Bob Sungenis’ Next Job: King of America?

Bill Cork made reference to the only web site cited by Bob Sungenis in the Fatima post. He made me curious and I’m glad I looked. This source of Bob’s could run into trademark problems with an east coast coffee company as it’s just chock full o’ nuttiness. It echoes Mr. Sungenis’ allegations regarding the Fatima apparitions and the putative assassination of Pope John Paul I along with the wildest French claims regarding Moslem terrorist attacks against the United States.

The impresario of the site is the self-sytled Abbe de Nantes. He was ordained in 1948 and soon started a small monastic community. In 1963 he was reprimanded for his protests against the French episcopate’s politiscs – to the point of having his priestly faculties suspended by his own bishop. In 1966 he ran afoul of ecclesiastical authorities again, as he put it “threatened with an interdict”. After his trial in Rome, he refused to pledge submission to his bishop. In 1969, L’Osservatore Romano published a notice of the Abbe’s refusal to retract “grave accusations of heresy against Paul VI and the Council”.

In 1973 he prepared a ‘Book of Accusation” charging Pope Paul VI with heresy. In 1978 he was to meet with Vatican representatives, but the Pope’s death precluded the meeting. The Abbe saw this as divine vindication. (After all, isn’t it all about him?) In 1983 the Abbe prepared a “Book of Accusation” charging the current Pope with heresy. In 1993 he followed up with a “Book of Accusation” against the author of the Catechism. In recent years, the Abbe has continued his campaign of ecclesiastical civil disobedience. (I wonder if 2003 will bring another “Book of Accusation”, or if he’ll settle for the three volume set?) In 1997 he was apparently excommunicated (the wording used in the website is not particularly clear).

I didn’t slog through all the “Books of Accusation”, but I glanced at the one on the Catechism. Per the Abbe, the Catechism’s errors include humanism and failure to proclaim the divine right of kings. (How’s that for an election day special?) He even cites Pope Pius X's "Letter Against the Sillon" (referenced for other purposes by Sungenis’ protégé Jacob Michael) as a binding perpetual prohibition on any Catholic participation in democracy!

One of the segments of the page details the 150 Points of the Phalangist Communion , the manifesto of a religio-political party dedicated to restoring the monarchy not only to France, but to all the world and, apparently, the tertiary community for the Abbe. The Phalange’s political inspiration is Charles Maurras, who was condemned by Popes Leo XIII and Pius X.

So Bob Sungenis is now taking cues from a man who’s been excommunicated and who finds the Catechism to be heretical. How much longer can he go on claiming any ongoing relationship with the Church?

Since Bob Sungenis is approvingly citing the Abbe and his “Catholic Counter-Reformation” with no caveats, it’s reasonable to conclude that Mr. Sungenis is sympathetic to the Phalange and its monarchist program. Who better to star in the monarchist show than the one man bold enough to issue the geocentrism challenge? Anyone out there but me (and, presuming she’d ever go slumming here, the mighty Eve Tushnet) catch the other reason I mention “King of America”? Or was this just a brilliant mistake?