How dull it is to pause. Tennyson
Visitor traffic to Pistrina is has not yet returned to customary levels to allow us to resume our last series on one-handed conferral of priestly orders. In fact, it's not time yet even to warm things up with a discussion of the rector's recent nearsighted, mistaken assessment of Papa Pancho. We'll wait another week until everybody knows we're back in town: Trad World deserves to hear what Pistrina has to say!
This week, we'll limit ourselves to praising German Novus Ordites for having a more richly developed moral sense than zombie Traddie cultists. A Thursday, October 24 article in the Wall Street Journal reported Pancho's suspension of the infamous "Bishop of Bling," who obscenely spent $42,000,000 to renovate his residence. As part of the story, the Journal quoted the president of a local court in the spendthrift's diocese, who claimed the disgusted faithful have been leaving their parishes in large numbers because of their ordinary's behavior.
Say what you will about the N.O. flock, but Trads should take a page from their book to bring pressure on their own free-spending, donation-wheedling, revenue-obsessed, luxury-loving, Mammon-enthralled clergy with their steroidal construction projects, caviar dreams, and deluxe spa-vacation plans.
Just refuse to donate.
And while you're waiting for their sense of self-preservation to bring them to their senses, form a lay board to keep the Roman-collared curs on a short leash after they come slinking home with their raggedy tails between their legs.
We're here ready to help decent Christians send a message to all clerical bling-bats, whatever their ecclesiology. Just remember:
STARVE THE BEAST TODAY SO YOUR KIDS CAN EAT BETTER ON THANKSGIVING AND ENJOY A MERRIER CHRISTMAS WITH ALL THE CASH YOU SAVE.
It sounds like you want your Divine Lord to be housed and worshiped in a trailer, and His priests to live in a shack. You might as well complain about the money spent building beautiful cathedrals in the Middle Ages. Do you think those Gothic churches were cheap? Kings and lords emptied their coffers and practically bankrupted their realms to build a fitting place for the King of kings, and still didn't think they had done enough.
ReplyDeleteAnd you whine and complain about the money spent on St. Gertrude's, which is far cry from a medieval cathedral, but it's the best we can do in these times.
I've seen plenty of beautiful old churches built before the changes, and they're very instructive about the mind of the Church, especially the really old ones, like the ones from the 1920's and earlier. Those beautiful stone edifices were built by the poor, who scrimped to give the little bit they could to build a home for their God in their neighborhood. Did the priests tell them not to? Of course not. They were exchanging mammon of this world for an eternal reward.
Next to every one of these churches there is always a rectory, and you would do well to look at one of them some time. They're solidly built, comfortably large, and beautifully adorned. That's how the Church has always taken care of the pastors of her parishes. They're not supposed to live in poverty, but are supposed to have a comfortable sustenance. I'm sorry if you resent that, but that's how it was in the "good old days" about which you fantasize so much.
And no, the priest quarters at St. Gertrude's are not any bigger than rectories you see next to those old churches.
Finally, the priests before the Council certainly didn't answer to a board of laypeople. If you want that sort of thing, you should just go join the Novus Ordo and their naturalistic lay-centered religion in which the priest is not considered different from anyone else, and is actually subservient to a lay board composed of butch-haired feminists, communists, busybodies, control-hungry losers, hippies and other misfits who dictate to the priest how he's supposed to sing "Koombaya" and that he has to be more "pastoral" in the way he deals with public adulterers and perverts. You'd have no trouble getting onto one of those boards.
There was only one man in the gospels who complained about the money spent on God, and he was an Apostle — well, for a while, anyway. The way you talk reminds me a lot of him.
True, in the "good ol' days" there were no lay boards with directive authority, but there was an institutional Church with a vigilant hierarchy that actively supervised parish clergy. The laity always had recourse to go above the heads of their pastors to seek redress of wrongs. They could even appeal to Rome. In sum, part of what makes the "good ol' days" good is that there was built-in accountability. No one went without oversight and direction, as the cult masters do today.
ReplyDeleteJust to add to our colleague's reply: In the old days, the parish churches built with the material and financial sacrifices of the laity were owned by the Church, not by corporations (some in other states) under the tight control of individual clergy and their buddies and relatives. In addition, parish accounts were audited by the diocese.
DeleteI'm here! Welcome back!
ReplyDeleteYour antagonists don't seem to have the ability to distinguish apples from oranges, poor things.
Glad to be back with good friends! We guess zombie cultists can't tell the difference. Poor, little beasts think they're earning brownie points with their self-absorbed cult masters, who are only interested in donations, not loyalty. The masters must be getting desperate: we've heard they've been reduced to hawking memorial garden pavers. Math question: How many do you have to sell to get a week at the Bishop's Lodge in tony Santa Fe?
DeleteIn the formerly Catholic countries of Europe like Italy and France, where anticlericalism is rife (or at least it was until it succeeded in its mission with the great apostasy following Vatican II), the principal way in which the anticlerical freemasons attacked the Church was by saying it was too rich and its priests only wanted money. That was their strategy to alienate the people from the clergy, because they took their orders from the Devil, and the Devil knew that if he alienated people from the clergy and caused them to lose their respect for them, he would get them to stop coming to Mass and receiving the Sacraments, and thus lose their souls.
ReplyDeleteThis blog does the same work as the freemasonic lodges in Europe that spread that kind of anticlerical propaganda — in fact, its author sounds very much like a freemason himself. His goal is to make people stop attending Mass at and receiving the Sacraments from the few true Catholic clergy that still exist. He does this in several ways:
1) By attacking the validity of their Holy Orders with specious arguments.
2) By referring to them with infantile epithets like "Cheeseball" or "Checky", like a schoolyard bully, to make people lose respect for them and stop attending Mass. He even had a website for a while depicting them as snakes.
3) By saying that since they lack ordinary jurisdiction such as existed in ordinary times, therefore we owe them no respect and should treat them like our underlings or employees.
4) By telling people not to support them financially, so that their chapels will close down, thus depriving people of the means of grace they receive there.
5) By telling people they can make an "act of perfect contrition" instead of going to confession, ignoring the fact that an act of perfect contrition MUST include the intention to confess one's sins as soon as possible. That means that if someone only has one priest available, he still must confess to him even if he considers him to be "greedy" or to only care about putting on a "show". If he doesn't intend to confess to his priest, whatever problems the priest might have, that person remains in his sins.
6) By mocking the divine liturgy celebrated in traditional churches, calling it a "show" or a "Vaudeville act". The author has stated repeatedly on this blog that it's wrong to make the divine liturgy as beautiful as possible, because he believes the clergy's intention in celebrating beautiful ceremonies is only to glorify themselves (as if he could possibly read their minds anyway).
7) By falsely accusing clergy of various crimes such as sodomy or breaking the seal of confession, and then denying he made those accusations when he is called out on them.
8) By taking even legitimate concerns, such as the time a priest accidentally missed the consecration in Mass, and trying to whip people into a hysteria about them so they will stop attending Mass and receiving the Sacraments.
Whether this man is a freemason or not, I don't know. He claims to be Catholic, but he himself does not avail himself of the Sacraments, and does everything in his power to keep other people away too. He is trying to keep people away from the means of grace that are available from the few clergy we have left, thus depriving them of the help they need from God through the means He has instituted in His Church, and dragging them along with himself down the road to eternal damnation.
You'd agree, we're sure, that a penitent must have some certainty that the confessor nearest to him has valid orders. BTW, there are plenty of good clergy around. No one needs to worry if we drive the cult masters away.
DeleteTo “Anonymous,” Oct. 27, 2:24 A.M.: Get a grip on reality. Yes, churches (and some rectories) during the “age of faith” were ornate and beautiful. But we’re not talking about clergy who had answer to higher ecclesiastical authority (and large congregations to spread out the cost of supporting them); we’re talking about two parasitic hucksters living LA DOLCE VITA at the expense of a small number of poor, cash-strapped families. No matter how “ornate” the rectories, priests in the past did not go on annual “apostolate” travel junkets to Latin America and Europe, nor did they regularly eat at gourmet restaurants – nor did they go on “sabbaticals” or “pilgrimages” to a $400/night resort in the desert Southwest.
ReplyDeleteSGG’s rectory, by the way, has 2000 sq. ft. living area (in addition to a full basement) – an area that could easily accommodate four (or more) bedrooms -- but which has only TWO bedrooms, each the size of a large living room, and EACH with a private bath and a large walk-in closet. Plus, the rectory boasts THREE “climate zones” – each with its own HVAC system.
To Anonymous of Nov. 2, 8:50 P.M.: It is CEKADA’s arguments (and YOURS) that are specious. You accuse PISTRINA of things that it has NEVER stated, including your claim of its “mocking the divine liturgy,” and your claim of its accusing clergy of sodomy. PISTRINA has NEVER said such things. You, sir, are a LIAR. And, BTW, why did you bring up the subject of sodomy? Do you know something that we don’t? Was that a “Freudian slip”?
Your insinuation that PISTRINA is Masonic is LAUGHABLE. If anyone is a freemason, it is more likely to be one (or both) of the SGG clerics: anyone who can label WATCHING PORN ON SGG’s SCHOOL COMPUTER as “boys will be boys” (while having a student beaten with a wooden paddle for missing his homework) -- or who can uphold the “right” of Terri Schiavo’s husband to have her put to death -- is certainly not being Catholic. The many well-documented (and witnessed) abuses at SGG have driven away half its parishioners -- so why do you continue to support such lepers?
"By referring to them with infantile epithets like "Cheeseball" or "Checky", like a schoolyard bully, to make people lose respect for them and stop attending Mass. He even had a website for a while depicting them as snakes."
ReplyDeleteUm, regarding the first sentence, Cekada uses a similar prose style in his writings. Let's not throw style and usage stones in a paper-house, especially when the paper comes from "The Work of Human Hands."
Regarding the second sentence: how could anyone forget the LayPopes website and the St. Anthony Claret Forums, devoted to attacking anyone who did not mindlessly conform to Dolanism-Cekadianism? Also, what about the "Pied Piper Sermon" Dolan gushed from the pulpit after Ramolla was kicked out? These are facts, people.
I don't know what's more pathetic: Frankie and his novel form of "Catholicism," or the make-it-up-as-you-go-along, just-add-water "Catholicism" that Cekada and Sanborn are peddling.