HAIL! TO THE VICTOR VALIANT

Times change, and men deteriorate. Gesta Romanorum

Fair is fair.  The devil deserves his due.

PL's spent a lot of time cataloguing Tradzilla's shortcomings, but today he merits our congratulations. Although he hasn't been able (yet) to swallow up Our Lady of the Sun in Arizona, his cult appears to have gained a new satellite — tiny Saint Dominic's in Highland, MI.

It seems this minor acquisition unfolded gradually over the last year.  First, Tradzilla and the Clone boldly celebrated there  "Bishop" Robert McKenna's Requiem. Next the mercurial Long-Island Jellyfish made a long-overdue "ad limina" pilgrimage to the boggy Swampland in order to participate in the "ordination" of the latest pesthouse completer (click here for the pix, last pages). Sealing the deal (at least in our view) was a notice in the cult's November schedule that the aforementioned completer was slated to say Mass on the 13th at the small Highland chapel.

The little place isn't particularly wealthy, but make no mistake: this is a huge victory for the rector.

"Why a victory?" you may ask. "A welcome boost to his badly bruised ego, yes. But how is it a triumph?"

The answer lies in the history of the contentious establishment of the Michigan mini-cult, which, in the opinion of one frequent visitor, always gave the impression of being organized around a raw and lasting antipathy to the Donster. As different as trads are socially, educationally, and economically, everyone at the splinter-group, including the "sisters," appeared to be on the same page when it came to the rector, the mention of whose name used to elicit wounded glances, furrowed brows, or venomous ridicule. (One witty, well-educated member of the group, a gifted mimic and stage-worthy comedian whose comic timing was impeccable, could induce wild fits of derisive laughter with his spot-on impressions of the loathsome cult kingpin.)

To lend credence our reading of the Highland emotional atmosphere, here's a bit of background.

Back in November 2003, amid talk of closing the "school" and relocating the Detroit-area pesthouse complex to the fetid Swampland, three members of Tradzilla's chapel filed articles of incorporation for St. Dominic Church, Inc. Then in March 2004, the Jellyfish along with a couple of so-called sisters filed paperwork for Saint Dominic Chapel, Inc., with the additional provision that "no laypersons...shall have any authority over, directorship of, management of, or financial control over this corporation."*

As you might guess, Tradzilla wasn't amused when he got hold of both documents a while later. In a February 23, 2005, communication with attachments, he charged the parties involved with hatching and executing a "breakaway plan." Hillary-like, he boo-hooed:

[...] it is deplorable that not a single one of these parishioners, some of whom I had known and served since the 1970's and 1980's, had the decency and forthrightness to come and tell me, face to face, what their grievances or accusations were, thereby permitting me to respond, a courtesy afforded even to common criminals — to face your accusers and to respond to them.

The year previous to the above communication had been one of acrimony over the closing and sale of the Detroit-area pesthouse "school," as blistering letters and combative emails bear out.  From what we can determine, the harsh exchanges started in late May 2004, when the Donster whined in a letter to parents:

Many of you have recently subjected me to backbiting, insult, and vilification concerning   these events, both in word and deed [...] most of you — not all — have displayed to me either insufficient interest, or downright bad attitude [Donnie's emphasis].

Taking umbrage, in June one of the lay signatories to articles of incorporation sent Tradzilla a long, allegedly "mortally sinful" letter airing much dirty laundry. After rehearsing a string of grievances and criticisms, he chided:

You have always said that if several people perceive the same faults in you and assess your behavior or personality in the same manner, you should consider it true and work to improve upon it. I can assure you that what I have written here is the nearly universal sentiment of the school families and many of the parish people [....] Up until recently, had you demonstrated the humility and charity to communicate in person with your parishioners, to accept the correction offered you by the elderly, pious Bishop who consecrated you, and to work in charity and justice to restore the confidence of the people in your leadership, you could have salvaged a lot of support. Instead [...] you relied upon hearsay and gossip for information dissemination, wrote increasingly mordacious letters accusing everyone and everything but yourself for all of the problems, and then wondered why you lost the respect and support of the school families and other parishioners.

Following up in October, another outspoken advocate for teeny, embattled Highland bitterly admonished Big Don:

Your interest has only been what would please your main benefactor. Does this sound like a hireling rather than a shepard [sic]? One could see that you had no respect for the other parishioners that had no interest in moving to Florida. Those that went appear to be cultists where you control every detail of their life. I feel sorry for the children in Florida, they didn't have a choice. I hope they don't drink the purple kool aid [....] On a personal note, I don't like your dividing families with no moral justification. Your simple mind control technique of taking advantage of a family tragedy. You can't hide poor management decisions behind the catholic [sic] religion. Feel free to contact me with any questions since I don't shun people nor believe that is the way our Lord spread his [sic] word.

Then, coming full circle, in response to Tradzilla's February 23, 2005, communication, yet another layman reproached the self-pitying rector for his double standards:

I truly think you should look at the mind of the Church in Her [sic] reaction to the Franciscan reforms, and apologize to Fr. Neville for suggesting he did a Judas-like act. West Highland is not in your back yard, but 50 miles from Fraser [MI]. It is outside of the radius you once set up for confessions, even at Warren [MI]. Hardly the back yard to Fraser. And it is even more ironic to see that when you moved the Armada seminary in the early 80's, out of all the places in the US, you chose to move it to Connecticut, right in the middle of two traditional mass centers in Brewster and Monroe, each about 15 miles away! [...] One can even wonder why you knowingly set up your Florida site about 15 miles from another traditional site, and then advertise in one of your public letters how you would like it to be a "center" for Catholics, thus effectively soliciting Catholics around the country and world to leave the priests they are currently helping to support....but horror that a person from Highland might have "contact" with one of your parishioners and possibly sway him towards another Mass site, so you indiscriminately forbid all St. Dominic parishioners from going to Mass in Fraser....even though the mind of the Church is to allow even heretics, Jews and pagans to attend a public Mass if they wish.

We've got lots more material, but that's enough background, we think, for you to get the picture: There was plenty of bad blood between the people of itty-bitty Highland and Big Bad Don. In fact, the animosity struck one observer as so pronounced that he can't conceive how this aggrieved community could countenance the Jellyfish's apparent communion with Tradzilla. From our perspective, it looks as though (1) the Donster didn't even have to make reparation for the hurt and pain over the last decade or so, and ( 2) the Jellyfish made his stunning one-eighty without so much as an eensy-teensy mouse-squeak of protest. (Sorry, folks, but bitter complaints over the telephone, in the car, or at the dinner table don't count as a challenge.)

Vanquishing an overmatched, former subordinate isn't that remarkable — if you know all the players' personalities. The signal triumph here is over the chapel laity.  Their non-reaction (other than a presumed private loss of respect and trust) is nothing short of startling. Why did this independent traditionalist coterie, once seemingly bonded together by a shared animus for the Donster, tolerate such abject capitulation?  Someone may correct us if we're wrong, but we haven't heard of any resistance to the cynical rapprochement.

Could it be that, like so many other trads, they'll always submit without vocal objection to their "clergy's" shifting positions, no matter how baffling? Could they be unaware that all Tradistani "clergy" come with a sell-by date?

If our speculation is right, then it sheds light on the control the cult masters wield over their prey. And it explains why cult "clerics" manifest so much contempt for the laity who pay their bills. Traddie laymen and -women seem willing to sacrifice their principles whenever their quicksilver "clergy" suffer a change of mind. Like a gullible, simpleminded child, they're willing to follow —with conscience silenced and common sense repressed— to the beckoning edge, notwithstanding the known peril awaiting them at their feet.

Theirs is an absurd noösphere, as bizarre as the word's coiner. In it antitheses dissolve, and impossibilities materialize:

What was black is now white;

Contradictory propositions may be, and are, both true and false at the same time — tertium quidem datur; 

The leopard can change its spots.

* PL wonders out loud whether someone might successfully challenge the midget corporation by arguing that trad "priests" and "bishops" are laypersons themselves. After all, how can they be bona-fide clergy if they neither belong to, nor have a commission from, an organized ecclesiastical body?

SPITTIN' IMAGE

A mirror eats donkeys and spits out fools. German Proverb

In his October pesthouse newsletter, Tradzilla pontificated:

The Protestant churches are organized from below, that is, protestants of like mind come together and form a community or “church” where they worship in common. This “church,” however, is the product of human beings, and not of God. It has no authority to teach, rule, or sanctify the faithful. 

Big Don's lack of self-recognition is astonishing: He's describing the image of his cult glaring back from the mirror before which he brays.

If you substitute traddie(s) for Protestant/protestants, the rector's words eerily characterize independent traditional "Catholic" Mass centers inside and outside Tradistan U.S.A. Following the model of Nonconformist conventicles, these chapels were not erected by the Church but by rebel adventurers operating without her warrant as they organized their revolutionary cells "from below."

Behind a scrim of menacingly re-imagined Catholicism, stinking of brimstone and malediction, each TradWorld enclave peevishly clings to its own brand of earthly "identity politics": una-cum, non-una-cum, recognize-and-resist, materialiter sedevanctism, absolute sedevacantism, conclavism, Feeneyism, and so on. Their uncommissioned, scapegrace "clergy" have no authority or jurisdiction, and those among them who might happen to possess the power to sanctify may only exercise their orders upon demand of the laity.

Like their hot-gospeler fellow-travelers in non-Catholic America, these fragmented, rootless trad sects boast wantonly eccentric liturgical practices. One faction espouses the Pius XII rite, another the so-called Pius X, and yet another the '62 iteration. One troupe of dissenters abolished the Leonine Prayers, replacing them with sundry theater pieces recited by a hammy "pastor." Another outlandish coterie embraces the reformed Holy Week liturgy of the mid-'50s yet can't manage to get through Palm Sunday Mass in accordance with its rubrics.

Several vie with each other in publishing different calendars, some with partial abstinence on the Vigil of All Saints, others with full abstinence, and one with "optional [!] feasts" throughout the year. On occasion, there are horrors like "votive Vespers." Infamously, the sleaziest gang produced an ordo filled with Latin errors and at odds with pre-conciliar praxis. In many of these rings, malformed "priests" from unapproved "clerical" certificate mills either race or stumble through Low Masses riddled with sinful defects.

These wildcat, human enterprises purporting to be "Catholic" are no better than the mainline Protestant or the offbeat non-denominational "churches" the Donster condemns as not of divine origin. If he were really the head of the "A-Team," he would've kept his pie-hole shut lest his own jabbing, accusatory finger point back to him. But he's not. Don's but a noisy marketeer for an all-too-human civil corporation. And in order to keep the dying business out of threatening bankruptcy, folks have to be tricked into thinking the SW Ohio-Swampland Cult Cabal is the same as the Roman Catholic Church.

The blasphemous marketing strategy has its pay-off.  Once foolish culties buy into the fiction, manipulative cult masters can pass off as genuine Church teaching any fabrication they please. Hence the lurid, lunatic, on-the-fly prohibitions regarding women's footwear and clothing, popular music, or the kind of people with whom you may associate (unless, that is, you belong to the untouchable élite).  If you do believe the "clergy's" tall tales, then you'll surely agree you're bound under pain of sin to contribute generously to the support of bone-lazy, renegade "clergy," won't you?

No one, not even a congenitally "slow" cultie child, should be taken in by Sinburn's frequent riffs on the superiority of the Catholic Church. Their purpose is to make you (incorrectly) infer that she is to be found whole in Donnie's man-centered enterprise. The reality is, however, that the family-owned sect he runs for now is a splintered, hideously distorted reflection of Christ's immaculate Bride.

But those of you who grasp the difference between Catholic and "Catholicoid" won't fall for deceptive, image-twisting language games.  Hee and haw and kick as Big Don might, graced Catholic faithful can't mistake the worldly traits of divisiveness, greed, self-interest, and materialism for the divine marks of the Holy Roman Catholic Church.

ACCEPT NO WACKY SUBSTITUTES. DUMP YOUR CULT MASTER TODAY!

THE CHILDREN'S HOUR

Till the walls shall crumble in ruin,/And moulder in dust away. Longfellow

Last week, in his squalid "Corner," Dirtbag Dan let slip his deepest fears when he reported on this year's All Saints' Day Kiddie Kostoom Kringe-a-thon:

I always fear anymore that the children’s participation in this day is dying out, for once we had great numbers. But the count of the children is just right each year for their little presentations before I go off for the 11:30, and the party begins. I do feel bad for the children who miss out, because they are missing out.

Wee Dan is right to be worried.

If you didn't painstakingly deconstruct his message, you might've concluded His Uneasiness was anxiously fretting over a demographic trend common to many Tradistani cult chapels. The once victimized kids have grown up and moved away in bitter resentment, leaving mostly aging empty nesters behind to fund a clerical over-the-top lifestyle. Only a handful of lupine families whelping "young'uns" remains willing to sacrifice just enough crumb-crushers to make the cult center seem a child-friendly place.

That, however, would be a superficial,  fundamentally wrong explanation for the dwindling numbers of youthful participants. "One Hand's" cri de cœur in actuality is a therapeutic tool deployed to (temporarily) banish negative thoughts of SGG's imminent collapse. It's kind of like the "rubber band technique" psychologists teach their desperate clients to drive away incapacitating anxiety.
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But the intervention is clearly not working, as evidenced by Distressed Dan's howling, circular idiocy, "I do feel bad for the children who miss out, because they are missing out [??]."

It's no secret there are loads of Gertie rug-rats whose parents don't want them to participate. Ma, Pa and the tykes may assist at Sunday Mass, but they scurry out like Raid®-sprayed cockroaches as soon as the big show's over. No sane parents, even backward ones, want their precious bairns involved in cultie-forming group exercises.

The painful memories of the SGG School Scandal (click here), which erupted in full force around this time seven years ago, are still achingly fresh. All that delirious, syrupy twaddle parents hear from the pulpit about the dear, sweet, little ones cannot erase the lingering mental images of innocence betrayed. Although, for some mysterious reason, these mothers and fathers won't kick SGG pseudo-clergy to the curb in return for undoubtedly valid sacraments at one of the area's many competing traditional chapels, at least they're making sure their offspring keep away from the crud balls who authored the 2009 calamity.

Pretending that everything is all right won't slow SGG's headlong rush to closure. As thick headed as he is, we'd say His Regretfulness is tortured by the unmistakable signs of ineluctable doom for his failed enterprise. A dearth of solutions compounds his fears. For example, he still doesn't dare get rid of "The Principal," who commands an outsized share of the cult's declining collections and remains the source of so much continuing discontent among Gertie stalwarts. Likewise, His Weariness cannot retire to the sunny, chic Southwest, for he hasn't a successor capable of sustaining the contributions he must have to live in leisured luxury. And he cannot rustle new sheep to replace the ones breaking out of the fold: there's too much out there about him now — and much more to come.

Th already-high psychic pressure will increase by many atmospheres when Tradzilla exits the Swampland family cult compound to rattle the beggar's cup for his promised new venture. Dannie will then be barred from access to needed but scarce financial resources as the Donster aggressively fundraises among the same tapped-out marks who feed the SW Ohio cult. Moreover, Big Don's noisy recruitment activities will further lower Li'l Daniel in the esteem of die-hard Gertie misfits. Without question, the vacuum created by Dannie's dramatic loss of standing will embolden many to attach themselves to another, less embattled cult kingpin.

..........................

Don't you agree it's poetic justice that kids are at the root of the weepy Wee One's current terrors?

In late 2009, he refused to remove the cause of children's misery, opting instead to purge SGG "School" of the few caring adults who were their champions. Now the children's diminishing presence at cult events torments him with foreboding. How fitting it is that the very young can serve as the harbinger of long-overdue justice. At last, their hour of retribution has struck.

Unable to see hanging before his eyes the rotten fruits of his 2009 inaction, "One Hand" will continue his therapeutic wishful thinking as the children and paying adults grow fewer. The delusion won't keep the howling, clawing wolf from the cult's shabby door. Dannie'll try to project confidence, with no relief forthcoming. There's no recovery for what ails him.

The truth is: the number of kiddies is "just right each year" simply because Dannie has lowered his expectations so as to avoid confronting SGG's certain demise. Never to be counted again are the "great numbers" of the past. Those glory days of limitless greenbacks ended seven years ago this month. Never to be duped again are Catholics who love their young.

THIS THANKSGIVING, STARVE THE BEAST.

DISORDERED ORDO X & XI

Hold the traditions which you have learned. 2 Thessalonians

Editor's Note: We didn't offer a DISORDERED ORDO in October owing to our participation in the Lay Governance Conference. November's condensed entry will take its place. We're posting the feature earlier in the month than usual because the SGG cult has already begun hawking its "All Saints Roman Catholic Calendar 2017 A.D. (sic! The A.D. era marker comes before the year!)"*: Catholics need a strong reminder to stay away from anything the cult produces related to the Church's liturgical year: chances are, it's far from traditional and likely to be marred with errors.

This installment's example of the cult masters' incompetence will not only demonstrate how far Dimwit Dannie's ORDO 2016 strays from traditional American liturgical practice but will prove beyond a doubt our long-maintained conclusion that SGG's "universal" ordo is not universal.

That fact in itself should discourage European, Australian and New Zealand, African, and Latin American buyers from wasting their money. The year is running out, and there's still the looming danger that "One-Hand Dan" and his Silly Sal may be shameless enough to offer for sale an ordo for 2017. So let's get right to the exposé without further introduction.

For Sunday, July 3 (p. 65), we find the following caption for the day (N.B. Blogger won't allow the ampersand sign, so we replaced it with the Latin word for "and"):

SOLEMNITAS SS PETRI ET PAULI APP ("The Solemnity of SS. Peter and Paul, Apostles")

As Matters Liturgical  (❡692, 1942 ed.) explains, in the United States, the June 29 Feast of SS. Peter and Paul "is not of precept." However, by indult its "External Solemnity is transferred to the Sunday following." (Note, BTW, that Dannie's caption fails to identify it as an external Solemnity — another gross lapse of liturgical accuracy.)

Therefore, once again we see SGG's ordo is meant for Americans, despite its website's advertisement of a "Universal Edition." More importantly, the announcement of the external solemnity in Dannie's highly eccentric ordo does not follow the best practice of traditional American pre-conciliar ordines. In the good ol' days, the well-formed compilers understood that this Mass for SS. Peter and Paul was a privileged Solemn Votive Mass, so the principal caption for the Sunday remained as the "xth day after Pentecost." Notice of the permitted external solemnity was accordingly made in the entry for the preceding day.

Here's what Deficient Dannie ought to have done, if he were liturgically savvy and faithful to American Catholic tradition:

At the end of the entry for Saturday, July 2, the Wee One should have printed — at the very minimum — something like Cras Solemnitas externa Ss Petri et Pauli App celebratur ("tomorrow the external Solemnity of Ss. Peter and Paul, Apostles, is celebrated"). Then for Sunday, July 3, the caption should have read only Dom[inica] VII post Pentecosten ("7th Sunday after Pentecost"). That's what competent American ordines used to do. (Check out, for instance, this sampling from past decades: 1927 St. Paul, MN; 1937 Columbus, OH; 1946 St. Paul, MN; 1954 Cincinnati, OH.)

But, as we all know, His Independency can't be bothered to follow tradition.** It's too confining for his free-wheeling, "do-what-I-want" ways. Plus, it may be that he probably never learned tradition in the first place.

What traditional Catholics must take away from "One Hand's" demonstrated ignorance of how things were really done in the pre-conciliar Church is this:

Cult teachings are arbitrary. You cannot rely on what the malformed cult masters tell you about the liturgy, about theology, or about faith and morals. Get out today!

* Last week we highlighted an error of English usage on Dannie's July 2017 calendar page. Today, we point out a more serious illustration of his contempt for tradition. On Sggresources,  "One Hand" offers a page from his calendar profiling St. John Fisher, where His Deficiency quotes the following verses from John 17: 3-5: 

Eternal life is this: to know You, the only true God, and Him whom You have sent, Jesus Christ. I have given you glory on earth by finishing the work You gave me to do. Do you now, Father, give me glory at your side. 

The problem here is that this is a hyper-modern translation. In fact, we found the exact translation, with only minor differences in capitalization, in Prayers and Devotions from Pope John Paul II (click here. ) If Dannie were so traditional, why, then, didn't he quote from the traditional Douay version revised by Challoner?

Now this is eternal life: That they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. I have glorified thee on earth; I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now glorify thou me, O Father, with thyself. (TAN text)

And if SGG didn't own a copy of the Douay or wanted a slightly more up-to-date version, why didn't "One Hand" quote from the 1941 Confraternity version?

Now this is everlasting life, that they may know thee, the only true God, and him whom thou hast sent, Jesus Christ. I have glorified thee on earth; I have accomplished the work that thou hast given me to do. And now do thou, Father, glorify me with thyself. (St. Anthony Guild Press text)

But if Dirtbag Dannie thought the Confraternity language was still too "traditional" for his modern tastes, why didn't he at least quote from Mgr. Knox's 1945 translation?

Eternal life is knowing thee, who art the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. I have exalted thy glory on earth, by achieving the task which thou gavest me to do; now, Father, do thou exalt me at thy own side. (New Advent text)

For all his claims about the evils of the liturgical reform movement of the '50s, it's obvious that Dannie doesn't like tradition; in his heart, he seems to prefer novelty. BTW, there's also another blunder in English in the St. John Fisher profile. Dannie writes, "While imprisoned in the tower of London he was made a Cardinal..."(emphasis ours). Real traditional Catholics with an education know that the correct verb is "created."

Or is it possible that SGG "borrowed" much of their copy from another source? If you compare Dannie's text (click here and then click on the the image of St. John Fisher at the lower right ) to the the text found at Catholic Online/catholic.org (click here), you'll discover some startling textual similarities that surely cannot be the result of pure chance. (Hmmmmmm. We're thinking of a word, and it begins with p...)

**As an aside, we point out that Dannie doesn't follow American practice in listing the order of the Sunday Masses. For example, the 1954 Cincinnati ordo and many others list Mass 1 as that of the Sunday and Mass 2, as that of Peter and Paul. But not Mr. Make-it-Up-As-You-Go.  He reverses the order. 

HOMECOMING

East or West, home is best. Bohn's Handbook of Proverbs

Well, folks, Pistina's staff is finally back from the 2016 Lay Governance Conference. It was a resounding success, although we were sickened when we heard all new reports of the cult-clergy's misbehavior, especially the instances of punishing the laity by withholding the sacraments.

While we were away, some of you asked for the audio of the keynote speaker's address. Unfortunately, the conference directorate nixed our request because Father, who lives in a diocesan home for retired priests, could be in jeopardy of losing benefits. He has no means of support other than his pension. The Novus Ordo is just as vicious as the cult masters when it comes to silencing criticism. Moreover, inasmuch as Father's address contained many anecdotes that would identify him, when we summarize his remarks in a future post, we'll have to edit them carefully so as not to put him at risk.

Likewise, in the Q-and-A session that followed, conference attendees identified themselves by name and city. Many of those individuals still have relatives in cult-copntrolled chapels, and they feared that publication of their attendance would subject family members to the "bishops'" vengeance. Just like many of you, these individuals despise Wee Dan, Tradzilla, the Pivmeister, and the Long-Island Jellyfish, but they want to leave the cult on their own terms and not be drummed out.  In the "bishop"-led cults, we hear the paranoia now stands at an all-time high, so no one is safe.

Seeing that it will take several days for the word to get around that we're back online, we'll hold off posting new material until next week. And in answer to three correspondents, yes, that post will be another installment of DISORDERED ORDO, which we forewent in October owing to our participation in the conference. Dirtbag Dan is already hawking his 2017 calendar with another error-encrusted ordo sure to follow. The post will provide a timely warning not to buy either.*
Before closing, however, we must note that when we returned, we found Dannie still making awful linguistic errors. In his October newsletter, he wrote:

September 24 is the feast of Our Lady of Ransom or of Mercy (“Merced” in Spanish)... 

Although in Spanish the feast is called Nuestra Señora de la Merced, the English word "mercy" comes from the (Old ) French merci, not from the Spanish (as "One Hand" seems to be suggesting). Both the French and the Spanish words are derived from the Latin merces, whence the Missal's title B. M. V de Mercede (which, BTW, is why we translate it as "ransom" and not "mercy").

He'd just rather make it all up as he goes along, wouldn't he? Don't believe a word Dannie writes, whether it's about etymology or theology.

** FYI, we noted a big boo-boo on the July 2017 sample page Dannie posted: for July 29, he prints "St Felix II, PM, Ss Simplicius and Companions, Mm" instead of "Ss Felix, P,  Simplicius and Companions, Mm." The commemoration in the Latin Missal includes Pope Felix with Simplicius, Faustinus, and Beatrice although the pontiff wasn't martyred with the others, so the "Mm" makes the M after P superfluous. By joining the named martyrs, Roman style only requires Ss, at the beginning. If Dannie had wanted to indicate that Simplicius etc. endured a separate martyrdom, then he should have written "St Simplicius and Companions," since in English the title "Saint" must precede a proper noun.

OUT CONFERENCING

Once again, it's time for the annual Lay Governance Conference. And once more, PL will host the event. That means we won't be posting for a few weeks. Like last year, some of the Readers are doing all the set up plus travel/lodging coordination.  Others will go on a well-deserved vacation. (It's psychologically tough slogging through all the filth of Tradistan.) In addition, when the conference starts, we're lending our computers and tablets to attendees, who're coming from all over the world, including Hungary.

This year's event promises to be the best to date. A former benefactor of the pesthouse has offered to apply what would have been donations to Tradistan to underwrite most of the conference's administrative and logistical expenses, including the gala welcome and farewell dinners. Especially exciting will be our keynote speaker, a retired priest-professor who earned real doctorates in theology and canon law.

He's in his 80s with a razor-sharp wit and a first-class intellect. (Yes, there used to be priests like that — lots of 'em. That's one reason why we say Sedelandia's not for real.) The theme of the keynote address will be identifying the signs of cult mentality when interviewing clergy for a position. He's also volunteered to give a workshop where he'll put an end to the crazy "una-cum" nonsense invented by the SW Ohio/Swampland cult masters.

During our absence from cyberspace, The Lay Pulpit has kindly agreed to make weekly posts. We don't want anyone to miss out on additional exposés of the septic, secret history of the Tradistani cult kingpins. Just click on the link here.

After we resume posting, we'll all be that much closer to putting "One-Hand Dan," Tradzilla, the Pivmeister, and the very skittish Long-Island Jellyfish in the rearview mirror.

Please note that we'll subject all comments to moderation. Upon our return, the Readers may answer some of them in regular posts. The others (except for the fringe or the potty-mouths) will be published.

In the meanwhile, watch out for any scams for All Souls' Day cash.  If you need a reminder why you shouldn't fall for any farfetched line about privileged altars at sede cult-centers, click here for last year's post titled "'ALTAR' EGO."

PUTTING ON AIRS

Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices. Emerson.

One of PL's more-than-passing interests lies in studying Tradistani primate behavior. Close observation often explains so much of the irrationality in the sede cults, such as forcing your kids to do without so that malformed, lowbred cult-master deadbeats can have (e.g., luxury trips abroad, new organs, spa vacations, restaurant splurges, expensive organic goodies from Whole Foods etc.).

To our mind, the most curious (and entertaining) activity occurs as beer-bellied  male cultlings, stuffed into fraying and yellowed wife-beater A-shirts, obsess over the honorific styles Your Excellency and His Excellency. From the frequency of utterance, it's their preferred means of showing submission to the counterfeit "bishops" who so amorally take advantage of them. (The self-demeaning etiquette enforced upon Nature's losers, we suppose.) Typically, you don't much hear the trench-mouthed hags of Tradistan cackling those phrases, since the considerably larger females generally prefer to use Bishop (vocalized "BEE-uh-ship," with a distinct Appalachian glide).

Plainly it's a guy thing.  The baseborn menfolk yearn to display their exquisite sense of propriety. When gathered together in their usual, sordid  habitat, all the macho sede swells outdo themselves with variations of these decorous niceties. They sound like a gaggle of jailbirds on parole, one-upping each other with prison-shop terminology like "cantilever,"  "espagnolette bolt,"  or "band and gudgeon hinges" in the thrilling, frisson-drenched minutes preceding a fistfight. If they're particularly impressed with their abject servitude to some half-witted, mitered charlatan, the larval "prelate" then metamorphoses into His Excellency the Most Reverend Bishop of the Roman Catholic Church First, Middle, and Last Name.

For the males of the species, Your and His Excellency function like the secret passwords they made up as urchin trash for admission to the rag-tag gangs they vainly formed to attract the attention of aloof girls from upper-class families, who despised them.  After entrance into unstable adulthood following a touch-and-go puberty, twanging "Your Excellency" signals to the opposite sex that the males continue to belong to a Lost-Boys' Club. As you study these hominids in situ, you'll marvel at how they simper with unmanned pride, running a coated tongue over lesion-cratered lips, as they brace themselves to articulate the magical eight syllables, "Yaw-ur EGGS-ul-LUH-un-SEE-ee" — the Open-Sesame to membership in the underworld we know as Tradistan.

Once the incantation has been breathlessly enunciated, for the briefest of instants, the creatures lay aside their customary hang-dog posture. They hold their misshapen noggins high above the innumerable, tiny cairns of rodent scat steaming under their splayed feet. Their booger-clogged snouts huff the cult center's rancid air like a tubercular mongrel circling an overflowing latrine. With their newly acquired savoir-faire, their characteristic hunchback's stoop straightens, though imperceptibly to the naked eye. Transfigured for a nanosecond, the "men" of Tradistan of a sudden feel worthy to be picked clean by the grinning impostor in shabby pontificals salivating to relieve them of their families' meager income.

A sight for any researcher to behold! (Just don't breathe too deeply.)

Well, now. PL doesn't want to rain on this odoriferous parade of sede masculine politesse, but we're afraid we must inform the Beta males they're wrong.  Mind you, the error doesn't arise from improper usage. By no means. To be pedantic, the oppressed womenfolk, crushed under a low-status mate's malign "authority," are wrong too: From the standpoint of strict protocol, well-mannered and properly schooled Catholics never address a real bishop as "Bishop So-and-so." The word isn't a title; it's an office. For American Catholics, Your Excellency is the mannerly way to address directly a legitimate member of the college of bishops, and His Excellency is the proper third-person honorific.

HOWEVER... sede "bishops" are decidedly NOT entitled to that style of office!

The truth is, it's not only a question of etiquette (or an example of antonomasia), but it's also a fundamental matter of ecclesiastical law. On December 31, 1930, in a decree issued by the Sacra Congregatio Caeremonialis, Pius XI conceded "the title of Most Reverend Excellency ... to archbishops and bishops too, whether residential or only titular."* Inasmuch as sede wandering bishops, flaming phonies without jurisdiction or a see, are neither residential nor titular, they have no legal right to the style. No one, Catholic or non-Catholic, may address or refer to them in this way. Additionally, since sede prelatasters do not exercise the episcopal office, they may never be addressed (even gauchely) as "Bishop X." It's like calling a quack "Physician Y."

As the rightful successor to the Roman Empire, the Church inherited the honorary title Excellentia (as well as Eminentia) to bestow on her loyal sons in accordance with her lights. (In imperial times, both honorifics were addressed to the powerful office of the praefectus praetorio [Berger's Encyc. Dict. of Roman Law]). But sede "bishops," who don't belong to the Church and have no commission from her, are barred from its use. In fact, properly speaking, they're laymen, a few of whom who may (illicitly) possess valid priestly and episcopal orders from a Catholic line. Also worthy of note is that even if the S. Congregatio Caeremonialis, the curial department that exercised jurisdiction over matters of rank and precedence, were still sitting, the sedes would have no standing to bring suit for the title since they're outside the Roman Catholic Church.

By now, it should be beyond discussion: Styling a sede "bishop" as Your or His Excellency isn't simply a buck-toothed, web-footed hick's social gaffe, like addressing the "judge" at a county-fair pie-eating contest as Your Honor. It's a serious transgression of propriety that exposes the offender for both the boor and the scofflaw he is.

Still, though, the practical question of good manners remains: How, exactly, does a servile cultie dude address one of these implausible canonical absurdities? In other words, what does a redneck Gertie guy or his bogtrotting Swampland wingman do if he's not allowed to grovel by means of Your Excellency or if usage rules and ecclesial reality forbid BEE-uh-ship?

We thought long and hard about that question. PL, in fact, solicited the input of blogger colleagues. To give these sede "bishops" their propers, the Readers weren't willing to sacrifice any of the positive laws of the Church or the canons of good form, large or small. No, not on your life! Not one whit. Our socially refined mothers and executive-level fathers reared us better. We wanted to get it right, by golly. So everybody had to put on his thinking cap. Finally, an inspired soul hit upon the perfect style for all Tradistan's grubbily striving episcopi vagantes:

YOUR EXCREMENCY

Use it often. You can't go wrong.

* Excellentiae Reverendissimae titulum...tribuendum quoque esse Archiepiscopis atque Episcopis, sive residentialibus sive titularibus tantum. For the full list of those entitled to the style, click here for the Latin-language decree published in the 1931 Acta Apostolicae Sedis, p. 22 . (N.B. In the link's OCR text, the page header reads "28.")