Robert Sungenis + Review of the Controversy of Zion Revisited

Bob Sungenis has replied to my response (Carl Schmitt, State of israel Shamir and Robert Sungenis Against The Grain Jan 19, 2007). While I'd prefer not to plough Against the Grain into a perpetual discussion of Catholic extremism, I'll address a few of his points further.

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• R. Sungenis:

  "Responding in writing to a item commodity" is not debating. It is merely Mr. Blosser'southward opportunity to do more of the same that he already does on his blog -- brand unsubstantiated accusations based on his own personal fears and biases without being challenged immediately and promptly in a public debate.

  I empathize debate to exist an exchange of views and a challenging of positions. In his prior response Sungenis defended his use of Carl Schmitt, asserting that "Schmitt was non actually IN the Nazi party, much less had an "active role" in the party." -- I challenged it. Sungenis asserted that, based on his reading of the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act of 2004, "it looks like every good Catholic who is true-blue to his religion is now classed equally an anti-semite by the U.S. government" -- I demonstrated how this estimation was erroneous and largely inferred from the biased reading of the "Reverend" Ted Throughway.

  I'll reiterate my response to Campbell: Public speaking [in the form of public debating on stage] is not my forte. However, I may be persuaded to respond in writing to a particular article he has written on Zionism, Judaism, etc. Although I don't promise on devoting too much fourth dimension to debating Catholic extremists.

• R. Sungenis:

  I didn't defend Schmitt. I merely pointed out the duplicity of the article that said he was both an anti-semite and an anti-nazi, depending on whether he was being castigated past Jews or Nazis. I wouldn?t defend Schmitt in either case. By posting Shamir'southward article, I only wanted to warning Catholics to the liberalism inherent in Judaism and Zionism, no more, no less.

  Bob, your claiming: "So which is it, Mr. Blosser? Was Schmitt anti-semite or anti-Nazi? Curious minds want to know" certainly sounds like a defense to me.

  While one can indicate to "liberal tendencies" in secular or reformed Judaism, or various forms of Christianity, it seems to me that Israel Shamir's betoken is somewhat different from your ain, in that he contends that "the 'liberal republic and homo rights' doctrine carried by the The states marines beyond the Tigris and the Oxus is a form of secularised Judaism."

  Sungenis [at present] professes business organization nearly the threat of liberalism within Judaism [secular or otherwise].
  Shamir is concerned about the threat of Judaism within "liberal democracy and human rights' doctrine."

  Two different things, and given Shamir'south explicit bias, probably all the more reason why Sungenis should have reconsidered using him every bit a source. But my hunch is that Sungenis was initially attracted to Shamir because of his ideological bent -- that, or this is another example of Sungenis uncritically posting a dubious source without careful consideration.

• R. Sungenis: This is a watershed moment. Mr. Blosser has put himself on the line by attempting to ascertain "anti-semitism." According to him, it is not just racial hatred of Jews merely "animosity" towards Jews, and he is apparently challenge that I take such "animosity." Simply the first trouble is, Mr. Blosser doesn't define what "animosity towards Jews" is, and thus he hasn't avant-garde the give-and-take any farther.

  Funny, since in the very article I conveyed my agreement with Fr. Flannery's description of anti-semitism as "a hatred, antipathy and stereotyping of the Jewish people every bit such."

  Sungenis protests:

  . . . let me say loud and clear to Mr. Blosser and to all my critics: I have no animosity toward Jewish people. I am a Catholic apologist and I write books, articles, requite lectures and do debates against people who either attack the Cosmic faith or take an opposing religion to the Catholic faith. [...] When I start started in the early on 90s, Protestants were my principal source of contention, however no one in the Catholic earth said I did so considering I had ?animosity? toward Protestants. They knew I did so because Protestants were attacking and weakening the Catholic faith.

  Let'southward see, in his 14 years of service equally a Catholic apologist:
  • Where has Bob said that Protestants "want to rule the globe, and the Cosmic Church too?" -- He said that well-nigh the Jews:

    Only the Jews haven't been humble at all. They practice intend to rule the world. And now the problem is that they want to rule the Catholic Church building, too.

    [Source: R. Sungenis: CAI Q&A, #46; Nov, 2006; see likewise "Genesis and the Jewish Connection", Part I].
  • Where has Bob referred to "Protestant control of the media" or "the Protestant agenda of Hollywood's elite"? -- He said that almost the Jews.

    ("Jewish critics such as the Washington Mail service's Richard Cohen are far outnumbered, all the same. The number of pro-State of israel/pro-Zionist media outlets in America is staggering . . ."

    [Come across: "Neocons and the Jewish Connection"; Robert Sungenis and the Jews section 2].
  • Where has Bob suggested that Disney movies used to be of a college moral quality because Walt Disney had a policy of not hiring Protestants? -- He said that near the Jews:

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

    [Source: "Neo-Cons and the Jewish Connection" - the last judgement was removed when Sungenis was confronted by Michael Forrest's expose; even so, one does non accept to read through the remainder of the paragraph without noticing the same inference: Disney was fine until the Jews took over.]
  • Where has Bob questioned the political motives and policies of any of our Protestant presidents, based on their Protestantism? -- He did so with regard to FDR and his supposed Jewish ancestry.
  • Where has Bob said that Protestants are "inherently fierce" and "some of the near ruthless people" when they come into power? Where has he suggested that "real Protestants consider all non-Protestants to be "less than animals"? -- He said that nigh the Jews.:

    [R. Sungenis]: Christianity is certainly non inherently violent, just unfortunately, Judaism tends to exist, because real Judaism considers all non-Jews goyim that are less than animals, and this precipitates a loathing and violence against non-Jews. Yous can read all about this in the Babylonian Talmud and the Encyclopedia Judaica. Fortunately, Judaism is such a pocket-sized enterprise today that they neither have the ability or volition to exercise these ideas in large part, and most of today'due south Jews are quite liberal and could care less about Judaism. But when they come into power, as they did in the communist regime under Lenin and Trotsky, they can be some of the well-nigh ruthless people on the face up of the globe.

    [Source: "Question 8- Muslims, U.s. and the Jews, Part ii" Catholic Apologetics International Q&A Jan 2006]

  Certainly no stereotyping of the Jews as such -- Just plain and unproblematic political criticism, right? I think if you invited a sampling of Jews to survey Catholic Apologetics International with its curious preoccupation, the majority of them would exit confused and outraged by Bob's attitude and beliefs and the kind of language that is used.

• Responding to my observation that "Fahey's restricted definition of anti-semitism didn't prohibit him from indulging in fantasies of Judeo-Masonic conspiracies so off the wall that Hillaire Belloc was moved to say ?The matter is nonsense on the face of it," Sungenis notes that "Fahey wrote his work in 1950. Hillaire Belloc wasn't writing any comments at that time because he had a stroke eight years earlier which totally incapacitated him."

  Off-white enough. However, Belloc was discussing the notion of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy, which was espoused by Fahey. According to Dennis Barton In Defence of Hilaire Belloc ChurchinHistory.org), "Belloc denied the anti-Semite belief that the Jews were responsible for modernistic Capitalism ((HBJ 52)). He ridiculed The Protocols of The Elders of Sion, a volume which was being treated like a 'Bible' by Anti-Semites." Co-ordinate to Belloc himself:

  "... these explanations of the Russian revolution are very good specimens of the way in which the European so misunderstands the Jew that he imputes to him powers which neither he nor whatsoever other poor mortal can always do. Thus we are asked to believe that this political upheaval was function of one highly-organised plot centuries one-time, the agents of which were millions of human beings all pledged to the destruction of our lodge and their acting in consummate discipline nether a few leaders superhumanly wise! The thing is a nonsense..."

  Incidentally, Sungenis in a dialogue with an individual named Mark discusses the Belloc quote, and Fahey had disputed Belloc's criticism in relation to his ain views in The Kingship of Christ and The Conversion of the Jewish Nation.
• Regarding Sungenis' exclamation that "the State Department's Written report on Global Anti-Semitism . . . contains 12 descriptions of "anti-semitism," -- twelve points which I found to be contained nowhere in the report itself simply rather resided in a news warning by the "Reverend" Ted Expressway, Sungenis now concedes:

  Ted Expressway made a summary of the document based on the history of cases prosecuted recently for anti-semitism. Civilization Wars picked up the summary and mentioned information technology in an article several months ago, which is my source. The official regime document can exist establish here: http://frwebgate.admission.gpo.gov/cgibin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=108_cong_bills&docid=f:s2292enr.txt.pdf Official dialogue on it tin be institute here:

  http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/40258.htm
  http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/spbr/40347.htm

  Sungenis took his info from E. Michael Jones. Jones makes the same erroneous assertion -- "Mr. Rickman volition not have to define anti-Semitism. His state department office has already done that for him [referring to the twelve points]" -- without documentation. (The Conversion of the Revolutionary Jew October 2006).

  Regretfully, the kickoff link that Sungenis provides is not-functional, and the latter two (the 2005 Study on Global Anti-Semitism, which I had already linked to; and the second, a 2005 conference with Ambassador Michael Kozak and Special Envoy for Holocaust Problems Administrator Edward O'Donnell, do not contain the "twelve points." So again, we're at a loss and I am not prepared to take E. Michael Jones' or Ted Pike's "summary" of what The Global Holocaust Report means on organized religion. As I indicated to our readers, information technology's far better to simply read the government study and come to your own conclusions.

  Sungenis gain:

  Regarding the official Congressional Act, in mentioning their desire to ?enforce laws relating to the protection of the correct to religious freedom of Jewish people? (p. 3), although I realize that the United States grants religious freedom to everyone, I?'thou concerned that a reference to the faith of the ?Jewish people? is specified. All that needs to exist reiterated is that the Us gives religious liberty to everyone, not that the The states protects a specific religion out of the myriads of religions existing. Every bit it stands, a approximate could take upon himself to translate the new Congressional Act to hateful that ?vociferous? criticism of Judaism, the Talmud or Kabbalah would constitute an infraction of the law against anti-semitism.This concern of mine is supported by the sentence on page ii where it attempts to define "anti-semitism" by pointing out that "Anti-Semitism has at times taken the form of vilification of Zionism, the Jewish national movement, and incitement against Israel." Again, a judge favoring Israel and the Jews could easily interpret "vilification" or "incitement" as including any criticism of the aforementioned. The fact that Judaism and its political offshoots are now, nether US law, a state-protected religion, should alarm anyone who understood the The states as a republic that separates church and state. No other religion enjoys this status.

  First, Sungenis' clarification hither sounds a tad more cocky-composed, for which I'm beholden. Information technology's possible to discuss this without jumping to conclusions like "every good Catholic who is faithful to his religion is now classed as an anti-smite by the U.S. government."

  If we turn to the report itself, nosotros'll see that the State Department is concerned with distinguishing between real acts of anti-semitism and criticism of Israeli policy:

  For the purposes of this report, anti-Semitism is considered to be hatred toward Jews—individually and as a group—that tin can be attributed to the Jewish organized religion and/or ethnicity. An important upshot is the distinction between legitimate criticism of policies and practices of the Country of Israel, and commentary that assumes an anti-Semitic character. The demonization of Israel, or vilification of Israeli leaders, sometimes through comparisons with Nazi leaders, and through the use of Nazi symbols to extravaganza them, indicates an anti-Semitic bias rather than a valid criticism of policy concerning a controversial consequence. Global anti-Semitism in recent years has had four main sources:

  1. Traditional anti-Jewish prejudice that has pervaded Europe and some countries in other parts of the earth for centuries. This includes ultra-nationalists and others who assert that the Jewish community controls governments, the media, international business concern, and the fiscal globe.
  2. Stiff anti-Israel sentiment that crosses the line between objective criticism of Israeli policies and anti-Semitism.
  3. Anti-Jewish sentiment expressed by some in Europe'due south growing Muslim population, based on longstanding antipathy toward both Israel and Jews, as well as Muslim opposition to developments in State of israel and the occupied territories, and more than recently in Republic of iraq.
  4. Criticism of both the United States and globalization that spills over to Israel, and to Jews in general who are identified with both.

  Granted that these examples are not conspicuously divers -- any legal case or attempt to prohibit anti-semitism will entail the need for distinctions. Merely I remember one might offer examples of what would be considered manifestations of anti-semitism (as opposed to mere "political criticism"):
  • Consider that it was only a matter of days subsequently 9/11 before you had allegations of Jewish complicity and orchestration, fifty-fifty that it was staged to bring virtually a neoconservative coup. Impunity of books and media asserting a Jewish nine/eleven conspiracy has go quite the cottage manufacture (run into the Anti-Defamation League's report, "Unraveling Anti-Semitic 9/11 Conspiracy Theories ", and the 2006 update, "nine/eleven Anti-Semitic Conspiracy Theories Still Abound" Sept. 7, 2006).
  • Consider the rampant spread of Arab/Muslim anti-Semitism -- in 2002, the Paterson, NJ weekly Arab Voice serialized the Protocols of the Elders of Zion; National Geographic published a story on the persistent popularity of The Protocols in Arab nations, despite their being exposed as a hoax ("Anti-Semitic "Protocols of Zion" Endure, Despite Debunking" Sept. 11, 2006); MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute) has been documenting anti-semitism in the Arab newspapers and media.
  • As for the homegrown variety, I think it is by and large racially-based. I'm reluctant to link to such sights but you tin bank check out the National Vanguard, StormFront.org and the website of quondam KKK David Knuckles for starters (Duke recently participated in the Iranian Holocaust-Denial Conference -- there has been a remarkable caste of "cantankerous-pollination" between anti-semitic movements of diverse stripes and the anti-Zionist motility in general; on Fringewatch we recently blogged on Militant Islam's Brotherhood with Right Wing Extremism).

  Every bit I mentioned in my initial response, if you examine the bodily U.Southward. Report on Global Anti-Semitism, the displays of anti-semitism the State Department is largely concerned almost involve directly acts of desecration and violence -- vandalism of Jewish gravesites, synagogue-burnings, racially-motivated beatings, etc.

  Not every political drawing that has the object of their criticism the state of israel is anti-semitic. At the same time, it is true that many (particularly within Arab media) perpetuate old stereotypes and caricatures of the Jew as such, or notions of a Jewish global conspiracy. (Run across Major Anti-Semitic Motifs in Arab Cartoons, and illustrated interview with Dr. Joël Kotek), in much the same manner every bit anti-Catholic cartoons of the 19th century relied upon certain stereotypes and falsehoods.

  "Criticizing the Talmud" or "saying an unkind word [nearly the Kabbalah]" isn't necessarily anti-semitic, or will be deemed such by the U.S. government. Madonnah is non likely to be labeled an anti-semite for becoming disillusioned with the Kaballah center -- a far cry from the original esoteric tradition -- think of Fr. Matthew Fox's "techno-mass" equally compared to the original Latin). On the other hand, employing criticism of the Talmud in such a manner as to "paint Judaism as an immoral faith that preaches hatred for non-Jews and promotes obscenity, criminality, sexual perversion and other immoral acts" probably is. (See the ADL's The Talmud in Anti-Semitic Polemics.

  Again, I remember that, were a Jewish reader to stumble across Catholic Apologetics International's obsessive preoccupation with the Jews and "real" Judaism, he would question Sungenis' motives in doing so. Just every bit one would question the motives of a Protestant website that was inordinately preoccupied with publishing anti-Catholic propaganda and perpetuating an attitude of full general hostility towards Catholics in full general.

Reflections on the Jewish Covenant and its people: An Indelible Relationship?

Bob denounces "Judaism, Zionism, Talmudism, Jewish nationalism, liberal Jewish groups, Evangelical Protestants favoring State of israel, and fifty-fifty Cosmic converts advancing their Jewish views of religion" of possessing a beguiling and dangerous notion:

They all seem to be working under the premise that the Jews are still "God's chosen people", . . . the false premise that God still has some special human relationship with the Jews above his human relationship with the Gentiles, or has a distinctive ?covenant? with the Jewish people in the same manner that He did in the Old Testament. These are grave errors in theology and politics, and every Cosmic apologist should be condemning them. Unfortunately, there are just a scattering that are doing so. The residual have been deceived. The Jews are no different than whatever other group of people on the face up of the earth. There are no "special relationships" with God based on one?s indigenous background or heritage.

In Oct 2004 I carried on a three-office give-and-take with Jeff Culbreath on "Jewish rejection of the Messiah" and contemporary Jewish-Christian relations, exploring the thought of Cardinal Ratzinger in Many Religions, I Covenant. You tin can find the concluding reflections and remarks for a summmary. It was a learning experience and I thank Jeff Culbreath for patiently indulging me. I suspect Jacob Michael has provided a much more coherent investigation in Never Revoked by God: The Place of Israel in the Future of the Church (e-book available for download), then I'll exit specific discussion of the particular status of the Jewish covenant to more than qualified hands.

That said, I want to affect on the question of what kind of spirit should one embody in conveying theological disagreement with and/or engaging in interreligious dialogue with the Jewish people.

In my last post I noted the possibility of offering criticism of Zionism without succumbing to the kind of malevolent stereotyping -- as demonstrated by Denis Fahey, Fr. Coughlin, Sungenis and others. I assert that the same possibility exists in expressing theological disagreement in Jewish-Christian dialogue. Annotation for example, that Father Avery Dulles took a position critical to the joint publication of Reflections on Covenant and Mission which aroused Sungenis' initial ire back in 2002. ("Covenant and Mission" Vol. 187 No. 12 Oct 21, 2002). Find how Cardinal Dulles is perfectly capable of mounting comparable criticism of the document (and its theological constructs) without resorting to the kind of polemic fury that mired Sungenis in controversy and tarnished his career as an apologist. (Cardinal Dulles would revisit the outcome in 2005, and provoke a bit of controversy every bit well, when he rejected "the 2-covenant concept -- a valid covenant for Jews fabricated at Mount Sinai (the life of Torah) and a valid one for Christians made at Calvary (the resurrection of Jesus)," provoking the criticism of Rabbi James Rudin. See my discussion "To evangelize -- or not to evangelize?" Against The Grain March 21, 2005).

I would add that Fr. James V. Schall SJ, Dr. Ronda Chervin, Fr. Francis Martin, Marker Drogin and David Moss all voiced their criticism of the certificate in a symposium for the National Cosmic Register -- David Moss conveying that he was "embarrassed and irritated" -- embarassed by Cosmic leaders, who later two decades could produce something inconsistent with the Cosmic faith, and irritated, that the certificate was released without undergoing more careful scrutiny by the USCCB. Too, Jewish catechumen Roy Schoeman expressed his strong displeasure and in fact, wrote the book Conservancy is From the Jews in large part equally a refutation of the document.

Once again frustrating Sungenis' stereotype of a Neocon-Zionist^TM, Deal Hudson, and so-publisher of Crisis magazine, asked, "If nosotros're saved only through Jesus, how can we say that God'southward covenant with the Jews 'is a saving covenant'?" ("Rome Rejects While the Bishops 'Reverberate'").

Past no ways would I compare my ain work to the likes of Dulles or the rest of these scholars, simply one of the very first essays I posted to the RatzingerFanClub'south discussion forum was entitled Jewish-Christian Relations: Mixed Signals from the Vatican, which was a joint reaction to the vitriolic response of Christopher Ferrara, Robert Sungenis, and John Vennari and to offer my own criticisms of Reflections on Covenant and Mission and the CDF document Dominus Iesus, noting conflicting positions of Cardinals Kasper and Ratzinger in their presentation of the Church'south mental attitude towards fulfilling the Neat Commission.

It's interesting to note that at no point did any of the aformentioned scholars insinuate to Vatican or USCCB complicity in a Zionist calendar. Each of these individuals have issue with Covenant and Mission, yet the very spirit they embody speaks volumes.

* * *

Let's turn for a infinitesimal to the thought of the ii most contempo Popes on their relationship with gimmicky Jews.

On Apr 13, 1986, John Paul 2 made a historic visit to the Synagogue in Rome. In his address to the Master Rabbi of the Jewish community, the Pope reiterated the fundamental points of Nostra Aetate, the beginning of which was that

the Church of Christ discovers her "bond" with Judaism by "searching into her ain mystery." The Jewish faith is not "extrinsic" to us, but in a certain manner is "intrinsic" to our own faith. With Judaism, therefore, we have a human relationship which we do not have with any other faith. You lot (the Jews) are our dearly beloved brothers and, in a certain way, it could be said that y'all are our elder brothers.

I recollect nosotros can assert with confidence that John Paul 2 wasn't just speaking of our relation to Jewish converts, only to the Jewish people in general.

Turning to an early essay by our present Pope, then-Joseph Key Ratzinger (Interreligious Dialogue and Jewish-Christian Relations Communio 25, no. ane (1998): 29-41), it is of import to examine not only the content, but the overall tone of Ratzingers's remarks:

"Even if Israel cannot join Christians in seeing Jesus as the Son of God,it is not altogether impossible for State of israel to recognize him equally the servant of God who brings the light of his God to the nations." The converse is also truthful: even if Christians wish that Israel might i day recognize Christ as the Son of God and that the crack that however divides them might thereby be closed, they ought to admit the prescript of God, who has obviously entrusted Israel with a distinctive mission in the "fourth dimension of the Gentiles." The Fathers define this mission in the following style: the Jews must remain as the get-go proprietors of Holy Scripture with respect to us, in lodge to establish a testimony to the world. But what is the tenor of this testimony? . . . I think we could say that two things are essential to Israel's organized religion. The first is the Torah, delivery to God's will, and thus the establishment of his rule, his kingdom, in this world. The second is the prospect of hope, the expectation of the Messiah -- the expectation, indeed, the certainty, that God himself will enter into this history and create justice, which we can only approximate very imperfectly. The three dimensions of time are thus connected: obedience to God'due south will bears on an already spoken word that now exists in history and at each new moment has to exist made nowadays once more in obedience. This obedience, which makes present a bit of God's justice in time, is oriented toward a time to come when God will gather upward the fragments of time and usher them every bit a whole into his justice.

Christianity does not give upwards this bones configuration. The trinity of religion, hope, and beloved corresponds in a sure respect to the three dimensions of fourth dimension: the obedience of faith takes the discussion that comes from eternity and is spoken in history and transforms information technology into dear, into presence, and in this fashion opens the door to hope. Information technology is characteristic of the Christian organized religion that all three dimensions are contained and sustained in the effigy of Christ, who also introduces them into eternity. In him, time and eternity exist together, and the infinite gulf between God and man is bridged. For Christ is the one who came to us without therefore ceasing to exist with the Father; he is present in the believing community, and yet at the aforementioned time is still the one who is coming. The Church too awaits the Messiah. She already knows him, yet he has nevertheless to reveal his glory. Obedience and promise belong together for the Christian organized religion, too. For Christians, Christ is the nowadays Sinai, the living Torah that lays its obligations on us, that bindingly commands u.s., but that in so doing draws u.s. into the broad space of love and its inexhaustible possibilities. In this way, Christ guarantees hope in the God who does not let history sink into a meaningless past, but rather sustains information technology and brings it to its goal. It likewise follows from this that the effigy of Christ simultaneously unites and divides Israel and the Church: it is not in our power to overcome this sectionalization, but it keeps us together on the way to what is coming and for this reason must not go an enmity.

Consider as well the Holy Begetter's December 2000 essay, The Heritage of Abraham: The Souvenir of Christmas (December 2000):

We know that every deed of giving birth is difficult. Certainly, from the very commencement, relations between the baby Church and Israel were often marked by conflict. The Church was considered by her own mother to exist a degenerate daughter, while Christians considered their mother to be blind and obstinate. Downward through the history of Christianity, already-strained relations deteriorated further, even giving nascence in many cases to anti-Jewish attitudes, which throughout history have led to sorry acts of violence. Even if the most recent, loathsome feel of the Shoah was perpetrated in the proper noun of an anti-Christian ideology, which tried to strike the Christian organized religion at its Abrahamic roots in the people of Israel, it cannot be denied that a sure bereft resistance to this barbarism on the office of Christians tin can be explained by an inherited anti-Judaism present in the hearts of not a few Christians.

Peradventure it is precisely because of this latest tragedy that a new vision of the human relationship between the Church and State of israel has been born: a sincere willingness to overcome every kind of anti-Judaism, and to initiate a effective dialogue based on knowledge of each other, and on reconciliation. If such a dialogue is to be fruitful, it must begin with a prayer to our God, get-go of all that he might grant to us Christians a greater esteem and dearest for that people, the people of Israel, to whom vest "the adoption equally sons, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the constabulary, the worship, and the promises; theirs are the patriarchs, and from them comes Christ according to the flesh, he who is over all, God, blessed forever. Amen" (Romans ix:4-v), and this not only in the by, but still today, "for the gifts and the phone call of God are irrevocable" (Romans 11:29). In the aforementioned way, let us pray that he may grant as well to the children of State of israel a deeper noesis of Jesus of Nazareth, who is their son, and the souvenir they accept fabricated to u.s.. Since we are both pending the final redemption, let united states of america pray that the paths nosotros follow may converge.

Nosotros are left with the question of how Pope Benedict might encourage "a greater esteem and love for that people, the people of Israel, to whom vest "the adoption as sons, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; theirs are the patriarchs, and from them comes Christ according to the flesh, he who is over all, God, blessed forever. Amen" (Romans 9:4-5), and this not only in the past, just still today" -- if as Sungenis asserts, the Jewish people relish no such relationship and are "no different than any other group of people on the face of the world." On the reverse, information technology seems to me that for some mysterious reason, God's friendship for the Jewish people remain intertwined with their heritage such that, fifty-fifty today, they constitute a precious witness.

Perhaps no more than tragic an affirmation of the continued significance of the Jewish people tin can be found in the concentrated efforts of the Third Reich to obliterate them from the confront of the world. Every bit Benedict noted in his address at Auschwitz:

Deep downwards, those vicious criminals, by wiping out this people, wanted to impale the God who called Abraham, who spoke on Sinai and laid downwardly principles to serve every bit a guide for flesh, principles that are eternally valid. If this people, past its very beingness, was a witness to the God who spoke to humanity and took us to himself, then that God finally had to die and power had to belong to man solitary—to those men, who idea that past forcefulness they had made themselves masters of the earth. By destroying Israel, they ultimately wanted to tear upwardly the taproot of the Christian faith and to replace it with a religion of their ain invention: organized religion in the rule of man, the rule of the powerful.

Again, I would encourage a reading of Ratzinger's Many Religions, 1 Covenant (Ignatius Press, 1999).

As he explains, the proper context for discussing the Jewish-Christian human relationship is not one of mutual antagonism -- of setting the Old and New Testaments against each other, of pitting Jews confronting Christians (either then or now) -- but of looking at both in relation to the covenant of Abraham. The New Covenant is an extension of the Lord's constant covenant with Abraham. In Christ, God's covenant with the Jews is universalized, "opens up" to encompass Jews and gentiles. It is hard to do justice to his piece of work here, simply I have institute Ratzinger's exposition of Church didactics on the covenant and Jewish-Christian relations to be beneficial to this give-and-take.

• Thoughts on the latest Sungenis flareup, by Kevin Tierney. Posted: Tuesday, January 23, 2007.
• Sungenis and the Jews, Again, past Dr. Philip Blosser. January 23, 2007.
• On Robert Sungenis, the Jews, Moriel Ministries, the Catholic Church building, and the Importance of Scholatic Integrity and Ethics in Apologetics, by I. Shawn McElhinney. Rerum Novarum January 12, 2007.

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Source: https://christopherblosser.blogspot.com/2007/01/response-to-bob-sungenis-part-ii.html

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