FALL 2014 MAILBAG #3

Editor's Note: This little nasty gram is particularly of apropos in light of the synod that ended last week in Rome.

You SWcandal Mongers with your lurid Revelations about the Traditional Movement have destroyed the Faith. Pope Francis is going to split the Church right down the Middle. There will be no place for the People to go because of you. When they get on line and start reading your Gossip and Insinuations and Detraction and Muckraking they will stay away from the Traditional Mass. I know several families who wanted to attend one of Bishop Sanborns Parishes but were scared off. Another family refuses to go to Bishop Dolans Masses because of what you say about his Validity. You need to make Reparation to save your Soul!! Maybe you will receive Forgiveness. Don't you understand we need Priests and should be grateful for the few we have??? "Mockery and Reproach are of the Proud, and Vengeance as a Lion shall lie in wait for him (Ecclus. 21, 27)"

A capital letter if there ever was one!

Posting at the close of the infamous 2014 Extraordinary Synod on the Family, we are inclined to agree with our correspondent at least on one count: there might be a schism, although probably not "down the middle." A majority of today's Novus Ordites are in favor of Bergie's liberalizing, "feel-good" views. Nevertheless, if a rupture occurs, a sizable number could exit.

We disagree, however, with the writer's presumption that the leavers would reflexively flock to sede chapels owned and controlled by mammonite cult masters. The principal beneficiary of any schism would be the SSPX (and the FSSP, if it also should sever ties to Frankie). The events of last week will make it hard for the progressives in the SSPX to align with Papa Pancho now. But even if Fellay prevails, a split would produce an entirely new traditionalist dispensation. Perhaps there would emerge several umbrella groups -- a Roman neo-latitudinarianism as it were -- so as to accommodate the entire spectrum of conservative Catholicism, from new-massers with deep, abiding moral values to Tridentine enthusiasts sick of a half century of reckless and wicked innovation.

That means most, if not all, of the people who'd abandon Bergoglio's brave, new, World-Church would find a home somewhere other than in Sedelandia.  For that reason, few would have a motive to seek refuge in the justly abhorred SW-Ohio-Brooksville cult. In our view, if a schism were to occur, more people would leave Tradistan than would enter. Traddies could unload a ton of clerical baggage by going elsewhere, where legitimacy appears more certain. At a neutral venue, they might even be able to find common ground with long-estranged family members who refuse to sing "Kumbaya" with Bergie. 

But it's foolish to speculate. All sorts of earth-shaking wonders could materialize in the next year or so. That's still no reason to endure all the nonsense of the cult masters. And you don't have to put up with "psychologically fragile" indie priests either. Both the lone-wolf nut jobs and cult intriguers are poison to the Catholic soul. Priests are supposed to be spiritual fathers, not solitary basket cases or whip-cracking, pocket-lining plantation overseers. Better none than to suffer the damage wrought by isolated depressives and uneducated gangs of money-mad control freaks who don't know what they're doing. (Plus, remember that a large number of Tradistani clergy have doubtful orders, so what's the difference between those cruds and N.O. priests?)

There are still salutary traditional communities available to people who do not want to join the cult. Near many large cities, competing traditional chapels unaffiliated with Traddie cult masters or shaky, independent loners offer real alternatives. For instance, in Tampa, Florida, traditionalists can join the charming Immaculate Heart of Mary Chapel, faithfully cared for by humane, level-headed priests from Argentina.

Finally, by way of a correction to our exercised correspondent, we answer that we Readers never engage in gossip, which is defined as a trifling, often groundless rumor of a personal, sensational or intimate nature, or just plain idle talk. Our content is serious and solidly rooted in facts obtained by meticulous inquiry before we post. We take as our guide another verse from Ecclesiasticus: "Before thou inquire, blame no man: when thou hast inquired, reprove justly" (11:7).

We, therefore, have always had a just and sufficient reason -- the good of souls and the material well-being of traditional Catholics -- for revealing what we do, so we're not guilty of unjust detraction, calumny or rash judgment. Our consciences are clean. As for muckraking, well, we're proud to belong to the distinguished company of vigilant watchdogs of the public's welfare. And we wouldn't mind it either if our correspondent had characterized our apostolate as "yellow journalism," though we'd have to wait until our circulation reached the millions before we could justly lay claim to that coveted title of honor. Had Tradistan raised up a Lincoln Steffens or an Ida Tarbell years ago, traditional Catholics would be considerably better off today, both spiritually and financially.

NEWS FLASH!

Dateline -- October 25, 2014, Lawrence, MA: Next week we'll interrupt our fall-mailbag series to report on an unsavory back story to today's joyous (and valid) priestly ordination here in the Bay State. 

It seems some unidentified sede scumbag rent-seekers were frightened at the prospect of strong competition from a traditional bishop based in Latin America.

You'll see that nothing's too low for the gringo sede trash.

Fortunately, the clandestine ecclesiastical freebooters now can't get their greedy hands on the chapel -- a real Catholic church, not a tarted-up Quonset hut -- along with its community's assets.

Tune in and be prepared for bowel-twisting, moral outrage!

FALL 2014 MAILBAG #2

Editor's Note: Here's a very timely -- and opportune -- communication about the rector, whom we've been neglecting of late. We hope this makes up for our public inattention. (Privately we've been following his travails very closely.)

Readers, have you seen the Sep. Most holy Trinity Seminary Newsletter? What say you to to this money seeking rant from Sanborn? "It is absolutely necessary for the survival of Catholicism during this Modernist crisis that this seminary [Most Holy Trinity in Brooksville, FL] continue to function. If the lay people are to preserve their Catholic Faith, they will need well-trained Catholic priests. If they do not have them, they will sink into error, heresy, and moral corruption." Strong stuff. Care to comment?

Indeed, we shall. We have a lot to say, in fact.

First off, the statement is completely false. Naturally we're too discreet to call it a lie. We prefer to think that the rector, like that Aeschylean President of the Immortals, is having his sport with us.

What's the basis for our opinion? Well, to tell you the truth, it's in Big Don's very own words --  and in his self-published behavior. For if he really believed MHT was so necessary, why did he invite as his companion to Europe a "priest" who (1) did not attend MHT Seminary and (2) who never enrolled in any brick-and-mortar seminary? Uneven-Steven McFaker  -- without whom the rector, according to his own admission in the same newsletter, "could not have undertaken the journey" -- studied independently, first with a priest out West (until they parted ways) and then for a spell with Erroneous Antonius.

Why didn't the rector choose one of his own completers to accompany him? Could he not have traveled to Central and Eastern Europe if he had no other option than to invite an MHT trainee?

He could've tapped the Forlorn Finn, a McFaker colleague at the SW Ohio cult center. The Finn's company might have proved a fine gesture in Hungary, where the national language is distantly related to Finnish. Also, wouldn't the Poles, the Germans, and the Austrians have been impressed that a fellow European had attended Big Don's swampland seminary? Wouldn't you think that, if the training were so good in Brooksville, the rector would have seized the opportunity to show off his own man rather than some stranger "formed" outside his supervision, someone who's an alien to the culture of a formally organized traditional Catholic "seminary"?

Or is it the case that the rector didn't have confidence in his own products, so he was forced to choose an outsider? Or did the possibility of the McFaker's  succeeding Dannie play a large part in his decision?

We don't know the answer. But it's obvious the rector must believe in his heart that Catholicism in West Chester, OH, Rochester, MN, and Grand Forks, ND, can survive without priests trained at MHT Seminary. Likewise Big Don must be certain the lay folk there won't sink into error, heresy, and moral corruption. If you ask us, it seems that a "priest" who wasn't "trained" at MHT must have been better suited than his own thick-skulled completers. Otherwise, surely the rector would have selected an MHT trainee, right?

If Big Don didn't want the Forlorn Finn for some reason, why didn't he ask one of the others, for instance, the slavishly devoted Skipper from Michigan? Uneven-Steven could have substituted at the Michigan chapel while the rector and Skippy traipsed about Europe. If Big Don were in the mood to flout his principles, it would have been a grand and welcome gesture to show the forgetful Skipper that skipping the consecration at Mass was no obstacle to representing "well-trained" sedevacantism at its best and brightest.

It's settled, then.  Big Don's own actions assure us that the continued operation of the MHT pesthouse is definitely not an imperative, no matter what he shouts from the pulpit. Don't you agree?

That means Traddies are now free to get their Catholic priests in all sorts of ways other than from a so-called "seminary." And if the magnificent rector is O.K. with a non-seminary-formed "priest," then Traddies should be fine with one, too.  And with such priests there's no danger of the laity's falling into error, heresy, and moral corruption either, or else why would the Big Don sanction the McFaker's presence both in West Chester, Ohio,  and in his entourage abroad (and occasionally at MHT in front of the quivering, weak-minded young "seminarians")? Furthermore, why would the rector suffer his three completers in West Chester, namely, Lurch, the Forlorn Finn, and Bede the Unsure (viz., of his validity), to associate as colleagues with such a "priest" if there were any danger to souls? Clearly there's no problem at all in the Donster's mind. None in the slightest, thank you!

Now since you all know from the rector's approval of the McFaker that MHT trainees are really not needed for the survival of the faith and the weal of your souls, the good news is that you don't need to support MHT financially. Save your money and take your kids to Disney World -- or to the orthodontist. You can get priests just as ignorant as the completers at a far cheaper price.

Uneven-Steven's disgraceful, error filled exposition of the Summa on Restoration Radio is proof that you don't need an MHT "formation" to be audaciously clueless and mired in error. Anyone can be like the French completer who couldn't bless holy water without a moral crisis and who once administered so much salt to an infant at baptism that the baby got sick and the ceremony had to be interrupted. Also, how about the case of the MHT completer who couldn't perform a burial service? And let's not forget about the completers who, like the McFaker, were ordained by "One-Hand Dan," and hence possess doubtful orders!

You see, you don't need the seminary at all. You can get ignorant, doubtful, malformed "priests" without recourse to the pesthouse.

Isn't that a relief? No more digging deep to fund overpriced and poorly constructed additions to the "seminary." No more underwriting budget-busting re-do's resulting from bad workmanship and supervision. No more quarterly payments of your second-collections for "seminary" support. No more monthly or annual donations. No more loud, fist-pounding sermons demanding that you keep the pesthouse afloat in the steamy swamp to the detriment of your family's treasure and your own retirement. 

Thanks, Big Don, a.k.a. "The Mauler of the Modernists," for setting us straight.  Possible loss of the faith! Threats of error! Danger of heresy! Moral corruption!  *Whew!* You had us scared for a minute there.We didn't know you were just pulling our leg, you big, ol' kidder, you! 

A postscript...

We can't resist sharing another little example of the rector's intellectual sloppiness. In his stilted travelogue,  he wrote of the  "123 days of a brutal communist regime under the leadership of Bela Kuhn" (sic!) in Hungary. The trouble is, the revolutionary's name is spelled Béla Kun. Even with the entire web at his fingertips, the rector couldn't repay Magyar hospitality with the correct spelling of a historical figure's name.  We could forgive the missing diacritical mark on the forename, but the surname's misspelling is unpardonable. What an amateur! Luckily the Europeans will soon discover the truth for themselves (with a little bit of helpful outside assistance, to be sure).

FALL 2014 MAILBAG #1

Editor's Note: It's time to catch up on our seasonal correspondence. Here's an excerpt from an e-mail of a follower who has carefully studied our arguments urging "One-Hand Dan" to seek conditional ordination and consecration. We confess that this is a very popular e-mail topic, and interest in it is increasing. That's why we're working overtime to produce a document summarizing our rebuttal/refutation of Tony Baloney's error-infested defense of one-handed orders. It will be ready in English this fall, and we hope a Spanish translation will be available by late winter.

This is a minor point, but can you explain what Father Cekada meant when he wrote [in his monograph on one-handed orders, section III], "To assert that imposing one hand instead of two renders a priestly ordination doubtful runs afoul of yet another principle in sacramental theology: form determines matter"? Did Father Cekada mean that as long as the sacramental form was correct, you could use one or two hands or even an elbow, or your middle finger or your right big toe to designate the receiver of the blessing?

We've said before that we won't try to divine what goes on in the Blunderer's untutored noggin. When we re-read section III of his monograph, we could see the grounds for our correspondent's observation. However, we can't imagine even Tony Baloney's affirming that anything other than hands (or, in his case, one hand) would do. He's just such a sloppy thinker and writer that he opens himself up to attack because he leaves so much out. Inasmuch as his monograph was obviously intended for both the clergy and the laity, he should have explained what determine means in theological and philosophical parlance (assuming he knows the technical definition).

Below is a shortened version of a long, detailed answer to our correspondent. Much of what we had to say was amply covered in last year's thoroughgoing rebuttal/refutation of the Blunderer's monograph "The Validity of Ordination with One Hand."  Nevertheless, since our correspondent raised an issue we hadn't directly addressed, and since it's always of value to reaffirm our position given that it's often misrepresented as an effort to prove Dannie's orders are invalid, -- for us, they're doubtful -- we thought we'd share the substance of our reply with the reading public.

The word determine, in a Scholastic context, doesn't mean, as it sometimes does in American English, "to settle or decide by a choice of alternatives or possibilities." There's no choice of the matter of a sacrament since no one can change the Church's definitions. (Although, come to think about it, Cekada did, in fact, try to do that very thing with his perverse translation of Pius XII's apostolic constitution, didn't he? [see, v.g.,  here and here, for a refresher].) As a term of art in Scholastic philosophy, determine means "to cause a definite perfection." Thus in the phrase "form determines matter," the word determines means "actualizes."

In Catholic theology, the terms matter and form are taken by analogy* from Aristotle's hylomorphic theory where, to use John O'Neil's lucid explanation, "substantial form actualizes primordial matter, and thus produces a substance that has a determinate existence, a natural activity, and an intelligible essence."**  The difference between Aristotle's doctrine of the principles of nature and the application of his terminology to theology is that the union between sacramental form and matter is moral, not physical.***

In addition, there's no reason to give any credence to Cekada's assertion in section III that "To question the validity of an ordination conferred with one hand turns this principle on its head: Matter (one hand or two) ends up determining what form signifies." Pope Pius XII infallibly defined (1) the specific form and (2) the specific matter that would result in ordination to the priesthood. After 1947, there can be absolutely no doubt. The matter of the presbyterate is NOT an optional "one hand or two" as Cekada writes, because the Pope declared that the sole matter is the first imposition of the bishop's hands, performed in silence, not the continuation thereof by stretching out the right hand. And the essential words that determine, or actualize, the imposition of the bishop's hands are Da, quaesumus, omnipotens Pater...insinuet. 

Therefore, the issue has been settled, and no amount of verbal gymnastics, mistranslation, or special pleading can change it. By questioning the validity of one-handed conferral of priestly orders, no one is turning any "principle on its head" by illogically asserting that the undetermined element determines the determining element. (We leave such Groucho-Marx argumentation to Tony Baloney, Uneven-Steven McFaker, and the rector.)  The truth is that Catholics who harbor doubts about the validity of one-handed priestly ordination are faithfully adhering to the abundantly clear supreme teaching authority of the Church.

The Blunderer did get one thing right, though: he used the word questioning. As we've always insisted, despite the moronic claims of Dannie's zombie defenders, we don't affirm that his one-handed ordination is invalid, for the simple reason that the Church has not officially ruled on the issue. However, in light of Pius XII's explicit teaching, one-handed ordination is questionable. Is it valid or not? Who knows? But until we get an authoritative ruling from the restored Church, we must invoke the sovereign principle of sacramental theology: in dubio pars tutior eligenda est -- when in doubt, we must choose the safer side. Remember: historically, the Church has always chosen the safer path with respect to the administration of the sacraments.

Accordingly, as Pistrina has always maintained, the only way for the faithful to be certain of the validity Dannie's orders is for him to seek re-ordination and re-consecration. Once he does that, then he must conditionally re-ordain the 14 losers he ordained when he mistakenly relied on Cekada's now demolished findings. Nothing could be easier.

What's keeping "One Hand" from doing the right thing?

* One acquaintance of ours related how his chance discovery that the cult's five-and-dime "theologian" didn't understand the analogical usage in theology of the terms matter and form convinced him that the sedes were gross amateurs. Here's his account:

In the late 1990s, I had driven down to Sharonville [the former cult-center location] one Saturday afternoon to transport a recently ordained Mexican priest to the chapel I attended. As the young priest was readying himself to leave, "the great theologian" entered the room and joined our conversation. The priest, who had studied under the learned Fr. Ricossa in Italy, casually brought up the materialiter thesis. The "eminent author" sarcastically denied its viability saying, 'You can't have matter without form.' I remember giving him the oddest look, but I held my peace. On the journey back, the young priest pressed me about my reaction. I explained that matter-form terminology is an adaptation of Aristotle's physical theory of substantial change and had to be understood in the moral, not the physical, sense -- noting that's why a penitent who on one day confesses his sins may still be validly absolved a day later because, irrespective of the time interval, the matter and form compose one moral act.  For the same reason, I argued, we can have a pope materialiter. The young priest smiled as though I were confirming his own doubts about the "scholar's" vaunted "learning." After that episode, I began to scrutinize everything the man said and wrote. Soon I realized his "scholarly" reputation was manufactured. In future conversations with the Mexican priest, he always smiled cynically when the "theologian's" name came up.

** H.J. Koren,  C.S.Sp., Readings in the Philosophy of Nature, p. 183 (Newman Press, 1965).

***For a brief treatment of the issue, see Pohle-Preuss, The Sacraments, vol. 1, pp. 62-65 (found in Book Five, Volumes VIII - IX, in the new Loreto reprinting).

QUELLING THE CAT

Did St. Francis preach to the rabbits? Whatever for? If he really liked rabbits he would have done better to preach to the cats.  Rebecca West (adapted for our theme, P.L. Ms. West originally wrote "birds.")


In the September 21 SGG cult bulletin, Dannie really got his freak on.

As we reported last week, the "Bishop's (?) Corner" featured some frightening thoughts on taking the switch to kids.  The bulletin's poetry section continued the theme of mayhem by reprinting a 1935 poem, "Funny Bunny," which Dirtbag Dan "edited for our times." This mawkish banality written for coy spinsters took as its subject a mangled, traumatized, tulip-nibbling bunny-rabbit that endured a storm-trooper tom-cat's ripping its tiny, little tail from the caudal vertebrae. Wee Dan, with the distempered pride of a school-yard bully's dad, updated the verse by inserting the name of his marauding, feral cat, which is wont to bring him and his side kick even more gruesome offerings: "And that reckless little rabbit/Saw a bulb and stopped to nab it/With Caravaggio the cat very close upon his trail;/So, if you see a funny,/Sadly frightened little bunny,/I think you'd best not ask him how he came to lose his tail."

Dannie gets a great kick out of praising his familiar's grisly tributes of lifeless, twisted bunny carcasses. What on earth possesses him to print those ghoulish anecdotes in the Sunday bulletin? Doesn't he know that such sadistic fare may fall into the hands of impressionable youth? Why, they might even be inspired to download animal torture-videos online. (Will "crush flicks" be next?)

Where is Dannie's sense of decorum? He's positively disgusting. On the Sabbath, even zombie cultists want to read (or have read to them) fine, uplifting sentiments. But what do they get? Merciless Dirtbag Dan's free-associating about goose droppings, whipping fantasies, and, now,  ... animal maiming. Oh, the humanity! (Or is it animality?)

Great Caesar's ghost! These are suitable conversation topics for feeble-minded 12-year old boys in reform school, not supposedly Catholic "clergy." In the name of decency: This Sunday savagery must end! Even the cultlings agree  -- or so we've been told by those capable of articulation.

To that noble end, inspired by T. S. Eliot's delightful "The Old Gumbie Cat," we've commissioned light verse that "One-Hand Dan" may cut out and frame, in order to rid himself of the dark compulsion to celebrate in the Sunday bulletin his beast's bloody adventures. From now on, he need not preconize this rapacious, predatory feline, which we call "The Old Scumbie Cat," for Pistrina has mercifully done so on his behalf (and for the relief of the shuddering, bug-eyed Gerties).

I have a Scumbie Cat in view: his name is Caravaggio;

His fur is of a bloody hue, with eyes green as pistachio.

All day he stalks the parking lot or dirty lanes or automat;

He stalks and stalks and stalks and stalks – that’s what makes a Scumbie Cat!

And while the Grand Pooh-Bah is hustling for pay,

Then the Scumbie Cat makes himself ready to slay.

And as all the clerics are counting the cash,

He puts on his jackboots the burrows to smash.

He is madly obsessed with the ways of the rabbits:

They are cuddly, cute pets with sweet, gentle habits.

So as the dear nestlings lie trembling and teary,

He slashes soft tummies and bites off an earie.

I have a Scumbie Cat in view: his name is Caravaggio;

A fiercer beast you never knew -- he loves Dan’s braggadocio.

All day he stalks scared cottontails, which shelter near the Laundromat:

He stalks and stalks and stalks and stalks – that’s what makes a Scumbie Cat!

And while the Grand Pooh-Bah is hustling for pay,

Then the Scumbie Cat makes himself ready to slay.

Since he kens that the bunnies will ever keep breeding,

He is sure he will never forego carnal feeding.

So eschewing the techniques of Monsieur Jacques Pépin,

He mauls 'em to death and leaves 'em misshapen,

Then drags ‘em to Master, whose rare gourmandise

Craves a bunny burrito, all drowning in cheese.

I have a Scumbie Cat in view: his name is Caravaggio;

He hisses with the cult’s clown crew, while Phony croons solfeggio.

He stalks the rabbits sans merci, then tears to shreds their habitat;

He stalks and stalks and stalks and stalks – that’s what makes a Scumbie Cat!

And while the Grand Pooh-Bah is hustling for pay,

Then the Scumbie Cat makes himself ready to slay.

He thinks that the lay folk have but one requirement:

To secure the full funding of "One Hand’s" retirement

So he trains them to flay every kit for its pelt,

In hopes that a furrier shells out some gelt.

He disturbs the bereaved to assure a bequest

So that he can thrash jacks in the stylish Southwest.

So for Old Scumbie Cats let us now send up jeers --

From whom mammonite clergy bid cruel souvenirs.

NOW STOP IT, DANNIE!

SUFFER FIRST THE CHILDREN

Charity and beating begins at home. Fletcher

Dubious Dan's "Bishop's (?) Corner" may be silly, but it's often a picture window on his psyche. Hunched in that shabby nook, he wrestles with his demons, airs his grievances, and encodes his intentions. One psychologist-friend pronounced the column a "therapist's dream." Most of the time, it's good for a laugh, but last Sunday's message left us unsettled.

Five years ago, around this very time of the year, the infamous SGG School scandal began to spin out of Dannie's control. The pressure for reform was so great that the cult masters promised to replace the embattled lay principal with a priest, insisting that clerical leadership had always been their dream. As you may know, the "priest" whom they appointed ended up with the pink slip, not the principal at the center of the crisis. After Wee Dan's calamitous miscalculation, SGG shattered ... never to be put back together again.

The haunting memories and the terrifying angst brought on by so much lost income must make these late September days appear especially dark. Therefore, it's no surprise that last week Dannie gave the culties a hair-raising meditation on SGG School and the virtues of corporal punishment. We'll try to parse what he wrote.

Right after "One Hand" noted the school-children's "making good progress in many fields," he found it necessary to scold the crumb-crushers, compelling them "not to bring food or drink back to the classrooms, or indeed, around the building." Then he bitterly snarled, "We don’t have a janitor anymore, and I do need each of you to do your part." You can almost feel the seething anger about to erupt, can't you? He lost his apostolate because of sniveling urchins, and now they're littering his decaying cult center. From what sounds like a vicious reproof, we gather there's no money to pay -- or no one to volunteer -- for the sorely needed custodial services.  

Immediately afterward, Dannie reveals what's really getting his goat: "Crumbs left in classrooms, and cups of coffee spilled in the school wastepaper baskets create unnecessary Monday morning work for our teachers, who already have so much to do." Ah-HA!  Now we get it. The "teachers" don't want to be janitors either, so they must have complained about Dannie's poor people-management skills. He and the principal can't even supervise a few scrawny kids and addled adult catechists at Sunday school. Now that's incompetence!

(Just one small observation on our part: On leisurely Sunday afternoons, why was it too much to ask for the principal -- the proximate cause of so many of Dannie's woes -- and the doubtfully ordained "priests" to take a couple of minutes to police what few classrooms the cult center has? Perhaps these eminent theologians consider basic hygiene to be servile labor, but fixing stacks of flapjacks isn't.) 

The complaints must have really made "One-Hand Dan" angry, because he then lashed out at Gertie parents, who, if the collection statistics are accurate, aren't doing their part either with the collection basket to allow SGG to hire custodial help: 

The old discipline of eating neatly, and in one place, is a precious one to pass on to our children. Encourage them as well, by word and example, to clean up after themselves, even in Helfta Hall (or at home!) Don’t leave a mess for the nonexistent janitor. You probably don’t have a janitor at home either.

If we're not mistaken, it looks as if the low-class cultling adults, like their uncouth offspring, aren't cleaning up after their slovenly selves. It's a pity Dannie doesn't understand the effects of the financial demands he makes on the suckers. If he did, he'd know that they're flat broke from supporting all the cult masters' excesses. They have to leave crumbs around at home as bait for cockroaches: How else can their runt offspring get the protein they need to grow up to be the Traddie thugs of tomorrow? C'mon, Dan: They were just trying to be helpful by leaving food waste. Empathize!

No matter.  Dannie was in a fine funk about it all. He used the NFL's Adrian Peterson (not Petersen) scandal as the springboard for what read like some wistful thoughts on the bodily punishment of children.  Appealing to no less an advocate than Fulton Sheen, Dannie archly quoted the archbishop's one liner,"' Everything in the American home is controlled with a switch, except the children,'" cheerfully adding that Sheen "went on to praise the efficacy of giving children a good pat on the back, provided it be low enough and frequent enough. "

And that's what's got us unnerved.

Is this convergence of  (1) the ominous fifth anniversary of the ruinous SGG School scandal, (2) the cultie children's and adults' barnyard manners, (3) the pathetically insufficient contributions, and (4) the aching nostalgia for the "use of a switch" a mere coincidence?

Or does it herald the return to pre-2009 SGG School policy?

You know, almost all the decent people left in late 2009 and early 2010, so mostly the dregs remain. (The few downright scumbags who did exit at that time have since returned to the cult with their tails between their legs.) Some of the brainwashed  zombies might not object if the school resumed its former hard-line, hickory-stick ways.

IF YOU CAN READ AND STILL HAVE A CONSCIENCE, TAKE YOUR KIDS AND GET OUT OF THE CULT TODAY!

DUNG AND DEATH

Now, there's one thing that you men will be able to say when you get back home, and you may thank God for it. Thirty years from now when you're sitting around your fireside with your grandson on your knee, and he asks you, "What did you do in the great World War II?" -- you won't have to say, "Well, I shoveled s--t in Louisiana." George Patton

Doubtful Dan unwittingly telegraphs so much in his "Bishop's (?)  Corner"-- in addition, of course, to the weekly weather almanac. Since he wears a contemptuous heart on his sleeve, the dirtbag can't help revealing his real opinion of the overburdened souls who waste so much of their treasure and lives on his moribund cult and spendthrift junketeering. Last week's message, with its foul -- or should we say fowl? -- scatological allusions, is a perfect example.

It's a nasty subject, and we're revolted that Dannie brought it up, but comment we must.

As Dan-O announced the passing of a Gertie, he couldn't resist humiliating the deceased. (He's always got to demean others, even supporters.) Instead of eulogizing the man's virtues in elevated terms, Dunghill Dan focused on the late gentleman's membership in the "shovel brigade," the cult's now disbanded chain gang that cleared the path for Dannie's showy processions by "shoveling away the goose droppings in all weather."

Gag us with a spoon! Of all the good deeds this soul must have performed in a lifetime of thankless service to the ungrateful cult masters, what on earth possessed Dannie to single out his removing the accumulated splats of pathogenic, parasite-infested goose excrement? Did "One Hand" honestly imagine so repulsive an image to be a fitting, tasteful memorial? Is that how the man's grieving children and grandchildren want him remembered? Or was His Gracelessness trying to intimate that people should be happy to do anything for him?

Look: we don't question the humility of someone who, for the love of God, undertakes such a filthy, debasing assignment. May a heavenly crown be his. Our objection is that work-shirking Wee Dan, who would never lift a finger in so lowly an effort, chose to memorialize this man by choosing -- in the Sunday bulletin no less, mind you -- this particular contribution among the many the gentleman surely must have made.  At a time when bereaved family and distraught friends anticipated a noble, uplifting reminiscence from their cult leader, Li'l Dan chose to leave them with the lowliest, most ignoble of images of the dearly departed, as if he mattered for nothing more than keeping Dannie's shoes -- and sensibilities -- unstained.

Although "One Hand" expressed rhetorical amazement at such an "act of penance," we question whether he or his sidekick, the Checkmeister, would do the same. (Such penance is for the "little people," you know.) The dirty work, however, apparently still needs doing, for Wee Dan wrote, "The shovel brigade is no more, and we Rosary marchers have had plenty of opportunity to get in a little Fatima penance along with our processional prayers." 

We're puzzled at this remark. Instead of stepping in the goose crap and calling it penance, why not remove it yourself before the procession? You'd still get to do your penance, and you'd have made the trek more edifying for the faithful processionists. As for us pragmatic Readers, we'd rather hose the nasty goop off the blade of a long-handled shovel than scrape it from our dress shoes!

The laity have seemingly wised up and won't help out any longer. They know their master won't do the things he asks of his followers. (Real leaders eat last and lead by example.) Perhaps that's why Dannie frantically implored

Almighty God to raise us up five, ten, fifteen more such men; examples to others, strong in their faith, active in church, generous in giving of themselves. The work must and does go on, and we must go on, but this is the help we require, and beg of God’s grace.

It looks like Wee Dan's reached the end of his rope: he's running out of pliant serfs, and unless he gets some more, he might have to work -- or retire. The cult's menfolk must have figured out that they're being used. Yeah, sure, you still hear from some of the old timers the empty bar talk, "I'd go to hell for 'Bishop' Dolan," but plainly these brash loud mouths won't shovel bird poo for His Delicacy. (If they keep on stroking Wee Dan's big ego, these brown-nosers may get a chance to make good on their boast to journey to the nether regions. And then these adulators will most likely end up in Bolgia 2.* Wouldn't that be ironic!)

After the SGG School scandal, Dannie and the Cheeseball can no longer easily dragoon the laity into doing work they themselves avoid, nor will they lower themselves to serve as an "example to others" and pick up where the "shovel brigade" left off.  Therefore, we ask, Why doesn't "One Hand" order his three doubtfully ordained, younger stooges to grab a barn shovel and get scraping. After all, isn't there a proverb that says, "many hands make light work"? You may have noticed, too, that one of those goofballs clearly could use the exercise. The added benefit is he might be kept so busy he wouldn't be able to make a fool of himself on Restoration Radio.

Dannie, however, is always resourceful when it comes to avoiding unpleasant work that he can't make others perform and for which he's unwilling to pay. (He knows those young louts of his would bristle at the command, and with his Mexicali, Mexico, trip looming on the horizon, he'll want to keep every penny for himself.) Like every challenge, it looks as if he'll just bury his head in the sand. As Dan pondered, probably in hopes of shaming someone into volunteering:

 I have been vaguely thinking about moving the procession across the street next year, where it is a bit quieter. That way we would not have to compete with the cars and traffic – and geese.

That's just like Do-nothin' Dan. If someone won't do it for him, and he and his clown crew haven't the stomach for the work themselves, he hides from the problem -- just as in November 2009. Good from him! Although his bad decisions five years ago assured that the cult center will never become a "sermon in stone," it now has a good chance of becoming an "oration in ordure."

DON'T LET YOUR EULOGY READ:

"HE SCOOPED GOOSE POOP FOR DUBIOUS DAN."

GET OUT OF  SGG TODAY!

* The wry commenter who sent us the Italian verse fable of the toad and the hen will surely have caught our allusion to Dante's Inf. xviii. 113-117 and the punishment of flatterers:  Vidi gente attuffata in uno sterco,/Che dagli uman privati parea mosso:/E mentre ch'io là giù con l'occhio cerco,/Vidi un col capo sì di merda lordo,/Che non parea s'era laico o cherco.  (Le Opere di Dante Alighieri, ed. E. Moore and P. Toynbee, Oxford University Press, 1963). We translate literally: I saw people immersed in a dung/That appeared sloshed from human latrines:/And while I search with the eye down there/ I saw one with a head so soiled with fecal matter,/That it did not appear if he was layman or cleric.

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!