THE 'TUDE ABIDES

"Let's go bowlin'." The Big Lebowski

Ed. Note: A week go, a humorless and Pecksniffian moderator banned the exuberantly irrepressible Cajetan from a forum discussion about problems with a certain seminary completer. The moderator, unable to abide Cajetan's pronounced attitude, declared the wit uncharitable and his relish reprehensible. The Reader thought Cajetan deserved one more roll against (1) a bone-headed defense of the priest who forgot the Consecration and (2) the training program that malformed the numb skull. We've advised Caj not to go over the line with images of social climbing bishops' and parvenu priests' washing down half-chewed mouthfuls of haute cuisine with expensive vintages before returning to the rectory for a more satisfying grape pop. And we also won't allow him to follow up his witty aside on mimosas and scones with a remark about Orange Crush and Ritz Crackers. Therefore, with his 'tude showing and poised to shut down the other team with a six bagger, here's the last frame...

From Cajetan

I'm always flabbergasted by the chutzpah of the errant clergy's spinmeisters. No matter how awful the story, their apologists are always ready to defend bad behavior. Take, for instance, the three arguments one of their mouthpieces offered in hopes of minimizing a priest's failure to consecrate.

First, the vacuous vindicator shifted blame to the reporter by asking rhetorically whether the failure was public news or not. I had known of the incident for a long time but didn't post until the priest himself made it public much, much later. As the authoritative Fr. J. B. O'Connell counsels, "as little public attention as possible is to be called to the occurrence of [a] defect."* So, the question should have been addressed to his bumbling buddy. Nevertheless, for the spiritual well being of Catholics, I'm glad the priest broke this rule as well.

Second, in trying to soft peddle so gave an error, the ardent apologist referenced the Missal's treatise De Defectibus. He then shockingly affirmed, "[t]he Church expects them [defects] to occur occasionally and expects them to happen to priests trained to perfection in the best of seminaries." Balderdash! The Church expects no such thing -- no more than a pesticide manufacturer expects a gardener or her children to ingest a hazardous product when it prints first-aid instructions on the label! De Defectibus gives directions to remedy essential and accidental defects that may come about. The treatise is an almost divinely inspired catalogue of every defect imaginable, even of those that appear improbable to anyone familiar with the Canon and the layout of the Roman Missal. Anticipation is not expectation. In fact, priests are supposed to study De Defectibus carefully in order to prevent defects from arising. Apparently this clown didn't get the message. Or it wasn't taught in the liturgy module at his vocational facility.

Third, this champion of chumps accused critics of behaving like Donatists and Jansenists (and of impugning the treatise itself) when they reproached the priest's formation. Nonsense. Skipping the Consecration is the mother of all defects. Ask any intelligent priest. The offender is in dire need of intervention lest further damage occur to souls.

If ecclesiastical jurisdiction existed in the traditional movement, the malformed wretch would have been removed from contact with the laity until he got it right. Moreover, in the old days, ecclesiastical officials, after interviewing this priest, might have reconstituted the seminary under new leadership and faculty. That's not Jansenism. That's how it's done right.

*The Celebration of Mass, vol. 1 (1942), p. 210