Steve "scotju" Dalton wrote on Christmas day:
This is the third time this year that Michael Voris has been attacked by members of the Church hierarchy. It's obvious that RCTV is upsetting the right people. People like this bishop of a diocese on it's way to oblivion, and bitter hate-filled laymen like Mark Shea and Dave Armstrong. These folks are sooo sensitive to the feelings of heretics, radicals, and other deviants, but when it comes to the feelings and desires of those who want the church as it has always been before Vatican II, you are suddenly transformed into a critter called a 'rad-trad'. you are accused of being a Nazi, a racist, a reactionary, . . .[two spelling corrections made]
Archbishop Allen Vigneron of the Archdiocese of Detroit (my own), had forbidden Michael Voris to use the name "Catholic" on his TV show, because of ongoing radtrad and quasi-schismatic elements of that production (made in Ferndale, Michigan).
Dalton has long been a severe critic of mine. He usually shows up when geocentrism is being discussed (he believes in that, as well as young-earth creationism), and possesses quite the uncontrolled, unbridled tongue. He seems to delight in bringing up my name in a calumnious fashion at the drop of a hat.
Apparently, I am described as "bitter hate-filled" simply because I did one little old post on Voris, objecting to his trashing of Amazing Grace as supposedly a terribly heretical Protestant song, that should never ever ever be performed in a Catholic church. I noted in my post a review of Voris' enterprise from the Catholic Culture website, that monitors the orthodoxy and fidelity of websites claiming to be Catholic. It describes Voris' liturgical opinion as "Extreme antipathy to the liturgy of the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite." In my post on Amazing Grace, Dalton showed up in the combox, under the moniker "juscot."
For this unutterably wicked transgression, Dalton feels justified in publicly describing me as a "bitter hate-filled" person who supposedly (so is his strong implication by citing my name) also calls people (i.e., those who aren't such) "Nazis" (which I've never done: a thing that can be quickly verified by a search on my voluminous site). This is par for the course, in the ongoing slanderous rotgut written about me, on the Internet.
Recently, a notorious inveterate troll (on my blog and on many other sites) dredged up the ridiculous claim that I supposedly "desperately" sought to keep up a Wikipedia entry about myself, out of my alleged extreme narcissism. The truth of the matter is that I have never at any time written anything on Wikipedia about anything: no editing or writing at all there: let alone a page about myself. Someone else put one up at one time (I don't even know who that person was), and folks who made themselves my "enemies" made up this myth that I had something to do with it (following another myth that I have the most bombastic, self-inflated ego in the history of the world), and had it removed.
But getting back to Dalton, on 21 December he described my previous post as follows: "Dave Armstrong went ballistic over Voris's criticism of AG and people like me who defended it." I often observe ludicrous speculations about my supposed (imaginary, fictional) emotional or mental state being made by people who think they know all about me. This is a classic case. I challenge the reader to check out my post in order to determine whether my demeanor and tone there would lead anyone -- who didn't already have an axe to grind -- to think that I "went ballistic." If we want to see "ballistic," I submit that we ought to read some of Dalton's other ravings about myself and other Catholic apologists. For example:
Question, if Bob Sungesis [sic] is so far out on the fringe, why are people like Dave Armstrong and Dave Palm so worried about him? Why are they even paying any attention to him? Why not just ignore him? Instead, you are giving him scads of free publicity he couldn't buy at any price. With all the problems we have in the Church with queer priests corrupting young men, evolution being taught instead of creation by God, parishes closing right and left, you would think that Sungesis's [sic] critics would be far more concerned about these things than a fringee living in a small Pennsylvania town. I got some advice for some of you, don't worry about Bob, if He's wrong about geo, the Jews, the state of the Church, and other things, He'll fade away in a few years without any smear campaign that some are directing at him. If He's right, no amount of smears or ridicule is going to make him fade away. Heck, the free publicity Armstrong, Shea, Palm, and others are giving him are insuring that his ideas will become more well known with each passing day! So, Dave, Dave, Mark, and others, keep up the good work of keeping Bob in the spotlight, go after those mean anti-Catholic Prots who outrage you, because they ignore you, make every little disagreement with someone in blogland into a petty feud, ignore the bigger issues, (like the priest scandal, the liberal theology) that are destroying the faith of millions of Catholics. I'm sure your reward will be great in heaven because of all the camel swallowing and gnat straining yo'll [sic] have to do before this is all over! (3 September 2011)
To respond briefly to some of the particulars in this sustained nonsense:
1) I pay "attention" to Sungenis because I think he commits several serious errors, and the business of the apologist is to note and refute such (see many examples and critiques on my "Radtrad Catholics" page: second section from the end). In other words, I am simply doing my job. I have nothing personal against Bob. We have written cordial letters back and forth on several occasions. We simply have some honest, serious disagreements.
2) It is almost certainly the case that Sungenis receives more exposure than I do: having been on TV, radio; having held several conferences, etc. He gets plenty of hits on his websites. Almost anyone who reads about his errors on my pages already knows who he is; thus I am not providing any "free publicity" to him to any significant extent. People know of him; they may not know of his serious errors that I have the unfortunate duty, as an apologist, to highlight and object to.
3) For Dalton, apparently apologetics is all (or merely) about personality disputes and "petty feud[s]", jealous wrangling. In fact, it is about the seeking and defending of truth as any individual sincerely deems that to be, in conjunction with a total obedience to the One True Church.
4) Speaking for myself (I don't speak for my friends David Palm or Mark Shea), far from "ignoring" either the priest sexual scandal or liberal theology, I have several posts and lots of links about the sex scandal, and an entire web page about theological liberalism and also half of one of my books devoted to it. Mark Shea at least writes quite a bit about Voris (as a search on his blog reveals); whereas I only have done so once.
One "Wes" made a very excellent point in the same thread where Dalton commented about Robert Sungenis:
Considering that the LA Times, Chicago Trib and other publications are basically using Sungenis and his group to make the Church look ignorant and paranoid, I can completely understand why people like Pat Archbold and the others you mentioned are out there making it clear that most all Catholics don't give these ideas the time of day. There's a reason these big publications are giving this group national attention and it's not because they find their theories credible or fascinating. They just want groups like this to be seen by the public as the face of the Catholic Church because the more the Church is discredited and marginalized as ignorant and paranoid, the less people will consider becoming Catholic and the more the Church's voice will be muted and neutralized in the public square. And the more the Church's voice is muted and neutralized in the public square, the easier it is for the relativists to push their immoral agenda.
In another comment a year ago in the midst of the usual tempest in a teapot "discussion" regarding geocentrism, Dalton opined that my "ego" was the reason for my writing against it:
John, I really appr[ec]iate your defense of geo[centrism]. It amazes me that Armstrong will allow you to post on his site when you fire salvo after salvo into his helio[centric] ship. He doesn't seem to realize that if he wanted to really hurt you, he would ignore you completely. Instead his ego drives him to attack geo and it's defenders, even though, as Rick points out, he and his buddies are losing the debate. (12-27-10)
Again, on his own site (on 8-31-11), Dalton was insistent that my one little ol' post about Voris (out of 2522) is proof positive of "jealousy" and some sort of frenzied agenda:
The one thing, however, that saddens me to no end is the in-fighting of Catholic apologetic bloggers against Mr. Voris. It is almost a jealousy and as long as it exists, the great restoration to which Michael Voris refers cannot occur. This is the same problem that the Church of Corinth had so long ago when followers of Apollos would fight against followers of Cephas or Paul, or vice versa. It's wrong. We do not follow Michael Voris or Dave Armstrong or Steve Ray or Mark Shea. But when we are divided like this, we hurt the Body of Christ . . . .
Also, Mike Voris has some powerful enemies in the blogging community. The two best know[n] are Dave Armstrong and Mark Shea. Both of these men have a [sic] overwhelming hatred for Voris, especially Mark Shea. . . . Dave Armstrong has been upset with Mike since Mike suggested that Amazing Grace, being a Protestant song, doesn't reflect Catholic theology. But why do they really lash out at him?
I think it boils down to these reasons. 1. Jealousy. Armstrong and Shea have been apologists for years. They have been praised by the blogging community (and others) as the best. Now comes Michael Voris and He's getting the praises and hosannas they have been used to getting. Instead of asking themselves, what's He doing that's attracting an audience, they're smearing him with some of the words I've already mentioned. Why? They're afraid of losing their audience to someone who has a winning, winsome, personality, as opposed to their snarky ones. Both Armstrong & Shea have become increasingly meanspirited, bitter, controlling and isolated from many in their audience over the last few years. . . . it's no wonder why many Catholics are attracted to Voris and repelled by the likes of Shea & Armstrong. 2. Both Shea & Armstrong are probably being used by certain powerful members of the clergy and the laity to bring down Mike Voris.
Conspiracies abound! I supposedly have an "overwhelming hatred for Voris" because I spent all of an hour (two, max) writing one post about one opinion of his. Such absurdities are their own refutations.
Dalton (barely able to spell) savagely attacked Blessed Pope John Paul II on my blog, too:
John Paul the Great? The man aided and abbedded [sic] in the cover-up of queer priests by doing absolutely nothing to stop the scandal. The man also encouraged false ecumenicalism [sic] with nonsence [sic] like Assai [sic]. The rush to declare this extremely flawed individual a saint shows the extent of the spiritual and moral vacousness [sic] of the Church's clergy and laity. (4-23-11)
See the related posts:
Response (in Words and Actions) to the Vehement Criticisms of Geocentrists "johnmartin" and "juscot"
Dalton responded to this post as follows (with more of his ubiquitous quack psychoanalysis):
I must say, you must be very uptight and hyper-sensitive to lash out at someone who is a very minor player in the blogosphere. . . . I don't try to reason with people like you who are emotionally bent out of shape.
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