CAI (Catholic Apologetics International) has made good on their promise to embark on a written response to my book Who Is My Mother?. Many of you may be familiar with CAI's plans from an article I wrote recently exposing the ineptness and lack of qualifications of the primary author, John Pacheco. The new book, co-authored by Robert Sungenis and John Pacheco, is currently titled Mother of My Lord: A Catholic Apologetic on Mary in Scripture and Tradition. In fact, they already have a book cover for it (see http://www.catholicintl.com/cai/bookreport.html). The book purports to "serve as a direct refutation of Eric Svendsen's book: Who Is My Mother? The Role and Status of Jesus' Mother [sic] in the New Testament and Roman Catholicism." As I mentioned at the end of my last article on this issue, John Pacheco continues to show how careless he is in dealing with these issues. After being corrected several times on the mere title and theme of my book, he still can't seem to get it right (the subtitle is not The Role and Status of Jesus' Mother, but rather The Role and Status of the Mother of Jesus--small point, I admit; but one who makes mistakes like this in the details of the simple things is not likely to be more careful in the details of the larger issues).
From the looks of it, the book will be published by Queenship Press. Queenship apparently has only one illustrator, who in turn seems to have only one book cover design that he recycles with every new book. Those who have seen the cover of any volume in Robert Sungenis' "Not By" (Not By Scripture Alone; Not By Faith Alone; Not By Bread Alone) series will see quickly what I mean. Indeed, I'm surprised that CAI didn't use my suggested title, Not By Jesus Alone. That is just what will be argued, after all; that Mary is absolutely essential to the gospel of salvation and to the life of every believer.
What is most revealing, however, is that this "book report" (as CAI calls it) gives us an insider's look at how a Roman Catholic apologist goes about writing a "scholarly" work. If this work had purported to be a "popular" book, there would be no need to write this article. Popular works, almost by definition, have literary license (as it were) to use any method of research and writing the author wishes to employ. A "scholarly" work, on the other hand, must conform to very specific criteria before it can be considered a scholarly work.
The CAI "book report" gives us the following information regarding the plan of the book:
We'll address the relevant points below:
Project Patroness: When I was working on my graduate thesis and post-graduate dissertation, I was required to take classes on theological research methods, to conform to very strict requirements regarding a thesis proposal, to submit my work to a committee of critical readers whose sole purpose was to find holes in my arguments. Apparently, I wasted my time with all that. If only I'd known beforehand that what I really needed was a "Project Patroness," I could have saved myself a lot of grief writing, and then rewriting, and then rewriting again! A "scholarly" work at least attempts to provide some semblance of objectivity, and reserves conclusions for the end of the book, after the author has read and understood all the arguments. When one embarks on the writing of a "scholarly" book on Mary, but then prefaces all research with "I hereby dedicate this book to the Blessed Virgin, the Mother of God"; well, let's just say it becomes crystal clear what the author's conclusion will be before he has even read the literature. More on this later.
Bibliography selected: The authors have indicated that they have selected "approximately 90 works" with which they will interact in the book. That sounds impressive at first, but only when one compares that number to scholarly works on this issue. As an example, CAI's ninety works come in at just over half of the books I read and interacted with in my research on the issue of Mary.
Another point to be made regarding this is that, only recently, the same "book report" that mentions ninety works also mentioned that, of those ninety works, the only one that had actually been read so far is mine. As I've mentioned before, when one embarks on the writing of a "scholarly" book on Mary, but then prefaces all research with "I hereby dedicate this book to the Blessed Virgin, the Mother of God," it becomes crystal clear what the author's conclusion will be before he has even read the literature. That in itself disqualifies the work from the title "scholarly." In that case, why even bother to select a bibliography, to read the other books, and to do the "research" (I have a distinct feeling just what kind of "research" we can expect--more on this momentarily), if the master plan is simply to turn a deaf ear to any opposing view, to dismiss biblical objections, and to conclude at the end of it all (surprise!) that the Roman Catholic view of Mary is the correct one? Why not just write the concluding chapter, and make that the book? Moreover, when the "book report" was first published, the list provided the major books of consultation. Not one of them (except mine) is a dissenting view. More importantly, not one of the others listed is a scholarly work, not one written by a known New Testament scholar (Protestant or Roman Catholic), and not one is included as a "major work" in any bibliography of the most important works available on this issue (such as Mary in the New Testament, ed. by R. Brown et al--a contribution by various Roman Catholic and Protestant scholars). When I wrote Who Is My Mother?, I interacted with the full spectrum of Roman Catholic scholars and apologists, as well as Protestant scholars and apologists--whether or not their views happened to agree with mine. It is painfully apparent that CAI's "scholarly" response has no intention of interacting with those in their own camp who disagree with them on this issue--namely, the majority of Roman Catholic scholars. Their goal is to respond to my book, Who Is My Mother? But, ironically enough, their own scholars are more of a threat to their position than I could ever be. These are works by Roman Catholic scholars--scholars who are not only recognized by Rome, but have been commissioned by Rome in a number of venues. Their works bear the imprimatur and the nihil obstat. Yet they are decidedly at variance with Sungenis and Pacheco's view. It seems to me that their energies would be better expended cleaning up their own house.
In addition to the plan of the book, CAI also gives us a "progress report" of the book. The progress report includes the following:
For their first chapter (which attempts to refute my research on the Greek phrase heos hou in Matt 1:25), CAI anticipates the following:
Here Sungenis and Pacheco reveal their penetrating insight into scholarly research methods. They have decided, even before they have read so much as two works on this issue--or have even begun writing the chapter--that they will have 18 pages and 50 footnotes. Is there supposed to be a reason that the page numbers and number of footnotes are set before the research barely begins? How one can know in advance of his work something such as how many footnotes he will have, is truly amazing. No research methodology used by scholars would dare ask the researcher to presume to know this kind of information before his research even begins.
And, of course, how could the "scholarly" researcher proceed without first identifying anticipated "wammies" [sic.] "Wammies" (Pacheco probably means "whammies"), is defined by Pacheco as "significant arguments and/or evidence which completely nullify our opponent's objections or allegations." Yes indeed folks, this is a crucial element in the research proposal of every scholar. Again, I am simply overwhelmed by the scholarly acumen of the authors of this work. When I took my "Theological Research Methods" class at Trinity, I was taught things like "citing your sources correctly," and "citing only those sources you actually use," and "understating your argument and allowing the subtlety of your point to guide the reader to his own conclusions," and "arguing your opponent's point as he would argue it," and "reading to understand rather than to respond," and other rules like that. These apparently are not the kinds of things that characterize the Roman Catholic "scholarly" methodology, however. Au contraire; the number one cardinal rule of the "scholarly" research methodology of our Roman Catholic friends seems to be to find as many "whammies" as you can, and then assess the strength of your own position by use of the Helvidius Refutation Meter--another one of those outstanding research tools available to those embarking on a "scholarly" work such as this one ; ).
In all seriousness, the "research methodology" used by our authors is reminiscent of the man who pretends he knows something about x, and then proceeds to speak of x in pseudo-scholarly babble: "Yes, [harrumph], the sum of the matter of x is the difference between the, uh, er, taliwag and the, uh, widget, which, when portent to the, uh, er, thingy, will consummate into the, uh, totality of the, er, summation, relative to the, [harrumph], yes, the, uh, embobulator of the left axial, uh, er, axial summary, [harrumph]."
Roman Catholic apologetic "scholarship" is proving to be nothing of the kind. The value of one's research is only as good as the methodology behind it. So far, CAI's Sungenis and Pacheco are off to a bad start. I predicted as much in my previous article on this issue. There I wrote:
"If Mr. Pacheco's public responses to my other works are any indication of the level of quality we'll find in his forthcoming book, then, sadly, we can expect little more than a hastily written, exegetically sloppy, historically uninformed, and carelessly tendentious response that will have no lasting value against the uniform apostolic witness that Mary was an ordinary, fallen human being who just happened to be given an extraordinary mission in life."
My predictions are being vindicated. If any of my students, writing on this (or any other) issue from an Evangelical point of view, were to hand in a "scholarly" research proposal that looked like this one, I would summarily reject it and tell him to try again. CAI's "Book Report," graded on a scholarly level (the work, after all, claims to be "scholarly"), merits an F-. It demonstrates that it knows absolutely nothing about--and cannot therefore be informed by--legitimate and acceptable methods of scholarly research. Since, as we have already mentioned, the value of one's research is only as good as the methodology behind it, we can safely assume that the "quality" of Mother of My Lord, once finished, will be proportionate to its research methodology. Readers who had hoped for more will no doubt be sadly disappointed.
Eric Svendsen