15 But if thy brother shall offend against thee, go, and rebuke him between thee and him alone. If he shall hear thee, thou shalt gain thy brother.
16 And if he will not hear thee, take with thee one or two more: that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may stand.
17 And if he will not hear them: tell the church. And if he will not hear the church, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican.

Here are the facts. I'm sticking to facts here, and you'll note that the tone of this post is very matter-of-fact. I have nothing against McKenzie, but I am sad to see him lending his skills to, and throwing his lot in with, such a wretched cause.

I knew McKenzie for over 3 years. We attended St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary together. He was in the year above me. I also kept in contact with him after we both left, to work on CathInst.com (I picked that domain name -- His choice was CatholicInstituteOfArtsAndLetters.com).

I've read through the material on Laypopes -- which I saved off, in case Google cache purges it -- and it sounds like something McKenzie would write. ESPECIALLY THE POEM. The Poem is very advanced and would take a good poet to write. McKenzie is the only one I know who could write a poem like that.

It would make sense that McKenzie wrote much of the Laypopes.com website.

Firstly, most people hesitate to accuse another of a fault that they themselves possess. But most of the complaints about Droleskey wouldn't apply to McKenzie; to wit:

* McKenzie is a polyglot. Besides English, he is fluent in French and knows Latin very well. He knows Italian to some degree, and I know he was studying Greek, so he may be familiar with that language as well. Note that Laypopes.com criticizes Droleskey for "possessing neither modern nor classical languages".
Even among the seminarians, he was on top. A couple of seminarians had a 2nd language, but only McKenzie needed 2 hands to count the languages he knew.

* Laypopes also faults Droleskey for not having training as a Theologian -- note that McKenzie did make it into the "Theology" portion (Years 4-5-6) of Seminary studies.

* Laypopes criticizes Droleskey for not having traveled outside the US. McKenzie has been to Europe (and Scotland) many times, so he would certainly qualify as "well traveled".

* McKenzie is certainly well educated. It's true that Droleskey has a PhD, but it's "only" in Political Science. I can see how someone with a classical education would look down upon someone with a modern "political science" degree.
Besides, it's quite possible that McKenzie has the better education and intelligence of the two (that's not an insult to Droleskey on either head. McKenzie is highly educated and intelligent!). So that's why Laypopes assails Droleskey's educational qualifications.


Furthermore, there are other clues that jump out at me:

* I wrote to McKenzie over 26 hours ago (12/8/09, 9:23 AM), asking him if he has anything to do with Laypopes.com, and have yet received no response. I also e-mailed him asking if he was Nick from CathInfo. I sent a third e-mail as well, asking if he could please respond to my first e-mails soon, as it was an important matter. His silence speaks volumes. Why wouldn't he deny it quickly, if he truly wasn't involved? If he only promoted laypopes but didn't write it, why not say "Oh no no no -- I didn't write it. I just passed on a forward from ___." But Droleskey AND myself have both received only silence in response to our inquiries. And my e-mail wasn't a grilling session -- it just had an honest question -- "Are you involved with Laypopes.com".
It's not like he doesn't have e-mail. I received an e-mail from him (cathinst@comcast.net) just a few weeks ago on the occasion of my birthday.

* McKenzie has attended soirees and hob-nobbed with the greatest modern poets of our day. He considers himself a genuine poet. Not that I disagree. I'm just saying it's significant in light of the fact that Laypopes makes the claim that the Ballad was written by a "genuine poet".

* Laypopes sounds like it's written by an American -- McKenzie talks like a pretty normal American, by the way -- yet it criticizes the vast majority of Americans (knowing only English, having an America-centric view of the world, lacking a true Classical education, lacking culture, etc.)

* Laypopes claims that the author belongs to "no American Church" -- he never said he was foreign. He seems to be carefully choosing his words, to avoid actual lying. At any rate, I don't know where McKenzie goes to Mass these days, but I do know that he became a Sedevacantist, and began detesting the SSPX. So not belonging to a church could be easily envisioned in McKenzie's case.

Matthew

I promise to everyone here that I will update this thread if I hear from Joseph McKenzie.

As I pointed out, I have his correct e-mail address, and he sent me an e-mail just a few weeks ago. So I know it's current and that he has e-mail access. He got my e-mail.

I've also un-banned "Nick" so he can post here if he so desires.

If he doesn't respond?

Well, that will also say a lot, won't it.

Matthew

the sede vacantist theory is far too precious to some, particularly for some very proud men who would rather die than admit they have made a career out of being their own popes.  

in great admiration, but not haste, I say  :applause:

Could it be possible that this guy wrote the 'poem' and gave it to whoever was writing the website?

Yes, I'm not sure what percentage of the site he wrote himself.
But I assure you that he MUST be involved to some degree or he would have written back to me with SOME kind of denial.

And aside from the poem -- even the "malicious silliness" of the rest of the site reminds me of something Joseph could write. He can be quite biting in his criticism. I've heard/read his criticism many times before.

He doesn't want to lie about it, so he's just remaining silent.

Matthew

He doesn't want to lie about it, so he's just remaining silent.

But technically he has already lied, or allowed somebody else to lie for him. Before the website was locked up completely and you could still click in via the backdoor (Google + cached pages), the author(s) of the website put up a statement that McKenzie was NOT involved in the least.

It's why I wonder if it is somebody else who thought they could get away with doing a poison pen (poison...keyboard?) website about people.

The 'poem' could have been something that McKenzie wrote. The idea of the page could have emerged from ranting (and the author sounds like a ranty soandso) convos w/McKenzie. Then McKenzie might be holding his tongue to avoid outing the other person.

But I'm sure I could be overthinking this and it is just McKenzie and his wife (he has a wife, right?) doing this.

Wait! Is there an edit button?   :shocked:

*is mentally plagued by existence of typos in that comment where I mention I edit for other people*

Please keep us updated if you hear anything more from the guy. :)

Still not a word from Joseph McKenzie.
*sigh*