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.

More Misquotes, More Misrepresentations

Recently, we discovered that in his review of E. Michael Jones’ latest book, Bob Sungenis published another false quote and misrepresented the clear intentions of conservative author, David Brooks, in the process. (To view some of Bob's previous false quotes click here, here, here and here.)

Bob’s eighteen page review of Jones’ latest book (which Bob proclaims is “like a sequel to the Bible” ), appears in Jones’ Culture Wars magazine, May 2008. Bob writes:

"In the wake of the new consensus, a new movement was born – Neo-conservatism, or as David Brooks candidly put it in the Wall Street Journal: “Neo means new and con means Jew” (p. 1007). (The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit: a Review, page 10)

The problem is that David Brooks actually wrote: “con is short for ‘conservative’ and neo is short for ‘Jewish’” and he wrote it in the New York Times, not the Wall Street Journal (article).

Out of eleven words in the actual quote, the quote Bob published gets only three of them right: “and”, “neo” and “con”. And even those words are not in the proper order.

And unless Bob misquoted page 1007 of Jones’ book (which is certainly possible), it is E. Michael Jones who has actually misquoted David Brooks. If true, then Bob may want to rethink his comparison of Jones’ book to the Bible - if for no other reason than to protect the integrity of Biblical inerrancy.

Be that as it may, worse than this completely mangled quote is the fact that Bob (or Jones?) then draws the wrong conclusion from Brooks’ words, implying that David Brooks was "candidly" admitting that “neo-cons” are indeed a political cabal of Jews. If one takes the time to actually read Brooks’ article – which is readily available on the internet - it is clear that Brooks was mocking people who created this name and believe in the “neo-con conspiracy”. That was the point of his entire article: to mock such conspiracy theorists. Whether or not one agrees with Brooks is irrelevant. Bob (or Jones?) gives a false impression as to what Brooks meant. Here is the actual quote, in greater context:

In truth, the people labeled neocons (con is short for ''conservative'' and neo is short for ''Jewish'') travel in widely different circles and don't actually have much contact with one another. The ones outside government have almost no contact with President Bush. There have been hundreds of references, for example, to Richard Perle's insidious power over administration policy, but I've been told by senior administration officials that he has had no significant meetings with Bush or Cheney since they assumed office. If he's shaping their decisions, he must be microwaving his ideas into their fillings.

It's true that both Bush and the people labeled neocons agree that Saddam Hussein represented a unique threat to world peace. But correlation does not mean causation. All evidence suggests that Bush formed his conclusions independently. Besides, if he wanted to follow the neocon line, Bush wouldn't know where to turn because while the neocons agree on Saddam, they disagree vituperatively on just about everything else. (If you ever read a sentence that starts with ''Neocons believe,'' there is a 99.44 percent chance everything else in that sentence will be untrue.)

Below we’ve reproduced a passage that follows immediately after the quote above. In light of the book Bob was reviewing, we find it particularly interesting and ironic:

There are apparently millions of people who cling to the notion that the world is controlled by well-organized and malevolent forces. And for a subset of these people, Jews are a handy explanation for everything.

There's something else going on, too. The proliferation of media outlets and the segmentation of society have meant that it's much easier for people to hive themselves off into like-minded cliques... You get to choose your own reality. You get to believe what makes you feel good. You can ignore inconvenient facts so rigorously that your picture of the world is one big distortion.

And if you can give your foes a collective name -- liberals, fundamentalists or neocons -- you can rob them of their individual humanity. All inhibitions are removed. You can say anything about them. You get to feed off their villainy and luxuriate in your own contrasting virtue. You will find books, blowhards and candidates playing to your delusions, and you can emigrate to your own version of Planet Chomsky. You can live there unburdened by ambiguity.
(Article)

Perhaps Bob (and Jones?) ought to have actually read David Brooks' article before writing his glowing review of Jones' book The Revolutionary Jewish Spirit. At least he would have gotten Brooks’ quote right, although we doubt that Bob (or Jones) would have appreciated what Brooks had to say about conspiracy theorists who "hive themselves off into like-minded cliques" and “books, blowhards…playing to your delusions.”

And of course, this is yet another example proving that Bishop Rhoades was right to tell Bob to stop writing about Jewish issues. Bob’s work in this area is far more representative of an anti-Jewish propagandist than a sober, responsible apologist.

More Slander, Fraudulent Quotes and Double Standards From Sungenis

Unfortunately, Robert Sungenis' new friend Thomas Herron has again subtlely goaded him to do the wrong thing. (Mark Shea Attacks Review of Jones’ Book, hereafter MSARJB).

Among other things, in his drive to excuse himself and deflect attention by pointing the finger at others, Sungenis has created another fraudulent quote and leveled more false accusations, one of which is as hypocritical as his accusation that Einstein was a plagiarist. (Documentation of Sungenis' plagiarism may be found here, here and here.)

Sungenis writes:

I forgot, [Mark Shea] deliberately disobeyed Pope John Paul II's and Pope Benedict XVI's express statement that the war in Iraq is immoral and those who are engaging in it are in sin. (MSARJB, p. 10)

and

Shea, being a Catholic neo-con who flicked his finger into the air at two popes who told him the war is immoral... (MSARJB, p. 11)

Perhaps Sungenis can provide this "express statement" from Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI that all those engaged in the Iraq war are "in sin." This would, of course, involve an absolute judgment of culpability upon all coalition soldiers currently in Iraq, among others.

And anyone who has even a passing familiarity with Mark Shea’s blog knows that he has raised many hackles precisely because of his long-standing, strong opposition to the war in Iraq. Below are links to many articles and they could be multiplied:

http://www.mark-shea.com/jwd.html

http://www.markshea.blogspot.com/2003_05_01_archive.html#94999915

http://markshea.blogspot.com/search/label/War

Shea did tentatively support the second Gulf War initally, based upon the pervasive, erroneous intelligence reports that Iraq had significant WMD. But very soon after the second Gulf War had commenced (long before Cardinal Ratzinger even became pope), he rapidly changed his view as further evidence came forth. Additionally, as several Catholic apologists have noted, then-Cardinal Ratzinger himself stated that Catholics could legitimately disagree on this prudential matter and remain in good standing with the Church (see #3). As such, it is erroneous and slanderous to make the accusation that Shea "deliberately disobeyed" or "flicked his finger into the air at two popes."

Whether the erroneous and slanderous accusations are against men like Leon Suprenant, Mike Sullivan and others for supposedly being pro-war Zionists, or against Christopher Blosser, Roy Schoeman, his former vice-presidents, Michael Forrest and Ben Douglass, or John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger, or even his own bishop for being a judaizing heretic who is intent upon propagating his pro-Jewish errors to “unsuspecting Catholics”, Sungenis has repeatedly proven that he’s willing to say anything to deflect attention from his own seriously objectionable behavior and errors.

And then, in another remarkable display of hypocrisy, Sungenis writes:

The first glaring stupidity that Shea foists upon us is his unmitigated gall to write a critique of a book and its message that he hasn’t even read yet (ibid., p. 1).

Those who have followed all the troubles at CAI-BTF will remember that it was none other than Robert Sungenis who had the “unmitigated gall” to write a 1,500 word critique of Roy Schoeman’s book, Salvation is From the Jews, for Jones’ Culture Wars magazine before having read a word of it. And Sungenis has admitted that he intentionally impugned Schoeman’s honesty in this critique; again, after never even having read a word of the book.

In a message dated 4/1/2004 4:14:04 PM Eastern Standard Time,[Michael Forrest] writes:

Hi Bob,
Did you read (Schoeman's) book?
Mike

No. Does it say something
different than what I quoted?
Bob

From: Robert Sungenis

Sent: Friday, April 02, 2004 11:32 AM

To: Michael Forrest

Subject: Re: Letter to the Editor

[Quote from Sungenis' Letter to the Editor of Culture Wars about Roy Schoeman's book, Salvation is From the Jews]: >>If we really want to be honest about what Catholic tradition and Scripture say about Schoeman's predictions, the evidence is, at best, divided. >>

Forrest: 1) I'm sure you didn't mean it this way, but by saying "we" and "honest", this sentence [in your criticism of Roy Schoeman] appears to question the honesty and integrity of those who see things differently than you on this subject...perhaps..."rigorous" would be a better word than "honest."

Sungenis: No, I do mean "honest."

Second, while Sungenis’ article was indeed an actual critique of Schoeman’s book, which Sungenis had not read, Shea’s blog posting was a brief critique of Sungenis’ review, a review which Shea most certainly had read. And, ironically, the very title of Sungenis’ article at BTF proves that Sungenis himself understood this basic distinction. Did Sungenis entitle his article “Mark Shea Attacks Jones’ Book”? No. He entitled it “Mark Shea Attacks Review of Jones’ Book” (emphasis added).

Third, Shea’s “critique” of Sungenis’ review of Jones’ book amounted to a mere 150 words. On the other hand, Sungenis’ extensive critique of a book he had never read was ten times that long at roughly 1,500 words. As such, even had Shea written an actual critique of Jones’ book itself (which he did not), Sungenis’ flaming criticism of Shea on this point would have been akin to a thief lecturing a jay-walker on the law.

Fourth, we are treated to yet another fraudulent "quote" by Sungenis that echoes his fraudulent quotes of Albert Einstein and Roy Schoeman. Sungenis writes:

With that, let’s look at some of the sound bites that the illustrious Mr. Shea extracts from my review in his typical demagogic fashion to draw on your sympathies and create a monster out of me and Dr. Jones for merely telling the truth of history. Shea writes:

“In the Revolutionary Jew…we discover (I am not making this up) that Milton Berle and Irving Berlin were part of the Vast Conspiracy.”

But is this what Shea wrote? No. This is the actual quote:

First, a glowing review ("one of the greatest [books] of all time") of Jones' _The Revolutionary Jew_ in which we discover (I am not making this up) that Milton Berle and Irving Berlin were part of the Vast Conspiracy.

In the actual quote, Shea is plainly referencing Sungenis' review of Jones' book. In Sungenis' manipulated quote of Shea, Shea is plainly writing about Jones' book itself, not Sungenis' review. In yet another echo of Sungenis' fraudulent quote of Albert Einstein, Sungenis has manipulated Shea's actual statement by abusing ellipses and inserting verbiage that does not actually exist. Even with ellipses, there is no way in which Shea can be accurately quoted as writing "In the Revolutionary Jew...we discover." And this is precisely what Sungenis needed Shea to write in order to attack him for critiquing a book he had never read. It is increasingly difficult to chalk such errors up to incompetence rather than deceit. (Recall, this is the man who is now dishonestly claiming that he is certain Fr. King made a verbatim statement about "supersessionism": link1 and link2)

Sungenis’ disturbing pattern of slander, double-standards and fraudulent quotes continues unabated.

The Perpetually Prolific Robert Sungenis

If it were a virtue to be prolific, Robert Sungenis would certainly be well on his way to sainthood. Unfortunately, without either a sufficient internal editor or an external editor who is willing and able to contain him, Sungenis’ prolificacy is far too often an engine of inaccuracy, misinformation, bigotry and a host of other negatives.

On the innocuous and humorous side, take this example from Sungenis’ latest attempt at a defense. On the homepage of CAI, the article is entitled, “Jacob Michael: An Ass in Sheep’s Clothing”. This title/link was likely entered by someone like CAI “Media Technician” Laurence Gonzaga. However, click on the link and look closely at the title on the actual article as entitled by Sungenis himself:

, Jacob Michael: as Ass in Sheep’s Clothing

Perhaps we will later learn that Sungenis inserted the leading comma for dramatic effect? And “as Ass in Sheep’s Clothing”? Will Sungenis perchance later inform us that he was framing the discussion as something along the lines of a television series?

Jerry Mathers: as the Beaver.

Jacob Michael: as Ass in Sheep’s Clothing.

Next, we move on to more serious matters in the body of Sungenis’ latest attempt at a defense of his shoddy scholarship:

Sungenis: Anyone who knows anything about Carl Sagan knows that the comment about God being an “overstuffed white male” is his. He’s said it many times in interviews and other venues. But Mr. Michael doesn’t know anything about Carl Sagan, obviously. (,JMAASC, p. 3)

Sungenis’ smugness is risible in light of the fact that he only just now scrambled to find documentation for this Sagan quote, well after the publication of his book. If he was so well-acquainted with Sagan, knowing that he has said it “many times”, then the documentation should have been a snap to provide from the beginning. But it was nowhere to be found in Galileo Was Wrong. Perhaps he ought to consider paying his critics for editorial oversight rather than complaining.

This is all the more eye-opening when one considers that he received a “doctorate” for the research that comprises the vast majority of this book. In fact, Sungenis’ research was specifically singled out by Calamus for its excellence. (As a side note, it turns out that the one bogus organization willing to sell “accreditation” status to Calamus is now out of business: click here.)

And yet, perhaps even more remarkably, when Sungenis knows he is being watched closely for accuracy, he still can’t help flubbing this simple quote. Notice, he quotes Sagan as writing of God as an “overstuffed white male”. But Sagan did not write this. Even earlier in Sungenis’ own piece, he managed to quote Sagan correctly as writing of God as “an outsize, light-skinned male” (The Varieties of Scientific Experience, p. 149) and "an oversized white male" (U.S. News and World Report, Dec 23, 1991, p. 61. Although, interestingly, U.S. News and World Report itself gives no source for this quote).

Certainly these are very similar, but even after all that has transpired, Sungenis still doesn’t seem to understand that when you claim someone said something and then you proceed to put quotation marks around what immediately follows, you are indicating that these are their actual words and you can’t simply substitute your own interpretation or paraphrase. This is a persistent problem that has been documented at length (and with calumnious impact) in regard to Sungenis’ treatment Pope John Paul II, Roy Schoeman and others.

Furthermore, and perhaps most ironically, one of the additional quotes Sungenis claims to have added to his newest edition of Galileo Was Wrong is inaccurate:

“In many cultures it is customary to answer that God created the universe out of nothing. But this is mere temporizing. If we wish courageously to pursue the question, we must, of course ask next where God comes from? And if we decide this to be unanswerable, why not save a step and conclude that the universe has always existed?” (Carl Sagan, Cosmos, p. 257). (,JMAASC, p.3)

Cosmos is an extremely accessible book. It’s even available on-line. Here is a link to a pdf file of page 257: LINK

Notice the actual quote:

“In many cultures it is customary to answer that God created the universe out of nothing. But this is mere temporizing. If we wish courageously to pursue the question, we must, of course ask next where God comes from? And if we decide this to be unanswerable, why not save a step and decide that the origin of the universe is an unanswerable question? Or, if we say that God has always existed, why not save a step and conclude that the universe has always existed?”

The reader will note that Sungenis erroneously combined the beginning of the fifth sentence with the end of the sixth sentence, omitting 26 words in the process. This is almost one half the length of the entire quote as originally provided by him. It is worth noting that a few websites present exactly the same inaccurate quote as Sungenis in this instance, such as this one. It seems likely that Sungenis once again relied on secondary sources while giving the impression of investigating primary ones.

Again, in this instance at least, the question is not whether Sagan said ignorant things about faith and God. The problem is that Sungenis failed to adhere not only to scholarly standards, but standards that would be expected in a high school classroom. Sungenis continues to pretend that all is simply a matter of a small incident here, a little goof there, but the record proves that Sungenis’ problem is far more serious than that. To date, he has barely attempted to interact with the evidence of his shoddy research methodology in Galileo Was Wrong: here. The fact is, Jacob Michael stopped checking Sungenis’ references after only reading about one quarter of the way through the book and still amassed many examples of shoddy scholarship, particularly for a purported “doctoral dissertation.” One need not plough through the remaining pages to realize that a leopard does not change his spots.

Sungenis's Contradictions and Flip-flops on the Jews as Accursed

In regard to how the Fathers view the Jewish people, Robert Sungenis has made the following contradictory statements:

April 2004

" I would not say there was a consensus among the Fathers that the Jews were an accursed people. In fact, you hardly find the words "Jews" and "cursed" in the same sentence in the Fathers. There was certainly a consensus that the Jews, as a whole people, were judged by God for their sins, but there are very few Fathers who held that the Jews were cursed as a race. Of those Justin Martyr, Chrysostom and Augustine seem the most prominent, but even then, their words can be taken in more than one way." (emphasis added)
Question 30, April 2004

September 2006

"As I said earlier, the Fathers were in consensus (that is, there were no dissenting voices among them) that the Jewish people were...a cursed people" (emphasis added)

Michael Forrest and the Jews, page 43

Then Sungenis has also made the following statement, although it does not directly address the teaching of the Fathers:

December 2006:

“the fact that the Jew can be saved today is the proof that God has not rejected or cursed them” (emphasis added)

Q&A #57, December 2006

Clearly, the statements made by Sungenis in April 2004 and September 2006 about the views of the Fathers in regard to Jews are contradictory. And Sungenis’s statement in December 2006 seems reconcilable with his statement of September 2006 only if we take him to mean that he and the Church (in Nostra Aetate) both reject what Sungenis himself characterized as the unanimous consensus of the Fathers…a rather precarious position to take.

The Ginsberg "Quote"

To make matters worse, Jews often, secretly or not so secretly, conceive themselves to be morally and intellectually superior to their neighbors...Indeed, Jews are extremely successful outsiders who sometimes have the temerity to rub it in (The Fatal Embrace, p. ix, as cited in Piper's The New Jerusalem). (Sungenis, Neo-Cons and the Jewish Connection, September, 2005, source)

To make matters worse, Jews often, secretly or not so secretly, conceive themselves to be morally and intellectually superior to their neighbors...Indeed, Jews are extremely successful outsiders who sometimes have the temerity to rub it in (The Fatal Embrace, p. ix, as cited in Piper's The New Jerusalem). (Sungenis, Politics, Religion, Israel and the Seduction of the Catholic Voter, p. 38, source)

Caller: To take this slightly away from religion, or, mostly away from religion for a little bit, I think the whole thing can best be explained by Benjamin Franklin's statement to the Continental Congress in 1789, when he warned them, "Gentleman, if you let them in, in 200 years your children - your descendants, rather - will be cursing you in your graves, because they will be in the fields as slaves, while the ones you let in" - and we know who they're talking about - "will be in the counting houses rubbing their hands." That was Benjamin Franklin's statement, and I think it explains the whole thing. Because the man knew, he was a student of history - and he wasn't the only one - but he was a student of history who knew - he knew what they'd done in Europe, and all the countries in Europe that they'd been kicked out of, over and over again, because it's the same game plan for these people, no matter where they are, where they go, it's always the same game plan - has been for 2,000 years.

Bob: Yeah, as a matter of fact, just to add to what you're saying - we've been quoting Benjamin Ginzberg a lot on this program, and here's what he says, along those same lines - he says, "to make matters worse, Jews often, secretly or not so secretly, conceive themselves to be morally and intellectually superior to their neighbors. Indeed, Jews are extremely successful outsiders who sometimes have the temerity to rub it in." That comes from The Fatal Embrace, page Roman numeral nine. (Sungenis, on the radio program Mark Dankhof's America, February 23, 2007)

Speaking of quotes falsely attributed to men named Benjamin, the quote from Benjamin Ginsberg might be fraudulent as well. I haven't read the whole book The Fatal Embrace, so the quote might be in there somewhere. But it certainly is not on p. ix. I told Bob this a long time ago, when I did all the digging to give him the primary sources he needed for his essays, thus obviating his reliance on Hoffman, Piper, et al. He agreed to remove the quote, and it no longer appears in the updated version of his essay:

http://www.catholicintl.com/noncatholicissues/JNC.pdf

Though apparently he left it in another version: http://www.catholicintl.com/epologetics/articles/pastoral/priscv.pdf (see p. 38)

And it would appear that he is back to his old tricks again. (Ben Douglass, comment left on Sungenis's Views on Display at Republic Broadcasting Network)

Here is page ix of Ginsberg's book. The reader is invited to attempt to locate the quote anywhere on this page.

When the reader has given up on this hopeless task, he is invited to read this excerpt from pages seven and eight of Ginsberg's book. The portion Bob quoted is in bold, while the rather enlightening contextual bits he left out are in bold red.

Certainly, everywhere that Jews have lived, their social or economic marginality - their position, "outside society," as Hannah Arendt put it - sooner or later exposed Jews to suspicion, hostility, and discrimination. Even in multiethnic societies, Jews have usually been the most successful and visible - and, hence, the most exposed - outsiders. In America, Jews currently appear to be accepted by the larger community. Nevertheless, at least in part by their own choosing, American Jews continue to maintain a significant and visible measure of communal identity and distinctiveness in religious, cultural, and political matters. At the same time, most gentiles continue to perceive Jews to be a peculiar and distinctive group. Though Jews have learned to look, talk, and dress like other Americans, they are not fully assimilated either in their own minds or in the eyes of their neighbors. Even in America, the marginality of the Jews makes them at least potentially vulnerable to attack.

In America as elsewhere, moreover, Jews are outsiders who are often more successful than their hosts. Because of their historic and, in part, religiously grounded emphasis on education and literacy, when given an opportunity Jews have tended to prosper. And, to make matters worse, Jews often, secretly or not so secretly, conceive themselves to be morally and intellectually superior to their neighbors. Jews, to be sure, by no means have a monopoly on group or national snobbery. In contemporary America every group is encouraged to take pride in its special heritage and achievements. The problem is that Jews as a group are more successful than virtually all the others. Indeed, Jews are extremely successful outsiders who sometimes have the temerity to rub it in. As one outraged right-wing columnist noted recently, a Yiddish synonym for dullard or dope is "goyischer kopf," that is, someone who thinks like a non-Jew.

The question with which this book is concerned, however, is not so much the roots of anti-Jewish sentiment as the conditions under which such sentiment is likely to be politically mobilized. As we shall see, where an anti-Semitic politics becomes important, usually more is involved than simple malice toward the Jews. In politics, principles - even as unprincipled a principle as anti-Semitism - are seldom completely divorced from some set of political interests. In the case of anti-Semitism, major organized campaigns against the Jews usually reflect not only ethnic hatred, they also represent efforts by the political opponents of regimes or movements with which Jews are allied to destroy or supplant them. Anti-Semitism has an instrumental as well as an emotive character. Thus, to understand the cycle of Jewish success and anti-Semitic attack - and to understand why the United States is not exceptional - it is necessary to consider the place of Jews in politics particularly, as Hannah Arendt noted long ago, their peculiar relationship to the state. (Benjamin Ginsberg, The Fatal Embrace [Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1993], pp. 7-8)

And so yet again, Bob is caught quoting secondary sources as though they were primary sources, giving bad reference information, and leaving out rather important contextual statements - and all of this, even after he was informed by Ben Douglass back in 2006 that his source information was incorrect.

But what did Mark Wyatt say, once upon a time, when Bob was caught using a bogus quote in his Galileo Was Wrong manuscript?

Seeing that the quote appeared not accurate, I asked Robert about it, and upon investigation he admits that in fact the quote is incorrect. He has checked out practically every quote in the book for accuracy, unfortunately , that one he did not. He says he has purchased thousands of dollars worth of books and articles during the research phase, and carefully checked (and in some cases rejected / corrected) the quotes. The person who made the advertisement also liked the quote, so he used it in the ad.

He personally thanks you, since in fact he has not sent out the first CD's yet, and will expunge the quote (or correct it as makes sense) from both the ad and the book. He is a stickler for literary accuracy, and in fact it is a good thing you pointed this out. (Mark Wyatt, in defense of Bob Sungenis, source)

A "stickler for literary accuracy"? That statement is, at this point, just plain laughable.

And so, we turn again, with a new perspective, to Bob's claims about his own research:

The Jews are the best sources of information to talk about the Jews, it's amazing. That's what I found in doing my research. (Sungenis, on the radio program Mark Dankhof's America, February 23, 2007)

No, that is not what Bob has found in his research, because he hasn't done the primary research that would lead him to actually read the works of Jewish authors. What he meant to say above is that other anti-Jewish authors who quote Jews out of context are "the best sources of information to talk about the Jews." That is what he has "found" in doing his "research."

Jacob Michael the Prophet?

8) Attributed a bogus quote to Einstein

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

page 1

page 2

page 3

page 4

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

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

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

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

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

Enough said.

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

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

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

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

(Article)

Once again, here are the facts:

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

Page 1,
Page 2,
Page 3,
Page 4


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One will inevitably note several important facts:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

First, from the Bible:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One standard for me, another for thee.

Michael Forrest Apologizes and Offers a Correction

An Apology and Correction from Michael Forrest

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

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

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

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

Bob had this to say on page 4:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Link 1, Link 2, Link 3

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Unfortunately, I would say tragically, the Jews who are converting are not by and large finding their way to the Catholic Church- the conversion is largely comingfrom Protestant circles, notably those associated with Messianic Judaism. I believe this is due in large part to the Catholic Church having dropped the ball by eliminating all the Jewish festivals from Pesach to Sukkhot. As a result, when through the workings of Grace Jews are opened up to the truth of Jesus, rather than finding their way to the one true Church, they get scooped up by our separated brethren, who have generally adopted a more open and receptive attitude toward celebrating Jewish festivals.” (CAI, QA board, March, 2007)

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

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

Unfortunately, I would say tragically, the Jews who are converting are not by and large finding their way to the Catholic Church the conversion is largely coming from Protestant circles, notably those associated with “Messianic Judaism”. I believe this is due in large part to the Catholic Church having dropped the ball in a surfeit of sensitivity to hurting Jewish feelings as a result of the Holocaust, the interaction between the Church and the Jewish community has recently been dominated by a running away from any “threat” of conversion, at times going so far as to assert that Jews have no need for Christ, that God just wants them to remain faithful to their “original” covenant. As a result, when through the workings of Grace Jews are opened up to the truth of Jesus, rather than finding their way to the one true Church, which is far more Jewish than any of the Protestant denominations, they get scooped up by our “separated brethren”.
(Article)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1. Remove the quote asap

(see here)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Please pray for Bob this Lent.

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.