12-STEP PROGRAM TO RESCUE YOUR CHAPEL

Today Pistrina introduces its new series explaining how lay men and women can take back their chapels to establish lay governance, which not only conserves the investment of the faithful but also removes both the proximate and the remote occasions of sin that sorely try so many malformed priests associated with the Terrible Trio.


Although the objective is noble, the laity must be prepared for vigorous as well as vicious resistance from some grasping and insecure clergy. These amoral ecclesiastical mercenaries will fight as madly as cornered rats to retain their control over a chapel's property and treasury.

In the beginning, they'll arrogantly assert that lay governance is a violation of ecclesiastical authority. (A sheer fiction: in the Sede Vacante there is, by definition, no ecclesiastical authority, except [perhaps] in the narrow confines of the tribunal of penance.) When you then easily dispose of that canard, they'll angrily claim privileges sanctioned by canon law. (A red herring: after almost 50 years, no one knows which canons apply now, and, besides, there's no jurisdiction in the Sede Vacante, no judges to consider cases or enforce sanctions; no wonder that one well-known Traddie institute chose not to teach canon law in its seminary.)* Finally, as the laity continue to press their just cause, these wretched substitutes for Catholic priests will swiftly hasten to take the lowest road.

Stand ready for them to brandish every hideous weapon in the clerical racketeer's arsenal. They'll thunder damnation and hellfire from the pulpit; they'll perversely deny the sacraments to you, your family, and your friends; they'll lawlessly banish you unless you "make reparation" with a groveling public letter of apology or a signed, pseud0-legal pledge to behave; they'll charge you with trespassing on the very property your money and sweat helped build and maintain if you rightfully attempt to seek the sacraments; they'll savagely threaten your friends and relatives with similar penalties unless they abandon their ties to you; they'll vengefully pressure other weak priests to bar you from their chapels and missions. They may even threaten to pull up stakes and leave the chapel as they menacingly quiz the faithful, "What will you do without the sacraments?"

Many unprepared Traddies have succumbed to such religious strong-arming: the faithful naturally fear any impediment, just or unjust, to attaining sanctifying grace. Unquestionably, if any ecclesiastical authority did exist today, as in the days before the crisis, such wicked behavior would result in swift discipline from a disapproving and just chancery. Before the crisis, the faithful were invested with the right to demand the sacraments and, if denied for insufficient or malicious reasons, they could petition legitimate authority for relief. But, as we've reminded everyone all along, there is no authority, no jurisdiction, in the Sede Vacante. Nevertheless, faced with wrongful denial of the sacraments, you and your family are not without a divine defense against these ravenous wolves in sheep's clothing.

You can risk banishment from the Mass and the confessional. It's not unthinkable. You will find sanctification, peace, and strength in the act of perfect contrition. To shield you as you prepare to redeem your property from the greedy hands of clerical miscreants, Pistrina reprints a classic tract, Perfect Contrition: The Golden Key to Paradise.

Study it prayerfully in the next week in order to steel yourself and your family for the trials that lay ahead when you start to implement the 12-step program to rescue your chapel. When villainous clergy ban you, you will not remain without the means of securing heaven, no matter what untruths they hurl at you. Furthermore, the daily practice of the act will give you the grace to persevere until good, honest, and Catholic governance prevails, and your chastened priests return humbly to their first and only duty -- the salvation of souls.

*This reflexive striking back is really no more than bluster and may easily be taken with a grain of salt. Many of the clergy don't believe these arguments themselves, as illustrated by the rector's behavior last year: He and a couple of his pesthouse completers are tenant-hirelings of an assertive, extraordinarily able, and self-perpetuating lay board in Arizona. Last year, the lay board  declined his crude gambit to make permanent his "relationship" with the wealthy chapel (click here for Pistrina's first report). In the face of defeat, the rector didn't huff and puff or pick up his marbles and go home; had he done so, he would have lost some fat monthly donations from the faithful in addition to the regular allowance for services rendered. The last time we checked, he and his crew were happily still plying their trade under lay supervision.