BITING OFF MORE THAN HE CAN CHEW

...with small men no great thing can really be accomplished. Mill

The beginning of February has the Readers expectantly awaiting this month's MHT Newsletter. No, we're not looking for the rector's big $30K plan, the delivery of which has been unfulfilled since last spring. (That bit of beggary was a non-starter from the hour it appeared in print.) What we want to read is his commentary on the Osservatore Romano article by Mgr. Ocáriz Braña. Of greatest interest will be any remarks on what in January the rector called its "serious errors."

To be sure, Ocáriz Braña is a modernist, and his short article reflects the cant and New-Age vocabulary characteristic of Novus-Ordite writers (for instance, this little gem of rhetorical puffery: "an assessment of... [post-Conciliar] teaching should transform a possible situation of difficulty into a serene and joyful acceptance of the Magisterium..."). Secular academics know, that's what it takes to get published nowadays, and the bathos mustn't cause us to forget that Ocáriz Braña is, unlike the rector and the Blunderer, a man with rock-solid scholarly credentials.

Born in 1944, Ocáriz Braña studied physics at the University of Barcelona, a world-renowned public institution of higher learning considered the best university in Spain. In 1969 his received his licentiate in theology from the Lateran University in Rome and in 1971 his doctorate in theology from the University of Navarre, Spain. His formation took place in the early years of the Novus Ordo, at a time when Catholic educational institutions were in transition. During that period, some of the old standards remained (even at the Lateran, which owed much to Roncalli). Furthermore, the Opus-Dei University of Navarre is recognized as one of the finest private universities in Spain, and it ranks among the top schools in the world. Entrance requirements at these selective Spanish universities were and are high. Only the best and the brightest matriculate.

So it's no surprise that we're looking forward to watching our Brooklyn-schooled rector -- someone brought up during the struggling, chaotic, nascent years of Écône -- as he confronts a professional endowed with a world-class education and an advanced degree. Will it be a contest between David and Goliath? Or will this be a tale of a gnat annoying a lion and then flying off into a spider's web?

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