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KARL KEATING'S E-LETTER

January 13, 2004    
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FR. FEENEY AND THE JEWS


Dear Friend of Catholic Answers:

In the 1930s and early 1940s Fr. Leonard Feeney (1897-1978) was known to the public mainly as a writer of better-than-average poetry and of popular books such as "Fish on Friday." From the late 1940s until his death he was known instead for his rigorist interpretation of the maxim "extra ecclesiam nulla salus" ("no salvation outside the Church"). Adherents to his interpretation became known as "Feeneyites."

Ordered to stop teaching his interpretation, Feeney refused and was excommunicated, not technically for teaching heresy but for disobedience. He was reconciled to the Church before his death, and the excommunication was lifted. Some of his followers have tried to construe the reconciliation as a Vatican affirmation of Feeney's theology, but, since the excommunication did not extend beyond a matter of obedience, the lifting of it did not extend any further.

Feeney founded and headed the Saint Benedict Center, which was located across the street from Harvard University. He organized a religious association known as the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. After his death his followers split into no fewer than eight factions, the chief of which, still using the name Saint Benedict Center, is located in Richmond, New Hampshire, just north of the Massachusetts border.

The web site for that group includes an essay attacking Msgr. Ronald Knox (1888-1957). Knox, a convert from Anglicanism, was arguably the most brilliant British Catholic writer of the twentieth century. The essay attacking him can be read at:
www.catholicism.org/pages/knoxproblem.htm

I had seen the essay a long time ago, but it came to my attention again recently when Traditionalist writers Hugh Owen and Robert Bennett used it to argue, indirectly, for the young-earth theory.

They were writing against an article that had appeared in "The New Oxford Review." That article had used a translation by Knox of Pope Pius XII's 1950 encyclical "Humani Generis," and the Traditionalists didn't like the translation. This meant they didn't like Knox. To justify their dislike further, they cited the Saint Benedict Center essay attacking Knox.

The essay is titled "The Problem of Monsignor Ronald Knox: A Painful Post-Mortem" and was written the year after Knox's death. It carries no byline, just a note that it is reprinted from the July 1958 issue of "The Point," a publication that is not otherwise identified.

Wanting to learn more about "The Point," I did a Google search and found another Feeneyite web site. It features the full run of "The Point":
www.fatherfeeney.org/point/point.htm

It turns out that "The Point" was a publication of the Saint Benedict Center.

Before I discuss what is found in that publication, let me back up half a century. A friend of mine who lives in Boston was a teenager when Feeney and his companions used to go to Boston Common to speak, as they did most balmy weekends in the 1950s. Their public remarks were of the rabble-rousing variety, so much so that the police always were on hand to protect Feeney and his friends from the crowd.

The talks quickly achieved notoriety, not so much because they pushed the Feeneyite take on salvation but because of the unrelenting Jew-baiting that came from the platform. My friend remembers the Feeneyite speakers regularly using terms such as "kike" when referring to Jews.

Over the ensuing decades the followers of Leonard Feeney have insisted that neither he nor they were anti-Semitic, and they say the application of that term to their founder and to themselves has been unfair.

One must acknowledge that, more often than not, the term "αnтι-ѕємιтє" is bandied about carelessly and is applied to people who do not deserve the title. Columnists Patrick Buchanan and Joseph Sobran come to mind, two examples of prominent figures who unjustly have been accused of anti-Semitism.

But sometimes the term is used aptly. What about in Feeney's case? We can learn something from examining "The Point." This monthly was published from 1952 to 1959. It supplanted an earlier publication called "The Catholic Observer."

I have not seen printed copies of "The Point," but the brevity of its text leads me to conclude it was not printed in regular magazine format. Each issue was about 2,500 words long--the equivalent of five single-spaced typed pages. Some issues consisted of just one article. Some had a main article plus one or more very short additional items.

Here are the main titles from the issues for 1957:

January:    "Jєωιѕн Invasion of Our Country--Our Culture Under Siege"
February:    "When Everyone Was Catholic--The Courage of the Faith (Regarding the Jews) in the Thirteenth Century"
March:    "Dublin's Briscoe (Jєωιѕн Lord Mayor) Comes to Boston"
April:    "The Fight for the Holy City--Efforts of the Jews to Control Jerusalem"
May:    "Our Lady of Fatima Warned Us (About Jєωιѕн Communists)"
June:    "The Rejected People of Holy Scripture: Why the Jews Fear the Bible"
July:    "The Judaising of Christians by Jews--Tactics of the Church's Leading Enemies"
August:    "A Sure Defense Against the Jews--What Our Catholic Bishops Can Do for Us"
September:   "An Unholy People in the Holy Land--The Actions of the Jews"
October:    "The Jєωιѕн Lie About Brotherhood--the Catholic Answer--Israeli Brotherhood"
November:    "Six Pointers on the Jews"
December:    "The Price of Christmas in Mexico--Freemasons"

You will note that the title of each issue, except for December's, includes an explicit reference to Jews. The proportion is similar for the other years in which "The Point" was published.

Leonard Feeney may be remembered today for insisting that "there is no salvation outside the Church" (a true doctrine, by the way, if properly interpreted), but it seems that in the 1950s he and his Slaves were preoccupied with the Jews, to the point of obsession. They blamed Jews for all sorts of ills: religious, political, social, and cultural. (They do not seem to have blamed them for the Johnstown Flood.)

So far as I can tell, nowhere in "The Point" is there an explicit statement that its writers hate Jews or wish them ill or think them mentally or biologically "inferior." But does it take such attitudes to constitute anti-Semitism?

I don't think so. Webster's defines anti-Semitism as "hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious or racial group." Certainly "The Point" is packed with hostility--and unrelenting hostility at that. (I invite you to read the articles for yourself.)

As I said, the most prominent of the Feeneyite offshoots is the Saint Benedict Center. Its web site, www.catholicism.org, reprints from "The Point" several articles concerning Jews or Jєωιѕн influence. If you want to read the whole run of "The Point," you must go to the alternate web site, www.fatherfeeney.org, which is sponsored by some other organization (one that does not otherwise identify itself).

That other organization is bluntly anti-Semitic. Its web site carries an essay that claims, contrary to Catholic teaching, that "the Jews corporately murdered Christ," that "the Jews all bear the guilt of the murder of Christ," and that "the Jews are all cursed for their deicide." Not surprisingly, the site also features the text of the "Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion," a docuмent well known to be a forgery but nevertheless used by the most extreme anti-Semitic groups worldwide.

So that is the other group. What about the Saint Benedict Center's current stance on Jews? Its web site doesn't really say. Most of what is found there has nothing to do with Jews, but what is said about Jews is never complimentary.

Have the folks at the Saint Benedict Center--including old-timers who used to join Feeney in Boston Common--renounced the anti-Semitism that used to come from the mouths of Feeneyite speakers? Have they renounced the anti-Semitism that was the chief note of "The Point" and therefore of the Saint Benedict Center in the 1950s? Have they renounced the anti-Semitism that appears at the web site of the other Feeneyite offshoot?

Not that I can determine. They have sidestepped such questions. They still run articles from "The Point," and that suggests they are not overly embarrassed about what appeared in that publication half a century ago.

Until next time,
Karl

Keating has been in pockets of Neocons/Jews for a loooong time,Sungenis and others did a good job revealing and writing on it.....

I am no fan of Feeney, but Karl's article is dishonest, trying to link the articels to some vast anti-Jew conspiracy......

I am sure the SPLC loves it.....

of note, the fact Feeney's people split several ways is no different than many cults and Prots.....

Belloc,

Can you provide links of Sungenis exposing Keating? That would be interesting.

Subject: Karl Keating's E-Letter
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2004 16:53:49 -0800

KARL KEATING'S E-LETTER

January 27, 2004

GERRY MATATICS MIMICS HOWARD DEAN

The former governor of Vermont has been the object of jokes on late-night talk shows because of his now-famous scream, issued after he came in third in the Iowa caucuses.

Last week I was the object of screaming by Gerry Matatics. After thirteen years' absence, he came to San Diego to give a talk. The evening ended with him gesticulating and yelling at me at the top of his lungs. It was a weird and disturbing sight.

During the question period that followed his talk, someone asked whether an unbaptized person could go to heaven. Matatics--who a decade ago declared that he had undergone a "second conversion" and had moved from conservative Catholic to Traditionalist Catholic--gave an answer that closed heaven's gate to almost anyone who is not a formal member of the Catholic Church.

The followers of the late Fr. Leonard Feeney, who was best known for his rigorist interpretation of "no salvation outside the Church," exist on a narrow but real spectrum. Some, such as Matatics's friends at the New Hampshire-based Saint Benedict Center, are at one end and say a person must be a formal member of the Catholic Church to be saved. They take the most hardline position.

Other Feeneyites permit a little more leeway but still end up with a position that is more rigorous than that taught by the Catechism of the Catholic Church (846-848) or by Vatican II (Lumen Gentium 16) or by the most conservative pope of the nineteenth century, Pius IX. Feeneyites leave either no or little room for "invincible ignorance."

Matatics, who at his seminars used to distribute literature from the Saint Benedict Center, makes a tiny distinction between that group's position and his own and uses that distinction to claim that he is not really a Feeneyite. (If not, why distribute the most hardline Feeneyite literature?)

Unlike the Saint Benedict Center, he is open to the possibility that a catechumen who desires baptism but who dies before being baptized might be saved through what is commonly called "baptism of desire." But such a catechumen's salvation is not sure, says Matatics. It might be that he is not saved after all.

Anyone further removed from the Catholic Church would have even less hope--or no hope--of salvation. This would include not just the unbaptized but also Protestants. (Matatics has said in public that he expects his own parents to go to hell, because they remain Protestants.)

In Church history there cannot have been many cases of catechumens dying on the way to their baptisms. As a practical matter, therefore, Matatics's position reduces to the position of the Saint Benedict Center: Formal members of the Catholic Church are saved, and everyone else is lost.

The members of the Saint Benedict Center indisputably deserve the moniker "Feeneyite." In my opinion, Matatics does too. After all, there are Feeneyites who are more generous than he is in their interpretation of "no salvation outside the Church." He is midway along a narrow spectrum, but he is still on the spectrum.

Although for years Matatics has adopted a position almost indistinguishable from that of the Saint Benedict Center, the members of which do not object to being called "Feeneyites," he has insisted that the label should not be applied to him.

One can understand his reluctance: Being identified with a fringe movement is not a good way to ensure speaking engagements. But "pigs is pigs," and Matatics should cease objecting to a label that fits.

He has espoused the Feeneyite understanding of salvation but has been unwilling to go by the Feeneyite designation. He embraces the theory but not the name of the theory. He has not been candid with his audiences and so has done them a disservice.

THE SCREAM

Toward the end of the evening, Matatics referred to my January 13 E-Letter, which may be found at http://www.catholic.com/newsletters/kke_040113.asp

In that E-Letter I wrote about "The Point," a little journal printed by Feeney's original group in the 1950s. I listed the titles of the twelve issues published in 1957. All but one was about Jews and the problems they allegedly cause. I said that Feeney's group was "preoccupied with the Jews, to the point of obsession."

Not so, said Matatics. The Feeneyites were not obsessed with Jews. They simply were concerned about the salvation of Jews. I rolled my eyes.

In the U.S. of the 1950s, Jews were outnumbered by Protestants. They also were outnumbered by people of no religion. Jews then, as now, represented about two percent of the American population. Subtract Catholics from the mix, and Jews represented about three percent of the population.

So why were eleven out of twelve issues of "The Point" focused on perceived problems with Jews? Where were the articles about Protestants, members of Eastern religions, and unbelievers? They, too, by Feeneyite standards, are not on the road to salvation. Why so much supposed solicitude for Jews but not for Baptists or Hindus or agnostics?

I reminded Matatics's audience that Feeney's men used to go to Boston Common and give public lectures. When talking about Jews, they used slurs such as "kike."

A woman in the small audience asked what "kike" meant. I explained that, with respect to Jews, it was the analogue of the "n-word."

Someone using the latter word to refer to blacks is suspected of racism--and rightly so. Similarly, someone using "kike" to refer to Jews is suspected of anti-Semitism.

Matatics turned up the volume. His friends at the Saint Benedict Center were not αnтι-ѕємιтєs, he yelled.

I didn't say they were, I replied. I had been writing about the original Feeneyite group of the 1950s. In my E-Letter I noted that today's Saint Benedict Center reprints articles from "The Point." I asked whether today's group repudiates the anti-Semitism of the 1950s. My words were lost in the din caused by Matatics and his fans.

He was visibly agitated. His voice went from a yell to a scream and eventually broke. He was on a rant. I couldn't make out what he was saying, and I couldn't get a word in.

But I could get out. I was standing by the door, and I went through it, Matatics screaming after me. I was relieved that he didn't chase me as I made for the hotel's exit.

As I stood in the night chill, several people gathered around me, shaking their heads at what they had witnessed. One smiled consolingly and said the evening had reduced my time in purgatory.

Maybe, maybe not. But I know it reduced, almost to oblivion, the residual regard I had for Gerry Matatics, and it reaffirmed my belief that he would do the Church a favor by finding another line of work.

Until next time,

Karl

Matatics, who at his seminars used to distribute literature from the Saint Benedict Center, makes a tiny distinction between that group's position and his own and uses that distinction to claim that he is not really a Feeneyite. (If not, why distribute the most hardline Feeneyite literature?)

Unlike the Saint Benedict Center, he is open to the possibility that a catechumen who desires baptism but who dies before being baptized might be saved through what is commonly called "baptism of desire." But such a catechumen's salvation is not sure, says Matatics. It might be that he is not saved after all.

I like Matatics.  Thanks for pointing him out to me.

Quote from: stevusmagnus

Matatics, who at his seminars used to distribute literature from the Saint Benedict Center, makes a tiny distinction between that group's position and his own and uses that distinction to claim that he is not really a Feeneyite. (If not, why distribute the most hardline Feeneyite literature?)

Unlike the Saint Benedict Center, he is open to the possibility that a catechumen who desires baptism but who dies before being baptized might be saved through what is commonly called "baptism of desire." But such a catechumen's salvation is not sure, says Matatics. It might be that he is not saved after all.

I like Matatics.  Thanks for pointing him out to me.

I used to like Matatics, he was one of the few apologists who would not try to weasel his way out of certain "hardline" or "over the top" church teachings that Protestants like to bring up. However he is now a sedevacantist home-aloner who even considers the SSPX, CMRI, SSPV to be "counterfeit traditional Catholics" (his own words). If any of his children keep the faith, it will be a miracle.

I am no fan of Feeney, but Karl's article is dishonest, trying to link the articles to some vast anti-Jew conspiracy......

Uh OH!  St. Paul was in on it!

For you, brethren, are become followers of the churches of God which are in Judea, in Christ Jesus: for you also have suffered the same things from your own coutrymen, even as they have from the Jews, Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and the prophets, and have persecuted us, and please not God, and are adversaries to all men; Prohibiting us to speak to the Gentiles, that they may be saved, to fill up their sins always: for the wrath of God is come upon them to the end.

And he even goes so far as to have the audacity to say that THEY are the ones with the cօռspιʀαcιҽs!

Serving the Lord with all humility, and with tears, and temptations which befell me by the cօռspιʀαcιҽs of the Jews;

JESUS CHRIST THE LORD WAS IN ON IT!!!

The Jews therefore said: Will he kill himself, because he said: Whither I go, you cannot come? And he said to them: You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world.  Therefore I said to you, that you shall die in your sins. For if you believe not that I am he, you shall die in your sin.  They said therefore to him: Who art thou? Jesus said to them: The beginning, who also speak unto you.

That's anti-semitism!  They only wanted to keep their religion exactly as it had always been, and Christ threatens them with DYING IN THEIR SIN!?  The nerve...

Seriously, the anti-Jew conspiracy was brought upon them by themselves, freely and by choice:

Pilate saith to them: What shall I do then with Jesus that is called Christ? They say all: Let him be crucified. The governor said to them: Why, what evil hath he done? But they cried out the more, saying: Let him be crucified. And Pilate seeing that he prevailed nothing, but that rather a tumult was made; taking water washed his hands before the people, saying: I am innocent of the blood of this just man; look you to it. And the whole people answering, said: His blood be upon us and our children.

They, by generation and as a religion, are the original, outspoken and irrevocable enemies of Christ, but to use terms such as 'kike', in referring to individuals is just an unnecessary injustice.  Not every person of Jєωιѕн blood rejects Christ, certainly there have been many converts, as reading the Council of Florence attests.

However, for those individuals who do, terms like "Christ denying Jews" or "apostate Jews" are not only not unjust, but they are wholly accurate.

Quote

I am no fan of Feeney, but Karl's article is dishonest, trying to link the articles to some vast anti-Jew conspiracy......

Uh OH!  St. Paul was in on it!

Quote from: St. Paul

For you, brethren, are become followers of the churches of God which are in Judea, in Christ Jesus: for you also have suffered the same things from your own coutrymen, even as they have from the Jews, Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and the prophets, and have persecuted us, and please not God, and are adversaries to all men; Prohibiting us to speak to the Gentiles, that they may be saved, to fill up their sins always: for the wrath of God is come upon them to the end.

And he even goes so far as to have the audacity to say that THEY are the ones with the cօռspιʀαcιҽs!

Quote from: St. Paul

Serving the Lord with all humility, and with tears, and temptations which befell me by the cօռspιʀαcιҽs of the Jews;

JESUS CHRIST THE LORD WAS IN ON IT!!!

Quote from: St. John 8:22-25

The Jews therefore said: Will he kill himself, because he said: Whither I go, you cannot come? And he said to them: You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world.  Therefore I said to you, that you shall die in your sins. For if you believe not that I am he, you shall die in your sin.  They said therefore to him: Who art thou? Jesus said to them: The beginning, who also speak unto you.

That's anti-semitism!  They only wanted to keep their religion exactly as it had always been, and Christ threatens them with DYING IN THEIR SIN!?  The nerve...

Seriously, the anti-Jew conspiracy was brought upon them by themselves, freely and by choice:

Quote from: St. Matthew 27:22-25

Pilate saith to them: What shall I do then with Jesus that is called Christ? They say all: Let him be crucified. The governor said to them: Why, what evil hath he done? But they cried out the more, saying: Let him be crucified. And Pilate seeing that he prevailed nothing, but that rather a tumult was made; taking water washed his hands before the people, saying: I am innocent of the blood of this just man; look you to it. And the whole people answering, said: His blood be upon us and our children.

They, by generation and as a religion, are the original, outspoken and irrevocable enemies of Christ, but to use terms such as 'kike', in referring to individuals is just an unnecessary injustice.  Not every person of Jєωιѕн blood rejects Christ, certainly there have been many converts, as reading the Council of Florence attests.

However, for those individuals who do, terms like "Christ denying Jews" or "apostate Jews" are not only not unjust, but they are wholly accurate.

 :cheers:  :jumping2: :rahrah: :dancing-banana: :light-saber: