SEND OUT THE CLOWNS

They're here! They're baaack: Over there's the Clown! They all traipse after  him, codgers and kids. At the wisecracks and gags, the whole gang claps. He officiously nods as he passes by, and then goes back to ballyhooing. Leoncavallo (an updated translation)

Ed. Note: The second in a series of our musings on e-mail comments sent in response to our effort to save the Rev. Mr. Nkamuke's priestly orders from the stigma of doubt. 

You Readers have not mentioned the elephant in the room. Maybe Fr. Cekada failed to prove the validity of one-handed orders, but he did prove that Fr. Clarence McAuliffe, S.J. never said orders done with one hand "would have to be referred to the Vatican for judgment" like the [Sept. 1990] letter says. McAuliffe said "it is very probable that the imposition of only one hand would suffice for validity."

My question is why Bp. Sanborn did not check the references before he signed the letter. He is supposed to be the sharpest and most intellectual of all the traditional priests. You would think he would have asked to see both McAuliffe's book and Clancy's dissertation before putting his name down. I can understand why the other 8 priests signed the letter without checking. One or two of them are real duds and the others were carrying water for the boss. I cannot understand Bp. Sanborn's lapse. He is a teacher, a great theologian and the respected head of a seminary who must set an example. He should have known not to take somebody's word without first checking it out.

Our correspondent is another victim of the cult's noisy, self-referential public-relations squawk box, the same rickety contraption that hypes the buffoonish Blunderer as a "scholar" and the boorish "One Hand" as a broadly cultured, genteel gourmet. In many posts over the past few years, we've drawn your attention to the rector's clownish educational deficiencies (one of the most recent is our post of April 28).  Our criticisms don't center on isolated slips to which all humans are subject. They shine a bright light on the unmistakable signs of a very model of a post-modern jester in matters academical. Once you learn to ignore the P.R. hullabaloo from cult central, then it's easy to see why the rector signed his name: He is not the "real thing," and the sooner Traddies get this into their heads, the better off they'll be (both spiritually and monetarily).

This e-mail suggested to us that Trad World needed a few more reminders about the rector's academic meltdowns in order to spare the gullible further disappointment. The April and May 2013 issues of the MHT Newsletter are just the ticket. There, on display for anybody to see, are the thigh-slapping stupidities that put the lie to the hollow P.R. messaging about the rector's preserving high Catholic standards. For your edification, we'll choose three examples, starting with the smallest.

TELL-TALE MORONITY #1

In the May issue featuring a review of a book by "Papa Pancho" Bergoglio and Abraham Skorka, the head of a rabbinical seminary in Buenos Aires, the rector uses the cringeworthy, pleonastic phrase "Jewish rabbi," a well-known marker of half-educated fools trying to bowl over their peers. Unlike a priest, who can and must be differentiated by descriptors like Anglican, Greek-Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Shinto, pagan etc., a rabbi always is Jewish. A genuinely educated man would have banished this commonplace of the untutored long ago. (We note that he virtually made the same error in March when he wrote the howler "Jewish synagogue." This Bozo needs immediate educational intervention! No wonder a pesthouse completer skipped the consecration, and another couldn't perform a graveside service! At least the Italians know when it's time to get rid of malformed MHT inmates! Maybe they're planning to wash their hands of the rector soon.)

TELL-TALE MORONITY #2

In the next paragraph, we find a more shameful illustration of the rector's ignorance. Let's quote the entire text so you can see for yourself:

The book is oddly characterized by Skorka's refusal to use the word "God." Instead, he says "G—d." Needless to say, this word does not present itself well in English, since there is the constant tendency to read it as GD. I found no explanation in the book why the rabbi used this way to refer to God.

It is a scandal that this pathetic clown, the operator of a so-called seminary, has never heard of the Jewish ethical practice of removing the vowel from the written or printed form of the Divine Name as a safeguard against erasure or defacement -- what the rabbis call mechikat HaShem. (Rabbi Skorka should be admired for his zeal in protecting the sanctity of the God's name in accordance with the legal strictures of his faith: his fidelity is also quite a stinging insult to Modernist sensibilities.)

Even worse than the rector's ignorance of a well-known, pious Jewish custom is the absence of the Catholic spirit of intellectual inquiry: he could have easily looked up the usage on the Internet by simply querying "G-d." But he didn't do it:  without a second thought, he just opened mouth and inserted foot, the usual outcome of the same kind of hard-headed arrogance that led to his embarrassing "radio" performance, where a lay listener took him back to school for a much-needed lesson in Church history (see our March 3 post). 

TELL-TALE MORONITY #3

The rector's ignorance isn't limited to Judaica, and, from all appearances, it extends to Catholic theology. In the April MHT newsletter, the rector pontificated that the proposition "women should be permitted to become priestesses" is heretical.  We knew that St. Augustine declared heretical those sects with women priests, but we wondered whether the proposition is heretical in the strict sense, in the sense that a "respected head of a seminary" and a "great theologian" should use to inform his written opinions.

We decided to put the rector's theological knowledge to the test. We restricted ourselves to  books that were readily available in English to the average Catholic: No knowledge of Latin, no special access to theological libraries required. Our aim was to assess whether a layman could have rendered a more authentically Catholic judgment than our prelate-pagliaccio.

So, here we go:

1. The "heretical" proposition as formulated by the rector is tantamount to denying the truth of the proposition "the Sacrament of Order can be validly received by a baptised person of the male sex only," which Ludwig Ott classifies as a sententia certa. *

2. According to Parente, Piolanti, and Garofalo,** heresy is a teaching in "...opposition to a revealed truth..." and "...to the definition of the Church magisterium...Heresy in the full sense of the word is opposed to a truth of divine-Catholic Faith."

3. But a sententia certa "is a doctrine, on which the Teaching Authority [magisterium] of the Church has not yet finally pronounced. " *** 

4. It appears, then, that Ott's proposition is not a truth of divine-Catholic faith. Therefore, it seems that the denial of the truth of Ott's proposition is not heretical. Oh, sure, the denial's a mortal sin. And, yes, it's indirectly opposed to faith. In fact, it is an error in theology. It does not, however, merit the censure of heresy.

There you have it: a layman can make a better theological judgment than Traddie clown-clergy. It looks as though the rector doesn't know what he's talking about, whether the subject be Catholic or non-Catholic. He apparently doesn't even try to get it right.  He just spouts off with whatever he thinks will frighten or impress the culties. He thinks they'll buy whatever he's selling because he's THE RECTOR -- a one-dimensional joker projected large by cult propaganda onto the lay imagination and made to appear substantial. But, as you see, he's not.

Consequently, there's no wonder why he signed the letter to "One Hand" in the apparent absence of confirmation of what Fr. McAuliffe actually wrote. Perhaps the rector's unwarranted superiority complex convinced him that whatever he says or does is right, the facts notwithstanding.

Isn't it about time to tell the rector, "One-Hand Dan," and Tony Baloney you won't listen to them anymore, that they are definitely not anything like the pre-Vatican II clergy, where humble country priests were veritable Doctors of the Church in comparison to these empty-headed, prideful goofballs? And isn't it about time to get serious about starving the Beast and cleansing Traddielandia of their obnoxious esprit de corps?

It's the cash-strapped laity's hard-earned money that enables these zanies to carry on as they do. Stop giving, and you'll see no more of their circus antics. Develop a good, healthy case of coulrophobia. End this intellectual harlequinade. Save your money for the few self-respecting Trad priests who don't pretend to be what they're not, who know they've no authority to preach or teach, who recognize the limits of their inadequate formation. They keep their mouths shut, avoid embarrassment, and stick to the cure of souls. 

*    Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma (TAN Books), p. 459
**  Dictionary of Dogmatic Theology (Bruce)
***Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma (TAN Books), pp. 9-10