BOXING-DAY BONUS

One error almost compels another. Coleridge

Editor's Note: Today we're giving the SW Ohio cult masters a nice Christmas Box of acute grief as we expose for the second time this month some of the awful errors in Dannie's new ORDO 2016. St. Nick and his sidekick just thundered out of sleazy Tradistan, where ol' Krampus left plenty of  stinging switches and grimy coal for the scumbag clergy. So while the tears are still fresh on these vile clerics' resentful faces, we thought we'd share with everyone our answer to the following note penned by a rabid cult loyalist:

It is positively sinful how you trashed Bishop Dolan's and Father Cekada's ORDO 2016 over just a few silly typographical errors. [Click here for our Dec. 5 post, Ed.]  They are trying to keep the Faith alive which is more than you nasties are doing, you are killing it....If you know so much, why don't you publish an Ordo so priests can say Holy Mass to keep sinners like you from burning in hell?

Pistrina has exposed -- and will continue throughout 2016 to expose -- much more than "a few silly typographical errors." To be honest, we never planned to put out on Front Street any simple typos, i.e., mere unintentional errors of omission, transposition, duplication, or character substitution. Such slips can sometimes escape the notice of expert, properly educated proofreaders.

Therefore, if our correspondent hadn't written, we never would've publicly reproved the cult compiler(s) for the obvious typo S.C.R. (p. 28) since later on we found the correct order of letters, S.R.C., on pp. 33, 90,  and SRC on pp. 88, 94, and 109 (albeit we must condemn the careless inconsistency in using periods). Likewise, we would have been silent about the erroneous "is ante auroram..." (p. 109) instead of the correct "si ante auroram..." (although we find it hard to imagine how a proofreader with a minimal command of Latin could miss that one: the clause wouldn't have made sense to a mind conscious of basic Latinity, while the si's in the two succeeding parallel clauses would have alerted all but the dullest of proofreaders that an inversion had occurred).

No, dear friends and foaming-at-the-mouth foes, what we have in Dannie's ORDO 2016 is something far worse than an abundant collection of inadvertent errors. You see, we've closely studied this mistake-studded disaster and concluded the howlers are quasi-deliberate by-products of a malformed mind so ignorant of Latin and the rubrics that once it commits an error of transcription, it is incapable of restoring the original reading. Moreover, this stingily endowed "brain" has been so badly schooled that it will of necessity make deplorable mistakes despite having at hand the correct text as a reference. It is a pathologically disordered mind that must, by reason of its perverse nature, err. Nothing can stop it from making mistakes. Erring is instinctual for this Trad-Town idiot.

Yes, we know our proposition may sound absurd. However, if you reject it as the underlying cause of the chain of errors from beginning to end in Dannie's ORDO 2016, then you'll be forced to consider the alternative: The compiler purposefully intended to sabotage Dannie and Donnie's cult and embarrass the two wandering bishops before a raucously jeering TradWorld. Although that's not impossible, we can't imagine any of the cult clergy's harboring such premeditated guile. That would require a mind in possession of itself, a mind without any signs of neurological deterioration. Clearly that's not the case with Dannie's compiler: He's a congenital nitwit of the first water. So, you see, it's far more likely this bewildered numskull is a clerical Joe Btfsplk and by no means a fifth columnist.

When Dannie's ordo-compiler typed the erroneous in loco Missa Votiva (as detailed on Dec. 5), where he entered nominatives instead of the required genitives, it was not a case of errant fingers visiting the wrong keys. Since Dannie's ordo uses the ligature -æ for 1st declension genitive and dative singular and nominative plural, a compiler who knew Latin would either have to insert a special character or type short-cut, character-code keystrokes.  That mechanical necessity, along with the repetition of the same error on pp. 7, 50, and 64, confirms it was due to profound ignorance.* Consequently, it's not a "silly" typo. Sure, the compiler may have accidentally mistranscribed -a's for -æ's, but subsequently he proved himself incapable of fixing the goof or too lazy to check his typed copy against the original. Then he later made the same mistake twice! No matter how you look at it, this dog won't hunt.

Throughout 2016, on a monthly basis, we'll be exposing the ORDO 2016 errors resulting from an ignorance of Latin and Catholic tradition that's not only invincible but also perniciously resistant to correction. There are so many of these almost purposeful goofs that we could actually fill a whole year's worth of blog posts with them. (Don't worry, we won't put you through 52 weeks of mind-numbing torture.) The errors we'll feature won't be simple typos a competent person could make. They'll be stunning examples of a malformation so severe that no priest or lay person with discretion will ever consider using Dannie's ORDO 2016.

Had it not been for the above email, we would've waited until late January to continue our exposé. But since our fan-of-Dan correspondent claimed we were nitpicking, we feel obliged to cite two additional examples, one near the beginning and the other at the end of Dannie's ordo, to support our assertion that "One Hand's" ordo is packed with outrageous, empty-headed errors from cover to cover.

The first is on p. 13 (Feb. 2) where we read in the note, "...et ab inceptio Canone...." The correct Latin would be ab incepto [or incœpto] Canone. Now perhaps you could argue that since the i and o keys are adjacent to each other on the QWERTY keyboard, this is a "silly" typo. In all honesty, we might be tempted to agree, if not for the fact that the resulting abstract noun inceptio is so syntactically and idiomatically out of place that a proofreader who understood Latin would have caught it immediately. Why? Well, first of all it wouldn't make sense when followed by the ablative Canone, and second, as every literate school boy knows, Latin style prefers the concrete expression to the abstract.

Our second example — and, boy, is it a gem of a howler, the mother of all howlers, in fact! —is found in the last two lines on the last page, printed in big, bold CAPITAL letters:

LAUS DEO BEATÆQUE MARIÆ VIRGINIS (!!!) REGINÆ

Before revealing the correct form of the erroneous word, a little background is in order.

For hundreds of years, many ordines (plural of ordo) ended with a conventionalized doxological tag rendering praise to God and to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The exact wording of the formula varies from simple single-letter abbreviations to a few lines of text bearing several Marian titles/epithets and even the addition of other saints. What's common to all, however, is a scrupulous observance of elementary Latin grammar.

Hence, insofar as praise is given TO God and TO our Lady, the dative case must be used. But Dannie's ordo — like him, an alien to Latin and authentic Catholic tradition — does not print the grammatically correct VIRGINI ("to the Virgin"), but rather the unintelligible genitive virginis, "of the Virgin" ⁉️

There may be a number of explanations for this moronic error (v.g., Beatæ, Mariæ, and Reginæ can be both dative and genitive; consequently the feckless, malformed compiler became confused as he was copying from his original). There are, however, no excuses. It's not as though the dative phrase Beatæ Mariæ Virgini is seldom heard: Good grief! Priests, whether real or pretend, say these three words every time they recite the Confiteor at Mass and at Compline! (Tsk! Tsk! What will Big Don say about this? Will he send back the copies he ordered and demand a refund? Nope ... he hasn't the guts -- or the sensus catholicus.)

How on earth could a supposedly Catholic priest, a "seminary" completer to boot, have not spotted this illiteracy immediately after typing it? How could a proof reader not have caught such a solecism, considering it was printed in large upper-case letters and set in a prominent place? That's why we characterized the goofs in Dannie's ORDO 2016 as pathological. They do more than impeach this shabby, inept effort on the part of sub-educated chuckleheads who have no competence to confect an ordo in the first place. The botches lay bare the whole cult charade of playing Church. They scream for you to get away from the SGG cult, for they frighteningly intimate that these interlopers probably don't understand what they're reciting when they simulate Mass.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .  .

Now, by way of conclusion, our final answer to our cultling nemesis:

There are two very good reasons why we ourselves won't take up our misguided correspondent's challenge to produce our own ordo: (1) unlike the SGG-Brooksville cult cabal, we know we don't possess the intimate, technical knowledge of the rubrics to dare issue our own edition, even though about 80% of ordo compilation consists in simply copying from the past efforts of competent men; and (2) there already exists a perfectly serviceable, easy to read, competently edited ordo available from England, the compiler of which has earned a master's degree from an English university with a thesis on the liturgy. So why re-invent the wheel, especially when we have one from a disciplinary expert and life-long student of the Roman rite?

If you've already purchased a copy of this dreadful failure, contact Dannie and demand a refund. (In justice he owes it to you.) If you're contemplating its purchase, don't do it. If you're a cult priest who's been told you must use it, man-up and tell "One Hand," NO. (And if you haven't the guts, buy another product and use it instead.)

* Our assessment of the compiler's ignorance is even more dramatically proved in another error we pointed out on December 5, viz., ad unicam N. We found at least 47 occurrences (!) of the same mistake. That's no "simple" typo: that's pure, unadulterated ignorance.