I recently did some investigation and offered my findings and opinions on a number of websites being run by Catholic Author Robert Abel. That post was titled Catholic Author Robert Able Accusing Catholics of Satan Worship. While researching my story I found that Mr. Abel was represented by CMG Booking. CMG Booking states on their website that they “associate with speakers whohave (sic) a history of orthodox messaging”. Personally, I don’t consider someone who is maligning common Catholic practices, such as veneration of the Virgin Mary and consecration vows taken by Saints and Popes, to be presenting an orthodox message. In fact, if I were to book a speaker and found that they were maligning said practices I would be irate and want a refund. I think there are many Catholics out there that feel as I do. So I contacted CMG Booking, gave my opinion that Robert Abel shouldn’t be represented by them based on his current activities and gave them a link to my article. Apparently this sent Robert into a tail spin which has included him threatening me with legal action via email, calling the parish in my hometown for personal information, contacting the parish priest and asking him to help coerce me to retract my story by deleting it.
Now, it seems to me, against journalistic integrity to retract or delete something that I investigated, reported on, and found to be true. Mr. Abel has accused me of defamation. Now in order to have committed defamation I would have had to written something that was untrue. I posted the facts that I found and then offered my opinion on them. I stand by my original story 100%. I have reviewed what I wrote and I still find it an accurate representation of the facts. The quotes I quoted were pulled directly from those websites. Whois.is lists Mr. Abel as the administrator of said sites.
Another point here is that I feel the real reason for Mr. Abel’s reaction is the fact that these websites were and still are being run in a stealthy manner. On the other websites Mr. Abel administers he doesn’t seem to hide from the fact that he is the one providing the content. One only needs to look here:http://www.catholicwarriors.com/pages/about_the_author.htm and you can see what I mean. Maybe he was hiding in the grass and someone sneaked up on him and snapped that photo but he chose to use it nonetheless.
There have been some positive developments since I posted my original article. The site: unhealthydevotions.com has been removed completely but luckily I have screenshots of the relevant material that I quoted. The material that was listed as “Sin of Idolatry: A Catholic Tradition” has also been removed but, again, I have captured screenshots to document my work. The screenshots appear at the end of this post simply to record the facts as I found them as the sites have been removed.
Mr. Abel removed the consecrationvows.com site and stated via email, “You are right, it was poorly written and it made people mad, especially those who feel the need to pray the consecration prayer everyday. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.” I find this admirable and from a cursory glance at the topics listed on unhealthydevotions.com and apparitionsites.com I don’t see any current problems with the information presented. Mr. Abel does have a lot of valid points and I did enjoy reading The Catholic Warrior. I found it relevant to a number of areas in my life. That being said, I may have a number of valid points but if I attack something that is a common and approved Catholic Tradition then someone has a right to call me out on it. In fact, I had intended to write a review of the book but at this point I feel the Robert Abel saga is a little played out.
There is still something disturbing about all of this; the fact that Mr. Abel doesn’t want to take credit for being the one running the sites. The reason he gave me via email was that “these sites make a lot of people angry, and that is why I don’t put my name on them.” Michael Voris makes a lot of people angry and I don’t agree with a lot of what he says but he never tries to hide from what he is doing. Only a guilty man flees when no one is pursuing.
