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.