Saturday, September 6, 2014

ON A WING AND A PRAYER


It is a tale/Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/Signifying nothing. Shakespeare

Motivated by a correspondent's timely suggestion, we've started listening to podcasts of the cult amateurs whose performances bring disgrace to the Restoration Radio Network. In our search for fresh, wincingly embarrassing examples of sede ineptitude, we clicked on the February 23, 2014, program with "Father" Uneven-Steven McFaker on the topic of the first part of the Summa Theologica.

As you'll recall, we've mentioned the McNewbie several times in the past (most notably, for instance, here and here). We reported that Dirtbag Dan "ordained" him despite his never having attended a brick-and-mortar seminary, in contemptuous violation of principles solemnly articulated by Cheeseball Checkie in his article about untrained Trad clergy. (Dannie used these same "principles" to blacken the name of a young French priest.) Some of you might know that the Stevemeister "studied" independently with one priest out West until cut loose, and then "studied" for a short spell under the busily clueless Tony Baloney. In the podcast discussion, the malformation really, really shows.

In about an hour and a half, this joker comes off like an unprepared D-student nervously faking his way through an oral book report. We've all seen this phenomenon in high school and occasionally at university. Probably at one time or another, you, too, have been guilty of trying to wing it through something you haven't read or fully understood.

Do you recall the anxiety you felt as you fretfully scanned the unfamiliar pages hoping to find something to save your lazy hide? Didn't you feel like a drowning, shipwrecked seaman wildly surveying the surface of an overwhelming sea in hopes of latching onto some drifting flotsam? Remember how you could sense your dry tongue thickening, your heart racing, your throat constricting amid the mounting panic as you thrashed about, helplessly submerging deeper and deeper into the sloshing, choppy, whirling b.s.? You bet your booties you do, Granny! And this outrageous podcast will prove a delight as you watch from afar this wretch futilely struggle to stay afloat. (Suave mari magno, and all that, right, all you classicists out there?)

As you listen, you can almost see his trickster's eyes furtively darting across the computer screen as the coughs, the pauses, the stuttering resumptions, the misplaced emphases, and the overly prolonged syllables betray that he's piling it on ever higher and ever deeper while each excruciatingly uncomfortable minute slowly ticks by. If this loser weren't talking about the Summa of Aquinas, we could all content ourselves with the delicious Schadenfreude, as another cult phony makes a fool himself in front of the world. (Anesthetized Sede Nation may have loved this charade of unforced errors, but it didn't impress the alert citizens in the Republic of the Informed.)

For some of us who were privileged to read the Summa under the strict tutelage of fluent, scholarly, Laval Thomists, who revered -- and intimately knew in Latin -- the texts of the Angelic Doctor, we cannot laugh. We are, in fact, angry -- not so much at this pretender or his gullible host -- the two of them haven't the humility to do proper show preparation and, besides, they don't know any better. Our anger is aimed at Big Don, the pesthouse rector; His Insipidity, "One-Hand Dan," and Erroneous Antonius don't count the slightest in matters of the mind.

If the rector really were the "theologian" his risible PR effort makes him out to be, he would've persuaded the moderator (a big fan of his) to remove the podcast as an offense to Catholic culture and a mortal danger to the reputation of traditionalists.  He then should've begged Li'l Dan to instruct this interloper to keep his unschooled mouth shut.

However, as we learned last Sunday from "One-Hand" -- who, BTW, just got back from a carefree holiday in stylish Santa Fe (as we had guessed!) -- Big Don needed Dannie's wingman, the McFaker, to accompany him to Poland last week  "as MC, chauffeur and bag boy."*  Clearly, the rector has another set of priorities besides Catholic truth, especially if this McFaker is Wee Dan's heir apparent. (Veritas post nummos, we surmise?)

To illustrate this clown's ignominious performance (and to make it easier on you, for the audio is really painful), we've carefully transcribed a short portion (minute 83:55 - 83:08) of the farcical program:
And then ... his [St. Thomas's] second objection is that from more of a philosophical point of view and ... also from, you know, the ability of, um, uh, uh, of the human ability, and basically saying that ... *gasp*, that we can only know certain things, um, by reason and so therefore we shouldn't, ah, really go beyond what we are able to grasp by our reason because we get into something that's beyond the ... the ph-philosophical science. And this is an argument put forth by ... by Aristotle himself (!)...And so... *throat-clearing noise* ... and so that's how he lays out the two objections as to why we should not know sacred doctrine. (Underscoring,  italics, and interpolated editorial protest ours.)
Say what? Absolute BULL Sss... (er, um, *cough,* uh, ah) ... Winkle! 

For the record, here's how St. Thomas actually represented the core of the second objection (Thomas Gilby's 1963 translation):
...the philosophical sciences deal with all parts of reality, even with God; hence Aristotle [in Metaphysics vi] refers to one department of philosophy as theology, or the divine science .** (Our insertion of cite, based on the Latin text.)
In other words, the second objection proposes, on the authority of Aristotle, that theology is a branch of philosophy. It says nothing about the inadequacy of reason.  It's about knowledge. It's about whether a science separate from philosophy is necessary. St. Thomas, who wrote a commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics, is referring to Aristotle's conclusion (starting at Metaph.1026a18 in the Greek text) that theology, along with mathematics and the philosophy of nature, was one of the three theoretical philosophical sciences.***  This is the real argument, not the fabrication the McFaker pulled out of his aaa, er ... out of his, um ... uh ... out of his... hat.

 He's so far off base that we must conclude he didn't examine the text, for no one could be so clueless, not even "the Skipper," the MHT completer in Michigan who skipped the consecration at Mass.

Although later on in his "exposition," the McFaker gets his head just above water (by then he'd had time to read over Thomas's respondeo dicdendum quod, which makes the argument perfectly clear), that doesn't make up for all the gibberish that preceded. What should have been made plain from the very start is that article 1 is not about the limits of human reason. It's a refutation of the thesis that philosophy alone as a discipline is sufficient to know all the truths about God. (Hence the necessity for our welfare that divine revelation signify for us those truths.) **** 

You can see for yourself if you won't believe us, provided you possess the ability to comprehend written English. Read the Summa's article 1  here to discover on your own how dead wrong this oafish b.s. artist is. (The Dale-Chall Readability Index for the article assesses the grade level as 9-10, within easy reach of most people.)

It's easy to see that these cult "priests" have no real learning. It's all play acting, posing, and bluffing. In Tradistan, expertise is achieved by self-declaration, not earned through long and hard study. The faithful would do well to ignore everything they hear from the sede impostors. They're making it up as they go along. Their ignorance, however, isn't confined to the big things, such as theology, Latin, or the interpretation of the Common Doctor. Time and again, we've shown how they lack the small stuff, which sometimes is more indicative of inauthenticity.

Before we sign off for the day, allow us to expose two slips that further substantiate this guy isn't for real. The first is his reference to the Book of Sirach, and the second is his uttering the name Isaiah.

Now it seems if a priest were sincerely committed to the Traddie cause, he'd make the effort to preserve Biblical names as found in the Vulgate or in direct translations from it. After all, these are the traditional forms, and many Vulgate proper nouns and titles of sacred books differ from the forms found in modern versions of the Bible (the forms of which the Novus Ordo has adopted in its new translations of Scripture).

The Vulgate usages are those found in most of the missals laymen use, too. Accordingly, insisting on the Vulgate forms would appear to be not only the mark of a traditional priest but also another quiet act of resistance to the Novus Ordo's leveling agenda. Putting it another way, using the Vulgate conventions is an indicator of authentic Catholic traditionalism and a sincere token of fidelity to the historical Latin culture of the Roman Church.

Not so for this McFaker. Instead of saying "Ecclesiasticus," he says "The Book of Sirach," and instead of "Isaias," he says "Isaiah." The former instance of betrayal of traditional norms no doubt resulted from his use of the New Advent online Summa. However, if he were a thoroughly trained traditionalist, we should think he would've automatically supplied the traditional name for the book. (Didn't he have a Scripture course during his five years of independent study?)

The second betrayal indicates that he hasn't made an effort to unlearn the Protestant form of the prophet's name, which, we admit, is by far the more commonly heard and seen. We guess he either doesn't know there's a difference or doesn't care. But why should he? If you don't care enough to get St. Thomas right, of what importance, then, are traditional Catholic spellings and usages?

If you wish to corroborate independently just how incompetent the buffoon's presentation is -- and if you have the patience to listen through the full 10 minutes or so of all his stammering, hedging, coughing, hemming and hawing, and clumsy juggling on question 1, article 1 -- here's the link (starting at minute 86:45). Some of what he says is so positively incoherent that multiple listenings won't tease out any certain sense. One example of his bizarre musings is a head-scratching observation on Aristotle's theology against the backdrop of pagan Greece. The sede mooncalf apparently is blissfully unaware that philosophical monotheism had been around in Greece for at least some two centuries before the Stagirite flourished. 

Isn't it obvious that this cult clown has no business at all talking about scholastic theology and philosophy? *****  

When you've finished listening to the McFaker's bogus exposition, read the paraphrase of Thomas's article 1 below, written by a real Catholic teacher-priest from the good ol' days, when the clergy were truly educated and their orders were undoubted. It'll take you less than a minute. Then you'll understand our claim that these sede "priests" fall so far from the Catholic standard of excellence we must consider them aliens
Man's most urgent need is to know truths about God. Some of these truths can be known by philosophy, that is, by thinking them out. Other truths about God are made known to man by divine revelation. And indeed divine revelation is required for the proper understanding of all truths about God, even those which philosophy teaches. For without revelation man could not know quickly and accurately the naturally knowable truths about God so as to make these truths the rule and guide for his responsible life right from the start. Therefore, philosophy is not enough for man; divine revelation is required. ******
Since the rector won't act, the McKnow-Nothin' and Restoration Radio should pull this reprehensible Play Skool®-astic podcast, buy a copy of Msgr. Glenn's A Tour of the Summa, and just read it to the audience, who surely deserve better than the deadly misinterpretation they've been fed.

But they won't. So it's up to you.


PROTEST THIS OFFENSIVE PROGRAM BY SENDING YOUR COMPLAINT TO

MAIL@TRUERESTOATION .ORG
.


* We wonder who paid for the "clerical" dogsbody's airfare, food, and lodging. Big Don? Or was it a gift from the SW Ohio cult at the laity's expense? And we also wonder why the rector didn't invite the Forlorn Finn, a European and a completer of his "seminary," to  accompany him instead? Wouldn't he want to show off one of his own? Or is he ashamed? Or did Dannie offer the McFaker free of charge to advance the newcomer's standing in Tradistan?

** The New Advent translation, which we surmise the McFaker was using, reads: "But everything that is, is treated of in philosophical science --even God Himself; so that there is a part of philosophy called theology, or the divine science, as Aristotle has proved (Metaph. vi)." 

*** ὥστε τρεῖς ἂν εἶεν φιλοσοφίαι θεωρητικαί, μαθεματική, φυσική, θεολογική (Aristotelis Metaphysica, ed. W. Jaeger, Oxford Classical Texts, 1963). The text, as Thomas would have read it, is as follows (from John Rowan's translation of Thomas' Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle [p. 456, Regnery, 1961], lest our adversaries accuse us of special pleading had we offered our own translation):
538. Hence there will be three theoretical philosophies:  mathematics, the philosophy of nature, and theology.
An absolutely literal translation of the Greek is: "And so there would be three theoretical philosophies: mathematical [philosophy], natural [philosophy], [and] theological [philosophy]."

It's worth noting here that the McFaker persists in his ignorance of what Aristotle actually said up until the end of this foolish discourse. At minute 78:31 he references "...the argument from ... from Aristotle himself that we can't ... *gasp* ... use anything more than or we shouldn't strive to use anything more than philosophical knowledge." You just read Aristotle's words, so you yourself know that Aristotle said no such thing. It looks to us as though he's confused what Aristotle said with the Scriptural quote in the first objection and (maybe) considers the conclusion of the syllogistic argument of the second objection to be Aristotle's. This guy's clearly out of his depth.

**** Because of his ignorance, he doesn't understand the importance of the subject of the article 1 as it relates to Thomas's overall design of the Summa. As the Dominican Eschmann wrote in his monograph A Catalogue of St. Thomas's Works, "The main and most properly Thomistic feature of the Summa, is its plan by which for the first time in history theology obtained the status of a science." And science is, as Thomas says, "recta ratio scibilium," right reason of things that can be known with certainty, IIa-IIae 55, art.3. (Our emphasis.)

***** Not only does it appear as though this bamboozler's neither had a survey course in Greek philosophy that covered Xenophanes nor ever read Aristotle's doxographical passages, seemingly he's unaware of St. Augustine's City of God, books vi-viii.

******Paul J. Glen, A Tour of the Summa, Question 1. Sacred Doctrine, 1.


22 comments:

  1. Il Rospo e La Gallina


    "Odi che strepito entro quel covo...
    Poffare il diavolo che c'e di nouvo?"

    Fuor d'una fetida gora vicina
    Si un rospo interroga una gallina.

    "Nulla," risposegli, "nulla di nuova;
    Siccome al solito ho fatto l'uovo."

    Ed egli: "Credimi e fuor di loco
    Far tanto strepito per cosi poco."

    "E tu che gracidi ne taci mai,
    Con tanto strepito dimmi che fai?"

    Risposta simile aver potra
    Chi tutto critica e nulla fa.

    Anon.
    P. S. If you need an English translation I can supply it. I realize this is a useless offer because you guys know everything.

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  2. Yes, we do a lot of croaking. But our croaking is itself a creative act, for we expose the vacuity of the sede impostors who, like talentless, screaming vaudevillians, lay rotten eggs.

    And that is no small matter, for like the toad, ugly and venomous, we wear yet a precious jewel in our head -- the jewel of Catholic truth.

    We criticize, and in so doing, act affirmatively to warn the innocent and assuage the aggrieved. And we won't keep silent.

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  3. WOW! I can't believe Steven Heiner would put his name on something this bad! Steven is an intelligent man & this interview or whatever was truly cringe-worthy. It said it was an hour and a half, but I could only stand a few minutes of it. I couldn't make heads or tails out of what that priest was saying. I'm not a theologian, but I've never had problems following lectures on theology, but this was beyond comprehension. Did you stick it out for the whole hour & a half?? I did catch that N.O. Sirach & Isaiah which was a bit discomforting. I thought that you were a tad tough on him mentioning his hemming & hawing but on listening to this for myself, you were quite right. It was truly awful. I'll try & listen to the whole thing Sunday when I should have more time & patience. This podcast was a absolute disgrace and a blight on the Catholic church. Heiner should have stepped in and tried to redeem it. I'm sure he could have done a better job in explaining St. Thomas Aquinas. It now needs to be deleted so people don't think that Catholics are nitwits.

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    1. We did an early Lenten penance and listened to the whole thing. It was awful, and at times we found it hard to continue. But continue we did, though our patience was sorely taxed and out irascible appetite stirred. We wish you perseverance for the task ahead.

      Like you, we were shocked that Heiner posted this podcast. We don't know him, but we always thought him to be intelligent, despite his cheerleading for Sanborn, Dolan, and Cekada. All we can say in charity is that he must have drunk too deeply of the cult's Kool-Aid. Otherwise, he would have realized that this "priest" was in way over his head. As a Catholic, he should, at the very minimum, have told him to go back and get prepared. He probably also should have offered to help him since the "priest" is so obviously out of his depth.

      The performance was so bad that we thought it might be another proof of the invalidity of orders conferred by a "bishop" who was ordained a priest with only one hand. We recall that Sanborn once wrote that only priests should engage in theology because their hands touch our Lord's sacred body every day at Mass. If Sanborn was right, then how could this "priest" have made such a mess of it?

      Delete
  4. OK, I wasted an hour and a half of a perfectly beautiful sunny Sunday listening to that drivel of Fr. McKenna. I won't ever do that again. Even if Heiner paid me. I did get one chuckle out of it though. At around the 42- 41 mark (sorry, I didn't go back to get the exact time, I just couldn't force myself to do so as listening through it once was more than enough aggravation & punishment for one day), Heiner says something about an impasse. Fr. repeats but pronounces it "im-pass- say"!!
    I got the impression that Heiner was having trouble following Fr.'s tortuous trains of thought. There was really nothing Heiner could do to redeem this mess.
    I wonder what Heiner's buddy, Charles Coulombe, thinks of this train wreck. I don't think he could abide listening to the whole thing.

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    Replies
    1. "Im-pass-say" LOL. We think he was trying to obliquely correct Heiner.

      We just tried to listen to the program again but found it inactive. Other followers of this blog have run into the same problem.

      Maybe they were ashamed enough to pull it. We'll give Heiner 5 points if he did shut it down. Let's hope he'll do the same for the other McKenna podcasts -- and refund the $2.99 he's been charging for them.

      Delete
    2. We'll probably have to take back those 5 points. Seems that a glitch, not principles, disabled the dreadful McKenna audio.

      Good news for us: we'll soon have all that great material available for future posts.

      Delete
  5. I do think the real accomplishment here is being missed!

    It's a very rare thing to send your auditors away from a presentation being even less informed than when they came in.

    The program accomplished this in grand style, and with a subject no less than the Summa. One can't help but be impressed with the talent necessary to pull that off.

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  6. Anon 1:42, I hadn't thought of that! You're quite right and what's more, it was all done in an hour and a half which seemed more like three hours so I only wasted half the time that I thought! I feel better now.

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  7. Aaaah...the consolation of McPhilosophy. Just to think how those splendid talents are used in the confessional!

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  8. Perish the thought!!!

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  9. Pistrina, how many copies of the Anti-Modernist Reader can I pencil you in for? https://truerestoration.tilt.com/the-anti-modernist-reader

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    1. Thanks for the kind offer, but we've read all Sanborn's, Dolan's, and Cekada's articles already. And we've penciled in our own criticisms (some of which we've shared with the world.)

      We are looking forward to its publication so we can publicize the errors we haven't shared with the world. A benefactor has promised us a copy.

      Thanks for the warm thought.

      Delete
  10. That TR link was entertaining and very well named: tilt.com.
    First Cekada tilts his head to the left. Then he tilts it to the right. Then to the left and back to the right. Then left, then right for the ENTIRE time he spoke. I got a little dizzy watching him.
    I also noticed that he talked about all his great works & ended. It was layman Heiner who said God Bless You.

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  11. Hilarious observation. Cekada definitely needs some media training. A body language expert told us that all that tilting is very significant.

    TR has lost all credibility. It's become the mouthpiece for the Terrible Trio rather than for the traditional Catholic cause. The cult and traditional Catholicism are not synonymous.

    We have to conclude that Heiner doesn't possess the critical faculty we once mistakenly attributed to him, otherwise how could he have allowed the McKenna interview to be posted? Likewise his praise of Cekada is completely reflexive, and he has chosen to ignore all the gross errors that render his efforts useless.

    That's fine for hero-worship, but it does a grave disservice to Catholics in general. It also makes him look small in the eyes of the many who know better.

    A pity. He might have been a leader for the general good. We're sure he'll keep the McKenna podcast and thus become party to the further promotion of error.

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  12. Watching Cekada was as mesmerizing as watching a bobblehead in slow motion. I was so mesmerized that I can't recall what he talked about, except him mentioning Work of Human Hands.

    A pity indeed is Heiner. I thought he was intelligent, and he does write well, but he sometimes lacks common sense. The list of all the books of great authors and works of Popes that he supposedly read, & posted on TR, is as long as your arm. Now I'm wondering if he really read them all or just skimmed through them. If he had really read & studied all those, wouldn't he have been able to detect all the errors in WHH?
    He is a gadfly - flitting from one thing to another, so maybe Sanborn & Co. are the only ones that put up with him. But I honestly thought that he would have seen the light before this. He needs prayers. For all his faults he could & should be a great champion for true tradition. This wasteland is sadly in need of one.

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    1. Even IF he read the books he's listed, there's no guarantee that he truly understood or internalized the contents. It's not enough to be intelligent to read the great books of Catholic culture. One must have what Hirsch called relevant cultural background information, the vocabulary and syntax of normative Catholic discourse, as it were. Without it, you're lost, though you might think you understand it all.

      This naive young man appears relatively new to the traditional faith, and his age indicates that he's never been exposed the the real thing. The Trio looked real to his amateur's eyes, so he latched on. That means he's likely to be overconfident. After all, if you've no concept of the complexity, it all appears too easy. On top of that, the Terrible Trio are probably turning his head by telling him how brilliant he is (for their own agenda), even though they themselves recognize his grave limitations. He's just a resource cow.

      All in all, bad news for the traditional cause. The better educated Novus Ordites would make mincemeat of him, but they won't stoop to dealing with so transparent an amateur.

      Among the moron traddies he's targeted, this won't be a problem, and they'll keep supporting him. The smart folks will stay away.

      Maybe he's happy with that audience.

      Delete
  13. He would be happy with ANY audience! LOL

    Overconfidence & hubris are his middle names.

    He grew up NO, poor thing, found tradition & eventually brought all his family into tradition, so I will give him that. The next step was sedevacantism so I was hoping he'd keep growing. Why he's staying so long in the Sanborn camp I don't know unless it's as you say - that he never really understood deeply or internalized all those writings & his pride is standing in the way. I do think that Sanborn & Co. & Heiner are always patting each other on the back & saying how brilliant they all are. At any rate he needs prayers. He's young so there's still hope.

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    1. Thanks for the background information. It explains quite a bit. No wonder he let McKenna keep on digging himself into a hole. The poor kid's got no bearings, so it all sounds good and so easy to such a tyro.

      He won't do any growing if he stays with the Sanborn-Dolan cabal, and unless he gets some remedial education fast, he will never leave their grip. And if the cult masters figure out how to monetize him for their benefit, he'll be stuck for life.

      Delete
  14. I didn't mention that he also attended Fr. Perez's church after finding tradition, so he sure wouldn't learn much there. So, yes, he's got some catching up to do, but will he?

    His relationship with Sanborn & Co. seems to be a symbiotic one - scratching each others backs. Sanborn's group gets another, ready-made pulpit to hawk their wares to make money but Heiner gets a piece of the pie too and also an audience. It's a win-win situation! Why look further? Especially when he thinks he already knows it all.

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    1. Very true, and as long as Sanborn keeps telling him he's a native genius, he'll never catch up.

      He'll probably get worse when Dolan and Cekada retire, since he'll be able to interview them as often as he wants. They'll not only have the time, but they'll need the communications outlet to make sure that the culties keep on paying in his absence. The network will give them a virtual Dannie.

      Delete
  15. It's a shame TR has the same 3 guests over & over.This network could've been a vital outlet.
    I will not pay to hear these 3 men talk incessantly about nothing.
    There are so many different groups of traditional catholics,it's pointless to interview the same 3 men EVERY episode.
    Also,it would've been fun to have debates on the shows.
    SSPX vs Sedevacantist
    Novus ordo vs Sedevacantist
    Liberal catholic vs conservative catholic
    Traditional novus ordo priest vs independent catholic priest
    The ideas are endless but all they offer is Sanborn Dolan and one of their clones rambling for 60 minutes.

    ReplyDelete