He Comically Blows up His Own “Argument” About My Supposedly Being “My Own Pope” and Not Accountable to the Church
I hadn’t visited Swan’s Boors All blog in some time, having moved on to other things: specifically my YouTube channel. I was bored today and decided to take a look over there. Looking over my Anti-Catholicism web page (where he takes up a large section), I see that I hadn’t made a reply directed solely towards him, since 11-22-24. But lo and behold, on his blog Swan was taking swipes at me less than three weeks ago — as usual without ever naming me: a silly game he has now played for many years. This is a man who was obsessed with me for about seven years. Then in 2009 he decided, along with several anti-Catholic cronies: (James White, Jason Engwer, Steve Hays, and “Turretinfan”) to pretend that I didn’t exist, and (in 1984-style) that I had never existed.
But here we are at this “late” date: some 24 years after he first started critiquing my work and then increasingly launching ludicrous personal attacks against me, and he’s still at it. He simply hides it by not mentioning my name. And he’s still — quite comically — falling into the traps that he sets for others, and making a total fool of himself, in his irrational rage against this ridiculous caricature of me and the work that I do, that he has constructed.
It’s really funny to observe, but at bottom, it’s tragic, to see someone engulfed by the soul-destroying sin of bearing false witness. It was in his article, “Bogus Roman Catholic Memes #2 “Protestantism didn’t get rid of the Papacy. It made every man his own Pope” (1-19-26). His words will be in blue. He starts out with his general thesis:
One of Rome’s defenders posted this picture of Martin Luther pointing to a passage of Scripture attached with the typical Roman Catholic argument: “Protestantism didn’t get rid of the Papacy. It made every man his own Pope.” . . . This meme is a demonstration that Rome’s defenders have no idea how inconsistent they are with this argument. Let’s poke around a little at the origins of this catchline and then demonstrate Rome’s defenders using this argument refute themselves.
He notes the obvious fact that Luther never said this. It’s not remotely like anything he would say. It didn’t take him long to get around to lying about and bashing yours truly:
This Roman Catholic fallible uncertainty also extends to their favorite doctrinal distinctives. Here’s an example I came across back in 2007. I purchased The New Catholic Answer Bible. This Bible . . . includes 88 pages of insert apologetic material placed throughout this Bible. These are to equip Roman Catholics to “better respond when challenged about the Catholic Church and its teachings.”
The inserts are, of course, the work of myself and Paul Thigpen (see how he never mentioned that?). But in the original Catholic Answer Bible (2002) — which was my first officially published book, the notes were entirely my own (though not — maddeningly! — credited in the Bible). Then Swan gets down to the nitty gritty later on in the article, and starts setting the trap that he will himself tumble into (once I get through with him):
The bare truth is that Rome’s online defenders cannot escape themselves. They are privately interpreting Roman Catholicism without having any meaningful authority granted to them by the Vatican. I highly doubt many of their webpages, Facebook posts and tweets, etc., have the Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur. Even many of those that publish books don’t always have the Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur. They are themselves.. their own pope.
First of all, Swan, like many anti-Catholics and the much larger group of Protestants, generally speaking, vastly overestimates the worth and necessity of the Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat. I wrote about this 18 years ago, and won’t belabor the point here. Secondly, though I readily agree that individual Catholic blogs and even apologists can vary widely in quality, accountability, and orthodoxy, the Church does broadly and enthusiastically endorse lay Catholic apologetics and evangelism, as I have documented many times, and in fact, this was a strong emphasis of Vatican II:
Internet Evangelism and Apologetics: Catholic Church Approval (edited by Dave Armstrong) [12-26-05]
Apologetics & Lay Apostolates: Strong Approval from Popes [6-28-06; expanded 6-7-18]
Catholic Lay Apologetics: Long “Magisterially Approved” History [8-2-11]
Moreover if he wants to attack me as some “loose cannon” or supposedly “self-appointed” or “self-proclaimed” apologist (a charge has has made scores of times against me through the years, and did again in his linked articles below), that’s utter nonsense. My first book, A Biblical Defense of Catholicism, was enthusiastically endorsed (in a Foreword) by Servant of God Fr. John A. Hardon, SJ: one of the most respected and orthodox theologians and catechists in the second half of the 20th century, and close advisor to St. Pope Paul VI and St. Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa): now being considered for possible future canonization. He was my mentor. I had studied with him and had known him for seven years before I ever had a website, and six years before I finished that book.
Anyone can check out my credentials if they want to do so. I had published articles in several Catholic magazines for four years before I had a website, and was featured in the bestselling book of Catholic conversion testimonies, Surprised by Truth (edited by Patrick Madrid) in 1994. Swan certainly is aware of all this (not that he seems to particularly concern himself over mere facts or rudimentary fairness to another person of different beliefs).
Now, the real fun and self-destruction begins in his section, “Addendum: Making Up an Answer Bible?”
I hadn’t thought about The New Catholic Answer Bible in many years. It was only recently on social media in which I saw a post from a person saying it was their “favorite Bible.” Back in 2007 I had the privilege of submitting articles to aomin.org. [Bishop “Dr.” (???) James White’s page] I did two entries on The New Catholic Answer Bible:
The New Catholic Answer Bible (Part One) [10-4-07]*The New Catholic Answer Bible (Part Two) [11-15-07]*Looking back now on these old entries, I would now construct them in such a way that they were less personally polemical against the authors.
Is that so? I guess this is the closest to an “apology” that I will ever receive from Swan for his avalanche of asinine personal insults up to and including (my favorite) his contention that I was “psychotic.” Note that he does it without mentioning my name, and buried in the article. Any Christian person with integrity would “fess up” openly and directly to the person that he lied about. He was trying to be on his best behavior in these articles, and so they would be nowhere near what he was capable of. Then he fell into this own “gotcha!” trap:
I’ve not done any new deep dives into the New Catholic Answer Bible. . . . The translation and notes have the Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur. In bold letters on the documentation / copyright page it states,The Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur are official declarations that a book or pamphlet is free of doctrinal or moral error. No implication is contained therein that those who have granted the Nihil Obstat agree with the content, opinions or statements expressed.
As far as I can tell from my 2005 copy of The New Catholic Answer Bible, the colorful apologetic inserts are not part of the material deemed “free of doctrinal or moral error.” Maybe they are now? While this may seem like nitpicking, I intend it to be an example of holding Rome’s defenders to their own standards. In essence, I see many of Rome’s defenders functioning in the way the criticize. They are authorities unto themselves.
Note that he referred to his “2005 copy”. There were two publishers who put this book out in 2005: Fireside Publishing, and Our Sunday Visitor. The first version didn’t list our names (just as the 2002 Catholic Answer Bible didn’t list mine, as the sole author of the inserts), but the second prominently did. Swan nevertheless figured out who wrote the inserts, from Amazon. But we know that he had the Fireside 2005 edition, because he mentioned that in the first sentence of his first “review.” In those days he would actually still mention my name, and he did.
He tried — it’s classic Swan “cynical methodology” — to make a false dichotomy by contending that the translation and notes of NCAB had the Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur, but that the apologetics inserts supposedly did not. Well, that’s fascinating, since I found an Amazon listing for the 2005 Fireside edition. If one selects “Read Sample” underneath the book image, this verifies that it is Fireside, 2005 (exactly what James noted that he had in his own library). The second page of the sample has the listing of the Nihil Obstats and Imprimaturs, for the Old Testament, Revised Psalms, Revised New Testament, Reference Material (i.e., the commentary notes), and — whaddya know!! — “The New Catholic Answer Bible Inserts“:
Nihil Obstat: Douglas K. Clark, S. T. L., Censor Librorum
Imprimatur: J. Kevin Boland, D.D., Bishop of Savannah
January 15, 2005.
As Swan himself helpfully quoted, this means that the apologetics inserts were deemed by a bishop and Catholic academic censor to be “free of doctrinal or moral error.” These are the same two men listed in the same manner in my own 2005 copy of my own work, by Our Sunday Visitor (OSV: the largest Catholic publisher), where my name and Paul Thigpen’s are prominently listed on the title page as the author of the “Inserts” (see a photograph of it).
Moreover the 2002 Catholic Answer Bible by OSV (in my possession, as my first “officially” published book), also has the Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur for “The Catholic Answer Inserts” (exclusively my own) from different people:
Nihil Obstat: Gary Applegate, J.C.L. Censor
Imprimatur: James P. Keleher, S.T.D., Archbishop of Kansas City in Kansas
July 1, 2002.
So I had two Imprimaturs and two Nihil Obstats (for the same writing) from two bishops and two Catholic scholars, by 2005.
I received (in effect) a third for my contribution to What Catholics Really Believe, which is the written version of the television series with Dr. Ray Guarendi and the late Fr. Kevin Fete. I wrote an answer guide for the DVD, which is incorporated in the book, edited by Dr. Stanley Williams. The latter observed in his announcement:
The terms “Nihil Obstat” and “Imprimatur” [are] old school…at least the words are, according to a 2004 USCCB guideline. The fancy new phrase used by American bishops is now: “Permission to Publish.”
The letter I received from my own bishop at the time: the Most Reverend Allen H. Vigneron, Archbishop of Detroit, dated 20 May 2009, contained the language (also in the book itself), “Ecclesiastical approval for publication . . . in accord with canon 827.3 of the Code of Canon Law.” See a photograph of that letter. It included my name. I happen to know that the censor who looked over the book was Dr. Robert Fastiggi of Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit, who is the editor and translator of the latest (2012) version of Denzinger’s Enchiridion symbolorum: the standard compendium of Catholic dogmas. It sits right next to my desk at all times. And I know from the editor, Stan Williams, that Dr. Fastiggi said that he didn’t have to make a single correction to my portion.
I wrote in 2009:
Some anti-Catholic Protestant bloggers a while back were carping on about how (supposedly) none of my books had an Imprimatur, thus definitively proving (so they were firmly convinced) that I was an unapproved loose cannon at odds with my own Church. I informed them that The New Catholic Answer Bible had one. Without missing a beat, one of them shot back with (paraphrasing), “well, you only have one . . . ” So what will they say now?: “well, you only have two . . . “?
But I had three by 2009. In 2013-2014 I would receive sixteen more, as the editor of that many apologetics pamphlets for St. Paul Street Evangelization, on the topics of returning to the Catholic Church, common objections, God’s existence, the Trinity, Divinity of Christ, salvation, the papacy, intercession of the saints, the problem of evil, Marian doctrines, last things, sexual purity, contraception, homosexuality, abortion, and the Rosary.
Fifteen were “printed with ecclesiastical permission” by the Most Reverend Earl Boyea (currently my bishop in the Archdiocese of Lansing) in August 2013. The one on the Holy Trinity was authorized by the Most Reverend Allen H. Vigneron in July 2014.
So much for “Rome’s defenders” (in this case, yours truly) being “authorities unto themselves” . . . I now have 19 Imprimaturs or the more recent equivalent approval from four different bishops, including my own bishops when I lived in metro Detroit and now in rural southeast Michigan.
I wonder who, by the way, James Swan is accountable, to, for his endless lies about Catholics and what we believe? His local pastor? Like that (even if so) is supposed to impress anyone?: one denomination out of the several hundred competing Protestant denominations? Who is it? I have never seen him mention that on his blog. Maybe it’s there somewhere. He’s been slanderously calling me a “self-appointed” blogger supposedly typing away in an attic and not making a proper living and supporting my family for over twenty years. Protestants are accountable, too, within their own structures, even though its endlessly chaotic in the end, because they can always go to another denomination if they are censured.
No accountability tat I can see (though I may have missed it). It turns out he is what he falsely categorizes his theological opponents as being. He’s self-appointed, and expects all of us to take his words as gospel truth. It stinks to high heaven and reeks of the deepest, most pathetic hypocrisy. But it’s very common, folks. Lots of projection going on out there.
Photo credit: Photograph from the video, “Tracing the History of Roman Catholic Treatments of Martin Luther” (2-16-24 on the Javier Perdomo channel)
Summary: My old self-appointed nemesis, the anti-Catholic polemicist James Swan, futilely tried to make an argument that I was not accountable to anyone. I mercilessly demolish THAT lie.
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