ALICE'S EVIDENCE

“Stuff and nonsense!” said Alice loudly.

From the Reader-in-Chief

Pistrina Liturgica has reached the end of its chapters in Blunderland (but by no means has it catalogued all Fr. Cekada’s mistakes). The evidence introduced has proved beyond a doubt that Work of Human Hands is not a sober contribution to scholarly literature or to the criticism of the Mass of Montini. Its author, overmatched by the technical demands of the subject matter and disadvantaged by an absence of formal training, merits pity but not pardon.

Let’s sum up the evidence that has compelled the adverse verdict of the learned. The opening argument laid bare the self-taught author’s faults, from his inability to construct coherent written units of thought to his lame diction. On June 7, we exposed Anthony Cekada’s inappropriate facetiousness and incapacity to analyze beyond the surface. Less than a week later, we began to document fully the blunders that bar Work of Human Hands from the world of academic discourse. First we showed Father’s grammatical shortcomings in English, Greek, and Latin. Next we brought to light spectacular errors of fact that could have been prevented had Fr. Cekada checked. Subsequently, the Reader recited a list of the slang and colloquialisms that render the book unfit for international consumption. Then the Reader-in-Chief introduced a series of posts to show that Fr. Cekada cannot abide by the basic rules of academic research. In the first piece we caught him as he failed to make proper attribution of content. In the second, we proved him a deficient translator. The series concluded as we examined his lamentable inaccuracy. On July 8, we began our closing arguments with an analysis of the three, grossly out-of-place characters that Father tastelessly introduced (for comic relief, we suppose).

There is no need to declare what your judgment has long ago counseled: Work of Human Hands is not a serious work of scholarship, and its author should be ignored. There does, nevertheless, remain one unanswered question—a question that several correspondents have broached from time to time through pistrina.liturgica@gmail.com: Even though the book is shot through with grievous errors, is there yet something that might make it useful to traditional Catholics in search of arguments against the New Mass?

The query appeals to our own sense of fairness as well as to our experience. For instance, around 15 years ago we encountered James-Charles Noonan’s equally pretentious (but more professionally produced) The Church Visible. Like Work of Human Hands, it is a book deeply scarred by a poseur’s embarrassing blunders (e.g., “…the bells…peeled in sorrow,” “Tu es Petres,” “more than one pallia,” “Quator mundi cardines,” “cardinalatial.”). Nevertheless, there was something salvageable; so, with an abundance of caution, we added the volume to our library. Accordingly, we find it reasonable—even decent—to ask whether we may do the same with Work of Human Hands.

The reply is in the negative, and here’s why: One of the most promising sections of Work of Human Hands appears on p. 222, under the subhead statistics on the revisions. There Father attacks the Novus-Ordo claim that the New Mass has largely the same content as the old Missal. He then cites some telling statistics based on his own calculations. Taken at face value, they do indeed belie the Novus Ordo contention, and the average reader may be tempted to think that Anthony Cekada's figures could be of use.

However, our doubts about the author whisper, Are these statistics correct? Can we rely on Father Cekada to have done the careful, unglamorous work required to assure accuracy? Did he crosscheck his sources and facts? Did he painstakingly tabulate his data? Did he perform detailed word counts? Can he document his efforts? Is his Latin up to the task? Are his translations faithful to the originals? Did he draw his conclusions deliberately and rigorously, or did he rush to judgment? Did he consult experts or seek others’ review of his findings? If necessary, could he produce the worksheets on which he based his calculations? In short, did he sweat the small stuff?

Our evidence argues that he probably didn’t.

Now we’ll show the effects of Fr. Cekada’s many blunders by summarizing a thought experiment that we conducted. Out of our sense of fair play, we used the section captioned the elimination of “negative theology” (pp. 224-230) because there we encountered, at first blush, the most impressive pages in Work of Human Hands. In his footnote apparatus, Father profusely documented his claim that Consilium had redacted the “negative theology” of the old Missal. We sampled the Latin transcriptions and found them without fault, and the good, free translations in the text struck us as faithful to the sentiment in the Latin. The sheer quantity of the exhibits certainly bolstered his thesis. All this, it seemed, made a strong prima-facie case that Father’s work, in this section at least, could prove useful in traditionalists’ debates with adherents of the new Vatican II religion.

But what if the debate were to be held, say, in a prestigious scholarly journal or on a serious online forum? In other words, what if the stakes were very high? Based on what we have shown on Pistrina Liturgica, could you implicitly trust him to have recorded all data correctly, such that you could quote him without fear of a damaging rebuttal? After all, we’ve demonstrated that he is careless, error-prone, and superficial. Moreover, would you really want to appeal to a source laced with dopey slang and inane asides, especially if your own reputation were on the line?

Most circumspect scholars would not, in spite of the section’s appearing so much better than the rest of the book. If Father’s claim were really important to your argument, then you might reluctantly choose to double check the 200+ citations inasmuch as only one book is the chief source of the footnotes. Absent the condition, however, you might just choose to remain on the safe side and avoid the matter altogether. That’s why we again affirm that carelessness impeaches academic credibility.

And that’s why Anthony Cekada’s Work of Human Hands will never be a serious contribution to the traditionalist critique of the New Mass. Bottom line: Save your money: Pray for someone with credentials and ability to publish.

Feast of St. John Gualbert