GONE FISHIN'

Let the blessing of St. Peter's Master be upon...all that are lovers of virtue; and dare trust in His providence; and be quiet; and go a-Angling. Walton

Pistrina will take a short break until November 11 (although we may have a chance to post on November 4). The entire staff will join the founders of the new union of Catholics to participate in the initial planning conference. We're very proud to have been invited, so we're honoring their request not to publish anything about the union's activities until they've hammered out the final strategy.

The timing couldn't be better. "One-Hand" and the Blunderer will leave this weekend for their annual luxury vacation extravaganza in artsy Santa Fe, clumsily disguised this year as a "pilgrimage" joined by the "locals" and a few cultists from El Paso. (We wonder whether they charged these poor folks for their tour-guide expertise. We're equally curious to learn whether the whole group is staying at the fashionable Bishop's Lodge.) 

Since the Dysfunctional Duo will be on holiday, we don't foresee that we'll have anything to comment on for a while. So we're off to do our part to get the union off to a good start and help the faithful get rid of clerical terrors.

If something genuinely newsworthy unrelated to the establishment of the union materializes, we'll post, so check in from time to time. Otherwise, you'll hear from us on the eleventh.

THE FAT LADY HAS ALREADY SUNG

And we won’t come back till it’s over... Cohan

Sedelandia and it’s cash-starved prelates’ reign of error is coming to an end far sooner than we thought. On September 30, the weekly collection at “One-Hand Dan’s” cult center dipped below $3,000. That would be a fortune to most chapels, but the figure is barely at the subsistence level for the cult. (Remember for some reason they feel obligated  to pay a substantial salary the “principal” who was at the center of the crisis they caused by keeping him.)

“One-Hand,” ever anxious about cash flow and vanishing luxuries, tipped his hand in last week’s bulletin. He’s tasted the bitter fruit of divisive sede policies and arrogance. Southwestern Ohio is filled with many independent-minded Catholics, who on a weekly basis now pick and choose which chapel to attend for Sunday or holy-day Masses. They go for the sacraments, not to line the pockets and stroke the fragile ego of the man in charge. “One-Hand” sees the danger: the folks may, out of simple decency, throw a few bucks into the collection plate, but they don’t make the big, home-budget-busting pledges anymore. More worrisome is that these “floating” Catholics are immune to fervid appeals from the pulpit for special donations to fund wild projects. They’re not members, so they don’t feel any need to make a "sacrifice." (Besides, they’re all survivors of sede-ism, so they know all the tricks the money-mad clergy use to separate them from their hard-earned dollars.)

We imagine “One-Hand” must have choked on his words lamenting the divisions among traditional Catholics. It doesn’t take a psychologist to detect the soul-rendering rage underlying the syrupy and hollow piety of his message. The money’s drying up. That’s why filthy lucre’s haunting specter soon appears as “One-Hand” bemoans the fact that a “migrant population” doesn’t “generally attend and faithfully support (emphasis ours)” one chapel.

Pistrina doesn’t understand why he bothers to comment at all. It’s over for him and his posse. No one pays him any attention, except for a small minority of brainwashed cultists. People haven’t forgotten the past. They remember how a family was barred because they occasionally attended an SSPX Mass. They haven’t forgotten the ugly events and uglier behavior of 2009.  People know they have a wealth of choices. When Bp. Ramolla returns to the area for good, there will be even more options. (His Excellency’s seminary is incorporated in Ohio, so he’s got roots.) Soon the cult-center will start losing some of its current members, who’ll see the advantage of assisting at the Masses of different area chapels each week. It's more convenient and easier on the wallet.

“One-Hand” just doesn’t get it that the whole charade has been exposed. It’s clear to everyone that sedevacantism and the una-cum nonsense were mini Berlin Walls erected to divide Catholics from each other. It’s also clear that these guys are not successors to the apostles let alone to the learned Catholic clergy of the past. Their poor education is revealed almost every time they open their mouths or write. In fact, in the same bulletin announcement, “One-Hand,” just back from an escapist junket to France and hoping to impress his low-life fan club, cloyingly writes ,“Merci, Sainte Thèrése!”  Yet every schoolboy and schoolgirl knows he got the accent marks completely wrong: the name should be written Thérèse. Obviously he’s in good company with the Blunderer, whose amateurish and shoddy Work of Human Hands is full of such howlers.

The good news is that the people of Southwestern Ohio are on the move and for all practical purposes are aliquid-pravi Catholics. When the union is formally established, they’ll affiliate, and then it’s all over but the crying for “One-Hand” and his like.

ANSWERING A BEGGAR

Daddy, I need money, give it to your honey./Daddy, I need money now! Bessie Smith's "Money Blues"

Pistrina has received several reports over the last week, which strongly argue that the union of aliquid-pravi Catholics is now really a necessity. The old sede-Traddie dispensation is certainly on its last legs and can't last much longer, as you'll see. 

Report 1: Over the last month, there have been indications that "One-Hand" and the rector are really strapped for cash. Their poor-mouthing isn't extraordinary because they've done it so often in the past. (Who knows how many poor, gullible  souls' savings accounts have been emptied as a result of those self-interested appeals?) However, we've just learned that the rector is bitterly complaining to other clergy about his money woes. That's an indication of how real these problems are. He had to shelve last year's big $30 k plan, and now there's nothing. His pals aren't going to let him mine their chapels for funds that they have their eyes on: these are desperate times in Sedelandia!

We're sure these clerical sharks are blaming the economy for their plight, but all of us know better. People are just sick and tired of having their money wasted. They're starving the beast. While that's good news, it means that soon these shameless beggars will be out of the picture altogether. Their fleeced flocks will need somewhere to go for Mass. With the aliquid-pravi union, they'll have the help they need to start up again -- this time without the burden of cash-crazed Keystone Klergy.

Report 2: In the mail, we received copies of the bulletin of a tiny sede church that not many people are aware of. One of the Readers used to know some of the members well and thought highly of them for their common sense, good education, and manifest devotion to the faith. Many were escapees from a cult-like area chapel, where they had been meanly treated. Imagine our surprise when we read disturbing announcements like the following:

All the women and girls must wear dresses (not skirts and blouses) and hats to church.  All the men MUST wear white shirts.

An apology from the organist (a religious), directed to the pastor and the entire membership, for playing the organ too fast during a solemn ceremony during Holy Week.

The girls in the high school cannot play volley ball with any boys even with parental supervision.

How do you spell "cult"? Honestly, this is the stuff of made-for-TV movies. Those good folks are not going to stomach this for much longer. They know when someone has lost his grip, and it's only a matter of time before this little chapel rises up and gives their manic pastor the boot. Before that, you can be sure they'll cut back on the donations. (We hope that the educated men wear dress blue shits to mass, and the women and girls wear blouses, skirts, and chapel veils -- just to send a message to the idiot behind the announcements. Of course, there'll be demands for reparations and the usual drumming out of the chapel of the uncooperatives. But then the money will dry up, too, and the bum will be ignominiously run out of town.)

The sede clergy all over are self-destructing. Perhaps they see the end of their little fiction as Catholics reject their policy of division for the sake of personal gain. Their own flocks will drive them off.

When they leave -- and make no mistake: these clergy will all soon be packing their bags --the union will be all the laity have left.

TIME YOU WERE OFF

Through the Jungle very softly flits a shadow and a sigh -- / He is Fear... Kipling
The union of aliquid-pravi Catholics needs no overwrought -- and over-budget -- buildings. (There's no sense in trading in one evil for another of the same ilk.) Catholics from all over the world will be able to find clergy, locate services, get answers to their questions, engage in productive dialog, and seek direct assistance in wresting their chapels from the hands of greedy clergy through a website that's free of charge. (That's a new one for the Traddie world!)

To our delight, one of the first steps needed to form the union is already under way. Right now an eager cadre of Catholics is hard at work building a new site that will be an information clearinghouse for genuine Catholics. They're also busy lining up resources so that when you're ready to show "One-Hand," the rector, the Pesthouse clods, and sundry other clerical and prelatical spongers the door, you'll have plenty of assistance. These Catholics are funding the project with the money they're withholding from the collection plate at the cult centers they now attend. (That's why you're hearing a lot of fervent appeals from the cult masters.)

At present, this dedicated group must work in the shadows out of fear that their families will be denied the sacraments by lawless priests and spendthrift wandering bishops. Soon, however, the grasping clergy will be sick with fear when the cash-flow dries up. If you want to get involved, you may send an e-mail to pistrinalit@gmail.com, and the Reader will forward it to the group's leaders. All correspondence will be kept confidential. If you can't get involved at the moment, that's fine. You can help by just starving the beast and putting your collection money into a fund for when you start your own chapel.

We don't know when the site will go online: we learned of the project only a few days ago. However, we've seen the templates, and we've met the principals via Skype. We're impressed. It appears as though there's a real ground swell rising up against money-hungry clergy who have for far too long tried to bully the laity into submission.

GAME OVER, SCROUNGERS! YOU'RE IN THE SHADOW OF SOMETHING BIG, AND YOUR DAY IN THE SUN IS LONG OVER. BETTER PACK UP AND LEAVE.

FOLLOW AN ANTIQUE DRUM

The union of hands and hearts. Bp. Taylor

Catholics who have matured beyond the divisive boys'-club strategies of "One-Hand" Dan and the rector can become a real force in the return to traditiion. Leadership doesn't have to come from these self-serving wandering bishops. (God forbid!) Whether they know it or not, aliquid-pravi Catholics possess all the resources they need to start moving finally in the right direction -- on the path to unity.

There are some good and decent clergy who abhor the ravages wreaked on the cause of tradition by swashbuckling clerical buccaneers. Many laymen have acquired theological knowledge that far surpasses the mediocre attainments of the miserably formed clergy who have set themselves up as "the real thing." (Why, they can't even tell the difference between a noun and an adjective!) Lay professionals are more than willing to lend their expertise to erecting chapels free from money-mad, mitered mountebanks. There are now fully developed plans to establish training programs for new priests, and there is the will to escape from the deadly embrace of men more intrerested in keeping Catholics apart than in uniting them. Most importantly, real Catholics who know that something's wrong with Rome want to stand together with anyone who feels the same. Forget everything else!

So, how do we throw out the bums and get together? How do we make sure that Catholicism isn't hijacked ever again?

The answer's simple. We form a union. A union of Catholics who admit that something went wrong in the wake of Vatican II. A union of Catholics for whom solidarity means more than sophomoric hairsplitting and half-baked theorizing.

Over the next few weeks Pistrina will talk about this union -- how to get it going and how to organize it. The posts will be short and sweet. Then we'll leave it up to you to act.

OH, SO WRONG AGAIN...AND AGAIN AND AGAIN!

...he usually gets it wrong. Marquis

Right after we uploaded last week's post, we received another confirmation that the opinions of the rector and his equally clueless pals aren't worth a leaky bucket of warm spit (as the euphemized saying goes): In our mailbox we found the August 2012 MHT Newsletter, where the rector had to walk back the oft-repeated prediction of the SSPX's imminent surrender to Rome. To the rector's chagrin --he confesses to being "overall depressed by the prospect" --  for now, at least, the society hasn't caved in. Even better, it's reserved the right to disavow Vatican II's "novelties ... tainted with errors" and its "reforms."

So it's clear these sede clergy on-the-make are not only busts as theologians, they're also duds as SSPX "kremlinologists." They are utterly and terrifyingly lost in a world they can't possibly understand.

We think the rector is wrong again when he claims this episode is "the final chapter in regard to the negotiations between the Vatican Modernists and the Society of Saint Pius X." Having worked in the real world, the Readers are well aware that the internal power struggle within the SSPX is probably far from over. (Smart men don't give up so easily.) Nevertheless, for the time being, the society is echoing, for all practical purposes, Pistrina's aliquid pravi theory, viz., something went dreadfully wrong in Rome after council. That makes them fellow Catholics in our book. If the SSPX continues to hold the line, they'll be the true leaders of the Catholic Restoration.

Given the rector's lousy track record as a prognosticator, he's surely wrong , too, in his surmise that "[i]t will take many years" before the vested interests in the Vatican Establishment recognize that the council's teachings contradict tradition. Pistrina hereby informs the rector that events are spinning out of the Modernists' control, as the embarrassing recent leaks from the Vatican's inner circle demonstrate.

B16 is an inept and out-of-touch chief executive. Moreover, the criminal convictions of Bp. Finn and Msgr. Lynn in the U.S. are just the beginning of a world-wide effort to bring negligent prelate-cronies to account. That's why there's a better-than-even chance that the unstoppable forces now set in motion will accelerate the scholarly analysis of the council's break from tradition. (The Novus Ordo wants to distance itself from dead ideas as much as Traddies do.)  That research will soon make plain to the world that something indeed went very wrong in the wake of Vatican II. Sooner than we think, the Establishment may have to capitulate in the face of a "Traditional Catholic Spring."

The rector, "One-Hand," and the Blunderer have been as off-base in their ecclesiology as they have been in their ecclesiastical punditry. Accordingly, these laughably trained "Wrong-Way Corrigans" are deserving of no Catholic's attention. Their wild conjectures merit contempt. In fact, real Catholics may give themselves permission to discount anything and everything they say.

The laity and right-minded clergy who simply acknowledge that something's wrong with Rome have much more reliable sources to look toward for assistance and support. It's time to give these clerical dividers of houses the bum's rush. There's no place for segregation in Christ's Church. Show these Roman-collared losers the door, and end all this greed-inspired religious apartheid.

Next week, we'll discuss how aliquid-pravi Catholics can get together to work for the faith.

TURNING OVER A NEW LEAF

The old order changeth, yielding place to new. Tennyson

Sede Vacantism. Sede Privationism. Sede Plenism. Recognition and Resistance. Suppression of the Leonine Prayers. Suspect Episcopal Lineages. Una-cum Masses. The Contagion of the Pius XII Rite. Vitiation of Novus-Ordo Holy Orders. 

These are more than Traddie catchwords. They are shibboleths to detect "subversives" who might not agree with certain cult leaders. They also needlessly divide Catholics of a similar mind from each other. Each of these buzz words has its fanatical proponents and opponents.  Each has been the cause of aching distress and disunity. Yet every one of these Traddie rallying cries is nothing but a mere theory, which must remain hypothetical until a restored Catholic Church renders an authoritative decision. 

At first, many of us thought these terms represented a principled attempt to explain the shattered state of the Church visible in the long, post-conciliar nuclear winter. However, we've all grown up. Shape-shifting clergy have at times both advocated and later condemned the same position, leaving the laity to scratch their heads in stunned bewilderment. The motive behind these trigger words now seems to be more economic than spiritual -- to compel, on pain of mortal sin, the faithful to remain in and support one chapel no matter how disgracefully its clergy behave. If people don't think they have a choice, so the reasoning goes, then they'll tolerate the intolerable for their souls' sake and keep on forking over their cash.

Now, we say, is the time to discard all this fruit of a poisonous tree. Traditional Catholics don't need divisive tests of their faith, tests based on opinions. More importantly, many of these opinions have been loudly promoted by half-educated clergy without the requisite training to speak on such weighty matters. We need something simpler, an idea that will unite us in our holy faith, not separate us from our brethren. Let's no longer allow worldly Mammonites to keep us apart over what are in essence amateurs' guesses about the unknowable.

As an alternative, we propose the following simple affirmation as the mark of a Catholic: something is wrong with the institution that emerged after Vatican II -- somehow the Vatican Establishment has gone off in the wrong direction.  If our proposal must have a name, then we'll call it the aliquid pravi* thesis. (Traddies love Latin slogans, even if they and their clergy have never mastered the language, so we'll oblige.) Like the Church itself, aliquid pravi is a "Big-Tent" concept. SSPXers, conservative conciliar Catholics, and every stripe of sede-ist can find shelter and fellowship there.  There'll be no finger-pointing or infantile "mine's-better-than-yours" taunts. Instead, Catholics will enjoy the harmony that results when virtuous men and women share a common purpose.

Since aliquid pravi is not a cult movement, there'll be no attempt at thought-control. Catholics are free to hold and discuss any detailed explanation they please for the current crisis. For instance, we Readers, if really pressed on the subject, are partial to the materialiter theory, but we listen to other positions, ever hopeful for a more satisfying account. We frankly don't know who's right or who's wrong. What we won't do, however, is condemn a Catholic who has another take on the problem. As long as a person admits that Rome has gone astray by rejecting immemorial tradition, then for us that person is a fellow Catholic whether he be some kind of sede, use the Pius XII rite or the '62 Missal, attend a Summorum Pontificum Mass, or belong to a conservative Novus-Ordo parish. We may choose by reason of conscience, taste, social status, or habit not to worship at that person's church, but we won't call him a heretic.  More to the point, we won't uncharitably lay the charge of mortal sin against anyone who chooses to pray with a fellow Catholic. They are all our brothers and sisters in the holy crusade against Modernism, so we'll let everyone follow the dictates of his conscience (and keep our noses out of what isn't our or the malformed clergy's business).

Lay governance of chapels will hold aliquid pravi harmless from cult-inclined priests, especially from those money-hungry, wandering bishops who falsely suggest (or, worse, assert) that they are true successors to the apostles. Those sharpies know they haven't a whit of jurisdiction, so they foment disunity in order to direct the flow of resources into their pockets alone. They are brother no man. Any loyalty they possess is to their own narrow self-love. They would devour each other if it were to their advantage. Their savage "apostolate" has two clear-cut policies: (1) divide families and friendships, and rake in the bucks, and (2) keep the faithful irrationally frightened, and act with impunity. Aliquid pravi is indeed a "Big Tent," but there's no room under it for the likes of these ruthless preachers of discord, these cynical apostles of malice.

Yes, now is the time for lay well-intentioned women and men of shared purpose to (a) repudiate the self-interested narrative of flim-flam prelates, (b) take control, and (c) unite with fellow Catholics whose hearts have counseled them with moral certainty that something is wrong with Rome.

*We would also accept aliquid pravum (Virgil wrote aliquid magnum, "something big") because many Traddie clergy don't understand the usage of the quantitative partitive. Pistrina likes the genitive of the thing measured because it echoes the refined colloquial sophistication of Terence's aliquid mali, "something bad," our in-house name for the Terrible Trio.