An Open Invitation to Bob Sungenis

A few months ago, Bob Sungenis stated that he had “publically
disavowed" and "apologized for” his problematic statements about the Jewish people. And Fr. Brian Harrison has just recently claimed that Bob has truly apologized for and retracted at least a good many of his statements about Jews. However, as has been documented here and here (see “disavow”), these claims are not accurate. Additionally, Bob has previously made statements that initially appear to be authentic apologies and retractions only to then reverse himself. In the past, he has stated that his apologies have been “misunderstood.” He has stated that he “stands by” all of the material he posted. He has also blamed his critics for "forcing" him to go back on his partial-apologies and promises.

As such, we would like to give Bob an opportunity to make the record clear. He stated the following to Michael Forrest:

“I am not coming to you asking you to remove your website [RSATJ] as if I have relinquished these beliefs about the Jewish people…I am coming to you saying that I am no longer advertising them, and you should reciprocate by taking down your website that rebuts them. If you don't take it down, then you will force me to take the appropriate counter-action. For instance, I will resume putting up Jewish articles on my site and I will revise and expand each one of them . . . As to the retraction in 2002, yes, I did it for "peace," because I still believed most of the things I wrote…Neither you nor anyone else is going to get me to change my mind about the Jews, Israel, Judaism and even Roy Schoeman. “ (e-mail of 6 Aug 2007).

And in 2008 at his Bellarmine Forum, Bob confirmed that he still holds to some of the views expressed below. He has also made new problematic statements since his January 2008 promise to stop attacking Jews (article).

As Bob has made the following statements publicly, we believe it is likewise incumbent upon him to indicate clearly and publicly which statements he retracts and apologizes for and which ones he does not. Certainly, some of the following sentiments and statements are considerably more problematic than others. However, taken as a whole, these statements and sentiments convey something significant as well.

Again, as there has been some confusion regarding previous “apologies” and “retractions”, two clarifications are in order:

A) In the past, Sungenis has apologized only for “upsetting” people or for the sake of “peace.” We are asking Sungenis specifically if he apologizes for each statement below because he acknowledges that it was inappropriate, dubious and/or erroneous and therefore should not have been made.

B) Sungenis has also inaccurately used the words “retract” and “disavow” in the past (scroll down to “disavow” ). As such, for the purposes of this open invitation, we will be following the standard definition of “retract.”

Retract: to revoke a statement or opinion as inaccurate or unjustified.

For each quote below, all Bob need do is state whether he retracts it or not and whether he apologizes for it or not. If Bob retracts and apologizes for all of the statements he made below, he may simply state that, rather than responding to each individual quote.

We sincerely hope Bob decides to make clear where he stands. Additionally, we will gladly remove the material presently at this blog and at the SATJ website if Bob forthrightly retracts and apologizes for the statements made below (click here to view new, problematic material posted at BTF).

Sungenis’ Statements:

1) “It’s time for people to wake up and stop being corralled by the Jewish slave masters.” (May 2008)

2) “How is it that the Jews have garnered such a market on suffering that Bishop Rhoades finds it necessary to pay homage to them? Is it because they own the mortgages on the Catholic buildings erected in his and other dioceses?” (May 2008)

3) "the Jewish element has so infected our Catholic Church today that they have turned Catholics into Jewish apologists. The infection of Judaism and Zionism has become the number one enemy for us."

4) "it is becoming increasingly difficult to believe that six million Jews were killed in Nazi internment camps." (Oct. 2009)

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

6) “The Red Cross documents in verifiable records at anyone’s disposal that there were only a few hundred thousand Jews who lost their lives in the German camps, and most of those were due to disease.” (Sept. 2009) (Click here to see a refutation of this claim often made by Holocaust deniers and "revisionists".)

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

8) "The documented records of the International Red Cross show that there were less than a few hundred thousand Jews who died in Nazi camps, and that most of those were from disease." (Oct. 2009) (Click here to see a refutation of this claim often made by Holocaust deniers and "revisionists". According to the International Committee of the Red Cross itself, this is not what these records "show.")

9) “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.'” (Click here for the facts about this fraudulent quote that Bob attributed to Einstein).

10) “it is no secret to the well-informed that it is the goal of world politics and finance, 
which is run in large part by wealthy Jews behind the scenes, to secure the Middle East for Israel.”

11) “Other Catholic organizations are also becoming fronts for Zionism. Catholic Answers in San Diego and the Eternal World Television Network seem to be the two mainstays.”

12) “I have my doubts that it was 6 million [Jews killed in the Holocaust], but even if it was 1 million, still, the point remains that they were a marked race by the Nazis. 
Hitler hated the Jews, not only for what he saw as a youth, but because the Jews had a stranglehold on European finance and banking for many years. 
 There are some stories, however, that suggest these Jewish banking familes actually helped Hitler in his quest, since their objective was to ellicit world-
wide sympathy so as to migrate European and Russian Jews to Palestine, their long-sought goal which they have, indeed, accomplished.”

13) "the figure of six million Jews dying under Hitler's regime is even admitted by informed Jews to be mere propaganda."

14) “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.”

15) “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. The story begins when Kennedy refused to capitulate to Israel’s demand for nuclear weapons, and you can probably guess the rest of the story.”

16) “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.”

17) “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.”

18) "The Jews...do intend to rule the world. And now the problem is that they want to rule the Catholic Church, too."

19) "Are the Protocols (of the Elders of Zion) forged? I don’t know. What I do know is that there is a lot of reason to believe that there are certain people, yes, the Jews, who would like us all to believe that they are forged."

20) "as long as [my critics] hold to the Jewish racist heresies of Roy Schoeman and refuse to condemn the USCCB and other hierarchy for their capitulation to the Jews, then they will never be my friends, they will be my enemies. God will be the judge of who of us has been right."

21) "You know, the thing about Bill Clinton was, you know, he tried to secure this peace accord between Israel and the Arabs and wasn't successful with that, and he did some other things that the Jews didn't like, because he got some power under him and he thought he could, you know, do whatever he wanted and then they, you know, they sent Monica Lewinski in there after him, you know, and brought him down."

22) "The Jews are godless and getting more ungodly with each passing day."

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

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

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

26) "95% of the Jews today still despise Jesus Christ.”

27) "The whole tenor of the New Testament is that God is finally rejecting the Jews (except for a remnant)...God is giving up on the Jews. In the language of John 6:44, God is no longer going to draw them to Jesus.
 In fact, God will become active in keeping them in unbelief by blinding 
them to the truth (Romans 11:8). That is the kind of God we have; a 
very dynamic God...and the Jews will die in their unbelief."

28) “when (Jews) come into power…they can be some of the 
most ruthless people on the face of the earth."

29) " Jones,...makes an indelible impression upon our minds as he adds two millennia of documented facts and figures onto St. Paul's final and sobering assessment of the Jews: 'the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets and persecuted us; they do not please God, and are opposed to everyone, trying to prevent us from speaking to the Gentiles that they may be saved, thus constantly filling up the measure of their sins' (1 Thessalonians 2:15-16)....All his facts and figures are for the purpose of showing us that St. John's label of godless Jews as the 'synagogue of Satan,' the spirit of Antichrist, is not only alive and well today but has almost completely overwhelmed our modern society, thus serving as a public omen to the world that the Apocalypse has, indeed, come upon us, in full and furious force"

30) "...I tell you, with the rest of the voice from the tradition of the Church, that the Jews will seek to take over and/or thoroughly weaken the Catholic religion, and perhaps someday be strong enough to place one of their own as its leader."

31) "every place that [the Jews] have been throughout history, they have been excised. Because they do the same thing every time they go in there, they try to take over places that they go to! And every time they do, people get wise to it, just like we're doing now, and they get themselves into trouble. And then they wonder why they're so persecuted, and vagabonds across the face of the earth for the last 2,000 years -- well, this is why!"

32) “I suggest you stop blaming it on the nation who excised [the Jews] and start looking at what the Jewish people do to get themselves excised…go read the Old Testament and find out who you are dealing with.” (Sept. 2009)

33) “As for Germany’s relationship with the Jews, well, the Germans treated the Jews very nicely when the Jews were excised out of Russia and migrated to Germany. Then the Jews turned on the Germans because they got a better deal from someone else.” (Sept. 2009)

34) “Whether [David Palm, Michael Forrest and Jacob Michael] 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.”

35) “Go read the newspapers. There’s enough damning information about the Jewish influence and incursion into the Catholic Church just in the last two years to show I’m on the right track. The real problem is that there isn’t one courageous Catholic apologist in America that is willing to take on the Jews. They are all too worried about their careers and making friends rather than the truth of what is really occurring in our land…They are just upset that Robert Sungenis won’t play their game. Wonderful. I’m glad they are upset. That shows me I’m doing the right thing.” (Sept. 2009)

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

37) "In fact, Schoeman holds that those who say that the state of Israel is merely a man-made political movement that has nothing to do with Old Testament prophecy is 'of the antichrist.'"

38) About a year and a half ago, Sungenis publicly claimed that Roy Schoeman wrote the following statement:

“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 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.”

(Click here for the facts about this fraudulent quote.)

39) In regard to Bishop Rhoades:

a) Sungenis has publicly accused Bishop Rhoades of holding to a false doctrine (which Sungenis also called a “heresy”). This false doctrine is commonly referred to as the “Dual Covenant” error, which posits that the Jewish people possess their own, salvific covenant with God.

b) Sungenis publicly claimed that Bishop Rhoades is “attempting to propagate” this error to “unsuspecting Catholics”.

c) Sungenis publicly claimed that Bishop Rhoades possesses greater “allegiances” to Jewish interests than to the Catholic faith.

d) Sungenis publicly claimed that Bishop Rhoades is attempting to stop him from exposing and refuting this doctrinal error.

40) "The bishop and the vicar general of my diocese are teaching heretical doctrines to the priests under their care...and refusing to do anything to remedy the situation....[Bishop Rhoades] and his vicar general tried to force me to adopt their heresy and I refused." (Sept. 2009)

(View the following articles that refute Bob's false accusations about Bishop Rhoades: Bishop Rhoades and the Dual Covenant Theory, By Sungenis Alone, Bishop Rhoades Sets the Record Straight.)

All of the above statements attributed to Sungenis have been verified. Links to each statement may be found at www.sungenisandthejews.com/Section2.html and http://sungenisandthejews.blogspot.com/

Sixteen Proofs of Sungenis's Anti-Semitism

an·ti-Sem·i·tism

Function: noun

hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group (Merriam-Webster)

pla·gia·rize

Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): -rized; -riz·ing
transitive verb: to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source
intransitive verb: to commit literary theft : present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source (Merriam-Webster)

anti-Semitism

Theory, action, or practice directed against the Jews. Hence anti-'Semite, one who is hostile or opposed to the Jews; anti-Se'mitic a. (Oxford English Dictionary)

Plagiarism, n.

The action or practice of taking someone else's work, idea, etc., and passing it off as one's own; literary theft. (Oxford English Dictionary)

On the QA board at LumenGentleman, a man called "Bill", a long-time Sungenis supporter, submitted a question concerning Bob's anti-Semitism. After going back and forth with Bill a few times, I took the discussion off-line into private emails with Bill. He asked for proof of Bob's anti-Semitism, and I sent him 16 points to get him started.

Apparently Bill is serving as Bob's carrier pigeon, because he later submitted another QA at my web site, this time under a misleading name ("JJ"), asking me about my alleged Jewish ancestry. Bill later admitted to me that Bob put him up to this, even though he had reservations about doing so (he wrote to Bob later, "Something, although I don't know what, made me hesitate to ask Jacob whether he had Jewish ancestors. But I asked him anyhow because you wanted me to do that").

Did you catch that? Bob Sungenis employed a Nazi tactic, using this gentleman as a stool-pigeon for the purpose of possibly "outing" a Jew. Joseph Goebbels would have been proud. Indeed, contrary to his claims, Bob Sungenis continues to give hard evidence that he would have been quite comfortable living under the Third Reich.

After I sent Bill the 16 points I had used to outline documented instances of Bob's anti-Semitism, he forwarded my email to Bob, and Bob has taken it upon himself to publish both my email and his responses on his web site (Jacob Michael: Still Confused and Calumniating - yet another in the Confused and Calumniating series; at least Bob hasn't lost his creative edge, eh?). As a side note, I am not surprised that Bob did not disclose the fact that he pressured Bill, against Bill's conscience, to play the part of a stool-pigeon in helping Bob to conduct his Jew-hunt. Perhaps Bob learned these tactics of persuasion during the years when he was enjoying a "successful sales career" (cf. Surprised by Truth, p. 109) - which is, of course, the same explanation he hypocritically tried to pin on Michael Forrest ("Michael is an insurance agent by profession, and he knows how to convince people of what he wants to sell them", Michael Forrest and the Jews, p. 11; this statement is misleading anyway - Forrest is a manager by trade and education).

This isn't the first time a supporter of Bob's has drawn someone into a conversation, only to turn it over to Bob in the end. Others of Bob's supporters have done the same thing; Edgar Suter, for example, drew Leon Suprenant into a dialogue about Bob which he then forwarded along to Bob, and Bob promptly inserted himself into the discussion and published the results on his web site. This is nothing new, in other words.

Now, Bill was certainly free to share my private emails with Bob. That's how the electronic communications privacy laws work. However, given Bob's repeated tirades about how my usage of his private emails constitutes a violation of privacy and the breaking of civil law, his behavior here is rather curious. It just underscores again that he operates according to a double standard. And while I won't be threatening to sue Bob for invasion of privacy, I will say that I expect him to either 1) retract his allegations of invasion of privacy against me, or 2) admit that he is now guilty of the same thing he accused me of doing. I wonder which option he will choose? (hint: "he'll ignore both" is the right answer)

The nice thing about the fact that Bob has inserted himself into my private discussion with Bill is that I now have a chance to show the full documentation behind those 16 points (contrary to Bob's statement, "He gave Bill 17 reasons" - alas, it seems Bob has once again dispensed himself from the obligation to read carefully, and cannot be bothered with even the most basic details), and thus make the case for Bob's anti-Semitism that much stronger.

In the past five years, Bob has:

1) Said that the Jews are an "inherently violent" people

R. Sungenis: Where did I say it? Chapter and verse, please. This is Mr. Michael's usual innuendo approach.

Here it is:

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. (QA, January 2006, q. 8)

2) Said that the Jews intend to rule the world

R. Sungenis: Some Jews intend to rule the world.

Suddenly Bob wants to introduce a distinction: "some Jews intend to rule the world." But this has not been his claim in the past. Here are his words:

"The Jews ... do intend to rule the world. And now the problem is that they want to rule the Catholic Church, too." (QA, November 2006, q. 47)

No distinctions, no qualifications.

3) Said that Disney movies used to be more wholesome, because Disney had a policy of not hiring Jews - the Jews are to blame for the moral decline

R. Sungenis: And where in this is the charge of "anti-semitism" substantiated?

Notice: no denial that he did, in fact, say this about the Jews. Point conceded again.

4) Said that FDR's Jewish ancestry was his motivation for conspiring to allow the events at Pearl Harbor to happen

R. Sungenis: No, I said that FDR's Jewish ancestry made him sympathetic to Jewish causes.

Yes, and according to Bob, FDR's sympathy "to Jewish causes" includes the fact that he purposely allowed the bombing of Pearl Harbor, precisely because of his sympathy "to Jewish causes":

Earlier in 1933, he had given 200 million dollars to the Russians, who were mostly Jewish Bolsheviks. 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. (Sungenis, Uncorking the Erroneous Teachings, False Allegations and Liberal Agenda of William Cork)

Keep in mind that Bob's claims regarding FDR on this point concern the fact that FDR was only partially Jewish, that he had some Jewish ancestry in his distant past. I suppose that if it could be shown that General Custer had some Indian ancestry in his distant past, this would be enough to explain the defeat at Little Big Horn as well?

5) Said that the Jews are behind JFK's assassination

R. Sungenis: No, I said that there is evidence that SOME Jews were INVOLVED in the JFK assassination, but Mr. Michael's game is to make it sound as if I believe the Jews, as a race of people, hated JFK and wanted to kill him.

Here we go:

Incidentally, Edgar Bronfman is also the head of the World Jewish Congress, one of the most powerful Zionist groups in the world. We also know through the exhaustive effort of Michael Collins Piper's new 738-page book, Final Judgment, how Bronfman is implicated in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The story begins when Kennedy refused to capitulate to Israel's demand for nuclear weapons. (Sungenis, Neo-Cons and the Jewish Connection)

Note: it's not just Bronfman - it is Bronfman as a member of a world-leading Zionist group. Notice also that Bob writes in his original statement, "we also know", not simply "there is evidence". As he has been his M.O. lately, Bob continues to try to water down the confidence with which he once made his claims (hence his ubiquitous use of phrases such as "I simply said", or "I merely claimed").

6) Treated Jewish converts as dishonest infiltrators who have are operating according to schemes to destroy the Church

R. Sungenis: Notice the hateful language Mr. Michael uses to describe it. That makes for good demagoguery, and he is an expert at it. I never used that terminology at all.

The written record shows otherwise.

Dishonesty

From Bob's letter to Culture Wars (written before he had read Schoeman's book): "If we really want to be honest about what Catholic tradition and Scripture say about Schoeman's predictions, the evidence is, at best, divided."

Michael Forrest emailed Bob about this in April of 2004 and asked him to clarify: "I'm sure you didn't mean it this way, but by saying "we" and "honest", this sentence appears to question the honesty and integrity of those who see things differently than you on this subject."

Bob would have none of it: "No, I do mean "honest." Of the people I have dealt with on this subject, they form a deliberate animosity when someone like myself is trying to give the other side of the story." (email of April 2, 2004)

As David Palm concluded: "Without having read Schoeman's book or spoken to him, Sungenis already knows that Schoeman is dealing dishonestly with the evidence. In his mind, any opposition to his conclusions stems from a 'deliberate animosity'." (Palm, Sources, Schoeman, and the Credibility of Bob Sungenis [Part 2, Section 1])

Infiltration

But not only do I contend that Moss and Schoeman are reintroducing a modern-day Judaizing theology, I would go so far as to say that it is a hyper-Judaizing theology. This is especially the case with Roy Schoeman, as he has outlined his case in his book, Salvation is from the Jews. . . . it is not merely "Judaizing," it is "hyper-Judaizing." Even the Judaizers of St. Paul's day didn't attempt to do what Mr. Schoeman is doing. (Sungenis, The theology of Jewish Converts Roy Schoeman and David Moss, emphasis added)

Destroying the Church

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, March 2006, q. 16, emphasis added)

Sungenis's own words stand against him. He has said that Roy Schoeman (a Jewish convert) is dishonest, is infiltrating the Church with hyper-judaizing theology, and is threatening to bring the Church down with "one of the most pernicious and nefarious heresies the Church has ever faced."

7) Routinely posted material from neo-Nazi and White Supremacist web sites

R. Sungenis: This is just another case of Mr. Michael continuing his sin of slander and innuendo. I have explained this about a dozen times, but Mr. Michael refuses to listen. Five years ago I mistakenly quoted from a Nazi website because I didn't know it was a Nazi website ... I have since apologized for that and there has never been a time since then that I have made the same mistake.

Not true. In the past five years, Sungenis has used Hoffman, Piper, Counterpunch, Pike, Mohr, Dilling, Ley, National Vanguard, Institute for Historical Review, Shamir, et al. This is all documented at www.sungenisandthejews.com.

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.

Furthermore, Mr. Michael never deals with the lecherous life of the Zionist, Albert Einstein. He just ignores it like it never happened, yet I have documented it in clear and concise words. See my paper at ( http://www.catholicintl.com/noncatholicissues/personal_lives.htm)

I wasn't aware that delving into the personal moral life of one's ideological opponent was a legitimate approach to debate. Is Bob hereby giving me his approval to begin delving into his own personal moral life as part of my criticisms of him?

9) Attributed a bogus quote to Roy Schoeman

R. Sungenis: No one has proven that it was "bogus." But leave it to Mr. Michael to ignore the fact that even though I did not obtain the proof I demanded from Mr. Schoeman, I took down the quote as a measure of good will to him, and told him so. This is just more of Mr. Michael's sinful slander.

"No one has proven that it was 'bogus'"?! Apparently Bob has a backward view when it comes to making accusations: in his world, an accusation can be made (even if not verified), and then that accusation must be allowed to stand until it is proven false! Let's apply this standard to Bob, shall we? I have reason to believe that Bob Sungenis is a homosexual, and in fact, a friend of mine copied down a quote from one of Bob's talks wherein Bob admitted that he struggles with homosexual tendencies. Now, since no one has proven that claim is false, or that my friend's "quote" is bogus, I suppose Bob will have no problem if I let that claim stand?

Somehow I think Bob will suddenly recover a sense of justice and fairness when it is cast in those terms.

As for Bob's magnanimous gesture of "good will" in removing the bogus (yes, bogus) quote, his gesture loses some of its allure in light of what he said about Roy in the process. But this will be dealt with in the next point:

10) Accused Roy Schoeman of secretly altering the quote in order to make Bob look bad.

R. Sungenis: No, I never accused Mr. Schoeman of altering the quote. I said that it is a possibility that someone altered the quote.

Wrong again. Here is what Bob wrote in one of his many "revised" editions of his article David Palm: Confused and Calumniating (ironic title, isn't it?):

All I can say is that both these quotes will stay together until I get to the bottom of this story, and that may take some time. Either someone doctored the quote before they sent it to me, or the original version that Schoeman wrote was changed by either Schoeman or AHC before it was put on the AHC website, or there was a separate "Newsletter" that was distinct from what AHC has on their website. ("Palm", p. 8, emphasis added)

Bob only names one specific name here: Schoeman.

11) Implied that the real reason why I, Michael Forrest, and David Palm have opposed him is because we have Jewish ancestry that we are hiding

R. Sungenis: No, Mr. Michael is lying again. I merely stated the fact that several of my opponents base their antagonism of me upon their tribal loyalty to their Jewish heritage. That being the case, I wanted to know if Mr. Michael, Mr. Forrest and Mr. Palm also had tribal loyalty to Jewish heritage that they were not revealing. So far, all three of them have refused to answer the question.

Here we go again with the "I merely" statements. I'll take the words above as a concession of the point. Bob's long-winded explanation above is exactly as I said it was: he thinks that the reason we're opposing him is because of "tribal loyalty to their Jewish heritage", and he finds it significant that "all three of them have refused to answer the question." Thanks for the admission. And just to be perfectly clear, Bob did far more than "merely" ask about our ancestry ("I wanted to know ...") - he insinuated it, and accused us of hiding it:

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. (Sungenis, David Palm: Still Confused and Calumniating, p. 4, emphasis added)

On that score, let me repeat what I wrote in my QA a few days ago when Bill asked me about my Jewish ancestry (again, under pressure from Bob, in order to "out" me as a Jew):

If you actually believe that one's ethnicity plays a critical role in the issues surrounding Sungenis and anti-Semitism, then you should start by asking Bob about his Italian heritage - nay, his Sicilian heritage (read: Mafia). Maybe Bob has ancestral ties to Mussolini, and maybe this would explain why Bob has such an animosity for the Jews. Perhaps his Sicilian blood makes him genetically prone to anti-Semitism. Does that sound reasonable?

Of course it doesn't, Bill, because it's a stupid line of reasoning, and an incredibly specious one at that. Bob himself would be the first to tell you as much, the second you started questioning him about his Italian blood and suggesting that this is why he has such an animus towards the Jews. Unfortunately, his stubbornness blinds him to this reality, and so he continues to act as though my ancestry (and Michael Forrest's, and David Palm's, and Ben Douglass's) means something in this debate.

12) Accepted as definitive and authoritative the witness of only two or three Church Fathers when they said that Anti Christ would be a Jew

R. Sungenis: No, never did that. I merely mentioned that these Fathers held such a view and used it as support for the possibility that it may indeed happen that way. I never said their views were "definitive or authoritative." Chapter and verse, Mr. Michael?

Again with the "merely"? No, Bob did more than "merely mention" this assertion. Here is the "chapter and verse" he requests:

I believe that the AntiChrist will be of Jewish extraction and will reside in Israel and seek to set up temple worship. Many of the Fathers and Medievals saw this as well. (QA, July 2004, q. 11)

From Bob's "Many of the Fathers and Medievals", we then arrive at what he calls the "unofficial declaration" of the Church:

In fact, not only has Catholic tradition denied the Chiliast/Zionist interpretations of Scripture, it has unofficially declared that the future Antichrist will be of Jewish extraction. (Sungenis, Neo-Conservatism and the Evangelical/Protestant Connection)

Let it be said that this point alone says nothing about Bob's anti-Semitism. I am not saying that the position of the Fathers on this issue is an anti-Semitic position. Rather, Bob's anti-Semitism emerges when this point is joined to the next point: that he also rejects the witness of the Fathers when they speak of Israel's future conversion. To make it clear: he accepts the witness of just a few Fathers when the issue surrounds something negative about the Jews, but challenges the witness of dozens of Fathers when the issue is something positive about the Jews.

13) Rejected the witness of literally dozens and dozens of Church Fathers when they said that the Jews will one day convert to Christ

R. Sungenis: No, I didn't reject it. I merely said that there was no consensus among them because some of them had varying opinions.

And once again, Bob "merely said". Notice how Bob consistently tries to soft-pedal the certainty with which he made his claims, once he is called on the carpet for them. Where the majority of Fathers speak of a future conversion of the Jews, often specifically referencing Romans 11, Bob rejects their witness on this issue, as well as their interpretation of Romans 11, and arrogantly offers his own corrective exegesis:

St. Paul and the rest of Scripture teach that the "hardening" upon the larger part of Jewry will persist right up until the Last Day when Christ returns. Suffice it to say, St.Paul does not teach that there will be a separate program of salvation or a massive conversion of the Jews. The whole context of Romans 11 speaks only of a "remnant" of Jews that will become saved, and the rest will remain hardened (cf. Rm 9:18-32; 11:5-23). (Sungenis, Roy Schoeman, the Jews, and the Old Covenant, p. 31, emphasis added)

His estimation of his own exegetical skills is so inflated that he does not hesitate to make such condescending comments as, "Not knowing Hebrew, Chrysostom and Augustine often end up in unsupported exegesis by relying only on the LXX" (Sungenis, Intense Dialogue), "the fact remains that Chrysostom did not know Hebrew, and therefore couldn't even know what the original said" (ibid), and "neither Jerome, Cyril or Chrysostom give a thorough exegesis of the passages in question (Romans 11:25-26). In fact, Chrysostom incorrectly turns the Greek "houtos" in Romans 11:26 from its function as an adverb modifying how Israel will be saved into a future time element for the salvation." (Sungenis, Judaizers in the Catholic Church) This last claim is especially audacious, given that St. John Chrysostom's native tongue was Greek.

14) Said that rich Jews financed the Holocaust, agreeing to the death of millions of their own, all in order to be able to one day use the Holocaust as a political tool in getting their land back

R. Sungenis: I said it was one possibility, according to the documented evidence presented in various books written on the subject. Has Mr. Michael read any of these books or has he refuted any of the allegations with factual evidence of his own?

Here are Bob's own words on the subject: "the Jews had a stranglehold on European finance and banking for many years. There are some stories, however, that suggest these Jewish banking familes actually helped Hitler in his quest, since their objective was to ellicit world-wide sympathy so as to migrate European and Russian Jews to Palestine, their long-sought goal which they have, indeed, accomplished." (email of February 14, 2005)

Let's put this in a context that Bob will understand. Did I mention that I have heard "some stories" that "suggest" that Bob Sungenis is a pedophile? Now, I'm not saying it's the truth, or that you have to believe it. I'm "merely" saying that this is "one possibility." Has Bob "refuted" this allegation "with factual evidence of his own?" (No, I'm not really suggesting that Bob is a pedophile - I am demonstrating the impact and ramifications of the way he utilizes this kind of innuendo and insinuation).

15) Defended as legitimate the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion

R. Sungenis: Wrong again. I said I didn't know whether they were legitimate or not, since I have not done a thorough investigation into the issue.

David Palm asserted in Sungenis and the Jews: Sources, Schoeman, and Sungenis that "as early as 1921 the Protocols had been conclusively shown to be a forgery by the London Times." He followed this statement with a link to a Wikipedia article that contained the necessary proof of his claim. Bob's response to this statement was to ignore the evidence (probably he didn't even bother to look at it), to accuse Palm of having a closed mind, and to state that the Jews would like us to believe they are forged. Here are his words:

All we know for sure is that there is a battle between one side and the other of whether the Protocols are forged. Mr. Palm thinks that just because he asserts they are forged, the case is closed. It is not, by any stretch. All it shows is that Mr. Palm has a closed mind on the issue. Are the Protocols forged? I don't know. What I do know is that there is a lot of reason to believe that there are certain people, yes, the Jews, who would like us all to believe that they are forged. (Sungenis, My Response to David Palm's "Sungenis and the Jews: Sources, Schoeman, and Sungenis", p. 16)

Bob can try to hide all he wants behind his shoulder-shrugging "I don't know", but this is about as convincing as his statement that he "doesn't know" whether the bogus quote he pinned on Schoeman is really bogus. We've already seen Bob's thought pattern: if you can't prove it's false, or even if you can prove it's false but he decides not to read the evidence, then he can continue to claim it as true.

To make the point clearer: David demonstrated the illegitimacy of the Protocols. Bob quickly and vehemently took him to task for it. While Bob wants to once again soft-pedal and say "I said I didn't know whether they were legitimate or not", his words above show that he said much more than that. He played the innuendo game again and insinuated that, because "the Jews would like us to believe they are forged", this is reason enough to defend their legitimacy. David took up a position against the Protocols, and Bob opposed him.

16) Plagiarized from neo-Nazis, White Supremacists, and other sources

R. Sungenis: This was already explained above, but let me say more. There was one instance, five years ago, in which I copied and pasted material for an article I wrote. I rearranged the wording so that I did not quote directly from the source, but Mr. Cork (who admits his family is Jewish) accused me of plagiarism, even though I denied the charge.

"One instance"? Just "five years ago"? Hardly. Bob has plagiarized from several different sources, on several different occasions, including Ley (a Nazi), Mohr (a White Supremacist), Fr. Fahey, Vennari, Weber, Pike, the Journal of Historical Review, a bogus quote in Galileo Was Wrong attributed to Truesdell, a bogus quote attributed to Einstein, a bogus quote attributed to John Paul II, a bogus quote attributed to Christopher Blosser, and a bogus quote attributed to Ariel Sharon. He has repeatedly copied material from other people's work and used it without any attribution whatsoever, thus making it appear as though the work was his own.

This is plagiarism, and none of Bob's denials of this fact or attempts to redefine "plagiarism" will change this fact. Merriam-Webster defines "plagiarize" as follows: "to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source." David Palm has documented that this very thing has been going on at least up until January 2007 (the most recent example being the "12 points" of anti-Semitism which he lifted from Ted Pike, again without attribution). This is far more than "one instance" which took place "five years ago."

Here's an interesting exercise for the reader: visit Bob's web site today and count the number of "news alerts" that Bob has posted without attribution, which makes it appear as though the work is his. Visit Bob's web site today and count the number of "Book Recommendations" that Bob has copied and pasted from Amazon.com or the Barnes & Noble web site, without attribution, which makes it appear as though he wrote the reviews himself. No, Bob's problem with plagiarism is not limited to just "one instance" from "five years ago" - it's an ongoing problem, today, here and now.

The most voluminous example of this was his plagiarism of sixteen paragraphs of Jack Mohr's book The Effects of the Talmud on Judeo-Christianity, which has been documented here. To this day, Bob has refused to even admit that what he engaged in here was true plagiarism. Sixteen paragraphs of plagiarized work says otherwise.

This was a private article which I had no intentions of publishing on the open market. Had I plans to publish it on the open market, every statement would have been properly footnoted and with a bibliography, as is the case with every book I have ever written.

No, it was a public article posted on his web site, and thousands upon thousands of people saw it. Let's not forget, either, that this web site is the source of Bob's livelihood - as he has so often reminded us. Therefore, everything that goes up on his site is both public and for profit - which is precisely "publishing on the open market." Regardless, Bob simply and conveniently absolves himself of the responsibility to use proper attribution; apparently, if it's just a "private article," even if only in his own eyes, plagiarizing is acceptable.

In fact, I am noted in the scholarly world for voluminous footnotes and bibliographies in my books because I take great pride and care in giving people the actual words and sources for all my material in case they want to look it up themselves. But leave it to a sinful slanderer like Jacob Michael to distort all this and make people think that I am a practicing plagiarist!

All the more reason, then, to make the charge: Bob apparently knows what the standards are, and has gone to great lengths to respect those standards in the past. Thus, it must said again, when the issue is criticizing the Jews, Bob ignores the standards and does the copy-and-paste routine with reckless abandon. If he knows the standards, why does he dispense with them when writing against the Jews? Prejudice, predisposition to accept anti-Jewish claims without verification, bigotry, animus, hostility toward the Jews - in a word, anti-Semitism.

Protestant evangelicalism, from which Mr. Michael originates, holds to the same standards - if you don't accept that God will convert the last generation of Jews, and if you do not believe that the nation state of Israel is a God-ordained movement of prophecy, then they regard you as anti-semitic. Mr. Michael carried that baggage over to Catholicism when he converted, and you can see it all over his writings.

There he goes again with the unsubstantiated and completely inaccurate charges. Perhaps Bob should have asked me about what my former Protestant beliefs were before he leveled this new reckless accusation. The God-ordained status of the nation state of Israel certainly wasn't among those beliefs, so it's difficult to imagine how I could have "carried that baggage over to Catholicism" when I converted. However, since what Bob has alleged here has not been verified, it's as good as true - right?

No, I never said Schoeman was "a Jew first and Catholic second." I said that Roy Schoeman, a Jewish convert, is teaching false things about the Catholic faith about which any good Catholic should be alarmed.

Au contraire. Here, once again, are Bob's own words:

Suffice it to say, Mr. Schoeman is on a mission ... This is not about "ethnic" acceptance of Jews, but about Schoeman's attempt to revise Catholic theology for the sake of the Jews. (Sungenis, The theology of Jewish Converts Roy Schoeman and David Moss, emphasis added)

After reading Mr. Schoeman's book, Salvation is from the Jews," I have come to the conclusion that 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. (ibid, emphasis added)

Roy Schoeman, for example, although he comes across as a sincere Catholic convert, his book, Salvation is from the Jews: The Role of Judaism in Salvation History from Abraham to the Second Coming (Ignatius Press, 2003) is one of the most audacious attempts at promoting the Zionist agenda ever written. (Sungenis, Genesis and the Jewish Connection, Part 1, emphasis added)

And, once and for all, I suggest my critics start listening to what I am saying about the anti-Christ, anti-Catholic and anti-Christian influence that various Jewish organizations are having on us, including but not limited to ... the Association of Hebrew Catholics ( e.g., David Moss, Roy Schoeman, etc.), and any other such organization that puts Jewish political, religious and social interests above those of the Catholic faith and the rest of the world. (Sungenis, Christopher Blosser and the Catholic ADL, p. 5, emphasis added)

Yes, Bob most certainly has accused Roy Schoeman of being a Jew first, and a Catholic second.

Mr. Forrest tried to do the same with Hosea 3:5. The fact is that Roy Schoeman's interpretation of Scripture is much closer to Protestant Dispensationalism (Mr. Michael's former Protestant playground) than it is to Haydock and Orchard.

This has been documented several times, so I don't know why Bob continues to play fast and loose with the facts. Schoeman interpreted Hos. 3:5 as a reference to the Second Coming of Christ and the future conversion of the Jews, and Bob accused him of trying to "confiscate [this passage] for Zionism" (Sungenis, Judaizers in the Catholic Church). The problem is that the Haydock Bible gives the exact same interpretation of Hos. 3:5 as Schoeman gave - Bob has just failed to recognize the implications of this. Logically, if Schoeman's interpretation was particularly Zionist, then so was Haydock's - because they interpret the verse the same way. For that matter, if Bob sees a belief in the future conversion of the Jews as a particularly Zionist position, what does that mean for Bob's admission that "At best there is a prevalent opinion in the early Church that the last generation of Jews might be saved en masse" (Sungenis, I'm Mad and I'm Not Going to Take it Anymore, p. 19)? For once, it would be nice to see Bob simply admit his error, and retract it.

I'm not holding my breath.

Sources, Schoeman, and Sungenis

February 5, 2007, Feast of St. Agatha

Disclaimer: External links in support of individual points in this article are cited in support of the specific point under discussion only. They do not imply agreement with any other view held by the author.

Bob, you have been the target of a massive campaign by the Jewish establishment and their shabbat goys to destroy your apostolate and your reputation. Don't lose heart. I know it must be infuriating when some of your enemies were your former co-workers at CAI. Well, our Lord had Judas, and you had them. But be of good cheer. Your enemies will soon be snared by their own crookedness, and their Jewish handlers will throw them to the dogs. (Question 44, Q&A Jan 2007)

The "question" above was on CAI's Question and Answer board on or about Jan 23. Bob vigorously thanked the writer: "Steve, thank you for your support!" (By the way, Steve, my Jewish handlers suggested I let you know that it ought to be shabbat goyim, not goys.) When I saw this, I wrote to CAI's vice president, Ben Douglass, to see if this was really the sort of rhetoric that he thought should be prominently displayed on CAI's site. Apparently not. The question came down in a few days; if you click the link above you'll see that this Question 44 has been replaced by a different Question 44.

So once again we face this strange spectacle: a twenty-something university student has at least the modicum of common sense needed to rein in the fifty-something head of a Catholic apologetics organization, who just can't resist posting the most extreme conspiratorial and Jew-baiting verbiage on his Web site. And this, as we will see below, after the head of this organization has promised again and again (and again!) to tone down his rhetoric and check his sources.

And that's what Part 1 of this essay is about - Bob's repeated use of plagiarized, tainted, inaccurate, and extreme sources in his writings. But before I tackle that topic, I need to say a few words about what this essay is not. This is not about trying to silence any and all criticism of things Jewish, whether discussed in the Catholic Church or in the public sphere. The charge has been thrown out by Bob over and over, without any actual evidence but backed by invincible certitude nonetheless, that all his "critics" want to do is forestall any and all discussion on "Jewish issues" and to vindicate everything Jewish.

On the contrary, Michael Forrest and Jacob Michael have already said - and I add my voice to theirs - that I am not at all against responsible discussion and criticism of "Jewish issues". And for my part - not speaking for the others on this point - I am indeed concerned about the prudence and even the orthodoxy of some of the things that certain Jewish converts in the Church have reportedly said. As I have opportunity and feel called to do so, I will address these things in future essays. Rather, as with both Michael Forrest and Jacob Michael, I am against Bob Sungenis discussing and criticizing Jewish issues. Why? For these four reasons, so well stated and supported by Forrest in Sungenis and the Jews:

1) Bob Sungenis expresses views in regard to "Jewish issues" in such a way as to explicitly or implicitly convey a level of certainty and authentic scholarship that is materially exaggerated. He is not an authority or expert on these issues.

2) He has repeated verbatim or sometimes merely reformulated slightly writings he has obtained from others on Jewish issues. He has sometimes represented these as his own, without acknowledgment or attribution and has even defended these practices.

3) He 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.

4) He maintains a vigorous commitment to expressing and propagating these views and an unwillingness to retract or genuinely apologize for any of them. (Michael Forrest, Sungenis and the Jews, Section 1, Introduction)

If anybody wanted proof of the last part of Forrest's third reason for posting "Robert Sungenis and the Jews" - that Bob's treatment of Jewish issues "has drawn others with similar proclivities to his website" - one need go no further than the citation that opened this essay. But in fact, Bob's behavior since the publication of Forrest's Web site has materially supported all four points. And this is true most notably in Bob's problem with sources - what he cites, how he cites it, and what he does not cite.

So Why Am I Writing This?

This present essay is written in response to a challenge Bob issued to me in an e-mail of 20 Jan 2007. This was in response to a question I had sent to CAI, asking where, exactly, Bob had gotten some quotations which he was attributing to Roy Schoeman and his book Salvation is From the Jews. Bob never did provide the quotes; as I suspected, his "quotations" from Schoeman were really his paraphrase of what he thinks Schoeman is saying. But with his reply came a challenge to me concerning Schoeman: "I'll thank you, Mr. Palm, for clarifying whether you accept Mr. Schoeman's assertion that the New Covenant did not replace the Old Covenant. Just tell me in a brief reply by email whether you accept or reject his assertion. I'll know what to do from there. If you don't reply, then I'll assume that you've decided not to condemn what is an obvious error in Mr. Schoeman's theology" (e-mail of 20 Jan 2007). Bob's challenge to me has been the catalyst for a significant amount of study, not only of his treatment of Roy Schoeman and his book, but also the larger issue of Bob's serious problems with plagiarism, accuracy, fairness, and extremism. The first part of this essay, then, will set the stage by examining the sources and sloppiness of Bob Sungenis.

Bob's problem with sources and accuracy burst onto the scene with his publication of the article "Conversion of the Jews Not Necessary?? The Apocalyptic Ramifications of a Novel Teaching" in September of 2002. It has been well established that in support of his critique of Jews and Judaism, Bob plagiarized neo-Nazi, White Supremacist, and Holocaust denial sources (see William Cork, Antisemitism and the Catholic Right). That article touched off a controversy that has continued to this day. Since 2002 Bob has continued to write and post highly inflammatory material on Jewish issues. It was the posting of material from the white supremacist National Vanguard that was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back, that pushed Michael Forrest to go forward with www.sungenisandthejews.com in an effort to warn the Catholic community about the dubious nature of the Jewish material on CAI's web site.

As part of damage control from the fallout of www.sungenisandthejews.com, Bob had to admit that his scholarship had been sloppy and seemed to indicate that some of his sources are questionable:

I seem to have a tendency to cite sources that are from what are believed to be extremist viewpoints. That I grant him. I've been informed of this a couple of times, even by my own vice president, Ben Douglass. If Forrest and the gang want to fault me here, they have every right to do so, and I can only say that I will be much more careful in the future. . . . Yes, that is sloppy scholarship, and the buck should stop with me. (Sungenis, Michael Forrest and the Jews, p. 10)

But note well that Bob does not actually admit that he has cited extremist sources; he admits only to citing those which "are believed to be extremist", which would include, presumably, the blatantly racist National Vanguard. Bob's reticence to explicitly distance himself from his sources justifiably raises concerns and suspicions with readers - especially if one holds him to his own standards. In January of 2005, Bob castigated Dave Armstrong for having citations of various neo-conservative commentators on Armstrong's site (my emphasis here and throughout unless otherwise noted):

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

So if anyone else puts references of a political nature on his Web site it's "common sense" that a reader "would assume that you support the political views of the aforementioned unless you say otherwise" and "you can't blame them if they do." But if Bob cites neo-Nazi, White Supremacist, and Holocaust deniers in his articles, we are never to assume anything with respect to what Bob himself thinks. On the contrary, the burden is entirely on his "critics" to disprove anything he says:

If I believe they have factual information, which is corroborated by other more credible sources, I will use it, and it is incumbent on my critics to either confirm or deny the information on the merit of the information itself, rather then [sic] dismiss it based on whether the group is "extreme" to their sensitivities. (Sungenis, Michael Forrest and the Jews, p. 10)

Bob's statement is full of absurdities. Are we really to believe that if the notorious anti-Catholic Jack Chick cited the equally notorious Bart Brewer in support of the claim that the Pope is selling sacred Hosts on the black market to make up for Vatican budgetary deficits, Bob would dutifully shoulder the burden of proof to "either confirm or deny the information"? Of course not. One has to ask, if the allegedly "factual information" is "corroborated by other more credible sources", then why doesn't Bob just cite the more credible sources? And on those occasions where Bob does seem to cite credible sources, we are left wondering whether Bob really found the credible source himself, or if he simply took the word of a dubious source that in turn purported to quote from that more credible source. After all, this is precisely what he admitted he did with the bogus quote from Albert Einstein, although in inimitable Sungenis style, he still insisted on defending his actions (see Michael Forrest and the Jews, p. 29).

Surely we're not bound to believe that Bob's personal conviction that certain information is factual suffices to shift the burden of proof to his readers. This is especially true in light of his history and previously stated views on plagiarism and disclosure of sources (such as here), this is completely untenable. And finally, insisting that his "critics" must "either confirm or deny the information on the merit of the information itself" begs the entire question. The merit of information - how seriously one ought to take a given claim - depends heavily on the credibility of the source or sources which convey it. It is standard practice to impeach witnesses by showing them to be unreliable in either character or consistency, after which their testimony is all but worthless.

I would argue instead that Bob ought to apply to himself his own dictum, laid out in his public apology to certain Protestant apologists (see item 10 below): "Without sufficient corroboration, any information, especially in these kinds of sensitive areas, is as good as false" (Sungenis, email of April 29, 2003, draft of public apology to King/Webster).

But as I have documented in numerous cases, it is a false hope to expect Bob to adhere to the same standards to which he holds others - for him it is one standard for me and another for thee (source). To return to Bob's defense (or perhaps it is more accurate to say, his defensiveness) of his sources, he offered this erstwhile apology in his "Open Letter to CAI Patrons":

[L]et me offer my sincerest apologies to all the people or groups that I have offended by the manner in which I have sometimes communicated my ideas in the past four years. Whether Protestant, Catholic, Jew, Muslim or whatever, 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. Whenever we write about any group or individual it will be with much care and consideration." (Open Letter, 18 Sept 2006)

In the months that followed, we have several more assertions that he will be more careful:

Here's the scoop. David Palm picks one instance that I have a quote without a source and avoids the scores of quotes I have that contain all the sources. . . . I already told them that I would check and recheck my sources and speak charitably in my critiques, but that wasn't good enough for them, otherwise they would not have revived their diatribes against me. (Q&A, October, 2006, Question 60)

Note that I did not pick an instance in which Bob merely had a quote without quoting a source. Rather, Bob's reader was referring to an instance I documented in which Bob attributed an heretical, but bogus, quote to John Paul II. See the details in my article Sungenis and the Jews: David Palm's Defense of Michael Forrest. Bob's spin on this affair is interesting, to say the least.

Still more promises to be good have followed:

[W]e'll keep pointing out their errors to the world. Of course, we will do so in the most charitable way we can, and our sources and facts will be checked and rechecked, but it will be done as long as I have a breath to breathe. (Q&A, October 2006, Question 55, emphasis his)

Our critique of the Talmud is just the begining of a whole series of articles we will be posting on these and similar subjects. As I promised, we will write with charity and erudition. 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. (Q&A, November, 2006, Question 16)

And now most recently, in Christopher Blosser and the Catholic ADL, the essay which prompted me to write this piece, Bob yet again insists that CAI is really, truly (I mean it this time!) going to clear up its source problem:

As we do so, CAI is going to make a concerted effort to clear up the so-called "source problem," as miniscule as it is. I've assigned my capable assistant, Mr. Benjamin Douglas (who is also known for his impeccable scholarship) to be the fact-checker and source-exonerator for CAI articles on Jewish issues. Ben has graciously accepted the job and I know he will do excellently. This means that we will continue to put up articles and essays critical (and even supportive) of things Jewish on the CAI website, and we might do so even more frequently than we've done in the past. Since Ben is so good at what he does, we plan to silence the "source critics" once and for all. (Christopher Blosser and the Catholic ADL, pp. 4-5)

Obviously, from the placing of "source problem" in quotes and dismissing it as "miniscule", Bob still doesn't really think he has a problem. But while he can minimize it all he wants, let me tell you, Bob Sungenis has a "miniscule" source problem only in the sense that Dean Martin had a "miniscule" drinking problem. The proof? Here is a partial list - starting back in 2002 and continuing right up to the present - containing examples of Bob's "miniscule problem with accuracy and sources.

And let's anticipate right now the objection from certain CAI supporters. This is not an exercise in muckraking. Bob wants to be taken seriously as a scholar. He wants to publicly represent and defend the Catholic Church. He wants to be able to say anything he wants about anyone, on any subject....and then just quietly pull things down with no real apologies, no retractions, and no admission of any wrongdoing when he's caught in a gaff. It seems that he believes his works should speak for themselves. Let's let them.

Bob Sungenis's Problem with Accuracy and Sources, A Sampler:

Hence, I ask you, my fellow Catholic, to keep an eye on me. If I cross the line . . . I want to know about it, and rest assured, I WILL correct it. (Michael Forrest and the Jews, p. 66, emphasis his)

1) In his 2002 article "Conversion of the Jews Not Necessary??", Bob plagiarized a section from a Nazi pamphlet by Dr. Robert Ley, Nazi Labor Minister, which was translated by Prof. Bytwerk and part of the German Propaganda Archive at Calvin College (see Cork, Antisemitism and the Catholic Right). Cork sustains the specific charge of plagiarism by citing the definitions of plagiarism from the two institutes of higher learning from which Bob earned legitimate degrees. These definitions, ` with side-by-side comparisons of original vs. Sungenis-written texts, demonstrate conclusively that Bob has indeed been guilty numerous times of plagiarism (see here for an extended analysis of this.) He has never forthrightly admitted this, nor has he ceased this behavior (as we will see.) Therefore it is entirely legitimate to revisit these examples, to highlight the on-going pattern of plagiarism that has continued to this day

2) In the same "Conversion" article, Bob plagiarized a section from the writings of white supremacist Lt. Col. Jack Mohr (Cork, "Antisemitism"). One need only type "Jack Mohr" into Google to be treated with more than enough evidence of his extreme anti-Semitism. See, for example, here and here. In fact, after re-examining Bob's original work from 2002 we have found that Dr. Cork merely scratched the surface when examining the extent of Bob's plagiarism of Mohr. Bob not only plagiarized a few paragraphs here and there, the last 1500+ words were almost entirely plagiarized from Jack Mohr: see here for a side-by-side comparison.

3) Similarly, Bob gives two consecutive citations from two books by Arthur Nelson Field: Today's Greatest Problem: The Jews and The Truth About the Slump. Cork has demonstrated that, "These two statements appear in identical form, in this same order (separated by a quote from another source) on several racist webpages which give an identical list of quotes on Judaism: Jew Watch, Radio Islam, BibleBelievers.org.au and Stormfront. It would appear that Sungenis got the quotes from one of these sources (or one of the other places this same list appears), but he does not tell us which" (Cork, "Antisemitism").

4) Again in "Conversion of the Jews Not Necessary??", Bob relied on supposed Talmudic "expert" I. B. Pranaitis and his book The Talmud Unmasked, which is a favorite of anti-Semitic individuals and groups, as a quick Google search will verify. Apparently Bob was unaware that Pranaitis's claim to be an expert on the Talmud was destroyed at a trial in which he was unable to answer basic questions on the Talmud (see Cork, "Antisemitism" and also here).

5) In the same article, Bob plagiarized from an article by John Vennari, which had appeared in The Remnant newspaper (Cork, "Antisemitism").

6) And in the same 2002 article he plagiarized a lengthy section from an article by Mark Weber in the Journal of Historical Review. Weber has been the editor of the blatantly racist National Vanguard and the JHR is a journal known for its Holocaust revisionism/denial and pseudo-scholarship (Cork, "Antisemitism"; see also here). See more below on what CAI vice president Ben Douglass has said about the National Vanguard.

7) In his Oct 2002 defense of "Conversion", Bob shows no awareness whatever of the highly controversial nature of the Journal of Historical Review: "the website I consulted had no reference to Weber or the Journal of Historical Review. If I had known that, you can depend upon it that I would have cited it as a source, since the Journal of Historical Review is a very credible source! . . . Mark Weber has written an article on the Jewish role in the Bolshevik revolution, an article that is included in a highly prestigious and credible magazine, The Journal of Historical Review! You can't get much more credible than that, as far as history goes" (Uncorking the Erroneous Teachings, False Allegations and Liberal Agenda of William Cork). In fact the scholarship of the JHR has been roundly denounced by more credible scholars (see here).

8) Again in this 2002 article, Bob alleges that, "all popes prior to the [sic] Vatican II have made very strong statements against fraternizing with the Jewish religion. For example, Pope Leo XIII in the 1900 encyclical Tametsi, and Pope Pius XI in the 1925 encyclical Quas Primas and the 1931 encyclical Quadragesimo Anno are quite clear concerning these dangers."

First of all, it is a manifest falsehood and wild exaggeration to say that "all popes prior to . . . Vatican II have made very strong statements against fraternizing with the Jewish religion." A few certainly have and their teaching must be taken seriously. But when we turn to the specific examples Bob uses to try and demonstrate this we find, as Cork points out, that "none of these documents say a thing about such 'dangers.'" (Cork, "Antisemitism").

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

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

In the last sentence of the same paragraph cited above, Bob plagiarized from Fr. Denis Fahey's book The Kingship of Christ and Conversion of the Jews. This sentence is presented without quotation marks and without a citation to Fahey: "The Dictionnaire Apologétique de la Foi Catholique, in the article Juifs et Chrétiens (cols. 1691-1694), gives a long list of Papal Decrees condemning the Talmud and the Talmudic formation, since the Talmud became known to Catholics about 1238-1240" (source).

What is all the more bizarre is that Bob's original version of "Conversion" did not contain this material from Fahey. He added it in a later revision prompted by Cork's criticism. So in a revision of a text for which he had faced the well documented charge of plagiarism what did Bob do? He plagiarized some more.

9) In his 15 October 2002 defense, Uncorking the Erroneous Teachings, False Allegations and Liberal Agenda of William Cork, Sungenis said, "Fr. Denis Fahey and Fr. Charles Coughlin were dedicated Catholic priests who lived impeccable lives and defended Holy Mother Church from every sort of satanic deception. They weren't just interested in exposing Zionists, but every person or group which assaulted the Catholic Church." But in fact, neither of these men engaged in responsible analysis of "Jewish issues". Fr. Coughlin was a constant purveyor of Jewish conspiracies, republished the totally discredited Protocols of the Elders of Zion in his newspaper, blamed the Jewish victims of the Nazi atrocities committed on the notorious Kristallnacht, and refused to renounce his association with the organization Christian Front, even after "the Christian Front was shut down when the FBI discovered the group was arming itself and "planning to murder Jews, communists and 'a dozen Congressmen'" (source; cf. Cork, "Antisemitism").

And Fr. Fahey, although not as obviously extreme as Fr. Coughlin, also showed a lapse of scholarly judgment vis-a-vis the Jews when he argued for the authenticity of the Protocols in his foreword to the 1953 edition of the book Waters Flowing Eastward, The War Against the Kingship of Christ (online here). But as early as 1921 the Protocols had been conclusively shown to be a forgery by the London Times (Wikipedia contains a link to a facsimile of the actual Times article.)

10) During 2003, in what has come to be called the Mr. X affair, Bob allowed Jacob Michael to post material from a bogus source which accused certain Protestant apologists of unethical behavior. Bob was forced to admit publicly that he had been careless, for while it was Mr. Michael who posted the bogus information, ultimately it was Bob who approved the request and made the decision to bypass Michael Forrest's editorial approbation; at the time, Mr. Michael was only in his early 20s, while Bob was in his late 40s, and should have known better.

Not only did Bob admit his fault to Michael Forrest, he insisted that it was a lesson learned (incidentally, since that time, it is Bob who has continued to manifest this careless pattern of pulling the trigger before aiming, while Mr. Michael has not - who really learned their lesson?): "Hence, CAI cannot substantiate any of the additional claims made by Mr. [X], and thus I am forced to judge them as false, and am happy to do so. . . . Finally, we want all concerned to know that we do take these things very seriously. Without sufficient corroboration, any information, especially in these kinds of sensitive areas, is as good as false. We have all learned our lesson, . . . " (the CAI public apology is no longer available on-line, but is available on request from my files.)

11) One more example of Bob jumping the gun and issuing withering denunciations before he has checked his facts is in the Michael Lopez affair, narrated here by Lopez himself:

"Quickly touching on the issue Bob brought up of how there was somebody, shortly after leaving CAI, named Michael Lopez who wrote something derogatory about him. Then the one Michael Lopez that he knew denied criticizing him. The impression that Bob leaves is that I criticized him and then backed away after being caught. This is probably just Bob's faulty memory. To clarify, there was a Catholic message board where someone named 'Michael L' made a post that criticized him for his venture into Geocentrism…There are loads of people who have last names that begin with L. It could be Logan, Lake, Love, Lieber, Landon, Langley, Luganis, many other names besides Lopez.

But Bob immediately jumped to the conclusion that it was me, and wrote a very long attack on 'Michael Lopez', within a day or two that was posted on the CAI web site. He did not even give me the courtesy of notifying me about this. When I saw it on the CAI web site, I emailed him to let him know that I was not the Michael L that had posted on the message board. Fortunately he took down the piece that had attacked me soon afterward. However, I believe this illustrates Bob's propensity to attack without even verifying things from credible sources. In this case, of course, I would have been the credible source to ask first" (Michael Forrest, Sungenis and the Jews, footnote)

12) In his 2003 article When a Pope Errs, Bob attributed a scandalous action to Pope John Paul II, but did not supply any source for the allegation. He published the article after he was challenged by Michael Forrest to document the incident and admitted that he could not (details of Forrest's attempted-but-failed intervention are available in my essay). Since then, he has insisted that the event really did take place - but has still provided no documentation for it: "Wrong. I said I didn't remember, not that I didn't have more than one source for the comment. But, of course, Mr. Michael's object is to play the "damned if you do, damned it [sic] you don't" game. As it stands, the event certainly did take place" (Jacob Michael and the Jews, p. 68).

13) Bob claims that he has never gotten credit for backing away from his harsh criticism of the Pope: "I have made it clear that all discussion about John Paul II will stop at CAI, and we have taken down all our articles about him. We have also defended Benedict XVI against all his attackers. But do Palm and his boys credit us with any of this? Of course not, because this is all about silencing me with regards to Jewish issues, not about truth" (Q&A, October, 2006, Question 60).

But Michael Forrest did just this in his online project, Sungenis and the Jews: "In early March 2005, (Sungenis and I) had two or three very long, heated and difficult conversations. We first discussed the issue of Papal criticism and eventually came to a hard-fought agreement. And to his credit, unlike a few Traditionalist or Traditionalist-leaning publications and apostolates, he has thus far refused to publicly condemn or treat Pope Benedict XVI disrespectfully." (source)

So why didn't Bob see this and give Forrest proper credit? Because, in his own words, "I don't have the time to read their tomes, and I really don't care what they have to say, since everytime I do read somethng [sic] from them it is always distorted and twisted" (Q&A, December, 2006, Question 37). Recently he wrote to me that, "You haven't 'established' squat, Mr. Palm" (private e-mail of 20 January 2007). But again, how would he know, if he doesn't read what we've written?

14) In his 2002 "Conversion" article as well as in his 2006 revised article Neo-cons and the Jewish Connection, Bob cites holocaust "revisionist" Michael Hoffman (cf. also Forrest in Sungenis and the Jews, Section 2). CAI VP Ben Douglass has stated his agreement that Hoffman is a "dubious source":

"I grant that the ban should be permanent on articles that entertain Jewish conspiracy theories, use dubious sources, or are written by dubious sources (Hoffman, Pike, Raimondo, IHR, etc.)." (Negotiations with Michael Forrest, Douglass email of 10/02/2006)

It is worth reading more about Hoffman here. So at least in the opinion of CAI's vice president and "source exonerator", Michael Forrest was right all along - Bob should never have been citing from Michael Hoffman in the first place.

15) Early in 2005, in his article Politics, Religion, Israel and the Seduction of the Catholic Voter: The Neo-Con Connection, Bob quoted Gen. Tommy Franks as follows: "The U.S. attacked Iraq for the sake of Israel."

Note that he indicates this as a verbatim citation. He cites no source, but unless I am mistaken, this "quote" comes from the Dec 2004 issue of the New Oxford Review, where Dale Vree said: "Curiously, General Tommy Franks, who led the U.S. forces to victory in Iraq . . . said the very same thing as Sen. Hollings, namely, that the U.S. attacked Iraq for the sake of Israel (Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Aug. 10 2004)." Notice that this contains the exact words used by Bob, but is not presented as a quotation. A letter to the editor a few months later makes clear that this "quotation" from Bob is not contained anywhere in the article from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency:

"Here's what the article cited by the Editor about Tommy Franks actually said: 'The threat of a missile attack on Israel was one reason justifying a pre-emptive strike against Iraq, Gen. Tommy Franks said. Franks, who retired from the U.S. military last year after leading the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, said he supported the Bush administration policy of pre-emption. "The reason we could not afford to give up time is because we wanted the water infrastructure to remain in place," Franks said Monday at the National Press Club. "We wanted the oil infrastructure in Iraq to remain in place. We did not want to subject ourselves and Israel to the potential consequence of a long-range missile being fired into Tel Aviv or Jerusalem." Franks also said Israel's conflict with the Palestinians fuels anti-U.S. resentment in the Middle East' (Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Aug. 10, 2004). That's the whole article. It's one thing to find friends for an argument; it's another thing to make them up. Far from being the reason for the war, Gen. Franks very clearly states that the threat of a missile strike against Israel was one reason." (source)

16) In the same article Bob states, "Needless to say, the Talmud was thoroughly anti-Christian, . . . Gentiles were considered "non-human" and "animals" (Sanhedrin 74b, Yebamoth 98a), and "the best of them should be killed" (Abhodah Zarah 26b). (See Michael A. Hoffman II's Judaism's Strange Gods)" (Sungenis, "Politics", p. 38).

Note that Bob's citation is again to Michael Hoffman, whom CAI's "source exonerator" now holds to be too extreme. Note too that there is not even a page number given to Hoffman's book. Did Bob actually read this book, or did he just plagiarize this from a secondary source? Given his track record, it's fair to ask. But notice the citations he gives for the Talmudic references allegedly showing that Jews consider Gentiles to be "non-human" and "animals" and that "the best of them should be killed". Here are links to these Talmudic passages:

Sanhedrin 74b

Yebamoth 98a

Abhodah Zarah 26b

There is nothing in those passages about Gentiles being animals, much less "non-human," and nothing about "the best of them should be killed." So once again we have Bob citing (plagiarizing?) a secondary source without doing the basic work to verify whether that source is accurate.

(N.B.: A typical Sungenis response to this will be to distract the reader from his own shoddy scholarship by pointing out that the rest of his quote above, left out in the ellipses, notes that the Talmud says blasphemous things about our Lord and our Lady. That it does is not under dispute and never has been. But this study is about Bob's shoddy scholarship and plagiarism - the reader should hold Bob accountable for that and not be distracted by rhetorical sleight-of-hand.)

17) Again, in this same article, Bob says of Attorney General John Ashcroft: "Attorney General John Ashcroft, a member of the Pentecostal religion who harbors a fear of calico cats because they are 'tools of the devil,' is also involved in promoting the Zionist eschatology." A quick Google search on "Ashcroft calico cat" brings up a link to an article on www.snopes.com which totally debunks this urban legend. Indeed, the detailed explanation of how this myth originated leads off with, "This has to be one of the most bizarre items we've had to tackle in recent memory. . . ." (source). But that didn't stop Bob from simply assuming that it was true. He would not take the 30 seconds required to preserve another man's reputation from public denigration.

18) In his 2005 article Vatican II's Death Warrant on the Modern Church, Bob falsely attributed an heretical, but bogus, quote to John Paul II. When he was called on this, he then claimed that the quote came from Cardinal Ratzinger. When called upon to validate that, he produced a perfectly orthodox text which did not contain the quote at all. (see the details in my essay.)

19) In his "dissertation" for his so-called "Ph.D" (on this bogus degree see Sungenis and the Jews: Doctoring the Record), Bob quoted a scientist as follows: "C. Truesdell says the same from a different angle: 'The heliocentric theory would have been rejected if people of the 17th century had computers.'" An individual in an on-line forum took the time to look up the actual quote and here is what the source really says: "Had modern machines been available then, Kepler himself might have formulated his laws nevertheless, but astronomers would not have accepted them" (Jacob Michael, Sungenis and the Jews: Doctoring the Record). It seems clear that, yet again, Bob plagiarized this quote from some secondary source - which he does not cite, hence the accuracy of the charge of plagiarism - and cited it in his "dissertation" without checking the primary source.

20) On or around March 2006, Bob posted as "News Alerts" two articles from the National Vanguard Web site, without attribution. One of them accused Jerry Falwell of claiming that Jews do not have to convert to Christ (the link appears on this archived version of CAI's home page). Strangely, in the body of the article Falwell himself denied the charge; this has me wondering whether Bob even read the article before posting it. That being said, the National Vanguard is truly a nefarious source, which even a few minutes spent on their Web site would have verified.

CAI's vice president Ben Douglass says of the National Vanguard that, they advocate "anti-miscegenation laws to protect the purity of our precious white blood, comparing the relative strengths of white supremacism and white separatism, advocating the expulsion of all non-whites from America, stating that blacks are deficient in intellectual and moral faculties, disparaging inter-racial social interaction, advocating speeding up evolution through eugenics, and even turning eugenics into a religion, clamoring for a neo-pagan, secular apotheosis produced by the manipulation of DNA" (op. cit.). Again it seems quite reasonable to recall Bob's own standard, presented to Dave Armstrong:

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

No disclaimer has ever appeared on CAI's site concerning any of the sources Bob has cited, including the National Vanguard. On the contrary, when Matthew Anger brought the troublesome nature of the National Vanguard to Bob's attention, he shot back that "I don't know anything about National Vanguard, and I could [sic] care less." His own vice-president intervened to point out that he himself had already alerted Bob to the nefarious nature of this source. But it was only when the information went public that Bob pulled the material off his own Web site.

So given Bob's refusal to issue any sort of disclaimers concerning the sources that he utilizes, what, according to his own standards, should be our "common sense" conclusion about his views on the Jews?

21) Over the years, CAI has posted several "News Alerts" and articles from a "Rev." Ted Pike. Pike is a Protestant pastor who has written numerous inflammatory articles about Jews and Judaism that are invariably snapped up by such venues as the National Vanguard, www.davidduke.com, and other such sites. Bob has heaped accolades on Pike:

Sungenis: "As it stands, we will be posting articles by qualified journalists on the Zionist issue, and one of them is Ted Pike. Mr. Pike has done more work in one year investigating these issues than both Forrest and Michael have done their whole lifetime." (Q&A, November, 2006, Question 16)

Sungenis: "(Ted) Pike is an ardent Christian, as is his wife. There are no immoralities in his life. He loves Jesus Christ and teaches people about Him. Yet Forrest calls Pike a biased and undesirable source simply because Pike points out the Zionist agenda in America." (Michael Forrest and the Jews, p. 29)

But now, after some further investigation on the part of the CAI staff, Ted Pike is considered too extreme for CAI:

"I grant that the ban should be permanent on articles that entertain Jewish conspiracy theories, use dubious sources, or are written by dubious sources (Hoffman, Pike, Raimondo, IHR, etc.)." (Negotiations with Michael Forrest, Douglass email of 10/02/2006)

"Jacob, I just sent Robert an e-mail criticising the Shamir article for blasphemy, racism, and the use of Schmitt. It's coming down (apparently Robert posted it on recommendation, without reading the whole thing himself). Also, CAI will no longer run any articles by Ted Pike. . . . (source)

We have this further explanation of why Pike is no longer considered acceptable at CAI:

Jacob,

The story on Ted Pike is that I sent him an e-mail with a series of quotations from the National Vanguard website . . . I then asked him how, in Christian conscience, he could associate with such a perverse organization. Pike never responded to me, so Robert agreed that we shouldn't use him anymore. . . .

JMJ,

Left by: Ben Douglass on 1/13/2007 12:24:11 AM [EST] (source)

Again, Forrest was right to insist that Pike was a tainted source and that Bob should never have been citing from Pike. My guess, however, is that we're not likely to see an admission by Bob worded quite that way.

22) In his article Genesis and the Jewish Connection, Part I, Bob attributed a quote to Albert Einstein which, he claimed, showed that the charge of anti-Semitism is "nothing but a clever ploy" concocted by Jews. But by actually looking up the primary source cited by Bob, Michael Forrest found that this quote is bogus, cobbled together from words widely separated in the original article, mingled with totally fabricated material. It is clear that once again Bob has simply plagiarized from a secondary source.

What's more, he has never admitted that the quote is bogus; in fact, he essentially defended it in "Michael Forrest and the Jews" (p. 29ff.). He also has not divulged where he got it - inquiries of where Bob got his most unsavory material are routinely met with a Clintonesque "I don't remember" - but a Google search of the quote brings up a passel of neo-Nazi and White Supremacist Web sites. And despite all Bob's claims of accuracy and fairness, the quote remains on his Web site in more than one location at the time of this writing (see here, here, and here for example), more than four months after it was brought to his direct attention that it was bogus.

So much for his promise that, "I ask you, my fellow Catholic, to keep an eye on me. If I cross the line . . . I want to know about it, and rest assured, I WILL correct it."

23) In two articles, Politics, Religion, Israel and the Seduction of the Catholic Voter and Neo-Cons and the Jewish Connection Bob attributes a quote to Ariel Sharon which has been called into question and never verified. He provided no source for the quote, but the original source for the quote is the pro-Hamas group Islamic Association for Palestine. (see here and here).

24) In correspondence with and rebuttal to Forrest and Jacob Michael, Bob asserted over and over again (a total of 36 times) that a musical "gig" was the real reason that Forrest left CAI - with the strong implication that there was a financial interest at stake. We have demonstrated that there was no music gig and no money other than basic travel expenses (here and here).

Then, when it began to dawn on him that he had erred on these significant details, Bob switched to the accusation that Forrest deliberately did not divulge the details of the speaking engagement - the only problem being that Forrest most certainly did divulge them, in his original piece "Robert Sungenis and the Jews" (here).

Then Bob said that the "only thing" he forgot in his "recollection of that event" was that the topic was abortion and Forrest would instead be "merely playing his guitar". Except that the topic of the talk was traditional marriage, not abortion, there was no music at all at this presentation, and Forrest plays the piano, not the guitar. All the supporting evidence for each of these points has been gathered by me in this essay. But in the next month's Q & A section, Bob admitted that his memory of the event in question is faulty: "I have forgotten many of the details of the events that transpired. . ." (Q&A, November, 2006, Question 50). This hasn't stopped him from continuing to insist that Forrest is lying (most recently in a private email to me of January 20, 2007: "As the record stands, not only was Mr. Forrest going to play music at this speaking engagement, he was in the process of trying to get even more opportunities to speak and play his music. That's what he told me on the phone ... Ask him. If he denies it, he's a liar."). In the same Q & A in which he admits his own lapse of memory he brings his wife into the fray: "my wife was also a witness to these events, and she has a memory like an elephant" (ibid.).

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

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

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

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

25) In his essay "Michael Forrest and the Jews", Bob concocts his own view of the reasons for Forrest's departure from CAI:

"What was the cause? Apparently, it had a lot to do with the promotion of Michael's musical career. One day Michael's concert promoter told Michael that he would not hire him to play in the concert because of his association with CAI and because of some of the 'Jewish' articles on our website. To rectify this situation, Michael rearranged our website, without telling me, so that the 'offending' material no longer appeared, since he knew that his concert promoter was going to be checking our website. Obviously, Michael didn't have any problem with the articles on Jewish issues prior to the investigation by the promoter, but now that a music gig was on the line, Michael didn't want him to see certain articles (and previously, whatever went up on our site, Michael and I would first agree that the articles would be put up. In fact, Michael edited my articles, at my request, before they were put up, so that it would be clear that CAI gave no semblance of 'anti-semitism.' This system worked wonderfully for three years, and I really appreciated Michael's input)" ("Michael Forrest and the Jews", p. 8)

First, was it not Bob Sungenis who just castigated Jacob Michael for using equivocal words like "apparently" because such words convey uncertainty? (Sungenis, My Ph.D. from Calamus International University, p. 13) "Apparently", Bob is not certain of his charges, yet he forges on nonetheless. Additionally, we have demonstrated here, here, and here that:

1) Michael was not pursuing a musical career

2) Michael never had a concert promoter

3) Nobody told Michael that he would not hire him to play in a concert because of his association with CAI

4) Michael never "rearranged" the Web site and was, in fact, incapable of doing so

5) No "concert promoter" was going to be checking the Web site

6) Michael did have problems with articles on Jewish issues prior to his departure and we have the e-mails to prove it

7) There was no "music gig" on the line, and

8) The system of Michael editing Bob's works did not work "wonderfully for three years" but broke down in a few months when Bob unilaterally circumvented his own policy.

So for a total word count of 184 we have 8 errors, one falsehood for every 23 words. How's that for fairness and accuracy?

26) On a more personal note, Bob has claimed several times that "you [David Palm] couldn't possibly know the truth about these issues because you simply weren't there to witness them" (private e-mail of 19 October 2006) and "You weren't a witness to ANY OF THIS" (private e-mail of 20 January 2007; his emphasis). In fact, however, I was closely involved with Michael Forrest as he was contemplating and then enacting his departure from CAI. Michael and I discussed his ultimate decision to leave CAI if Bob would not alter his course a couple of weeks before the crucial phone conversation between Bob and Michael (on or about March 1, 2005). So I knew Michael was leaving (barring a change of course by Bob) before Bob had any idea. I also viewed and discussed with Michael all of the subsequent e-mails in which he gave Bob all of his reasons for leaving. These reasons were repeated in Robert Sungenis and the Jews here. We even discussed his misgivings about continuing his public association with Bob (not his private association, as Bob continues to misunderstand) a few weeks prior to that. So in fact I most certainly am an independent witness to key events that even Bob himself was not privy to. Finally, I saw the e-mails that were exchanged between the two of them and that represents both sides of the story.

Bob, for his part, has already admitted that his memory is faulty concerning the details: "I have forgotten many of the details of the events that transpired. . ." (Q&A, November, 2006, Question 50). The simple fact is that we have established from Bob's own words, using his own correspondence with Forrest, that his version of what transpired is widely divergent from the truth in numerous areas. He would know that, except that, as he says, "I don't have the time to read their tomes, and I really don't care what they have to say, since everytime I do read somethng [sic] from them it is always distorted and twisted" (Q&A, December, 2006, Question 37).

27) Here's a good question for Bob. Is Jacob Michael's book worthy of rebuttal or not? Well, it depends on what day you talk to Bob. In Nov 2006 a reader asked what were the prospects of getting Bob's take on Jacob Michael's book: "Dear Robert, Do you intend to read and write a review of Jacob Michael's new book "Never Revoked By God: The Place of Israel in the Future of the Church"?" Bob answered with a categorical, No:

"Thomas, no, I don't intend to write a review. I had considered it at one time, but changed my mind. Let me say that I don't consider Mr. Michael either an honorable Catholic or a voice to be answered in the ongoing debate about the future of Israel. . . . In short, I don't think Mr. Michael is qualified to address this issue. . . ." (Q&A, November, 2006, Question 11)

Despite his promise and denigration of Jacob, here's the "review":

Bob's review of Jacob Michael's book

On his Q & A board back in November of 2006, Bob insisted that, "The only thing I will not do is post rebuttals to either Mr. Forrest or Mr. Michael." (Q&A, November, 2006, Question 16). The reader can go back and search the Q&A's from November of 2006 through January of 2007 to see how many of them are directed at Jacob Michael and Michael Forrest (at least a dozen, and counting!). At the time of this writing, there are seven items in CAI's "Book and Article Reviews" category, four of which (i.e., more than 50%) are either directed at Jacob Michael exclusively, or at least mention him in passing.

28) Bob has also flip-flopped rather precipitously concerning the real focus and mission of CAI, as well as where his true talents lie. For example, he made it quite clear in his Open Letter of September 2006 that he was going to get back to what are ostensibly his core competencies and stay away from "more controversial areas":

1) Sungenis: "We began to focus on politics, culture and other peripheral issues that were not the frame and substance of our former work, which started in 1993. Although those areas certainly have their merit, they have detracted from the expertise we offered to the public in the area of biblical studies. Hence, we are retreating from those more controversial areas for the foreseeable future so that we can concentrate on our areas of strength."
2) Sungenis: "Presently, our goal is to write and publish a volume of the CASB every six months. . . . We will hardly have time for anything else."
3) Sungenis: "Lastly, let me offer my sincerest apologies to all the people or groups that I have offended by the manner in which I have sometimes communicated my ideas in the past four years. Whether Protestant, Catholic, Jew, Muslim or whatever, 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. Whenever we write about any group or individual it will be with much care and consideration." (source)

So then it seems one is entitled to ask whether Bob was sincere in his open letter, given that he wrote to me on 19 October 2006: "And I will continue to teach on the very topics that you don't want me to teach: Geocentrism and the Jews, and I will do so with even more vigor" (private e-mail of 19 October 2006).

He has repeated his intention to focus even more on "Jewish issues" several times since:

1) Question 41, Nov 2006: "I am even more determined to write about these [Jewish] issues, as you can tell from reading our website in recent weeks."

2) Question 44, Jan 2007: "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." (As if two essays on CAI's site, one critique sent to Culture Wars, and one critique sent to Latin Mass wasn't enough, he promises to write yet another one. That's four critiques of Schoeman's book, plus numerous passing references to it in other articles and Q&As, in the last two years)

3) Question 49, Jan 2007: "Thank you for your support, Timothy. I will be covering (Jewish issues) more in depth in the coming weeks. Let's hope and pray that Catholics will wake up to the truth about these issues."

4) In his article Christopher Blosser and the Catholic ADL Bob states that "we will continue to put up articles and essays critical (and even supportive) of things Jewish on the CAI website, and we might do so even more frequently than we've done in the past."

5) There have been dozens of new "News Alerts", Q&A's and Articles at CAI targeting Jews since October 2006 (four Q&As in January, 2007; seven Q&As in December, 2006; eleven Q&As in November, 2006; at the time of this writing, there are five "News Alerts", two book recommendations, and all seven "Book and Article Reviews" that are directed at Jews or Jewish issues).

Closely related to this is Sungenis's claim that he has decided to reject his Open Letter (and the promises to move away from controversy) because it was dependent upon Forrest and Michael "refraining from reposting their diatribes." The problem? Sungenis wrote his "Open Letter" before engaging in negotiations with Forrest or Michael, and presented this change of course as his own idea, a unilateral decision on his part (source). So, Sungenis is engaging in a little historical revisionism of his own in an effort to rationalize his decision to renew his obsession with Jews.

29) In Question 33 of his Dec 2006 Q & A, Bob said of Catholics United for the Faith (CUF), "At least I know where CUF stands now. They are in the same Neocon/Zionist camp as Mr. Forrest and his colleagues. They are all for the Iraq war, even though John Paul II and Benedict XVI condemned it as 'unjust.'" (Question 33, Q&A Dec 2006; this has now been removed from CAI's site, albeit without an apology to either CUF or Michael Forrest for the public libel) But when asked in another Q&A whether he had any evidence for this accusation, Bob had to admit that he did not, that he had simply written out of anger, another recurring problem at CAI (Question 37, Q&A Dec 2006; Question 26, Q&A Sept 2006)

30) In Question 34 of his Dec 2006 Q&A, Bob posted the claim that Christopher Blosser had said of CAI that, "Deep down it would seem that CAI, which openly applauds attacks on Israel, is just as utopian and apocolyptic [sic] as the 9/11 deniers in the Middle East." (Question 34, Q&A Dec 2006 has now been removed from CAI's site.) Bob did not question whether Blosser had, in fact, made such a statement. He simply assumed that it was so and replied,

"To even suggest that CAI 'openly applauds attacks on Israel' is the most slanderous, not to mention ludicrous statement I've seen since I've been here at CAI for the last 13 years. Since Mr. Blosser used the word 'openly,' ask him if he has a quote where CAI has said such a thing, and hold him to it. If he doesn't produce it, then call him a liar. And I can already tell you he is one, and a malicious one at that." (Question 34 has been removed.)

But then in December of 2006, Bob had to retract this assumption, admitting that he had no evidence for it but had merely spoken out of anger:

"I ask again, did you have evidence when you accused CUF of being pro-war and pro-zionist? I don't know whether they are or not. What I'm asking you to answer, straight up as a man, is whether you had evidence one way or another before you wrote question 33.

R. Sungenis: No, I did not have any direct evidence that Mr. Suprenant was pro-war. I made the assumption he was, and that was probably said in anger, since Mr. Suprenant was not cooperating with me. I then told Mr. Suprenant in a subsequent email that I did not know whether he was pro-war or not, but that my only concern was his accusation that I had anti-semitic material on the CAI website, and he refused to answer that question.

And did you have evidence when you suggested that Chris Blosser of being the pay of zionists? Or did you just throw that out there like a zinger? Just tell me straight up.

R. Sungenis: No. I did not have any evidence, only a suspicion I got from evidence Dale Vree had from personal experience that Catholic apostolates were being paid large sums of money by the Neocons to write things favorable to the Neocons. We took it down because we found out that it wasn't Chris Blosser who wrote the piece." (Q&A, December, 2006, Question 37)

So in his angry reply in Question 34 of Dec 2006 Bob knew already that Blosser is a liar, "and a malicious one at that". Except that it was Bob who botched and opened fire on Blosser without first checking if the source was accurate.

31) On or about 11 Jan 2007, Bob posted an article by Israel Shamir entitled "The Tyranny of Liberalism/Judaism". Shamir himself is a questionable source, but this article clinched it by relying heavily on the conclusions of one Carl Schmitt, a German professor of philosophy with strong ties to the Nazi party. In his reply to Christopher Blosser, Bob minimized the difficulties presented by the article. But his vice president Ben Douglass acknowledges that the article contains "blasphemy, racism" and a tainted source: "Jacob, I just sent Robert an e-mail criticising the Shamir article for blasphemy, racism, and the use of Schmitt. It's coming down (apparently Robert posted it on recommendation, without reading the whole thing himself). Also, CAI will no longer run any articles by Ted Pike. Finally, Robert is giving me review, editorial, and veto powers over everything CAI posts about Judaism. . . ." (source)

Once again, Bob is found posting material that he has not read. Ben Douglass admitted that the excuse is rather flimsy: "I realize that Robert not reading the whole Shamir article is not a flattering excuse" (source).

32) Bob sometimes truncates his opponents' correspondence in a way that materially misrepresents their thought. In the interest of space I give here just two examples - others could be cited:

Example 1: In December of 2006, Bob posted what he purported to be the substance of an e-mail exchange he had with Leon Suprenant. After giving his own answer to Suprenant in full, Bob says:

Now, here is Mr. Suprenant's response to me on Nov. 15:

"I am not going to respond to this type of email..."

And what "type of email" would that be? I guess emails that ask Mr. Suprenant for proof of his accusations against a fellow Christian are the ones he refuses to answer. (Q&A, December, 2006, Question 18, emphasis his.)

Bob's citation gives the impression that he is giving the substance of the reply, implying that Suprenant refused to engage the issue at all. But here is the whole e-mail that was sent to Bob by Leon Suprenant.

Dear Bob,

I am not going to respond to this type of email. We think Michael Forrest's website provides a fair and extensive critique of your website as it pertains to the Jews.

Just recently, you distorted what occurred between us in order to give the appearance that CUF was with you. You even praised CUF as "fair and caring" when it suited your purpose. Now you're accusing us of being pro-war Zionists on your website, I suppose in retaliation for our linking to Michael Forrest's website.

You can continue to distort the facts and defame our apostolate and honorable men like Mike Sullivan, but this sort of thing is not of God and I want no part of it.

Sincerely in Christ,

Leon Suprenant (link)

One can see why Bob might not have wanted to post the entire e-mail, but his radically truncated version was clearly misleading. He makes it appear as though Mr. Suprenant had no answer to Bob's challenge for "proof of accusations", when in fact, Suprenant 1) directed Bob to Michael Forrest's site for the requisite proof, and 2) gave Bob at least two examples wherein Bob had misrepresented CUF in public. While Bob presents it as though Mr. Suprenant had no answer, in fact, Suprenant had several answers, none of which were addressed by Bob - he simply dodged the answers and misled his readers about Mr. Suprenant's response (when Jacob Michael posted the entirety of Suprenant's email for the public to see for themselves, Bob answered with a Q&A calling this merely "Jacob Michael's rendition of Mr. Suprenant's email"; how the full disclosure of an email's content can be called a "rendition" is a real mystery).

Example 2: Similarly, in his article "Christopher Blosser and the Catholic ADL" Bob cites a reply from Christopher Blosser in such a way as to imply that Blosser turned tail when challenged to debate:

"When I was alerted to Mr. Blosser's website, I told Chris Campbell (our CAI promotional director) to ask Mr. Blosser if he would like to debate this and other Jewish issues in a public forum. Mr. Blosser returned the email stating: "debating is not my forte." So now we see the game rules with which Mr. Blosser is playing. It's ok for Mr. Blosser to post reputation-damaging material on his website about a prominent Catholic apologist, but when he is called on to defend himself in public he suddenly remembers he has no such talent." (Christopher Blosser and the Catholic ADL, p. 1)

Bob's citation of Blosser's reply gives the distinct impression that Blosser flatly refused to engage Bob on Jewish issues. But here is what Blosser actually said in reply to Bob's challenge: "Public speaking is not my forte. However, I may be persuaded to respond in writing to a particular article he has written on Zionism, Judaism, etc. (as time permits)." (source) So it appears that not only has Bob truncated Blosser's reply to his own advantage, but it is he who has declined to debate Blosser.

33) We have already seen that Bob frequently contradicts himself. Here is just one more recent example from many that could be cited. In January 2007, Bob posted an answer to someone named Thaddeus, who wanted to kneel at a Novus Ordo Mass but wasn't sure if that was the right thing to do. Bob replied:

"Thaddeus, in brief, I think in this case it is better for you to stand up. Although some of us, including me, may prefer to kneel, we can receive the Eucharist in any common posture. It is not the posture we assume that is the important thing, but the heart of the individual receiving the host [sic]. If standing shows solidarity with the Church at that particular time, it is better to stand. (And logically, if the whole Church were kneeling, it would not be proper for us to stand). We are a community of believers, not isolated islands. . . . We have two masses [sic] and we have two ways of receiving the Eucharist. We can do whichever one is appropriate at the time. If we choose to go to the Novus Ordo, however, we should be prepared to obey the rules of the Novus Ordo" (Q&A, January, 2007, Question 21).

Bob's reasoning here is identical to that laid out by the USCCB when it issued its directive for Catholics to stand when receiving Holy Communion: it's the heart that matters, it signifies solidarity with the whole Church, etc. (source). Earlier in January 2007 this is no big deal for Bob; just live and let live, when in the Novus Ordo do as the Novus Ordians do. But a little bit later in January 2007, Bob had this to say with respect to EWTN responding to the USCCB's directive by changing the norm from kneeling to standing:

"Whereas Mother Angelica would have raised a conniption fit if her followers were told they couldn't kneel at the Eucharist, the present guard at EWTN has simply lost its nerve, or perhaps never had it. The main difference, then, between the Mother Angelica era and the post-Mother Angelica era is that the latter has resigned itself to follow the primrose path of America's hapless bishops rather than fight to preserve the few traditions that remain at EWTN. Although kneeling before the Eucharist could be considered a small issue in the vast scope of things, nevertheless, it is a good example of the larger modernistic mentality and lack of courage that seems to be settling into the thinking of EWTN's present leadership" (Sungenis, Review, EWTN: A Network Gone Wrong, pp. 7-8)

So now the norms about standing for Holy Communion are issued by "hapless bishops" who should be resisted. And if you don't, you're cowardly and exhibit a modernistic mentality. So should you kneel or not when receiving Holy Communion at the Novus Ordo Mass? It depends on which day you talk to Bob. Could this have had anything to do with the fact that EWTN had previously fired Bob for mistreatment of Pope John Paul II and his public obsession with Jewish conspiracy theories?

34) In his review of Jacob Michael's book Never Revoked by God (which, as we have seen above, he insisted he wasn't going to write) Bob says this about the alleged contents of the State Department's Report on Global Anti-Semitism:

"In introducing Mr. Rickman to the job, the State Department gave him the Report on Global Anti-Semitism soon after his installation. It contains 12 descriptions of "anti-semitism." Number 4 on the list says the following: "Criticism of the Jewish religion or its religious leaders or literature (especially the Talmud and Kabbalah) is anti-Semitic." Number 7 says: "Blaming Jewish leaders and their followers for inciting the Roman crucifixion of Christ is anti-Semitic." . . . In fact, one of the categories of "anti-Semitism" in the State Department's list is #5: "Criticism of the U.S. government and Congress for being under the undue influence by the Jewish-Zionist community (including AIPAC) is anti-Semitic." (Jacob Michael's "Never Revoked by God", pp. 3-4)

And in his first missive to Christopher Blosser, the very one in which he dismissed his source problem as "miniscule" but promises that they are (this time, for real) going to address it at CAI, he repeats this claim:

"Lastly, to all my 'Jewish' critics out there, it's time for you to face reality. On October 16, 2004, President George Bush signed into law the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act under the U.S. State Department. The head of this new post is Gregg Rickman, as of May 22, 2006. In introducing Mr. Rickman to the job, the State Department gave him the Report on Global Anti-Semitism soon after his installation. It contains 12 descriptions of 'anti-semitism.' Number 4 on the list says the following: 'Criticism of the Jewish religion or its religious leaders or literature (especially the Talmud and Kabbalah) is anti-Semitic.' Number 7 says: 'Blaming Jewish leaders and their followers for inciting the Roman crucifixion of Christ is anti-Semitic'" (Christopher Blosser and the Catholic ADL, p.5)

Note well that Bob presents this list of "12 descriptions" and the text he cites for points 4, 5, and 7 in quotation marks as the verbatim content of the document. In response, Blosser pointed out that the document referenced by Bob does not contain any such list, nor any such words:

"Perhaps Douglas should have taken a look at Sungenis' response to me before it went to press. I am open to correction, if Sungenis can in fact provide a link to the U.S. Report on Global Anti-Semitism which indicates what he says they mean. My own hunch is that Sungenis simply read Ted Pike's own 'news alert' and -- in typical fashion -- conveyed it verbatim" (source).

In response to this challenge, Bob admitted that he did not get his verbiage from the document in question:

"Ted Pike made a summary of the document based on the history of cases prosecuted recently for anti-semitism. Culture Wars picked up the summary and mentioned it in an article several months ago, which is my source." (Another Look at Blosser's Website, p. 3)

So Blosser was correct - Bob plagiarized Pike's "summary" and handed this "summary" off to his own audience as the verbatim contents of the Report on Global Anti-Semitism.

35) Just as this article was "going to press," so to speak, Bob posted yet another "news alert" on CAI's home page. This time the subject is how hotel key cards retain private customer information (street address, credit card number, etc.) and can be used by rogue hotel employees for evil purposes: "An employee can take a hand full of cards home and using a scanning device, access the information onto a laptop computer and go shopping at your expense." The advice is to hold on to your hotel key cards and/or destroy them, instead of returning them to the front desk. The information here is allegedly taken from the "Pasadena Police Department". More subterfuge, more conspiracy, more hidden evil - right up Bob's alley. What Bob didn't bother to find out is that the Pasadena Police Department has specifically debunked this information as a hoax, as have a number of other web sites (see here and here, for example). What's next at CAI? A "news alert" about the $250-dollar Neiman Marcus cookie recipe? A "news alert" about the dangers of drinking Coke while eating Pop Rocks?

So there you have a partial list of Bob's "miniscule" source problem. I emphasize again that this list is by no means comprehensive - I have purposely held back quite a number of additional examples, just to be able to make that point. Please note that the last example brings us to January of 2007. Almost four and a half years and more than half a dozen assurances later, Bob is still doing exactly the same things: plagiarizing, attacking before checking his sources, citing extremists in support of his Jewish conspiracy theories, and contradicting himself. One thing has stayed the same, however. Those who point out Bob's source problem are told in no uncertain terms that they are the ones with the problem.

There is just so much material spouting from Bob's keyboard that it is truly difficult to keep up with it. Bob boasted to Jacob Michael: "Let me just say for the record that while you are performing at your day job (whatever it is that you do), I'm busy writing about 10,000 words per day for the Catholic faith, and I don't mind employing the services of a man who has a college education and shown himself adept at source-checking to check sources" (private e-mail of 20 January 2007). And elsewhere Bob notes that, "Posting CAI News articles is no hard work for me. I just copy and paste." (Q&A, November, 2006, Question 16) Yes, we know Bob, and that is a big part of the problem. Again, I find it absolutely remarkable that after over four years of boiling controversies over Bob's "miniscule" source problem, he still just doesn't get it.

Bob's Obssession with Roy Schoeman and Salvation is From the Jews

One final example will introduce the second part of this essay, which deals with Bob Sungenis's treatment of Roy Schoeman and his book Salvation is From the Jews. This is actually the example that prompted this whole study. I hope that the reader is now thoroughly convinced that Bob Sungenis is simply not to be trusted as a source for reliable information. This is especially true in his treatment of "Jewish issues".

Bob has claimed that Roy Schoeman is the purveyor of "one of the most pernicious and nefarious heresies the Church has ever faced" (Q&A, March, 2006, Question 18). That is just about the most serious charge that any Catholic has ever leveled against another Catholic and one would expect him to have some pretty solid evidence. In Bob's essay "Christopher Blosser and the Catholic ADL" he took the opportunity to take yet another shot at this favorite target of his and ostensibly backed it up with some citations from Schoeman:

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 (Sungenis, Christopher Blosser and the Catholic ADL, p. 3).

Notice that Bob has two phrases in quotation marks, indicating that these are the ipsissima verba of Roy Schoeman. Pretty serious stuff, if he actually said that. But we have seen enough of Bob's "miniscule" source problem to know that quotation marks around something that Bob has written do not guarantee that the words have any connection with what the person actually said. So I wrote to CAI to get clarification. Where, exactly, can I find these exact words of Roy Schoeman?

The reply was entirely predictable. As expected, Bob confirmed that those are not Mr. Schoeman's words. Rather, they are Bob's paraphrases of Mr. Schoeman, saying what Bob wants Roy to be saying. Bob's reply also came with a challenge and that too is to be expected:

I'll thank you, Mr. Palm, for clarifying whether you accept Mr. Schoeman's assertion that the New Covenant did not replace the Old Covenant. Just tell me in a brief reply by email whether you accept or reject his assertion. I'll know what to do from there. If you don't reply, then I'll assume that you've decided not to condemn what is an obvious error in Mr. Schoeman's theology (private e-mail of 20 January 2007).

I will accept that challenge and will meet it in Part 2 of this essay. But Bob Sungenis will not thank me for it. Rather, I will demonstrate there that with regard to Roy Schoeman's book Salvation is From the Jews, Bob Sungenis is guilty of more of the shoddy scholarship and reckless disregard for the truth that has been so amply documented in this present work.