RASH HAND IN EVIL HOUR

Here error is all in the not done. Pound

Ed. Note: We had hoped the rector's August MHT Newsletter might have commented either on the promised big $30 K proposal or on his quest for permanent status with Our Lady of the Sun Chapel. Instead, sad to say, it disappointingly contained an embarrassingly fifth-rate historico-political analysis. The rector should stick with what he knows best: distressing hapless seminarians, fearful laity, and priests without a conscience.

We recently learned that the priestly author of the revealing comments about the Terrible Triad and the pesthouse was on vacation last week. Accordingly we'll hold off publishing the rest of his tale of weirdness until he gets back. That way, when "One Hand" calls him on the carpet, the dressing down will have be fresh material. We really want our out-of-school tale bearer to have a chance to read what he wrote so he can face his off-put judges with a refreshed recollection. (This may end in tears. A resignation would be better for the man's soul.)

Our post about "One-Hand's" orders and the Blunderer's defense elicited quite a lot of anxious e-mail, and it filled the traddie forums. Here's our comment:

Many concerned Catholics wrote in, worried that the sacraments they received from "One Hand" might be invalid. In each case, we replied that their decision would be a matter of conscience. After all, we observed, many eminent canonists were of the opinion that a one-handed priestly ordination was valid.

Our central point is that the Blunderer's Latin translation of the key passage from Sacramentum Ordinis is just plain wrong, and the error has therefore rendered his defense of one-handed ordinations suspect. In each reply, we invited our correspondents to consult the Latin original of the authors Tony cites to allay any doubts.

Sure, we know that not everybody reads Latin nowadays (witness the majority of the traditional clergy), but our advice was not intended to torment. The problem is that Tony is such a bad Latinist (as we proved last year on these pages) that his translations and interpretations are not reliable. At the risk of wearying you, let us offer one, little example. (Please bear with us, if you will, for we will give you yet another substantive reason to mistrust everything Anthony writes.)

Among the strongest supporting testimony for Tony's thesis is the following quotation from the Theologia Moralis of Aertnys and Damen (Rome: 1958):

In Ordinatione presbyteri et Episcopi utriusque quidem manus impositio praescribitur sed nullo modo patet eam esse ad validitatem necessariam ad hoc ut plenioris potestatis translatio significaretur.

Now here's the Blunderer's translation:

In the Ordination of a Priest and of a Bishop an imposition of both hands is indeed prescribed — but it is plain that this is in no way necessary to it for validity, as though a fuller transmission of power would be signified.

There are two big errors in Anthony's translation. The first, in red, is merely a product of his gross ignorance of Latin idiom. The second, in violet, represents a genuine distortion in the meaning.

1) In Latin, the idiom ad hoc in this case means "for this (or the) purpose"; Anthony's laughable rendering "to it" is school-boy literalism caused by ignorance of the notion of grammatical antecedents and Latin phraseology.

2) In the Latin text, the word for "fuller" (plenioris) modifies "power" (potestatis), not "transmission" (translatio). Tony had no license to transfer the adjective to another noun in a different case, and the meaning he extracts, viz. "a fuller transmission of power," is semantically different from "a transmission of fuller power" of the original Latin.

There are a few other problems with his translation (a conjunction, the position of a modifying phrase and an adverb, a modal), but no sense in beating a dead horse. Tony's errors usually come in clusters. The bottom line is that no one should rely on the Blunderer for an answer to serious questions about the Catholic faith. (The warning is particularly apt for the abysmally ignorant traditional clergy who view Anthony as some sort of authority. )

For these and many other reasons, we say that everything about The Blunderer, "One Hand," and the rector is doubtful. It would be prudent of old "One Hand" to commission someone competent to retranslate all the Latin quotes in Tony's article. (That excludes the rector and the pesthouse completers.) Otherwise, people who have received sacraments at his hands will remain unsure.