IN THE SPOTLIGHT'S GLARE

Misera est servitus ubi jus est vagum aut incertum. ("wretched is the bondage where the law is fickle or uncertain"). Latin Legal Maxim

After last week's post, some emailers asked, "Where, along the path to the ruin, did Big Don and Co. lose their way?" Our correspondents, you see, were at a loss to explain how anyone who had attended Écône under the archbishop would dare to claim in public he could divine the intention of John XXIII, who's been dead for well over 50 years.*

Did the Swami of Sedelandia hold a séance to commune with the deceased in the spirit world?

Did he pull out a well-used pack of occult tarot cards?

Or, perhaps his cat is a spirit guide capable of channeling Roncalli at will?

OUR answer to the query is that all these sede ecclesiastical freebooters never changed. They're the same now as they were back in the day, only a little more shaken, a little more prone to wild fantasies since they scattered like cockroaches back to their grimy holes, scurrying from the lamp of scrutiny. We mean, the situation's pretty bleak when Wee Dan has to sneak off in the shadows to Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, for his 2016 Lenten run to the border.

The passing years have only ossified the lawless habits of thought ingrained many decades ago, habits never eradicated by enlightened study of authentic Catholic sources. So, return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, as we bring to light a telling anecdote recently shared with us:

Long, long ago (the very early 1980s, in fact), when The Nine were yet nestling cozily in the ample bosom of the SSPX, the archbishop ordained to the subdiaconate a man trained at its American seminary. A short time thereafter (so our source assures us) the authorities, for reasons never disclosed, decided to "dispense" the young Levite, who left the institution and was told he was free to marry. 

This simple, apparently innocuous, reminiscence from the murky past is worth pausing over, for in it we see, with the appropriate illumination, the same inconsistency and usurpation of authority that characterizes TradWorld's scofflaw "clergy" to this very day.

For some background, let's consult the Jesuit T. Lincoln Bouscaren, who notes, "the canonical obligation [to celibacy] begins with major orders, of which the subdiaconate is the lowest." Although the vow of celibacy is "no longer express" in the ordination of subdeacons, the vow, according to the more common teaching, "is implied." Moreover, "if the ordinand expressly declines the vow he is bound by the law" of celibacy. (Emphasis in the original.)

If all that's true, then where, you might well ask, did the guys in charge get the authority to reduce our subdeacon to the lay state? Was it "by rescript of the Holy See" or "by judicial decree in accordance with canon 214"? There's no evidence of that, and it's highly unlikely anyway, given the tensions at the time between the society, the archbishop, and Rome. How, good Catholics demand to know, could any well-formed churchman of good conscience and in a position of responsibility have agreed to "dispense" the subdeacon?

Even if the questionable decision came from higher-ups, why didn't some principled soul involved protest, or even resign if necessary? Such a reaction wasn't unheard of in the American SSPX. Earlier an SSPX official resigned after the archbishop ordained a candidate to the priesthood in spite of the official's strenuous objection.

Probably everybody went along at the time because they thought that by taking the law into their own hands they could mold it to their liking in the traddie gloom. Such is the way of slothful autocrats, who imitate others' bad example. For these clerical prison wardens, the law is a coercive weapon of convenience. They wield it like a scourge to impose on the prostrate laity cooperation or submission, but hang it out of sight when they want to have their own way. Consistency means nothing; expediency is everything.

Sanctioning the unspeakably cruel death of Terri Schiavo, illicitly suppressing the Leonine Prayers, inventing new mortal sins, implying canonical status, fabricating liturgical innovations like the "pontifical Missa cantata," selectively adopting or repudiating Pius XII's legislation, perversely mistranslating infallible papal teaching, etc., etc., are all of a piece with the Donster's retrospective reading of a dead man's mind. It's all part of ruling by will rather than by law. Why bother with reflection grounded in theological or canonical reality when you can imagine an answer that suits you?

In a nutshell, these "clerical" renegades are baldly making it all up as they go along. It's far easier — and more unjustly advantageous — to be arbitrary than to be subject to the same rules that bind other Catholics. There can be no messy challenge when the law is what the cult masters say it is, or when that law can be different tomorrow, if it so pleases these down-market despots. That's doubly true if the authentic interpreter of the law is also a spirit medium.

By now, we're sure some of you cult victims out there are hopping-mad at this post. So, why not go ahead and test us? Ask your cult Caligula the following questions:

(1) Today, if a pesthouse subdeacon wanted to walk away from his vow of celibacy, would it be a mortal sin?  And,

(2) if a subdeacon can be "dispensed," how could a sede "bishop" dispense him, seeing that, as Bouscaren says, "dispensation is an act of jurisdiction"?

Be sure to send us the replies (pistrinalit@gmail.com). We're waiting with bated breath for the light to shine on what they have to say.

* (Click here to refresh your memory.)