DOWN IN THE FLOOD OF REMEMBRANCE

Editor's Note: We know the above illustration has nothing to do with today's comment, but since this is the last post for the month of November 2014 -- the fifth anniversary of the SGG School Scandal -- we just had to publish another memorial image of what brought Dannie's cult down and prompted the long series of articles that led to today's topic. "One Hand's" mood must get really sour when he thinks about the "principal," who has laid so much at his creaking doorway.

The past exudes legend: one can't make pure clay of time's mud. There is no life that can be recaptured wholly as it was. Which is to say that all biography is ultimately fiction. Malamud

A couple of years ago, an adversary sent us a photo of a European priest's sworn statement -- made some 35 years after the fact --  to the effect that Archbishop Lefebvre did not confer priestly orders with one hand at the infamous June 29, 1976, ordination in Écône. On that very day, the affiant was ordained to the diaconate, so his presence at and participation in the ceremony guarantee the reliability of his affirmation, right?

Wrong!

This week and next, we'll examine the probative value of this very late testimony to see whether it merits any consideration in the decades-long dispute. Through informed imagination, let's look this week at what our clerical eyewitness's state of mind might have been on that fateful Tuesday so many, many years ago.

Perhaps our Johnny-come-lately witness awoke early that summer morn from a restive sleep. Surely the anticipation of the grand occasion had preoccupied him in the preceding week: Today, June 29, 1976, his young soul will again be indelibly marked, as it had been first at his baptism and later (as some would hold) at his subdiaconal ordination. This day's diaconate would mean he would soon be a Roman Catholic priest, the envy of angels, an alter Christus, with the power to celebrate Mass both for the living and the dead in the name of the Lord.

It will prove a very busy, psychologically stressful morning. Europe was sweltering under a major heat wave in 1976, and the air may have already turned enervating.  Entering the crowded sacristy, he encounters a whirlwind of activity: masters of ceremony busily whispering last-minute instructions, senior clergy earnestly conferring among themselves, ordinands hurriedly vesting, servers scurrying about, seminarians entering and exiting.

Likewise, his conscious mind is hectic: he has to rehearse his ceremonial responsibilities all the while trying to control his exuberant emotions. Yet everything about him is a cause for distraction. The chapel is ablaze with the day's liturgical color. The revered archbishop, vested in splendid pontificals, flanked by his attendants, stands at the center of it all. Our impressionable witness knows he must not disappoint the great man! He must focus with singular -- correction: with obsessive -- care on the rôle he has to play in today's ancient and awesome sacred drama.

As the ordination Mass with its solemn dignity begins, our youthful witness mayhap loses himself for an instant amid the ritual beauty. Just in time, however, he manages to reclaim his self-possession at the Collect for the Ordinands. Now, his hour is at hand. He must concentrate on what he is required to do. By all that's holy, he cannot disappoint the good archbishop. Soon, however, overcome with anticipation and nerves, he forsakes the private rehearsals, surrendering his will and attention to the sober direction of the vigilant MC's. He has faith in them. And in the legendary archbishop. Lying prostrate with eyes closed during the litany, he may have dozed off for a spell -- something many ordinands experience -- adrift in lilting chant, suspended in sacred space.

At length, the moment arrives for his ordination to the diaconate. He almost doesn't recognize his Christian name in Latin form when the notary bids him to step forward, but, recovering, he replies in a quavering voice: "Adsum!" Approaching the imposing archbishop face to face becomes an out-of-body experience as he completes each ritual action with the welcome assistance from skilled hands, watchful eyes, and sotto voce directives.

When he returns to his place as he makes way for the candidates for the priesthood, he feels a little lightheaded. His heart, he observes, is racing. A rushing noise resonates in his head, muffling the cadences of the confident archbishop:  it's as though unseen hands were pressing a massive conch shell to each ear.  As he tries without success to focus, the rite of priestly ordination passes before him in a benign haze. His mind is all joy, gratitude, and benediction. He has done his part for the saintly archbishop, who by God's good grace had made it possible for him to be sitting there, a deacon of the Roman Catholic Church. Floating on a buoyant cloud of relief, he may have just then noticed he was a bit peckish, for he had been fasting. He could look forward to a good lunch, a nice glass (or two) of wine, and sincere congratulations.

There's no reason to spoil that golden hour by small-mindedly scrutinizing every gesture the courageous prelate makes. Who, anyway, would be so impious as to presume to second-guess the well-practiced archbishop? He'd done this many times before. Besides, our young witness wouldn't have been able to, even if he had so desired. At the time, Écône was no center of deep liturgical study, and, as we know, seminarians have much more to learn than the rubrics of the Pontificale Romanum.

It's the Gestalt of the unfolding rite that intrudes upon his spinning consciousness, not the minutiæ. What's most important is that the masterful archbishop could never err in these matters. Moreover, to be brutally frank, in the midst of so much ennobling solemnity, why would he even let his rapt attention stray to light upon a squat, foreign vulgarian, the obnoxious and chattering "door" mouse whom his fellow Europeans had so often mocked?

No, he will cast his admiring gaze upon the venerable archbishop's fatherly visage, or perhaps he will follow with evanescent interest the gesturing ministers. He will imagine the day in the not-too-far-off future when he himself, resplendent in folded chasuble, will kneel before this giant of the Catholic Church to receive the august power of the priesthood. Consequently, it's only common sense to suppose he won't have noticed whether the archbishop imposed both hands, or just one.

He won't care either way. The archbishop is ALWAYS RIGHT.  He could do no wrong in those years.  And anyway, how could our witness really affirm with certitude what the archbishop actually did after witnessing all the other clergy impose their hands immediately afterwards? Furthermore, we must consider the influence of his many memories of other ordinations where the archbishop performed the rite flawlessly. If he received his minor as well as major orders at Écône, he would have been witnessed the ceremony so often that he might have filled in details missing from the 1976 fiasco. So crowded a mental picture after so long a time could easily have induced an episode of paramnesia, leading him to believe that he saw the archbishop use two hands, when in fact the great man had acted amiss and employed but one.

The mind plays so many tricks on us when we try to recall after the long march of years complex events saturated with emotion, doesn't it?


THE BOTTOM LINE: The circumstances argue against the admissibility of this European's statement. The statement, therefore, merits suppression. Bear in mind that the moment of imposition was so fleeting that it may not have registered at all on his conscious mind, such that what he "remembers" now could well be a fiction contrived by unconscious bias and wishful hindsight. Additionally, consider, too, that our witness might not have thought anything was wrong when the archbishop imposed just one hand, so it stands to reason that he "remembered" that nothing went wrong in 1976.

The great man had just imposed one hand on his head at his diaconal ordination, and the great man, as everyone at the seminary thought then and in the years that followed, was beyond a serious mistakes. And when the mistake did come to light, the Écône party-line assured everyone that all was right in their world. That's why those who knew what really happened never thought to protest.

It would be difficult for a prudent man today to admit such circumstantially compromised eyewitness testimony even if the witness had affirmed it way back in 1976, immediately after the ceremony. However, it is impossible to give this testimony, albeit offered in good faith, any credence at all when the witness delivers it half a Biblical lifetime after the event took place.

A SECOND CHANCE FOR THE THIRD RATE

Of making many books there is no end. Ecclesiastes

Editor's Note: Today's image is in remembrance of the unspeakable events behind the cult's November 2009 catastrophe, which we are commemorating throughout this month as part of our the fifth anniversary celebration of the beginning of the end of Tradistan.

BTW, recently you asked for the return of the SGG School Scandal material from the old sgginfo and Vipers of Vaudeville sites. We found the disk with the files and acquired the upgraded software we need. We still have to repopulate the folders, which shouldn't be too difficult. Once that's done, we'll buy a domain name and get a new site up and running. We hope to make the announcement soon, and we'll post the new link on our home page.

For today, we get a chance to revisit the inspiration for our blog, the Blunderer's incompetently executed, mistake- filled Work of Human Hands.

In an October "Bishop's (?) Corner," we found the following remark (emphasis ours):

May God bless the work of our young priests in the missions, and our own work here at “the motherhouse” of St. Gertrude the Great! Fr. Cekada was working last week on his latest “Work of Human Hands” video. The first edition of his book is now just about sold out, and he will have to work on funding for a second edition. In the meantime, he’s working on training future priests at the seminary this week.

Our first reaction was: Why does Tony Baloney need to get funding for a second edition? Weren't there any profits from the first edition to underwrite a second? We mean, if Work of Human Hands was such a big seller, the revenue should have been sufficient to print a new edition. Why must all the Blunderer's endeavors be underwritten by the efforts and money of others?

Oh, well, who can understand the wild-and-crazy economics of Tradistan anyway? As long as the mouth-breathing suckers are willing to throw away their money on such goofy projects, common-sense financial management and a proper balance sheet are unnecessary.

We can tell you that, in all honesty, we are eagerly looking forward to a second edition of the Blunderer's ridiculous Work of Human Hands.

Yes, we really are! Cross our hearts!

Why? 

We want to see whether the blundering, ill-educated author corrects all the numerous errors we pointed out starting in June 2010. Furthermore, we can't wait to read Checkie's new preface where he thanks Pistrina from the bottom of his heart and gives the Readers all the credit they're due for uncovering his multiple misspellings, bad Latin, errors of facts, dreadful style, facetious slang etc. Surely we'll see something like the following:

First and foremost, I wish to express my profound gratitude to the Readers at Pistrina Liturgica, without whom I could never have corrected the myriad blunders that made the first edition useless to anyone except the barely literate Gertrudians and the cretins confined to Big Don's howling pesthouse in the fetid swampland. As the world knows, my profound ignorance is only surpassed by my soaring arrogance. As a result, I published a tissue of howling errors that shamed the whole of Trad Nation. If Pistrina had not undertaken the merciful work of exposing all the misbegotten errors fathered by my meager education and absence of university-level training, this second edition would prove a greater embarrassment than the first. I stand indebted to the Readers' charitable skepticism, and I look forward to receiving all the fresh corrections they will offer after they comb through this second edition of cringe-worthy nonsense.

We'll buy a copy just to be verify that we received our just recognition. You, however, should not be so foolish. Save your money, for no matter how many mistakes the Blunderer corrects, Work of Human Hands will always be worthless trash.

FALL 2014 MAILBAG #4

Editor's Note: Today we offer the last entry from our October mailbag series, which we interrupted in order to bring you the report on the sedes' attempt to disrupt the ordination in Lawrence, Massachusetts. In remembrance of the fifth anniversary of the SGG School Scandal, we've replaced our usual postal illustration with a commemorative image highlighting the theme behind the events leading to the Ohio-Brooksville cult's November 2009 downfall.

Now for the long-delayed mail. In New England and New York, there's been a lot of fresh talk about "One-Hand Dan's" doubtful orders. A few hardline cultist lamebrains have been trying (and failing) to defend Dannie's "priesthood." Apparently, after Pistrina's withering refutation/rebuttal of the Blunderer's pathetic effort, the CLODs ("close loyalists of Dannie") are making their last stand. 

...this guy [on the East Coast] swears that another priest in addition to Sanborn made a retraction of the [September 1990] letter where 9 priests said Dolan's ordination to the priesthood was doubtful. Do you have more information? Thanks.

Third parties (including Tony Baloney) have reported retractions, but we've never seen one in written form. Without a document, no one can be certain of precisely what anyone may have retracted. For instance,

(1) Did they retract the assertion that Dannie's ordination was "dubious"?; or 
(2) Did they retract the assertion that his "ordination was done with one hand"?; or
(3) Did they retract the letter's imputation that one of the authorities cited therein (viz. Clarence McAuliffe, S.J.) advised that such a case "be referred to the Vatican for Judgment"?

There's a great difference among these motives for retraction, and, as you know, sede priests are notorious for their wanton application of mental reservation. As a result, until the reasons are made plain in a sworn statement (accompanied by a copy of the original written retraction), we dismiss the alleged retractions as not germane to our argument: we continue to believe all nine priests were/are morally certain Li'l Dan had been ordained with one hand.

In addition, if one of these priests had made his retraction based on Tony Baloney’s perverse translation of Pope Pius XII’s infallible teaching, today he may wish to repudiate his retraction and reassert his faith in the doubtfulness of "One-Hand Dan’s" priestly ordination.

In Dannie's October 5, 1990, reply to a signer of the September 1990 letter (his arch nemesis, BTW), he appended a RETRACTION AND PLEDGE for the priests to sign. It should be noted that he demanded only that they (1) retract statements and insinuations “that the ordination to the priesthood of the Rev. Daniel L. Dolan was (or ought to be considered) ‘dubious,’ doubtful, and/or invalid" and (2) retract the statements and insinuations, pledge to make no further statements impugning Dannie's validity, and pledge to inform people of their retraction.

It's very important to understand that Wee Dan did not require them to retract the affirmation that he had been ordained with one hand.

We have no idea whether those one or two priests alleged to have made a retraction signed the form enclosed in "One Hand's" follow-up letter. For all we know, any retractions may well have been general, informal, and oral. (Sedes hate to bind themselves in writing.) But if they did sign "One Hand's" form, you'll note that they could not have retracted the letter's affirmation that Dan's priestly orders were conferred with one hand.

Now, we must ask, if Deacon Dan had been certain that the archbishop used both hands, why didn't he (or Cheeseball Checkie) insert a clause in the document binding the signatory to retract the assertion of one-handed ordination? As we have stated before, if Deacon Dan affirmatively knew he had been ordained with two hands, then by natural right and in natural justice he had a moral duty to deny immediately, vigorously, and unequivocally the nine priests' allegation that his "ordination was done with one hand." Accordingly, he should have demanded that the priests also retract their affirmation of a one-handed ordination.

But "One-Hand Dan" didn't do that, did he?

This omission, together with the publication of the Blunderer's error-filled, specious defense of one-handed orders with its perverse translation of the infallible teaching of Pope Pius XII, suggests that Dannie knows the account of one-handed conferral to be true. And if he knew it was true, then he should have remedied the defect years ago by seeking conditional ordination before his "consecration."

His prideful failure is responsible for all the doubt that continues.

Should it turn out that one-handed conferral of orders represents more than a defect and, in fact, renders an ordination invalid, then that would explain Dirtbag Dan's failure to remove the SGG School "principal" in November 2009:

The charism of the priesthood would have been missing from his soul, so he had no chance of doing the right thing.

AD PERPETUAM REI MEMORIAM

REMEMBER, REMEMBER

THE MONTH OF NOVEMBER:

MADNESS, UNREASON, AND SWAT.

This month marks the fifth anniversary of the catastrophic SGG School Scandal. In November 2009, after a stormy year of impassioned protests over the harsh treatment of innocent children enrolled at the "school," Dannie made a colossal error: he fired the good guys who objected to the school "principal's" intolerable excesses instead of the man who caused the uproar.

In so doing, Li'l Dan mortally wounded the cult and all those associated with it. His suicidal misjudgment brought down upon all Tradistan a revolution, following which nothing has ever been the same.  Wee Dan lost half the SGG membership. In addition, his principal satellite chapels split apart like rotten pumpkins lobbed from the observation deck of a skyscraper. New, independent chapels were founded under different priests and bishops, never to return to his control, not even after the spectacular self-immolation of "the Reverend" Marvelous Ebola. Fed-up Catholics everywhere abandoned their restraint, characterizing His Idiocy in words they'd never dreamed of pronouncing before the 2009 calamity.

The fatal miscalculation put Wee Dan and the entire cult under the microscope.  The monsoon of revelations washed away the tawdry veneer of Tradistan. The ugly past returned to bedevil him. His problematic "ordination" leaped back into the public forum, as the Blunderer's inept defense of Dan's orders was decisively refuted/rebutted. A united movement emerged to expose him along with his grasping cronies. One of the first casualties was Tony Baloney's useless,* embarrassingly amateurish, and mistake-disfigured Work of Human Hands. Another was the swaggering, loud-mouth rector and his clown college in the stinking swamp. For Dannie and Big Don, money is harder to come by, and defections are on the rise. One important mission appears to be actively looking for a new pastor to replace the doubtful cult "priest" assigned to it.

Of late, Deacon Dan's been disclosing his concerns about declining participation. A few weeks ago, at a pity-party in his woolgathering "Corner," he wrote with bitter wistfulness:

... many of the stalwart old-time Catholics of the past are gone as well. “Demand is down,” as they say. Beginning in 1982, the enemy has provided limited “legal Latin Masses,” a clever bait to get Catholics to swallow the hook of the new Vatican II religion. Since then as well, our groups have divided and subdivided, and Vatican II “traditionalists” of varying stripes have multiplied.

Then again on November 2, he agonized:

And what a joy it is to see an unexpected face or two each year, so welcome to swell our thinning ranks!

If just one or two passing visitors a year can "swell" the cult's "thinning ranks," then Dannie's situation is dire. People are not showing up for Li'l Dan's big shows any more. Despite an occasional bump in reported collection receipts, donations since November 2009 have flat-lined, remaining stuck far below pre-scandal highs.

In this autumn of Deacon Dan's career, he should have an extensive, well-established organization. Additionally, his collections should be topping $10K a week, at the very least. Instead Dirtbag Dan finds himself trying to postpone the oncoming train wreck. He's barely hanging on, hemorrhaging scarce money for costly repairs to the collapsing cult temple, cutting back on luxuries, forsaken by the French, avoided by the Italians, and reeling from his many adversaries' criticism. And another polar vortex is coming to the Midwest with the promise of sky-high heating bills this winter. (Will that stop him from junketing to Mexicali, Mexico, to escape the cold? Will the same suckers bail him out again this year? )

At this point in his life, as he approaches his sixty-fourth year, he ought to be basking in the warm glow of general esteem, the subject of homages and admiring regard. His current predicament, however, is quite the opposite: since that fateful November of 2009, he's been reviled and ridiculed throughout the nation and the world by laity and clergy alike. He'll never receive the benefit of the doubt. Outside his diminished, savage cult following, he's as unwelcome as a rabid dog at Petsmart.

Gone are the heady days of steady revenue growth. The cherished pipe dreams of a luxurious, comfy-cozy retirement with a lasting legacy have vanished. At the rate he's losing supporters, the cult may close before he and the Cheeseball can escape to some fancy Southwestern digs in Old Santa Fe. His "golden years" won't have an ounce gold in them, just iron regret plated with tin nostalgia for what never was. All trust has withered, and as social scientists know, communities with low or no trust cannot thrive.

As Dan's lamentations confirm, there's a crisis of confidence in Tradistan. The heathens who remained after the November 2009 cataclysm are more guarded, less enthusiastic. The human waste who returned to Dannie after first leaving him in outrage is suspicious and tightfisted with money. He can incant "be generous, be generous" until Judgment Day , but his cauldron will never fill up.

The depraved Gerties come for the Sunday show, not the man. That's why attendance at events like Forty Hours is down: there's no sense of common purpose under righteous leadership to motivate the cultlings to do more than the minimum. No decent person wants to be at SGG except to fulfill the Sunday precept. Additionally, there are bound to be fewer in attendance at Mass since everybody knows that most of the resident "clergy" have doubtful priestly orders.

Five years ago, wretched Dannie failed to do the right thing for the children. He thereby proved himself unworthy to shepherd souls. It was an unforced error, and it was one of those life-changing blunders from which no man can recover.  The SW Ohio-Brooksville cabal  is a "dead man walking." The folly of November 2009 won't be forgotten. Good people will not allow the disgraceful events of that month to fade from memory. Furthermore, the darkly disturbing rôle "One-Hand Dan" played in that tragedy will keep morally grounded Catholics ill at ease with hardcore sede clergy for decades to come.

The price of one man's unprincipled misreckoning was the ruin of Trad Nation.

* Useless not only for its laughably faulty scholarship and superficiality, but also because Prof. Lauren Pristas's genuinely scholarly The Collects of the Roman Missals of 1962 and 2002 authoritatively and reliably settles the question whether Catholics who worship by means of the post-Vatican II missal receive substantially the same doctrinal, moral, and spiritual formation as do those who worshiped by means of the pre-Vatican II missals. For more on Dr. Pristas's work, see our post of June 8, 2014. This is the book Catholics must own and read, not Tony Baloney's third-rate, mistake-filled, ill-written embarrassment.

A SHUT SOUL'S HYPOCRISY

Foul whisperings are abroad. Shakespeare

Editor's Note: We've interrupted our fall 2014 mailbag series to bring you this special report on the ordination that took place on Saturday, October 25, 2014, in Lawrence, MA. We'll post mailbag #4 on Nov. 15-16. 

Just when you think bottom-feeding, American sede clergy couldn't go any lower, along comes this story.

In Lawrence, MA, there's a small community devoted to Dominican spirituality. They call themselves the Willing Shepherds of Jesus Christ. They mind their own business and avoid Traddie polemics. Several years ago the group managed to acquire from the scandal-broken Boston archdiocese a disused Catholic church, which they restored. They also supported one of their members to study for the priesthood under a West-Coast priest recommended to them by an aged wandering bishop. Their candidate separated from that priest after several years and then went to "study" for a time at the SW Ohio cult center. In 2012, he was ordained by "One Hand" at the Willing Shepherds' chapel in Massachusetts. After several months, he abandoned the chapel to reside at cult central, leaving the community that had so generously sponsored him without a priest.

The Willing Shepherds made do with visiting clergy until another member of their community could be ordained to the priesthood. This gentleman studied under two priests in New England and was periodically examined by the Most Reverend Andrés Morello, formerly of the SSPX and now a traditional bishop based in Argentina. After careful examination on a number of dimensions including dedication to study, the religious spirit, simplicity, and love of poverty, Bishop Morello found the candidate worthy of promotion to major orders. (His Excellency also scrupulously observed the canonical interstices.)

When norteamericano sede pond scum heard that a distinguished bishop would soon ordain to the priesthood an American on U.S. soil, they decided to play the spoiler, like psychologically disturbed adolescents at the mall at Christmastime who tell small children there's no Santa. They must have been frightened to death at the upcoming ordination: Not only would the beautiful chapel of the Sacred Heart be out of the sedes' grasp forever, but also they would have to compete with a genuinely educated traditional Catholic bishop whose credentials and probity far exceed their own their contemptible mediocrity.

It was all too much for the sede busybodies.

In the weeks before last Saturday's ordination, unsubstantiated, back-alley rumors began to circulate about the ordinand's formation. The situation grew grave enough to prompt Monseñor Morello to issue a lengthy letter to put an end to the hypocritical innuendoes and to set the record straight. Although he learned the identity of the gutter-snipe rumor monger, His Excellency is too decent to expose to the world's ridicule such a despicable windbag. Instead he discreetly notified the laity that

an ecclesiastic of prominent hierarchy (to whom we offer the charity of not naming although he didn't have it when he formed his evaluations) called a trustworthy priest on the phone, asserting that we would be ordaining a candidate who lacks sufficient formation.

What in the world could this nameless gringo "ecclesiastic of prominent hierarchy" have been thinking?

Didn't he remember that in 2012 "One-Hand Dan," the Grand Mufti of Tradistan, "ordained" to the priesthood a man who, like this new priest in Lawrence, had studied independently under two priests and not in a seminary? Didn't he know that Deacon Dan's chobdar, the rector himself, had tacitly endorsed such a non-traditional formation by inviting that same "priest" to accompany him to Germany, Poland, Austria, and Hungary this year? How can it be that, in one case, guided study under two priests is O.K. but in the present case, it's wrong?

The usual double standards of American sede hypocrisy must surely be at work here.

The truth is, the man's formation is unblemished. His community did not have to prod him to study. Never were they forced to mark his books secretly so they could later confirm whether he had at least opened his theology texts. Neither of his tutors ever had cause to deliver a bad report to his ordaining bishop or to the community he will serve. Moreover, the new priest continues to maintain very cordial relations with both the priests who supervised his formation and spiritual direction.

As for the ordaining bishop who examined him, Monseñor Morello possesses educational and social advantages that far surpass the pitiful attainments of Tradistan's sorry, hardscrabble hierarchy. As an Argentine, His Excellency was the beneficiary of a first-class high-school education. The standards and expectations of the Latin-American secondary school he attended are far higher than those of most high-schools in the United States.

When he began his priestly formation in 1974, his archdiocesan seminary boasted internationally renowned professors who had earned doctorates from the Gregorian University in Rome. In addition, since Argentina was at the time a Catholic country, there was no dearth of very bright, accomplished candidates of good family. His archdiocesan seminary could be highly selective in its admissions, quite unlike the vocation-starved American seminaries in the '70s, which took in just about anybody who could fill out the application form.

We personally know that Latin-American seminaries are renowned for their superior teaching staff. As any informed churchman will tell you, the professoriate of these seminaries was and still is far better trained and credentialed than their counterparts in the United States.  We Readers are red-blooded U.S. patriots, but we have to acknowledge this sad fact. English-speaking Catholics were never heirs to a great theological tradition such as we find in Spain, to which Hispanophones have easy access.

Furthermore, Latin-American middle- and upper-class culture, as a whole, is far more intellectually sophisticated than the commercial vapidity that disfigures the U.S. As His Excellency observed in his letter, even at Écône he did not encounter instructors with as "much depth...in philosophical and [T]homistic erudition" as the scholars under whom he studied in his native country.

Now when a prelate of Bishop Morello's prudence -- a man who has spent 40 years in seminaries, a man superior in every way to the repulsive clerical cockroaches infesting Sedelandia -- judges a candidate worthy of holy orders, then second-rate American clergy should shut up, especially when their own house is so disordered.

But they couldn't, could they?

So with the greatest reluctance, el monseñor in charity rebuked the loathsome scoundrels. All we can say is they're lucky His Excellency and the Willing Shepherds hate scandal and won't reveal any more of what they know. (Perhaps one day the jackals will push the Shepherds too far and they'll call in the dogs, telling how they once solved the mystery of the locked-up Levite. That would be so timely today, what with all the news reports of protested quarantines.)

Sad to say, but this unspeakably vile behavior on the part of gringo sedes was to be expected. In fact, the Readers predicted it privately to others. It's part of the rogue sede clergy's modus operandi before every ordination or consecration that threatens their imagined turf. They don't dare allow better men to provide an example of priestly goodness to the laity: the folks just might have their expectations raised and then stop funding all the divisive nastiness the sewer rats foment.

It's all ridiculous and transparent. A couple years ago, a goofy brown-nosing stooge, acting on behalf of trashy sede clergy, attempted to derail an ordination slated to take place in their backyard. (Everybody had a good laugh at this lay loser's ham-fisted efforts.) Some years before that incident, when one of the under-educated cult priests learned that a layman was serving as an MC at Bishop Morello's consecration in Guadalajara, he clumsily tried to terrify the man's wife by saying her husband could be arrested in anti-clerical Mexico! (She and the rest of the chapel also had a good laugh, too, at this creep's expense. BTW, there were Mexican police at the ceremony -- they were there to stop any possible disruption by Masons. In the U.S., it seems, we need cops at ordinations to prevent disruptions by jealous sede clergy!)

American sede weasels just cannot stop embarrassing themselves by engaging in such villainous antics.

With each failed endeavor, they plummet in the estimation of Catholics around the world. Soon this story will reach Europe, South America, Australia, and Mexico. Catholics in those regions will finally be convinced of what many Americans have known for years: Good Trads should have nothing to do with the unwholesome and un-Catholic clerical mob from Sedelandia U.S.A. 

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).