Saturday, November 25, 2017

FATHERS AND SONS



παῦροι γάρ τοι παῖδες ὁμοῖοι πατρὶ πέλονται,  οἱ πλέονες κακίουςπαῦροι δέ τε πατρὸς ἀρείους 
("few sons are wont to be like [their] father; /more [are] worse; few [are] superior to [their] father). Homer

If you read last week's post, or hang out in traditional-Catholic chat rooms, you're aware that Tradistan has reached its tipping point. Whatever the Big Kahuna's real condition is, he's on his way out ...  pronto. The Kid's élite backers at the cult compound aren't going to let their boy-"bishop" play "auxiliary" to Big Don any more than necessary — just long enough to get his "episcopal" act together.  That won't take too much time: sede "bishops" can acquire on the fly the little bit of ceremonial they need, provided they've got a decent MC.

Forget all that hogwash in the MHT newsletter about resuming a normal life or God's still having more use for the Donster or no intention of slowing down. Soap-opera platitudes, that's all that is. Even as you're skimming this post, Trad Nation's writing off the freshly sidelined Tradzilla. (Richard Scarry's "Lowly Worm" is the more apropos sobriquet. It's sure to stick.)

The sharp-elbowed skirmish to assert de facto bossman-status over Sedelandia has already broken out. It's instructive that Junior isn't a front runner* notwithstanding Don's blather that "[m]any priests already look to him for leadership." (Sounds like a line dictated by the cult's paterfamilias.) Family money may command deference or envy, but it cannot garner respect and loyalty. "Clergy" and "seminarians" in the swamp are probably nervously scouting for a safe way out.

The Donster could live to be a centenarian, but this brush with mortality combined with next year's "consecration" of his replacement has landed him to the ash can of Sedelandia. As a consequence of the rector's marginalization, a paradigm shift has begun.

Although PL has never had much regard for the Kahuna as a scholar, a churchman, or an original thinker, we'll admit many in terminally naïve TradWorld once held him in high regard. Whether or not traddies endorsed his off-the-wall rules or unsavory hellfire-and-brimstone Sunday harangues, some (quite mistakenly) gave him at least grudging respect as an authority on theology, Church history, and Catholic culture.

That's because, once upon a time, the "Lowly Worm" used to be the closest thing to a celebrity guru that Tradistan could trot out as a proxy for legitimacy.  Oh, sure, his rival Wee Dan tried to hoodwink people into believing he, not Sin-burn, was The One, but His Deficiency couldn't carry it off. "One Hand" doesn't have the pulpit/altar presence, the blunt force of aggressive personality, the vague appearance of savoir-faire, the rudimentary formation, the physical stature, or the undoubted holy orders that Discipline Don possesses.

Let's admit it: as long as you weren't too picky about standards, ignored the nasal drone, and had never made the acquaintance of pre-Vatican II clergy, the rector made you think he was the genuine article. No one else in Tradistan can do that, not the Jellyfish, not the Pivmeister, not the Wee One, not the Boy-"Bishop"-Elect, and most definitely not the overstuffed Ham Sandwich.

And that's the crisis Tradistan faces. In absolute terms, the Donster may be a shallow mediocrity, but, compared with his would-be replacements, he's a prodigy of learning. Now that he's shuffling off the sede scene, there will be no undisputed Mr. Big to whom sect zombies can look for misguidance delivered with a sneer.

At the center of the crisis isn't Kim Jong-Don's health. It's the fact that he never adopted a true spiritual son, one who could lead blind Tradistan as its sole luminary. Perhaps he lacked the necessary generosity of soul, or perhaps he had no choice other than a Hobson's choice. Maybe he couldn't bear the notion that, in the Republic of the Mind, an enlightened master grooms an apprentice not only to be his successor but also to surpass him in every respect. In all likelihood, he never understood (or read) the affirmation of the Good Gray Poet: I am the teacher of athletes,/ He that by me spreads a wider breast than my own proves the width of my own,/ He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher. 

To become such a mentor, a revered framer of estimable men capable of realizing an independent life of their own, you must first make a brutally honest assessment of your own deficiencies. Then you've got to map out a plan to guarantee your protégé will exceed your limitations. But before that, however, you have to recruit the right talent, don't you?

The way we see it, some 30-40 years ago, Donnie should have found an intellectually gifted young man and secured the formation required to become the undisputed Number One of Tradistan. The designee naturally wouldn't have attended the sorry excuses for schools that sedes operate, especially Big Don's.  He would've been sent to the most reputable grammar and secondary schools in the nation, institutions with high standards, credentialed teachers, and selective admissions.**  Upon receiving his high-school diploma, the well-prepared young man would've matriculated to an accredited and well-regarded college or university for a privileged liberal-arts education (with a major in Latin and Greek).

During his university years, this spiritual son's formation would have been enriched by private tutoring in ecclesiastical subjects, taught by men who had received degrees from Catholic institutions of higher learning before V2.  Only after he graduated would he have set foot in a sede "seminary" (LOL).  To supplement the substandard training on offer from such an unaccredited "clerical trade school," he would attend specialized seminars at an area college (say, in advanced English composition to prevent his imitating Don's turgid prose style).

At length, after "ordination," our young "bishop"-elect would have gone on to earn a prestigious postgraduate degree or two in humane languages and learning or — dare we hope?— Biblical studies. Thereafter, he'd profit from regular sojourns in Europe or South America, studying privately with disciplinary masters. Think delightful Roman summers at the feet of the redoubtable Reggie "il benzinaio" Foster; bright spring days in Salamanca at the university library; or mild porteño winters under the tutelage of an aged professor emeritus of theology, aching to pass on his matchless expertise before he—and it—disappeared.

But there aren't many bright, gifted American boys in the Tradistani archipelago of imposture, are there?

Among the few sede families with a gene pool capable of producing youth of promise, mammas don't let their babies grow up to be clergy. The "Lowly Worm" must've taken what he had to take, and gladly, too, for then there'd be no chance of being outclassed by an understudy. With the Donster's exit from center stage, the tedious sede melodrama will close; all the untalented players will drift away to perform their impious pantomime before brainless suckers or self-interested wheeler-dealers.

The time has come to dispatch Lefebvre's ghost from Sedelandia.  The "Great Man" meme is as dead as disco. It was never true in the first place, seeing that American sedes have been led by nematodes all along. No aspirant to the bandit See of Tradistan will prevail inasmuch as the known candidates are intellectual amoebae.  The sooner sedes recognize they never had a swami of Lefebvre's caliber, the sooner we'll see a very untraditional organizational model in place.

Instead of looking to publicity-crazed pus-blisters for leadership they're incapable of providing, Catholics will go their separate ways, all the while looking inward. Aided by a new class of traditional "bishop," whose aim is to make available the sacraments, not build mini-empires or gain notoriety or pretend to represent the Church, upright folk will at last have what they've always prayed for: sanctification without insufferable sanctimony.

As more and more unaffiliated "priests" are sent out to serve the laity, the usual "bishop"-led cults, with their manic emphasis on money and control, will find themselves without flocks to shepherd. Simple economics will force them to contract, retreating to safe havens populated by primitive, jiggling cult freaks.

But whoa! We're getting ahead of ourselves here. We'll have more to say about this brave, new post-Big-Don world of Sedeology next week. For the present, make room for Daddy as the door hits him on his way out.

* Nor is anyone from the Slupski-Thục line. Europeans—the Germans in particular — view it as entirely vitiated, as do many thoughtful Americans who've witnessed some of the ceremonies.

** Save your energy and don't send us a comment about the necessity of protecting a young mind from secular and N.O. influences. We know plenty of adolescent trads attending such schools, and their faith is completely intact.  (But then, they have professional moms and dads who graduated from college.) These young people fare better than forlorn homeschoolers or the luckless offspring interned in sede fake "schools": Those are the poor devils most at risk of losing their faith and any future as a productive citizen and breadwinner.

Saturday, November 18, 2017

REVISED FORECAST


Haud semper errat fama ("rumor is not always mistaken"). Tacitus

Last December 31, two of the Readers (#1 and #5, to be specific) predicted that Tradistan's "bishop"-elect in the fetid Swampland would receive his birthright miter by mid-2017. An anonymous commenter then guessed the long-anticipated event would take place in December of this year, so as to coincide with the Kid's ordination anniversary. At the time, we embraced our correspondent's opinion.

Lately we've learned that Tradzilla is finally disposed, like it or not, to impose hands, maybe in spring 2018.  And indeed the horse's mouth informs us the decision has already been made.

We don't want to be coy, but at this writing we can't share the exact content of those reports because we haven't been able to confirm them to our satisfaction. Last week, we had expected to see something on the $GG website, but it was curiously—and uncharacteristically— silent (no crowing from the Bantam "Bishop," no requests to storm heaven with prayers). Now something has surfaced on the MHT site.

If you were familiar with the content of the reports, you'd understand why cult kingpins would want to keep the lid on for as long as possible. What's for certain is that a 2017 "consecration" is absolutely out of the question, unless the situation deteriorates.  (N.B. The situation would have to be very serious, though, because scheduling a December "consecration" at this late hour would require scaling back the schmaltzy theatrics.)

Precisely when the big show will occur — winter/spring 2018? — depends upon which of the reports best represents what 's happened. In circumstances like these, the earliest stories are often contradictory or confusing or misleading in small details.  The reports we received, we can tell you, range from alarming to merely serious, from outright denial to gravely alarming again and then to guardedly optimistic. The upshot of it all is that PL will have to wait for published confirmation from another sede cult source before posting what we know. (We don't entirely buy everything in the MHT newsletter, except for the promise of a gaudy, schmaltzy spectacle).

What's crucial at this stage is to pin down all these rumors. In spite of the newsletter account, the situation is still fluid. Once we know more, we'll post. If anyone out there learns something, don't hesitate to share it with us.

Meanwhile...

Anyone for a nice cup of tea?

Saturday, November 11, 2017

GALLIMAUFRY

...nostri farrago libelli... ("the hodgepodge of our little book") Juvenal

As a rule, PL likes to post about one cult topic at a time. That way, we may fully demonstrate to our readership the barking madness of Sedelandia. Dirtbag Dan, perchance in a lupine mood induced by the meager collections of recent months, yelped so wildly in both last week's "Corner" and the $GG newsletter that we had to share his medley of grief.

Notwithstanding his baying fans' bestial protests against our forecasts of nearing doom, “One Hand” continues to gainsay his very supporters, thus giving weight to PL's prescience.  With your indulgence, then, today let’s set aside the niceties of unity, structure, and coherence in favor of some confessional bits and pieces from the cornered, quivering leader (?) of the distinctly endangered sede pack.

WANDERLUST

Dannie was still in the air, SW-Ohio-bound from his Argentine wine-country vacation, when he began hallucinating about more exotic foreign travel. As he journalized in the $GG November newsletter: 
I fly United to Houston. They are not so charming as the Chileans, but plenty of room for a good sleep. I follow the flight path on the screen after I finish my prayers, and I see Lagos in the corner of the map. Not so far! Before I nod off, I think: “I must visit Father Nkamuke and his flock one of these days...”
This was no empty reverie. He'd hatched a definite plan, for Panhandlin' Dan began the newsletter by shamelessly alms-baiting for travel dollars:
You know how this bishop and our poor mission priests count on your charity. Bishop funds are nearly depleted. Please send some more. 
(Somebody should shriek aloud for the beadle!)

When so much "work needs done" at the crumbling cult center, you have to ask why he's going to the almost-dried-up well of financial support to cadge more trips abroad. You'd think all his money-grubbing energies would be focused on warming up the Gerties' "coldhearted cheapness" to help Erroneous Antonius pay the "bills [that] will be coming in."

But, then, that would be too businesslike, wouldn't it? Besides, behaving like a real Catholic priest from the good ol' days would mean he'd have to stick around the moribund cult. Overseas junkets get His Anxiety's mind off all his money problems, allowing him to imagine, if only for a week to ten days, that he's still the globe-trotting "Bishop" of TradWorld, a title that several others have successfully taken over.

Before the next costly getaway, the remaining Gerties who keep the West Chester eyesore going should demand an accounting of the sources for the "Bishop's Fund."

ABSENCE MAKES THE HEART POUND FASTER

Hardly a week goes by without a bitterly nostalgic reminder from Dannie that attendance at the cult's big shows has tanked. Last week's "Corner" began with the following lament:
Fr. McKenna says he’s always edified by the numbers who come back, freely, one day after the day of obligation, to pray for the Poor Souls to be freed from their fiery prison. And it is true, but the Bishop remembers many years ago that one could have an evening High Mass for All Souls, and draw a good crowd to pray for poor souls, “whom no man could number.” Those who once attended are dead, and it is for us the living now to remember them too in prayer, at Mass and with indulgences. It is a wonderful thing that we can offer many Masses on November 2 (each priest is privileged to offer three) and that the living still come, albeit in little clusters rather than crowds, to pray for our dear dead.
(Don't you love the way he writes about himself in the third person, and with a capital letter to boot? He must not have gotten the memo explaining that nobody anywhere in TradWorld is the "bishop." Those bozos aren't even bishops.)

Gerties are either dying off or have left in disgust. There's no one to replace them. The "little clusters rather than crowds" mean there are not only far fewer All Souls' stipends to divvy up among the "clergy" but also much lower weekly collections. Last week's bulletin recorded a puny haul of only $3,394 from the previous Sunday. No wonder his sermon for Pentecost XXII was titled "It's All about the Money," where at the beginning he growled, "There always are some freeloaders, I suppose."

The Wee One's heart must be thumping like that of a baby mouse caught in Caravaggio's jaws.

TRUTH IN ADVERTISING, PLEASE!

While we're on the theme of the poor souls, it looks as though "One Hand" is hell-bent to get the Gerties into the cult center any way he can:
Well, this was part of the Autumn Holy Week. It ends today. Go to the sacraments and then go in and out and gain some indulgences if you haven’t yet done so. By saying your “six,” (Pater, Ave, Gloria) a soul could be released from prison, purified and ready for God.
Let PL remind Catholics that the toties quoties plenary indulgence, in all probability, cannot be gained at $GG for the poor souls.

Why not?

Because the Raccolta stipulates the faithful must visit a "church or public oratory, or even a semi-public oratory." That means they must visit buildings belonging to the Roman Catholic Church. As we all know, the $GG "mass center" is not a temporal property of the Church, and it certainly is not a parish incorporated by the Church. (The cult masters themselves would bristle, we suspect, if anyone claimed the decaying cult complex was subject to the archbishop of Cincinnati or to the supreme authority of the Apostolic See.) Therefore, the gaining of the indulgence is almost assuredly not attached to $GG (or to any other sede pseudo-chapel, for that matter).

We find the lack of candor offensive, to say the least. The SW Ohio cult masters should know better than to pretend their shabby structure qualifies under the rules. Back in 2015, we put an end to all that fiction about "privileged altars" (click here). Owing to Readers' attending an out-of-state conference last week, this year we weren't able to get the word out about the toties quoties scam. But better late than never, right?  

THEY'LL STILL PUT ON THEIR PANTS ON ONE LEG AT A TIME

Dannie must've taken some flak from Gertie gals about the pants-wearin' Argentinian women of Mendoza (click here for our post from two years ago). In the November newsletter he mused, without much hope, we must add:
A longstanding practice, the Traditional Catholic ladies here all wear pants. Difficult to eradicate. We agree to work on this seriously for the next visit. 
Now, we gotta see that!

As wasteful as we find Dannie's foreign adventures, we're actually hoping some stupid suckers give him the bucks for another trip to Argentina — if only to see how sensible women react to Dresser Dan's proposed fashion makeover.  PL's staff boasts a number of Latin Americans, both men and women. On many an occasion, they've assured their American colleagues that Latinas are not like the weak-willed, brow-beaten U.S. cultie chicks who flinchingly endure the zany rules fabricated by malformed "clerical" control freaks.

These proud, poised ladies have a mind of their own; they won't be intimated by some sawed-off gringo who wants to meddle in their personal lives. Latin women are confident in their own well-developed sense of Catholic modesty: They don't need instruction from some norteamericano fake-"bishop" on how to dress.

 See for yourselves! Take a look at some of these ladies again:


Do they appear as though they're going to change their style merely to satisfy Dannie's whims or help him save face among the caterwauling she-wolves of sede Gringolandia? Does that "priest" look as though he wants to start trouble? We'd bet he knows better than to mess with rock-solid, ineradicable local custom, unless he wants the pious mendocinas to take their kids and hubbies elsewhere.

The poor guy really shouldn't worry that Travelin' Man Dan will stop visiting if the womenfolk refuse to lose their pants. Dannie needs him as much as he needs the dollars that accompany his visits.

Saturday, November 4, 2017

THE BISHOP'S (?) BESTIARY, Chapter 5


Bestiaries, medieval treatises derived from the Greek PHYSIOLOGUS, which was a collection of some fifty fabulous anecdotes from natural, mostly animal, history, of a moralizing and symbolical character. Harvey's The Oxford Companion to English Literature

Editor's Note: This the fifth post in a series prompted by an earlier comment about how Dannie's lurid tales of his Killer Kitties represent personal coping devices to deal with his many adversaries' attacks. Our usual format has been to quote from the "Corner" word-for-word and then give our interpretation. Today, however, we're making a slight variation: After quoting both incidents, we'll comment — very frankly — on their inappropriateness before we quickly tease out their hidden content. WARNING: Don't read on if you're the queasy type.

Animal Antic 1, from Pentecost XIX, 2017
Caravaggio was waiting for me when I returned home after the final 24 hour journey from Argentina. He partied a little too hard, though, and the next day I had to take care of clean up. He is prudently sleeping it off now.
Animal Antic 2, from Pentecost XX, 2017
Oh yes, Caravaggio. He came bounding in the other evening with his “special needs” meow, and deposited a freshly slain baby mouse in my room. I picked him up to dissuade him from his nighttime snack, but as I did so he swallowed his mouse meal in three gulps. And this from a cat who shies away from solid food.
Before all the financial troubles came to a head at $GG, His Grossness was content to turn our stomachs with simple accounts of blood-drenched mayhem and mauling. But lately he's ratcheted up the "ick"-factor. With these latest mutilation-and-regurgitation anecdotes, Dannie appears intent on making the Gerties retch before brunch.

Just think about the above two verbal images: cat puke in one and in the other a grume-spattered beast gobbling up a shredded carcass. Does the Wee One hope to emerge as a nasty, low-rent Ibáñez with this Blood and Barf?

 It's way beyond beyond bad taste: It approaches the deeply disturbed.

On a Sunday, who needs to contemplate Dannie's scooping up a congealed puddle of vomit, probably consisting in large part of undigested rodent guts? And why on the Sabbath morn should the Gertlings have to confront the image of a feral cat, cradled in a cult master's arms, its fangs clogged with clotted blood, fresh fecal matter, and torn mouse flesh, noisily gulping down, chunk by gory chunk, a newly slaughtered pinky?

Gerties, what's wrong with you? Why haven't you given this creep his walking papers?
. . . . . . . . . .

Well, then, enough with our outrage against this uncivil delight in carnage.

Let's go straight to the message underlying these two affronts to decency. It won't take long.
Antic 1 clearly signals the party's over at the cult, and they're sick over it. While Travelin' Man Dan was out galavanting in México lindo and the Andean foothills with their lush grapevines, pretending nothing has changed since the 2009 $GG $chool $candalthe "¢lerical" ¢lown ¢rew at $GG had to face the reluctant givers.  Cheesy, no stranger himself to others' surliness, recognizes the aggressive unwillingness to underwrite wasteful spending. It's been left to him to inform the Mitered Maggot that the balmy days of wine and roses have turned into chilling nights of wormwood and weeds. He didn't have the stomach for it. 
Antic 2 is about the straitened conditions of the cult "¢lergy." No more lavish meals at local high-end restaurants. To fill their grumbling maws, they have to wolf down whatever slop comes their way, whether they want to or not. (Heard no longer is "I don't like that.") Whereas beforehand they turned their noses up at the greasy, starchy, gag-inducing fare sallow Gerttie gals used to throw together in their grimy kitchens, the "¢lergy" must swallow the unsightly mess whole or starve.  Such is the price for defending the indefensible in 2009.
As usual, we invite our readership to suggest their own reading of Dannie's two repulsive critter capers. So much vulgarity promises a richness of interpretive possibilities.