MAILBAG #2

Ed. Note: This week Pistrina’s publishing a little early. Here’s an analysis we just received about the April 2011 Most Holy Trinity Newsletter, wherein the rector dons his beggar’s weeds and aggressively demands alms.

Next month, in an attempt to return to the ancient profits, the rector will -- so he threatens -- deliver his proposal to squeeze $30,000 a year out of traditional Catholics already overtaxed by the unending solicitations to prop up their failing SGG cult masters. Before he sends out his May dunning notice, let me quickly analyze what he wrote this month.

In a rare moment of candor, the rector confesses that the “supplementary donations” he relies on to keep the pesthouse open “have dried up.” Then returning to his old ways, he blames the shortfall on “the general downturn of the economy.” Like all his amateur analyses, this one is laughably full of holes.

Anyone who has been following the reports on the charitable-giving trends of the past three years knows that while giving has declined, it hasn’t taken a dive. In fact, in 2009, the Giving USA Foundation of the Giving Institute reported that donations to religious groups increased by 5 percent in 2008! As the Association of Fundraising Professionals has commented, in this deep recession, donors are still givers, and they have not stopped making contributions. A quick glance at real data, not make-believe, is instructive here. In the comparable recession of 1973-75, giving fell by 5.5 percent in 1974, but in the current crisis, it fell only by 3.2 percent in 2009.

It’s time for that panhandling prelate to wake up and smell the coffee. Here’s my take on the data for the Big Kahuna: It’s NOT the economy, Stupid! Contrary to what the rector says, there is indeed a real “lack of enthusiasm” for that vocational clerical training program. Furthermore, although the generosity of the faithful remains completely intact, the rector and MHT will not be the beneficiaries. The well isn’t dry -- it’s just off limits to the ever-thirsty swampland beggars.

No one in his right mind buys the rector's expense list. If seminarians must be clothed, why must cassocks for some come from the papal tailor in Rome? Additionally, six seminarians (that seems to be average number, if not lower) is not an economy of scale that would justify a cook (presumably full time). There certainly exist alternatives that would be cheaper, such as meals prepared and delivered by an institutional food purveyor. (For instance, if there is a senior citizen home nearby, the rector might arrange to order several additional meals for each day; to save money, the rector or the vice rector could run over and pick them up. Bonus: the seminarians could study in the time saved by being relieved of K.P.)

Another way to raise money is to raise tuition AND require every seminarian to pay. If there is indeed a promising but needy young man, then the faithful could offer to underwrite his tuition in return, say, for service at their chapel. I don’t mean give the money to the Kahuna and let him use it as he sees fit. I mean give the money to the individual seminarian and let him pay his fees alone. (Remember, however, to insist on a receipt stamped paid!)

The worst thing about MHT is that there is no mechanism of accountability to assure donors that their money is being well spent. We always hear of all the new seminarians coming in, but we never hear when they’re expelled or leave or run away. So in the end, no one ever knows where the money went or how many seminarians there really are at any one time. The money might just as likely be going for upscale interior decoration or first-class vacations or extravagant clerical bling instead of campus upkeep.* Who can tell? There are no public, audited reports of expenditures. You just have to take the rector's word that he needs $30K more per annum.

Above and beyond all these considerations, the rector, without realizing it, provided a sovereign reason to stop giving him any more money. He claims he has to send the seminarians out to cult chapels during Holy Week because without a choir, servers, or sacristans, he can’t put on the ceremonies in Brooksville. (Hmmm⁉ Where are all the sisters and the laity down there⁈)

The only cult center that mounts really elaborate functions is SGG in West Chester, Ohio, so in effect many seminarians are being sent out to stroke the ego of the very man who’s responsible for the loss of monetary support for MHT. Everyone, including the rector, knows that if “One-Hand” didn’t have these ceremonies, there'd be nothing for him to do. (In the old days, before the majority of the faithful abandoned SGG and its satellite cults, many of the chapels couldn’t have full Holy Week rites because their priests were required to be in West Chester for the over-the-top theatrical productions featuring the "One-Hand" cult-meister center stage.)

More to the point: What kind of seminary is it, anyway, that can't accommodate the celebration of Holy Week in some form? Rather than waste time and resources on arcane pontifical ceremonies the seminarians will never need if they get a chapel of their own, it would be more practical (and cheaper) for them to stay coiled in the swamp; then they could learn how to celebrate Holy Week for small churches as detailed in the Memoriale Rituum. Now that would be of real value for their training: They would be prepared to do their jobs after ordination! Instead, these clerical trainees now spend hours and hours learning ceremonies that will be of no use to them as pastors. They’ll just remember the foul-ups; the long, tiring hours of disorganized practice; and nerve-wracking, last-minute changes that characterize “One-Hand Dan’s” stage-management style. How sad that they can’t begin to master the rituals they will need to edify the faithful who will pay their salaries and support them.

Take a page from Nancy Reagan’s book: Just say NO when the rector holds out his hat.

The Reader replies: All we can add is

STARVE THE BEAST & CLOSE THE PESTHOUSE

* Next week Pistrina will offer a post based on a revelation in an earlier MHT newsletter, which should scare any prospective donor.