Jihad Watch

Exposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts

Catholic Diocese of Sacramento: CAIR claims on Robert Spencer cancellation are false

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The Hamas-linked terror organization the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) launched a new website last month, boasting in its daily mailing that the site was meant to marginalize foes of jihad terror: “This means that when someone who may think an Islamophobe is a legitimate speaker and searches for the person on the Internet, they will see the hatred that speaker or the group they represent espouses. This information is being used by our friends and allies to delegitimize bigots.”

In a fund-raising appeal around the same time, Hamas-linked CAIR made a further boast: “In partnership with other groups, we also helped convince the Catholic Diocese of Sacramento to ban hatemonger Robert Spencer from its properties.” On their new Islamophobia website, CAIR makes this claim:

Also that month, the Catholic Diocese of Sacramento requested that the Kolbe Academy, a Catholic home school, rescind a speaking invitation they offered to Spencer. The Diocese referred to Spencer as a “key leader in the anti-Islam hate movement in the United States.”

This is a claim Hamas-linked terror org CAIR has made before. I wrote this back in February:

More importantly, Hamas-linked CAIR claims that the Roman Catholic diocese of Sacramento called me a “key leader in the anti-Islam hate movement in the United States.” This is almost certainly a lie, for several reasons. One is that in its initial chest-thumping about the Sacramento bishop caving in to their smear campaign last June, CAIR never mentioned this — and Hamas-linked CAIR has never been one to shy away from using a weapon that their marks hand them. What’s more, I spoke at the event in question, and the diocese of Sacramento had an information booth there — a strange thing for the diocese to have done if they really wanted to shun a leader of a supposed “hate movement.” The official statement that the diocese sent to Kolbe Academy said only this: “The Bishop didn’t think that it was in the best interest of Kolbe Academy to have a controversial speaker at a conference on education.”

So when Hamas-linked CAIR repeated this claim in October, I decided to act, and asked the acute and courageous free speech attorney Bill Becker of Freedom X to ask the Diocese of Sacramento to confirm or deny that it had made such a statement. He sent this letter (click to enlarge). Sacramento Diocese 1

Sacramento Diocese 2

We have just received a response from the General Counsel of the Diocese of Sacramento (click to enlarge images):

Sacramento diocese letter p 1Sacramento diocese letter p 2

November 12, 2014

William Becker, Esquire
FREEDOMX
11500 Olympic Blvd., Suite 400
Los Angeles, CA 90064

Re: Your letter dated October 27, 2014, re Robert Spencer

Dear Mr. Becker:

I am the General Counsel for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento. Your letter, dated October 27, 2014, to the Most Reverend Jaime Soto, Bishop of Sacramento, has been referred to me for review and response.

Your letter cites to a blog post, appearing on the website of a third party organization, that attributes to the Diocese a statement regarding Mr. Spencer. The excerpt provided offers no attribution as to the speaker and no date as to when the statement was purportedly made. I reviewed the site and could find no further information other than the excerpt you provided. Prior to receiving your letter, we were completely unaware that this statement appeared on any website. Our lack of awareness is based upon the fact that the Diocese has never made any statement regarding Mr. Spencer, let alone a statement of the nature referenced in the cited weblog excerpt.

While it is a fact that the Bishop of Sacramento would not permit your client to speak at St. Stephen the Martyr Parish, this directive was addressed to the parish without comment and without a stated reason. The Bishop simply declined, consistent with his prerogatives as diocesan bishop, to authorize your client to speak at one of the parishes in the Diocese of Sacramento. He has not stated his reasons for doing so, nor will he do so at this juncture. Consequently, this decision was implemented without comment.

Indeed, his action in this regard was criticized in another blog, “Renew America,” which noted:

Sacramento Bishop Jaime Soto apparently doesn’t want to deal with the protests of the “politically-correct” left. Or perhaps he just doesn’t like Spencer’s work. It’s hard to say, though, because the diocese has not issued an explanatory statement as to why it canceled Spencer’s parish talk.

A diocesan official, while acknowledging my email inquiry about the situation, did not elaborate.

(http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/abbott/13071 l) As the Renew America blog correctly notes, the Diocese has never made a statement or taken a position regarding the Bishop’s decision regarding your client’s speech, other than to simply deny permission for your client to speak at St. Stephen’s Parish as is the Bishop’s prerogative so to do. Accordingly, we respectfully note that your client’s complaint is premised upon a misunderstanding of the facts.

Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.

Sincerely,
James F. Sweeney

Thus not only is Hamas-linked CAIR’s claim that the Sacramento diocese called me a leader of a hate movement false, it is also false that Hamas-linked CAIR convinced the diocese to “ban hatemonger Robert Spencer from its properties” — as if I wouldn’t be allowed to set foot in a church there. In reality, Sweeney’s quote from Renew America strongly suggests that I was banned because the diocese didn’t want the controversy that Hamas-linked CAIR, gutter thug Nathan Lean of John Esposito’s Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding and other foes of the freedom of speech had ginned up — as the diocese said at the time in its letter to Kolbe Academy: “The Bishop didn’t think that it was in the best interest of Kolbe Academy to have a controversial speaker at a conference on education.”

This is generally how it Hamas-linked CAIR’s brownshirt tactics work:

1. If Spencer is asked to speak at an event, they demand that the event or Spencer be cancelled.
2. Occasionally organizers choose to avoid the controversy and cancel the event or get a different speaker.
3. CAIR then lies about the reasons the invitation was canceled, pretending that it was done after a reasoned examination of Spencer’s “hate.”

Will Hamas-linked CAIR take down this false claim from its smear-and-defamation site, in light of Sweeney’s letter? That’s unlikely, although they themselves will also be hearing from lawyers in the near future. Meanwhile, this entire episode proves that the “facts” that terror org CAIR marshals on its website are anything but — if they’re lying about this, as they obviously are, they could be lying about anything and everything on that site. No one should be naive and credulous enough to take it for a reliable source of information.

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Comments

  1. DON’T BE SO HARD ON CAIR, BOBBY.

    Have a heart — even Honest Ibe Hooper’s pet viper is probably depressed about the misery.

    THEY MUST HANDLE THE SLAUGHTER PARTIES OF FELLOW FRAT BOYS ISIS ON A DAILY BASIS.

    So what’s the big kerfuffle when we get another lie in a hundred metre high pile of sewage ?

    Chill out, Freedom Fighter ! ! !.

  2. CAIR’s unending industrial supply of hot, steaming piles of taqiyya. And Bishop Soto, how about doing something about the 8,000 (or is it 10,000) Christian martyrs yearly?

    Bishop, THAT’S YOUR JOB…to defend the sheep from the wolves of JIHAD! You are not doing your job.

    • The danger for any Catholic Bishop that tries to do his job is that Pope Francis will remove him.

      The diabolical apostasy among the Catholic hierarchy was predicted many times as something that would happen before the end of times, the amazing thing is that they themselves cannot see it.

      • So true, you speak the truth there! But it will turn around! pope Frances leaves for Turkey in a few more days, and with ISIS death threat hanging over his head, which are turkey’s champions fighting the good cause of Islam, maybe this trip will be good for him, just may open his eyes to the truth. Did you happen to see Erdogans 100 year anniversary speech since the fall of the Ottoman Empire? Quite the eye opener, he takes bible scripture and twist with a mix of Hitler speech tactics.

  3. Do truly evil men ever stare in the mirror and consider themselves and their actions and have doubts? Do you, “Honest” Ibe Hooper? Do you ever question what sort of a diety you pray to who demands lying and deception, intimidation and threats to satisfy it? What sort of a god do you pray to, Ibrahm? Would a diety who was all-powerful creator of the universe need you to lie and deceive and threaten and bully for him? Does that make any sense at all? I put it to you, Ibraham, if you ever have a moment of reflection: do you pray to an actual god at all? Or is Islam one big deception? And by whom? Think about this late at night when you’re sleepless, and you can’t figure out why you feel so bad about yourself.

    • That’s the thing, they don’t feel bad, they feel great about it, because they are obeying allah whom is the greatest of deceivers, and following the most perfect human being Mohammed, they will feel bad if they don’t obey their Allah for they will be cursed and thrown into the pits of hell. they reject the living God completely. As stated in the Quran very clearly. The trinity is blasphemy to them, for allah is the one supreme. The one and only supreme and he has no other. And Mohammed sits at his right hand. After he was carried of to Heaven on a jewelled Baruqi ( some kind of winged beast)

      • The dragon[a] stood on the shore of the sea. And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on its horns, and on each head a blasphemous name. The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority. One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was filled with wonder and followed the beast. People worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and they also worshiped the beast and asked, “Who is like the beast? Who can wage war against it?”

        I wonder if islam is the beast of revelations mentioned in the Bible. I have read other people who are scholars in theology also make this claim. It would seem to be the appropriate form for the anti Christ’s army to take. Islam being the ball of death that consumes all life like in the movie the Fifth Element.

    • That’s exactly what I was thinking! It seems that this should be against the law for sure. I wonder if Robert’s many thousands of supporters could help in some way.

      I’d like to see an online petition circulating for CAIR’s speaking events so people that invite them to speak would want to back away.from the controversy of dealing with a terrorist organization. I’m sure you’d be able to get tens of thousands of signatures on those petitions. If CAIR is invalidated, then no one will care if they don’t approve of Robert Spencer and everyone else on their McCarthy list.

      • Hello KrazyKafir and Julia —

        Let me point out that Mr. Spencer does write in his post that CAIR will be hearing from lawyers.

        We can reasonably guess that those lawyers will mention the false claims CAIR makes.

        Stay tuned for some interesting developments as this unfolds in coming weeks and months . . .

        • Mr. Spencer needs to dress up in Roman gladiator array and go to CAIR’s head office yellow Spartacus! Spartacus! Spartacus! Lol. The ongoing war between Mr. Spencer and CAIR makes great entertainment, because Spartacus keeps schooling them.

        • Yell that is, I can see cracking my first beer did not make me start typing better.

  5. please fix the registration popup because it is really nagging especially on mobile devices by obscuring part of the text. thanks

    • Yes, especially as i’ve already signed up for the daily digest. I still get the popup. Grrrrr.

  6. It is not normal or even appropriate for any bishop to ban a speaker from speaking at a Catholic venue unless that person is clearly noted to have taught heresy, or promoted ideas or an ideology opposed to Catholic teaching, such as abortion or euthanasia. In such cases, it would be understandable that a bishop would not allow such a person to speak in a Catholic venue. However, in the case of a person such as Robert Spencer, who is himself a Cathoic in good standing and was invited to speak about a matter which is in the public interest and not promote hate or lies, it is intolerable that a bishop would proceed as this one has done. Even more, he even fails to give any reasonable explication for his action, so that he is admitting that he has acted arbitrarily, which is not something that bishops are supposed to do. Catholics, both lay and clerical have a right to express their views not only about matter of public interest to the nation but also in matters of Catholic teaching to bishops, and the latter are obliged both by Canon Law and the documents of the Second Vatican Council to listen.

    • Great Comment TH…It is high time we out these appeasers and enablers of this vile cult..

  7. I’m Catholic and I believe CAIR got it exactly right. Jaime Soto is a weasel.

    • How could CAIR have ‘gotten it right’ when they lied about what the Sacramento diocese said about Robert Spencer? Last I checked, lying and defamation was not a Catholic virtue.

      • ”How could CAIR have ‘gotten it right’ when they lied about what the Sacramento diocese said about Robert Spencer?”

        I think Elmo means that the Bishop *did* say that, but is now denying it.

  8. His grace, the bishop, allowed his judgment to be usurped by a Muslim mob. And now he cannot admit it, he serves his arrogance first. No confidence.

  9. In fact ; tell us where and when Rome has or is presently NOT suffering its progeny with a wink .. it is no problem for them to come to this decision ; it’s in their “character… the walls of Rome are built of fools gold and blood.

  10. I love Robert Spencer and follow all of his postings and videos. I have been following him for years. I have met him twice personally. I find him to be both brilliant and charming. Unfortunately, these postings and videos are really just so much “preaching to the choir”. I repost his messages on my Facebook page and they are largely ignored. Most of my friends know my position and just aren’t interested in hearing about this stuff. We need a course of action on how to get this message to the public at large. I do believe that minds can be opened to see the truth. We can lead the horse to water and have it drink before it dies of thirst.

    • I wouldn’t assume this is all “preaching to the choir”. Many more people read here than comment—and they aren’t all regulars.

    • Just like prior to WW2, the public at large is far removed from the front lines and can’t believe in evil so thoroughly abhorrent as to see a need for action.

      Only when a true calamity like 9/11 or Pearl Harbor happens, can the average person in the street see the need for action.

      In the case of 9/11, the left did a completely good job of convincing the American public that it was just a hiccup and the actions of a few “non Muslim – Muslims”.

      Hopefully, the God research and reporting by sites like Jihad Watch will keep America and the West from falling into the trap until responsible adults can get elected to high office.

      • Correction: should have read “good research”‘ not “God research”…… Ah those IPad spell checkers….

        • Don’t feel bad, I’ve recently started drinking in the hopes it will improve my typing skills. Thus far it hasn’t worked, but I am confident by the time I get to my 6th I’ll be typing like a secretary.

    • “Most of my friends know my position and just aren’t interested in hearing about this stuff.

      I know how you feel. Most of the time – it made me sad. But recently, family members of mine have had a revelation – that maybe, I’m not over-reacting, afterall. I do realize that there is much to take in, and upon the great advice given to me by gravenimage, – I need to take things slow. We are going to get together in January (the whole family – large family) and we are going to read some of Roberts books. I have great hope that he’ll be able to reach them.

      So never give up the good fight artie.

      Also…I agree artie ….. “I find him to be both brilliant and charming”. Wish I had the pleasure of meeting him. And even though he may be “preaching to the choir” here, I believe these posts are very important – for new-comers.

      • Friend Artie and everyone else. Someone said: to make the horse to drink, put a carrot in the water. Well, in this case the carrot is truth. Jesus’ carrot was His resurrection from the dead and Jesus also said in effect that even if a person comes from hell and he rises from the dead to tell his brother what his future is, if he doesn’t repent, he may still reject the truth of the resurrection of the dead even though he sees his risen brother standing in front of him, if he doesn’t want to believe. My point is that even as Jesus the Head of His church continues to build His church through His faithful followers even though some will not take the carrot, we here will pray and work and continue to preach the truths that Robert Spencer teaches and preaches so that as many “horses” will come and willingly eat the carrot of truth so that we will keep our democracy and liberty and decency and with God’s help do our best to overcome the devils in this world who work hard by their cunning and deceptions and killings to destroy these blessings that God has given us. God have mercy on us all especially now that Islam has reawakened to a high degree. We hope that in due time the blind will take the carrot of truth and join hands with us in this difficult work.

    • At this phase in the global war, the most our side can really do is try shining light on the issue and waking more infidels up. We are a long way from the phase where we take action sadly. I expect it will take the civil war in Europe and some big time jihadist attack, something like a nuke or chemical attack to really get people’s attention. hopefully by then when the inevitable does happen, enough people will have enough knowledge about islam that when the usual suspects try to spin it, it will fall on deaf ears.

      I guess all of my war talk is counterproductive at this point in time, even though I am simply stating where this is headed. I guess the key is to get the fence sitters and people who are just curious to wake up and see the truth, and people like me are viewed as extreme simply because I know from my own experience and history how you deal with predatory behavior. I understand though if I had no knowledge of the subject and saw some dude talking about war I would think they were extreme too. The subject matter just angers me since I hate seeing innocent people slaughtered. At this point in time though we lack the will to fight or win this war, so until the next big one I guess keep trying to wake people up somehow.

  11. Catholic Diocese of Sacramento: CAIR claims on Robert Spencer cancellation are false
    ……………………………..

    Thanks to the Catholic Diocese of Sacramento for confirming this. And it hardly surprises me that CAIR is lying once again.

  12. Not being an expert in Laws, the statement – “key leader in the anti-Islam hate movement in the United States.”- about Mr. Spencer by CAIR most probably was written in their thuggery letter to the Diocese. The fact he banned Mr. Spencer speaking due to the letter, doesn’t that constitute he accepted their definition about him and then he acted accordingly?

    I don’t know how the Law is going to weigh in, because such court case is going to drag the Diocese in and he has to come clean on this. This may give more fuel to the CAIR thugs.

    This court case will be extremely import to the Freedom of Speech, because otherwise the goons running CAIR will smear each and every one of with their pet lines “…hate preachers..”, whereas in reality they are the ones who preach hate on every possible occasion, for example they preach hate to the Diocese about Mr. Spencer.

  13. Can’t sleep …

    Correction: should read “The fact he banned Mr. Spencer speaking due to the letter, doesn’t that constitute he accepted their definition about him and then he acted accordingly? Hence by association he may have agreed to their line.”

    They point out “The Diocese referred to Spencer as a ….” in other words there is a refernce to which the Diocese referrers to when he made his decision. I think they may be legally right about their statement.

  14. I knew Bishop Jaime Soto when he was a seminarian studying for the Diocese of Orange. He was then an avid reader of the communist rag, Mother Jones. Need I say more?

  15. It’s just terrorism of a different kind. Instead of bombs or stabbings, it’s protest, manipulation, slander and throwing a tantrum to try to embarrass anyone who would dare give voice to a critic. Most people are scared by these tactics, it’s not because they don’t believe Islam isn’t a cult of violence. In fact, it’s mostly because they believe IT IS, know the threat it poses and the incessant harassment these people are capable of and fear its nutjob defenders.

    The diocese should be ashamed of itself, this is what the church is doing? Instead of standing up for the millions of their supposed brethren slaughtered and specifically targeted by this ‘religion’, they shy away. No wonder Catholic church is on the decline, it should be with its chronic failures.

  16. Yeah, well my brother said the Priest in his church is adamant about paying attention to radical Islam and that it needs to be fought fang, tooth and nail.

    • That’s good to hear, hopefully if the people involved in the anti jihad thing get enough pebbles moving it will create an avalanche of momentum against the beast of revelation islam.

  17. Does the Catholic Diocese of Sacramento know this?…

    The koran calls the Son of God an abomination and all of His eye witnesses (the apostles) liars:

    009.030
    037.151
    037.152
    019.088
    019.089

    1Jo 2:22 Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.

    If they don’t know – then shame on them – because they’re supposed to know these things – in order to be leading the flock?

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