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. E 1026^a18 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.

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* 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.