back in 2002, so he has no excuse for continuing to make these flatly false claims. And, as I pointed out in 2007:

Bob's source for his assertion is the book The Kingship of Christ and Conversion of the Jews, by Fr. Denis Fahey. The section which Bob is drawing from in Fr. Fahey's work actually says this: "The combat against naturalism in general and, therefore, against the organised naturalism of the Jewish nation, is urged upon us, for example, by Pope Leo XIII (Tametsi, 1900) and Pope Pius XI (Quas Primas, 1925, and Quadragesimo Anno, 1931) ." . . .

Note that the extension of "naturalism in general" to "the organised naturalism of the Jewish nation" is Fr. Fahey's and is not reflected in the papal texts. Much less do these documents contain "very strong statements against fraternizing with the Jewish religion" as Bob asserts. He has paraphrased Fr. Fahey in such a way to materially misrepresent these three papal documents. (link)

So, even after being presented with two opportunities to correct himself, Sungenis ignored the facts and republished this serious misrepresentation of papal documents. Sadly, Bob Sungenis continues to devolve into a rank propagandist when Jews are involved.

And lest anyone think that assessment is too harsh, let’s look at Bob’s assertion, made twice in the edited "Conversion" essay, that the meaning of the Hebrew goyim is “cattle”:

Actually, the word “goyim” is the Hebrew word for “animal” or “cattle,” since that is what Jews have traditionally understood Gentiles to be next to ("Conversion", 35)

According to the Talmud, the Gentiles are not created in the image and likeness of God, but are akin to animals. That is why Jews refer to Gentiles as “goyim,” which is the Hebrew word for “cattle.” The Talmud states that Gentiles were placed on the earth to serve the Jews, just as animals serve them (Ibid., 49).

This assertion is right out of the white supremacist playbook (just Google “goyim” and “cattle” and see what you come up with. Be sure to turn off your Internet filter if it filters out material from anti-Semitic groups, because that’s what you’re going to find.)

Sungenis has, on occasion, claimed to have studied the Hebrew language but his repeated assertion concerning the meaning of goyim at the very least calls into question how much he could have absorbed in class. Certainly he did not glean this from any standard Hebrew lexicon. There, consistently, one finds that the meaning is "nation(s)" or "people(s)". Out of over 550 references in the Hebrew Old Testament, goy/goyim is used once with a figurative sense of a swarm of locusts (Jo 1:6) and once “of all species of beasts Zp 2:14” according to the scholarly Brown-Driver-Briggs-Gesenius Hebrew-English Lexicon (p. 156). Holladay’s Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament does not even list this meaning as a possibility. But even in the two instances in which it is used in the context of animals the word goy/goyim means something like "swarm" or "herds" (or perhaps even "nation", in the case of Joel 1:6); it does not itself mean "beast". The translators of the Septuagint consistently translate the Hebrew goyim as ethne in Greek which, again, is the word for "nation", not "animal" or “cattle”.

This gratuitous assertion from Bob again confirms the gravity of his “source problem.” It bears repeating that Bob has done no original work in the field of Judaism. He has done no significant reading in the primary sources of Jewish thought. And he has never seriously interacted with any significant, scholarly secondary works on Judaism.

In regard to Jews and Judaism Bob is merely a “Google scholar” and propagandist of the worst sort. Not only does he simply Google to try to find his information, he consistently and indiscriminately picks material from white supremacist and neo-Nazi sites to present in his articles without any consideration for the welfare of the innocent people upon whom he is foisting such refuse. Although he has excised a majority of the most offensive material from his original 2002 verison of “Conversion of the Jews” the pattern remains. He relies on the likes of anti-Jewish propagandists like Mohr, Dilling, Hoffman and convicted pornographer Roth to provide information on Jews and Judaism.

Sungenis’ latest anti-Semitic rant comes as no great surprise to anyone who has followed his antics since 2002. But if anyone has not been following and comes to this controversy late in the game, we hope that this latest illumination of Sungenis’ “Jew problem” will convince him that Sungenis is absolutely unreliable and dishonest in dealing with Jewish issues. He wishes to be seen as a scholar, but he is, in fact, a plagiarist and propagandist. In the end, as we have repeated numerous times, this provides more proof (if more was needed) that Bishop Rhoades was absolutely right to tell Robert Sungenis to cease and desist from commenting on Jews and Judaism. Bob needs to obey his bishop, for the good of the Church and for the salvation of his soul.

David Palm

Ferrara Repudiates Holocaust views of Bishop Williamson and Sungenis - 2009

In February, 2007, Christopher Ferrara wrote an article entitled Christophobes at the Gate, that heavily criticized a 2006 report by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) on “radical traditionalists” who preach “anti-Semitic hatred” (see: The Dirty Dozen) The SPLC article listed Robert Sungenis as its first example and singled him out as “one of the most rabid and open anti-Semites in the entire radical traditionalist movement.”

While Ferrara voiced some valid criticisms of the SPLC report (as did Karl Keating), he failed to defend Sungenis by name and also made a statement that raised a few eye-brows: “virtually everyone SPLC accuses [of anti-Semitism] is innocent of the charge…”. Virtually everyone.

Eventually, in July, 2007, Ferrara publicly defended Sungenis against the specific charge of anti-Semitism, asserting that “Bob is no anti-Semite.”1 To our knowledge, Ferrara has never publicly criticized Sungenis in regard to his persistently offensive treatment of Jewish issues. And, with the exception of the narrow defense noted above, neither has he publicly defended him.

However, after Bishop Williamson of the SSPX recently created a firestorm of controversy for the Church (and the traditionalist movement in particular) by making statements very similar to those previously made by Sungenis about Jews, Ferrara apparently felt compelled to publicly criticize Williamson and to repudiate his ignorant and offensive views in January of 2009 (see: Triumph and Tribulation).

Below the reader will find statements made by Sungenis on the Holocaust that are very similar to those made by Bishop Williamson:

R. Sungenis (2002): "the figure of six million Jews dying under Hitler's regime is even admitted by informed Jews to be mere propaganda." (link)

R. Sungenis (2005): “I have my doubts that it was 6 million [Jews killed in the Holocaust]… Hitler hated the Jews, not only for what he saw as a youth, but because the Jews had a stranglehold on European finance and banking for many years. 
There are some stories, however, that suggest these Jewish banking familes actually helped Hitler in his quest, since their objective was to ellicit [sic] world-wide sympathy so as to migrate European and Russian Jews to Palestine, their long-sought goal which they have, indeed, accomplished.” (link)

R. Sungenis (2009): "it is becoming increasingly difficult to believe that six million Jews were killed in Nazi internment camps." (link)

R. Sungenis (2009): "I suggest you stop blaming it on the nation who excised [the Jews] and start looking at what the Jewish people do to get themselves excised." (link)

R. Sungenis (2009): "As for Germany's relationship with the Jews, well, the Germans treated the Jews very nicely when the Jews were excised out of Russia and migrated to Germany. Then the Jews turned on the Germans because they got a better deal from someone else." (link ; a very similar statement was repeated in Ask Your Questions About the Jews)

R. Sungenis (2009): “I suggest you read the unsanitized accounts of what really happened [in the Holocaust]. When the Jews and Jewish sympathizers start showing proof that the Nazis killed 6 million Jews by gassing them, instead of jailing people for even bringing up the question, then you can talk about the Nazis and I’ll listen.” (link)

On February 19th, 2009, Sungenis even had the gall to imply that the Pope may actually be in agreement with him when it comes to the Holocaust:

R. Sungenis: "The pope made no mention of the '6 million' figure that has become such a hot issue in the Williamson affair. The pope did the right thing. In reality, it doesn’t make any difference whether it’s 600,000 (according to a recent report by Meyer) or 6,000,000." (link)

(Please click here for more on what the Pope has said about denial and minimization of the Holocaust. Click here for proof that the Pope is not at all in agreement with Sungenis in regard to the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust. More problematic quotes and background about Sungenis’s views on the Jewish people may be viewed here and here. )

As “evidence” for his assertion that the figure of six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust is “mere propaganda”, Sungenis cited thoroughly debunked “statistics” that purport to “prove” that “there was no large difference between the number of Jews living [in Europe] in 1939 as there were living in 1948.”

In Triumph and Tribulation, Ferrara debunked these claims, critically noting that those who make such claims evidence “what appears to be a lack of even cursory research” and that “anyone with even a superficial knowledge” of the facts should know better. (More information about the number of Jews living in Europe before and after the Holocaust may be found here.)

Ferrara then went on to make these strong statements:

traditionalists have not refrained from critical observations concerning certain statements and actions of the conciliar popes. That criticism is in keeping with the due liberty of the members of the Mystical Body, and indeed their duty to speak out when they believe in conscience that the common good of the Church is being harmed, even should that harm involve acts or omissions of the Supreme Pontiff himself. It would a fortiori be a dereliction of duty for traditionalists not to exercise that same liberty with respect to statements from within our ‘movement’ merely because they come from a fellow traditionalist, even if he were a bishop. For to remain silent in the face of what Bishop Williamson has said would be to endanger the entire cause to which we have dedicated ourselves by allowing it to be attached to his errors.

Bishop Williamson has eliminated himself —and for no good reason—as a credible public spokesman for the Society in the Catholic or secular communications media, or in any other significant public forums open to other traditional clergy.

Not only this newspaper, but every journal of traditional Catholic opinion, and above all the Society itself, must clearly and unequivocally declare—as I do here and now—that Holocaust revisionism, wacky conspiracy theories, and other such nonsense will have no part in the traditionalist movement. (Note: Some of Sungenis’s “wacky conspiracy theories” may be viewed here. "Other such nonsense" from Sungenis may be viewed here and here.) We must also implore Bishop Williamson to reconsider and personally repudiate the outrageous statements he has published to the world despite the many entreaties that he cease and desist. This is not a question of the Bishop’s freedom of opinion, but rather of the consequences to countless innocent bystanders from a heedless exercise of that freedom. Yes, the Bishop has spoken only for himself; but others, however unjustly, will be made to pay the price for what he has said, and they will go on paying it for a long time to come. The Bishop should have foreseen this, but now it is too late to prevent the damage. All he can do is make amends. If he cares about the Church and the traditionalist faithful, as he surely does, then he will not allow himself to become a stumbling block on the road ahead.

Ferrara is to be commended for his unequivocal, public repudiation of the ignorant and offensive views propagated by Bishop Williamson. We would also note that one could very easily substitute “Robert Sungenis” for “Bishop Williamson” in most all of the quotes above and they would stand equally well. In fact, Sungenis has publicly propagated more ignorant, dishonest and offensive material about Jews than Bishop Williamson has (see here and here). And we are unaware of any occasion on which Williamson has slandered even those Jews who enter the Catholic Church (see here, for one example where Sungenis has done so).

In closing, it is worth noting that the Vatican has rejected Bishop Williamson’s apologies to date as insufficient (article). He has thus far refused to forthrightly retract and apologize for his ignorant and offensive statements. Sadly, the same is true of Robert Sungenis. In fact, unlike Bishop Williamson, Sungenis has even gone so far as to state that “no one” will change his views of the Jewish people - even if he withdraws some of them from public view “for the sake of peace.” (See Saying "Peace" When There Is No Peace.)

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1 It should be acknowledged that Ferrara somewhat distanced himself from Sungenis in this letter to the editor. However, in the process, he understated how much association there has been between them: “[Sungenis] contributed exactly one answer to one question about the Catholic Faith on my organization’s Web site.” In 2005, Sungenis actually contributed two answers to Ferrara’s web site that are still there (click here) and there have been other areas of collaboration between Sungenis and Ferrara as well. See: Are Ferrara and Sungenis a Team?

More Anti-Jewish Bigotry at BTF

In response to a Q and A at BTF entitled “What do you think of the pope’s speech on the Jews”, a BTF patron using the name “daaharper” made the following comments (question 121) and even invited Sungenis to remove his posts if Sungenis found them offensive.  His comments are the only ones currently published in response to Sungenis’s article.  Apparently, Sungenis finds nothing offensive in them.  For four weeks and counting now, Sungenis has published the following comments from his patron at BTF:

“Enough is enough.
At what point do we start calling a thing for what it is? Do words and actions actually mean anything anymore?
The Shoah has become the chief ontological event in the New World Order, and a potent political tool used to justify and facilitate all manner of political evil.”

 

“If Rome still had courage it would force the issue, many scholars are willing to support Bishop Williamson.”

 

“The Pope is teaching heresy, there is only one reading of Holy Scripture…Rabbinical Judaism…is satanic, or more precisely, 'The Synagogue of Satan'.” 

“Rightly, has Archbishop Theodosius of Sebaste told the Pope he is not welcome.”

“The term Anti-Semite has nothing to do with racism, if it did, the Jewish nation would be the most Anti-Semitic nation on earth.”

 

“Robert…anybody who supports Zionism – including the Pope – is evil.  Period.  If the Pope kowtows to Rabbinical Judaism, he is worshipping Satan.”

 

"Major Premise:  The Talmud is satanic

Minor Premise:  The Pope praises it 

Conclusion:  The Pope is praising Satanism."

After these extreme and offensive comments, Sungenis’s patron then returned to make another comment,  apologizing for being “so passionate” and to assure Sungenis that his diatribe was not directed at Sungenis himself but at “the Catholic World” - “particularly the hierarchy.” 

After somewhat equivocating on his charge of heresy against the Holy Father, Sungenis’s patron then offered this remarkable caveat:  “If somebody supported Nazism out of good will nowadays, we’d certainly think unfavorably of them.”  The idea of supporting Nazism out of good will certainly seems odd enough in an of itself.  But it is also telling that Sungenis's patron would merely  “think unfavorably” of someone who supported Nazism.

 

The next day, perhaps after realizing that he had revealed his thoughts a little too fully, Sungenis’s patron offered something akin to the “I have Jewish friends” defense…“I have known many fine Jewish people”.   He then went on to convey that he didn't really mean to slander all Jewish people.

And so, the pattern that we noted back in 2006 continues unabated:  “[Sungenis] 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.”  (emphasis added, see: Sungenis and the Jews) 

Robert Sungenis vs. Pope Benedict XVI on the Holocaust

Pope Benedict XVI: "Any denial or minimisation of this terrible crime [the Holocaust] is intolerable and altogether unacceptable." (link)

versus

Robert Sungenis (2002): "The figure of six million Jews dying under Hitler's regime is even admitted by informed Jews to be mere propaganda" (from the article "Uncorking the Erroneous Teachings, False Allegations and Liberal Agenda of Bill Cork", posted 15 Oct 2002, link)

Robert Sungenis (2005): "I have my doubts that it was 6 million [Jews killed in the Holocaust]...Hitler hated the Jews, not only for what he saw as a youth, but because the Jews had a stranglehold on European finance and banking for many years. There are some stories, however, that suggest these Jewish banking families actually helped Hitler in his quest, since their objective was to ellicit [sic] world-wide sympathy so as to migrate European and Russian Jews to Palestine, their long-sought goal which they have, indeed, accomplished" (from "The Holocaust-Conspiracy Q and A", on or about 15 Feb 2005, link)
 

Robert Sungenis (2009): "it is becoming increasingly difficult to believe that six million Jews were killed in Nazi internment camps." (from "Question 183 – Michael Forrest talking to Mark Shea", posted 2 Oct 2009, link)

Robert Sungenis (2009): “I suggest you read the unsanitized accounts of what really happened [in the Holocaust]. When the Jews and Jewish sympathizers start showing proof that the Nazis killed 6 million Jews by gassing them, instead of jailing people for even bringing up the question, then you can talk about the Nazis and I’ll listen”  (from "Question 173 - Is there a conspiracy against you?", posted 24 Aug 2009, link)

R. Sungenis (2009): "I suggest you stop blaming it on the nation who excised [the Jews] and start looking at what the Jewish people do to get themselves excised" (from "Question 173 - Is there a conspiracy against you?", posted 24 Aug 2009, link)

R. Sungenis (2009): "As for Germany's relationship with the Jews, well, the Germans treated the Jews very nicely when the Jews were excised out of Russia and migrated to Germany. Then the Jews turned on the Germans because they got a better deal from someone else" (from "Question 173 - Is there a conspiracy against you?", posted 24 Aug 2009, link ; a very similar statement was repeated in Sungenis's article "Ask Your Questions About the Jews")

Robert Sungenis (2009): "One example of this evidence is the fact that the worldwide Jewish population from 1940 to 1948 did not decrease by even a half million, much less six million....But the international population records show that the numbers of Jews after World War II were virtually the same as before the war" (from"Question 183 – Michael Forrest talking to Mark Shea", posted 2 Oct 2009, link) (Click here to see a refutation of this claim often made by Holocaust deniers and "revisionists".)

Robert Sungenis (2009): "The documented records of the International Red Cross show that there were less than a few hundred thousand Jews who died in Nazi camps, and that most of those were from disease" (from "Question 183 – Michael Forrest talking to Mark Shea", posted 2 Oct 2009, link)  (Click here to see a refutation of this claim often made by Holocaust deniers and "revisionists". According to the International Committee of the Red Cross itself, this is not what these records "show.")

Robert Sungenis (2009): "The pope made no mention of the '6 million' figure that has become such a hot issue in the Williamson affair. The Pope did the right thing. In reality, it doesn’t make any difference whether it’s 600,000 (according to a recent report by Meyer) or 6,000,000...The Nazis didn’t care whether you were Jew or Gentile. " (link)


versus

Pope Benedict XVI: "It is right and fitting that, during my stay in Israel, I will have the opportunity to honor the memory of the six million Jewish vicitims of the Shoah, and to pray that humanity will never again witness a crime of such magnitude." (Ben Gurion Airport, May 11, 2009. The full text of the speech may be viewed here)

Pope Benedict XVI: "I have come to stand in silence before this monument, erected to honor the memory of the millions of Jews killed in the horrific tragedy of the Shoah. They lost their lives, but they will never lose their names: these are indelibly etched in the hearts of their loved ones, their surviving fellow prisoners, and all those determined never to allow such an atrocity to disgrace mankind again. Most of all, their names are forever fixed in the memory of Almighty God...May their suffering never be denied, belittled or forgotten!" (Yad Vashem, May 11, 2009. The full text of the speech may be viewed here)

Pope Benedict XVI: "Any denial or minimisation of this terrible crime [the Holocaust] is intolerable and altogether unacceptable." (link)
 

Related Links: 

Pope Continues to Repudiate Holocaust Revisionism Promoted by Sungenis

Ferrara Repudiates Holocaust Views of Bishop Williamson and Sungenis