SPECIAL POST: IN THE BURROWS OF THE NIGHTMARE

De vils despotes deviendraient/Les maîtres de nos destinées. Rouget de Lisle

Last Sunday la belle France awoke to a nightmare: “One-Hand” announced early in the morning that he’s on his way. Coyly, he claimed he would abandon his Ohio cult for three Sundays in order to help his client and protégé, but Pistrina knows that he’s headed to Chambéry.

“Demolition Dan” has gotten very small in the U.S. His influence is as slight as his diminutive, though corpulent, stature. He can’t threaten Americans any longer, not even his hypnotized, semi-literate cult followers. He must treat them very gently now, lest they all walk away in disgust and leave him, and his boss, "The Principal," penniless. That’s why he’s off to France: to show the French a good, old-fashioned American whip hand after they dared to seek their own priest when Dan’s collaborateur couldn’t serve them. Making the French submit as he swaggers before their downcast eyes (he must imagine) will restore his lost grandeur while destroying their sense of self-worth. Yes, three Sundays of triumphant, pip squeak bullying will be the tonic he needs before he must return to his cult and begin begging again for meager macaroni suppers and hand-me-down stoves. No matter what, the rector will be impressed! And the Blunderer, too.

As a rule, pride and piety are impossible companions. In this case, however, the Reader sees an exception. If they awaken, the faithful of Chambéry have the opportunity to assert their independence from a destructive foreign intruder and affirm that they are Catholics, not narrow-minded, divisive sectarians of the ghastly American variety, with their nightmarish cult of personality and hallucinatory insinuations. Moreover, now might be the perfect opportunity to repudiate once and for all “One-Hand’s” well-documented inclination for destroying chapels -- his lasting legacy to traditional Catholicism.

Pistrina wouldn’t presume to tell the French how to act. That’s why we haven’t appended a French translation. We have too much admiration for the French nation. We can say only how we would behave, were we proud and pious French men and women. The solution is really very simple. If the Readers believed they had been wronged by “One-Hand’s” unwanted intervention in a private matter, they would boycott all his Masses for the three Sundays during which he proposed to darken their door.

We would stay at home. Say the Rosary. Practice acts of perfect contrition. If we happened to see the Destroyer sashaying down the street wearing his trademark rigid and foolish grin, we would cross to the other side and bless ourselves for having avoided an ill-omened presence. We would not welcome him into our homes. We would not feed him. We would demand that he live in the tiny priest’s apartment or take lodgings in a luxury hotel at his cult’s expense. We would not give him money. (We might even summon the gendarmerie.)

Yes, he would become incensed, as all puffed-up, bruised egos do at well-merited slights. We would find strength in our proud resistance to an impiety. Even if he threatened to destroy our chapel, we would be resolute. We would show him that our self-respect could not be compromised. We would remember that we were free men and women, citizens of the guardian of high culture, in need of no lessons from an underclass, ill-educated, pretentious outsider, who is vilified in his country. We would send him packing. God will provide for us, since we remain true to our conscience.

If, as our punishment, "Demolition Dan" withdrew the services of his creature in France, we would beg our beloved, former priest to return to us.

The living nightmare would then end.