...use our efforts openly (as they are offered). Vesalius
Last week, prompted by the rector's inability to distinguish between nouns and adjectives, Pistrina announced it had radically changed its position on sede seminary education. Whereas we had once demanded dramatic improvements to content, instruction, and admissions standards, we now acknowledge that reform is impossible, given the inferior general education of the sede puppet masters. Traditionalists must leave it to the SSPX and revisionist Novus Ordites to run seminaries that resemble pre-Vatican-II institutions.
A full-time sede "seminary" is a sinful waste of the laity's money, which could be better spent on beautifying local chapels.* The pesthouse completers, though well fed, are unprepared, unvetted, and malformed, skilled only in demanding more money from the faithful. Many don't even want to serve a chapel and pine for a do-nothing, supervisory post at the pesthouse, where a disproportionate amount of "seminarian's" time is spent on doing household chores, washing dishes, serving food etc. to the neglect of study and spiritual development.
If all sedes really need is clergy to say Mass, hear their confessions, baptize, and bury them, there is a far cheaper and more practical way, which will also give the faithful more and marginally better formed priests than they have at present. Today and in the ensuing two posts, we'll outline a training program that meets Traddies' basic needs -- and saves their bank accounts. To achieve that goal, the course of studies has to be severely cut down to all but the very minimum a sede chapel needs.
Once we've finished this series, you'll find that what we propose is at least the same as you're getting now from ill-trained pesthouse completers. Indeed, we believe that, in the practical order, it will actually surpass what you have, but we'll let you judge when you hire the men. We've just eliminated all the cant and the hype. And we've faced the music that we'll have to wait for the Restoration for the return of high standards and genuinely formed priests. Meanwhile, let's just supply the fundamental needs of traditional Catholics by producing men who can administer competently the sacraments while not fleecing the sheep.
Before we uncover a bare-bones curriculum, we'll share three guiding concepts behind our clerical vocational training program, which will distinguish it from the failed training efforts we now find in overly promoted sede "seminaries."
TRAINEE SELECTION. Candidates for the priesthood must be professionally employed, unmarried Catholic adult males of almost any age, who have earned a college degree from an accredited institution of higher learning. This requirement alone will bring about a 100% improvement over the current output of sede "seminaries" -- blank-faced home-schoolers, recently converted Protestants, backward and impossible-to-comprehend aliens, retail-store flunkies, and other assorted sad sacks.
"SEMINARY WITHOUT WALLS" AND MODULAR, PART-TIME INSTRUCTION. Why build a stand-alone "seminary" at great expense (and then rebuild it when it fails inspection owing to incompetent oversight) when you can achieve the same, no-frills result by long-distance learning? Furthermore, why make trainees uproot themselves to live in a weird hell-hole where most of the day is dedicated to scullery work and housecleaning? Why not distill the basic fundamentals needed to be a priest into short-term, competency-based skill modules, driven by formative assessment, and taught over the internet? The savings in resources would be immense, and the outcome the same or better than we're getting now. Trainees can keep their professional jobs and learn in the evenings and on weekends.
ELIMINATION (ALMOST) OF LATIN. Yes, you read correctly. Virtually eliminate Latin! Look, we at Pistrina love Latin, and at one time we had hoped that sedes might be able to mount a truly Latin-language seminary (all theology, sacred scripture, history, and liturgy courses taught from approved Latin manuals, all exams in Latin, all classroom handouts and written lecture summaries in Latin.). But that's not going to happen. Sede clergy aren't up to it. You've got to know Latin well (and we've shown you that they don't).
Under our proposal, trainees will get a crash-course in the rudiments of Latin morphology and syntax -- just enough to decipher a traditional ordo and the key rubrics in the Missal -- a pretty simple skill that many lay sacristans and servers pick up quickly. In the sede vacante, a priest can get by just fine, thank you, without very much Latin. There are plenty of English translations of good theology manuals and English-language descriptions of the liturgy; the Ritual is available in a fine bilingual edition, and the Breviary in both Latin and English can be found online for use on a smart phone. Everything a pastor of a Traddie chapel would ever need is available in English and often in a very easy-to-understand form. (The completers and their clerical cult masters know this, too, and they take advantage of it, although they don't let on.)
The real emphasis of the Latin module will be on oral reading fluency, i.e., reading aloud quickly and effortlessly Latin liturgical texts. Most of the current crop of clergy would keep a reading therapist employed for a lifetime. Have you ever really listened to these guys when they say Mass? They hesitate, regress, self-correct endlessly, struggle with word groups, omit words, substitute words, insert words, fixate, misplace the stress (even though it's clearly marked), and badly articulate. With all the stammering that goes on at the altar, you'd think the completers were auditioning for the lead role in The King's Speech.
From their phrasing, it's clear, too, the completers don't understand what they're reading, even in the most general way. That probably explains how one grinning clod skipped the consecration at Mass, and it's one of the main reasons for the laity's loss of confidence in these incompetents. Therefore, instead of wasting time with drills that don't work and memorization that doesn't stick, we propose that trainees learn how to read liturgical texts out loud with fluency and ease. Being college graduates will make the task that much easier and shorter. For the faithful, the end result will be so much more edifying than the painfully grating experience they undergo now with celebrants who can't utter three words without a miscue. (We'll also instruct trainees to read over and practice the text before saying Low Mass, blessing religious articles, or conducting a graveside service.)
In next week's post, we'll talk about the faculty and outline the skill sets for the first year of training.
*When we saw in the August MHT Newsletter a photo of the rector's seminary chapel, we were certain that the poor folks who gave their hard-earned bucks to build it were heartsick. Apart from the altar and candlesticks, the place looks like an abstract-expressionist nightmare with its bare, jaundice-eyllow walls, grim lighting, and ugly square columns rising aggressively from what looks like industrial flooring.
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