THE PROOF OF THE PUDDING-HEAD

From Delaware, Ohio

You were right on the money! That silly sad sack transcribed sonat instead of sonant, which I have underscored in the attached scan of the passage [Ed. Note: See our Nov. 11 post below]. He must not be able to understand Latin as he reads on the fly. I bet he has to work it on word by word. This is a scholar???

Additionally, thank you for forwarding the reference information for Cappello's Tractatus Canonico-Moralis de Sacramentis. A local seminary library did not have a copy of the 1951 edition which Cekada used, but it had a 1938 edition. Except for the section number and the correct form non, you will see that the text is identical to that cited by Cekada.

I have to tip my hat to you Readers: you are tough professionals. Thank goodness someone in Traddieland has standards. By exposing all of Cekada's dumb mistakes, you are performing a great service. Maybe you can wake some of your people up. Work of Human Hands has no place in any library, and no one with any sense should ever cite it. It's just too compromised. I am not a traditionalist so I cannot fathom how anyone with an ounce of brains could find anything of value in that bundle of boo-boos.

The Reader replies: Our method for detecting the Checkster's blunders is simple. We apply the dull hypothesis: everything Anthony writes is muddleheaded, wrong, misguided, shallow, featherbrained, shoddy, obtuse, cretinous, or addlepated. With this default position, the rest is like hiking through a cow pasture: if you know what to look out for, it's easy to spot.

As an explanation for the poor judgment of otherwise smart folks, perhaps traditional Catholics may be so happy to have any new ammunition to attack the Pauline reform that they are willing to shut their eyes, hold their noses, and try to find something good to say about a very bad book that backs their position. They're not looking for quality ordnance: for them, a handful of fresh, steaming dung, apparently, is as good as a sleek M109A6 "Paladin" howitzer.

They needn't jeopardize their good reputations, however. In the Conciliar Church there is a growing and transformative revisionist movement. It's already produced very able scholars like Stefano Carusi, whose nascent studies have recently yielded valuable insights. Moreover, some of the Conciliar seminaries are being reformed in order to prepare a new crop of Motu-Proprio priests. These institutions are recruiting bright, educated, devout young men from good backgrounds, who are interested in really learning Latin, Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew.

With the reprinting of classic theological and liturgical manuals, the new breed is being formed in the traditional mold under professors with real academic credentials and trained minds. Once ordained, these men are also going on to recognized graduate schools. We are certain soon to have a solid cadre of scholars who will provide authoritative evaluations of the Mass of Paul VI. Ergo, Cekada's Work of Human Hands, with all its contemptible errors of fact, poor documentation, amateurish analysis, and hideous execution, can serve no purpose other than to pollute our landfills and remind us that unlettered chutzpah is never a substitute for informed intelligence.