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Traditional Catholic Faith => Crisis in the Church => Topic started by: klasG4e on April 21, 2017, 11:29:39 AM

Title: All the Men Behind the Opus Dei Curtain
Post by: klasG4e on April 21, 2017, 11:29:39 AM: A stunning blockbuster of an article -- E. Michael Jones, Michael Voris, Opus Dei, SSPX and a whole lot more!

All the Men Behind the Opus Dei Curtain (http://www.newengelpublishing.com/all-the-men-behind-the-opus-dei-curtain/)
Title: Re: All the Men Behind the Opus Dei Curtain
Post by: LaramieHirsch on April 21, 2017, 02:39:46 PM: Jones posted this recently. Also, you might be interested to know that his website, Culture Wars, has been hacked.

* * *

This is the response I sent to Randy Engel about the piece she's written and posted to at least two websites:

Dear Randy,

I am not a member of Opus Dei, nor do I have any ties “concrete” or otherwise to that organization. Once upon a time I attended evenings of reflection at the local center, but more recently I was banned from speaking at Opus Dei’s Catholic Information Center in Washington. I have friends in Opus Dei. Marc Brammer is one of them. Another Opus Dei friend was warned by the American prelate not to have anything to do with me. Fortunately, he didn’t follow that advice. I have no intention of distancing myself from my friends even if their organization has distanced itself from me.
At this point, I have a question. Why would an organization like Opus Dei want to be associated with someone with my views? Opus Dei is probably the world’s most prominent purveyor of neoconservative Catholicism, not just here but throughout the world. Why would a group like that want me as a member? Do you think that hobnobbing with the author of The Jєωιѕн Revolutionary Spirit is going to enhance Opus Dei’s image in the halls of power in Washington or New York? I don’t think so. Nor do they, which is why they do whatever they deem necessary to avoid any contact with me. Opus Dei is happy to invite George Weigel, but Father Stetson showed what he thought of me when he unilaterally canceled the book signing I had at the Catholic Information Center.

This brings me to the really pernicious aspect of your expose. It’s not simply that it’s full of factual errors, like the alleged location of a nonexistent Opus Dei center in Ferndale, Michigan. Your article is suffused with the sense that personal friendship, far from transcending political differences, is reason to denounce someone for what someone else does or believes. Since you could not make a connection between me and Opus Dei and the sordid story of Church Militant on factual or principled grounds, you had to stoop to guilt by association. Are we now supposed to be judged by our associations instead of what we believe and say and do? As someone I admire once said, “If what I said is false, point out the error. If what I said is true, why do you strike me?”

Why am I responsible for someone else’s activities? Who made you the judge of my friendships? This is the way the Pharisees treated Jesus when he ate with tax collectors and prostitutes. Was Jesus contaminated by his association with them? Am I somehow contaminated by my friendship with Marc Brammer? Or, more importantly, is he somehow contaminated by his association with me? I’m sure there are people in Opus Dei who think so, but I don’t and don’t think Jesus would either.
If this is not the case, why have I been subjected to the same pharisaical strictures which the Jews imposed on Jesus? Who put you in charge of my relationships? The answer to all of these questions is the schismatic lack of charity that pervades traditionalist circles. In his treatises on Donatism and Baptism, St. Augustine defined schism as refusal to associate with the body of Christ out of lack of charity and fear of contamination. Bishop Fellay expressed this fear when he said, “the church has cancer. We can’t associate with the church because then we would get cancer.”

Now I am subjected to the same intolerable lack of charity by you. This is not the way I run my life. To the point, Bishop Williamson stayed at my house twice. Does this establish “concrete ties” with the Society of St. Pius X? Does it make me a closet Lefebvrite? Or is it an indication that personal friendship can sometimes transcend ideological difference? Is that what you’re trying to preclude? If so, I reject your attempt to do so and the stunning lack of charity and narrow-mindedness that prompted you to make the attempt.

Please post this response on your website.

Thanks,
Mike
Title: Re: All the Men Behind the Opus Dei Curtain
Post by: klasG4e on April 21, 2017, 07:56:14 PM: It should be interesting to see if Engel posts a counter reply. If anyone comes across one please consider posting it or at least tossing it over to someone else to do same.
Title: Re: All the Men Behind the Opus Dei Curtain
Post by: Mary quite Contrary on April 22, 2017, 01:32:45 AM: Funny how E Michael Jones denies any relationship with opus dei, while the people in his e book are all connected.
Speaking of his e book, after one good read of the sixty some pages , a Real Catholic is left with a queer sense of filth.

That filth sensation stems from having read the private revelations of a priest "spiritual advisor's" tell all about a penitent's past sins under the guise of spiritual direction. It is repeated anonymously to protect the identity of the priest ,yet anyone who has followed CMtv clearly recognizes the tattle tale priest as THE Fr Nicholson of "Kiss my Ash" evangelizing youtube fame.

So why the rush to publish by Jones? Perhaps a frantic effort to distance one's self and OD apostolate connections from the tell all public sinner host of the show?
Mr Jones did both himself and the priest a great disservice in betraying their former friend in this manner. But like many reviewers of Jones' e book said . "I guess the story had to be told" , if only for some to recognize that opaque curtain is being controlled by Opus Dei.
For those who just didn't get it........you just have to read his book (then take a bathe in some Holy Water) to understand what Randy is so rightly responding to. :applause:
Title: Re: All the Men Behind the Opus Dei Curtain
Post by: Neil Obstat on April 22, 2017, 11:59:00 PM: Quote from: klasG4e on April 21, 2017, 07:56:14 PM
It should be interesting to see if Engel posts a counter reply. If anyone comes across one please consider posting it or at least tossing it over to someone else to do same.
.
If Engel posts a counter reply to what?

“All the Men Behind the Opus Dei Curtain”
By Randy Engel
... is an article written by Randy Engel. Why would she post a counter reply to herself?
Title: Re: All the Men Behind the Opus Dei Curtain
Post by: klasG4e on April 23, 2017, 12:14:24 AM: Neil Obstat, please see LaramieHirsch above where he has posted what he states is an email reply posted by Jones. Engel's counter-reply if she chooses to make one public would be to Jones' reply.
Title: Re: All the Men Behind the Opus Dei Curtain
Post by: klasG4e on April 23, 2017, 12:21:31 AM: I see that Jones' website is up and running again after having been reportedly hacked. His response to Engel is seen on the home page at http://www.culturewars.com/ (http://www.culturewars.com/)
Title: Re: All the Men Behind the Opus Dei Curtain
Post by: Neil Obstat on April 23, 2017, 01:01:04 AM: Quote from: klasG4e on April 23, 2017, 12:14:24 AM
Neil Obstat, please see LaramieHirsch above where he has posted what he states is an email reply posted by Jones. Engel's counter-reply if she chooses to make one public would be to Jones' reply.
.
Okay, now I see who wrote what. LaramieHirsch didn't use a quote box and did not clearly show that he was quoting someone so I had thought the address to Engel he posted was something he wrote.
.
Now, reading it again, I don't think that Engel is likely to post any reply because the letter is haphazard and vague and presumptuous. The author is making himself look bad all by himself, so why should she get caught up in that nonsense?
.
Title: Re: All the Men Behind the Opus Dei Curtain
Post by: AlligatorDicax on April 23, 2017, 09:00:11 PM: Quote from: www.renewamerica.com/columns/engel/170419 (April 19, 2017)
Two of the questions which have been repeatedly asked by readers of The Man Behind the Curtain are, first, why did Jones write his book on Voris and secondly, what was the exact nature of Jones' relationship with the key players in the affair, specifically with Marc Brammer and Father Paul Nicholson, Voris' "tell-all" spiritual director. The following quote was taken from thehirschfiles.blogspot.com of October 8, 2016 [†]:

Quote from: thehirschfiles.blogspot.com (October 8, 2016)
I wrote the book first of all to explain what really happened. Secondly, I wrote it to clarify the theological points that everyone was missing in the discussion. The dominant culture's downplaying of the true magnitude of this sin combined with Catholics ignoring the Church's teaching on penance and adopting the Protestant notion of cheap grace made his story incomprehensible. [¢]

Engel edited what she called the "following quote" (herein immediately above) so tightly that she deprived her readers of certainty about the identity of the person whom she's quoting as claiming "I wrote the book", presumably E. Michael Jones referring to The Man Behind the Curtain, an exposé about Michael Voris. But could there have been a ghost-writer behind a curtain? Some redundancy is useful for presenting such a topic: Engel should understand that she'll stimulate widespread discussion & speculation among outsiders who dare to discuss "damage to the reputation(s)" of individuals, altho' some of them might be legally considered public figures. Regardless, it should be written in a way that even her readers whose comprehension isn't highly developed can still figure out who's who and what's what.

I was surprised to see Engel drawing quote(s) from the, um, low-profile Web site "The Hirsch Files"[†]. Its pseudonymous owner "Laramie Hirsch" admits:

Quote from: thehirschfiles.blogspot.com (April 22, 2017)
I'm not a guy who's "in" on any circles. [...] Nor do I get support or recommendation too often. [‡]

So Engel's readers might well wonder why E. Michael Jones would be giving Hirsch what looks like an interview (albeit one either brief or without much worth transcribing)? Perhaps Hirsch would be so good as to enlighten us readers here on CathInfo about those circuмstances?

-------
Note ¢: Enclosure by SMF BB-Code syntax was added to both de facto levels of quoting in the Engel article.

Note †: <http://thehirschfiles.blogspot.com/2016/10/a-review-of-man-behind-curtain-that.html (http://thehirschfiles.blogspot.com/2016/10/a-review-of-man-behind-curtain-that.html)>.

Note ‡: <http://thehirschfiles.blogspot.com/2017/04/news-from-crossroads.html (http://thehirschfiles.blogspot.com/2017/04/news-from-crossroads.html)>.
Title: Re: All the Men Behind the Opus Dei Curtain
Post by: LaramieHirsch on April 24, 2017, 06:51:17 AM: Quote from: AlligatorDicax on April 23, 2017, 09:00:11 PM
So Engel's readers might well wonder why E. Michael Jones would be giving Hirsch what looks like an interview (albeit one either brief or without much worth transcribing)? Perhaps Hirsch would be so good as to enlighten us readers here on CathInfo about those circuмstances?
Sure!

I've spoken to Jones a few times in the past. That day, I asked him the question, and he answered.

I thought that it was such an obvious question, that I felt lucky to get in there and ask the question first. No one was doing that. There was just negative book review after negative review. One person after another would "shake their head" and wonder publicly about Jones' motivations. No one simply asked him why he wrote it. I jumped at the opportunity to settle the matter.

No special interview or anything.

Although, heck, if Eric Gajewski is able to get an interview from the man, then surely I could too. However, that being said, I have no idea what I'd ask Jones. He's written such voluminous amounts of material, that I could bounce off of it and analyze and psychoanalize our society through the lens of his work for the rest of my days.

As a matter of fact, I've given serious consideration to doing a series on my blog that goes
through the entire book of the Jєωιѕн Revolutionary Spirit, discussing and analyzing the entire book chapter by chapter. It's on my bucket list.
Title: Re: All the Men Behind the Opus Dei Curtain
Post by: klasG4e on April 24, 2017, 10:13:11 AM: LaramieHirsch
Quote
As a matter of fact, I've given serious consideration to doing a series on my blog that goes
through the entire book of the Jєωιѕн Revolutionary Spirit, discussing and analyzing the entire book chapter by chapter. It's on my bucket list.
That sounds like a rather worthwhile project. I have read the book and found it to be quite extraordinary. It has some excellent history and some excellent insights. I see that it is presently listed as being held in 59 libraries worldwide, some of which are rather prestigious ones to say the least! See https://www.worldcat.org/ (https://www.worldcat.org/) It would be interesting to know in how many of those libraries this "too hot to handle" book is kept behind the reference desk!
Title: Re: All the Men Behind the Opus Dei Curtain
Post by: Mary quite Contrary on April 30, 2017, 12:42:58 PM: Here is an interesting link with video at right that lends support to Mrs. Engel's thesis that E Michael Jones e book is a feeble attempt to salvage an Opus Dei apostolate gone wrong.
https://sites.google.com/a/realcatholiconline.org/the-opus-dei-guidebook/home/opus-dei-101

It appears that every attempt was being made to distance the organization from Mr Voris after he decided to make a video publicly revealing some of the particulars of his past unnatural sɛҳuąƖ sins. Prior to the Voris tell all ( not quite) video, Brammer, Fr Nicholson and Mr Jones all seemed to be on the same page. However, I found Mr Jones ebook to be a revolting turnabout against his former friend ( Voris) who definitely sickened me himself quite a long time ago, with his video on how to know you are a Real Catholic ( "join Opus Dei" ).
So Mr Voris can read hearts and knows who is and who is not a REAL Catholic. Mr Jones 501c 3's operations are connected to the same opus dei Supernumerary with money to back him and Fr Nicholson of opus dei can reveal indiscriminately the past sins and sɛҳuąƖ abuse of his former employer and penitent ?
You cannot fully appreciate the amount of scandals being put forth by members of ,and those definitely connected to, Opus Dei until you read Jones' ebook.
Sorry but none of these Opus Dei fellows are behaving in a Christian manner much less as the REAL CATHOLICS they purport to be.

Thank You Mrs Engel for enlightening a few of us who didn't ,along with those of us who already knew, that Opus Dei is simply a cult of men money and power ! Frankly the fact that Pope John Paul Two sanctioned them and canonized the founder means nothing , because he supported Maciel and his cult also for his entire Papacy, so please let's give that argument a flush.