Antisemitism and the Catholic Right

by William J. Cork, D.Min.

On 12 August 2002, representatives of the National Council of Synagogues and the Bishops' Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs released Reflections on Covenant and Mission, a document prepared by Catholic and Jewish dialgoue partners intended to summarize the present state of that dialogue.  One statement in it, made by the Catholic participants, was to provoke vigorous debate in the weeks to come:

A deepening Catholic appreciation of the eternal covenant between God and the Jewish people, together with a recognition of a divinely-given mission to Jews to witness to God's faithful love, lead to the conclusion that campaigns that target Jews for conversion to Christianity are no longer theologically acceptable in the Catholic Church.

Many Catholics regarded this as contradicting Catholic teaching about the universal salvific necessity of Jesus, as outlined in the 2000 declaration by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Dominus Iesus. These negative reactions led William Cardinal Keeler to issue a statement clarifying its nature a week after its release.  Reflections on Covenant and Mission was not, he said, a formal statement of either the USCCB or the BCEIA, but was simply intended to summarize the current state of the dialogue and to encourage further reflection among Jews and Catholics (more on Reflections on Covenant and Mission and Dominus Iesus).

Catholic News Service reported on the reactions to the statement in a 26 August story. One of the strongest they mention came from Fr. John Echert, who answered a question on the EWTN webpage on 17 August, saying, "If a document such as this gains approval, as it currently stands, I will seriously consider the prospect that we are moving into one of the signs of the end times, namely, apostasy." A more moderate criticism would come in October from Avery Cardinal Dulles.

One of the critics of the statement was Robert Sungenis of Catholic Apologetics International, an independent apologist known at the time for books published by Queenship Publishing in Santa Barbara, CA, and for two multiple part television series on EWTN, "Justification: Not by Faith Alone" and "The Truth about Scripture and Tradition" (the latter with Patrick Madrid of Envoy).

In the early part of 2002 Sungenis had puzzled some of his friends when he began to write about his eccentric scientific views. "Einstein's theory of Relativity is false ... ol' Albert's theory was devised precisely to combat the idea that the earth was standing still in space." In an article dated 10 August 2002, he asked, "is it really such a stretch of credulity for Robert Sungenis to suggest that the earth may indeed be standing still, especially since he backs it up with evidence from Scripture, the Fathers, Papal decrees, and scientific evidence?" He would later elaborate his views in a book, Galileo Was Wrong!

On 2 September he posted his reaction to Reflections on Covenant and Mission--"Conversion of the Jews Not Necessary?? The Apocalyptic Ramifications of a Novel Teaching," a 33,861 word diatribe against the Catholic bishops and the role of the Jews through history.

Well, they've finally done it. Its been in the works for a while, edging ever so slowly these past 40 years through the prelature. Now, following a cue from the Vatican, the sub-committee of the USCCB has issued a statement teaching that Jews no longer need to convert to Christianity, since they have their own covenant with God for salvation. 'Amazing' you say. You don't know the half of it. There is only one reason why such assertions are being made -- to help Israel acquire the complete land of Palestine, build their new Temple in Jerusalem; and practice Judaism as a divine mandate. Yes, the USCCB statement has apolcalyptic [sic] proportions that are unprecedented in our day.

His article went on to repeat old antisemitic charges, which I then began to research on the internet. I was surprised by the sources of some of the material, and proceeded to document my discoveries on my weblog--the body of this article consists of this documentation. Other bloggers took note and spread the word. Sungenis soon found onetime friends distancing themselves from him. EWTN pulled his programs from the air, and removed all mention of him from their page. Articles by Sungenis were also removed from the webpage of Envoy magazine. I engaged in e-mail correspondence with him throughout this period, trying various approaches; he made some modifications graciously, but stubbornly clung to his main thesis and defended his sources. I also notified some friends and colleagues who had links to his webpage about the nature of Sungenis' recent writings. One priest in campus ministry told his student webmaster to remove it, but the student decided to write to Sungenis first and ask for his side. This made Sungenis feel I was being insincere with him in my private correspondence, and he broke off communication and wrote a very angry response on his webpage. The student removed the link.

As the days and weeks went by, Sungenis and other members of the CAI team defended the article's thesis and attacked those they believed to be unfairly accusing him. On 23 September Jacob Michael posted Bob on the Dock: If He's an Anti-Semite, then I'm U-Thant. Another time, fellow blogger John Betts and I were depicted in crude cartoon form as "Billvis and Bettshead." On 12 September Sungenis responded to an article James Scott had written about him in TCRNews (Robert Sungenis "Catholic" Apologist & Anti-Semite?) with an article that unleashed more false statements about the Talmud: "The Jewish Talmud: How Are We to Understand It? A Reply to TCR and James Scott." He then wrote a lengthy defense of his original article on 15 October which included a fair share of personal insult toward me: Uncorking the Erroneous Teachings, False Allegations and Liberal Agenda of William Cork.  I quote some of his arguments below, but the key point for me was when he said, in response to my acknowledgment that his document had undergone subsequent revisions:

The only reason it went through some "revisions" is that when this whole thing first started I was trying to be accommodating to those who were levying their charges. I took off some material that some people found offensive, even though I still stood by the material (and no one has proven it wrong).

In the sections which follow, I will

1. give some samples of the breadth and nature of Sungenis' claims about the Jews, then will look at
2. the nature of the sources he used, and
3. the use he made of them.

1) Sungenis on the Jews (2 Sept 2002)

The Talmud

As noted previously, the Talmud is an anti-Gentile treatise of the highest order. ...[I]t is precisely the disdain that the Talmud shows for non-Jews that is the cause of all the problems the Jews have had with Gentiles throughout the past 2,000 years. ...

The Talmud is an assortment of every subject imaginable. Unfortunately, it is filled with obscenities and blasphemies of the highest order. It seeks to reverse many biblical moral teachings on theft, murder, sodomy, perjury, treatment of children and parents. It has an unrelenting and virtually insane hatred of Christ, Christians and every aspect of Christianity. ...

Talmudic laws discriminate against the non-Jew, ranking them as human animals....

Seder Nashim contains the most vile filth and obscenities. Kethuboth (on the sum due a wife who is divorced) occupies 2 volumes in the Soncino edition with 728 pages of sexual perversions (e.g. a baby girl being fair prey for adult men): "When a grown up man has intercourse with a little girl it is nothing, for when the girl is less than three years old it is as if one puts the finger into the eye-tears come to the eye again and again, so does virginity come back to the little girl under three years." (Kethuboth 11b; Exh. 180).

The age of sexual maturity for baby girls set by the Talmudic "sages," is three years and one day: "A maiden aged three years and one day may be acquired in marriage by coition . . ." (Sanh. 55b; Sanh.69a-69b; Yebamoth 57b-58a; Yeb. 60b; Exhs. 55, 81, 156, 159). ...

In other books of the Talmud it is taught that baby boys may be used as objects for sodomy by grown men (Exh. 54). The Pharisaic reasoning is that until a child reaches sexual maturity, capable of sexual intercourse, he or she does not rank as a person, hence Biblical law against sodomy (pederasty) does not apply. Throughout the Talmud "nine years and one day" is the fictitious age of male maturity. If the child is under nine years and one day, the "first stage of intercourse" with the mother, or any grown woman, is said to be harmless. Shammai lowers the age to eight years in some cases (Sanhedrin 69b; Exh. 82).

The Holocaust

Incidentally, the figure of "six-million Jews dying under Hitler's regime is even admitted by informed Jews to be mere propaganda. Aufbau, a Jewish weekly paper of New York, stated in an article of Dec. 24, 1948 that the "'six million' story was a pure fabrication." Douglas Reed, in his extensive treatment in the book, Far and Wide (pp. 307-312) states: "No proof can be given that six million Jews perished..."

Bolshevism

In the early 1920s, The Bolsheviks and the Mencheviks who came to power in Russia were about 70% Jewish. Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin were all Jews. ... [Quoting Hillaire Belloc:] "The propaganda of Communism throughout the world, in organization and direction is in the hands of Jewish agents. ... [T]he Bolshevist movement in Russia is Jewish..."

A. N. Field, in the book Today's Greatest Problem, writes: "Once the Jewishness of Bolshevism is understood, its otherwise puzzling features become understandable. Hatred of Christianity, for instance..."

Catholic priest Father Denis Fahey writes: "The real forces behind Bolshevism is Russia are Jewish forces, and Bolshevism is really an instrument in the hands of the Jews for the establishment of their future Messianic kingdom" ...

Iit [sic] is no secret among the well-informed that the Jewish Talmudic religion was the breeding ground for Communism. Karl Marx author of the Communist Manifesto, was a Jew. ...

...The wealthiest Jewish banker in the world at that time, Jacob Schiff of Kuhn, Loeb investment bank of New York City, gave Trotsky and Lenin $20 million to overthrow the Czar and establish the Soviet tyranny

World War I

World War I was the first phrase of freeing the land of Palestine for the Jews, which was then held by the Ottoman Empire based in Istanbul, Turkey. The incident that touched off the war was the assination [sic] of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 His assissin [sic] was Gabriel Princip, a Jew who had ties with Freemasons ....

Roosevelt

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. ...

President Roosevelt had a part in this himself. Being of Jewish ancestry, he was sympathetic to their cause....Roosevelt said: "My ancestors came to America from Holland over 300 years ago. I am not worried about whether or not they were Jewish." Schmalix notes: "This is a clear case of Talmud morality."

Prior to 1948, Palestine was a sovereign state.

Since Jews comprise about two thirds of the membership of the United Nations.

During his visit to Yankee Stadium in 1965, Paul VI wore a Jewish ephod, a symbol of supreme power in the religion of Judaism. This may be no surprise when it is understood that Paul VI's ancestors, the Montini family, were of Jewish ancestry.

...now we see where all this talk about the Jews being in covenant with God has been leading. It is for one main purpose – to get back the land in Palestine to which they feel they are entitled, and they are going to use the Catholic Church to help them accomplish that task. What better license to accomplish their land-grab than the "holy" sanction of the Catholic Church. ... In order to secure the Temple Mount, Israel will need help. That is why they have "employed the services" of the United States, the United Nations, and the Catholic Church.

2) Sources Used

I was first interested in determining the sources Sungenis used. He identified some of them, but others were without documentation; I was able to discover many through Google searches for distinctive phrases. Let's look first at some of the sources he named; I sought biographical information on every name he mentioned, and also sought to discover who else was quoting these writers.

Fr. Denis Fahey, Irish Spiritan

Sungenis referred often to Fr. Denis Fahey, C.S.Sp. (1883-1954), whom he dubbed "the expert on Catholic/Jewish relations." He was particularly indebted to Fahey's book, The Kingship of Christ and Conversion of the Jewish Nation.  Fr. Fahey was one of the key sources of inspiration for Fr. Charles E. Coughlin (1891-1979). Both priests had a conspiratorial view of Jewish involvement in world history, a perspective based on the notorious forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. While Sungenis did not himself cite The Protocols, it is nonetheless a remote source of his beliefs, because of its importance to Fahey. A British extremist, Ivan Fraser, quotes Fahey in an article defending their authenticity: "It was natural that the Jews should try to discredit the Protocols, for their growing fame was focussing [sic] more public attention on other revealing utterances" [Waters Flowing Eastward].

Of Fahey's antisemitism, the fringe publication Seattle Catholic said,

...the Christian anti-Semite has for his dream the restoration of the state which "had its foundations in theological principles." If such is the case — as both history and logic demonstrate even to this very day — may we all then have the courage to respond with the words of Fr. Fahey: "In that sense...every sane thinker must be an anti-Semite."

Today, Fr. Fahey is of great interest to extremists around the world, quoted and sold by such organizations as the SSPX, Stormfront, the National Alliance, and Radio Islam.

In his 15 October 2002 defense 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. ...

So here we have one of the renowned pioneers of industrial America, Henry Ford, recognizing the same thing that many other people of his day were recognizing, that is, Zionist incursions into society. He, as Fr. Fahey did, distanced himself from the Protocols. They didn't need the Protocols, since the evidence was apparently all around them of what the Protocols contained.

Arthur Nelson Field

Sungenis gave two citations in one paragraph from the New Zealand antisemite Arthur Nelson Field (biography here).

A. N. Field, in the book Today's Greatest Problem, writes: "Once the Jewishness of Bolshevism is understood, its otherwise puzzling features become understandable. Hatred of Christianity, for instance, is not a Russian characteristic; it is a Jewish one." In another work he adds: "The World today, however provides a spectacle of a great concentration of Jewish power. In New York there is a concentration of Jewish financial power dominating the entire world in its material affairs, and side by side with it is the greatest physical concentration of the Jews ever recorded. On the other side of the globe, there has taken place in Russia the greatest concentration of the Jewish revolutionary activity in all history" (The Truth About the Slump, p. 208).

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.

I. B. Pranaitis, The Talmud Unmasked

In his response to James Scott, Sungenis said,

I also should mention that a book titled The Talmud Unmasked by Catholic priest I. B. Pranaltis, with an Imprimatur by Archbishop Kozlowsky, 4-13-1892, documents and analyzes statements made in the Talmud that describe Jesus as a "fool," "a seducer," "an idolater," and "a magician," and refer to no one else but Jesus Christ (pages 30-38).

The author's actual name was Justinas Bonaventūras Pranaitis, and he is popular with a wide variety of antisemitic organizations, including David Duke, Stormfront, and Radio Islam (the book is also on-line at talmudunmasked.com, which is run by a conservative Catholic).

David S. Maddison, author of Who Was "Reverend" Pranaitis and What Did He Do?, tells us that Pranaitis was exposed as a fraud

in the infamous "blood libel" case of Mendel Beiliss in Russia in 1912 where Beiliss was accused of murdering a Christian child to take his blood for alleged Jewish rituals and to put in Passover Matzah (unleavened bread)....

Pranaitis was called as a prosecution witness to testify to the allegedly horrible things said about Christians in the Talmud. His credibility, however, was quickly destroyed by the defence who asked him a few basic questions which anyone with even the slightest knowledge of the Talmud would be expected to know:

Jeremy Jones discusses the Pranaitis case at Talmudic Terrors, and the way the Internet has become a convenient means for disseminating long-debunked lies to a new generation.

In his 15 October 2002 defense Sungenis said:

Mr. Cork is so ready to take the word of Zionist sympathizers at the expense of calling good Catholic priests liars. Pranaitis was a priest in good-standing in the Catholic Church, but you would never know that from Mr. Cork's analysis.

3) Evidence of Plagiarism

In the course of my research I discovered that not only did Sungenis cite questionable sources, he followed some other sources very closely, sometimes using exact wording, and without giving proper attribution to either primary or secondary sources. Sungenis and his defenders have denied the charge of plagiarism. They have claimed that the use of material as documented on this page is not plagiarism as they understand it. To be fair to Sungenis, let us look at the definitions of plagiarism on the webpages of the universities from which he received his degrees.

Dr. Robert Ley, Nazi Labor Minister

Sungenis referred to Franklin D. Roosevelt's alleged Jewish ancestry. He claimed that Roosevelt knew in advance of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but deliberately refrained from acting (because of the blood of this distant Jewish ancestor), in order to draw the US into World War 2. His discussion of Roosevelt's genealogy included a reference to an "Adolf Schmalix" who wrote a pamphlet on the subject in the 1930s. I remembered that Nazi propaganda made use of claims like this, and, suspecting both from the content and because of the German name that Schmalix may have been a Nazi, I did a Google search of his name. I not only confirmed my suspicions, but was very surprised to discover that Sungenis had lifted a long section of text verbatim, without attribution, from an on-line source. This was the first instance of plagiarism I discovered in Sungenis' writings.

Equally shocking was the nature of the source, a Nazi propaganda tract--Dr. Robert Ley, Roosevelt verrät Amerika! (Berlin: Verlag der Deutschen Arbeitsfront, 1942). The English translation used by Sungenis (Roosevelt Betrays America!) is from the German Propaganda Archive of Calvin College. I wrote to Professor Randall Bytwerk, Professor of Communication Arts & Sciences at Calvin, who confirmed that he was the translator. When I informed Sungenis, he replaced the original version with a paraphrase, but still failed to cite either the author (the Nazi Dr. Ley) or the translator.

In his 15 October 2002 defense Sungenis said:

I did searches using various search engines, and I could find no other on-line source for this pamphlet. Sungenis seemed not to understand that Bytwerk was merely a translator of this Nazi propaganda tract. More importantly, Sungenis did not see a problem with 1) his failure to recognize he was citing Nazi propaganda and 2) his failure to note the source even when he paraphrased it. He and his supporters continued to defend the content, believing it was not tainted by its source, and demanded that any critic refute the "facts" contained in this document.

Lt. Col. Jack Mohr, White Supremacist

Lt. Col. Gordon "Jack" Mohr (ret.) was a leader in the "Anglo-Israel-Identity Movement" (he died July 17, 2003). The following quotes are taken from his book, The Effects of the Talmud on Judeo-Christianity. The chapter is entitled, "A Closer Look at the Babylonian Talmud and Its Insidious Plot against White Christian Civilization" (also online at Mohr's own page, ScripturesforAmerica.org). Mohr says he got these quotes from a book by Elizabeth Dilling, The Plot Against Christianity, a text sold by white supremacists. Sungenis confirmed that he got the quotes from Mohr's webpage; this accounts for his curious addition of "Exh" and "Exb" to the Talmud references. If he had looked more closely, he might have realized that "Exh" or "Exb" refer to "Exhibits" Dilling included in her book. Mohr had these outside of the parentheses (as Dilling did), but Sungenis moved them inside, treating them as part of the Talmudic citation. [This is just a sampling. Jacob Michael, a former associate of Sungenis, has demonstrated even more plagiarism of Mohr here].

In his 15 October 2002 defense Sungenis confirmed that Mohr was his source and defended him:

John Vennari in The Remnant

A correspondent directed me to an article in The Remnant  by John Vennari  A Commentary on Father Fahey’s "The Kingship of Christ and the Conversion of the Jewish Nation". Compare these quotes from Sungenis and Vennari, the order in which they come, and the way they are introduced. 

In his 15 October 2002 defense Sungenis said:

...the material from John Vennari, whom Mr. Cork says I plagiarized, already gave me permission to use his material. In fact, John Vennari sent me some material to review and to write up.

Sungenis failed to see that the customs of scholarship require the identification of sources (primary and secondary), even if you are just following their ideas, as well as placement of words that are not your own in quotation marks.

Mark Weber, Institute for Historical Review

Mark Weber is a leading Holocaust revisionist. This article, "The Jewish Role in the Bolshevik Revolution and Russia's Early Soviet Regime," is from the Journal of Historical Review.

In his 15 October 2002 defense Sungenis defended Weber, but again skated away from the issue of plagiarism:

Sungenis said,

...all popes prior to the 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.

But the fact is, none of these documents say a thing about such "dangers."

Tametsi futura prospicientibus, the encyclical of Pope Leo XIII on Jesus Christ the Redeemer (1900) [which must be distinguished from Tametsi, a Council of Trent document on marriage], never uses the word Jew, or Jewish, or Judaism, or any cognate thereof. So he couldn't have been too worried by "fraternizing with the Jewish religion."

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

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

Is Sungenis Antisemitic?

Throughout our exchanges, through e-mail, blog and webpage, Sungenis continued to insist he wasn't antisemitic. In his response to James Scott, he said:

... neither I nor anyone at CAI is "anti-Semitic." Even having to defend myself from such allegations is disheartening. I grew up with Jews as neighbors. My father was a physician, our family had many friends in the medical profession who were Jewish. We accepted them the same as we did our Gentile friends. I went to a college that was 60% Jewish, and had wonderful roommates that were Jewish. One of my family doctors is Jewish, and he delivered three of my six children. I used to go with him to Hebrew Scripture study on Wednesday nights, and I worked for him in a non-profit charity for children he organized. All my life I have loved and admired Jews. There hasn't been a time in my life when I have been at odds with them.

Thus, I can honestly tell you, Mr. Scott doesn't have the slightest idea what he is talking about. Anti-Semitism is an irrational hatred of Jews. That, I can assure you, is not even on my radar screen.

But then he launched into his attack on the Talmud.

We at CAI are not going to be cowed by someone who calls us "anti-Semites" because he doesn't want these perverse things revealed.

And instead of responding to my documentation he made statements like this:

Moreover, his family has Jewish roots, and thus any critique we make of Zionist plans in Palestine, Mr. Cork automatically associates with anti-semitism, which is ludicrous.

Elsewhere he said,

First, let me begin, for the umpteenth time, by denying the charges of anti-semitism. Anti-semitism is a hatred for the Jewish race. There isn't a bone in my body that feels that way about Jewish people. ... I have explained over and over to them that I love Jewish people. I grew up with them, went to school with them, played and worked with them, all my life. A Jewish doctor and I were best friends, and he delivered three of my six children. I worked for him in a non-profit organization he organized. At no time in my life has anyone ever accused me of anti-semitism, and at no time in my personal or professional life have I ever even hinted that I had such feelings.

As I stated earlier, however, I am against the political movement called Zionism. I am against the attempt of these Zionists to overrun the land of Palestine, seeking to stretch their borders to the time of Solomon. I am against their continual pillaging, plundering and murdering of the Arab and Palestinian people since 1948.

If Sungenis isn't antisemitic, why would he support his argument by citing works like Pranaitis, Ley, Weber and Mohr? Why did he cite conspiracy theories that have their origin in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century antisemitic propaganda such as the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion? Why did he not provide footnotes, bibliography, or hyperlinks so that his readers could examine his evidence?

He pressed me for a definition of antisemitism. "Perhaps when you or your cohorts decide to define 'anti-semitism' ... we can talk about substance." I approached it historically. The word "antisemitism" was coined by a German advocate of the idea, Wilhelm Marr, in his 1879 book, The Victory of Judaism Over Germanism. As he taught it, "antisemitism" united theories of racial differences, resentment of Jewish-owned financial institutions, and suspicion of Jews as an alien people. "All these causes--pseudo-scientific, social, economic, and religious--set the Jew apart as the whipping-boy for the troubles that Germany, and later Austria-Hungary and France, were about to face."[1] It was in this climate that the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion was forged, alleging Jewish conspiracies to take over the world. Old calumnies against the Talmud were republished, such as those first circulated by Johann Eisenmenger (d. 1704) in his 1700 book Judaism Unmasked [2], as well as those of Pranaitis. The ultimate and bitter fruit of this worldview ripened a generation ago, with the murder of 6,000,000 men, women and children.

Though Sungenis clearly does not accept the racial theories of the 19th century antisemites, their worldview of conspiracy and scapegoating is embedded in his 2 September article and subsequent defenses. I accept his statements that he did not intend to cite a Nazi source; therefore, I do not focus on this one incident, but on the total picture. He supports his conspiratorial beliefs through theological language, appealing to statements made by various Church authorities over the centuries. At the heart of his theology is the concept of supercessionism: the New Covenant replaced and abrogated the Old, and God can have no dealings with Jews apart from Jesus. This is why he was upset at Reflections on Covenant and Mission. Moreover, he would appear to embrace the idea that the Jews of today bear a punishment for the crucifixion of Jesus.

These ideas have been dismissed from official Catholic teaching since the 1965 Vatican 2 document, Nostra Aetate, which said:

...God holds the Jews most dear for the sake of their Fathers; He does not repent of the gifts He makes or of the calls He issues ....

...Although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures. All should see to it, then, that in catechetical work or in the preaching of the word of God they do not teach anything that does not conform to the truth of the Gospel and the spirit of Christ.

Furthermore, in her rejection of every persecution against any man, the Church, mindful of the patrimony she shares with the Jews and moved not by political reasons but by the Gospel's spiritual love, decries hatred, persecutions, displays of anti-Semitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone.

Robert Sungenis' opinions echo the beliefs of a tragic figure of the early 20th century, Fr. Charles E. Coughlin. Coughlin, too, rejected the label of "anti-Semitism" when it was applied to him, saying it was a smokescreen rooted in Communism. He published the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, dismissing the evidence that they were forged as inconsequential: "we can't ignore the news value of their strikingly prophetic nature."[3]  Coughlin accepted all the conspiracy theories, no matter how self-contradictory: Jews controlled Communism; Jews controlled Capitalism; Jews controlled Roosevelt. When he came under fire after offering an apologia for Germany's treatment of the Jews on Kristallnacht, Coughlin said he had proof of the conspiracy--the writings of Fr. Denis Fahey. When he was told to tone down his views, he wanted at least to be able to read on the air Fahey's citations of The Protocols. Coughlin's paper, Social Justice, defended Hitler and Nazism, and so, with the outbreak of war, he was finally silenced[4].

This is the stuff that Robert Sungenis resurrected in his 2 September 2002 article, "Conversion of the Jews Not Necessary?? The Apocalyptic Ramifications of a Novel Teaching." It is undeniably antisemitism.

Postscript

As I have noted, Robert Sungenis did make changes in his article when questions were raised about his sources, and he ultimately withdrew it. He was surprised to learn that he had unwittingly used a Nazi source, and has insisted he would not have used it if he had known what it was. Yet in his 15 October 2002 defense he defended both the "facts" in that tract and the other sources he consulted.

Zionism's main goal, as expressed originally by David Ben Gurion in 1948 to the Israeli Knesset, is to retrieve the original land occupied by Israel in the time of Solomon. As our article "Conversion of the Jews Not Necessary??" pointed out, the land of Solomon would include all of the following: In the South it would include the whole Sinai peninsula and northern Egypt; to the East it would include Jordan, Kuwait, and travel up the Euphrates river to Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Lebanon. Obviously, this land grab would necessitate either the removal of the Arabs presently occupying that land, or their total subservience to Israeli rule, most likely the former.

Not only has CAI chosen to critique the goals of Zionism, but it has also critiqued the attempt by prelates in the Catholic Church to change the Catholic doctrine of salvation in order to accommodate the Jews. ...

[The Catholic Church] has, unfortunately, been overrun by liberals ... homosexuals, freemasons and feminists. ...

From credible sources that I trust, it has been stated that about a third of the bishops in the United States are practicing homosexuals. ...

Can you tell me one place that Pius XI allowed us to "fraternize" with the Jews in regards to religion? No, I don't think so. His message of the kingship of Christ was for the very purpose of thwarting their Zionistic goals. ...

The fact remains that the pontificate of John Paul II has made unprecedented spiritual concessions to the Jews, leading to a mentality that they are to possess the land of Palestine by divine right and that they can practice Judaism by divine right. Not once in his 23 year pontificate has John Paul said that the mission of evangelization to the nations includes the Jews, nor has he ever said that the Jews must convert to Christianity. The Jews are the only people, in John Paul's estimation, that are immune from having to convert to Christianity. That is totally and emphatically erroneous. It has never been taught in the Church, and it will never be dogmatized. ...

[The Talmud material] still appears in my Talmud article because I am defending myself against those who say I misrepresented the Talmud. ...In that rebuttal, I answered, point-by-point the arguments raised by one, Gil Student, who claimed that the Talmud was being misrepresented. Mr. Student has not given me any further rebuttal, so I guess he has accepted my critique of his work. As my colleagues have stated to me, I showed very clearly that the Talmud meant what it said, and that it was not being misrepresented in the least. ... [Note: Student's webpage, The Real Truth about the Talmud, was not replying to Sungenis, but to the list of supposed quotes he had appropriated.]

The fact remains that no one has ever given proof of the six million figure. The statistics show us that there was no large difference between the number of Jews living in 1939 as there were living in 1948, so how could 6 million Jews have died between those two periods? ...

... Fr. Fahey quotes from the famous Henry Ford who gave an interview on Feb 17, 1921. Ford states: "The only statement I care to make about the Protocols is that they fit in with what's going on. They are sixteen years old and they have fitted the world situation up to this time. They fit it now." Fr. Fahey then remarks: "Anyone who reads the above extracts will agree that they fit the world situation perhaps even better in 1934," the year that "The Mystical Body of Christ" was published.

So here we have one of the renowned pioneers of industrial America, Henry Ford, recognizing the same thing that many other people of his day were recognizing, that is, Zionist incursions into society. ...

... [I]t is well-known fact that the Talmud is an anti-Christian book that calls Jesus and imposter, a magician, a blasphemer, and many other derogatory things, and his mother Mary a whore and adulterer. That is a fact. In my rebuttal to Gil Student (which Mr. Cork never mentions) I deal with the Talmud's blasphemous name-calling at length. I suggest that anyone who wants to know the truth about the Talmud, and the devious ways Zionist sympathizers try to cover it up, should read my article at www.catholicintl.com/epologetics/The_Jewish_Talmud.html [no longer on-line, and not accessible through Web Archive].

I told him I didn't know it was from a nazi, but in the end it made no difference, because the fact is that the nazi was quoting from the Detroit Jewish Chronicle about Roosevelt's Jewish roots! ... Why is this important? Because the Detroit Jewish Chronicle also reveals that Roosevelt tried to conceal his Jewish ancestry from the public. It wasn't until he was cornered by a reporter from the Detroit Jewish Chronicle that Roosevelt could not deny it any longer. And why is that important? Because if Mr. Roosevelt would conceal the possible Zionist influences in his life from those voting for him, then he might also conceal other things. It's a matter of trust. And if it is true, as Robert Stinnett shows in his book, that Roosevelt was behind the debacle at Pearl Harbor, then the lack of trust we witnessed in 1935 showed its ugly head again on December 7, 1941.

... No, Mr. Cork lives in the dream world that will deny, deny, deny any allegation that Zionists were involved in any of these things. It's all a "conspiracy theory" to him. But I have learned a long time ago that, although some conspiracy theories are wrong, it does not apply to all conspiracy theories.

... To Mr. Cork  there is absolutely no reason to suspect Zionists of any foul play, even though there are reams of information available to the contrary. To him the Zionists are the saints of the earth, but poor Catholic priests like Fr. Fahey, Fr. Coughlin and Fr. Pranaitis are all liars and conspirators view, despite the fact that no one has ever proven anything against them, least of all Mr. Cork . ...

Obviously, Begin thinks he's a resurrected Joshua in the conquest of Jericho. He legitimizes his murder of 254 innocent people because he thinks he's on a divine mission, and his god turns out to be the United Nations who he says gave license to perform his massacre! And then people wonder why I quoted the source in my essay which reveals that 60% of the bureaucrats at the UN are Zionist Jews. Does anyone else get the connection, or am I the only one willing to stick his neck out? What Begin did in 1948 has never been forgotten by the Arabs or Palestinians. I hope you can now see why I critiqued the RCM document as I did. Its not just about the Jews not having to convert to Christianity (which is bad enough) but it is about the land of Solomonic Palestine which the Zionists desperately want to control. I believe that those who think otherwise are living in a fool's paradise.

He also said, as I noted earlier,

The only reason [the original article] went through some "revisions" is that when this whole thing first started I was trying to be accommodating to those who were levying their charges. I took off some material that some people found offensive, even though I still stood by the material (and no one has proven it wrong).

The only reference to this controversy on his webpage at present is his response to a criticism of his webpage by Jeffrey Mirus of Catholic Culture (formerly PetersNet.net).

Sungenis and his supporters asked repeatedly that I debate him on the issues raised, arguing that the sources are irrelevant and that the facts are open for debate. I deny this. The sources that he finds credible and the statements he has made speak for themselves.

I did, however, ask the ADL to respond to the statements he (using Jack Mohr) made about the Talmud, and they prepared The Talmud in Anti-Semitic Polemics (PDF format).

Update

On September 9, 2006, former Sungenis associate Michael Forrest posted a webpage on Robert Sungenis and the Jews, acknowledging this page and detailing the views of Mr. Sungenis since.

Forrest notes that while he had defended Sungenis at the time I originally posted this webpage, he "did not examine" my "evidence at that time." He does not necessarily agree with other comments I have made about Reflections on Covenant and Mission, but says now, "in regard to his documentation of Bob’s verbatim, unacknowledged use of problematic sources for his article of 2002, his work is irrefutable and Bob has effectively admitted as much." Forrest goes on to discuss how Sungenis' has not repudiated his anti-Jewish beliefs, however, and has in fact continued to write problematic things and draw from questionable sources, and this has now led Forrest and others to dissociate themselves from the work of Mr. Sungenis.

Notes

¹Edward H. Flannery, The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-Three Centuries of Antisemitism (New York/Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1985), p. 180; Moshe Zimmermann, Wilhelm Marr: The Patriarch of Antisemitism (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986).

²Flannery, p. 154.

³Ibid., p. 260.

⁴See, for example, Donald Warren, Radio Priest: Charles Coughlin, the Father of Hate Radio (New York: The Free Press, 1996).

Further Reading on Related Topics

• Dulles, Avery. Covenant and Mission, America (Oct. 14, 2002).
• Miesel, Sandra. Swinging at Windmills: A Close Look at Catholic Conspiracy Theories. Crisis (December 2002).
• Should Catholic Evangelization Target Jews? National Catholic Register, on-line edition (October 2002).

SSPX articles on the Jews

• Are the Jews Guilty of Deicide?
• Beaumont, Michael. Jewish-Catholic Dialogue against the Catholic Faith. The Angelus, June 2003.
• Beaumont, Michael. Syllabus of Errors Taken from the Jewish-Catholic Dialogue. The Angelus, June 2003.
• Cipriani, Albert. American Bishops and Judaism. The Angelus, November 2002.
• Crowdy, Michael and Kenneth Novak. The Mystery of the Jewish People in History.
• Fahey, Denis. A Brief Sketch of My Life Work. The Angelus, January 2001.
• Fahey, Denis. What Really Is Anti-Semitism?
• Fr. Denis Fahey on Anti-Semitism. The Angelus, January 2001.
• Laurigan, Michel. The Law of Noah: One World Religion? The Angelus, February/March 2004.
• Sharpe, John. Judaism and the Vatican. The Angelus, June 2003.

Books I've seen for sale at an SSPX bookstore

• Ford, Henry. The International Jew. Summary at the webpage of Jewish Virtual Library of Ford's multivolume work, which is on-line in various places.
• Fry, Leslie. Waters Flowing Eastward: The War against the Kingship of Christ. Edited and revised by Fr. Denis Fahey. "Authentication of the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion." ("Leslie Fry" is a pseudonym for Paquita de Shishmareff, who worked with Ford on The International Jew).
• Pinay, Maurice (pseudonym). The Plot against the Church. Depicts Vatican 2 as the result of a conspiracy involving Communists, Freemasons, Protestants and Jews.

Articles in Culture Wars

• Jones, E. Michael. The Apology In Context: Fifty Years of Catholic-Jewish Kulturkampf.
• ________. Rabbi Dresner's Dilemma: Torah v. Ethnos.
• ________. The Revolutionary Jew and His Impact on World History.
• ________. Salvation and the Jews.
• ________. Skin and Discourse.

Articles in The Remnant

• Alessio, Mark. Catholic Tradition under Jewish Attack.
• ________. Christ Crucified: An Update on the Controversy Surrounding Mel Gibson's Film--Passion.
• ________. The "Passion" Debacle: Mammon Meets the Gospel-Haters.
• Ferrara, Christopher A. Catholic Zionists?
• Vennari, John. A Commentary on Father Fahey's The Kingship of Christ and the Conversion of the Jewish Nation.

Articles at DailyCatholic.org

• Ciaccio, Edward. The Ascent of Zionism.
• Guimarães, Atila Sinke. Dangerous Liaisons.
• ________. Is Heaven Now a Mere Matter of Interpretation?
• ________. The Biblical Commission on the Jews: Changes in Doctrine and New Anathemas.   Part V: Denying the Objectivity of the Jewish Crimes Against Our Lord and the Nascent Church.

Other webpages

• Novus Ordo Watch. Links to Talmud Unmasked.
• Christus Rex. Links to Talmud Unmasked, Institute for Historical Review, BibleBelievers.org.

This page last updated April 1, 2007.