Feser's "Retraction" to Lofton: "I believe Lofton in his original video badly misunderstood my article... he insists that he did not mean to do this. I am willing, then, to take Lofton at his word, and I accept his explanation that he did not intend to defame or libel me"

Faithless FrancisChurch: My ‘Where’s Peter?’ response to Dr. Feser’s responses to my response to his idea of a partially suspended magisterium? - https://canon212.com/ Eventually, Feser walked back his “libel” claim in an article where he tries to justify his accusations against me but ultimately retracts the charges, stating he will take me “at my word.” He claims that he was accusing me of libel and defamation “in the broader, moral sense”  — as opposed to the actual definition of the terms and how his accusations were received. Catholic World Report then reproduced his blog post — although the accusatory post also remains. I accept Dr. Feser’s retraction, although I wish he had taken me “at my word” from the beginning. The damage was done to my reputation, and the confusion he caused led many people to dismiss me without hearing my side of the story. [https://wherepeteris.com/can-the-magisterium-be-partially-suspended/] Lofton has since explained that I have misunderstood him.  I’ll come back to that in a moment.  But it is important to note that many of Lofton’s own viewers seemed to derive from his video exactly the message that I claimed it was sending.  For example, in the chat and comments sections of the video, one reader judged my view to be “sedevacantism with extra steps”; another took it to be “an essentially Protestant view of teaching authority”; a third said “I believe Feser is proposing/defending this theory because it allows him to dissent from the Magisterium”; another regarded my view as “very obviously an ad hoc hypothesis made up to justify dissent from the Magisterium”; yet another averred that I was trying to “prove… a suspended Magisterium” and that this “makes me question whether Edward Feser deserves his teaching license after making such terrible claims”; yet another said “Please tell me Ed Feser isn’t going the Pseudo-Trad Protestant route.”  Then there were viewers who also thought that Lofton was alleging such things, but judged it “slander” for him to do so (as one viewer put it). I submit that it was hardly unreasonable for me to judge that Lofton was guilty of defamatory innuendo and insinuation, when many of his own viewers took him to be saying exactly what I claimed he was saying. However – and to come to the final point – Lofton insists that, despite how things appeared to me and others, in fact he intended no such thing.  And the number and vehemence of his comments over the last few days indicate that he feels very strongly about this.  I certainly understand why someone would be upset if he believes he is being misunderstood, since it happens to me quite frequently, and I believe Lofton in his original video badly misunderstood my article. But again, he insists that he did not mean to do this.  I am willing, then, to take Lofton at his word, and I accept his explanation that he did not intend to defame or libel me. [http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2023/07/a-comment-on-lofton-affair.html]