Fr. Mullady is actually quite renowned throughout both North America and Rome. You might have heard of him via EWTN, where he's run about 5 different series. As far as knowledge goes of St. Thomas Aquinas, Fr. Mullady is one of the best in the world and, in my experience, rivals only the late great Fr. Leonard Kennedy, O.S.B., as the best Thomistic scholar I've ever had the fortune to learn from.
But don't let his smile fool you.
Fr. Mullady is an old school Dominican. He's blunt. He's to the point. One might say he's cranky.
And it's oh so refreshing.
He treats us students as if we were from a different generation. If a student writes on the online discussion that they were busy and couldn't put as much time into their work, he will reply, in a rant for all to see, how they shouldn't be stupid in doing so many other things besides schoolwork. If a student dares to miss the main point of a reading, he will publicly question how they could be so dumb. And don't get Father started on his main whipping boy, the infamous 20th century theologian Karl Rahner...
"Here, class, is how Rahner destroyed morality..."
There's something about studying under him that brings me back to what studies should actually be like. I think back to the famous 13th century days in Paris where Aquinas, St. Albert the Great, and the like would hold lectures outdoors and grill their students, while the rowdy crowd would scorn any wrong answer. The atmosphere was as free-spirited and intellectually stimulating as this world has ever seen, or ever will see. There was only the pursuit of truth to guide them. There weren't any Gender Studies degrees, or Feminist Theology courses. Nope. It was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth that the students sought, and the professors delivered.
Fr. Mullady is currently teaching me Moral Theology. He began the course by spending the first two weeks talking about the unity between body and soul. I wondered in my head where he was going with this. I can still see Fr. Mullady's replies to students, challenging them to get with the act and properly distinguish the powers of the soul in relation to man's substantial unity.
But as the course has unfolded it's become clear: Fr. Mullady is conducting an orchestra. He's putting together beautiful music. Each note we learn here, or there, is being put together in harmony. Fr. Mullady is a master. Slowly we see Moral Theology at its most fundamental level. We are putting together the first causes. The unity of the person here, the nature of the voluntary there... this is learning at its finest, deepest, level.
So all I can do is learn from him, and respect the man and his knowledge. And, in the spirit of true learning, occasionally say something just to set him off.
I don't think he'd have it any other way.