Sungenis Singled Out by Jewish Blogger

Recently, an article was posted by a Jewish blogger about the Good Friday prayer. In it, the author takes an approach that seems reasonable and fair for a Jew who does not believe that Jesus is the Messiah. He didn't attack the Pope, in fact, he defended the Holy Father, calling him "enlightened." He also conveyed a sound understanding that Catholics have every right to pray for the conversion of any people, Jewish or not:

"I think it is inappropriate for Jews to attempt to place limits on Catholic prayers or beliefs."

He went on to admonish those Jews who have come forth with "wildly unfair" criticisms and complaints in reaction to the new prayer and quoted extensively from a letter written by Dr. David Berger that brought to light the fact that Jews pray similarly for the conversion of those who do not believe in the God of the Torah. (There are some interesting comments in reaction to this letter, with a strong majority of Jewish people standing behind the contention that Catholics should not have their liturgical matters interfered with by non-Catholics. One of the only strong dissenters from this view was even been admonished by his fellow Jews...something not likely to receive recognition at CAI/BTF.)

In short, the author of the blog clearly seems to be a reasonable man of good will.

And this author singled out Robert Sungenis (along with two others) as being in stark contrast to the Holy Father:

"I believe in both freedom of religion and speech...(although the beliefs of Bishop Richard Williamson, Robert Sungenis, and Mel Gibson seem all too well represented among some Catholic rank-and-file.)"

While we firmly believe the prejudiced views to which this author refers are not well represented in the Church except at the extremes of the Traditionalist movement (Bishop Williamson and Mel Gibson who, in spite of creating The Passion of the Christ, has some problematic leanings) and perhaps in a few odd pockets (like CAI/BTF), such perceptions and concerns are understandable.

Clearly, Sungenis has given legitimate ammunition to those who fear the Church and portray it as anti-Semitic. As such, if he genuinely hopes that Jewish people come to Christ, as he claims to, the best thing he can do is to be silent on Jewish issues, as his bishop has directed, and pray for them.

When Like Finds Like

In his original study, Robert Sungenis and the Jews, Michael Forrest wrote:

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

While Sungenis has changed the name of his apostolate, it is clear that the changes at CAI/BTF have by and large been cosmetic, and perhaps the surest confirmation of this is to be found in some of the individuals still drawn to it and to Sungenis.

As of this date, one may find the following comments made by Sungenis’ patrons, allies and friends, most of which were posted by Sungenis on his new, revised website. The first thing that may jump out at the reader is the “top-tags weblog” at the top of the new Q and A Forum. These are helpful tags to direct the reader to various topics addressed. However, the font sizes for each topic are not all equal. The more a particular blog tag is used to label something, the larger it becomes. And one tag is larger than all of the other 50 listed (click on “view all tags” at the forum): Jews. In fact, only two other tags are even close to the size of the tag for Jews.

Here are two of the more noteworthy Q and A’s about Jews:

Question 18

Robert,
Why do Catholics and “Jews” number the Psalms differently?
Edgar

While Sungenis’ answer wasn’t problematic, the question certainly was, although an innocent person unfamiliar with ugly anti-Semitic conspiracy theories might not recognize it as such. It seems unlikely that Sungenis, who is certainly no stranger to the world of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, was unaware of the problem, especially as Edgar Suter is not only a patron of CAI but a friend of Sungenis and a source of information on “Jewish issues”, including the notorious information Sungenis posted from the white-supremacist National Vanguard. Suter is no passing stranger.

For those who are not familiar with the work and code words of anti-Semites, placing quotation marks around the word “Jews” is not accidental. It is meant to convey agreement with a vile, completely discredited conspiracy theory that claims the Jewish people of today are not truly Jews at all, they are merely ethnic imposters. Suter is also a devotee of an even more vile, anonymous anti-Semite who has written at length on his blog about this theory that is shared by yet another well-known anti-Semite - and source of Sungenis “Jewish information” - Michael Hoffman II.

The second “interesting” Q and A on Jewish issues is #44. Below is the last section of the entry:

The goals [of the] Christ Crucifiers has [sic] been for hundreds of years 1) Get the deicide crime abolished. 2) Get the Old Covenant to be still valid for them by the Vatican. 3) Get the Noahide Laws established worldwide by placing 5th columns in the 5 great religions of the world.

And what was Sungenis’ response? Did he immediately correct his gravely mistaken patron with the skills he honed as a professional debater and apologist? Surely his new attitude toward the Jewish people would find expression in response to such hate. In response to his disciple’s slander of modern Jews as “Christ Crucifiers,” one might hope Sungenis would at least quote Nostra Aetate #4:

“what happened in His passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today.”

Maybe he would even quote another passage:

“this sacred synod wants to foster and recommend that mutual understanding and respect which is the fruit, above all, of biblical and theological studies as well as of fraternal dialogues.”

Perhaps he might even have gone as far as to fraternally admonish his patron for regurgitating the kind of Jewish conspiracy theories that he himself had finally promised to swear off.

Unfortunately, Sungenis chose none of the above. Instead, he replied:

R. Sungenis: And that’s why we are here to preach the true Gospel of Jesus Christ- in order to rebut these false ideas.

And thus he confirmed his patron’s "wisdom" and the continuing purpose of CAI-BTF.

For those who have followed this blog over the past year, a similar interaction may come to mind: Sungenis’ radio interview on Republic Broadcasting Network.

In that interview, aside from Sungenis’ statements about Jews taking down president Clinton by sending Monica Lewinsky after him, a caller made several statements to which Sungenis ought to have objected, but instead, he chose to add to what the caller had said:

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

Sungenis: Yeah, as a matter of fact, just to add to what you're saying - we've been quoting Benjamin Ginzberg a lot on this program, and here's what he says, along those same lines - he says, "to make matters worse, Jews often, secretly or not so secretly, conceive themselves to be morally and intellectually superior to their neighbors. Indeed, Jews are extremely successful outsiders who sometimes have the temerity to rub it in." That comes from The Fatal Embrace, page Roman numeral nine. Now, and on the other side of this coin, you know, we've got to be very cautious, because these are human beings too. Jews are human beings, and God loves them just like He loves you and I --

Caller: According to the Talmud, they are the only human beings. The rest of us are cattle.

Sungenis: Well, yeah, and that's where the problem comes in.

Caller: Absolutely, so that's exactly what you're saying, but in a different way.

Sungenis: Right, right, and what I find in, especially today, is this idea that has been resurgent since after World War II, and that is that the Jews are the Chosen People - that this somehow has come to the fore again, that all of a sudden, 2,000 years has gone by and God has resurrected them as the Chosen People above everybody else - and this is where institutions like EWTN, or the liberal Catholics, or the Zionists, or the Evangelical Protestants, or whatever - this is all what they're feeding off of, that the Jews are the Chosen People and now we have to restore them to their rightful place - and it's causing a lot of problems, because once you do that, you're gonna push other people out of the way! Article

And then we have the inimitiable Michael Hoffman II himself. Hoffman has been a source of information on "Jewish issues" for Sungenis in the past and Sungenis has spoken positively of his work. (Before reading on, the reader is warned that the following comments are extremely offensive.) In reaction to Sungenis' temporary obedience to Bishop Rhoades, Hoffman had the following deplorable reaction:

"The one scholar the traditional Catholics have said is my peer has just this past July dutifully put his tail between his legs and self-censored the entire Judaism section of his website because his fag Novus Ordo bishop ordered him to lay off the rabbis. Incredibly, he complied, muttering something about the bishop being akin to God" ("Update on Hoffman's new book on Judaism, 'Judaism Discovered'")

And what was Sungenis' reaction to this very public calumny? Silence.

Once again, all of this only serves to further confirm the wisdom of Bishop Rhoades’ order for Sungenis to cease and desist writing about Jewish issues. (Article)

The Matter of Character

Throughout this controversy, a few individuals have chided the contributors to this blog with the challenge that we should just "stick to the issues", meaning that we should ignore the character and behavior of Bob Sungenis and only engage the theological issues he raises. But the recent development in which Sungenis has unjustly and untruthfully attacked and slandered his own bishop has vindicated our contention that with Sungenis character is the issue. Bishop Rhoades' assessment of the situation―namely that Bob Sungenis should not be publicly advancing opinions on Jewish issues in his self-appointed role as a "Catholic apologist"―is shown by Bob himself to be wise and correct. That Bob has seen fit to defy his bishop's orders and counterattack with false allegations and guilt by association is all the proof one needs that we are dealing here with a man who cannot be trusted to handle these matters in an honorable way.

A "Catholic apologist" holds no official position in the Catholic Church—Bob has appointed himself to that position. But despite this unofficial status, the global reach of the Internet can make it appear that such an individual publicly represents the Church. Indeed, Sungenis loudly proclaims that his is a "Catholic" organization, although he is in violation of canon law for so doing:

Can. 300 No association is to assume the name Catholic without the consent of competent ecclesiastical authority according to the norm of can. 312 (link).

Bob has received no such consent from his bishop—quite the contrary. And while he has finally removed the Catholic name from the title of the home page of his website, the name still appears in numerous places, including his "Catholic Apologetics Study Bibles" (http://catholicintl.com/products/books/casbrev.html), the url for his website (www.catholicintl.com), and numerous other web pages that still refer to "Catholic" Apologetics International (http://catholicintl.com/epologetics/articles.htm).

Ultimately, as we have seen so clearly in the case of Bob Sungenis, the self-appointed apologist can even set himself up against legitimate Church authority and position himself as a kind of alternative magisterium. As such, the character and behavior of these individuals is highly significant. In Catholic apologetics it is truly character that counts.

We believe that credibility in Catholic apologetics is earned through a combination of careful, accurate scholarship, balanced presentation, and a Christian demeanor toward Catholic and non-Catholic alike in public and private. Especially in his writing on Jews and Jewish issues, Sungenis displays none of these. It is only reasonable that Catholic individuals would speak up when a self-professed Catholic apologist behaves in ways that are positively harmful to the good of souls and the reputation of the Catholic Church. It is all the more reasonable when the legitimate authority in the Church speaks out and the admonition is met with defiance and slanderous accusations.

Simply put, we believe the evidence is clear that in Robert Sungenis the Catholic apologetics community is faced with a man of bad character. And as such, it is right that we focus our attention, not on his sometimes true, sometimes false, always unauthorized theological and political machinations, but on this bad character itself. An analogy is à propos. During the Clinton presidency, apologists for Bill Clinton continually sought to deflect attention from his bad behavior and utter lack of character by insisting that only the political issues mattered and the rest were purely private concerns. But true Catholic insight into human nature insists that a man's behavior and character cannot be separated from his positions on issues, that inevitably a bad heart results in bad positions and bad behavior. Clinton opponents rightly insisted that the president's character and behavior were the issues that needed to be front and center in that controversy. And as we have demonstrated, even Sungenis’ theology has been deeply stained.

The writers at this blog have been able to bring a great deal of information to light that otherwise would not be available to the Catholic apologetics community and others outside it. Since 2002, Sungenis has given clear evidence again and again that he is not a man who can be trusted to handle the truth honorably or responsibly. Whether it is the telling numerous outright falsehoods concerning former colleagues, employing Nazi-like tactics in an attempt to "out" Jews, unjust attacks against Jewish converts, outright bigotry against Jews, repeated plagiarism and shoddy scholarship, a phony doctoral degree, repeated double standards, a complete unwillingness to genuinely apologize for anything that he has said and done, and now his unjust, false, and self-serving attack on his own bishop while daring to publicly laud himself as a good and obedient Catholic. From the earliest days, the Church has warned its members not to fall into the dangerous error of personality cults, even those led by legitimate authorities within the Church (1 Cor 1:10-17 and 3:3-9). And of course, Bob does not even possess any legitimate authority. All of these things should convince any sensible person that Sungenis is not a man to be trusted, followed, or listened to.

Unfortunately, Bob is sufficiently talented to continue to convince at least some individuals, who believe his claims to be the innocent victim of a grand conspiracy. We have remained silent for these months since Sungenis' bishop took up these issues. But now that Sungenis has publicly defied his bishop and slandered him in the process, we felt compelled in conscience to rise to His Excellency's defense with the information we have that exonerates this successor of the Apostles from the charges leveled against him. And because it is character that counts, an important facet of our contribution is information which clearly illuminates the character of Bob Sungenis. Caveat emptor!

The Clinton Connection

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sungenis: "Mr. Forrest never denied to me that he had a gig or a promoter for the gig around the beginning of 2005. He told me these things on the phone, and my wife remembers it because I told her about the whole conversation." (JMATJ, p. 54, emphasis added)

(More Notable Quotes From Sungenis)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

David Palm

A Timeline of Events

May – June 2007: It becomes public that Sungenis was denied an imprimatur for the second volume in his Catholic Apologetics Study Bible series, on the Apocalypse, in the fall of 2006. Sungenis admits that "some people are probably curious as to why the Apocalypse of St. John was denied an imprimatur from Bishop Rhoades", and explains, "I will tell you that it only revolves around issues regarding my views on Judaism." (http://www.catholicintl.com/book-recomendation/Imprimatur_4.pdf) See the following blog entries for more details: Entry 1, Entry 2.

29 June 2007: Sungenis receives an order via registered letter from his bishop to “immediately desist from commenting on the Jewish people and Judaism both online and in all other publications” (Thomas J. Herron, “Fear of the Jews in Harrisburg,” Culture Wars, Oct 2007, p. 9). From Herron’s description, His Excellency at this time also, “threatened to publicly denounce . . . Robert Sungenis . . . and deprive him of his right to use the word ‘Catholic’ on his website and written material” (ibid., p. 8). The bishop gave Sungenis, "a two week notice in this letter to pull down all comments concerning Jews, Judaism, Israel and Zionism from his web site" (ibid. , p. 9).

3 July 2007: Just four days after he had received the cease and desist order from his bishop, Sungenis posted his article “Jacob Michael, the Imprimatur and the Smear Campaign” The document is dated 1 July 2007 and was posted to the CAI website two days later on 3 July. In it, Sungenis smears Bishop Rhoades:

With all due respect to Bishop Rhoades, I believe I know what his theological viewpoint is, since he is a protégé of William Cardinal Keeler and very close to him personally and theologically, Keeler having come from the Harrisburg diocese and the ordinary who ordained Rhoades. If you remember, Cardinal Keeler was a co-author with several Jewish rabbis of the Reflections on Covenant and Missions document in 2003. I think you get the picture. I won't say anymore out of respect for Bishop Rhoades" (Jacob Michael, the Imprimatur and the Smear Campaign, p. 11).

At that time, we wrote on the RSATJ blog:

Sungenis opted to smear his own bishop with innuendo and guilt by association and then had the nerve to claim he was showing “respect” for him by so doing. The reader will notice that Sungenis provided no substantive documentation for his implied charges. He simply associated Bishop Rhoades with Jews, Cardinal Keeler and the RCM document and that was enough for him to conclude that the Bishop must subscribe to the dual salvific covenant position, or perhaps must be one of those bishops he previously described thusly:

"As long as [my critics]…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." (Article, page 23)

This attack on Bishop Rhoades is particularly outrageous and hypocritical as Sungenis and his associates have bitterly complained that Sungenis is a victim of guilt by association in regard to Jewish issues. They have argued that he is being called an anti-Semite simply because some of his sources are anti-Semitic. However, in Sungenis’ case, it is most certainly not a matter of guilt by association. It is not guilt by association when one actively and purposely promotes, uses and otherwise directly associates oneself with the “Jewish research” of anti-Semites.

In stark contrast, Sungenis provided no documentation at all that bishop Rhoades holds to or promotes the “two separate, salvific covenants” concept suggested by the RCM document. His mistreatment of Bishop Rhoades is therefore a classic example of guilt by association. . . . (link)

Apparently, relatively soon after Sungenis’ attempted defense was posted in multiple venues, he received complaints on the outrageousness of this smear against the bishop and removed it. However, characteristically, no public retraction or apology has been made by him at CAI.

6 July 2007: CAI associate Chris Campbell gathers Sungenis’ principle articles on Jewish issues and re-posts them to a separate blog, away from the CAI website (http://sungenisandhiscritics.blogspot.com; this blog was subsequently deactivated after Ben Douglass found it.) The articles were thus at two independent locations.

17 July 2007: More than two weeks after Bishop Rhoades has given Sungenis "a two week notice in this letter to pull down all comments concerning Jews, Judaism, Israel and Zionism from his web site", the CAI website still features the following Jewish-related articles on the home page:

"Will Enoch and Elijah Return to Preach to the Jews?"

"Fourteen Problems with the Theology and Eschatology of Roy Schoeman"

News Item: "Israel and the USS Liberty Massacre, 1967"

Book Recommendation: "The Power of Israel in the United States"

"Disturbing Facts about Israel"

"Adventures in Blogland"

"Catholics Falling for Jewish Errors"

"Fr. Matthew Lamb of Ave Maria Responds Re Seder Meal"

"Ave Maria University Pushing Seder Service: Sorry, Not Kosher During Holy Week"

"Congressman Paul Findley Speaks Out Against Israel and AIPAC"

Video: "The World as Seen Through Jewish Eyes"

Video: "Forever Learning Institute and the Southern Poverty Law Center, an interview with E. Michael Jones and Thomas Herron (February 2007)"

"Devil Talk: Is the Gospel of John Anti-Semitic? by Mark P. Shea"

"Never Revoked By God by Jacob Michael"

QA: "Dealing with the Holocaust"

QA: "Judaizers and Jewish Pressure Groups"

"The Israeli Lobby and US Foreign Policy

"Roy Schoeman, the Jews, and the Old Covenant"

"I'm Mad, And I'm Not Going To Take it Anymore"

"Jewish/Catholic Debate Over OT Messianic Prophecies"

"My Conversation with the USCCB about the Jews and the Old Covenant"

"Dialogue on the Old Covenant: Is it Revoked?"

"Pope Benedict XVI Says Jews Must Convert to Christianity in order to be Saved"

"Overlooked Millions: Non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust"

"Neo-Cons and the Jewish Connection"

"The Zionists and the Neo-cons"

"Judaizers in the Catholic Church"

"An Analysis of the Ministries of David Moss and Roy Schoeman"

"Christian Zionism: A Contradiction in Terms"

Throughout July: In spite of his bishop’s order to “desist from commenting on the Jewish people and Judaism”, Sungenis posts several pieces on Jews/Israel. He posted a cartoon of a Jewish soldier with a machine-gun pointed at the head of a young Palestinian child. He posted a Q and A in which he went to great lengths to downplay the relationship of the Jewish people to God. He wrote “,Jacob Michael, As Ass in Sheep’s Clothing”. And he also posted a review of a book by James Petras in which he made the following statements, including his own personal prophecy of “judgment” and “punishment” for Israel:

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

“There was such unbridled destruction of people and property that, like Jacob saw in his day, we have all the signs that the nation of Israel has made itself 'stink' among the nations. As Jacob predicted, it may not be too long before their neighbors 'shall gather themselves together against me, and slay me; and I shall be destroyed, I and my house.' St. John may have predicted the same when he stated that the 'Whore of Babylon' would one day be hated and burned by the Beast and the Ten Horns (the nations)."

"Peace in the Middle East can only come if Israel learns her place...”

“Israel is as ungodly today as they were in St. Paul’s day, and the world, especially the United States, must stop condoning and encouraging its sin...If the United States does not stop, it will also soon come under God’s judgment and it will be severely punished.”

27 July 2007: Sungenis is called in to meet with Fr. King, the vicar general of the Diocese of Harrisburg and Fr. Massa, a representative of the USCCB. In that meeting, Sungenis is confronted with the worst of the material he has posted concerning the Jews.

31 July 2007: Sungenis posts the article, “Catholic Apologetics International and its Teachings on the Jews”. Although this document has influenced some to conclude that Sungenis actually apologized for his anti-Semitic material, retracted it, and was finally obedient to his bishop, one must candidly acknowledge what this statement was and what it was not. Sungenis chose to lay a significant amount of blame for his problems upon the Church for being less “traditional” today and upon those who have a “partiality” for “Jews and their ideological causes.” And he opted to post “seven points” about the Jewish people that are at times dubious and certainly unnecessarily antagonistic, especially for an ostensible attempt at conciliation. But perhaps more importantly, while Bob acknowledged that his bishop and the USCCB objected to both his “tone and content”, “inappropriate language and accusations”, Sungenis again only directly acknowledges fault with his tone. He neither publicly apologizes for nor publicly retracts any of the content he has posted at his website. Many people were under the false impression that Bob had apologized for and retracted the problematic material about the Jewish people he posted back in 2002. The same was true of the “Open Letter” he wrote that appeared near the end of 2006. This latest statement appears to be of the same character (or lack thereof.) It is neither an apology, nor a retraction, nor an indication that Sungenis intends to obey his bishop. Subsequent statements from Sungenis documented below prove this assessment to be correct.

In this latest document, Sungenis admits that the diocese had problems with his tone and his content, his inappropriate language and his accusations. This is important because, as documented below, he later spins the exchange as if they only had problems with his tone. Note too that Sungenis told them at that time that he agreed with their assessment of his writings (which, presumably, would cover problems with content and accusations, as well tone and language):

[The] vicar general [of the diocese], the Very Reverend William J. King, JCD, along with the executive director for ecumenical and inter-religious affairs of the USCCB, the Reverend James Massa, the shepherds God has placed as overseers of my life and work have asked me to reconsider the tone and content with which I write about the Jewish people for CAI. They provided me various examples in which I have crossed the line into inappropriate language and accusations, and I communicated to them my agreement with their overall assessment.

Sungenis continues on to speak in glowing tones of the priests with whom he had met and lauded his own obedience in lofty terms:

Since I am a faithful son of the Catholic Church, I take their wisdom and counsel with the utmost seriousness and consider their direction as if it was from God himself. I consider it an honor not only to be a member of the Catholic Church but also to be under the vigilance of such wise and caring pastors.

Sungenis goes on to state that his removal of material from the CAI website was instigated based on “my bishop’s directive”. This is important since, later, Sungenis portrayed this move as purely voluntary on his part. He also promises that whatever he puts up on the site will conform to his bishop’s sensibilities:

Accordingly, CAI is in the process of removing all the content on its website concerning the Jews in order to make the initial adjustments in complying with my bishop’s directive. . . . If in the future we write any new material on the Jews, it will always be with the required due diligence, as if the bishop were present with us. Since he acts in God’s stead, we will do our utmost to please him so as to preserve the peace and tranquility he so desires to maintain in the body of Christ.

Along with this came seven points which, as was stated above, are at times dubious and at the very least are unnecessarily antagonistic and belligerent. And this in a piece that was ostensibly written to help “preserve the peace and tranquility . . . in the body of Christ” that Bishop Rhoades desired. Just a few examples will illustrate this strange dynamic:

“3) The Jews, as a race, are no longer the ‘chosen people’ of God . . .”

This unqualified position would seem to miss an available both/and. It also seems to run directly contrary to the stated position of Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI (as documented here.) It is inappropriate for Sungenis to state this position categorically, without any qualification.

“5) The present occupation of the land of Palestine by Jews who migrated there from different parts of the world beginning in 1948 is not a fulfillment of positive divine prophecy from either the Old or the New Testaments. It is strictly a political movement engineered by the powers of the world. . . .”

This entire section is dubious. The Church has never staked out a definitive position on this. Therefore, it is inappropriate for Sungenis to present his opinion as fact and to state it in such a forceful manner.

“6) The major percentage of Jews in the world today, as well as those who existed for the 2000 years prior to Christ and those who lived for the 2000 after Christ, have been blinded to the Gospel of Jesus Christ by their own doing; and only a remnant of them have been saved at any given time” (emphasis added).

This is again stated as an established fact, including the assertion that it is “by their own doing” that the “major percentage of Jews” are blinded to the Gospel. Sungenis has no way of knowing this, much less stating this as the teaching of the Church.

“Moreover, it is our considered opinion that we are not to expect a massive conversion of Jews in the future nor are we to base the timing of the return of Christ on such a conversion. In the same vein we conclude that various biblical enthusiasts from Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish quarters who have interpreted certain scriptural passages as predicting both a divine re-establishment of the land of Palestine for the Jews and/or a large conversion of Jews to Christianity prior to the return of Christ, have categorically misunderstood the Scripture’s teaching on these subjects.”

Sungenis does not tell his reader that the Catholic “biblical enthusiasts” who uphold the position that sacred Scripture predicts a special future conversion of the Jews include at least twenty one of the most prominent patristic witnesses and an impressive line-up of medieval witnesses; the position is held by no less than fourteen Doctors of the Church, including CAI’s putative patron, St. Robert Bellarmine (see The Ongoing Role of the Jews in Salvation History).

Questions to the associates of CAI as to whether these seven points had in fact met with the approval of his bishop went unanswered.

Finally, at the end of the document Sungenis again expresses his gratitude to all of the clergy and the USCCB:

With the deepest appreciation to my bishop, the Very Reverend Kevin Rhoades, his vicar general, the Very Reverend William King, the Reverend James Massa and the USCCB. . .

Sungenis stated that this document would remain up at the CAI site in perpetuity:

These stipulations about the Jews will be a permanent fixture on the website of CAI so that everyone will know where we stand from here on out (Teachings, 2-3; emphasis added).

5 August 2007: In answer to a Dr. Edgar Suter’s inquiry as to why the material had been removed from the CAI website, Sungenis wrote:

The fact is that I was under an interdict from my bishop. I had no choice, unless I decided to directly disobey him. Since he did not insist on an outright censorship but only that I change the ‘tone’ of my articles, then the matter was handled fairly. I can still write about Jewish issues as long as my tone is respectable. I don't have a problem with that, because it goes without saying that the tone should be respectable” (this e-mail was inexplicably forwarded by Dr. Suter to a whole group of people, including two contributors to this blog.)

The Catholic Encyclopedia states that, "An interdict is a censure, or prohibition, excluding the faithful from participation in certain holy things. These holy things are all those pertaining to Christian worship, and are divided into three classes . . . the Liturgy . . . the sacraments . . . [and] ecclesiastical burial, including all funeral services." This admission tells strongly against Sungenis’ later claims that he acted “voluntarily” in pulling down the material from the website.

Sungenis insists to Suter that obedience to the bishop is essential to being a Catholic: “The bottom line is that my bishop has authority over me and I have to work things out with him. Catholicism is all about authority and obedience, otherwise we are Protestants. My apostolate is founded on the Catholic Church’s authority, and nothing else” (e-mail to Suter, 5 August 2007).

6 August 2007: Sungenis contacts Michael Forrest, demanding that Forrest take down www.sungenisandthejews.com. Sungenis states that his bishop was completely satisfied with his actions and that, therefore, Forrest is now standing “against the Church” by maintaining the website. A dialogue ensues, during which Sungenis threatens to repost all of his Jewish material, with expansions. He also states that he still holds to most all of the things he has written about Jews and that “no one” would ever change his mind about them:

Michael, I’ll be very frank with you. Much of the material that was on my site I still hold to. . . . I am not coming to you asking you to remove your website as if I have relinquished these beliefs about the Jewish people, in particular Roy Schoeman. 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, and I will start with Roy Schoeman specifically. . . . As to the retraction in 2002, yes, I did it for “peace,” because I still believed most of the things I wrote. I was being perfectly honest with my audience. And I am being perfectly honest with you, Michael. Neither you nor anyone else is going to get me to change my mind about the Jews, Israel, Judaism and even Roy Schoeman. What I’m telling you is, I will refrain from addressing it if you take down your website. I’ve said my piece and could easily move on. I’ve got bigger fish to fry (e-mail of 27 August).

Forrest states plainly that he does not believe that Sungenis’ bishop is satisfied with his actions to this point, but indicates his willingness to take down the website if Sungenis will 1) provide documentation from the diocese of Harrisburg stating that the actions he had taken to date had satisfied Sungenis’ bishop’s directives, 2) post an apology and retraction of the sort already agreed upon in principle between the two men for the most problematic statements Sungenis had made about the Jewish people, and 3) remove at least the section on various Jewish converts from a book review that remained on the CAI website (e-mail of 4 Sept 2007.) Sungenis states that Forrest’s conditions are “unreasonable, if not ludicrous” and that, “Everything I promised in my last letter to you, will happen” (e-mail of 4 Sept 2007). Forrest requested that Sungenis state specifically what he found unreasonable about the conditions; there was no further response from Sungenis.

9 August 2007: Michael Hoffman II, an anti-Semitic writer whom Sungenis has used multiple times as a source in the past, expresses his disgust with Sungenis' acquiescence to his bishop: "The one scholar the traditional Catholics have said is my peer has just this past July dutifully put his tail between his legs and self-censored the entire Judaism section of his website because his fag Novus Ordo bishop ordered him to lay off the rabbis. Incredibly, he complied, muttering something about the bishop being akin to God" ("Update on Hoffman's new book on Judaism, 'Judaism Discovered'")

9 August 2007: Sungenis writes to Jacob Michael about the new developments at CAI, insisting "you also have a responsibility to act on this new development." Since "the offending material about which you complain . . . has been removed from our website", he argues, "you now have an obligation to take down the material on your website or blog that relates to these matters."

10 August 2007: A person by the name of Steve Tolles contacts former CAI associate Ben Douglas, confessing that he was the source of a damaging, bogus quote which Sungenis had publicly attributed to Roy Schoeman. Just after Sungenis’ publication of the forged quote, Tolles was unsettled and went silent upon receiving a series of increasingly bizarre and threatening e-mails from Sungenis. Eventually, as the details of the Church’s intervention into Sungenis’ anti-Jewish polemic became public, Tolles went to Douglass with his admission. Douglass confronted Sungenis on the situation. After seeking unsuccessfully to extract a public apology and retraction from Sungenis for the false attribution of a forged quote to Schoeman, Douglass posted the full (and sordid) details about the Tolles situation here on 8 Sept. No apology, public or private, has been forthcoming from Sungenis to Schoeman or Tolles.

26 August 2007: Jacob Michael contacts Sungenis to discuss the possibility of removing the material from RSATJ blog. Jacob explains his concern that Sungenis has not publicly apologized or retracted his most outrageous statements about the Jews.

27 August 2007: Sungenis responds to Jacob Michael, stating "If you don't remove your blog and do so immediately, then, as the saying goes, all hell will break loose, and you will only have yourself to blame for it." Specifically, Sungenis promises, "I will begin reposting the material on my site, one article at a time, revised and expanded, and I'm going to pay particular attention to Roy Schoeman and you. Also, I will start a daily blog which does nothing but examine your writings and his writings, and I will critique them with the same vigor that I critique everything else." He further promises, "I will initiate a civil libel suit against you, as I warned you of before, and this time I will follow through with it, and I have already talked to a lawyer about it. . . . You're not dealing with a puppy, Jacob. I mean what I say, and I am just angry enough to make it all happen rather quickly."

28 August 2007: Sungenis removes the word “Catholic” from the name of his apostolate (at least on his home page), changinges the title of his website from “Catholic Apologetics International” to “Bellarmine Theological Forum”. Shortly thereafter, he moves the Q&A section of the CAI site to a separate site, the “xanga.com” blog site.

5 September 2007: Sungenis posts a 12 page letter to William Cardinal Levada, challenging a sentence in the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults, published by the USCCB. He includes his bishop and Fr. Massa in the distribution list.

19 September 2007: Sungenis comments on Pope Benedict XVI’s statement in Summorum Pontificum, in reference to the Jewish people as God’s “chosen”:

When Pope Paul VI issued the Missale Romanum of 1969, the only prayer for the Jewish people in the Roman liturgy was completely revised for Good Friday to reflect a renewed understanding of the Jews as God’s chosen people, “first to hear the word of God.” (Summorum Pontificum §14).

In order to avoid the idea that the Jews are still God’s chosen people, Sungenis offers this “analysis” of the Pope’s words:

Notice that “God’s chosen people” is defined as those “first to hear the word of God,” which applies to Jews of the Old Covenant, not today.

Also, he does not say “the Jews ARE God’s chosen people.” By using the particle “as,” the reference is completely to the past (link). See our comments here.

20 September 2007: Sungenis posts a Q&A in which he radically distorts an answer given by Cardinal Ratzinger in response to a questioner. The questioner asks Cardinal Ratzinger, “God has not, then, retracted his word that Israel is the Chosen People?” The Cardinal answers,

No, because he is faithful. Of course, we can see that Israel still has some way to go. As Christians, we believe that they will in the end be together with us in Christ. But they are not simply done with and left out of God’s plans; rather, they still stand within the faithful covenant of God” (God and the World, 150).

No, says Cardinal Ratzinger, God has not retracted His word that Israel the Chosen People, because He is faithful. Ergo, according to Cardinal Ratzinger, Israel remains God’s Chosen People. But Sungenis denies that this answer means that Cardinal Ratzinger holds the Jews to be the Chosen People. His “reasoning” is thus:

The Cardinal doesn’t say that the Jews are still the Chosen People. The questioner asked about the Chosen People issue, but the cardinal did not use the phrase “chosen people” in his answer (link). See further analysis here.

In this same Q&A, Sungenis gives his “suggestion” to the Holy Father that perhaps Sungenis might be able to help him interpret sacred Scripture more accurately concerning a future conversion of the Jews.

20 – 22 September 2007: On 20 Sept Sungenis posts a Q&A from Edgar Suter, in which Suter attributes the opposition he is receiving in an Internet forum to a major tenet of the Christian faith to the "pedagogy of deceit of the rabbis"
(link).

On 22 Sept Sungenis posts another Q&A from Suter, asking, “Why do Catholics and ‘Jews’ number the Psalms differently?” The quotation marks around “Jews” is telling, indicating that Suter subscribes to the thesis advanced by such anti-Semitic writers as Michael Hoffman II, viz. that modern-day Jews aren’t really Jews at all (link). These Q&A postings illustrates all too clearly the company Sungenis chooses to keep and cater to, even after being disciplined by his bishop.

27 September 2007: Jacob Michael writes a new entry for the RSATJ blog which was ultimately not posted. In it, he writes:

One point of interest in this open letter to Cardinal Levada about the USCCB catechism is the fact that Sungenis sent a carbon copy of the letter to Bishop Rhoades. It is unclear at first glance why Sungenis felt the need to copy his bishop on this letter, until it is recalled what Sungenis wrote in his original public letter concerning his meeting with Bishop Rhoades: he implied that Bishop Rhoades is in agreement with the two-covenant theory. . . .

It is not difficult to see where Sungenis is headed, with the change-of-name for his apostolate, and the subsequent posting of this open letter to Cardinal Levada which was also sent to Bishop Rhoades. Matters seem to be deteriorating with the diocese. . . .

In all probability, Sungenis will next attempt to publicly discredit his own bishop by portraying him as a liberal supporter of the idea of two separate and salvific covenants, one for Jews, one for everyone else. . . .

Incredible as it may sound, Sungenis certainly appears to be positioning himself to go head-to-head with the Apostolic Successor whom God has put over him. We may soon find out just how ready Sungenis is to cling to his ideas about the Jews, and whether his freedom to write on those issues will trump his fidelity to the authority of the Catholic Church.

Early-mid October 2007: Sungenis pulls his “permanent” article “Catholic Apologetics International and its Teachings on the Jews” from the CAI-BTF website.

Early-mid October 2007: Tom Herron’s article “Fear of the Jews in Harrisburg” appears in Culture Wars magazine. In a 2 Nov 2007 e-mail to former CAI associate Ben Douglass, Sungenis states that this is “an article which I approved for CW’s publication.” Herron’s article is long, rambling, and sprinkled with conspiratorial non sequiturs, such as: “[Fr. Massa] was catching a train that afternoon to NYC. This is of course where a lot of the Judaizing/recent convert bloggers who are out for Sungenis live…”, “It was most interesting that the two most prominent Catholic web writers who have been loudly calling for an official condemnation of Robert Sungenis ... share an interesting point with Father James Massa: they have all been published in Deal Hudson's Crisis magazine”, and the most shocking revelation of all, “The [Harrisburg] diocese is also home to the most famous Jew in Pennsylvania, Governor Ed Rendell...”

Amidst thousands of words of essentially unrelated material, Herron does manage to convey hitherto unknown information about Sungenis’ meeting with Church officials.

Mid-October 2007: Sungenis puts up several Jewish-related “News Alerts” on the CAI-BTF website: one saying that the Jews are going to cause Armageddon, one singling out Abigail Van Buren (“Dear Abbey” columnist) for criticism (having previously identified her as a bad “Jewish influence”), and another about the “End of Israel”.

19 October 2007: In a private correspondence, RSATJ blog writer Jacob Michael predicts that Sungenis is planning on defying his bishop: "He's gearing up to take on the Bishop, and Herron's article is the first shot across the bow."

2 November 2007: Sungenis tells former CAI associate Ben Douglass that, “As for my ‘Jewish’ articles, let me set you straight there also. I will put up any ‘Jewish’ article I please, either now or in the future.”

ca. 20 January 2008: Bob’s latest article, “The Old Covenant: Revoked or Not Revoked? A Review of the PBS Documentary: Jews and Christians: A Journey of Faith”. In addition to theological/doctrinal commentary, Sungenis openly challenges his bishop, disrespectfully referring to him only as “Rhoades” and accusing him of having greater allegiance to Jewish causes than to the Catholic Church. He once again asserts, without any evidence, that Bishop Rhoades subscribes to the dual salvific covenant theory. Apparently, presumably as a result of his “seven points” and other anti-Jewish writings after the meeting at the diocese, Bishop Rhoades once again told Sungenis to stop writing about Jewish issues. Expressing a certain incredulity, Sungenis mentions only three of his original seven points and restates them in a truncated way, avoiding all of the polemical language of the original. In the end, Sungenis refuses obedience and states that his bishop will need to instigate a canonical trial against him if he is to be silent.

Jacob Michael is proved absolutely correct when he said on 19 Oct 2007: “He's gearing up to take on the Bishop...” More than that, Sungenis slandered the bishop with false charges of heresy.

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

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

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

Bob writes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Interestingly enough, Sungenis goes on to admit that Schoeman highlights some of the Talmud's blasphemies on pp. 132-134 of Salvation is from the Jews. Sungenis will later complain that, "There is hardly a negative word about the Talmud in Schoeman's book. Not once does he cite the very controversial passages in which the Talmud condemns Jesus Christ, Mary and Christianity." Yes he does, on pages 132-134. You already admitted it. (Article)

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

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

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

Recent Developments at CAI

In light of the recent positive developments at CAI concerning Robert Sungenis and his bishop, His Excellency Kevin C. Rhoades, it is appropriate to refrain from further comment about these developments while Mr. Sungenis and his bishop work through any of the various issues that are being resolved.

RSATJ asks our readers to pray for all the individuals involved, that they may expeditiously achieve a final, positive resolution to this situation.