PLAYING IT SUPER SAFE

If you do not repair your gutter, you will have your whole house to repair. Spanish Proverb

PL has boldly conjectured no expense will be spared, no ceremonial detail ignored, in staging Junior's 2018 "consecration," which has been slated for February 22. We always suspected it would be earlier in the year rather than later, but this date is much sooner than imagined: apparently no one's taking any chances with the Donster's ticker.

The transgressive occasion simply must be the most fabulous spectacle cult-addled cretins and lame-brained "clergy" have ever set their distended eyes upon! The power brokers have invited so many sede scum that we're tempted to call the event Tradnado. That's understandable: the Kid's got to make a lasting impression if he's to preserve the furiously contracting hermit kingdom following Kim Jong-Don's rushed departure from one-man rule.

The prospect of the approaching gala transition got us thinking deeply.

The Swampland party planners — the real bosses of fetid B'ville —must be as aware as the Readers are of the trumpeting elephant in the claustrophobic sede room:

Big Don's Liénart-spoiled priestly orders. 

The standard argument that wearing pontificals, using the Church's liturgical books, and performing the rite competently establish the presumption of an ordaining bishop's sufficient sacramental intention to confect holy orders may not entirely put at ease the vested interests bankrolling the subtropical fenland.

It is by no means inconceivable that a particular, highly motivated, unusually intelligent, and supremely self-disciplined enemy of the Church might do everything in his power to destroy her from within. And what better way is there than to compromise the validity of the sacrament of orders by making an act of the will not to ordain?

N.B. This case is far different from presuming every Masonic bishop always withholds proper intention, a proposition that's patently uninformed.  Our supposition derives from a prudent fear, based on cognitive psychology and life experience, that one radicalized, rogue bishop, aggressively committed to furthering the ends of satanic Freemasonry, might have made it a point to will not to do what the Church does each time he conferred orders.

Whether Liénart in fact harbored such diabolical resolve is impossible to determine with certainty based on the information currently available to us. But from what's been reported about the man, that frame of mind remains strongly plausible. The Liénart-line's threat to validity, then, while probably small at present, is not negligible. And who knows what complacency-shattering disclosures may be forthcoming? It seems, therefore, the safest path for the Boy-"Bishop's" protectors would be — on the off-chance that anything of substance regarding Liénart's fanaticism¶ should come to light in the decades ahead — to extract every sliver of doubt, no matter how slight it may seem at the moment.

To our way of thinking, it is unimaginable to believe the Kid's minders haven't given some consideration to assuring his "episcopal" orders are as bulletproof as they can be.† Right now, Junior's among the very few in Tradistan U.S.A. who have a reliable line for their priestly orders‡: Pierre Martin Ngô Đình Thục ➤ Michel-Louis Guérard des Lauriers (ordained priest 1931 by Rasneur)  ➤ Robert Fidelis McKenna (ordained priest 1958 by Cicognani).§

Between McKenna and the Kid, there's no Liénart-tinged interloper to impugn his orders'  validity. If you affirm Thục's consecration of des Lauriers was valid, then it's fairly certain the former professor at Le Saulchoir and the Lateran University didn't make any mistakes in conferring a valid "episcopacy" upon his brother Dominican.

As it stands today, if the Kid gets his orders only from Big Don, then doubts could arise in many influential quarters about his standing as a "bishop." Those of you who've studied our "Dubiety of Ordination Conferred with One Hand," know the more common opinion holds that when the priesthood has not been conferred, the episcopate cannot be validly conferred (p. 25). Thus if Achille Liénart purposefully intended not to ordain when he conferred orders, then Marcel Lefebvre was never a priest or a bishop and therefore never conferred the priesthood or episcopacy on anybody.

The Readers can't be the only ones who recognize there's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in the Tampa-St. Pete area to send the Liénart elephant of invalidity to a boggy graveyard ... to give the Clone a clean start in his "episcopal career" (LOL).  It's soooo easy, too: Just get a co-consecrator whose "priestly" and "episcopal" orders come from the Thục-des Lauriers-McKenna succession.

And where, pray tell, do you find such an animal? 

Well, if you want to search abroad, there's Geert Jan Stuyver, the "bishop" working with Francesco Ricossa at the Instituto Mater Boni Consilii in Italy. McKenna "ordained" him a "priest" in 1996 and conferred on him the "episcopate" in 2002.  Moreover, Junior assisted at Stuyver's "consecration." (Click here for a pic.)  If Stuyver were invited as a co-consecrator for the Big Show next year, he might deign to fix the Donster a couple days beforehand: that way, at the finale of the Big Show, there'd be four valid "bishops" on stage, not three (as long as "One Hand" didn't co-consecrate, that is). We're positive the rector wouldn't want to be the odd-man-out. How could he endure the snickers from all his enemies or from the Clone?

To be sure, the downside of this arrangement would be the public announcement of the Donster's reception of conditional ordination and consecration: in order to silence the whispers forever, the repair job is no good unless TradWorld knows about it. Then there'd be the matter of a public ceremony, for surely the head honchos would want more than matter and form done hastily in some moldy back room. Further, it would mean that all the bums Don's "ordained" in the past would have to be re-ordained sub conditione. And then there are all the confirmations to be redone.

But, hey, what's a little hassle when the prize is a lock on validity for the new Boy "Bishop"?

To be candid, we were reluctant to post our speculations. If the élite hadn't considered the possible challenge to Junior's validity, we didn't want to tell them how to make the Kid's illicit orders unimpeachable. After a few years, he might want to come roaring back on the trad scene, appealing to a sound lineage as an enticement to join his cult. However, we quickly dismissed our fears, for we honestly believe that once the Swampland enterprise closes in on itself, it will never venture out again onto the national or international sede stage as a headliner. 

Empire building was the fever dream of grasping Lefebvre-wannabes like "One Hand" and the "Lowly Worm."  Throughout his long, reticent apprenticeship — est et fideli tuta silentio merces — the Boy-"Bishop"-Elect has taken to heart the following lesson from the aging cult kingpins' grotesque failures:

A Sedelandia robust enough to vie with the SSPX or the FSSP is a hallucination to be put out of mind.

What a folly it is to pretend sede cur runts can give the big dogs of Traddielandia a run for their money. Junior will stay small in order to survive, well away from the spotlight. In his prudently self-imposed limitation, the Boy "Bishop" will cultivate the safe and secure virtues of settlement.

It's too risky out in the open.

^¶ Our use of this term is specialized: we've got in mind Eric Hoffer's (The True Believer) fanatic, who is vicious and destructive, content solely with the unified struggle for change leading to total upheaval.

^† For your consideration, we note that in 2001, Junior chose McKenna, not "One-Hand Dan," as his ordaining "bishop." The little piece of Noh theater where the invitations advertised the Kid as O.P., but on the Mass booklet distributed at "ordination" the post-nominal initials had disappeared, smelled to us like a maneuver to avoid wounded feelings. Maybe we're overestimating them, but the élite were too savvy back then to let the Clone be compromised by anything that smacked of invalidity. For this reason, we can't see why they'd get careless now when the stakes are so much higher. Anyone who's viewed the Donster's "consecration" video, where McKenna was forced to repeat a section, will acknowledge that validity's always been on their minds. Also, let's not forget that Big Don was a signatory to the September 1990 ad-cautelam letter to Wee Dan.

^‡ Unless Méndez fixed Kelly before his "consecration."

^§ Sources for ordination data:
http://www.cattolicesimo.com/2015/03/02/vita-di-mons-guerard-des-lauriers-di-don-giuseppe-murro/ and http://www.dailycatholic.org/mckenttt.htm.

GETTING READY FOR HIS CLOSEUP

It takes time to ruin a world, but time is all it takes. Fontenelle

Maybe it's the approaching year's end, we're not sure, yet PL's still on a predicting jag. Over the past weeks, we've foretold the oncoming ruination of the TradWorld order and its replacement by a different class of "bishops" who value freedom of conscience and aren't in it for the money.

Our earlier forecasts were big-picture visions, so today we'll shorten the range of our hypothesizing to focus on the event that will mark the end of Tradistan and signal the beginning of a new age for American trads: the 2018 "consecration" of the Boy-"Bishop"-Elect.

Don't take our word for the significance of this milestone: Look at what "One-Hand Dan" wrote in last week's "Corner":

Fr. Cekada had a good week at the Seminary. He was MC at my consecration, and has copious notes and diagrams to help the seminarians organize Fr. Selway’s.   

If we're to believe what Dan's note implies, the whole of the Swampland must be involved in making that "pontifical" pageant the biggest, grandest, most over-the-top extravaganza rheumy-eyed cult zombies have ever stared at. Even Dannie and the Cheeseball seem to be trying to insert themselves into the narrative (where they're probably unwelcome — in all likelihood, Junior doesn't want the Wee One's blessing and may look with horror on any suggestion that it's been given).

The Gruesome Twosome is well aware that the Kid was the one in charge of the Donster's "consecration," so he already has Checkie's script and storyboard. In addition, Junior's got a video recording of Big Don's 2002 shindig for visual reference.

Obviously, then, Checkie's as useless as a grave robber in a crematorium.  (Maybe further attempts to meddle won't be tolerated: the swampies are nursing loads of bitter memories about the pesthouse construction.)  Nevertheless, it's a token of the great significance of the upcoming sideshow that in order to get ready for Junior's episcopal début they're wasting precious hours that ought to be devoted to sacred learning and study.  That fact alone inspires the Readers to guess!

Indulge us, therefore, as we engage in a little preliminary speculation.

As we've said, it will be a day like no other in customarily mirthless Tradistan. The Kid may not be a theological or intellectual powerhouse, but that's of no consequence. What's important is that the event be the most spectacular cult production ever mounted. We think it may be live streamed so Sedelandia U.S.A. can participate in what's hoped to be The Greatest Show on Earth (by cultie standards).  And if it's not streamed, then it will surely play on YouTube, with an overpriced DVD made available for purchase.

Media exposure means high production values, Trad Nation's version of a DeMille project: authentic costuming from a Roman clerical tailor (we'd guess Ditta Annibale Gammarelli), expensive pontifical props, state-of-the-art video software, a mega-budget, and "a cast of thousands." (Well, maybe not "thousands," but at least dozens.)  The star will naturally be Junior, who's been preparing for this rôle all his life; Big Don as Consecrating "Bishop" will be the only supporting actor. The bit players on the call sheet, however, are just as interesting and warrant some tentative guesses.

Who will be the MCs? How 'bout Scutty and Squirmin' Herman? Which completer will act as the Assistant Priest? Dare they risk the Skipper? Who'll appear as the Secretary to the Elect? Our money's on My-Way Carlito, but might there be a mercy invitation to Lurch? Which sycophant will be introduced as the Deacon? Could it be the Toady, or maybe Wannabe? And what about the Subdeacon? Perhaps the Gallic Melancholic, don't ya think? And most pressingly, which prelatasters will have cameos as Assistant "Bishops"? 

Certainly we can count on the Jellyfish as one of the co-consecrators, can't we? For the other, could "One Hand" conceal his umbrage and accept the part —  if he's invited, that is. There's a lot of Swampland anger about all the trouble the 2009 $GG $chool $candal has caused, and there's always the fatal specter of the one-handed 1976 Écône "ordination": Why darken the Clone's glory day when a more probably valid and well-educated European "bishop" can be flown over? Li'l Dan would buy his own ticket, but who needs all the baggage that comes with his diminutive presence?*

Almost as important as the sanctuary players will be the "clerical" audience. Any sede brownnoser who gets invited had better show up. The Swampland cult masters will want their venue to look like a rookery as a sign of universal sede approbation of the new Boy Bishop. There may even be an attempt to mend a fences just so they can brag about the army of "clergy" marshaled for the fête. Inasmuch as there'll be lots of free grub and bubbly — and the fact that this'll be a farewell feed —we expect a record turnout.

No doubt about it: All eyes, minds, and pocketbooks are directed to next year's "enthronement."  PL will be overjoyed when the day arrives because it represents the twilight of the SW Ohio-B'ville cult as an influence on U.S. traditional Catholicism. The new Boy "Bishop" will edge out "The Lowly Worm" to withdraw his small, self-sustaining cult inward and out of the limelight. Without Big Don's painstakingly crafted image to hold Tradistan together, Dannie's ruined enterprise will follow suit.

At this great retrenchment, Trad Nation will be safe for the practice of the traditional Catholic faith. All that's left for the Readers is to confirm the identity of the co-consecrators. It'll help us figure out whether the 2018 "consecration" may try to resolve the abiding problem of American TradWorld and, if it does, whether there's a danger that some day the cult may bounce back. We'll discuss our theory on December 23.

*We're wagering Geert Jan Stuyver will be the other co-consecrator. According to the Religion Wiki, the Kid materially participated in Stuyver's January 16, 2002, "consecration." In our next post, you'll see more substantive reasons to support our strong belief he'll be an Assistant "Bishop," provided the Kid's handlers want to make his orders bulletproof.

LOOK, MA: NO DEPRAVITIES!

Man's rational life consists in those moments in which reflection not only occurs but proves efficacious. Santayana

Last week's post generated a mountain of discussion — pro and con — mostly via e-mail.  Many correspondents asked us to explain the basis for our daring hypothesis. Were the Readers just guessing? Do we have an inside track? What evidence is there for the predicted unraveling of Tradistan? Did some sociological construct or theological proposition nudge us to our conclusion? Were we smoking something other than a splendid H. Upmann Magnum 50?

With so many e-mailers curious about the reasoning behind the post, PL decided to devote this week's edition to an explanation of our rationale. Right up front, we'll tell you there's nothing arcane or mysterious. No logic-chopping theories. No crystal balls. No fifth column inside the élite sect compound. No flies on grimy cult walls. We did nothing more than contemplate basic consumer behavior.

Maybe a concrete example will make it clear.

Suppose that, for some unknown reason, the best-selling toothpaste in the U.S. suddenly became unavailable. Let's also postulate that, owing to relentless marketing over several generations, this brand far outsold any other, so much so, in fact, that it alone was associated in consumers' minds with dentist-delighting oral hygiene and dazzling pearly whites.

What would happen?

Would the next-best-selling competitor then occupy the number-one slot?

Market mavens say no.

Oh, for sure, there might be an initial uptick in sales, but #2 wouldn't immediately take over the old marque's dominance in shoppers' psyches. Consumers would still consider the no-longer-available product as the gold standard. In their minds, #2 wouldn't be much better than a consolation prize, so naturally they wouldn't automatically transfer their brand loyalty to a commodity their shopping habits voted second rate.

At the same time, the competition, capitalizing on the opportunity open to them, would redouble marketing efforts to capture American housewives' allegiance and toothpaste dollars. But before one of the other manufacturers could secure the top spot, years, perhaps decades, would have to pass, and many millions in advertising dollars would have to be spent.

According to our analysis, this is the condition of Trad Nation U.S.A. today, as the about-to-be extinct Tradisaurus Rex Quondam (now "The Lowly Worm") slithers out of the Boy "Bishop's" way.  The Donster used to be the biggest brand name in the woefully unregulated world of traditional Catholicism. (True, if he were a dentifrice, he'd've been pulled off the shelves years ago, but, then, Sedelandia is no rational marketplace.) It took years of self-promotion and fawning hype, but the Flushing Rat, little-by-little, managed to make a lot of cult zombies mistake a pisher for a mensch.

As "The Man," Sin-burn was also Sedelandia's one and only public intellectual, a title he'd earned by (a) writing self-promotional newsletters, (b) ranting and raving to anyone who'd sit still long enough to hear him out, (c) noisily debating straw opponents, and (d) snagging ego-centric interviews. His prose was annoyingly lumbering, his podium persona nasally bristling, but amid all the sophomoric posturing, he managed to be, on a few occasions, almost thought-provoking (until you unpacked what he wrote, that is).

No contender for the vacant see of Tradistan can make that claim, in particular his "eventual successor," as Dannie calls the Boy "Bishop"-Elect. Where is Junior's œuvre? Who outside the Swampland élite thinks of the Kid as Trad Nation's chief theoretician? In a similar vein, who regards "One Hand" or Pivvy or the skittish Long-Island Jellyfish as a "scholar bishop" or learned advocate of the sede hunch?

Besides lacking the mental chops to assume Don's rôle, none of the sede hopefuls has the time or the cash to project onto folks' minds the image of a Tradzilla redux. Each already has his identity fixed in the lay imagination, and, believe you us, it is not the image of a profound thinker or theological prodigy. Pussbucket, sacrament-denying "priests" who can't understand Latin neither whisper their names in awe nor play tinny recordings of their babbling in lieu of a Sunday sermon. To arrive at that standing, the wannabes would need decades in addition to hundreds of thousands of dollars for a targeted marketing campaign. How could "One Hand," for instance, who last week again reported a picayune collection of less than $4K — $3,422 to be exact — afford it?

He couldn't. And neither could the others. (A good thing, too, because nowadays none but the utterly brain-dead degenerate would fall for it.)

All this explains why PL insists there'll be no single central figure in Trad Nation for generations to come, if ever.  The yawning void, however, will permit a fresh class of "bishops" to step up to the plate to provide access to the sacraments without all the soul-killing infighting. With real degrees, multiple valid lineages, and an insider's knowledge of "The System," each one will offer a haven to moral Catholics anxious to escape the depraved lay trash who support — in Carl Hiaason's strikingly apropos phrase — "submaggots unfit to suck the sludge off a septic tank."

As the depleted ranks of cultlings turn inward on themselves at Big Don's exit, it's time to brusha, brusha, brush away the "clerical" plaque of the past.

LEAVE THE NECROTIC "BISHOP"-LED CULTS TODAY! THERE ARE GOOD CATHOLICS WAITING FOR YOU TO JOIN THEM.

PARADIGM FOUND

It is not obligatory for a generation to have great men. Ortega y Gasset

Picking up from where we left off last week...

Now that the sede politburo has bid До свидания! to its very own "Meester Beeg,"* the liver dumpling who labored unsuccessfully to pass as Grade-A foie gras, TradWorld will undergo a radical transformation.  In fact, the sea change has already begun. None of the "episcopal" proletarians scrambling for high-profile exposure can replace the "Lowly Worm" (formerly called Tradzilla) as commissar of the traddie Gulag. Therefore, no longer have we any reason to pretend Traddielandia is unified by a common set of principles dependent on a "clerical" chairman for interpretation.

It's time to accept the ascendancy of the tribalism that's been Sedelandia's true organizing principle from the very beginning.

Thoroughgoing destabilization has put an end to the grubby influences, the frayed allegiances, and the fragile myths surrounding "The Man of Tradistan." In the unfolding New TradWorld Order, no center still holds, not even a fictitious one: it collapsed on itself in 2009 when Big Don suicidally defended "One Hand" at the height of the $GG $chool $candal. It just took the 2017 intervention of Nature for traddies to see the gaping void. Hence forward, it's every sede cult for its own miserable self.

Case in point is the Swampland. Once the Boy "Bishop" accedes to his birthright in early 2018, B'ville will repudiate Dannie's ebbing SW Ohio sect. Painfully aware of the newly minted "bishop's" limitations as a brand, — grim portrait poses can't substitute for gravitas — Swampies'll go to ground, letting no one else in. CMRI will likewise cease its unsustainable overextension and contract in an attempt to preserve a dwindling funding base.

But the historical fact remains that whenever there's a social vacuum, something else must take its place.  The restless herds of refugees from Francis will be seeking shelter to practice the Catholic faith. However, there won't be one, single sede opinion leader to whom they'll stampede. People have grown too wise in the post-sede era, thanks to the Internet. Additionally, the only men around capable of inspired leadership don't want a job that demands they wear a mask of scornful arrogance.

Stepping in for the tired gang of discredited, cult-obsessed episcopi vagantes will be a different sort of traditional "bishop," one who acknowledges he's but a sacrament machine, one who refuses to promote the blasphemous falsehood that he belongs in any way to the hierarchy established by Christ. Almost all these men are former Novus Ordite presbyters who've returned to tradition. Armed with advanced degrees from recognized ecclesiastical institutions of higher learning and schooled in "the Roman System," they recoil at the impious folly of representing themselves as the Church in exile.

Since they have experienced first hand the filth of Modernist Rome, with its own toxic cult of celebrity, their selfless motivation lies in satisfying the laity's demand for life-giving sacraments.  By private conviction, they may be sedevacantists, but they have no interest in cramming a threadbare hypothesis, and a minority one at that, down the throats of their Catholic brethren. Divine faith is more important than some iffy conjecture. Furthermore, as former insiders, they're aware that sede cult leaders never posed a credible threat to the Vatican Establishment, which dismissed them as ineffectual crackpots who never belonged to "the System" in the first place.

For that reason, the new breed will never attempt to assert control over others. Instead they will act as conscientious middlemen for the faithful who want (1) the sacraments, not soul-killing polemics, and (2) sensible, well-vetted men of good will willing to confect those sacraments for the cure of souls. Under this new, decentralized paradigm, newcomers as well as long-time traditional Catholics who've lost confidence in the "bishop"-led "Church of Sedeology," will find a congenial—and peaceful—spiritual home. With no money-pit foreign "apostolates" to pay for, the revolutionary new arrangement will relieve the beleaguered pocketbooks of the faithful.

Say goodbye, then, to Sedelandia's big-frog-in-a-small-pond era. Say hello to a thousand puddles, each with its own tadpole. Conscientious laity, both those with and those without holy orders, will welcome a dawning age of decency, where traditional Catholics won't see a Big Bossman for many generations to come, not until the Restoration.

* Take, for instance, Comrade Dansky's barely disguised kiss off. The Wee One must be wallowing in the karma the rector generated with his November 2009 speculation about Dannie "as a greeter in Wal-Mart in order to support himself" (click here). From His Revengency's comment in the November 19, 2017, "Corner," it looks as though "One Hand" has written off the stricken Donster "...as he deals with a serious heart condition ... We offer our congratulations to Fr. Selway .... as [Big Don's] eventual successor." Hmmmmmm. "Serious" sounds permanent, doesn't it, and "eventual" doesn't sound too far off, does it?