MONKEY SEE, MONKEY DO

As if his whole vocation/Were endless imitation. Wordsworth

If we Readers, like the manipulative cult masters, were impiously disposed to assign a supernatural interpretation to every mundane event resulting in our favor, we'd say that last Monday's service disruption at Restoration Radio was providential. It was as if the Court of Heaven, valiantly championed by the glorious company of Apostles and the massed holy Doctors, had visited upon the network the condign punishment of silence for "Father" Uneven-Steven McFaker's appallingly incoherent "exposition" of the first part of the Summa Theologica. 

Yet Pistrina is not so rash as to attribute divine intervention to each happy chance. Especially in this case, for had a celestial host had interceded, those assembled defenders of truth would surely have disabled the point-of-purchase system of buy-now and add-to-cart! But, in their apology for the technical meltdown, the cult's media enablers triumphantly announced to their complaining audience that the money-raking features were "still correctly functioning." How typically Trad: the system's dead, but you can keep on buying. So, you see, the disruption couldn't have been the work of heavenly hands, that's for sure.

(Of course, on second thought, it's always possible that ...  just perhaps ... Ol' Scratch sneaked in to save the collection mechanism .... but nah! ... that's too much like Cult-Think and Dannie-Speak. We refuse to go there.)

Confidentially, our first reaction to the universal silencing of the streaming media players was to look for a natural cause. (No need to multiply entities, as you well know.) In fact, insofar as the network's moderator used to have a good reputation, we thought he'd decided to do the right thing and pull all the podcasts of this offensive "priest." It sounds ingenuous, we know, but the weird notion crossed our minds that there actually might be an intellectually honest soul wandering in deepest, darkest Tradistan. But then we learned it was only a technical glitch. How wonderful! All that transcendental idiocy available again -- and waiting as eagerly for exposure as a starving cur for a chicken bone!

So ... there'll be no reckoning with the rector on the long trans-Atlantic flight home. No righteously flushed Flushing-Rat's demand for the McFaker to suspend his doubtful ministry. No Big Don exhortation to humbly enter the swampland's MHT seminary to undergo, at long last, his sorely missed philosophate under the whip hand of punishment-loving Scut the Prefect and his compliant toad, Squirmin' Herman. (We bet those two marshland martinets are itchin' to humiliate this puffed-up masquerader who got "holy orders" without waiting tables or mopping the pesthouse's fetid, wailing halls.) More significantly, Phony Tony won't be challenged to administer emergency remedial education to the Stevemeister. Nor will "One-Hand Dan" call him aside on his first night back to the SW Ohio Cult Center to counsel him in Christian candor about the disgrace he's brought on the empty heads of Tradistan. He struck out in philosophy, but he'll round the bases anyway and be home free.

Why, you may ask, will there be no condemnation from the cult kingpins, either medicinal or vindictive?

The answer's easy:

Uneven-Steven is Dirtbag Dan's McMini-Me...

...which means the Stevemeister has to be Wee Dan's successor. And some day there just might be a glittering miter in it for him, as long as he doesn't cross Principal Murky Lowturdsky or get too ambitious too soon, like the previous boorish pretender to the Gertrudian faldstool.

Dannie and the Blunderer must want to escape all the problems they're facing, but they probably can't afford to cut themselves off entirely from the cult's resources. (Santa Fe ain't cheap!)  The McFaker is their "Great White Hope." Deficient as he is, he's the only one in the pipeline with a personality and a public presence that has a slight chance of keeping the Gerties paying once Li'l Dan and the Checkmeister jet off in first-class seats toward a purple, artsy, desert sunset for their jubilación santafereña. (The other two stooges would empty the place out in a year.)

Now some of you out in cyber space have taken exception to this oft-repeated prediction. One cult banshee screeched, "How do you know? Are you the Bishops (sic)  confident (sic)?" Absolutely not, Madam! We run in better social circles. What we do, however, is closely observe the signs.  Here's a very telling one that'll confirm our conjecture:

If you listen to the McFaker's sermons, you'll be impressed by just how accurately he apes Li'l Dan. Seriously, it's a very, very good job of impersonation.  Amazing, really. The McMonkey's got no head for philosophy, but he sure has an ear for "his master's voice." His pitch is perfect with respect to Dannie's rhythms, articulation, final cadences, emphases, tempo, diction, phrasing, speech patterns, and intonation. Honest to goodness, he's got the exact tones with the same contours, and even an eerily similar voice quality! What we mean in linguistic terms is: the suprasegmentals and paralinguitsic features are spot on.

Truly, it's a masterly job of mimicry, and his clear baritone outclasses Dannie's frail, nasally pitched piping. Moreover, he does a far more convincing job of sounding "cultivated" in spite of his dreadful performance with the Summa. And if ever in his preaching he repeats "im-pass-say" for impasse, the culties won't notice, just as most didn't notice when Dannie once pronounced the ch in "Chalcedon" (the Asia-Minor site of the Fourth Ecumenical Council) like the ch (/tʃ/) in cheeseball rather than the /k/ in clown.

Note carefully that the McMimic's "sermon" voice is very different from the normal tone of speech he used in his disgraceful interview on Restoration Radio or in his 2013 Rosary Sunday talk to a herd of Gerties. Like Dannie, when he sermonizes, he makes a real effort to sound ethereally artificial, with dawdling modulations, overly careful articulation of each consonant, and odd vowels. (To his credit, his risible usage of the British "prō-gress" sounds far more natural than Dan's backwater Southern evangelist "Pen-tee-cost").

To put it in a nutshell, you get the feeling that Dannie is right there with you, cooing and gurgling as he outstretches his greedy palm for a "little alms." In a year, the McMini-Me may be able to deliver a perfect re-creation of the whole Dannie pulpit experience, so authentic that the cultists just might keep on paying through the nose when "One Hand" heads to the chic Southwest with Checkie as bag boy.

But don't take our word for it. Listen yourself, first to the McSimian in his sermon Temptations Against Purity and then to Wee Dan  right here. Two peas in a podcast, if there ever were.

The only questions that remain are:

(1) Can the McMini-Me sustain the cult's syrupy fictional narrative of sticky-sweet 1950s pop Catholicism?

and, most importantly,

(2) Will the future McCorner continue to deliver the weekly weather report?

SO ... ARE YOU READY TO START THE COUNTDOWN-TO-RETIREMENT CLOCK?

E-MAIL US YOUR PREDICATED DATES!

ON A WING AND A PRAYER

It is a tale/Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/Signifying nothing. Shakespeare

Motivated by a correspondent's timely suggestion, we've started listening to podcasts of the cult amateurs whose performances bring disgrace to the Restoration Radio Network. In our search for fresh, wincingly embarrassing examples of sede ineptitude, we clicked on the February 23, 2014, program with "Father" Uneven-Steven McFaker on the topic of the first part of the Summa Theologica.

As you'll recall, we've mentioned the McNewbie several times in the past (most notably, for instance, here and here). We reported that Dirtbag Dan "ordained" him despite his never having attended a brick-and-mortar seminary, in contemptuous violation of principles solemnly articulated by Cheeseball Checkie in his article about untrained Trad clergy. (Dannie used these same "principles" to blacken the name of a young French priest.) Some of you might know that the Stevemeister "studied" independently with one priest out West until cut loose, and then "studied" for a short spell under the busily clueless Tony Baloney. In the podcast discussion, the malformation really, really shows.

In about an hour and a half, this joker comes off like an unprepared D-student nervously faking his way through an oral book report. We've all seen this phenomenon in high school and occasionally at university. Probably at one time or another, you, too, have been guilty of trying to wing it through something you haven't read or fully understood.

Do you recall the anxiety you felt as you fretfully scanned the unfamiliar pages hoping to find something to save your lazy hide? Didn't you feel like a drowning, shipwrecked seaman wildly surveying the surface of an overwhelming sea in hopes of latching onto some drifting flotsam? Remember how you could sense your dry tongue thickening, your heart racing, your throat constricting amid the mounting panic as you thrashed about, helplessly submerging deeper and deeper into the sloshing, choppy, whirling b.s.? You bet your booties you do, Granny! And this outrageous podcast will prove a delight as you watch from afar this wretch futilely struggle to stay afloat. (Suave mari magno, and all that, right, all you classicists out there?)

As you listen, you can almost see his trickster's eyes furtively darting across the computer screen as the coughs, the pauses, the stuttering resumptions, the misplaced emphases, and the overly prolonged syllables betray that he's piling it on ever higher and ever deeper while each excruciatingly uncomfortable minute slowly ticks by. If this loser weren't talking about the Summa of Aquinas, we could all content ourselves with the delicious Schadenfreude, as another cult phony makes a fool himself in front of the world. (Anesthetized Sede Nation may have loved this charade of unforced errors, but it didn't impress the alert citizens in the Republic of the Informed.)

For some of us who were privileged to read the Summa under the strict tutelage of fluent, scholarly, Laval Thomists, who revered -- and intimately knew in Latin -- the texts of the Angelic Doctor, we cannot laugh. We are, in fact, angry -- not so much at this pretender or his gullible host -- the two of them haven't the humility to do proper show preparation and, besides, they don't know any better. Our anger is aimed at Big Don, the pesthouse rector; His Insipidity, "One-Hand Dan," and Erroneous Antonius don't count the slightest in matters of the mind.

If the rector really were the "theologian" his risible PR effort makes him out to be, he would've persuaded the moderator (a big fan of his) to remove the podcast as an offense to Catholic culture and a mortal danger to the reputation of traditionalists.  He then should've begged Li'l Dan to instruct this interloper to keep his unschooled mouth shut.

However, as we learned last Sunday from "One-Hand" -- who, BTW, just got back from a carefree holiday in stylish Santa Fe (as we had guessed!) -- Big Don needed Dannie's wingman, the McFaker, to accompany him to Poland last week  "as MC, chauffeur and bag boy."*  Clearly, the rector has another set of priorities besides Catholic truth, especially if this McFaker is Wee Dan's heir apparent. (Veritas post nummos, we surmise?)

To illustrate this clown's ignominious performance (and to make it easier on you, for the audio is really painful), we've carefully transcribed a short portion (minute 83:55 - 83:08) of the farcical program:

And then ... his [St. Thomas's] second objection is that from more of a philosophical point of view and ... also from, you know, the ability of, um, uh, uh, of the human ability, and basically saying that ... *gasp*, that we can only know certain things, um, by reason and so therefore we shouldn't, ah, really go beyond what we are able to grasp by our reason because we get into something that's beyond the ... the ph-philosophical science. And this is an argument put forth by ... by Aristotle himself (!)...And so... *throat-clearing noise* ... and so that's how he lays out the two objections as to why we should not know sacred doctrine. (Underscoring,  italics, and interpolated editorial protest ours.)

Say what? Absolute BULL Sss... (er, um, *cough,* uh, ah) ... Winkle! 

For the record, here's how St. Thomas actually represented the core of the second objection (Thomas Gilby's 1963 translation):

...the philosophical sciences deal with all parts of reality, even with God; hence Aristotle [in Metaphysics vi] refers to one department of philosophy as theology, or the divine science .** (Our insertion of cite, based on the Latin text.)

In other words, the second objection proposes, on the authority of Aristotle, that theology is a branch of philosophy. It says nothing about the inadequacy of reason.  It's about knowledge. It's about whether a science separate from philosophy is necessary. St. Thomas, who wrote a commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics, is referring to Aristotle's conclusion (starting at Metaph. E 1026^a18 in the Greek text) that theology, along with mathematics and the philosophy of nature, was one of the three theoretical philosophical sciences.***  This is the real argument, not the fabrication the McFaker pulled out of his aaa, er ... out of his, um ... uh ... out of his... hat.

 He's so far off base that we must conclude he didn't examine the text, for no one could be so clueless, not even "the Skipper," the MHT completer in Michigan who skipped the consecration at Mass.

Although later on in his "exposition," the McFaker gets his head just above water (by then he'd had time to read over Thomas's respondeo dicdendum quod, which makes the argument perfectly clear), that doesn't make up for all the gibberish that preceded. What should have been made plain from the very start is that article 1 is not about the limits of human reason. It's a refutation of the thesis that philosophy alone as a discipline is sufficient to know all the truths about God. (Hence the necessity for our welfare that divine revelation signify for us those truths.) **** 

You can see for yourself if you won't believe us, provided you possess the ability to comprehend written English. Read the Summa's article 1  here to discover on your own how dead wrong this oafish b.s. artist is. (The Dale-Chall Readability Index for the article assesses the grade level as 9-10, within easy reach of most people.)

It's easy to see that these cult "priests" have no real learning. It's all play acting, posing, and bluffing. In Tradistan, expertise is achieved by self-declaration, not earned through long and hard study. The faithful would do well to ignore everything they hear from the sede impostors. They're making it up as they go along. Their ignorance, however, isn't confined to the big things, such as theology, Latin, or the interpretation of the Common Doctor. Time and again, we've shown how they lack the small stuff, which sometimes is more indicative of inauthenticity.

Before we sign off for the day, allow us to expose two slips that further substantiate this guy isn't for real. The first is his reference to the Book of Sirach, and the second is his uttering the name Isaiah.

Now it seems if a priest were sincerely committed to the Traddie cause, he'd make the effort to preserve Biblical names as found in the Vulgate or in direct translations from it. After all, these are the traditional forms, and many Vulgate proper nouns and titles of sacred books differ from the forms found in modern versions of the Bible (the forms of which the Novus Ordo has adopted in its new translations of Scripture).

The Vulgate usages are those found in most of the missals laymen use, too. Accordingly, insisting on the Vulgate forms would appear to be not only the mark of a traditional priest but also another quiet act of resistance to the Novus Ordo's leveling agenda. Putting it another way, using the Vulgate conventions is an indicator of authentic Catholic traditionalism and a sincere token of fidelity to the historical Latin culture of the Roman Church.

Not so for this McFaker. Instead of saying "Ecclesiasticus," he says "The Book of Sirach," and instead of "Isaias," he says "Isaiah." The former instance of betrayal of traditional norms no doubt resulted from his use of the New Advent online Summa. However, if he were a thoroughly trained traditionalist, we should think he would've automatically supplied the traditional name for the book. (Didn't he have a Scripture course during his five years of independent study?)

The second betrayal indicates that he hasn't made an effort to unlearn the Protestant form of the prophet's name, which, we admit, is by far the more commonly heard and seen. We guess he either doesn't know there's a difference or doesn't care. But why should he? If you don't care enough to get St. Thomas right, of what importance, then, are traditional Catholic spellings and usages?

If you wish to corroborate independently just how incompetent the buffoon's presentation is -- and if you have the patience to listen through the full 10 minutes or so of all his stammering, hedging, coughing, hemming and hawing, and clumsy juggling on question 1, article 1 -- here's the link (starting at minute 86:45). Some of what he says is so positively incoherent that multiple listenings won't tease out any certain sense. One example of his bizarre musings is a head-scratching observation on Aristotle's theology against the backdrop of pagan Greece. The sede mooncalf apparently is blissfully unaware that philosophical monotheism had been around in Greece for at least some two centuries before the Stagirite flourished. 

Isn't it obvious that this cult clown has no business at all talking about scholastic theology and philosophy? *****  

When you've finished listening to the McFaker's bogus exposition, read the paraphrase of Thomas's article 1 below, written by a real Catholic teacher-priest from the good ol' days, when the clergy were truly educated and their orders were undoubted. It'll take you less than a minute. Then you'll understand our claim that these sede "priests" fall so far from the Catholic standard of excellence we must consider them aliens. 

Man's most urgent need is to know truths about God. Some of these truths can be known by philosophy, that is, by thinking them out. Other truths about God are made known to man by divine revelation. And indeed divine revelation is required for the proper understanding of all truths about God, even those which philosophy teaches. For without revelation man could not know quickly and accurately the naturally knowable truths about God so as to make these truths the rule and guide for his responsible life right from the start. Therefore, philosophy is not enough for man; divine revelation is required. ******

Since the rector won't act, the McKnow-Nothin' and Restoration Radio should pull this reprehensible Play Skool®-astic podcast, buy a copy of Msgr. Glenn's A Tour of the Summa, and just read it to the audience, who surely deserve better than the deadly misinterpretation they've been fed.

But they won't. So it's up to you.

PROTEST THIS OFFENSIVE PROGRAM BY SENDING YOUR COMPLAINT TO

MAIL@TRUERESTOATION .ORG

.

* We wonder who paid for the "clerical" dogsbody's airfare, food, and lodging. Big Don? Or was it a gift from the SW Ohio cult at the laity's expense? And we also wonder why the rector didn't invite the Forlorn Finn, a European and a completer of his "seminary," to  accompany him instead? Wouldn't he want to show off one of his own? Or is he ashamed? Or did Dannie offer the McFaker free of charge to advance the newcomer's standing in Tradistan?

** The New Advent translation, which we surmise the McFaker was using, reads: "But everything that is, is treated of in philosophical science --even God Himself; so that there is a part of philosophy called theology, or the divine science, as Aristotle has proved (Metaph. vi)." 

*** ὥστε τρεῖς ἂν εἶεν φιλοσοφίαι θεωρητικαί, μαθεματική, φυσική, θεολογική (Aristotelis Metaphysica, ed. W. Jaeger, Oxford Classical Texts, 1963). The text, as Thomas would have read it, is as follows (from John Rowan's translation of Thomas' Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle [p. 456, Regnery, 1961], lest our adversaries accuse us of special pleading had we offered our own translation):

538. Hence there will be three theoretical philosophies:  mathematics, the philosophy of nature, and theology.

An absolutely literal translation of the Greek is: "And so there would be three theoretical philosophies: mathematical [philosophy], natural [philosophy], [and] theological [philosophy]."

It's worth noting here that the McFaker persists in his ignorance of what Aristotle actually said up until the end of this foolish discourse. At minute 78:31 he references "...the argument from ... from Aristotle himself that we can't ... *gasp* ... use anything more than or we shouldn't strive to use anything more than philosophical knowledge." You just read Aristotle's words, so you yourself know that Aristotle said no such thing. It looks to us as though he's confused what Aristotle said with the Scriptural quote in the first objection and (maybe) considers the conclusion of the syllogistic argument of the second objection to be Aristotle's. This guy's clearly out of his depth.

**** Because of his ignorance, he doesn't understand the importance of the subject of the article 1 as it relates to Thomas's overall design of the Summa. As the Dominican Eschmann wrote in his monograph A Catalogue of St. Thomas's Works, "The main and most properly Thomistic feature of the Summa, is its plan by which for the first time in history theology obtained the status of a science." And science is, as Thomas says, "recta ratio scibilium," right reason of things that can be known with certainty, IIa-IIae 55, art.3. (Our emphasis.)

***** Not only does it appear as though this bamboozler's neither had a survey course in Greek philosophy that covered Xenophanes nor ever read Aristotle's doxographical passages, seemingly he's unaware of St. Augustine's City of God, books vi-viii.

******Paul J. Glen, A Tour of the Summa, Question 1. Sacred Doctrine, 1.

THE ORIGINAL AMATEUR HOUR

Ignorance is not innocence but sin. Browning

If you've ever wanted additional  proof of the cult clergy's amateur standing, you've but to read the August 24 "Corner" on the sgg.org/cult website. Last week Wee Dan was on a "short Summer (sic) respite" -- does that mean the luxurious Bishop's Lodge in impossibly hip Santa Fe? -- so one of the McFakers served as guest bloviator, where he taunted the flat-broke Gerties with a travelogue of his recent extended holiday in France. His cringe-worthy account is an object lesson in how Dannie's doubtfully ordained slackers fall miles short of the mark of the thoroughly trained, broadly cultivated Catholic priests of the past.

Before we began reading the turgid prose, we were amused to observe in the place of Li'l Dan's armorial bearings a coat of arms (obviously snatched from the Internet) displaying the guest writer's surname. Hilariously, the booby left the surname on the escroll, the place for the motto.* Ignoring, for the moment, the prohibition against assuming another's arms even if you share the same last name (a big no-no under heraldic law), we point out that this simpleminded "priest" witlessly retained the helmet and mantling of the borrowed achievement.

Now, everyone with a little ecclesiastical culture knows that once a man's been ordained, he must lay aside any secular heraldic achievement, even if he had a right to it originally. Accordingly, a priest's escutcheon (shield) must be ensigned by a black galero (ecclesiastical hat) with one fiocco (tassel) on either side. Raiding the web for a coat of arms to which you are not entitled is middle-school-level dilettantism in its lowest form. But if you're trashy enough to do it, you should at least try to get the externals right.

The body of the "Corner's" message is equally awful. We won't mention the stilted narrative or the pre-adolescent ruminations or the laughable attempts to ape "One Hand's" mannerisms. What we will focus on are the amateur's misspellings of French words. Like his mentor Dannie, this laggard lacks the energy to double check the accent marks or the received spelling. Maybe he can't tell the difference.  Perhaps it's owing to a perceptual disability, say, some form of Sensory Processing Disorder. Who knows? Whatever the origin, it's the mark of a sloppy, untrained, and immature mind.

Let's take the nickel tour of this illiterate's orthographic errors:

Sacrè Coeur instead of Sacré-Cœur; Claude de la Colombiére instead of Colombière; Catherine Laboure instead of Labouré; the Curè’s feast, after somehow managing twice before to spell Curé correctly; Paray le Monial  instead of Paray-le-Monial; Mont St. Michel instead of Mont Saint-Michel.

If this yokel was able to cut and paste a coat of arms from the 'Net, why couldn't he have taken the trouble to do the same for these French proper nouns? Irremediable amateurism, that's why!

Please don't get us wrong. Our purpose here isn't to horse-whip the village idiot of Tradtown. This loser gets enough disrespect from his fellow sede clergy and his masters, who can barely tolerate his morose presence. (He's really not the "kind of guy" they want to hang with.) Our aim is far more serious -- and charitable. We want to make the case that such ignorance and inattention suggest these "clergy" aren't prepared to sweat the details in the sacred sciences either. That's the real and practical problem for today's Catholics who need guidance on moral issues in light of advances in science and technology.

Contrary to what some commenters may say, we propose that a priest's educational and intellectual attainment has a direct, practical, spiritual benefit for the faithful. A rigorously prepared priest, well versed in moral theology, not the sickly sweet, piously sentimental tracts Granny likes to read, is the best spiritual resource the laity can have. Now, this goofball is pious enough; that's for sure. In fact, he's probably the most pious of all the cult clown crew. Nevertheless, piety alone is not enough for a secular priest charged with the cure of souls. A solid, accurate, professional knowledge of theology is essential for the salvation of souls. 

Most sede priests, pious or otherwise, are unfit to provide answers to many questions that arise in the 21st century, unless the problem exactly matches conditions of the 1950s. (And even then, their frightening amateurism and poor training lead them to make up an answer rather than to research it.) Why the incompetence? First, because their seminary formation is the worst you can imagine. Second, their weak or non-existent academic preparation and the cult's anti-intellectualism bar them from attending institutions of advanced study to make up for their educational deficits. Third, their intellectual bigotry and the absence of assiduous, remedial, independent study render them incapable of evaluating the work of formally trained Novus Ordo or SSPX theological writers, who could be of use in unraveling some of the thorny moral/ethical problems that 21st-century Catholics face in their daily lives.

That's right. We did say that N.O. and SSPX writers can be of value to Trads. In spite of what the blowhard rector and Erroneous Antonius would have you believe, there are many well trained non-sede priests, e.g., Juan Carlos Iscara, SSPX, and Richard Sparks, C.S.P., who are thinking and writing today within an orthodox Catholic framework, particularly in the field of bioethics. If sede clergy possessed an adequate foundation, they would at least be able to evaluate the work of these far better prepared churchmen so as to help guide the laity in making certain decisions in a world where medical science has advanced further than 1950s theologians ever contemplated. A sede priest with an open mind, a discernment that comes from a rigorous formation, and a zeal for souls would be able to assess the orthodoxy of a particular written opinion and offer the faithful informed guidance rather than superstition.

However, insofar as sedes are not taught sufficient content and cannot skillfully reason through a theological question, they prefer to make things up or reflexively say NO. (Many are by nature intellectually inferior and could never master the material even if their teachers were professionally trained.) When faced with a dilemma, many resort to arrogant stonewalling. No research -- except, perhaps, to confer with a cult master, who's just as ill-prepared but more forcefully opinionated. No looking things up. No sober analysis based on well-learned and oft-practiced theological principles.  They just widen their eyes, vigorously shake their empty heads, and leave the laity in tears to fend for themselves.

The bottom line is that these sede know-nothings are rank amateurs, whose advice in the confessional or in a counseling session is as misinformed as their spelling of French geographical names.

* Should this bumpkin one day seek to become legitimately armigerous, may we suggest Horace's Virtus Post Nummos ("virtue after money") as a suitable motto for a groveling lackey owned by the mammonite SW Ohio cult? 

AMERICAN HUSTLE

Let your alms sweat into your hands, until you know to whom you will give. The Didache

We've had a lot of harsh things to say about the disturbed cult-fanatics in economic bondage to "One-Hand Dan." Over the years, we've called them depraved, perverted, zombies, rite-trash, troglodytes, filth, sub-humans and all manner of other rude, but accurate, descriptors. We hold them in the lowest esteem. To be perfectly honest, we'd prefer the company of plague-carrying sewer rats to theirs.  With frisson we recall how once we sat in the same pews downwind from these foul vermin! In our mind, they're the basest form of life, on a par with the Ebola virus, except deadlier.

Our revulsion notwithstanding, after reading Dubious Dan's August 17 "Bishop's (?) Corner," we were -- believe it or not -- actually moved to pity the beasts. They just managed to pay off "One Hand's" oppressive winter utility bills after he took unnecessary back-to-back trips to sunny climes outside the U.S., and now the swinish cult masters, in a spasm of fund-raising madness, are greedily passing the hat again.

Immediately following Wee Dan's recent pressure to repair the storm-damaged organ, the cultlings face a new, two-pronged assault from the Checkmeister's building fund appeal and Dollar Dan's solicitation for a "separate offering of  $20 a month" to pay for "cost-saving arches...for the cloister"! (Does the wanton panhandling ever end down there in SW Ohio?) All this after rubbing the Gerties' booger-caked noses in his two flunkies' excellent food-and-beverage adventures abroad. It's a sure bet that few of the cult-slaves will ever vacation in France -- or even Paris, Kentucky -- as long as they have to keep Needy Dan and his freeloading entourage fat and happy.

(And that reminds us: if we were a cash-strapped Gertie being hustled to dig deeper, we'd want to know if the two "priests" paid their way 100% or if the cult center is contributing. We would insist on a full, documented audit when the tag team of the McFakers returns.)

It's always been our theory that money is the only thing that matters for the cult masters. However, as the money dries up, they get more desperate. With his two doubtfully ordained gofers living it up as if there were no tomorrow in la belle France, Dannie's got to be hankering for a pampered week at the chic desert Southwest spa he fancies to be his eponymous lodgings. He's also got the urge to splurge in Mexicali, Mexico, this winter. That means he'll have to squeeze the Gertie turnips even harder.

Those poor, exploited, brutish serfs! They must be exhausted at being treated like cash registers. Dirtbag Dan seems to regard them as donating cyborgs, otherwise they'd get some relief from the non-stop hustle. If they were normal, they'd rebel. But since they're scum of the earth, put here to serve Dannie, they'll have to pay and pay and pay. No doubt, they deserve the abuse. But you've got to feel a little sorry for their hollow-cheeked, female chattel and their whimpering, snaggletoothed whelps: the SGG fund-raising juggernaut unmercifully rolls on, crushing families' aspirations as frenzied culties sacrifice their financial weal to keep Doubtful Dan comfy-cozy. The cruel irony is that these victims may not be getting anything in return for their burdensome tribute, if it turns out that Dannie's orders are invalid in virtue of one-handed priestly ordination.

The family fisc in exchange for doubtful sacraments seems a very bad bargain, indeed.

Fundraising is so deeply ingrained in "One Hand's" psyche that whenever you read his missives, you find so many Freudian slips you'd think you were in Kaufhaus Steffl. No matter how hard the cult masters try to repress in public their ungovernable craving for the laity's treasure, they fail.  Last week's message was no exception as Dannie "sadly" noted the loss of the "pious presence" of a former Gertie who retired to help out at a rival sect's minor seminary.

What Wee Dan chose not to mention was that this man, an extraordinarily generous donor, had abandoned Dan's cult in the aftermath of the horrific 2009 SGG School Scandal (the fifth anniversary of which we'll mark in November).  This good-natured soul didn't resume assisting at cult Masses until after the doubtfully ordained "pastor" of his chapel  self-destructed in typical sede fashion. The sadness "One Hand" expresses should not be read as an empty social gesture. We guess our parasitic prelataster is really and truly devastated because this man's uncommon largess -- we think at times it amounted to $25K + per annum -- is now out of his grasp and at the fingertips of Dannie's feared (and despised) rival.

Li'l  Dan's promise to pray for this cheerful giver smells to us like a brazen reminder for more stipends. (Helpless, money-scrounging cult master: he can't conceal his lust for "alms." It will always out!) We trust that, in his new home, this kind gentleman will find so many priests worthy of his monetary support that he won't feel obliged to send Dannie a dime. We're also certain that his new spiritual overseer will firmly counsel him not to squander his generosity on the moribund SW Ohio cult.

Just because "One Hand" targets you in his "Bishop's (?) Corner" doesn't mean you have to write a check. 

DON'T BE A MARK. HOLD ON TIGHT TO YOUR CASH!

ADDLED DELUSION

Two types of blindness easily happen at the same time, such that those individuals who do not see what exists in reality seem to see what doesn't exist. Tertullian

The SGG cult center's website posted a revealing sermon of Tony Baloney's, oddly and awkwardly titled "A Brief Biography of Myself and Traditionalism in Milwaukee."  What's significant is not the bald and needy narcissism -- that's typical of anything the SW Ohio cult masters flush out, for whatever those cretins preach about always focuses on them.

What's of real interest is Checkie's disjointed narration about how, way back in his seminary days in Wisconsin, he used to attend a "traditional" Mass offered by a priest who had resisted his lawful superiors. (N.B. the cult masters themselves won't brook any conscience-driven resistance -- witness the 2009 SGG School firings.) From the Bonehead's account, we gather that the Mass at which he assisted served as a source of strength and encouragement for him and his fractious chums.

Now, if we just apply a little bit of thought, we have to conclude that the Mass attended by callow, young Checkmeister was surely the Mass of John XXIII, which the Cheeseball characterized in his dreadfully written, error-filled Work of Human Hands as "a radical break with tradition." That's par for the course, isn't it? When, for lack of a proper sermon topic, Phony Tony wants to strut his Trad credentials before the cultlings, it was O.K. for him to have attended the '62 rite. But when he needs to keep those faithful from straying to another Traddie sect embracing that rite, he condemns it.

(Question: How do you say "chameleon" in Tradistani? Answer: "chekkee".)

The hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty take your breath away. And this isn't the only example, as regular followers of this blog will recall.  Hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty are unmistakable signs not only of mental disorderliness but also of a full-blown cult mentality. The cult masters' opinions are always in flux whenever they see an advantage. Therefore, it's easy for them to thumb their noses at consistency but at the same time insist that things have never changed.

You could almost ignore these clerical shape-shifters' malformation, howling errors in scholarship, unmerited arrogance, pack-rat acquisitiveness, and self-absorption if they didn't compound their offenses with naked Pharisaism.  What's humorous is they think no one notices. Oh, sure, the cultie zombies remain bewitched, but, then, decent Catholic women and men know better than to value the superstitions of the morally blind and the psychically perverted.

Every week the same whipsaw shifts are on display in Daniel the Weasel's "Bishop's (?) Corner." Take a look at what he wrote on August 10:

The main sacrilege of our day is surely the N.O. itself, and Masses offered “one with”* the wicked antichrist occupying Rome.

Hypocritically he accuses the Novus Ordo of sacrilege, albeit he and the Unfortunate 14 he's "ordained" may be committing equally monstrous acts of sacrilege daily if his one-handed ordination is invalid. "One Hand" could dispel all doubt in an instant if he were to seek conditional orders and then re-ordain at least 13 of the 14 luckless souls who inauspiciously chose him as their ordaining "bishop." But pride keeps him from getting fixed. (BTW, his failure to remedy the doubt is something altogether alien to Catholic practice.)

"One Hand's" hypocrisy is only outdone by his promotion of the grandly over simplistic, intellectually dishonest "una-cum" fantasy. Even Li'l Dan knows it's an opinion invented fairly recently by the rent-seeking Big Don and his familiar, the Blunderer. He knows -- or ought to know -- the Church has never entertained their thesis, yet he presents it as though it were an article of faith, which he is brash enough to pretend to teach. Horse feathers! His Vagrancy has no such brief. At best, he can recommend established doctrine as a private person (not as a teacher). He has no business saying anything about unsettled issues without a disclaimer. 

Behind the septic hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty lies the wrongful lemma that Dannie's cult somehow represents -- or embodies --the true Church, and therefore he has the authority to convince others of sin. There's nothing immediately self-evident about that sede fiction. Indeed, the opposite is true. The behavior of the cult's clerics and the failure of "One Hand's" apostolate lead us to affirm the falseness of his avouchment.  His cult is just one of many factions asserting without warrant a claim on Catholicity. We don't have a problem with an individual priest's suppressing the una cum phrase in the Canon in his Mass. That's a matter of conscience. Our problem is with the cult fabulists who insist that those who in their good conscience do recite the phrase are sinners. At this time, given our imperfect knowledge, no one knows -- and no one can affirm -- what's the authentic Catholic teaching on the issue!

The truth of it is that Dannie's cult is a garish simulacrum, a low-brow parody, of the Church. Behind the empty pageantry and meretricious performance art of the "pontifical" big shows, where towering minions fuss over a wee, proletarian Dannie as he comically plays the aristocrat, there lies the harsh reality of untrained (and possibly invalid) clergy, savage self-interest, and the nagging fear of eventual exposure. Nothing is substantial. It's all make-believe: make-believe bishop and priests, make believe scholars and theologians, make-believe piety, make-believe 1950's Catholicism. All that's real is the fast friendship with the mammon of iniquity.

If you're not a cult slave, you know the Church doesn't reside in Tradistan. What poobah Dan and panjandrum Don have on offer -- non-stop fundraising, protean teachings, and theological legends -- bears only a superficial but misleading resemblance to the authentic Roman Catholic Church. On closer inspection, the sighted recognize it's a mirage.

COME OUT OF THE DARKNESS INTO THE REAL WORLD. GET OUTTA DANNIE AND DONNIE'S FANTASY LAND TODAY.

* "One with" is Dannie's translation of una cum. He's trying to be poetic with this supposedly hyper literal rendering. The trouble is, he's wrong. The una of una cum is really unā, an adverb from the feminine ablative singular form. The literal meaning, then, of unā  is in one and the same action or process, hence together, in company, at the same time. Like Cheeseball Checkie, he has no understanding of the way the Latin language operates. He's forever thinking like a very backward, linguistically challenged first-year student. As usual, he's trying to show off, and he falls flat on his face. One more reason not to click on the DONATE button if ever you're cyber-slumming at sgg.org/cult.

SIMPLE ARITHMETIC?

... it is wise to concede that all things are one. Heraclitus (Fragment 50)

Deacon Dan must be getting fidgety about his doubtful orders: lots of traditional Catholics in the U.S., France, South America, and Mexico are talking about His One-Handedness and the real threat of invalid sacraments.

We wonder if that's why Daniel the Dirtbag is sending two of his doubtfully ordained "priests" abroad "for a Summer vacation visit to La France Sacré (sic!)," as he boasted in his August 3 "Bishop's (?) Corner." (Grammar-challenged Dannie, the relentless vulgarian, apparently never learned that la France is feminine, so the adjective must also be feminine -- Sacrée. He really shouldn't try to put on airs with such a lousy formation and unrefined personal background: he looks so very silly.)

Perhaps this tour is an attempt to allay some of the concerns over there about his one-handed ordination. The question over here is: Are the two goofball "priests" paying their way out of their own savings, or is the cult center underwriting all or part of the trip? Considering their "formation," it's hard to see how this odd couple could calm Gallic anxieties about dubious sacraments. We doubt the highly cultured, education-loving French will pay heed to the two meatballs if they go as ambassadors for Dannie's orders.

On this side of the Atlantic, fresh tales from the East Coast inform us that CLODs ("close loyalists of Dannie") are feverishly telling everybody who'll listen that only a substantial change in the matter of a sacrament renders it invalid. According to Li'l Dan's surrogates, when Abp. Lefebvre imposed one hand on Wee Dan's pin head in 1976, it was not a substantial change to Pius XII's rite (which, we point out again, without question specifies the imposition of hands). Apparently they've wisely abandoned Tony the Blunderer's other arguments and are circling the wagons on this one point. Although last year we defeated or rebutted all the arguments Tony Baloney marshaled to support this contention, today we'll put to bed the specious "defense" in a way even a child can understand.

Let's first pose the central question of the debate:

A substantial change in the matter of a sacrament occurs when the matter employed, according to common usage and the estimation of prudent men (secundum communem usum et prudentium aestimationem), is not of the same appearance and name as that determined by Christ and the Church.* Accordingly, in light of Pius XII's very specific, infallible teaching that determined the imposition of hands as the valid matter of the sacrament of priestly orders, Catholics must ask whether, according to common usage, one hand means the same thing as -- and looks like --  two hands.

Now, we'll answer the question by way of a case:

Inflamed by prurient sermons on women's dress and their sandals, Spurius, a leering, sede juvenile delinquent with a menacing overbite and terminal post-nasal drip, sits in a sticky back pew busily eyeballing hemlines and ankles.  He spies an "immodestly dressed" and summer-shod young fashionista, Virginia, as she gingerly shuffles out of the howling cult center in her spiffy, new Okabashis after being denied communion. Amid a spray of mucous-coated spittle, he snorts to himself, "Dat widdle fwoozie's gotta wearn a wesson in humiwity and iwwumination." He then clumsily springs to his two clubfeet to pursue her, as the crumpled, soiled newspapers on his lap fall noisily to the floor. When the on-trend maiden pauses to dab away a shimmering tear before exiting the squalid industrial park where the fly-blown cult center stands, the yellow-toothed, teen-aged cultie expertly breaks into the trunk of the coördinator's rusted 1992 Pontiac Firebird -- shredding, in the process, a faded I [HEART] TRADISTAN decal that masked the few, stray streaks of original primer. He steals the tire iron and, awkwardly twirling the deadly tool like a baton, menacingly resumes stalking the unsuspecting maiden. Two alert police officers in a passing cruiser observe the foaming, stumbling Trad hoodlum. Alarmed, they determine to shadow him. When the pot-holed access road dead ends, the pert young miss, absorbed in the stinging memory of her ill treatment at the hands of the mentally unbalanced priest and the shrieking harpies of the altar guild, turns around. To her astonishment, the excitedly panting sede bad-seed collides with her. Brandishing with wicked intent the greasy tire iron, the unsightly Traddie youth screeches at the startled lass, "Gimme yer fwip-fwops!" At that moment, the police leap from the patrol car, swiftly draw their side arms, and shout, "Put your hands in the air!" Curling his impetigo-ravaged lips into a crusty Elvis-Presley sneer, the junior sede thug and home-school-valedictorian raises just his one free hand. 

Well, we've all watched enough TV to guess what happens next, haven't we? Any resultant investigation by the cops' Internal Affairs Bureau will rule the ensuing police response justified: Every prudent man knows that hands doesn't mean hand.

The same goes for Sacramentum Ordinis: when Pope Pius XII decreed the imposition of hands as the matter of priestly ordination, he surely did not mean one hand would do. The Sovereign Roman Pontiff knew that, according to common usage, 1 does not equal 2.

Only a restored Church can give us a definitive answer to the puzzle of the archbishop's negligence. (Was it a Freudian slip?) In the meantime, all Catholics must follow the safer course and consider, as did the nine priests in 1990, "One-Hand Dan's" orders to be doubtful. (Naturally, the same goes for the Unfortunate 14 he's "ordained.")

Put an end to the ongoing threat of sacrilege. Tell all these losers to seek conditional orders immediately.

* Tanquerey, Synopsis Theologiae Dogmaticae (11th ed.) , III, § 285

THE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE

Say, is there Beauty yet to find?/ And Certainty? and Quiet kind? Brooke

Nothing characterizes the ongoing ecclesial crisis more accurately than the absence of certitude about once certain assumptions of Catholic life. The result has been a riot of competing guesses -- a few plausible, most untenable --about the Church's constitution. Exacerbating the confusion has been the appearance of self-interested, striving, clerical adventurers hell-bent on grabbing for themselves the kind of comfortable life that their social class, poor work ethic, and inferior education would have denied them were it not for the pitiable state of Christ's Church. (To be frank, the majority of these detestable loafers would've had a hard time becoming lay brothers in the good ol' days.)

For most of us, this uncertainty is maddening. We join a chapel based on emotion or prejudice or convenience. We persevere in our choice, for we've resigned ourselves to never knowing with certainty whether our decision was right or wrong. That's probably how most Traddies ended up in one or another of the several sede sects. It also explains why most don't leave even after such moral catastrophes like the 2009 SGG School Scandal. It's plainly a matter of negative loyalty: No matter how bad things are, the situation is probably worse elsewhere, so stick with the devil you know.

We'll never have meaningful answers until the Restoration. That event may not happen in our lifetimes. Nevertheless, our ignorance needn't condemn us to living with the nasty results of an honest mistake. In other words, there must be a way for us to sort out which Trad sect or chapel is the least injurious to our soul, our family, our bank account, and our will. Then we can escape Cultilandia.

Well, we think we've found the way, and that way is uncertainty itself. Here's what we mean:

If you're thinking of joining a chapel or want to decide whether to stay in the one you're in, talk to the priest about such topics as the defection of the pope, the Pius X/Pius XII/1962 liturgies, the validity of N.O. holy orders, una-cum Masses, modesty and strapless women's shoes, attendance at chapels with differing views, the Thục lineage, Sedevacantism and/or Sedeprivationism,  etc. (If, like many of Tradistan's clergy, yours is surly, backward, uncommunicative, or arrogantly standoffish, you'll have to listen to his public remarks on these matters.)

If he somehow acknowledges that these are opinions, not Church dogma, and that you are by no means required to agree 100% with him in order to assist at Mass and receive the sacraments, then you may have found the right place. Don't worry if he tries to persuade you. That's to be expected, as long as his attempts aren't high-pressured or harassing. Just leave at once if later he denies you communion or absolution, threatens you with removal, accuses you of mortal sin if you can't go along with his whole program, or claims that you are "confusing" the other faithful.

Believe it or not, there are priests out there well-formed enough to know the difference between sacred dogmas pronounced by the magisterium and mere speculations concocted by malformed ecclesiastical entrepreneurs. An intellectually honest, trustworthy, intelligent priest will acknowledge that the opinions he holds on these topics are not revealed truth. His uncertainty, then, is a sure sign that you haven't landed in a cult where a money-mad, disturbed control-freak aims to do violence to your conscience and empty your pocketbook.

On the other hand, run from any con artists who glibly offer pat answers to the profound mysteries of the Vatican II crisis. You now can recognize them. (But, then, you knew their identities without our help, didn't you?)