🎶BUT IT'S ONLY MAKE BELIEVE🎶

...why do you think poseurs pose?Because they want to be invited to the dominion of the real, an almost magical zone of unselfed sensation, and they know their very desire for it disqualifies them. Lipsyte

Everything about the SW-Ohio-Brooksville cult, from its fictitious "dogma" of mortally sinful una-cum Masses to the intellectual failings of its undereducated "clergy," is contrived. Surrounding whatever the cult masters do, there's the noisome aura of self-conscious theatricality. It's as though they see themselves always on stage aping some one-act farce before the peanut gallery of a Podunk vaudeville house, where the lowbrow audience is too simple-minded to discriminate between appearance and reality.

The inbreeding cult "clergy" apparently regard themselves as the protagonists of their own unheroic mythological drama: their objective is not to be authentic but to be admired. Yet when the curtain rings down and greasepaint comes off, these self-obsessed mediocrities resemble nothing recognizable as genuine clergy of the Latin Church.  Instead, they form the Constitutive Other,  aliens to real Catholic identity, eternally outside the network of the Church Militant. Frighteningly, they are the non-Catholic Self.

Their Otherness doesn't make them exceptional, as they'd have you believe. Quite the contrary, in terms of educational attainment and intellectual gifts, they're an all-washed-up third-rate act. None is an honest-to-goodness churchman. Each just plays one on the boards during the weekly extravaganzas. But since most people, even many cultists, acknowledge the deceptive self-presentation, there's no cause to rehearse all Tony Baloney's errors in Latin, Tradzilla's linguistic howlers, and "One-Hand Dan's" liturgical absurdities. Nor need we remind our readership of Tradistan's sham "schools," pretend religious, and daffy rules rooted in a never-existing 1950s of a fevered imagination.

While most people can detect the dissimulations of scholarship or general education once exposed, they find it harder to discern the troubling affectations masked by the cult masters' "preaching." The "sermon" format is an ideal means to amplify pretense. Unlike correct Latinity, choice English diction, or liturgical orthopraxis (which demand specialized training in order to assess their authenticity), evaluating the content of the average, dumb-downed Sunday monologue is something most of the faithful trust they can do on their own.

To get a favorable response, all the churchly thespians have to do is dress in the right costume, thunder their message with conviction, and mouth something more or less consistent with what psychological weaklings think is Christian. Exacerbating the culties' gullibility is the Catholic cognitive bias that assumes anybody in a Roman collar practices and believes what he preaches.  Spell bound by the Sunday matinee performances, trad yokels are happy to dismiss the ominous signs of imposture and go with their usually-wrong gut.

The wily cult kingpins intuitively grasp that such witlessness is their ticket to the big time, their invitation to squat in the "dominion of the real." There, in disguise, they imagine they can conceal the naked self-interest coiled behind crudely wrought masks of false piety. Just fill the acrid cult-center air with Catholic-sounding platitudes or threats, and nobody's going to look beyond the cartoonish image. The alchemy of posturing transmutes, however implausibly, ragtag personae into "priests" or "bishops," tricked-out Quonset huts into "churches," and tribal fetish objects into sacred artifacts.

Insofar as by means of their "sermons" the cult masters lay claim to ownership of Catholic vocabulary, they're shielded from external efforts to cut short their grotesque masquerade. All they have to say to their naïve followers is, "Our enemies don't understand Catholic principles." Without a second thought, the cultlings willingly suspend disbelief, often in violation of what little sensus catholicus they may have possessed.

Quoting a bookshelf of moral theologians by tractate and subsection won't move cult zombies to see  through the "clerical" humbugs: Shock of recognition comes only if you have the right background. To the average cult rite-trash, moral theology is as impenetrable as good Latin, edited English prose, and liturgiology. To their ears, the grounded teachings of the Church's approved authors aren't nearly as Catholic as the brimstone-reeking content of the weekly harangues spat from cult pulpits.

Therefore, in order to unmask these disqualified poseurs, you have to make cultlings examine their "clergy's" behavior through a secular lens, albeit one with close affinities to solid Catholic ethical  principles.  Otherwise they won't — or, to be more precise, they can't —get the message.  In next week's post, we'll offer a very good example, one that should turn on the house lights, put an end to the cheap histrionics, and send the audience out to look for a real Catholic life, even if it is to be found at home alone.

THE "BISHOP'S (?)" BESTIARY, Chapter 1

bestiaries. Books very popular in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries, concerning accounts of the supposed habits and peculiarities of animals, which, with the legendary lore connected with them, served as texts for devotional homilies. They were founded on the old Physiologi...[which featured] allegories concerning animals....  Benét's The Reader's Encyclopedia (1948)

Editor's Note: For years we've been mocking Hoodoo Dan's obsession with the cult's familiar spirits Caravaggio, Puccini, and Vivavldi (the red cat that mysteriously went M.I.A. in 2009). Until recently, we had attributed to bad taste or poor formation his grotesque "kitty chronicles" of gore and savagery.

That all changed in late February when a commenter let us in on a little secret he or she had learned long ago: His Circumambiency is

not really talking about his cats [;] he uses them as stand-ins for people he's targeting...He explained it to me once but I cannot recall after more than 15 years. He either said a saint did the same or somebody else in the Trad world. 

So, what the Readers thought was loony, cat-fancier babbling is in actuality a kind of fable or exemplum.

Since PL has an English-lit major on the editorial team, the Readers thought it would be great fun to interpret Dannie's creature capers in light of this eye-opening revelation of the method behind what seemed like simple madness (or Tourette's). 

You, too, can join in the fun. In each post of this new series, we'll quote verbatim a couple of "One-Hand's" accounts, each followed by our re-wording. Then you can register your own interpretation(s) in the COMMENTS section. Everybody'll have a rousing good time, and maybe Trad Nation might learn what's really on the Mitered Maggot's narrow mind.

Animal Story I

Let's begin with a fable narrated on the feast of Christ the King in 2016:

Caravaggio prudently decamped to the roof on Monday, prognosticating coyotes on the prowl. We always fear lest they go after the cats, but that night they contented themselves with the contents of a garbage can instead. The beasts fell to fighting over its offerings, screaming in their high pitched way, right outside my window. Rather unworthy to be squabbling over trash, I thought. But they are scavengers. It was a frightful noise. Fr. Cekada at first thought they were raccoons. But Fr. McGuire, an Ohio boy, recognized their bark. The garbage cans are now secured, and the cats have gone back to mousing. Caravaggio just now presented me a juicy one, but Puccini had most of his for breakfast. He couldn’t resist.

Oh, boy, what a menagerie Dannie has! Feral cats, marauding coyotes, transgressive raccoons, and bloody mouse-prey assembled amid reeking mounds of $GG garbage. It's an exterminator's nightmare, that's for sure.

But what can it all mean?

In our view, the dislocated Caravaggio represents a beleaguered Wee Dan yearning to be left alone so he can feed with impunity upon the helpless mice, which stand for the few bamboozled Gerties still under his complete control. Obviously, the vocalizing coyotes are his critics, in particular PL, while the trespassing raccoons symbolize the opportunistic, disloyal traddies who sometimes assist at $GG "Ma$$e$" but refuse to swallow the una-cum lie — and won't fill up the collection bucket.

Here, then, is our  re-write of the paragraph:

Dannie went into protection mode as PL and other blogs threatened to drive more victims out of the tumbledown SW Ohio cult center. Investigative bloggers and tell-all posters have dug up a lot of dirt about the cult masters. What they've found is all over the internet for TradWorld to see. Their posts have grown so loud, in fact, that Dannie can't ignore them any longer, particularly since some originate so close to home.  As the blogs feed off the now-dead cult in their crusade to warn decent Catholics to stay away, "One Hand" is frightened out of his half-wit. At first, Tony Baloney thought all the criticism was coming from the many tight-fisted attendees who quietly assist on occasion at the area's SSPX and FSSP chapels. However, Lurch, who heard all the complaints about Dannie and Checkie when he was just a whippersnapper, assured him the revelations were coming from the outside. Insofar as only the depraved clung to His Malevolency after the 2009 $GG $chool $candal, he mistakenly supposes the criticism will have no impact on his enablers. Therefore, in a fit of self-delusion, he's resolved to keep on preying upon the Gerties for everything they've got until the last one runs off screaming. He can't resist Checkie's demands for more frivolous, expensive goodies, like a rectory basement video-production studio.

Animal Story II

Our second fable comes from the Dirtbag's Advent II 2016 "Corner":

Last week Puccini was in a bad way, moaning in the bushes after Thanksgiving. But he’s a Zen cat, and never complains, so I knew something was wrong. Katie kindly took him to the vet, and it turns out he was thrice bitten (a church-invading raccoon, perhaps?) and required stiches, a partial anesthetic and an antibiotic. He’s pretty much back to normal, but is prudently sleeping quite a bit to speed his recovery. So, like Blessed Martin de Porres, I was operating a double clinic over Advent Sunday. Caravaggio visited Puccini once, but otherwise kept up his patrols. Especially in the kitchen.

As noted above, Erroneous Antonius is "Zen cat" Puccini, while the "church-invading" raccoons are the cult's occasional visitors who come for the show but refuse to drink the tainted una-cum Kool-Aid. We think this is what the Wee One wants to tell us:

Malformed Checkie's undeserved renown as a "scholar and theologian" has been thoroughly debunked. He's crying the blues about the exposure of his shocking blunders, in particular his perverse translation of infallible papal teaching: It's all out there on Front Street for Traddielandia to ridicule. Three different groups have made his ignorance public: university-credentialed bloggers, fellow trad clergy, and skilled opponents who write books and articles in academic prose (rather than grind out chintzy, amateur videos like the Cheeseball does). For the time being, Tony Baloney's been lying low, vainly hoping traddies will forget how wrong he's been (and how bad his Latin is). Seeing that Bonehead Tone incompetently defended one-handed priestly orders, Deacon Dan feels obliged to coddle him. He can't do it often, though, for his real job is policing Gertie Gals to make sure they keep on catering free meals to the bone-idle $GG "Fathers."

. . . . . . . . . .

Well, folks, that's PL's take on the meaning of "Doctor Dolittle Dan's" critter code for these two cat tales. But others out there in cyberspace, who've known His Inscrutability longer than the Readers, may be better equipped to tease out his messages. Why not sharpen your hermeneutical blades and take a stab at an interpretation of your own? You can post it in our COMMENTS section below. Everyone here agrees there's more than one way to skin a cat.

MR. SMARTY HELD A PARTY, BUT NOBODY CAME

There is not a fiercer hell than the failure in a great object. Keats

Surprise! Surprise!

Last week, "The Bishop's (?) Corner" virtually proclaimed $GG's "Fat $unday" an unqualified triumph of party-planning. You remember "Fat $unday," don't you? That's a rollicking Quinquagesima blast where potbellied gluttons gorge on dense, flat, burned griddle cakes drowning under a viscous deluge of high-fructose syrup and trans-fatty-acid-rich margarine, all the while anticipating postprandial BINGO. (See our post from February 25 here.) 

Take a look at "One Hand's" button-poppingly-proud review of his sordid fête:

I pray for many good fruits, strong friendships and spiritual encouragement to come from last week’s wonderful Social Sunday. Wow! What a success! A great combination of hunger and free food and convenience really packed ’em in, as never before. Brilliant idea! I regret I could not be with you, but as pastor I am so gratified and grateful to all who gave and worked, and to those who took some time to stay and participate. Many thanks! Let’s do it again?... 

Well, we are, in a way, doing the same thing, these Fridays of Lent. Great suppers are on offer. Free! Emboldened by the pancakes, perhaps you would like to check it out? Come to Mass and stay for supper, or come for something to eat and fortify yourself for Stations.

As usual, "One Hand Dan's" musings require the Readers' deeper analysis to puzzle out the message. And like all things Dannie, there's as much to learn from what he didn't say as from what he did. Laying aside the question of whether his claim of stunning "success" is true or not — by his own admission, he wasn't present to witness the eating orgy — let's consider the absence of comment on the "Lenten Supper" of "beans, ravioli, and mac and cheese" earlier promoted for Friday, March 3.

Believe it or not, PL can understand how Gerties might've tarried for some over-flipped "emboldening panncakes" following one of the (possibly simulated) $unday Masses. After all, the rite trash were already loitering at the cult dump. So, then, why not grab the rug-rats violently by their jug ears and trudge over to the grimy social hall to hang on a freebie feedbag before hitchhiking back to a roach-infested hovel?

Actually Dannie's Fat $unday eat-a-thon was a civic blessing in disguise: With the free chow, Ma didn't have to rustle up some grub for the starving kee-yuds when they all got home. She could then join Pa in a few shop-lifted beers, thereby postponing the usual bloody fight over his chugging a whole six-pack without sharing. Thus "$ocial $unday" kept any number of 10-16's from crackling over the nosey neighbors' police scanners.

That's a "success" in our book!

But Friday, March 3, is an altogether different matter. Missing was the "convenience." To sink their toothless, diseased gums into the colon-clogging repast, the Gerties would've first had to ride over to the dirty $GG industrial park. That would've entailed herding crumb-crushers already spazzin' out on a violent "sugar high" into a hot-wired pickup before swinging by the local honky-tonk to roll Pa onto the rusting flatbed.

"Wow!" Not likely.

Accordingly, based on the "combination" of that insight and Dannie's silence about the March 3 turnout, the Readers conjecture the Friday feed was as unsuccessful as Ash Wednesday, which, as Dirtbag Dan confessed, had been a BUST (explaining why he's almost begging them to "come for something to eat" on Fridays):

Ash Wednesday was sparse, as it was the previous two years, due perhaps to bad weather.

$GG had scheduled THREE Ash-Wednesday Masses to round up the cult zombies: 7:00 A.M. (a "Special Workers' Mass, no sermon!"), 11:20 A.M., and 5:45 P.M. In all, the cult masters distributed ashes at FIVE different times throughout the day. Yet still attendance was "sparse." Forget Weatherman Dan's lame meteorological excuse. If you don't get your ashes when there're opportunities galore, you're not going to show up for Friday "$tations," not even for "free food" smothered with runny layers of low-fiber process cheese.

These folks really don't want to be there. There's no motive to "check it out." They're not about to answer Dannie's prayers for "wonderful," wallet-emptying generosity.  If Gerties who've been able to ditch the repo man went anywhere that Friday night, they probably made a beeline for one of the nearby Novus-Ordo parish fish-fries, where the food is appetizing, and normal-looking table mates sport clean fingernails.*

Let's cut to the chase, shall we? Don't you think His Egocentricity would've loudly tooted his own horn about a good turnout if there'd been a crowd that Friday? Epecially after he admitted the Ash-Wednesday fiasco. Even supposing he drafted his "Bishop's (?) Corner" on Thursday, there was still plenty of time to insert a line or two before Saturday evening's publication. Furthermore, if Friday, March 3 been "a success" worthy of an exclamation point, then why did Dannie go to such lengths to assure Gerties  the "Great suppers...on offer" — "Free!" — on "Fridays of Lent" are the "same thing" as his "brilliant idea" of Fat $unday? 

At PL we haven't been bitten by the gambling bug, but if we had to place a bet, we'd wager that the first of Dannie's "Friday Nights in Lent" was an embarrassing flop. But, then, how could it have resulted otherwise without B-I-N-G-O?

At least the coagulated globs of sticky, starchy leftovers must've gone into the "traveling Fathers'" fridge, where the scavenging field mice could feast to their little vermin-hearts' content.

* The cultlings in SW Ohio are blessed with a fabulous seasonal fish-fry scene.  As Wee Dan might say, "check it out" here. The one at nearby All Saints on Montgomery Road looks pretty tasty to us Lenten-fish-fry enthusiasts:"Fried Cod, Grilled Salmon, Grilled Tilapia, Fish Tacos, Cheese Pizza, French Fries, Baked Potatoes, Sweet Potato Fries, Cole Slaw, Tossed Salad, Applesauce, Assorted Desserts."  From now on, Gerties, just say no to that  $GG heart-attack-on-a-paper-plate hog slop and sit down to scrumptious traditional Lenten fare at an area church near you. You and your gastrointestinal tract will be glad you traded up, even if it isn't "Free!"

WHO SAID YOU CAN'T GO HOME AGAIN?

Pack your bags and get away! / If you spend every cent, you can move out in a tent—/ It's movin' day! Charlie Poole

For those of you who missed the announcement two weeks ago about Big Don's ignominious loss of the Arizona chapel, we'll recap what we know. It's the outcome PL's been dreaming about for many years: at last, the substantial assets of the chapel are safe.

Tradzilla has tried long and hard to take over the place. As you may recall, way back in 2011, after his big $30K plan fizzled, Big Don boasted in a pesthouse newsletter,  “we are very hopeful and confident that our relationship to [Our Lady of the Sun Chapel, Arizona] will become permanent.”

With the assistance of Divine Providence, a vigilant lay board thwarted the Donster's plot. In spite of the definitive rebuff, he continued to play the hireling, doubtlessly in order to (1) keep his foot in the door, hoping perhaps to work surreptitiously to get his way, and (2) not lose needed revenue from staffing the chapel.  Over the years he never gave up, notwithstanding his inveterate hostility toward lay trusteeship. At length, all that his scheming earned him was an eviction notice. The grim priory princesses along with his so-called priest — "ordained" BTW by "One-Hand Dan"!! — should be skulking back like unwanted foundlings to the fetid Swampland compound by the end of June 2017.

With Tradzilla's exit, the CMRI will, according to a 2/17/17 letter from the Pivster, "have complete responsibility in all spiritual matters and the lay board for the temporal  affairs of the parish [sic]." Pivvy's missive interestingly reveals that CMRI "sisters" will operate the chapel's school. In addition, sources tell us, the board distributed an information sheet to explain the transition. Under the new arrangement, the chapel will have a valid "priest" who speaks intelligible English. One immediate benefit of the deal is the laity won't have to strain their ears and scratch their heads during the Sunday sermon. (Plus they'll have fewer doubts about the validity of the sacraments they receive.)

Although this turn of events is joyous news, we dare not think Our Lady of the Sun is out of the crosshairs yet. Between now and June, a lot of undermining can be done. In fact, according to the scuttlebutt, the cult's minions are already hard at work. That's to be expected. Tradzilla, ever the bad winner and even sorer loser, most likely won't go meekly. It's a wounded beast's nature to bite back with savage fury. While his ego may only chafe at the pink slip, the prospect of never being able to control the chapel's considerable assets must be the source of unbearable anguish. You may not realize it, but a lot more than bragging rights was riding on a takeover.

PL expects there'll be an underground campaign to discourage chapel members from sending their children to the school or assisting at Mass. In concert with that effort, certain families will be pressured to pull up stakes and relocate to the Swampland. (They've already managed to dupe one deluded household into moving: like most traddies, the family will have to learn the hard way.) All in all, though, any sabotage attempt will have little impact.

The board is certainly aware of what's going on and is sure to take pre-emptive action to counter the Donster's ploys. (Tip: the Toady cannot endure direct confrontation — he'll fold like a discount-store card table if squeezed between Big Don and resolute board leadership.) Moreover, the chapel has a nice financial cushion to weather any dip in weekly collections until participation levels return to normal. Who knows? They may well increase. As a matter of fact, PL is sure they will.

For that reason, the sole unknown arising from Big Don's ouster has nothing to do with Arizona. (The board's been through worse and managed to survive quite well, thank you.) What we really should be asking ourselves is how this development will impact Junior's consecration. Without fresh cash streams, PL doesn't see a way for Tradzilla to exit Brooksville so he can devote himself to his next adventure (er, uh, ahem, "apostolate," we meant to say). Heretofore, all our speculation had assumed he'd be slithering out of the swamp since two "bishops" in one tiny, family-run cult would be like two paramount chiefs in the same savage tribe: one of 'em's gottta go.

Yet, at the same time, we have to wonder whether Junior or his pop will brook a delay of birthright. Born in 1978, the Kid will turn 39 this year. That's nine long years after the Anointed One reached the canonical age for the episcopacy. The insignificant Long-Island Jellyfish and the much-disparaged Pivmeister wrangled miters in their early thirties, while "One-Hand Dan" captured his at 42. Will the Kid have to wait like Big Don until his fifties before his noggin's "armed with the horns of both Testaments"? In other words, will he always be a bridesmaid and never a bride?

We don't think so!

Junior's family's sunk too much money into the Swampland sect to wait much longer for their scion to fulfill his destiny. He's more than ready to run the whole show, including the "seminary" (LOL).  There's already been loose talk that "he won't be a [simple] priest for much longer." More significantly, the Big 3 élite are eager to get out of the spotlight, get back on social media, and get those TV's into the air-conditioned house where they belong — flickering away in front of the La-Z-Boy throughout Brooksville's humid subtropical nights.

The Arizona failure has been a huge embarrassment anyway. We've been told Big Don was strongly cautioned against venturing out West in the first place. With this loss of face, there's no reason to keep the Donster around any longer, particularly since keeping him means taking delivery on all Dannie's baggage. (Bad for the corporate image, you understand.)

Say what you will about the Big 3, but they are experienced businessmen. The time's right to cut their losses and get out of a bad investment. Easing the decision will be the comforting assurance of having on hand an immediate replacement for the Donster —one of their own, not a breathless Flushing Rat driven from the salubrious desert back home to the steaming swamp, with his whacked tail quivering between his buckling knees.