TRUST NOT IN WRONG

A man so various that he seemed to be/Not one, but all mankind's epitome./Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong:/Was everything by starts, and nothing long:/But in the course of one revolving moon,/Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon. Dryden

Last weekend, the Readers viewed a newly posted video interview with Anthony Cekada on the Thục consecrations. What we found of interest was not the thin account of his change of heart about the line’s validity, but rather one of the arguments he offered to defend the archbishop’s lucidity: To our choking amazement, Cekada argued that Thục’s writing out a consecration certificate in “correct Latin” (minute 12:31) should disprove in “the mind of any reasonable man” (minute 27:21) the claim that he was “a crazy old geezer who…didn’t know what he was doing” (minute 27:02).

Whoaaaa! That’s a real volte-face from the position taken in the anti-Thục-line screed "Two Bishops in Every Garage," where “Peregrinus” characterized the archbishop’s Declaratio as “extremely crude.”

We decided to take a closer look at Cekada’s video assertion about certificate’s Latinity and to consider, as well, the probative value of the Blunderer’s particular example. Our aim here, bear in mind, is not to discredit Abp. Thục. Pistrina is on record as defending the archbishop's Latin against the frivolous charge of extreme crudity (see our page “Pilgrim’s Fine Mess”). Furthermore, we have never doubted the Thục lineage per se. Our sole purpose, as it has been from the inception of this blog, is to disabuse Catholics of any notion that the Blunderer is an authority worth hearing.

Value of the Certificate as Evidence of Competence

The most important thing to bear in mind is this: the text of a consecration certificate, even an autograph text, should never be used as proof of mental or linguistic competence.* Why? Because the language is not a specimen of original, personal expression or self-possession. In documents like a consecration certificate (e.g., diplomas, wills, oaths, affidavits and jurats, resolutions, contracts, etc.), the wording is boilerplate, the structure formulaic. Coherence rises from fixed form, stock terminology, and stereotypical phraseology, not from the mental stability of the writer.**

If you’ve read a number of such documents over the years, it doesn’t take much presence of mind to mimic them. Most people without a day in law school or an understanding of specialized and often archaic vocabulary can generate some decent-sounding text by stringing together oft-heard snippets like "party of the first part...," "Be it known by these presents.....," "I give, devise and bequeath all of the residue and remainder...." Moreover, the archbishop may have copied directly from a model, perhaps even his own litteræ. Therefore, before reaching so important a conclusion regarding a consecrator’s mental health, the Readers would demand a very different sample of continuous prose (such as, for instance, the patently intelligible, original Latin of the archbishop’s 1983 Declaratio, which “Peregrinus” so roundly –- and wrongly -- condemned).

The Latinity of the Certificate

Now let’s turn to see how “correct” the certificate’s Latin is.  (Click here for a facsimile of the handwritten original). To avoid a tedious grammatico-textual analysis, we stipulate that, in general, the Latin is sound. But of  course, that’s only to be expected, for no matter who penned the words the contents are, for the most part, boilerplate! *** However, near the end there’s a serious morphological error, which surely originated with Thục himself: testes oculares erant Domini Doctori Kurt Hiller et Doctori Eberhard Heller. The Latin word doctor -ōris is 3^rd declension, not 2^nd, so the correct form is doctores (and written only once, mind you), if Thục meant, “The eyewitnesses were the Honorable (lit. lords) Doctors K.H. and E.H.”

Someone (say, a more educated latter-day “Peregrinus” with an old axe to grind) might argue that malformation of the nominative plural for so common a word as doctor is a sign of diminished capacity.

To be sure, “any reasonable man” wouldn’t arrive at that conclusion. The certificate was doubtlessly drawn up in haste at one sitting. The error may have resulted from distraction or the pressure to put to bed a mundane task as quickly as possible. We’ve all been in a similar situation and made similar slips in writing our mother tongue, especially when we’re at the end of a perfunctory duty and want to get it over and done with. Moreover, anyone who has learned Latin well enough to write it with some degree of fluency can testify to like mistakes when called upon to draft text on the spur of the moment. Nevertheless, we must admit that, in this case, the Latin form is definitely not correct.

The Point

It's obvious this challenged interviewee has no business commenting either on the evidentiary weight of a document or on the linguistic quality of any Latin text. Anyone with real academic preparation knows, by training and instinct, that a trier of fact will never treat as an instrument of proof of mental competence a writing sample that more than likely was produced largely by copying an exemplar. Furthermore, time and again, Pistrina has exposed the Blunderer’s many problems with the Church's sacred language. Yet, in spite of these embarrassments, he persists in trying to impress the untutored, who, owing to their ignorance, are bowled over by cringeworthy observations.

The gaffes once again prove that no one need pay attention to Tony’s opinions on anything: If he can't distinguish good evidence from bad, how can you rely on anything else he says?  Enough said. Just ignore him.

An Afterthought

While we’re on the topic of consecration certificates…

....in the video interview, the Blunderer made much ado about the certificate as “paper proof” of valid consecration (minutes 12:54-13:11). Here we enthusiastically agree with him. Therefore, we call upon all wandering bishops to post their certificates online so any layman can view tangible proof of their valid consecration. 

On a personal note, we’d also like to clear up a very nasty rumor that one or two of these episcopi vagantes didn’t receive "paper proof" at the time of consecration and may not be able to produce a document on demand. 

Are Traddie prelates courageous enough to submit to the Blunderer's test of validity?

If our wandering bishops don't post their certificates, the people who foot the bills should demand to inspect the original. If they do post them, we'd be happy to make any necessary corrections so they can get them re-signed and backdated while their consecrators are still alive. Better late than never, just in case they meet a "Peregrinus Redux."

*We’ve seen a minor-order ordination certificate so incoherent despite the use of formulas that, if you looked to its contents for insight into the writer's mental health, you’d have to say he belonged in a straightjacket. Of course, we know the prelate to be ignorant of Latin (among other things) rather than non compos mentis.

**Bonus points certainly are due for filling in the blanks with the correct forms of the Latin words supplied; v.g.,  Thục Latinized Carmona's given name in the appropriate oblique case (although the Reader would have preferred the Vulgate  spelling Moysi rather than Moisi). Notwithstanding his winning extra credit, a prudent man would still need a very different writing sample to make a probable inference as to the writer's competence.

***To anyone who would argue that Thục's  genitive anni (“of the year”) rather than the more usual (and idiomatic) ablative of time anno (“in the year”) indicates original composition, we answer that we have seen the genitive form in ordination certificates from the good old days. (At no time has every mentally competent bishop been first-class Roman-chancery material.)