Tuesday, September 17, 2002
Dale: I've been watching the Bob Sungenis Death Spiral for the past two months in astonishment. I own two books either written or edited by him, "Not By Faith Alone" and "Not By Scripture Alone." The former is decent, but the latter is (and will remain) indispensible. There's nothing in either of these two books that's problematic--most definitely not on the scale of the last two months, with the geocentrism and Jewish issues.
The geocentrism flap, while striking, is ultimately not a real problem. Imprudent and unsustainable, but if he wants to die on that hill, so be it. Fortunately, that issue died down and CAI moved on to other topics. Unfortunately, one of the other topics was the singularly awful "Reflections" paper, which I will not rehash here. Suffice it to say, I squeezed my spleen dry and poured it on the document before going on to newer outrages. But in so doing, I didn't even touch the Jewish section, which is beyond my limited competence.
Mr. Sungenis leapt into the fray, and produced a decent rebuttal to the Catholic section. Had he stopped there, no problem. But he decided to assault the Jewish reflections as well. The document has since been modified somewhat, but here's the current form, and here's an answer to a critic, complete with a litigation threat. For further background, here are the criticisms of John Betts (scroll down for the 9/15-16 posts--his blog doesn't have archive links) and Bill Cork (look for 9/12-16--too many posts to link to).
I was shocked by Sungenis' writings, but one of the shocks was its familiarity: I've seen the exact same style, tone and citation approach before. Unfortunately, the writings are by certified Catholic bashers like Bill Jackson, Bart Brewer and irony of ironies, Mike Scheifler. It's the same prooftexting used against Catholics--how many times have you had quotes from The Glories of Mary ("See--they exalt her above Christ!") or obscure papal encyclicals ("Catholics think the Pope is God!") tossed at you? There's even the beloved decades-old newspaper article cited as Magisterial Proof angle ("The January 23, 1917 issue of 'Our Sunday Visitor' had an article demonstrating that the Pope has a ring with '666' on it which he wears while re-sacrificing Christ in the Mass and selling annulments. QED. So there.") There's the same protestations of love ("It's because I love Catholics that I speak out against their Satanic religion--come out of the Whore!"). And there's even the suggested depravity of a religion which bears no relation to reality (the alleged Talmud citations allowing sex with children--Confessions of Maria Monk, anyone?). Oh, sure--you see Rabbis advocating that all the time... Then there are the global theories reminiscent of Avro Manhattan and Jack Chick, but see John Betts for more on that. Here's a picture that may help rebut the notion that the Church is Israel's useful idiot.
I only have one question. I'm not the only one to have run into this type of anti-Catholic hate before, and it's certain that someone at CAI has stumbled into similar attacks. Didn't anyone notice the similarities?
The geocentrism flap, while striking, is ultimately not a real problem. Imprudent and unsustainable, but if he wants to die on that hill, so be it. Fortunately, that issue died down and CAI moved on to other topics. Unfortunately, one of the other topics was the singularly awful "Reflections" paper, which I will not rehash here. Suffice it to say, I squeezed my spleen dry and poured it on the document before going on to newer outrages. But in so doing, I didn't even touch the Jewish section, which is beyond my limited competence.
Mr. Sungenis leapt into the fray, and produced a decent rebuttal to the Catholic section. Had he stopped there, no problem. But he decided to assault the Jewish reflections as well. The document has since been modified somewhat, but here's the current form, and here's an answer to a critic, complete with a litigation threat. For further background, here are the criticisms of John Betts (scroll down for the 9/15-16 posts--his blog doesn't have archive links) and Bill Cork (look for 9/12-16--too many posts to link to).
I was shocked by Sungenis' writings, but one of the shocks was its familiarity: I've seen the exact same style, tone and citation approach before. Unfortunately, the writings are by certified Catholic bashers like Bill Jackson, Bart Brewer and irony of ironies, Mike Scheifler. It's the same prooftexting used against Catholics--how many times have you had quotes from The Glories of Mary ("See--they exalt her above Christ!") or obscure papal encyclicals ("Catholics think the Pope is God!") tossed at you? There's even the beloved decades-old newspaper article cited as Magisterial Proof angle ("The January 23, 1917 issue of 'Our Sunday Visitor' had an article demonstrating that the Pope has a ring with '666' on it which he wears while re-sacrificing Christ in the Mass and selling annulments. QED. So there.") There's the same protestations of love ("It's because I love Catholics that I speak out against their Satanic religion--come out of the Whore!"). And there's even the suggested depravity of a religion which bears no relation to reality (the alleged Talmud citations allowing sex with children--Confessions of Maria Monk, anyone?). Oh, sure--you see Rabbis advocating that all the time... Then there are the global theories reminiscent of Avro Manhattan and Jack Chick, but see John Betts for more on that. Here's a picture that may help rebut the notion that the Church is Israel's useful idiot.
I only have one question. I'm not the only one to have run into this type of anti-Catholic hate before, and it's certain that someone at CAI has stumbled into similar attacks. Didn't anyone notice the similarities?
