MORE REASONS FOR WRITING THE RECTOR: Part the First

There may always be another reality/To make fiction of the truth we think we've arrived at. Fry

STARTING FROM SCRATCH

Last week, we commenced our crusade to assure that the Rev. Mr. Nkamuke will return home with indisputably valid priestly orders. We asked you to petition the rector not to allow "One-Hand Dan" to ordain this cleric in November. Our reason was simple: owing to the nine priests' claim -- buttressed by other credible reports -- that Abp. Lefebvre used only one hand to ordain Dannie in 1976, there are just too many doubts about his orders -- doubts that can't be safely answered until the Restoration.(1)

Many CLODs ("close loyalists of Dannie") counter our moral reservation by citing the Blunderer's booby-prize-winning defense of ordination, with one hand, which has only served to magnify the original doubts. Despite our having posted long ago a complete analysis of the Blunderer's perverse translation of papal teaching, self-righteous CLODs have pressed us to offer additional rebuttal. Since we're tired of repeating ourselves to every high-strung CLOD who decides to weigh in, we'll start today, from the beginning. This initial post a bit long, but they asked for it.

CENTERING THE DISCUSSION

Let's get one thing straight right now: There are only two germane texts in this matter: The unambiguous and binding teaching of the 1947 Apostolic Constitution Sacramentum Ordinis and, to a lesser extent, an unarguable rubric from the Pontificale Romanum, one of the Church's official liturgical books. Sacramentum Ordinis is so clear that it is sui ipsius interpres -- it interprets itself. If any birdbrain were to have a problem with the straight-forward text, the solution would come from internal evidence by means of intra-textual analysis.

There is no call whatsoever for inter-textual analsysis -- the only end of which is to muddy the otherwise limpid waters of Pius's Latin.  (The ultra-textual problems lie within the realm of psychoanalysis.) The Blunderer's references to confirmation are notably valueless because (1) as a sacrament, confirmation is numerically distinct from orders and (2) theologians have been divided on what constitutes the essential matter.(2) Moreover, the Blunderer's citation of ancillary sources'  interchangeable, indiscriminate use of the words hand and hands may likewise be dismissed as mere argumentative smoke and mirrors combined with sleight of hand (and quite a clumsy hand, if we may say so).

To emphasize: the bottom line here is that we really only need Sacramentum Ordinis, where the Pope decided the "question of what is required in the future for the valid administration of the Orders"(3) for deacon, priest, and bishop. Notwithstanding the self-sufficiency of the papal document, to the extent that CLODs want more, in separate, future posts we will take some time to address the probative value of several of the Blunderer's salient arguments,  in particular, his remarks on holy orders in Eastern rites.

GETTING TO THE TRUTH

It's important to note that the teaching of Pius XII, to wit, that "the matter of the Orders of the Diaconate, Priesthood, and Episcopate is the imposition of hands alone" is, in Fr. Ludwig Ott's estimation, a teaching proximate to faith (sententia fidei proxima), i.e., a doctrine commonly considered as revealed but not yet expressly proposed as a truth of Revelation by the magisterium.(4)  The contrary teaching is "suspect of heresy." As Jesuit theologian Clarence McAuliffe wrote in a volume cited by the Blunderer, "no Catholic can be opposed to this Conclusion (viz., 'the matter of the sacrament of order consists of the imposition of hands alone')."(5)

But you wouldn't know that Catholic truth from reading Tony the Blunderer's translation of the papal teaching. His laughably incompetent effort reads:

The matter of the Sacred Orders of Diaconate, Priesthood, and Episcopacy is one and the same, and that indeed is the imposition of hands." [Blunderer's emphasis.]

Anyone with an ounce of wit can see Tony's version is very different from what real, trained theologians read and taught in the past.

The Blunderer's translation, in fact, is completely bizarre. No reputable authority ever gave Pius's Latin the reading "is one and the same." Why not? Simply because here eamque unam does not and cannot mean "one and the same" (and it is not the grammatical predicate either). The writer of the note "Lost in Translation" referenced three independent translations -- two in English, one in French -- to demonstrate how far removed Tony the Blunderer is from mainstream, orthodox Catholic thought.  Just for giggles, we'll add a fourth independent translation, Fr. McAuliffe's:

 ...the only matter for the sacred orders of the diaconate, the priesthood, and the bishopric is the imposition of hands.(6) 

And, since we're in a generous mood, for good measure, we'll toss in a fifth, one by the Jesuits of St. Mary's College (where Fr. McAuliffe taught): 

... the matter of the holy orders of diaconate, priesthood, and episcopate, is the imposition of hands, and that alone.(7) 

From all this, you may draw but one appropriate conclusion:

THE MOCK SCHOLAR'S ERRONEOUS RENDERING DISTORTS OFFICIAL CATHOLIC DOCTRINE!

REAPING THE CONSEQUENCES OF IGNORANCE

Was the Blunderer's scandalous error maliciously intentional or cluelessly dimwitted?

Surely it resulted from dimwittedness (and a poor understanding of Latin as well as authorial intention, we might add). Despite writing an appendix touching upon the ages-old controversy regarding the essential matter for orders, the Blunderer didn't quite understand that Pius intended to clear up the oft-debated question once and for all. 

Otherwise, what in the world did the hopeless dullard Tony think the Pope meant when, just before his declaration of the essential matter and form of orders, he wrote quatenus opus sit -- "seeing that there is need"? Maybe the Blunderer, true to type, wasn't paying attention or thought it was filler!  He just couldn't take the hint from that short phrase that the Church needed the definition of the essential matter of orders to end the ongoing dispute, so Pius XII determined to settle the question for posterity.

Had Tony the Blunderer been keener on the semantic uptake, he might have then been able to grasp that Pius intended to exclude absolutely every other candidate for the essential matter of orders except the imposition of hands. What the Pope clearly said to everyone else possessed of some common sense was this: The imposition of hands is the one and only essential matter. Not the handing over of the instruments.  Not both the handing over and the imposition together. Nope! Not on your life!  Nothing else. Just the imposition of hands alone, period, settled, end of question!  

LOOKING AHEAD

The practical effect of the dangerously inept translation "one and the same" is to nullify every argument based on it and advanced in support of it.  We count at least seven direct references to the gross mistranslation in support of  the Blunderer's sundry misbegotten conclusions.(8)  Indeed, Tony the Blunderer's error is so egregious, so alien to universal Catholic understanding, that no prudent man may give credence to anything else he writes in the monograph or elsewhere. Nevertheless, the agitated, defensive CLODs clamor for more arguments against Tony Baloney, so we'll slog on next week by continuing our analysis of what Pius really wrote and what real theologians say it means.

Then you'll see that one-handed priestly ordination is a defect, inasmuch as the imposition of hands alone constitutes the essential matter for priestly orders.  Whether it's an essential defect or no, we can't and won't say. The point is this: in the current crisis, Catholics must not gamble with the validity of the Rev. Nkamuke's orders in the sleazy, charity-free, go-for-broke, low-class cult casino. The Nigerian faithful who prayerfully await the soon-to-be Father Nkamuke's return deserve better from America.

PREVENTING ANXIETY

Yet CLODs needn't fret: Dannie doesn't have to undergo the shame and humiliation of ego-bruising conditional ordination and consecration. (He was hurt enough, poor thing, when the rector got his own miter.) And he can be spared the contemptuous disbelief that would attend a vigorous, public denial almost 23 years after the 9/21/90 letter appeared.

All the rector has to do is to ordain the Rev. Mr. Nkamuke himself.☺

Simple -- and cheaper, by the way: No wasteful, laity-supported transportation expenses from the fetid Florida swampland to gelid cult headquarters in SW Ohio. And better weather, too. The Buckeye State is usually cold and dismally cloudy in mid November.

So we ask decent folk to email the rector today (bpsanborn2002@yahoo.com). Tell him to ordain the Rev. Mr. Nkamuke himself and save the young man a lifetime of grief -- and the faithful the spiritual anxiety of positive doubt.  


(1) We hasten to point out, as ever,  that we are not certain ourselves whether one-handed ordinations are invalid or whether Dannie is or is not a valid bishop. In the same spirit in which Heinrich Denzinger wrote a century and a half ago, we say, Nos hic loci controversiam istam dirimere minime intendimus (Ritus Orientalium, vol. 1, p. 133), "by no means do we intend to settle this controversy right here." In reverent emulation of that great scholar, we'll just present the kind material from which the Church can later formulate solid conclusions. Our first contention is that "One-Hand" should have either (1) issued an unequivocal, vigorous, public denial in 1990 when the allegation was made or (2) had himself ordained sub conditione to dismiss any doubts. Our second is that Tony the Blunderer's monograph, with its special pleading and mistranslation of Catholic teaching, is of no consequence: the doubts raised in the 9/21/90 letter signed by the rector and eight other priests have not been calmed. More on all this in the weeks to come.

(2)  For the casual reader, Fr. Ludwig Ott's Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma (Tan Books), pp. 363-365, has an brief, easy-to-understand discussion of the issues in English . Although this English translation of Ott's Grundriss der Katolischen Dogmatik has, as Fr. Hay pointed out in 1960, many inadequacies, it is still a useful resource for non-specialists.

(3) Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma p. 454.

(4) Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, p. 454; for the  definition of the theological note fidei proxima, see p. 9, §8, n. 3.  The text of the Apostolic Constitution itself reads: [declaramus, etc.:] Sacrorum Ordinum Diaconatus, Presbyteratus, et Episcopatus materiam eamque unam esse manuum impositionem, which the Canon Law Digest translated as: "[We...declare ...that ] the matter, and the only matter, of the Sacred Orders of the Diaconate, the Priesthood, and the Episcopacy is the imposition of hands." Note, if you will, Tony the Blunderer's illicit additions of the word "indeed"and a second "is," which aren't in the Latin original. Memo to Tony Baloney: Don't put words into popes' mouths. (If you'd like to compare Deferrari's translation to that of the Canon Law Digest, click here and go to paragraph 4.)

(5)  Sacramental Theology, p. 359; the wording of the  "Conclusion" is found on  p. 358, Conclusion 6. Note that Conclusion 6 occurs just three pages before the passage Tony cited (p. 361) to give the lie to the 9/21/90 letter's claim that a case of one-handed ordination "would have to be referred to the Vatican for judgment." Had he been smarter and less agenda-driven, he would have read everything in the section and been able to see that his translation was at variance with the understanding of a real scholar and theologian. (And McAuliffe was a real theologian and scholar, we kid you not.)

(6) Sacramental Theology p. 360. Wow! Just think that this was only one page away from the Blunderer's cite (p. 361) . If only he had glanced over to his left, he might have been spared all this humiliation. As an aside, reading Fr. McAuliffe is a wonderful reminder of the old intellectual and academic standards, where truth, not personal agendas, stood foremost before the eyes of priests. Of course, the entrance standards to seminaries were much, much higher in the old days. In his introduction, Fr. McAuliffe notes that he retained all his own translations of Church pronouncements despite the fact that Deferrari's and the Jesuits' translations were available: He thought "it might be better to keep his own, rather than to adopt either of these, so that the student can have access to three translations" (p. xi). The Blunderer now has access to five, but we bet he'll never revise his monograph.

(7) The Church Teaches, p. 333 (TAN books). Compare the Jesuit Fathers' version to those of the Canon Law Digest and Deferrari, above.

(8) E.g., in his summary:  "Pius XII decreed specifically that for diaconate, priesthood and episcopacy the matter is one and the same." [Blunderer's emphasis.] But all of you by now know the statement is not true. Why, we'll bet even our correspondent Introibo Ad Altare, Esq., now sees it's not true.

SAVE THE REV. MR. NKAMUKE'S ORDERS

Intervene. O descend as a dove or/A furious papa or a mild engineer, but descend. Auden 

In the past few months, via email, comments on our posts, Skype, IM, and snail mail, we've been conducting a lively conversation on the subject of one-handed priestly ordination. Our correspondents have been legion and include both our supporters as well as several close loyalists of Dannie -- CLODs for short. (The CLODs have been of immense help, for they've helped us refine our thoughts on the subject -- something we might have postponed but for their inquiries.) In light of a recent request from commenter "Introibo ad Altare" for additional rebuttals of the Blunderer's inadequate monograph on the topic, we decided it was time to launch a new series. Our chief motivation, however, didn't arise from a miffed CLOD's challenge. It resulted from reading in the rector's March newsletter that this November "One Hand Dan" is slated to ordain the Rev. Mr. Nkamuke Okechukwu to the priesthood.

The Rev. Mr. Nkamuke, a Nigerian national, will no doubt return to his homeland to promote the traditional Catholic faith and offer the sacraments (unless the SW Ohio cult needs another gofer in holy orders and sees fit to co-opt him like so many other unfortunates). Africa, as we all know, may be the last bastion of Christian resistance to Modernism. Christianity in all its forms is flourishing there, and the continent promises a far more fertile ground for the traditional Catholic faith than does post-Christian Europe or secularized, cult-enthralled America. In addition, the rumor mill has it that the Rev. Mr. Nkamuke may have been tapped to receive the episcopacy some day so that Africa will have its own traditional bishop and not need to rely on high-living, neo-colonialist, fortune-hunting prelatasters from the U.S. or Europe.

Therefore, it is of paramount importance that no doubts at all, not even the slimmest, attach to this young cleric's priestly orders. If, as the rector and eight other priests affirmed in 1990, Dannie was ordained a priest with one hand only, then there was a defect in his ordination. Now, if that defect is essential, then it has to be remedied, especially if one must be a valid priest first in order to be validly consecrated a bishop, as Merkelbach -- a rector favorite -- holds.* In other words, if  "One Hand" is not a bishop, then he can't validly confer the priesthood on the Rev. Mr. Nkamuke in November; if that's the case, then countless traditional Catholics in Africa will be deprived of valid sacraments: their immortal souls will be in jeopardy. (At least in the U.S., we can find unquestionably valid priests outside the cult, for we have many valid bishops, and more are on on the way, from what we hear).

Of course, it won't be sorted out until the Restoration. There are just too many if's to know anything for certain.   Better to play it safe. The Blunderer's defense of one-handed orders, with its scandalous mistranslation and other deficiencies, must be dismissed out of hand as useless. Moreover, in Sedeville there are no professionally trained theologians anyway to give it a competent try, and Trad World wouldn't accept an opinion written by anyone outside the cult, no matter how impressive his credentials. Therefore, inasmuch as "One Hand" is highly unlikely to seek conditional ordination to banish all doubts -- and shut us up -- there is only one option: 

Descend upon the rector's inbox and mailbox with fervent petitions that he himself, not "One-Hand," ordain the Rev. Mr. Nkamuke to the priesthood.

Make no mistake about it: when a question concerns the validity of the sacraments, one must follow the safer course in matters of doubt. As we'll see, contrary to what the ever-wrong Blunderer wrote, there IS sufficient doubt about one-handed ordinations to command our adherence to the safer course. Blindly supposing that "One-Hand" is a validly ordained priest as well as a valid bishop is simply not a safe course. In fact, it's morally unsafe, for there is too great a risk of losing eternal life without valid sacraments.

Don't believe anyone who tells you that the question of one-handed ordination is settled.  Indeed, owing to Tony the Blunderer's mortally flawed monograph, the matter is now as wide open as on September 21, 1990, when the rector and the other priests put their signatures to their ad cautelam letter to "One-Hand."

Over the ensuing weeks, we'll be posting additional information, arguments, and considerations about one-handed orders. (We've already posted a detailed analysis of the Blunderer's embarrassing mistranslation here.**) Meanwhile, we ask you to join the crusade to assure that the Rev. Mr. Nkamuke will return to his country a validly ordained priest and never have to worry about his orders' being called into question. (CLODs can assist, too, for if, like Pharoah's, rector's heart is hardened, they might, with enough pluck, be able to persuade a sniveling "One-Hand" to seek conditional ordination and consecration for the good of souls. He's rapidly losing the little influence he used to enjoy in France (oh, yes, big troubles there, just wait for the news!), so he just might be persuaded to do the right thing over here.

Here's where you can contact the rector to intervene. Plead with him, beg him, beseech him not to allow "One-Hand Dan" to "ordain" the guiltless and worthy Rev. Mr. Nkamuke:

Most Holy Trinity Seminary

1000 Spring Lake Highway, Brooksville FL 34602

352.799.0541

bpsanborn2002@yahoo.com

*For a very brief discussion of diverse opinions on this issue, see our 10/9/11 post One-Hand Redux.

**To summarize the chief argument briefly: Pius XII's Latin absolutely does not translate as "The matter of the Sacred Orders of Diaconate, Priesthood, and Episcopacy is one and the same and that indeed is the imposition of hands," as the Latin-challenged Blunderer asserts. The correct translation is "the matter, and the only matter, of the Sacred Orders of the Diaconate, the Priesthood, and the Episcopacy is the imposition of hands." (Be sure to read footnote 1 at the end of our document: it exposes the Blunderer's unwarranted addition of words that were never in the original).

CARDINAL POINTS

"Are you lost, daddy," I asked tenderly. "Shut up," he explained. Ring Lardner

In his March 2013 MHT Newsletter, the rector labeled the current Sacred College of Cardinals as "an extraordinary collection of losers." While it may be true that the college is no longer Catholic, its members are far better educated than the insult-spitting rector who's only allowed admission to the déclassé Traddie peanut gallery. As we've seen before, despite all his posturing, he simply can't get his ecclesiastical terminology correct. His turgid rant against the pupurati Patres contains two serious, though seemingly minor, errors, both of which lay bare his terminal amateurism: He's manifestly lost in alien, unfamiliar terrain where he can't quite get his bearings.

We stepped on the first of the gut-churning, steaming-hot errors where he writes of the "cardinalatial losers." Oh, for sure, cardinalatial rolls unctuously, even luxuriantly off the tongue, like the even-running cadence of the cursus planus -- DUM didi DUM di -- and the malapropism rhymes with palatial, a descriptor dear to the sordidly aspirational sede big dogs.  Also, it sounds impressive: a polysyllabic adjective, very technical looking, very elegant, the kind of word a real Roman churchman would use. Yes, indeedy doo-doo, we can imagine how the Traddie Trash reacted when the newsletter arrived at their trailers:

"Car-dinn-uh-laayy-shul! Yee-haw! That ol' rector's the jen-you-wine article, ain't 'ee, Ma? Let's us raid the youngins' milk money 'n' make a another dough-naayy-shun!"

Trouble is ... like "One-Hand" and the Blunderer... he isn't the real thing, and his spelling of the word is sooo wrong. The right form is cardinalitial, with an i, not an a.* What's funny is that the right spelling retains (for the unschooled) all the meretricious attractions of the wrong. That means the rector could've gotten it right and still been able to show off for the spellbound riff-raff. (Maybe that's why the word rhymes with artificial.) Instead, he chose to count on his own very imperfect knowledge...and thereby embarrassed himself once again, as usual.

His foul smelling, groaning number 2 error, a bilious slurry of ignorance, is even more gross. Take a deep breath and look closely (if you've got the stomach) at what he rector wrote!

 "As the Novus Ordo Cardinal of Buenos Aires, Bergoglio tried to persuade..."

As educated Catholics remember it, there is no such animal as the cardinal of Buenos Aires (or of any other city for that matter): there's only an archbishop of Buenos Aires. Informally the incumbent may be called the "cardinal-archbishop" of Buenos Aires (if he's got a "red hat"), but never the cardinal of Buenos Aires. Except for the cardinal-bishops of the suburbicarian dioceses, the other cardinals -- the cardinal-priests and the cardinal-deacons -- strictly belong to the diocese of Rome, albeit many of them are also the supreme ecclesiastical rulers of dioceses located away from Rome. (Cardinals who were not ordinaries were bound to reside in Rome.) Hence, Bergoglio as archbishop belonged to the metropolitan see of Buenos Aires as its ordinary, a diocesan bishop with authority over other bishops. When he was first installed there in 1998, he was only a bishop; after his creation as cardinal in 2001, he was the bishop of Buenos Aires and the cardinal-priest of San Roberto Bellarmino in the diocese of Rome, where in the latter capacity he had the duty to serve as a counselor to the pope and to elect his successor.

This is elementary. It should be reflex knowledge** in any Catholic clergyman (but sadly not in Traddielandia). The foul error is just more evidence that the rector and his running buddies are far from being the real McCoy. Let hard-shell, nose-picking, cultie misfits think the rector and his sidekicks are erudite. The rest of us know better. The cult masters' compass direction differs significantly from the true Catholic heading: there's simply too much variation and deviation error to rely on their broken instrument to land-navigate without losing one's way the treacherous geography of the prolonged crisis in the Church.

If attending the cult's Masses is convenient for you, then by all means do it. However, when the rector and/or his down-market, Toon-Town, clown-posse speak, just blissfully turn a deaf ear.

You won't miss a thing, and you surely won't get lost.


* Like the rector, many other undereducated writers, having in mind the word cardinalate, guess in their incapacitating ignorance that the adjective form of the word cardinal is "cardinalatial." However, a good American unabridged dictionary or the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary will supply the correct form, at least for anyone motivated enough to look it up. Naturally, people who actually can and do read  papal and curial documents in the original Latin have often come across the phrase dignitas cardinalitia, which serves as a corrective to the regularly seen vulgar error of uninformed English-speakers. Additionally, educated people who understand Latin word-formation realize that the suffix is added to the stem cardinal-, not  to cardinalat- (the -ate of "cardinalate" is itself the suffix of office -ātu). But the rector doesn't know these things, hence the nasty, hot mess.

** He made this stinker of an error a second time in the same newsletter mailing: "Available on the Internet for all to watch is a video of a children's Mass in Buenos Aires when he was Cardinal" (read archbishop or, informally, cardinal-archbishop, if the event occurred after his elevation).

EACH TO HIS CHOICE

There is a tide in the affairs of men,/Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;/Omitted, all the voyage of their life/Is bound in shallows and in miseries. Shakespeare.

Editor's Note: Last week we promised to share yet another instance of the rector's scholarly deficiency. We'll put off that post until next time in light of a highly publicized incident that took place last week.

Every day, human beings get a chance to make the right choice, to stand on the side of the angels. Occasionally, perhaps only once in a lifetime, Providence presents us with a challenge to moral greatness. Often the decision to make that right choice, to join the saints, leads to ruin in this life; sometimes, however, immense temporal rewards can result from a morally principled decision.

Take the case of Tiger Woods last week. What would have happened if, after the exposure of his admitted violation of the rules of golf, he had immediately disqualified himself on the grounds that the integrity of the game and his reputation meant more than the thousands (or tens of thousands) of dollars he stood to gain if he continued play at the 2013 Masters?

The answer's easy: Tiger would have become an ethical rock star.

Mr. and Mrs. America, ever eager to pardon celebrity, would have forgiven all the bimbos and forgotten the lurid gossip. Tiger would have been washed in the laver of televised public redemption. Glib, blow-dried sportscasters would have choked up; silver-haired grannies would have wept; solemn pundits would have filled the airwaves and cyberspace with gravely pondered admiration. Perhaps the President would have gratuitously intruded himself to pontificate on the supreme importance of good character in today’s virtue-starved world.

What Fortune 500 company, what Wall-Street financial powerhouse, what deodorant manufacturer, for that matter, would not have stood in line with fabulously lucrative endorsement offers for good ol' Tiger, the straight arrow, the man of transcendent rectitude, the Honest Abe Lincoln of the links?

But he didn’t step up. He didn’t take Nick Faldo’s advice to think about “the mark this will leave on his career, his legacy.” He passively-aggressively explained how he moved the ball back two yards; he parsed his admission in terms of the right yardage; and finally (and predictably)  he “respected” the decision of the (ratings motivated?) Augusta rules committee to invoke a special-circumstances rule so he could play on through the weekend.

In a nutshell, he blew the ethics championship. Now he’ll be remembered for both the bimbos AND the weaseling. (And he didn’t even finish in the top three.)*

Before we consider how all this applies to Sedeville's panjandrums, let’s examine one more case from the sports world. At the 2004 Olympics,  Paul Hamm’s gold medal in the men’s gymnastics all-around was called into question. A South Korean had been incorrectly scored and should have won the gold.  Although the International Federation of Gymnasts (FIG) decided not to change the results, the body suggested that if Hamm would return his 

medal to the Korean if the FIG requested it, then such an action would be recognized as the ultimate demonstration of fair-play by the whole world. The FIG and the IOC [International Olympic Committee] would highly appreciate the magnitude of this gesture.

But star-crossed Hamm, no doubt pressured by the narrow interests of the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC), steadfastly and defiantly turned down his golden opportunity to be magnanimous. 

Hamm had been in talks with General Mills to appear on the Wheaties cereal box, but nothing came of it after the controversy. One can only imagine the other opportunities that would have opened up to him had he told his medal-counting USOC minders to stand down as he stood up for what was right. He might not have become the spokes-jock for “The Breakfast of Champions,” but countless other deep-pocketed enterprises would have knocked down his door to sign up the poster boy of good sportsmanship.

His refusal perhaps explains his descent. The last report we read was that Hamm had been arrested in Upper Arlington, Ohio, accused of assault. He was heard on police video admitting he'd had about eight drinks. As Hamm sat handcuffed in the back of a cruiser, he asked police to release him and protested, "I don't understand. I'm gonna kill you guys." Now in people's minds he's another one of life's losers: the media had him for breakfast, and he's definitely not a champion.

Like Tiger and Hamm, the rector, too, had his singular moment of choice in November and December of 2009. He should have demanded that “One-Hand” remove the principal, discipline the Blunderer for his active role in the whole mess, and restore the individuals he unjustly fired after first begging their pardon before the entire cult membership: if “One-Hand” were to refuse, the rector would then denounce him publicly and cut off the supply of indentured servants from the swampland. Instead, the rector helped “One-Hand” circle the wagons. He sent a letter to advise a former benefactor to resume donations -- the pesthouse, mind you,  was also a recipient of the lost largess -- and another to argue (rather snarkily, we think) lest “One-Hand” and the Blunderer be reduced to working as big-box-store greeters. Yet the rector provided more than written aid and comfort: he allowed "One-Hand" to host a retreat for the pesthouse inmates, where they bowed, scraped, and waited on the embattled cult master (as he later reported when he got back to the wobbly Traddie Trash of SW Ohio).

For his miscalculation, the rector received some unexpectedly harsh replies to his missives from the laity. (He thought he was untouchable back in those days.)  In fact, he was unceremoniously taken to the woodshed by one very educated layman. But far worse than the verbal thrashing he endured was the permanent loss of traditional Catholics' esteem. He showed he didn't have the right stuff: The rector laid an egg in the moral theater.

He'll never escape the ignominy. Had the rector stepped up to the plate, he would have been the toast of Traddielandia -- and doubtlessly the financial beneficiary of all that fuzzy, gooey, Traddie good will. Even more to his advantage, his flaws and the pesthouse's terminal defects would have remained uncovered. (You know, a forgotten consecration, historical and linguistic errors, a botched graveside service, a hurried late-night exodus after a manic screamfest, the invention of mortal sins, etc.) Maybe, just maybe, he would have been able to get his big $30 K beggar's plan off the ground.

He turned his nose up at a once-in-a-lifetime chance and chose ruin instead. No wonder the sede cult is flatlining in 2013.

*Tiger’s behavioral resemblance to the cult masters of Traddielandia is eerie. When speaking of the Friday slow-play penalty assessed against a 14 year old middle-school competitor from China -- a penalty seldom invoked against the old pros -- Tiger quipped, “Well, rules are rules.” Just like the sede cult masters! Some individuals are indeed more equal than others and consequently above the law.

CARTOON OF THE MISBEGOTTEN

You're dethpicable! Daffy Duck

In the four years or so since "One-Hand Dan" suicidally delivered the death blow to his and the rector's stick-figure brand of sede-ism, all the cult's cartoonish claims have been unveiled as utter fictions, the cheesy product of reckless aspiration, fit only for the consumption of quickly duped hayseeds and profoundly warped social outcasts. The biggest of the myths -- and it was a real whopper, believe you us! -- was the brazen narrative of legacy and legitimacy.

The Toon-Town cult masters weren't content to insist they were the best of the motley and scattered sede characters. No. That was too relative. They wanted to be the best absolutely. In fact, they went for equivalency with the past: In their minds, they definitely were identical to the pre-conciliar Church. With this fiction in hand, they devoted all their meager talents and a great amount of the suckers' contributions to convincing the gullible, the guileful, and the thuggish into agreeing they were the real McCoy, that they had the right stuff, that they were -- how shall we put it? Ah, yes! -- dinkum (as some of their abettors might say).

And, for a while, you know, it really, really worked. 

The unsavory clergy got a pass on all their antics because they had marketed themselves, with a wink and a nod and a tongue-clucking, chin-wagging, mock coyness, as the genuine article. Through the alchemy of phony self-promotion, intellectual wooden nickels were circulated as coin of the realm in Traddielandia. The one-dimensional Blunderer was passed off as a scholar, a liturgist, a Latinist, and a theologian of the first water. (We can scarcely type without laughing -- or retching!)  Nowadays, irrationally driven by his ticlike hatred of his better-educated critics, the marginalized Blunderer stalks internet chatrooms talkin' trash (only to be firmly put, time and again, in his place by intellectually superior laymen).

The irrascible rector once also had a big, exaggerated rep. Why, he was not only the embodiment of pre-conciliar standards but also was a penetrating socio-political analyst to boot -- until "One-Hand's" folly brought about his exposure as "the great pretender."

Li'l "One Hand" was largely inked as an individual of wide culture, a connoisseur of fine cuisine, a man of letters, an accomplished orator, and a large-souled, kindly, gentleman-prelate, overflowing with grandfatherly blarney and ersatz-Hibernian good will. Better still, he was (almost) a Fulton Sheen redivivus -- but only better. (Oh, indeed, yes, they all thought.) Well, his behavior in late 2009 ripped off that mask.

As for the "sermon in stone" LOL -- we mean the crumbling cult center -- it was to be a destination site, where toothless, pink-eyed Traddie trogs, awestruck at this grimy, sede Shangri-la, could see what a Catholic church was really supposed to look like. (Yeah, right! Engineers predict it won't last another decade. But the cult will be finished well before the authorities condemn the structure.)

Oh, yes (we can almost hear the cult masters whisper to one another), they were the heirs of pre-conciliar Catholicism, and that gave them the right -- correction, the bounden duty -- to call the shots, to play the stern, little Miss Bossy-Boots, even if they knew they had no right. But they knew the people didn't know, and, soooo (they must have mused in triumph), who were they to dash the masochistic dreams of the sheep, anyway? Everything considered, you see, it was all for their own salvation, wasn't it? People need direction, don't they now! And, well (they would have concluded, with a flourish of the whip hand), that's what we were ordained for, right? Why else would the archbishop have gainsaid wiser heads?

Looking back, it's hard to imagine how so many Catholics fell for this caricature of the sacred priesthood and hierarchy. It was all just make-believe, and considerably less real and credible than Max Fleischer's Koko the Clown and his dog.  At the very best, it was nothing more than liturgical performance art.

Live and learn, we always say. The point is, it's all over now, thanks to "One Hand." Even the cult's supporters don't really believe the myth any longer. It's broken. Sure, they may still show up and surrender some cash, but in the back of their empty, troubled, bigoted minds lurks gnawing doubt. And why not? Trad World has come a long way since 2009.

First, we know that the under-credentialed Blunderer doesn't rise to the level of an ungifted amateur. His Work of Human Hands has been shown to be a sloppy, error-filled, ill-written piece of junk scholarship. His other endeavors, like trying to prove one-handed ordinations are kosher, have also been annihilated. Second, "One Hand" is not the urbane and cultivated churchman portrayed in the cult's puerile marketing campaign. (He may not even be a bishop if his one-handed priestly ordination proves to be invalid in the eyes of the institutional Church.) Third, the rector's unschooled errors of technical language and fact underscore that everything was just hype (and they explain the systematic malformation of his pesthouse completers).*  Maybe that's why his big $30K proposal was dead on arrival. Lastly, we know that the mirthless cult center proper, decaying visibly by the month in a shabby industrial park, is a shoddily constructed white elephant and bottomless money pit. Everything these cartoon characters did was motivated by an icy, arriviste ambition to get ahead on your dime.

Everyone at last understands that the cult masters are not-- and never were -- the exquisites of their over-wrought and under-informed imaginations.** Rather than haute cuisine, the wannabes would prefer to scarf up an oily, roiling bowl of fondue Néo-Mexicaine*** washed down with a couple of aggressively effervescent "big 24 oz." plastic bottles of Château de "Phaigeaux."**** All that collection money spent on chic restaurants -- *sigh!* -- was just image-making to keep the hill jacks in awe (and deep in debt).

Comical "One Hand" brought an end to these Traddie Toons. In the words of the immortal Porky Pig ... well, we'll let him speak for himself: (click here)

* We've got a hot, steaming, fetid, fresh example or two of his ignorance for next week. So, come on back!

** There's a very telling anecdote of the time when a small group of Traddie-trash clerics went to an Italian-American restaurant in Michigan. The owner, mistaking the priests for men of taste and experience, sent them over a complimentary plate of fried calamari. It went untouched, but not until after two barbarian ingrates giggled and grimaced in disgust. One of their table companions, a South American of Italian descent, was too intimidated to sample what he knew to be a fine dish.  He chickened out and allowed the uncouth losers to deprive him of a fine dining experience.  That's the cult for you! The lowest common denominator rules.

*** That's microwaved, store-brand processed cheese smothered with a bottle of extra-mild generic salsa, served with extra-salty, no-name, imitation tortilla chips.

****A richly sweetened, grape-flavored beverage imported from Detroit made from a variety "that goes 'pop'" when trodden "in a vat."

SURVIVING THE SEDES: TIP 3

Editor's Note: The third and last installment of the series.

TODAY'S SURVIVAL TIP

QUESTIONABLE COUNSELORS

The sermon (i.e., "presentation") and the confessional are the two chief dangers to the faith for most people who assist at a cult chapel. For some needy souls, however, a graver peril awaits: a counseling session about personal problems with a cult master or one of the brow-beaten apprentices. If the malformed completers and their money-obsessed mentors do not have a firm grasp of Latin, moral theology, Church history, dogmatics, Biblical languages, and scholastic philosophy, you may not expect them to know anything about pastoral theology. Furthermore, you can never be sure that confidences you entrust won't be used subsequently to manipulate you to become "more generous" or to micromanage your personal, family, and social life. You must ask yourself whether you are certain that the intimate personal knowledge cult leaders may capture from a counseling session will ever  be used covertly against you if you don't cooperate, if you resist their demands, if you raise a moral objection to bad form. Remember the history of cults: a large proportion of victims eventually ends up leaving in anger, self-loathing, and disgust. Here's how you can avoid leaving your secrets behind you.


There is only one step: never seek counseling from cultists. If you ever have a personal problem for which you must seek another's guidance, find a licensed professional counselor who is sympathetic to the emotional and psychological needs of a believer and who can formulate a therapy within a religious framework. There are many such ethical practitioners. They may not be sedes or Traddies, but even a good-willed Manchu shaman with a diploma from a recognized university and national certification can help you more than malformed, self-absorbed, agenda-driven sede cultists. Click here to start your search.