A TALE OF TWO FACES

Hypocrisy is the most difficult and nerve-racking vice...it needs an unceasing vigilance and a rare detachment of spirit...it is a whole-time job. Maugham

Ya gotta love a guy who pins targets on himself. For a watchdog blogger, "One-Hand Dan" is the gift that keeps on giving and giving: every time he puts pen to paper, he validates Pistrina. A perfect example is his Sexagesima Sunday weather report cum agitprop (a.k.a. "Bishop's [?] Corner"). It's replete with the cult's hallmark hypocrisy, spiteful mischief-making, and bold-as-brass revisionism.  See for yourselves:

DID DANNIE MEAN, "DO AS I SAY,  DON'T DO AS I DO"? 

Wee Dan recounts an incident where a pesthouse completer he "ordained" encounters an SSPV priest while on a visit to a shut-in. As "One Hand" spins the story, the SSPV priest lectured the cultist gofer about "Thucite bishops," whereupon Li'l Dan's tongue-tied lackey "quietly withdrew." Then Dannie rehearses the SSPV position on the invalidity of the Thục line and sums up the Blunderer's account of Bp. Méndez's disputed ordination of the SSPV priest, making sure to add that the cult masters "fear" the offensive priest "may not be validly ordained, either, come to mention it." (Pistrina covered the ordination account in its Nov. 17, 2013, post Perished Counsel.)

Inspired, Wee Dan seizes the occasion to offer this pious exhortation:

Schism is splitting the very Body of Christ, one of the many sins with which we are chastised during these days of the Church’s eclipse. If all we can do is to withdraw in dignified silence, let us do that, adding a prayer.

And then he waxes all warm and squidgy in this high-minded sermonette:

There have always been scandals and splits (knowing Church history is such a consolation), but a persevering charity on our part could go a long way towards a solution. Smile, be charitable, and leave the past to God’s mercy. Pray, and highly value these dear souls. Remember the saints teach us that our enemies who speak and act against us are our real friends, not the friends who are kind and sweet to us. Treat your enemies as though they were your best friends, and maybe one day they will be!

Let's put aside the fact that Dannie should have kept quiet about the possible defect in form of the priest's orders, considering his own priestly orders are questionable owing to a grave defect in matter, which has nothing to do with his Thục lineage. The real issue here is that he should have kept the whole episode to himself, if the Christ-like response to an insult is "dignified silence" while leaving "the past to God's mercy." As usual, Double-standard Dan preaches lofty Christian virtues but in practice plays the low street ruffian ever ready for a hurtful payback.  Some good soul should remind Deacon Dan that in Matthew's Gospel it does not read, "but if one strike thee on the right cheek, turn on him and bloody his %@?*#^$ nose!"

I'M NOT SCARED! REALLY I'M NOT -- AM I?

One of the pleasures of reporting on this clerical buffoon is watching his clownish schemes go up in smoke. Dinky Dan is really the Ralph Kramden of cult masters, isn't he? With his fatal shortcomings, none of the half-incubated stratagems he hatches stands a chance of success. Take, for instance, the following paragraph, where "One Hand" unhelpfully dredges up the agonizing past for the disedification of the souls under his thumb :

Speaking of schisms*, another sad split, fresh enough to be still quite sore, is the St. Albert Chapel started by Fr. Ramolla and now maintained by Bishop Pivarunas as St. Thérèse of Lisieux Church. This small group of our former parishioners meet in different hotels and are surely very devoted to their cause. These souls are cared for by the CMRI Fathers, who come in from a great distance. They are very hard working priests. I am sure they must have many scattered faithful who do not have the Mass every Sunday as we do in Cincinnati, and so many Masses.  

You'd think he'd be embarrassed at how patently obvious he's being here. C'mon, Dan-O! Where is your game? Only debased zombie culties can't see through you like a broken window!  This heart-on-his-shirtsleeves plea surfaced on the very Sunday when the rival prelate was in the West Chester area for confirmations. As any child can see, Dannie's floating a not-so-subtle insinuation that the efforts of the competing bishop's priests might be better deployed elsewhere since the SW Ohio region is so rich in traditional Mass centers.

"One Hand Dan's" probably counting on the faithful's crawling back to cult central loaded down with their weekly offerings and building fund, should the unwelcome bishop take the hint and pull up stakes. It must have really galled Li'l Dan to no end that another bishop, especially one so admired by many rank-and-file Traddies, has pitched his big tent in the cult's back yard. That explains the cringe-worthy attempt to shoo off the frightening (and despised) competition.

"One Hand" humiliated himself, however, to no advantage. On the very same day his message appeared, the lay leaders of the breakaway chapel announced they had "identified a church property in Lebanon [Ohio] that is a very real possibility for us to purchase." When those fine Catholic folks close on the property, Dannie's nemesis will be firmly planted in the SW Ohio area for good, something he's dreaded for many years. That's when the mass exodus from SGG will begin again in earnest. Solid pastoral care without soul-killing squabbles over trivialities will trump mammonite show-time any day of the week. All that egg on Wee Dan's face doesn't go well with those ostentatious, overpriced pontificals, does it?**

CAN WE TAKE A MULLIGAN ON THAT ONE?

As "One Hand" was busy wounding and confusing "the faithful, young or old" by recalling "disagreements" reeking of "a strong personal element," he encapsulated his bitter, decades-old feud with the SSPV in these loaded words:

It all has something to do with saintly Archbishop Thuc, whose Latin was excellent, and Bishop Mendez or Gonzalez, who repeatedly stumbled over an essential word in the form of the Ordination rite years ago.

Hold your horses there, Dirtbag Dan! What was that? "Excellent" Latin??? Yet in Two Bishops in Every Garage, "Peregrinus" -- you all know who that loser goof-ball is -- described the language of Thục's 1982 Declaratio as "extremely crude — hardly what one would expect from someone who holds a Roman doctorate in canon law."

As you know, we haven't allowed that footling masquerader to get away all that claptrap. On our page "Pilgrim's Fine Mess," Pistrina demonstrated that the Latin in the archbishop's Declaratio was competent. (We couldn't say excellent, if the word means "being of the highest or finest quality"; however, we understand that Dannie admits more elastic definitions of English words when needed. And why not! None of the depraved sede Trogs will call him out.) Notwithstanding our arguments, there wasn't a squeak, a hiss, or a chirrup out of Dannie or the Blunderer regarding the archbishop's Latinity until last year, when we noticed the first signs of their convenient revisionism after the Blunderer's appearance on internet radio.

One day Thục's Latin is "extremely crude." Then the next day, when it suits the cult masters, his Latin becomes "correct" and soon afterward "excellent." In actually what do the cult masters firmly believe, besides their own interests? Don't get us wrong. Absolutely, it's laudable to change your mind in light of evidence that a former opinion is in error. In fact, it's intellectually virtuous. However, intellectual honesty obliges us to admit our change of mind and at the same time to disavow our former opinion. And we have to do it in public if we've written publicly.

Once the Readers' textual analysis appeared, Wee Dan should have directed Tony Baloney to walk back his mistaken evaluation. The Bonehead had publicly flip-flopped on his negative assessment of the Thục lineage, so why not do the same thing for the archbishop's Latin? But, true to form, there's been no mea culpa on this matter. It must have been inconvenient: better to pretend they believed it all along.

All this distortion of the record calls to mind a celebrated episode at the beginning of chapter 9 in Nineteen Eighty-Four. There Orwell describes how an Inner Party orator smoothly transitions from denouncing the party's old enemy, Eurasia, to condemning its brand-new enemy, Eastasia. With a similar disregard for consistency, Dannie and the Cheeseball, without a trace of self-consciousness, now praise Thục's Latin without so much as an excuse-me. What's hilarious is they think no one noticed.

As we said, a muck-racking investigator can't ask for a better subject. Li'l Dan makes our job so much easier because he furnishes an inexhaustible supply of fresh examples to back up our every contention. We hope he keeps on writing so the handful of cult-enslaved souls still in possession of a rudimentary conscience realize that not only is it okay to walk away, but it's morally right to take flight from the cult.

*The separation that occurred in 2009 -- precipitated by "One Hand's" ill-advised actions and inaction -- is not schism. Schism is "the crime of one who separates himself from the Catholic Church to form another sect under the pretext that the Catholic Church errs or approves disorders and abuses" (Parente). "One-Hand Dan's" cult is not the Church, and he's not the pope. (He may not even be a bishop or a priest.) Consequently, although many people fled the cult owing to errors, disorders, and abuses, their leaving was not schismatic. It was a righteous deliverance motivated by moral outrage and disgust.

** You can help speed "One Hand" on his way out of town by donating to the chapel's building fund.  Send a generous contribution to the following address:

St. Therese the Little Flower

11711 Princeton Pike #341-205

Springdale, OH 45246

A CREATURE NOT TOO BRIGHT OR GOOD

The meaning doesn't matter if it's only idle chatter of a transcendental kind. Gilbert

Lately we've received a flurry of irate e-mails taking us to task for summoning "One-Hand Dan" before the solemn tribunal of public opinion. In quite a few of these missives, the overwrought writers, with their heads in the clouds or in that darker zone where the sun doesn't shine, labored mightily to vindicate lusterless Li'l Dannie as a "good bishop." In the past, we've often come across that puzzling phrase from Wee Dan's apologists. Given that the subject of all these communications wasn't chess, we didn't know what to make of it. We Readers, as you know, are inveterate semanticists with a pronounced philosophical inclination, so it'll come as no surprise, then, that we got to reflecting on the meaning of good.

If, in our correspondents' airy utterance, the word good means "having the characteristics or aptitudes necessary or suitable in a certain capacity," then we can easily grasp the meaning of phrases like "a good scrounger," "a good panhandler," "a good grifter," and "a good impostor." Accordingly, if our hyperventilating pen pals were referring to, say, a Novus-Ordo, Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist, Greek-Orthodox, Coptic, Jacobite, or Abyssinian bishop with an assigned territory or district to administer, we'd  have no difficulty in decoding the phrase "a good bishop."

But Dingy Dan is a sedevacantist episcopus vagans, and consequently the phrase "does not compute" (as the old TV and movie robots used to intone).

Dull Dan is no bishop-in-ordinary. He has no jurisdiction, and certainly no authority. He does not possess formal apostolic succession. He cannot rule or teach in the ecclesiastical sense. He's nobody's superior -- in any sense of the word, religious or secular! From a strict point of view, under Catholic law, he's not even a pastor. Therefore, there cannot exist objective criteria to measure his performance qua bishop (that is to say, if he is a bishop in the first place: the jury's still out on that matter, as we've proved). 

Granted, you could say he adequately consecrates holy oils on Maundy Thursday. You could add he hasn't yet committed the same mistake at priestly ordination ceremonies as Abp. Lefebvre is said to have made at "One-Hand Dan's." You might even argue he confirms satisfactorily. But so what? Acceptable execution of these rites is by no means a measure of overall excellence in the occupational capacity of a Roman-Catholic bishop. (Anyway, if Dannie can pull 'em off, anybody can.)

Priests, please keep in mind, can confirm, too, so confirmation isn't exclusive to the episcopacy. Besides, in the past, many an aging or preoccupied bishop-in-ordinary must have flubbed ceremonial details yet effectively carried out his duties as ordinary, administering his diocese soundly through wise, deft, just, and charitable rule. Such measurably good (= competent executive) bishops spent their days and nights seeing to the weal of their flock while zealously governing their territory, rather than endlessly rehearsing for showy, resource-consuming liturgical extravaganzas starring themselves.

Let's keep in mind that the idea of a "wandering bishop" is odious to the Church. For heaven's sake, the creature is unnatural, an anomaly. The term itself is inherently pejorative. In truth, an episcopus vagans is a grotesque monster -- a head without a body. This misbegotten ecclesiastical teratism is produced only in times of dire crisis for the Church. The norm demands that Roman-Catholic bishops possess a lawfully erected diocese, a territory within the Church to oversee.

For that reason, only residential bishops may be judged as good bishops in accordance with the above sense of good. Some titular bishops (bishops whose sees have lapsed) may be good in the aforementioned sense of the word, but they are good only insofar as they are adept in their capacity as diocesan or curial bureaucrats. But Dismal Dannie isn't a titular bishop either; in fact, he's never received an episcopal portfolio of any kind from the Church visible.

You can now see why "One Hand" -- and for that matter any other sede enjoying episcopal character -- cannot ever be coherently styled a "good (sedevacantist) bishop," if good means "demonstrating the qualities requisite for a specified occupation." In that signification of the word, it makes no more sense to talk about a "good (sedevacantist) bishop" than it does to speak similarly of other fanciful monstrosities, as for instance, "a good troll" or "a good incubus" or "a good satyr" or "a good Sciapod."

That's why we had to scratch the first interpretation of the phrase. After that we had to put on our thinking caps again, asking ourselves whether if by good our viper-bitten correspondents meant "of moral excellence, virtuous, benevolent," with the word bishop in this case being shorthand for "a man who happens to hold episcopal orders."* 

Now, if that's really and truly what they intended, then we have a freight-car load of rock-hard, spiked rejoinders to hurl in their dirt-encrusted faces. For starters: 

Why did such a "good man etc." allow the SGG School Scandal to boil over and send scores of the faithful running?

Why didn't such a "good man etc." intervene when anguished protests about mistreatment at the school came flooding in?

Why did a "good man etc." write a vicious nasty-gram to an overseas lay board, calling a young priest "a chronic troublemaker" and accusing him of "instability and misconduct" without bothering to hear from the accused his side of the story? (N.B. This "good man etc." knows the real circumstances under which the young priest left the pesthouse, and he himself has in the past roundly derided the academic standards of the other priest-mill from which the priest delivered himself.)

Why didn't this "good man etc." resolutely denounce Tony Baloney's life-denying, blood-curdling opinion about the Schiavo abomination?

More harrowing than these and a thousand related queries is this question: Why do so many former members of this "good man etc.'s" chapels along with so many Traddies unattached to his cult-center hold him in raw contempt? After all, Saint Paul teaches (1 Tim 3:7) that a bishop "must have a good testimony of them who are without." More pointedly, we ask: Why do brother priests here and around the world disesteem and mock him? All too often, when his name is mentioned to self-respecting clergy, they either shoot back an angry look or contort their lips into a dismissive sneer.

Doubtless our hysterical correspondents will spit out some incoherent, morally dubious riposte to embarrassing interrogatories of this sort. That's fine with us. As far as we're concerned, every man has leave to embrace the opinion he wishes, notwithstanding the out-and-out absence of supporting evidence for it: If you want to believe that pigs can fly or that your dog or cat can go to heaven, then, by all means, imagine on, Macduff! However, for all future communications in defense of Dim Dannie, we advise

(1) that "a good sedevacantist" ban the phrase "a good bishop" in the first sense of good since it's meaningless; and

 (2) that "a good cultling" bar the phrase in the second sense of good so as not to scandalize Sedelandia when Pistrina comes right back with a withering, fact-based, no-holds-barred rebuttal.

* For a brief moment, we thought the word good in the phrase "a good (sedevacantist) bishop" might be used oxymoronically, somewhat like "The Good Thief." We dismissed that fancy immediately, for we know there are two, maybe three, sedevacantist men of episcopal character who are entirely praiseworthy. Accordingly, in spite of the cult masters' unstinting efforts, the term sedevacantist bishop cannot yet have acquired the completely negative connotation needed to produce the figure of speech.

REMEMBER: STARVE THE BEAST, AND IT'S OKAY TO WALK AWAY. 

EYES WIDE SHUT

Does it matter? -- losing your sight?... Sassoon

Ed. Note: Here's an e-mail reaction to last week's post.

Kudos for skewering Dolan and Cekada. A home run.  They can't wriggle out after that. (How do you spell hypocrisy? Simple: S-G-G.) I hate to say it but you are wasting your time. No matter how hard you try you will never change the minds of their blind acolytes. Normal Catholics cannot stomach S.G.G. after a couple of years, but the Gertrudians are abnormal. They relish the circus of reinvention and double standards. It pleases them to think their leaders are "special." The few good people who were there left in disgust. The dregs of humanity remain with their "depraved indifference" to all the unacceptable behavior. It makes me want to tear my hair out when I think about how these "Catholics" refuse to see the truth!

We operate under no illusions about our fellow man. We live in post-moral America where core values have disappeared. This is the land where Bill Clinton continues to exercise a major influence in spite of all his tawdry prevarication, and that harridan of wife can run for president in spite of Travelgate and all the other messy scandals that trace her trajectory over American life. A decent society would have driven these two rogues into hiding for the rest of their lives once they left the White House. Better still, a decent society would have cast them into the outer darkness after the first term.

The hard fact is, we live in neither a "shame culture" nor a "guilt culture." Our meritless leaders no longer find it necessary to purchase men's good esteem with proven virtue, nor do they yearn after the enjoyment of a quiet conscience. In truth, they have no respect for public opinion. What's more, they take comfort in knowing that a jaded, amoral, celebrity-obsessed populace won't punish their transgressions. How, then, can Trad World be all that different from the larger society in which it exists? That would be asking too much of folks with limited education, perverse judgment, and an underdeveloped conscience.

Insofar as we've received similar e-mails from other fans, this may be the time to explain why we continue to blog about the sharp-elbowed Terrible Trio who still manage to hang on by their nails after so many unsavory revelations. Our primary aim, everyone should realize, is not to change anybody's mind. Mind-changing is secondary, and our expectations for it are modest.  Our principal objective is to get on the record the truth about the cult masters, to offer a different narrative to challenge their one-sided, highly colored account of themselves. Simply put, our aim is to make available an alternative view, supported by unvarnished, unassailable facts and robust analysis. What the consumer does with all our documentation depends on his/her own moral formation and innate sense of decency.

That said, to profess we have little interest in changing minds would betray a lack of candor. There is a very tiny cultie cohort whom (we think) we might be reaching. To identify this exceedingly small population, we first must give you an ethnogeographical tour of the foreboding region in Trad World that we call Tradistan, where the cult masters reign in terror:

All Tradistan is divided into three parts. The Sede Troglodytes, the majority, inhabit the first and largest part. Squatting in filthy caves and putrid holes, terrified of the light and the fresh air of truth, they are a cowardly, foul, and entirely blind species, feeding off their viper masters and screeching like bats when good people oppose the cult. The second part, half as large as the territory of the Sede Trogs, is occupied by the Moral Pygmies, uncouth cave dwellers like the Trogs. Capable of some barely articulate speech, they are blind in one eye, with thimble-sized crania but large oral cavities for echoing their masters' propaganda; neurologists have discovered in their pea brains the absence of the right temporo-parietal junction, the portion of  the normal human brain where the moral compass is found. The Traddie Scatophagi occupy the third and smallest part of Tradistan. Their numbers are very few but not zero. They are not blind, merely myopic. In their search for the true faith, they stumbled into Tradistan, got lost, and came under the deadly spell of the cult masters.  Enslaved, they were told to believe they must consume cultic waste by the gallon-load as the price of sanctification.  They dwell uneasily on Tradistan's fringes, haunted by the gnawing suspicion that something is very wrong with its clergy. Of all these three races, the least depraved are the Scatophagi, for they have not quite yet surrendered their souls along with their wallets.

The first population hardly seems humanoid, let alone human. Examples of the species are found in many of the commenters raging against our posts.  The second is best illustrated by a scapegrace of our acquaintance. He and his brow-beaten woman conspicuously left the cult in late 2009 after witnessing an alarming instance of Dannie's bad form. This ethical dwarf vowed never to return again. (As token of his constancy, he advertized to one of the Readers his self-proclaimed rectitude.) Later, he returned to the cult masters because "they do a good job" of putting on a show. The Moral Pygmies are as lost as the Sede Trogs, and more culpable, for at least they have one good eye they could use. No one can redeem either one of these degenerate groups.

Hope is not lost for the third race, because its members' consciences, albeit weak, have already been pricked. We believe our laser-surgery posts can help the Scatophagi see the horror of the mortally dangerous SW Ohio cult (and get them on a better diet as well). Although we do not blog with them uppermost in our minds, we are sure that some, as they read our exposés, have grown in doubt. Eventually the burden of accumulated misgivings may be enough to move one or two of them to affirm: IT'S OKAY TO WALK AWAY. But we won't be put out if they don't. You see, we face the same dilemma with them as traditional Catholics do with good friends and dear relatives who still cling remora-like to the Novus Ordo.

All of you know it's impossible to fathom how outwardly decent, God-fearing people, who sense something's amiss, will not walk away from the Novus Ordo's destruction of the liturgy, teaching of outright heresy, hatred of tradition, Modernist leadership, and brutalization of sacred architecture. If you were to grab them by their lapels and cry aloud, "Open your eyes, you fools! You know this is a all wrong! You've said it yourselves! Get out now!" they still would remain in their hideous temples with their malformed, debased Father Bobs and Father Bills. If you allow the criminal complacency of the blind get to you, as it seems to be sorely distressing our frazzled correspondent, you're just a Xanax away from a fatal attack of the screaming meemies.

Well, that's no way to run a resistance, and besides it's bad for your mental health. Pistrina's content with putting the truth out in plain sight:

Tony Baloney is neither a scholar nor a theologian; ignore everything this blundering non-entity says;

Li'l Dan's priestly and episcopal orders are by no means certainly valid, and he must seek re-ordination; stay away from the uncertain sacraments he offers until he gets fixed;

the rector is an inconsequential, whiny gas-bag, wrong at every turn, and the swampland pesthouse with its loser completers like the Skipper, Scut the Prefect, the Frenchman, Lurch, Squirmin' Herman, and the Toady should not be called a Roman Catholic seminary; don't waste one red cent of your hard-earned money on mammonite "champagne wishes and caviar dreams."

Our Bottom Line: If some culties receive the grace to see the light, then they have a chance. If not, they're in deep doo-doo. Either way, we've done our sacred duty, and we'll continue doing it to make sure the truth about the cult masters is out there for any soul who will open his eyes and see.

YE BROOD OF VIPERS

Why do you also transgress the commandment of God for your tradition?  The Gospel According to St. Matthew

Ed. Note: Here's an email we received from one of the reading-challenged cultlings in response to our posts of January 19 and 26:

You are the HYPOCRITES. You slam Father McKenna for studying first with one priest and then with Father Cekada and not at Most Holy Trinity Seminary but last year you pushed a 2 year crash program for new priests in your stupid lay governance program. Your hate blog has done nothing but trash Most Holy Trinity Seminary, so how dare you say that future priests should study there!! You Readers talk out of both sides of your mouths.

Such unprovoked venom! Tsk, tsk. In the name of charity, let's set the record and this poor soul straight:

We are not opposed to the private tutorial method as an emergency means of training priests throughout the on-going ecclesial crisis. We stated so in the footnote of the January 26 post ("Unprincipled Interest"). Actually, the Readers affirm the tutorial method can be superior to the empty formation on offer at the jokingly styled seminaries (LOL) of Trad World U.S.A., provided the tutors have been suitably educated in real, accredited academic institutions. Moreover, we have never suggested that any young man study for the priesthood at Most Holy Trinity Seminary. In fact, our unwavering policy has been to discourage decent aspirants to the priesthood from entering the pesthouse.

Our objective, which we thought had been made clear, was to publish the cult-masters' flagrant hypocrisy. You see, the McNewbie was "trained" outside a formal seminary, in part by Tony Baloney himself, the author of the article "Untrained and Un-Tridentine: Holy Orders and the Canonically Unfit."  Wee Dannie, the McNewbie's ordaining bishop (?), celebrated that drivel as a "landmark study" in his reprehensible nasty-gram to a lay association abroad ("The Poison Pen"). You'll recall we reported Dannie's fuming that a young priest "never completed a seminary program." We'll add here that he spitefully observed, "Had he [the young priest] settled down to seminary life, he would be a valid priest today, rather than the dubious character he has become."

The Blunderer's article, at its core a rent-seeking screed for MHT and a shamelessly self-promotional (and undeserved) valentine to himself, makes a very big deal over what he calls the "Tridentine system," which he squarely associates with seminary attendance. Witness this passage:

The seminary system established by the Council of Trent and prescribed by canon law provides candidates for ordination with a proper spiritual formation (through the seminary rule, daily schedule, regular spiritual direction, observation and correction, and faculty evaluation) and the required ecclesiastical education (knowledge and understanding of Latin, two years philosophy, four years theology). The Tridentine system insures that ordinands are “properly judged” (rite probati) over a long period of time on both their conduct and their knowledge, and that they are therefore indeed canonically fit for ordination.

And this one:

The decrees of the Council of Trent prescribed that “those who are to be ordained must live in a seminary, and there be formed in ecclesiastical discipline, and receive Holy Orders after having been properly judged.”

And again:

Canon 972.1 states the general rule: “All candidates for sacred orders … are obliged to live a (sic) seminary at least throughout the entire course of their theological studies.”

And again and again:

 The seminary program insures that ordinands are “properly judged” (rite probati) on basis (sic) of their conduct and their knowledge, and therefore canonically fit for ordination.

Pius XI warns: “Anyone who undertakes the sacred ministry without training or competence should tremble for his own fate, for the Lord will not suffer his ignorance to go unpunished… If ever there was an obligation on priests to be men of learning, it is even more pressing at the present time.” (Blunderer's emphasis. He actually cites the first part of this quotation twice in the article.)

and AGAIN:

...the law prescribes that your (sic) must live in the seminary: “The obligation affecting the course of theology requires not merely study in a seminary, but actual residence, and the obligation is a grave one.” (Blunderer's emphasis.)

 In his summary, the Cheeseball hoped that "this discussion will help the lay reader better understand and appreciate the traditional seminary formation received by Catholic priests."

O.K., O.K., O.K., already! We got the message: If you want to be a Tridentine priest, then you've got to do your training in a seminary.

 But if that's still true today, then why didn't the Bonehead defend the "Tridentine system" when Li'l Dan maneuvered to bring in the McNewbie to study privately at the Ohio cult center after the man had been studying privately with another priest out West? Why didn't the Cheeseball bring Dannie up to speed about the necessity of a "proper academic formation" in a seminary where "seminary superiors will observe, form and judge the seminarian’s character and behavior — something very difficult to do if he does not live in community with them"? Why, we ask, didn't the Blunderer insist upon the McNewbie's attending Most Holy Trinity Seminary, at least for two years, maybe even for three or four, if the obligation is really so grave? Why would the Blunderer allow fast-tracking that, based on the content of his article, would seem to be injurious to  "[t]he dignity of Christ’s priesthood and the general good of the Church"?

If Checkie had read his article aloud and slowly to Dannie, he surely could have warned Deacon Dan "that an unschooled, unformed priest is a time-bomb waiting to go off. When the explosion comes, scandal follows and souls are driven away from the traditional Mass." Maybe "One Hand" just might have gotten the message, especially where the Blunderer quotes canon law: “'The theological course of studies must be taken, not privately, but in schools instituted for this purpose according to the prescribed course of studies laid down in canon 1365.'” * Maybe "One-Hand Dan" would have seen the error of his ways if only the Checkmeister had warned him that "the Church’s norms are exacting, and those who do not meet them are unfit to receive, exercise or confer the sacrament of Holy Orders. The ministrations of such clergy, therefore, should be avoided by traditional Catholics everywhere." Checkie failed his bishop (?) for sure.

By now, we hope our overly exercised correspondent has learned what Pistrina advocates and who the real hypocrites are.  Certainly at this juncture he knows who "speaks with forked tongue" in this matter. Over the twisted arc of their failed apostolate, the self-righteous cult masters  have demanded rigid adherence to the law, yet here we see they refuse to observe the strict obligations they endeavor to impose on all others. Undoubtedly they think they don't need to concern themselves with external formalities: the intolerable rigor of the law is intended for suckers, certainly not for the "special" Poobahs and Panjandrums of Tradistan along with their undereducated sycophants, who can't be faithful to the tradition they publicly embrace.

No, the high-and-mighty cult masters  mustn't be bothered about such a trifle as faithfully adhering to one's announced principles.  That's why "One Hand" didn't think twice about conveniently ignoring the Blunderer's "landmark study," and that's why the Blunderer didn't feel bound to defend his own opinions either, or to throw a bone to the rector, whom the McNewbie's ordination has effectively turned into the Rodney Dangerfield of Trad World. 

No matter how much whitewash these whited sepulchers slather on, they always manage to leave the pentimento of Pharisaism, don't they? 

* * * * * * * * * 

Admittedly, reading anything the Blunderer writes makes an educated Catholic cringe. Luckily, his editorial sloppiness and aggressive ignorance of Latin provide a comic relief from all the dire hypocrisy and cant. The article "Untrained and Un-Tridentine," like his irreparably shoddy, error-crammed Work of Human Hands, gives us a chance to laugh ourselves silly at this ridiculous driveler playing the scholar. (Psst! Anthony boy! Nobody's fooled.) For our fans' enjoyment, in addition to the blunders quietly noted in three passages above, here is another pair of howlers (color emphases ours):

1. The Cheeseball quotes Pius XI but cannot get the correct English form of the verb for a line of Scripture:

Anyone who undertakes the sacred ministry without training or competence should tremble for his own fate, for the Lord will not suffer his ignorance to go unpunished; it is the Lord who has uttered the dire warning: "Because thou has rejected knowledge, I will reject thee, that thou shalt not do the office of priesthood to me".

Every schoolboy knows it should be "hast."

2. Like everything else we've exposed since 2010, the Bonehead's article spotlights his irremediable problems with the Latin language. In footnote 16, Tony Baloney prints Nemo sive saecularis sive religiosus ad primam tonsuram promoveatur ante inceptum cursum theologicam.  Anyone with an ounce of Latin would have known the adjective must be theologicum; this gross boo-boo proves that the Blunderer has no feel for Latin concord, after so many years. A Latinless but conscientious transcriber would have at least cross-checked the text with a printed copy of the Code of Canon Law. Apparently the Blunderer "has 'had' some Latin, or has 'passed' a Latin course or two" but doesn't understand "the language sufficiently."

 * N.B. The word "privately" (in the Latin of the CJC, privatim) not only means "at home" but also "individually, separately, as a private person and not as a member of a public body." Hence, a single individual who studies theology under a tutor (or a succession of tutors) takes his course of studies privately.

Private study a definite no-no, as long as you believe the 1917 Code of Canon Law is in force. We don't, so, as we said, we've no objection. But Wee Dan and the Cheeseball keep appealing to the code, so we wonder how they can justify their flouting its strictures. Apparently they don't have to worry in Traddielandia, where the insentient culties let these two clowns (three, if you count the disrespected rector) get away with all manner of absurdities.

We interject, as an aside, that all "training" in the substandard U.S. Traddie "seminaries" ought to be considered private inasmuch as these unregulated priest mills have no connection to the visible institutional Church. 

OLDTHINKER UNBELLYFEELS DUCKSPEAK*

It's a beautiful thing, the Destruction of words. Orwell

The Mad Mullah of Tradistan strikes again!

In his latest fatwā (viz., the December 2013 Most Holy Trinity Seminary Newsletter), the ragin' rector reprises his cretinous attacks on Bergoglio's characterization of traditionalists as neo-pelagian. "Dumbo Don" turgidly insists Bergie's use of the term "is a manifestation both of his ignorance concerning the nature of the heresy, as well as a stupidity in applying it to us." (Ed. Note: Yes, we know: We've corrected this painfully slow learner before on this point, but the Readers believe his persistence of imprecision calls for a reminder.)

Apart from the fractured syntax, the rector, who's always trying to revive his dead-on-arrival uprising against Archbishop Lefebvre and the SSPX, blindly misses what Papa Pancho's up to. That's more than stupid: that's downright dangerous.  P²'s word choice is not a "manifestation": it's a manifesto -- and lots of folks (including Traddie youth) are signing on.

Papa Pancho is leveraging the star-power of his office to own the debate by fixing the definitions. It's the skilled polemicist's ploy to gain the upper hand in any dispute. The new rhetoric of Vatican II gives him the cover he needs to broaden and distort -- the Conciliarists would probably say enrich -- the dictionary meaning. A fawning, collaborating "Catholic" world press makes it all seem orthodox.

Bergo couldn't care less about the pedantic scoldings of an out-of-touch mental pip-squeak like the rector because he has the whip hand. How else could Pancho have gotten away with his Protestant-like dismissal of a spiritual bouquet of 3,500 or so rosaries and made it sound Catholic when he said these pious gestures don't exist anymore⁉ That alone, we should think, merits his appearance on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.

Like all authentic progressives, Bergie is a shrewd totalist who views language as the chief means of securing the revolution through thought reform and control. His intuitive understanding of semantic tactics in an era of mass-communication skirmishes and celebrity worship makes him, in fact, the most formidable Modernist corsair ever to lead a boarding party onto the Barque of Peter. Writing off Pancho as stupid and ignorant is madness, a sure token the battle is lost.

If the rector had been properly trained in real academic institutions, he would have detected in Bergoglio's writing all the features of Orwellian linguistic theory. Untrained as he is, hidebound in his thinking, cut off from the current of history, flailing "Big Don" can't manage to connect the dots. Pancho and his cadre of ghost writers and Modernist theologians know perfectly well the classic definitions of pelagian and neo-pelagian. To think otherwise is to underestimate fatally an enemy with a big idea.

The Modernists are convinced that language determines, or at least strongly influences, thought. What's more, they're past masters in building both equivalence and issue frames to manipulate perception. At its monstrous birth, the Novus Ordo exchanged the Church's age-old code of precise theological expression for a kind of amorphous ecclesiastical Newspeak. Its terminology is fluid. Vocabulary shifts endlessly in a calculated effort to eliminate all meanings other than those favored by the revolutionary élite -- especially those meanings that threaten to subvert the new thought-climate. Words and their concepts are so fundamentally altered that they controvert their lexical signification. This radical redefinition of the elements of discourse has but one objective: to support the overarching revolutionary policy, which in this case is what George Orwell called the "continuous alteration of the past."

If Traddielandia weren't so destitute of intellectual capital, its petty chieftains could launch a cool-headed, persuasively reasoned campaign to expose Bergie's rhetorical chicanery. People, now worried about how powerful forces collude to manipulate their thinking, might be willing to pay attention to a sober analysis of Papa Pancho's deadly strategy. If competently done, such an analysis could possibly open some Novus Ordites' eyes to the heresiarch's psychological alienation from unchanging Catholic truth. 

That, however, would require both a rigorous education and an honest acknowledgment of the enemy's strengths. More importantly, it would also entail forsaking all the shrill name-calling, a guttersnipe's exercise useless against Bergoglio's overwhelmingly positive media image. Even if the Bergomeister were stupid and ignorant (and Bergie is not), no one will listen because his public persona counsels otherwise. (That twinkle in his Jesuitical eye and the impish, grandfatherly smile would win 'em over every time!) Only the squirming, gibbering zombie culties, from whom cultured traditionalist Catholics of every stripe recoil in loathing, relish "Big Don's" ineffectual nastiness.

Tradistan's howling ghazies are incapable of the intellectual agility required to discredit Bergie and his tribe. Crippled by an unspeakably impoverished priestly formation and unable to think out of the box, they just don't get it. Their needle's stuck. The witless Poobahs, permanently mired in the eighties, rattle dull sabers against mirages while everyone else has moved on. The behind-the-times Panjandrums continue to raid madly the abandoned outposts of the Trad desert while a masterly foe lays claim to the oases, safe in the certain knowledge that his crazed detractors are harmless to everyone -- except to themselves.

THERE'S AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE OUTWITTED SEDE CULT MASTERS. BUT FIRST, YOU HAVE TO GET OUT!

* Why not translate the title yourself? Click here!

DOWN ARGENTINE WAY

When the money keeps rolling out, you don't keep books:/You can tell you've done well by the happy, grateful looks./Accountants only slow things down; figures get in the way. "Evita" (lyrics by Tim Rice)

Recently, "One Hand" took a pricey junket to Argentina to perform confirmations and at least one tonsure. Apparently, a chapel down there couldn't get another bishop, so they finally found a willing candidate (read chump?) in Deacon Dan to spend a pleasant holiday showing off for strangers who don't know his history. (From what Dannie wrote, it looks as though he was, at best, the third bishop invited.)

Although confirmation isn't necessary for salvation, we wouldn't begrudge Wee Dan a little escape from the blank faces and polar cold of SW Ohio cult central to enjoy some summertime swaggering and strutting south of the equator -- as long as the inviting organization (or Dannie himself) footed the bill, not the cash-strapped cult members.

A front-page story about Argentina's financial crisis in the January 24 Wall Street Journal got us to wondering if the two Argentine sibling-priests who invited him were even in a position to pay for the trip. For quite some time, Argentina has been experiencing capital flight and at the same time has been burning through its foreign-exchange reserves.  The situation is complex, but it all boils down to what the WSJ called a "dollar crunch."

Part of the continuing problem stems from the difference between the official exchange rate (6.5 Argentinian pesos per U.S. dollar when Li'l Dan was vacationing) and the rate available on the black market (around 10 per U.S. dollar at the time). People, always guided by prudentia carnis, were taking advantage of the spread: when a friend or relative from abroad intended to visit, they would buy his ticket in Argentina at the official exchange rate. When the traveler arrived with the dollar value of the ticket in cash, he then sold those dollars on the black market, pocketing a handsome, tidy profit. The government soon got wise and prohibited such enterprising speculation altogether.

Therefore, it's not too big a stretch to suppose that "One Hand" bought his ticket in the U.S. Nowadays, the price of a round-trip plane ticket from cult central U.S.A. to Argentina represents a huge amount of money down there. Based on Dannie's report about the poverty he encountered, it doesn't look as though his hosts could have reimbursed him -- either in dollars or in pesos.

In fact, it's highly improbable that "One Hand" would have accepted reimbursement in pesos (and if he did, he's dumber than we think). Sadly for this wonderful country, the Argentine peso is now almost worthless. So, dollars would have been the only option, and unless the two inviting priests had some greenbacks squirreled away, they would've had to buy dollars on the black market with cold, hard cash. The amount of local currency needed for the transaction would have been substantial. In our view, it would have amounted to a big sacrifice for something that was not absolutely necessary. (We must admit, though, that such an expenditure might make sense if the two priests were sending an oblique message to the other bishops who usually work with them.)

Now, if it is the case that "One Hand" acquired his own ticket, we have this question: Where did the money come from? Did Dannie use his own money or his accumulated airline miles? If the funds came from his own personal resources (frequent-flyer points, stipends, holiday gifts, salary etc.), then fine and dandy. However, if the money came from offerings the culties made to support their chapel and if the Argentines didn't reimburse "One Hand," then that's another matter altogether. It's always easy to be generous with someone else's money, isn't it?

When there are serious money/infrastructure problems in SW Ohio, it's tough to see how anyone could justify such an expenditure from the chapel's treasure to administer a sacrament not necessary for salvation in a far-away land that has its own bishop. "One-Hand Dan" didn't have to put on his travelin' shoes. The two priests could have waited until the traditional bishop living in Argentina was able to journey to their city. It's a simple matter of accountability despite the fact that the cult masters control all their chapels' assets, lock, stock, and barrel.  

Pistrina advises cult members to ask "One Hand" point-blank who paid for this unnecessary excursion. (They should also insist on getting documentary evidence.) After all, the faithful deserve to know how their hard-earned money is being spent; in justice, the cult masters owe their flock an accounting. Money is too tight here in the U.S. to sponsor therapeutic getaways to beautiful South-American locales just so Wee Dan can escape his stateside problems by pretending his failed "apostolate" is not on life support and he's still useful. Everybody knows he's as useless as aspirin in a leper colony.

If "One Hand" wasted his own money on this ego-boosting jaunt, then all you can do is pity the needy beggar. However, if it turns out that the cult center paid the freight, we advise each contributor to withhold weekly offerings until he or she individually recoups the total amount of the ticket. Thus, assuming the ticket cost $1,200, if only ten decent people were to participate, the cult would suffer a $12,000 decline in income in a short time. We bet the loss would make them think twice about their improvident ways in the future. 

Now, just think what would happen if there were 50 upright souls taking part!

MAKE SURE THE "PRODIGAL PRELATE" STAYS IN LINE. SEND THIS EPISCOPUS VAGANS AND PRÆSUL VIATOR THE MESSAGE THAT HE'S ACCOUNTABLE: STARVE THE BEAST.