Dear All-
A couple days ago, many of you received my announcement that I would be composing a "Part II" to the Catechetical Refutation titled "Subsequent Objections," and to which I had appended a rebuttal to a couple lies contained within The Recusant's commentary on the Catechetical Refutation.
Namely:
1) That the 1979 quote of Archbishop Lefebvre I provided did not address the topic of New Mass attendance (i.e., Greg Taylor eliminated the first two entire paragraphs of the quote, which explicitly introduce and reference the subject, and set the context for, a conversation on the pastoral approach to people trapped in the New Mass, in order to conclude the quote in question was not addressing New Mass attendance);
2) That my citation for the quote of Archbishop Lefebvre is dubious (even though the citation provided in the very footnote he references clearly contains a direct link to the YouTube audio wherein one can listen to Archbishop Lefebvre state exactly that which is contained within the quote, and which includes date and venue).
These two rebuttals can be viewed here:
http://ablf3.com/threads/can-you-trust-a-liar.639/ However, in the short time that has passed since my last email, I have had a few minutes to glance (only in passing) at the first couple sections of The Recusant's rebuttal.
Below, please find my response to The Recusant's commentary (also available at the same link to ABLF3.com provided just above).
Note that these responses only cover the first two sections of The Recusant's comments (variously titled "Background" and "Introduction"); I have not had time to give a thorough reading to the rest of The Recusant yet.
Semper Idem,
Sean Johnson (aka Br. Athanasius, T.O.P.)
The Recusant #36 (September 2016)
Background (pp. 38-39):
1. "Mr. Johnson is known in the internet-sphere as being a loquacious if somewhat intemperate defender of what he calls “the internal Resistance”..."
Response: As though I do not also support the external Resistance (sans Boston).
2. "...which seems to involve continuing to attend the local SSPX chapel every week, even when there is a Resistance Mass in your area..."
Response: False. I host/attend Masses by Bishop Williamson, Fr. Zendejas, the Avrille Dominicans, and soon, Bishop Thomas Aquinas, when they can come to town. The only Resistance Masses I spurn are those allied to Boston.
3. "...and publicly pouring scorn and barely-disguised contempt on anyone foolish enough to no longer attend the SSPX."
Response: False. I pour it upon those advocating the red light policy on SSPX Mass attendance (i.e., Nobody can go to any SSPX Masses, ever, for any reason."). Incidentally, a report coming from Fr. Chazal is that Fr. Pfeiffer has advised the faithful in Cebu to attend the local SSPX chapel. Can you explain that?
4. "The last such occasion [Me writing to Greg Taylor] was in September 2015, when he contacted me regarding Fr. Stephen Abraham and what I had written about him, which he clearly considered to be still open to doubt, questioning my motives, and informing me that he would be writing personally to Bishop Williamson to find out “if your accusations can be sustained.” After two weeks of deafening silence, I wrote back asking him what the Bishop had said, to which his response was: “I do not consider myself at liberty to divulge the nature of the response, or my impressions regarding it.” My reply of: “I bet that if the his response had been ‘Greg Taylor is a liar, it's all untrue, don't listen to him!’ you wouldn't have quite so many scruples!” seems to have ended the correspondence between us and to have been the last contact I had with him."
Response: Is this "pouting," that I won't tell the newspaper man what I know?
5. "That was almost a year ago, and to this day I have heard nothing more from Mr. Johnson on the matter, in public or in private, neither to denounce the “dishonesty” of my “accusations,” nor to grudgingly admit that I might just have been telling the truth. I mention this merely as evidence of the sort of spirit we are dealing with."
Response: Yes, the sort of "spirit we are dealing with" is one which does not divulge information given to him with the expectation of confidentiality. Perhaps had I tape recorded a conversation, and played it to the world on YouTube 4 years later, you would find my "spirit" more appealing?
6. "But we must not be too hard on him. Perhaps if Mr. Johnson lived in London, he might have a different view of Bishop Williamson by now, and would have turned his not inconsiderable talents to some more worthy cause. At any rate, I would like to think so."
Response: I would gather that I know Bishop Williamson, and what the man stands for, quite a bit better than Greg Taylor does.
We will go through this section by section...
Introduction (pp. 39-40):
1. "Let me begin with saying that the problem with the docuмent is with the content. Mr. Johnson is clearly a man possessed of intelligence and wit, who expresses himself articulately and has a better-than-usual English prose style, though personally I find it at times a little condescending and aloof. All in all, it is therefore a great shame that so much talent should be wasted in so unworthy a cause."
Response: And what is the unworthy cause? Truth? Doctrinal clarity? Dissipating confusion and sectarian politics? What?
2. "His aim is unmistakably to defend Bishop Williamson, a man he clearly holds in esteem. Such an aim is either worthy or unworthy, depending on the extent to which Bishop Williamson deserves defending."
Response: Ahh...here we have it: The politics peeking through. But had I been attacking Bishop Williamson (even with the most inept, scatterbrained, meandering arguments one might expect to find on Cor Mariae), my cause would no doubt have not only been judged "worthy," but even noble.
3. "That he should need to be defended at all is itself something of an astonishing admission, and one which ought to give Mr. Johnson, and everyone else, serious pause for thought."
Response: Yes, let's do precisely that: Give some thought to why Bishop Williamson's comments in Mahopac should need defending.
Fr. Pfeiffer was already at war with Bishop Williamson since 2013, because Bishop Williamson told him (in the presence of Fr. Chazal) that he did not trust Fr. Pfeiffer to run a seminary (how prescient that distrust was!); he was at war with Bishop Williamson over the red light (which he is currently violating in Asia!); he was at war with Bishop Williamson over the matter of loose confederation vs congregation (and now spurns the congregation created by Bishop Faure as a trick); and he was especially already at war with Bishop Williamson since the faithful of Danbury, Connecticut sought out a more balanced pastor in Fr. Zendejas.
So, when Bishop Williamson made his Mahopac comments, the table was already set for public opposition from Fr. Pfeiffer. And Bishop Williamson's somewhat imprudent decision to tackle a complex issue publicly, while perfectly orthodox from beginning to end, gave Fr. Pfeiffer the opportunity he needed to fan the flames of the malcontents, banking on the fact (correctly) that the simple faithful -most of whose doctrinal formation does not run any deeper than objective slogans- would not grasp the distinctions the bishop was making.
4. "Bishop Williamson ought not to need defending a whole year after his public controversy."
Response: I agree, yet that you will not let the matter die is the cause of the lingering division, confusion, and attempts to dissipate it with my defense.
5. "He could at any point have cleared up this whole business with a simple statement retracting his ideas and re-stating the Traditional Catholic position as constantly taught by Archbishop Lefebvre and the SSPX."
Response: A completely gratuitous statement which presumes Bishop Williamson was wrong, when in fact I have shown him to be quite correct. Yes, yes, Greg....we will get deeper into those weeds below. I am pointing out that you should not make such a statement in an Introduction before you have shown such to be the case; such a statement belongs more properly in a Conclusion...if you could be shown to be correct.
6. "That he has not done so but, rather, has entrenched these ideas more deeply with five Eleison Comments, is a matter of recorded historical fact, available for anyone who takes the trouble to see..."
Response: Yes, Bishop Williamson is criticized for trying to explain that which you have been trying to blur, and for that, he is apparently to blame. If only Bishop Williamson would listen and conform to the politics...er...doctrine of Greg Taylor!
7. "But one would not be aware of that from reading all of Mr. Johnson’s 34 pages."
Response: Yes, one would not be aware of that...unless one reads all the way to...the top of p. 2 of the Catechetical Refutation, where it is stated:
"In the weeks and months that have followed since June, Bishop Williamson has defended his response by various arguments, primarily within the pages of the weekly Eleison Comments, 3 while his adversaries have used these subsequent explanations as means to contrive new objections."
8. "Because of this, one of my main criticisms Mr. Johnson’s ‘Catechism’ is that he ‘sins by omission’ since, whilst some comments or sentences or phrases can be placed in such a contrived and improbable “context” that they can be made to look not so bad, the majority, which cannot, must simply be ignored..."
Response: Greg ought to take a look in the mirror when making that kind of accusation. I have already shown in previous posts (which have gone unanswered by him) that it is he himself who argues dishonestly (e.g., Removing all the references from an ABL quote referring to the New Mass, in order to conclude ABL was not talking about the new Mass; questioning the authenticity of the citation to the same quote, even though that citation takes the reader right to the live audio of the Archbishop, including the date and venue).
Moreover, my alleged sins of omission are clearly illusory: I created an article which sought to deal with the most common objections/sophistries leveled against Bishop Williamson's comments. But if I didn't manage to address every conceivable objection, it somehow represents dishonesty: The Catechetical Refutation is wrong for what it doesn't say?
On the contrary, I showed a consistent willingness throughout the Refutation to address the "comebacks" the dupes might have (e.g., After showing 12 explicit condemnations of the new Mass, I addressed the objection from the dupes that I was only showing the strong parts; anyone reading the Refutation will see that in fact the very format -a catechetical approach- mandates this, and I have done so throughout the text. Is there a single argument/number in the entire Refutation which does not take into consideration the likely responses of the dupes?).
9. "And ignore them is precisely what he does."
Response: See above. Rather, you are doing a bit of psychological projection (i.e., Attributing to others your own unpleasant characteristics).
10. "He is rather like Mr. Akins in that way: it is all about Mahopac, New York, (and even there, he says some very silly things); nothing at all about the five Eleison Comments..."
Response: I should very much like to be thought of as "like Mr. Akins!" Of course, this bald assertion that I have not addressed the Eleison Comments (even though I acknowledge these defenses at the onset in p. 2, and explicitly address theComments regarding Novus Ordo miracles in Objections 20-21), it is all for naught. Why? Because as has already been shown, Greg Taylor is not really interested in what I have said, but only in that it should be discredited, even at the expense of dishonesty.
11. "...about the false evidence of the Canadian grandfather cited as “proof” that one can still keep the Faith at the New Mass (the man himself, when asked, totally contradicted everything Bishop Williamson had said about him!)."
Response: The claim of the grandfather is squarely at odds with the doctrine of the Church: Had he not received graces in the days of the Novus Ordo, he would still be trapped in it (regardless of what his subjective impressions to the contrary might be). Same with every other person who ever graduated from conciliarism to Tradition. To say he did this of his own accord, rather than from graces received, very closely approximates Pelagianism (i.e., The heresy that says, among other things, that we can do good without grace from our own natural abilities). If you will contend that the grandfather received grace not from the Mass, but despite the Mass, I will direct you right back to the Catechetical Refutation, which explains this slogan.
12. "...nothing about the “danger” of separating oneself from the conciliar church, nor about dropping the very term “conciliar church” for “mainstream Church”; nothing at all about Valtorta, nothing about God wanting no structure or seminaries from now on, and so much else besides."
Response: Note here the diversionary tactic: The Refutation is defective because it does not deal with issues not specific to Bishop Williamson's Mahopac comments (which is it's specific and precisely stated aim!).
"Yeah! Where does the Catechetical Refutation deal with Valtorta?!"
You see, those arguments only come into play if Greg Taylor's imagined motive for the Refutation were correct (i.e., It is a general attempt to salvage Bishop Williamson, the man, not the doctrine).
And he can only maintain it by trying to widen the scope and purpose of the Refutation against it's explicitly stated and specific object: To address the objections made against Bishop Williamson's Mahopac comments.
13. "And, of course, not a word about the priest whom the bishop put back into active service, despite the fact that Mr. Johnson himself is sitting on some first hand testimony concerning that very case which he refuses to share."
Response: More of the same: The Catechetical Refutation is wrong because it doesn't deal with other subjects Greg Taylor wants to talk about, which have nothing to do with Mahopac (which as stated above, are outside the stated purpose within the Refutation itself.).
14. "This article does not claim to be comprehensive. Its aim is not to create an entire and complete case against Mr. Johnson’s “Catechism” and to list every single thing wrong with it."
Response: But believe him anyway: There is plenty more wrong with it than he has time or money to address. Trust him.
15. "Pointing out the problems in a text usually takes twice as much writing if not more, and having forced myself through all 34 pages (No mean feat! I wonder how many other people alive in the world can honestly say the same? Honestly?!), I have no intention of asking anyone to read sixty-eight A4 pages of response!"
Response: Then you are not up to the task, and have no business addressing the Refutation. I went through the time and effort of addressing all the major objections/sophistries directed towards Bishop Williamson's comments. Why shouldn't you incur the same burden? Especially for a goal so (allegedly) noble as telling the "truth?"
16. "More to the point, it is not necessary to point out every single thing wrong with it. A few of the more obvious problems ought to be enough to show, inter alia, that it is unreliable, cannot be taken seriously..."
Response: That which is not addressed is conceded.
17. "...that poor Mr. Hugh Akins’ almost total reliance on the sense of moral or intellectual security which that docuмent lends him is wholly unjustified..."
Response: A gratuitous conclusion, and one quite out of place, situated as it is, in an introduction. You don't announce this is what you are setting out to demonstrate, but rather that it is self-evident. My only response is "that which is offered without proof can be dismissed without proof."
18. "...and that, consequently, his criticisms of us based upon it are misplaced and that he would have done far better to look into the matter himself."
Response: The fallacy in this statement (i.e., Hugh Akins broke his association with Boston because of the Catechetical Refutation) is historically inaccurate: Mr. Akins parted company with Boston before he was ever aware of the Catechetical Refutation (i.e., in part because of the fake "bishop" and other well known problems).
Moreover, the assertion is an insult to the intelligence of Mr. Akins, as though he is some simpleton, easily taken in by my alleged sophistries (whereas anyone familiar with Mr. Akins' resume knows quite the opposite).
Topic: Sean Johnson refutes the rebuttal to the Catechetical Refutation (Read 1804 times)