SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL

Some are bewilder'd in the maze of schools,/And some made coxcombs nature meant but fools. Alexander Pope

In the January "Most Holy Trinity [MHT] Seminary Newsletter," we read with a mixture of alarm and astonishment the following declaration:

We are initiating a program for those seminarians who are more intelligent, in order that they be ordained sooner. If we give them dogma courses during the summer months over a period of three summers, we will be able to advance them by one year. So if you notice an acceleration of our ordinations, it is not because we are cutting corners, but are merely capitalizing on the intellectual abilities of some of our more advanced students.

This and other websites have reported on the shortcomings of the poorly educated faculty of MHT, its grossly under prepared and backward completers, and its repressive, punitive atmosphere. What concerns the Reader is not so much the problem of stigmatizing the less gifted attendees (i.e., less gifted than the usual lot). What really disturbs us are the very harmful effects this new policy will have on the already inadequate formation these unlucky young dim wits now receive. Our worry is doubled when we reflect that much of the motivation in this institution comes from the liberal application of "hickory-stick pedagogy." The rector mistakenly believes that punishment not only silences but it also confutes.

Every educator knows that "summer school" is no substitute for the regular, year-long curriculum. Even with air conditioning, the sweltering, enervating, suffocating Florida summer cannot promote study and reflection. Learning is a function of time, and compressing time results in imperfectly learned lessons. Additional scolding and penalties will not improve the situation either. MHT's track record shows it has been producing many inferior priests, some of whom have forgotten the Consecration or cannot perform a graveside service decently. What will happen now when the MHT clerical vocational program accelerates the ordinations of its slow, ungifted, and overly chastised louts? Can we really take the rector's word that his socially promoted Neanderthals are truly intelligent? They are more likely to be the best of a bad lot, if we consult our experience.

Beyond these serious concerns lies the gravest objection to the implementation of the social-promotion practice: The "seminary" and its faculty do not possess the competence to teach during a year-long term. A summer term will prove a burden that this failing institution cannot bear.

For some time Pistrina has been gathering first-hand accounts of the low-level of instruction at this clerical vocational program. We say categorically that the teaching is substandard. Not even the worst of America's dismal urban public schools would countenance for long the following practices and behaviors:

1. One of the principal instructors, a perpetually angry young man, teaches by reading aloud and verbatim from the textbook. No prepared lectures, just the slow and excruciating word-by-word, line-by-line, paragraph-by-paragraph reading of the text material (in heavily accented English) until the class ends.
2. The same irascible instructor is often indisposed by frequent headaches and must remain in bed for most of the day, so his classes are frequently canceled.
3. Another instructor's classes are also frequently canceled without rescheduling (because of his "higher" responsibilities).
4. A third instructor, a would-be (and demonstrably failed) scholar, makes jokes throughout class, frequently resorts to slang and American pop cultural references, and offers little context for his remarks, all to the bewilderment of his foreign-born pupils.
5. The curriculum (if one can call it that) is unsequenced and unwritten (except for the course-description blurb on the website; ex-seminarians say that some of what is advertised is never actually offered).
6. Examinations are exercises in demonstrating mere rote learning.
7. Students receive no written syllabi.*
8. Students are controlled by threats of punishment and are expected to learn in an atmosphere of fear; the smallest question may result in dismissal.
9. The classroom atmosphere is decidedly anti-intellectual as faculty refuse to support their assertions by citing authorities.
10. Faculty members are at odds with each other with respect to essential principles of their peculiar brand of sedevacantism, some going so far as to challenge their colleagues indirectly by way of conversations with seminarians; when confronted with these discrepancies, the rector declares the seminarians liars.

MHT is no fit training institution for clergy, or anyone else, for that matter. The mercurial rector cannot assure consistent, organized, and accountable instruction. The only traits that mark the faculty are its lack of formal training and its mistaken belief that punishment is the basis of sound learning. Most of its malformed, intellectually below-average graduates stand as objects of derision throughout the world (notably in France and Great Britain). The genuinely bright seminarians are either expelled quickly or elect to quit as soon as possible, leaving a depleted and stagnant pool from which future priests may crawl.**

Hoist the "Yellow Jack" plague flag above MHT. Close the place before it breeds more impaired priests. Insofar as the rector is the owner, withhold all donations as the surest means to quarantine the program. As we listen to its death rattle, we should leave the rector and his faculty to thrash any sense out of the simpleminded dullards who remain, and vow never to assist at the Mass of one those socially promoted flunkies. We are much better off home alone.

* All we could find in the pages of material we looked through was a pathetically pretentious Latin weekly schedule of courses taught. We laughed out loud at the column captioned "Tempus" for the class time slot: in Latin, the time of day is 'Hora,' not 'Tempus.' The rector, we submit, is a ridiculous and pompous clown.

** We'll soon be telling the story of one of the extremely bright young men who were purged, a man who has lost his vocation to the priesthood as a result of small-mindedness and injustice.