THE POISON PEN

And forthi, who that hath an hed of verre,/Fro cast of stones war hym in the werre! Chaucer*

The optics are always harsh in brutish Traddielandia. The feral cult masters never weary of beastly mischief-making and hypocrisy. For all their transparent efforts to appear benevolent, their lupine instincts ever find a way to manifest themselves. By nature, they cannot forbear from breeding dissension and alarming the laity in their manic drive for a control long ago lost to them.

Pistrina received an example of a recent effort to disturb the spiritual peace of a distant Catholic community. "One Hand Dan" sent a letter dated November 21, 2013, to a body of laymen (below we print his very words in blue). It contains a scurrilous attack on a young priest, in which a foaming Li'l Dan enviously snarled, "we should not even consider this man a valid priest." (His emphasis.) In every way, Dannie's vile letter is a classic example of the pot's calling the kettle black.

We'll revisit this nasty-gram again during 2014, but for today we limit our remarks to the reasons "One Hand" alleges for eliminating the man "from consideration as a Catholic priest." You'll see how Dannie convicts himself while he savagely struggles to impugn a Catholic priest whose possession of the priesthood is more certain than his own.

Just for laughs, we'll entertain the fiction that canon law operates. Of course, you and we know that, in the Sede Vacante, the 1917 Codex Juris Canonici has no more force than Hammurabi's code does in modern Iraq or the XII Tables** in today's Lazio. But, since "One Hand" brazenly invokes the code to legitimize his unprovoked, animalistic attack, we'll appeal to it, too, in order to expose his hypocrisy.

THE BEAST BITES ITS OWN BACK

Wee Dan charges that the young priest is canonically unfit according to c. 974.1. That's a particularly embarrassing accusation for Dannie to make considering his own track record.  In 2012, "One-Hand Dan" himself ordained to the priesthood a man (1) who “had never completed a seminary academic program which properly tested his knowledge in Latin, Philosophy or Theology according to the mind of the Church as set forth in canon law and papal documents,”*** (2) who had never followed “a seminary rule,” and (3) who had never demonstrated “the requisite regularity of life” by attending a seminary, not even the grossly deficient swampland pesthouse. The man merely studied for a while under a busy priest who runs an active chapel.

Now, folks, at best that's a tutorial, not a seminary!

This man later separated from that priest and then studied "independently" for a short time at the cult center before "One Hand" ordained him a priest at his home chapel on the East Coast. Shortly afterwards, he abandoned that chapel to return to the SW Ohio cult center. (That's an instructive story in itself, which deserves a full telling someday on this blog.)

WHAT ARE WE TO THINK?

The following questions immediately come to mind:

In light of Dannie's opinion, should this man, who now works at the cult center and its missions, not be considered a priest?

Additionally, since Dannie wrote,"a bishop who ordains such a candidate 'sins most gravely' (c. 973.3)," did Dan himself, then, sin mortally by ordaining such a man? Did he commit "a sin 'against the public good, which is harmed exceedingly by unworthy ministers' (Regatillo, Jus Sacramentum, 919)"? 

 Or, is rule-tweaking "One-Hand Dan" exempt from the severe standards by which he condemns others? 

LET'S LOOK AT THE CODE OURSELVES

Now if, in spite of the inherent absurdity, canonical fitness is to be a standard in the Sede Vacante, then we must consider Dannie’s own worthiness for the episcopacy. Canon 331 sets forth several criteria whereby we may judge his canonical fitness, four of which are:

✭ A doctorate or at least a licentiate in sacred theology acquired from a school approved by
the Holy See;

✭ Good character;

✭ Zeal for souls;

✭ Prudence.

Dannie possesses no advanced degree or a license from an approved institution. He has never demonstrated in the public forum that he is well-versed in the sacred sciences or canon law. As for his character, in his own state and in the city where he resides, there are many former members of his chapels who hold him in deepest contempt, as do many clergy throughout North America, Latin America, and Europe. He did not display zealousness for souls when his meddling a few years ago in Chambéry, France, resulted in a well-loved priest's departure from the little chapel there.  Likewise, at the cult center in 2008 and 2009, he did not exercise prudence when, by refusing to discipline an errant employee, his chapel was irremediably divided in the wake of the calamitous SGG School scandal.

A MOST CONVENIENT OVERSIGHT

The letter’s most laughable charges are those leveled against the licitness and validity of the young man's priestly orders. To our great amusement, "One Hand" appears to have forgotten that his own consecration and ordination as well as the 14 ordinations he has conferred over the years are themselves, strictly speaking, illicit and hence “an act that church law considered mortally sinful.”

His episcopal candidacy in the United States was never proposed by the Holy See through the Apostolic Delegate nor approved by a vote of the Bishops in his province. Like all sedevacantist clergy, "One Hand’s" orders are illicit in the strict sense. At best, he's a mere episcopus vagans with no jurisdiction, no authority, and no mandate from the institutional Church -- that is, if he is a bishop at all: there's no guarantee that the defect of a one-handed ordination is accidental, and remember: he's never obtained conditional orders to cure the defect and end all speculation.

WHAT WAS HE THINKING WHEN HE WROTE TO THOSE PEOPLE?

If his hateful missive weren't so destructively mischievous, you'd feel sorry for such an absence of self-awareness. He sounds like a malign and embittered orphan cruelly taunting a fatherless child for having a single mother. The normal person wonders how "One Hand" cannot see his own exposure to the very charges he laid against the young priest. But, then, if he could, he wouldn't be in the predicament he is, would he? One's true character will always prevail.

Popular culture, sociology, psychology, and psychiatry all have terms to describe such lost souls. Feel free to select the one you feel most apropos, for they all capture a behavior condemned and ridiculed in the real world.

A LEOPARD CAN'T CHANGE ITS SPOTS

You'll note that we were amused at his hypocrisy, but not astonished. We know all the cult masters too well. They refuse to practice what they preach. Another pregnant example is the case of Dannie's not seeking re-ordination after the nine priests denounced his one-handed ordination. Repetition of his priestly orders should have been the first solution to his dilemma, if he had truly believed the words of the 1984 "A Statement of Principles in a Time of Crisis," to which he, Checkie, and "Big Don" subjoined their names along with those of nine other priests:

In the practical order, in the course of our pastoral activity, the Church obliges us to require the reiteration according to the traditional rites, either conditionally or absolutely, as the case may be, of any sacrament conferred in a doubtful or invalid manner. We refer the final determination of the validity or invalidity of the doubtful sacraments to the judgment of the Church when a normal state or affairs shall be restored.

If principles are truly principles in the Catholic sense, then (we're sure you'd agree) they must apply in every case that falls under the language used. In other words, principles must stand above any law of convenience.

But we know better, don't we? It's always only about the cult masters, and principles must be bent or broken or reformulated to suit their ad-hoc needs.

In Trad World's bleak and fatal woods, where dark-souled clerics prowl and brood, one law alone there rules: unprincipled expediency.

*Lit: "And, therefore, let him who has a head of glass beware of hurling stones in battle."

** A pity for chapels mismanaged by money squandering cultmasters that V.7 is not universally in force: prodigo interdicitur bonorum suorum administratio,"a spendhrift is forbidden the administration of his own goods."

*** We wonder how much philosophy Dannie himself has studied and knows. It would be nice to get him to answer that question on the record. We think older priests who know him well would be interested in his answer.

LEAPIN' LIZARDS, PART 4

All I did was tell you - you did the rest. Little Orphan Annie, the comic strip.

After three weeks, we're sure most of you get the idea: It's more than just possible that "One Hand Dan's" consecration did not assure his possession of the priesthood, if the defective one-handed priestly ordination rite denounced by nine priests in 1990 failed to confect the sacrament.  And if he wasn't a priest at the time of his consecration 20 years ago, then he's not a bishop now. But in case there are a few addlebrained cultists out there who haven't yet felt the shock of recognition, we'll conclude our series by citing the opinion of the venerable Arthur Vermeersch, S.J.:

The episcopate...is a sacrament so distinct from the simple presbyterate that not only do inferior priests lack the power conferred by episcopal consecration, but also, at least according to several [authors], that the episcopate does not contain the simple priesthood, [lacuna in original print version] priestly ordination having been bypassed, it would be invalidly conferred... (Author's emphasis.)*

Li'l Dan's reflexive defenders should realize they have to persuade him to see his way clear to undergoing conditional ordination and consecration. "One Hand" must for once consider the needs of the laity and act to relieve their unease. Read, now, with pious eyes the words of Henry Davis, S.J., on this matter (bold-face emphases ours):

…whenever a prudent doubt based on probable reasons persists regarding the validity of a Sacrament bestowed, that Sacrament may be repeated (c. 732,2), and it is to be observed that when the good of others is at stake or the mental anxiety of the recipient is concerned, repetition may the more readily be conceded.  The repetition of the Sacrament ought to be done where its validity is doubted — or rather, so long as its validity is not morally certain — in cases when the Sacrament is necessary, whether absolutely and of its nature, as Baptism, or relatively and in respect of the good of others, as Ordination, absolution, Extreme Unction. Consequently, in doubt as to validity, Baptism, Ordination, absolution of the dying, Extreme Unction of the unconscious, and consecration of doubtfully consecrated hosts, must be repeated.*

The holier-than-thou culties out there who breathlessly rhapsodize on the necessity of true sacraments need to get their act together if they really believe all the lovely pieties they repeat. If Catholics are truly obliged to do anything necessary to assure access to true sacraments, then "One Hand" had better do his part to make sure there isn't the tiniest sliver of doubt about those he administers. So far, he doesn't appear to have done anything to remedy the defect, so it's time for brow-beaten cultists to stand tall before diminutive Dan. 

We ask them to tell Wee "One-Hand" that he's got to get fixed for the good of souls. Instruct him that Cekada's error-filled, bush-league monograph on one-handed orders is toast. (Actually, Catholic prudence dictates that, for the good of others, even if gross mistranslation, faulty scholarship, slovenly mistranscription, and shameless special pleading had not impeached the Blunderer's article, Dannie should have sought re-ordination before his consecration two decades ago, just to be perfectly safe: it's the Catholic way, you know.)

Without appeal to that now discredited monograph, "One Hand" can no longer be morally certain of the validity of his priesthood and episcopate. Culties still capable of acting on conscience are obliged to insist that the faithful must have unqualified confidence in the validity of the sacraments they receive from his hands, even if he doesn't give a tinker's damn for the integrity of his own orders. Let him know that if he refuses to put the faithful before self, you will withdraw all financial and material support.

DO IT, IF NOT FOR YOURSELF, THEN, AS DANNIE'S BEEN KNOWN TO SAY, "DO IT FOR THE CHILDREN."

* Theologia Moralis, III, (Università Gregoriana, 3rd Edition), p.554, ❡619.  Episcopatus ... est sacramentum a simplici presbyteratu ita distinctum ut non tantum inferiores sacerdotes careant potestate collata per consecrationem episcopalem, sed etiam, saltem secundum plures, ut episcopatus simplicem presbyrteratum non contineat, [lacuna of 8 characters in printed text] praetermissa ordinatione sacerdotali, invalide conferretur... (Author's emphasis.)

*Moral and Pastoral Theology, Volume Three, (Sheed and Ward, 1943), p. 25.

LEAPIN' LIZARDS, PART 3

Aw, why lose sleep over a bird like that. He sure looks like a bad one. Little Orphan Annie, the comic strip

We're continuing in the same vein as in the past weeks to show you we don't need to cherry-pick in order to make our point about "One Hand's" urgent need of conditional ordination and consecration, provided he wants to play it safe as a Catholic should. Today, let's see what the Jesuit Noldin had to say about jumping to the episcopate without valid priestly orders.

As late as 1960, the editor of the 32nd edition of Noldin's Summa Theologiae Moralis still could print the following:

Whether the episcopate is an order distinct from the presbyterate or a kind of extension and complement of the priesthood itself, is disputed. Nevertheless, it is more commonly affirmed that, when the priesthood has not yet been conferred, the episcopate cannot be validly conferred.*

So here we have another vote backing Pistrina's advice to "One Hand."  It's surely clear by now why Dannie's episcopal orders may not be enough. Oh, sure, the whole question of the leap is in dispute, and admittedly, we lack sufficient information to determine with certainty whether one-handed priestly orders are valid or not. And we won't know anything substantial until the Restoration, and maybe even then the world may have to wait for who knows how long to get a definitive decision. So, then ... wouldn't it just be better all around to play it safe now to assure the integrity of Dannie's Masses, absolutions, and ordinations, especially since the fix is so painless and easy? Wouldn't it also be better for the 14 sorry losers he "ordained"? Dannie could then re-ordain them all and ease their painful future.

And since we've cited the mighty Noldin in this post, we might as well hear what he has to say about the famous axiom in dubio pars tutior eligenda est -- "in doubt, the safer side must be chosen."

The Blunderer and his aping chorus of insolent e-viewers insist the axiom "applies only to a choice between a morally safe course of action and a morally unsafe one" (Cheeseball's emphasis.)  However, Noldin (p. 220, ❡236 [β]) instructs us that the axiom applies "where it is a question of the validity of the sacrament (ubi agitur de valore sacramenti)." Indeed, "where...it is a question of a matter on which the validity of a sacrament depends, the certain means must be chosen (ubi...agitur de re, a qua valor sacramenti dependet, eligendum est medium certum)."

In other words, we are bound to follow the safer course when the validity of a sacrament is at stake, which is what we, and many others, have been saying all along. And since we don't know for sure whether one-handed conferral of priestly orders is an invalidating defect or not, this is the right occasion to opt for the safer side. The sacraments are just too important to run any risk at all, even a slight one. (Although, we suspect, the defect of one-handed ordination renders the risk more than slight, particularly in view of the Holy Office's documented practice of re-consecration in related questions.)

"One Hand" has a duty of care to get himself fixed because the risk of being wrong in this matter touching upon the sacrament of orders carries so many deadly consequences. His failure to do so is telling. It illustrates how far removed the cult masters are from a genuinely Catholic frame of mind. Rather than seeking conditional orders and consecration, i.e., acting in the interest of the care of souls (the first law), Dannie thinks that by repeating over and over that he's producing undoubtedly valid priests, everybody will ignore his BIG problem. (Just read a sampling of some of his recent missives -- you'll catch the motif immediately.)

And why won't he get fixed? Pride? Arrogance? Fear of wounding the perpetually wrong Bonehead's feelings? Insouciance? Sloth? A gambler's love of risk-taking? A constitutional antipathy to the exquisite Roman sense of justice, charity, and religion?

Nobody knows the real answer, but it's obvious that the whole cult is no more than just-pretend Catholicism. The brilliant constellation of precise knowledge, spiritual disposition, and rightly motivated action that furnish true Catholic guidance is simply not present in Trad World's pitchy firmament. No amount of dolly-dress-up pageants and cloyingly saccharine missives can make up for its absence.

Just-pretend priests and prelates. Ersatz clerics. Make-believe seminaries.  Sham scholars.  Phony theologians. In counterfeit Cultilandia, these cheap knock-offs are seemingly good enough as long as the money keeps coming in. Just don 't you try giving the cult masters any wooden nickels! They themselves may be bogus, but they insist on genuine coin of the realm from their blinded and undemanding followers. Your prayers or straitened finances won't buy European trips with fancy hotels, wintertime South-American junkets, and chic desert-spa vacations.

Sick of the pretense and hypocrisy? Repelled by the theater of hauteur and the impertinent expectation of unmerited privilege? Would you like to clean up the whole mess?

RESOLVE TO STARVE THE BEAST IN 2014.

* Summa Theologiae Moralis (32nd editiion, Felician Rauch, 1960), p. 390, ❡454,1. Utrum episcopatus sit ordo a presbyteratu distinctus, an extensio quaedam et complementum ipsius sacerdotii, disputatur. Illud tamen communius affirmatur episcopatum, nondum collato sacerdotio, valide conferri non posse.

LEAPIN' LIZARDS, PART 2

Must be wonderful to feel as big and important as that. Little Orphan Annie, the comic strip

Editor's Note: The second in our series justifying why "One-Hand Dan" must undergo conditional consecration in addition to conditional priestly ordination.

Some of our correspondents have argued that even if Dannie had not been validly ordained a priest, his subsequent episcopal consecration makes everything hunky-dory. They must think he's so important that he deserves a pass on prudent Church practice in cases such as his. (Never would've happened in the past!) You see, Dannie's enjoying the "Novus-Ordo Bonus" -- things are so bad now that nobody knows which way is right, so fine points are allowed to slide.

As we showed last week, real theologians were divided on the question of whether a man can leap to the episcopacy without intermediate valid priestly ordination. Everyone knows we've staked out the safe side of the question, but since it's just opinion, like so much in this dispute, it merits full consideration. For today and the next two weeks, we'll briefly explore other authors' opinions on the matter.

Today, let's look at what Marcelino Zalba, S.J., wrote in 1958:

It is disputed ... whether [the episcopate] contains in an eminent degree the priesthood, such that if anyone should pass over by a leap from the diaconate to the episcopate, his consecration would be valid albeit gravely illicit, just as an ordination to deacon carried out with suitable ceremony upon an acolyte not promoted to the rank of subdeacon would be valid. The negative opinion, which once was the more common, is now no longer held by certain persons of great name [with a footnote quoting Lennerz].*

Our answer is simple: while to manic culties this may look like a slam dunk for Dannie's motley team of religious and social misfits, we must draw everyone's attention to the all-important phrase it is disputed.

In the face of a disputed point in theology, the only recourse is the safer way. There's nobody so important as to induce any Catholic to risk spiritual danger just to avoid wounding Wee Dan's feelings.

"One Hand" should have rectified the problem 20 years ago with his consecrating bishop instead of dispatching the habitually erroneous Blunderer to jump into waters way out of his depth. The Bonehead's ignorance of Latin and his lousy scholarship have made the situation worse. Any reasonable man must gasp in contempt at both the author and the effort of the Cheeseball's discredited monograph in defense of priestly orders conferred with one hand. 

For the umpteenth time, we repeat: in the crisis, no one can know for certain whether priestly orders conferred with one hand are valid. However, we do know for certain that one-handed orders are at least defective in light of the infallible teaching of Sacramentum Ordinis.

The only recourse, then, is to follow the hallowed and safer practice of the Holy Office in cases of doubt: conditional ordination and consecration.

WEE "ONE HAND DAN" ISN'T IMPORTANT, BUT THE SACRAMENTS ARE. GET DANNIE FIXED AND THEN FIX THE 14 OR SO MEN HE'S "ORDAINED"!

* Theologiae Moralis Compendium, II (BAC ,1958), p. 704. Disputatur...num [episcopatus] presbyteratum eminenter contineat; ita ut si quis per saltum a diaconatu transiret ad episcopatum, eius consecratio esset valida etsi graviter illicita; sicut valida esset ordinatio in diaconum rite peracta super acolythum non promotum ad subdiaconi gradum. Sententia negativa, quae olim fuerat communior, nunc a quibusdam magni nominis non jam sustinetur.

LEAPIN' LIZARDS, PART 1

Don't it feel like the wind is always howlin'? Little Orphan Annie, the musical

For over two decades, "One Hand Dan" has been plagued by both clergy and laymen with doubts about his priestly and episcopal orders. As you know, our advice has been for him to seek both conditional ordination and consecration to put an end to any and all doubts. To our surprise (for we thought we had been clear), we learned that a pack of Dannie's drooling defenders mistakenly thinks that Pistrina recommends Dannie's conditional consecration owing to his Thục lineage.

NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH.

We've never had a quarrel with the validity of that line of priests and bishops. Our objections have more to do with their fitness. A masterly discussion authored by a formally educated layman, not a malformed priest, has put an end to all doubts about the Thục line forever. (It took a layman to do the real heavy lifting, for the cult's minor-key clerical wannabes are seriously overmatched: college-educated laity with real diplomas surpass them in every way.)

The reason for our insistence on re-consecration is based on sound theological opinion. Yes, that's right: Opinion. We won't try to pass our views off as certain, like some bouncing-off-the-wall goof balls in dog-collars we know. In the debate over the validity of priestly orders conferred with one hand, it seems that not a whole lot has been settled, in spite of Pius's best hopes. In fact, the only thing we know with absolute certainty is that the matter of the priesthood and the episcopate is the imposition of the bishop's hands and that of the diaconate is the imposition of the bishop's hand. In such a situation, opinion, not certainty, must abound.

As discerning, sophisticated Readers, we know that for almost every opinion there is a countervailing position defended by men just as well-intentioned and earnest as we are. That's normal, although some of our cult-addled interlocutors can't get their pea-brains around that notion. Our aim, then, is not to change any brainwashed cultie's mind (or the mess of confused bewitchment that passes for such). No, that's too high a hurdle even for us to clear.  Instead, we want to show the many intelligent souls in our audience the basis for our position on the safe-side of the issue. That's an easy caper.

For this first post in our new, short series, we'll own up to the fact that two sides do exist, and we won't try to vault over the opposing position, hoping you won't notice. For the sake of brevity, allow us, then, to jump in by reminding you of the argument that favors our recommendation. On August 11, we cited the Dominican Royo Marín to support our recommendation that "One Hand" be re-consecrated after his conditional ordination to the priesthood:

If there is well-founded and prudent doubt over whether or not something essential was missing, the ordination ought to be repeated sub conditione ["conditionally"], even though a higher order might have already been received, at least if it is a question of the three orders that certainly are sacrament and impress character. And so one ought to repeat sub conditione the doubtful ordination of deacon even though one may have already received the priesthood; and all the more one ought to repeat that of the priesthood even though one may have already received episcopal consecration, inasmuch as the validity of the episcopal consecation in one who may not be previously a priest is very doubtful. In this case, one would have to repeat sub conditione the two ordinations: that of priest and that of bishop.* 

However, the Spanish Jesuit Ferreres, footnoting the redoubtable Gasparri, tells us that some authorities found no problem with clerical leap-frogging:

...0thers claim with a great deal of probability that episcopal ordination confers the priesthood fully and independently of priestly ordination, and, therefore, for its validity it does not require in its subject either the presbyterate or the lower orders.**

Long-time followers of this blog will recall that just over two years ago we touched briefly on the divided opinion about orders per saltum ("by a leap").  Now may be the time to look into why we think conditional orders guarantee the safer course. Then you can decide if you should persuade Dannie to get fixed, get out of the raging gale that's sweeping his failed apostolate away, and patch up his heretofore hard-knock life. (His "ordinati" will sure be grateful.)

So hop on board the truth-express and join us next week, same Saurian time, same Saurian channel as we continue this series. (In view of the upcoming holidays, we promise to be brief.)


*Teología Moral para Seglares, II (BAC, 1961), p. 494 , ❡c: "Si hay duda fundada y prudente sobre si faltó or no algo esencial, debe repetirse sub conditione la ordenación, aunque se hubiera recibido ya una orden superior, al menos si se trata de las tres órdenes que son ciertamente sacramento e imprimen carácter. Y así debe repetirse sub conditione la ordenación dudosa de diácono aunque se haya recibido ya el sacerdocio; y con mayor motivo debe repetirse la del presbiterado aunque se haya recibido ya la consagración episcopal, por cuanto es muy dudosa la validez de la consagración episcopal en uno que no sea previamente sacerdote. En este caso habría que repetir sub conditione las dos ordenaciones: la de sacerdote y la de obispo." (Emphasis his.)
.
** Derecho Sacramental (Eugenio Subirana, 1932.)❡ 348 (1) p. 184 :"..otros pretenden con bastante probabilidad que la ordenación espicopal confiere el sacerdocio pleno e independientemente de la ordenación de presbítero, y, por tanto, para su validez no se requiere en el sujeto ni el presbiterado ni las órdenes inferiores."

BEAU GESTE

Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Finley Peter Dunne

Editor's Note: Yeah, yeah. We know we promised to launch our serial discussion of the saltus this week. But we have a good excuse for postponing it.  On Wednesday, Time magazine announced its "Person of the Year," none other than Papa Pancho. As conscientious web journalists, Pistrina's staff strives for timeliness. So we stopped the presses, so to speak, to upload right away the following seasonal meditation on the Man of the Year.  

First off, let's make one thing perfectly clear: We're ready to believe anything negative about Jorge Bergoglio. (Except, of course, for the rector's idiotic characterization of him as ignorant and stupid.) Yes, he's an enemy of the liturgy. Sure, he's probably a crypto-Marxist. Of course, he's a Modernist through and through, and he's absolutely not a Catholic. And right you are, he's a flaming heretic. No doubt about it: His mission is to put an end to whatever little of tradition remains in the corrupt Vatican Establishment.

That said, we have to confess that if his "pontificate" lasts for, say, five years, he'll drive a stake through the lucre-loving, cold-as-stone hearts of the Mammonite cult masters of Traddielandia.

Here's why.

Bergie's a past master of the affective bias, the transformative language, and the calculated media postures introduced by Vatican II. He understands how to play to the crowd, which at his level comprises the world. In other words, he's thoroughly adept at manipulating symbols and archetypes to achieve his objectives. The malformed, sub-educated, shortsighted Traddie cult masters aren't. They have neither the brains nor the will power. They're only conniving and willful.

This truth about Bergie came home to us on the morning of Saturday, December 7, 2013, during a break at an editorial meeting, when we turned, with mouths only partially filled with the vigil's sparing frustulum, to the Wall Street Journal's opinion section. We were leafing through the 'paper looking for a piece on Papa Pancho's anti-capitalist exhortation.

There, accompanying Peggy Noonnan's column, was a color photo, filling perhaps a sixth of the page. In a tight shot, Bergoglio embraces a man afflicted with neurofibromatosis, a genetic disorder. The man's features are buried in Pancho's bosom. Visible are the man's matted hair and the grotesque tumors the disorder produces. What flesh we see is an ill-stitched quilt of hideous carbuncles. For us, benumbed by revulsion, horror, and pity, the graphic pic was almost too much to stomach at breakfast time. We wanted to turn the page. Yet to a man we kept on looking, staring as though it were a rare renaissance woodcut from some early medical textbook.

Jorge Bergoglio, in profile, looks serene. No theatrical mugging to telegraph sympathy. No pursed lips or exaggerated rictus of feigned compassion aimed at the massive audience he realized was peering in at the pair of them from the other side of the lens. In that photo, and in others like it, he calmly beholds this disfigured child of God, a soul sorely tried here on earth, and cradles him as a father would an infirm, weeping son.

To the churched and the unchurched, to the maudlin and the cynical, to Bergie's fans and his ardent detractors like us, it is a shining image of the Gospel, full of pathos yet -- owing to Bergoglio's steady, unaffected gaze -- miraculously unsentimental.

Now, as we said, we'll believe anything bad about this so-called pope. We're sure the ol' Bergomeister knew the TV cameras were rolling and would capture this PR triumph. He probably planned the photo op. It wouldn't have been hard.

When we were in Rome this fall, we think we saw the poor wretch several times as we strolled up the straight and broad Via della Conciliazione on our way to St. Peter's or to the Vatican museums or to our favorite hole-in-the-wall arancini joint in the Borgo. He was just one of the many professional cripples and bums who inconveniently block the way of self-absorbed tourists. Each time we spied him, he was kneeling on the dirty sidewalk, face to the concrete, his hands -- sun-browned, filthy, gnarled -- raised above greasy wisps of blackish hair and cupped in expectation of alms.

Wincing and holding our breath, one time only, we gingerly dropped degli spiccioli -- some small change --onto his cracked, soiled palms. Then we tripped away, trusting our miserly charity and unsettling sympathy would charm away the memory of a ghastly sight on a bright, Roman autumn day. On our return hours later, we strategically crossed to the other side of the via, on the pretext of visiting the Carmelite church of Santa Maria in Traspontina, but really because we were resentful he was still there -- and  because we hadn't the courage to eye him again.

So, you see, it wouldn't have been hard for Pope Pancho to command a few Sisters of Charity to collect the beggar so he could be ready for his close-up. 

And, wow, Mr. DeMille, what a close-up it is!

Bogeyman Bergoglio the heresiarch, cunning enemy of the faith, without betraying alarm or repugnance or smugness, enfolded an unsightly --  no, let's say it to our own discredit -- appalling creature. He caressed the deformed and wounded flesh. He may have lightly kissed his forehead. He imparted the warmth of a hale, human frame to someone whom most men would regard a latter-day leper, a diseased outcast from whose slightest touch they would recoil in shivering disgust.

What a super-human act of the will! What focused purposefulness to fulfill an agenda! To herd more souls into the deadly Modernist fold, to bewitch them into believing its falsehoods, to alienate them from truth and tradition, he walked the path that only a few great saints have trodden. The whole scene might have come from some 1950's Hollywood sword-and-sandal B-movie set in Roman Judaea at the time of our Lord's ministry, except for the absent over-acting and over-wrought orchestral score.

To overcome the reflexive impulse to push the man away took real gumption. Authentic self-control. Singular self-possession. True grit.

How, we ask, can Trads defend against such an unforgettable, heart-tugging image? What can they offer as a visual response? Globe-trotting, aspirational prelates more at home at Gammarelli's than at Gethsemane? Undereducated priests hawking half-baked, scandalously cruel "theological opinions" about the Terri Schiavo tragedy? Loud-mouth bluffers in shimmering pontificals panhandling for more and more money for more ill-constructed Quonset huts in disguise?

Traddie cult masters are either busy kicking the faithful out of their chapels for attending an "una-cum" Mass, or they're breathlessly updating the bill-paying laity on their excellent adventures in fine dining and spa hopping. They spend their time planning for and practicing elaborate but largely unattended ceremonies or hatching tacky fund-raising schemes. Their preference is to comfort the well-heeled who suffer from "affluenza."

These Trad-World amateurs can't even camouflage their motives in order to achieve their ends. That's why after almost four decades they have so little to show. They haven't the steely discipline of Papa Pancho to lay aside for a higher purpose their jealousies, pet peeves, pathetic neediness, backbiting, and divisiveness. They can barely abide each other let alone suffer the gruesomely afflicted to come unto them.

That one, almost certainly stage-managed, Galilean-inspired gesture of Papa Pancho is worth a thousand ill-written, error-filled articles by half-educated phonies with no real Latin. It's worth a hundred thousand hellfire-and-brimstone homilies condemning Catholics to eternal perdition for attending the "wrong" chapel. That stunning image will rake in more cash and corral more followers than multiple lifetimes of cult-master cajolery and menace.

Chief among those bewitched by Bergie's publicity coup will be the younger Traddie generation. The kids are sick unto death at the cult masters' behavior. In their minds' eye, they will imagine that Provincial- Superior Bergoglio would have put an end to the SGG School principal's tenure after the 2008-2009 scandal erupted. Novice-Master Bergoglio would have dismissed irascible Scut the Prefect for driving guiltless, traumatized young seminarians out into the dead of night over the silly rector's wet cat. Archbishop Bergoglio would never have required a parishioner to leave his church because he took a job with a competitor of a big donor: he wouldn't whine about the bread taken from his mouth; he'd worry about feeding his sheep. And lastly, Trained-Scientist and Real-Seminary-Theology-Professor Bergoglio would never have been so misinformed as to claim that a feeding tube constituted extraordinary means to preserve life and imposed a grave burden on society.

The young will rush out of the cult as soon as they're emancipated from money-wastin', Kool-Aid-guzzlin' ma and pa. 

It's Advent. Don't let Bergie win. Resolve to starve the beast this Christmas, and send your cult masters packing. Replace 'em with caring, certainly valid priests and bishops.

GETTING THROUGH THICK SKULLS

Editor's Note: The last in our holiday series of answers to e-mails.

A little while back you posted a letter about the "generic institution of the sacraments." [See our November 3, 2013 post, "The Rite Stuff."] The "anonymouse" writer said the church could change the matter of the sacraments and that was why there could be different matter for Latin priests and eastern priests. I asked our priest about this and he never heard of such things. In fact he said it was heretical. The writer did not give any sources and you did not add one of your smart alecky footnotes with books in languages nobody knows. Whose [sic] the one now thats [sic] making things up?

Your priest must be one of the terminally ignorant pesthouse completers badly taught by the intellectually challenged, feebly educated faculty. Before we take you and your nitwit priest to school, let us by way of preface say (1) Pistrina, not the writer, withheld the name, and (2) the writer did provide a cite, although, as you say, the Readers did not insert an additional footnote. We omitted footnoting because the ideas in the letter are very well known to educated Catholics. (That's why your priest hadn't heard of this theological position -- like so many Traddie clergy, he's incurably handicapped by malformation and an in-bred reluctance to improve himself through study. We don't want to pry, but that "heretical" nonsense sounds as though it comes from "The Skipper" -- you know, the bean-brain who once skipped the consecration and has a habit of inventing new mortal sins.)

But we won't ask you or any other skeptic out there to take us at our word.  We'll draw our reply from a book written in English, the Jesuit Bernard Leeming's Principles of Sacramental Theology (The Newman Press, 1956). 

The Latin term for "generic institution" is institutio in genere (institution in a general manner, as opposed to institutio in specie, in a specific manner). As explained by Fr. Leeming, starting on p. 414, according to the theory of institutio in genere,

Christ settled the meaning of the sacrament, but left power with the apostles or the Church to determine the elements in which this meaning may be embodied ... in Orders, Christ settled the office and the grace to fulfill it, but left it to the Church to settle which particular rite would express the meaning of the grant of such power.

Therefore, Fr. Leeming concludes, "the same meaning" can be expressed in rites "differing in material form."   Hence it's not impossible to have one matter in the West and another in the East. Fr. Leeming informs us that among the authors who endorsed the generic-institution theory are de Soto, Lugo, Billuart, Billot, Tanquerey, Lennerz, and Doronzo. (Very good company to be in.)

As a reminder, neither Pistrina nor the letter writer argued that the substance of the sacrament could have been changed under the theory of generic institution. The change would have occurred in the rite. What we do hold is that after Sacramentum Ordinis, it's clear that two hands are the required matter for valid priestly ordination in the Latin rite. One hand, then, must be by definition a defect. Since in the crisis-ravaged Western Church we haven't a clue if less than two will do, the defect should be cured by conditional ordination. The stakes are too high to tolerate the slightest, tiniest doubt. Furthermore, the remedy is soooooo very, very simple. Why, even the rector could do it.

One final point about "making things up": we're not the Bonehead, so we don't have to rely on erroneous and misleading translations. In addition, we don't tart up undocumented hearsay and claim it's a "decision" of the Holy Office. The persuasive weight of the Church's best practices and thinking is overwhelmingly on our side in this dispute. Sticking with the truth is far easier and more compelling than inventing something. We don't need to play laughably transparent word games, confuse rites, ignore modern textual scholarship, or trot out a gross distortion of papal teaching. But to be fair, unlike the Bonehead, we didn't start with a losing proposition either.

It's a no-brainer that orders conferred with one hand are defective. They cry out for remedy. Dannie should've gotten fixed two decades ago.

The faithful -- including (for charity's sake) the mouth-breathing, hypersalivating, degenerate zombie cult-slaves -- deserve peace of mind.