JUST AS THE TWIG IS BENT

You know only/A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,/And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,/And the dry stone no sound of water. T. S. Eliot

"Who cares," an earnest correspondent insistently inquired, "if Work of Human Hands is a failure? What does it matter if the author is a faux scholar? Let Cekada pretend to be an expert: all this arguing about linguistic technicalities, style, and Latin is too arcane for the average layman to understand. Just let me have genuine sacraments. Why don't you stop all this detraction. Cekada can't help his bad education, and we need valid priests. Exposing his ignorance is not helpful in the present crisis in the Church."

Good question--and a fair objection. It's time for an answer. But first, we'll put away for good all this nonsense about detraction with the following quotation from McHugh and Callan's Moral Theology (2037 [b]), which we found on Cathinfo (page 194):

[T]here is no right to an extraordinary reputation, if it is based on false premises, for the common good does not require such a right, and hence it is not detraction to show that the renown of an individual for superior skill or success is built up on advertising alone or merely on uninformed rumor.

Now, back to the question.

Priestly carelessness in what laymen consider apparently arcane matters does have a deleterious effect on Catholics' access to the true sacraments. The inferior formation of priests spiritually affects every traditional Catholic's quest for sanctification. When the teachers of future priests are poorly educated and misinformed, then there is small hope that their students will be any better, especially when we realize that many young men enter their priestly training with severe educational deficits.

The formation of priests must be rigorous and underpinned by high standards. Instructors must be disciplinary masters of a complex and highly technical body of knowledge, not dabblers or even gifted amateurs (which Anthony Cekada certainly is not). The seminary's administration must uphold the institution's academic integrity and weed out the intellectually incapable, the spiritually unfit, and the socially backward.

Why? Because the content of the genuinely Catholic seminary curriculum is difficult to master. Because the salvation of our immortal souls may depend upon a priest's knowing his stuff from the moment he is ordained.

The intellectual life of the seminary, though joyous, is one of many hours of grueling study under the tutelage of exacting professionals with real academic credentials. It cannot be interrupted by special building-repair projects, disciplinary whims, and the cult of personality. The curriculum advertised must be the curriculum taught, and instructors must be held accountable to know and to teach the course of studies. Moreover, the core of a seminary education must be a solid grounding in ecclesiastical Latin.

The seminary is not the place to learn the art of pretending as modeled by the faculty. Clerical urbanitas is not the apple-polishing sufferance of humbugs in return for passing grades and an easy sinecure. The seminary must impart an ethos of real competence. It is no place for PR antics and spin machines, for winks, nods, and elbow pokes to the midriff.

Throughout the month of January, Pistrina will devote itself to pointing out to the faithful the examples of poor formation and the dangers they present to Catholics' spiritual health. With the help of generous outside assistance, Pistrina has been investigating the completers of Most Holy Trinity "Seminary." It has conducted interviews with those who have left it out of conscience. It invites others, who may have been inspired by Fr. Carlos Ércoli's courage, to send in their stories to pistrina.liturgica@gmail.com.

We promise complete confidence. We don't want names. We want facts so that we can warn the faithful. We want examples to advise young men who earnestly desire to serve God to look elsewhere.