COUNTERFEIT CATHOLICISM 1

Counterfeit values always resemble the true. Auden

In his 1948 classic Zen in the Art of Archery, Eugen Herrigel narrates how he employed a ruse to mimic the skilled Kyūdō archer's unconscious, natural release of the bowstring. At first, his teacher, Awa Kenzô, is almost deceived. However, thanks to long years of faithfully living his exquisite art, after the briefest of pauses, the master rebukes his pupil for the deception.

This is the indignant response of an intelligent lay person with a sensus Catholicus, who takes a good, long second look at the SGG-Brooksville dog-and-pony show. On the surface, it appears to be Catholic, but as soon as you examine it mindfully, you know something's awry. It just doesn't quite feel right. No matter what your eyes tell you, your heart and intellect warn: The whole thing's all off-center.

Maybe it's Dannie's cloying piety coupled with the ghoulish tales of his ever-vomiting, bloodthirsty cat. Or it could be Cekada's embarrassingly bad scholarship. It might be Big Don's laughably inadequate pesthouse with its malformed inmates and punishment-loving "teaching" staff. Perhaps it's the relentless fundraising, the lavish vacations in the extravagantly fashionable Southwest. Or maybe it's the over-the-top foreign travel. Often it's simply the craziness: the invented dogmas, the banishments, the twisted theology, the hypocrisy, the postponed absolutions, the money grubbing, the "hickory stick" educational philosophy, the denial of sacraments, the bad mouthing of other priests, the emotional outbursts from the pulpit, and the frequent upheavals where the scandalized faithful en masse abandon cult chapels in outrage.

Whatever it is, an assured voice deep inside you urgently whispers, "This hateful mummery cannot be true Catholicism."

In the final analysis, the cult can't pass the "duck test." Oh, yes, it has wings, but it only looks like a duck provided you're myopic and standing a long way off. To be sure, it splashes about to remove gore and filth, but it doesn't swim like a duck. And on a howling, windy day, it's guttural hiss or nasal whine may almost -- but not quite -- sound like a duck's quack to the hearing impaired. So under normal conditions, even if you're totally blind and stone deaf, you're sure the odd bird is no duck, no matter what "One-Hand Dan," Erroneous Antonius, and Big Don tell you: You know it's a scavenging turkey vulture.

In the next few weeks, we'll remind you that when you came upon the SGG-Brooksville cult, you didn't discover a traditional Catholic Shangri-La guided by a wise hierophant like the gentle High Lama of Frank Capra's Lost Horizon. Instead, like George Clooney in the Rodriguez-Tarentino film From Dusk Till Dawn, you witlessly stumbled past a garish façade into a hellish pit of horrors.

Let's get our summer series started today with an example from the hinterland of Tradistan. We won't comment. We'll just give you the facts. You'll be able to conclude on your own that the behavior described is not that of an authentic Catholic priest. He's an honest-to-goodness fake.

This malformed basket-case is no longer directly affiliated with SGG, but he keeps in contact with the cult masters, on occasion dining intimately with them or substituting for them at SGG if they all happen to be away for an "ordination." His Latin is more than doubtful; he used to be seen carrying an English translation of the Breviary. Another person reports he uses an English-language ordo. He frequently mispronounces both Latin and English words, and still has not learned the correct pronunciation of "Bergoglio." (The moron says burr-GOGG-lee-oh.) As one disgusted informant told us, this sorry excuse for a Catholic priest once asked him to translate the Missal rubrics for handling and purifying the chalice on All Souls' Day. The bulk of his reading material consists of pietistic leaflets and spiritual booklets aimed at a low-level lay readership.

He once refused to prepare a young couple at his chapel for matrimony. Tellingly, he wouldn't consent to marry them, claiming his apostolate for the sick and dying left him unprepared for such complexities. (At great inconvenience, the family had to look for another priest.) Despite saying daily Mass for many, many years, he always seems unsure of himself when he celebrates, often betraying his uncertainty with false movements, non-standard liturgical gestures, sighs, and long pauses.

His presence at the altar is a scandal, as his chasuble is almost always disgracefully wrinkled and ofttimes soiled. Customarily he wears an un-ironed tab-collar clerical shirt à la Novus Ordo, with a cross of some kind dangling wildly from his neck. He insists on using the Pius XII rite, but on one Palm Sunday, he read the wrong Gospels. On Good Friday, he recites the tre ore because the Mass of the Presanctified is too complicated for him. He barely can celebrate a Missa cantata, and, in our memory, has only done so once.

He frequently postpones absolution for penitents, especially women. Once when a Novus Ordite wanted to join the traditional Church, he said he had to think about what to do. After coming back once and getting no answer again, the man, a professional, never returned. On another occasion, he denied a woman communion. When confronted afterward, he told the family he had not been sure whether she had gone to confession. Later when the woman went to confession to him on Good Friday, he denied her communion on Easter Sunday, alleging he did not know that she had confessed and received his absolution.

At the baptism of the woman's child, he threatened the assembled friends and family that he would not perform the sacrament unless a young female bystander left. He considered her to be immodestly dressed. From the pulpit, he appears obsessed with women's attire, especially their footwear. He's concocted a sicko rule that summer shoes must have a strap of some sort so the soles don't flap when walking. He loves to scold the laity, and, worse still, he's always on the verge of flipping his wig. Years ago, a young Mexican priest, who had to lodge with him at one of the cult's residences, used to lock the door to his room in fear of what might befall him.

This weird and unholy behavior is not the coin of the Catholic realm. It's an out-and-out forgery of priestly comportment. Ignorant people only put up with it because they're spiritually terrorized. No matter how many hollow pieties he croaks, no matter how dour his perpetually frowning countenance, this loathsome, ignorant creature can never be esteemed a genuine Catholic priest. In the old days, he would have been packed off to a monastery, never to darken a church's door again. (Of course, in the old days, this repulsive parasite never would have gotten into a seminary in the first place, not even as a substitute janitor.)

Since the monastery-option's not available to Traddies, the only recourse is to withdraw all support and stay away until this bad penny gets out of circulation. Better to stay home alone than to offend the faith by supporting and abetting an unholy sham.

A SIGN OF THINGS TO COME

It is closing time in the gardens of the West and from now on an artist will be judged only by the resonance of his solitude or the quality of his despair. Connolly

Editor's Note: Owing to the Memorial Day weekend, we're posting early.

We've been asked several times to provide grounds for our forecast of the end of the SGG cult. Quite honestly, we think we've already done a pretty good job of that, particularly with our recent posts detailing SGG's 2015 Lenten attendance crisis.

However, we know many of you out there are just as eager as we Readers to hoot, whistle, and boo as the curtain rings down for the last time on that tacky, SW Ohio vaudeville act ineptly simulating 1950s Catholic life. Naturally, you want them gone and hope for some solid information.

We get it, and we're here to help.

Whereas we cannot say we know the precise date of SGG's shuttering -- we're pundits, not prophets! -- we can give you a fresh indication that the cult performance artists are about to exit the stage altogether to begin a lonely life of poverty and shame. Last Sunday, "One-Hand Dan," the comical host of this wearisome burlesque of traditional Catholicism, tipped us off in his "Bishop's (?) Corner" that the end is in sight:

Mother’s Day was interesting this year. I think I was a little disappointed as I was looking forward to a big attendance, mothers telling their grown up and away children that all they wanted was for them to come to Mass that day, as they used to do. But this has probably passed away with the corsage. High Mass attendance was thin ...  Our High Mass refugees missed a beautiful Mass...

What more revealing sign could you ask for than a boycott on Mother's Day along with an anemic collection tallying just a smidgeon over $3K? (That's not enough for all the expenses let alone an intimate summer escape to upscale Santa Fe with its Old-World charm and Southwest elegance at its finest.)

In the months to come, Wee Dan's little disappointment will grow into outsized, unrelieved horror.

When Mom and the kids opt out of attending Despairing Dannie's dolly-dress-up party on her big day, then you know closing down the show for good can't be too far off.

OH, NO! HERE THEY COME AGAIN!

Charity degrades those who receive it and hardens those who dispense it. George Sand

Just as in an old cowboy-and-indians B-movie, the echoing tom-toms in the arid Sheeple's Republic of Tradistan are beating out an ominous warning: multiple, rapacious fundraising campaigns are galloping across the sede desert wasteland.

So circle the wagons and hold on to your wallets, Gerties. There's a triple-threat charity-warparty rushing headlong to scalp you!

The first threat raised its savage head in the "Bishop's (?) Corner" for the week of May 3:

Fr. Cekada has concluded his Seminary teaching trips for this school year, and just in the nick of time. The sanctuary heating/air conditioning unit goes on by itself, as though haunted, ever since it was struck some time ago by lightning. Here the story becomes impossibly complicated, all caught up with big brother regulations and smoke detectors which never worked correctly in the first place, and companies gouging churches for great quantities of wasted money, backed up by the government oversight. Much patience and a cool head is required to navigate these waters.

Undoubtedly you'll recall that His Profligacy had earlier been complaining about the sanctuary's heating-and-cooling system. Imprudently he opted to go to Mexico and then replace a perfectly serviceable organ instead of fixing the HVAC unit. Deferred maintenance is always a stupid idea and, evidently, His Spendthriftiness has never heard of a rainy-day fund. (Deacon Dan has no business running any adult enterprise, even the SGG cult: Imitation Catholicism meets inept stewardship.) Mark our words: very soon Dannie'll be asking for donations not only for a new heating/AC unit but also for the non-working smoke detectors.

Before yielding to the temptation to donate, you should remember who was responsible for buying all this junk in the first place. Cheesy and "One Hand" designed and built the ramshackle cult center; they made all the choices. You should ask Dan-O why all that money was used for the lavish Mexico vacation, the new organ, and reprinting a second edition of Cekada's amateurish, error-filled Work of Human Hands when the cult was facing the prospect of a major infrastructure repair/purchase. (Has this man-child ever heard of deferred gratification?)

The cult masters alone are responsible for this mess, so don't allow them to put the blame on the "authorities." Building codes were written to protect innocent citizens from the perils of slipshod construction, incompetent architectural design, and greedy, short-sighted corner-cutting.

Moving on now to the second and third threats, which sharp-elbowed their way into last week's "Corner." The second menaced:

Pray for strength for Fr. Nkamuke. He had just returned from visiting his very sick mother, when his father had a stroke and was paralyzed. The family, of course, look to him for help. Anyone who wishes to give Father something for these extraordinary expenses may simply mark the offering with Father’s name.

And the third assault on your bank account followed terrifyingly on the heels of the second:

...Fr. Nkamuke will be covering the remaining courses for Mr. Abraham Chuku [sic], who is now living with him and assisting him. I am now soliciting regular offerings for his supoprt until ordination, called a burse. To help a seminarian, especially one we know and who is so close to ordination, is surely a great grace. Their life is poor indeed, the Nigerian clergy, and they ask only the most basic necessities, as they seek to share “the inestimable riches of Christ” with souls. Your alms deeds let you get in on this blessing.

We'll leave the second cup-rattling offensive to your discretion as you evaluate the worthiness of the appeal. (HOLY TOLEDO! Ma sick, and Pa becrippled? And both at the same time? Sheesh, it almost sounds like another Nigerian internet scam, doesn't it?) We'd suggest that, if you are naïve enough ... er, ah,umm ... we mean, uh, .... moved...  to contribute, you must demand proof that the funds have been accounted for and transmitted in their entirety. Don't take anybody's word. Give on condition the cult masters allow you to audit the contributions and then personally inspect the money-transfer document.

As you may have noticed, the third case is much more aggressive. "One-Hand Dan" is actively and personally strong-arming the solicitation himself -- for regular offerings, mind you! If you've got any sense at all, you'll conduct a little due diligence before attempting to "get in on this blessing," as Dannie, in his best impersonation of a sleazo car salesman, so crassly put it. 

The first question that comes to mind is:

Who is Abraham Chuku?

Is this the same man as the MHT pesthouse "seminarian" Abraham Chukwu, whom Wee Dan referenced in his "Bishop's (?) Corner" of January 12, 2014 (2nd paragraph)? If it is, then why couldn't Daniel the Dunce get the young man's name right this time? After all, if you're going to raise money for someone, shouldn't you at least spell his name correctly?

And if this man is, indeed, the same MHT "seminarian" Abraham Chukwu about whom he wrote -- the same Abraham Chukwu who appears in this (click here) photograph printed in the February 2013 "MHT Newsletter" -- then you need to ask yourself why he's not still attending the fetid swampland "seminary," particularly since his ordination was "so close."

Why is this strongly independent-minded young fellow now "studying" independently (i.e., privately) under a "priest" who was only recently ordained? Why didn't he -- or  why couldn't he -- remain at Most Holy Trinity "Seminary" in Brooksville until ordination. Why would the rector have suffered a pesthouse inmate "so close to ordination" to leave if the only problem was a little bit of tuition money?

If Mr. Chukwu needed funds to complete his formation there, couldn't Li'l Dan Dolan and Big Don Sanborn together have "solicited regular offerings for his support until ordination"? That way, Big Don's cash-strapped "seminary" would have benefited directly from others' charity, as usual, and the young man could have continued his "studies" uninterrupted until his dubious ordination at the hands of "One-Hand Dan."

These are fundamental questions upon which you should ground your giving.

In this post, we've assumed that Chuku = Chukwu. The misspelling must surely be just another example of His Deficiency's clueless insouciance. Dannie, you'll recall, did refer to the man's "remaining courses" and his proximity to ordination. Accordingly, it's not too far a stretch of the imagination to infer he means the courses the man had not yet completed before leaving (or being invited to leave?) the MHT pesthouse.

And that's the biggest part of your problem as a donor.

If you do decide to contribute to Dannie's appeal for Mr. Chukwu, wouldn't you be guilty of supporting another one of those "untrained and un-Tridentine," canonically unfit rascals whom Tony Baloney Cekada vilified in what His Hyperbolicalness described as a "landmark study"? Certainly, if you did contribute to his support, you'd be actively encouraging the willful violation of canon 972.1, which Checkie solemnly quoted in section I, "Canonical Fitness," of his monograph:

 “All candidates for sacred orders … are obliged to live a seminary
[sic! Insert "in" after "live,"  Ed.] at least throughout the entire course of their theological stud­ies.”

Observe that the ol' Checkmeister didn't stop there in his insistence on training at a brick-and-mortar institution. Later in the same article, the Cheeseball devoted an entire section (§V) to refuting arguments in favor of private study.  Son now, make no mistake about it: studying under a very busy missionary "priest" in a challenging, sometimes hostile territory is actually worse than studying on one's own. Don't forget what Phony Tony, again citing canon law, wrote:

“The theological course of studies must be taken, not privately, but in schools in­stituted for this purpose according to the prescribed course of studies laid down in canon 1365.”

 At least under home-study conditions, the learner can devote many reflective hours each day to careful reading, memorization, review, and painstaking research. How much really can be taught and tested when the "teacher" is preoccupied with so many other cares and duties?

Not a whole lot, that's for sure.

Let's face it: Mr. Chukwu's studies will always come last under the current circumstances, now made intolerably burdensome by the ill health of "Father" Nkamuke's dependent parents.

For the life of us, we wonder how Double-Standard Daniel can ask the Gerties to support someone who will never complete "a seminary academic program which properly tested his knowledge in Latin, Philosophy or Theology according to the mind of the Church as set forth in canon law and papal documents," as His Hypocrisy himself wrote in this nasty gram to the faithful of Chambéry, France, who had inquired about a young Frenchman. Ask yourselves, What makes Mr. Chukwu an exception to Dirtbag Dan's and Phony Tony's  hard-and-fast principles, which they have doggedly insisted everyone else honor? (BTW, the same question is still pending for Uneven-Steven McKenna.)

So...before filling Dannie's cute, little "burse," you've got to do some leg work. We first suggest contacting the rector himself (piuspapax@gmail.com) to learn the reason for this candidate's leaving the pesthouse when he was "so close to ordination." Did he exit independently of his own free will or was there some other intervening factor beyond his control? 

At the same time, ask Donnie if he approves of priestly formation outside a seminary. (Don't be shy. He may have changed his mind, as the cult masters so often do. Their views are elastic, to say the least. After all, he took Uneven-Steven with him to Europe as his bag boy a short while ago.) Also ask him whether he was aware of what Dannie is doing through his encouragement of essentially private study for the priesthood. Did Daniel ask Donald's permission and, more importantly, did Donald give it?

If Big Don won't answer you, why not ask Lurch or the Forlorn Finn. We bet they know. (And so does Dannie. Just ask him -- and watch him squirm!)

Probably His Forgetfulness and the Blunderer don't remember -- or don't care-- what they wrote, so they can't help you make a decision. Consistency has never been their strong suit. (Self-interested inconstancy seems to be their hallmark.) Besides, their malignant sense of entitlement to your money means they'll ignore your questions anyway and probably kick you out for asking. Therefore, since you won't listen to us, we suggest you be guided by Tony's earlier written advice about the "untrained and un-Tridentine":

First listen to Pius XI: “One well-trained priest is worth more than many trained badly or scarcely at all. For such would be not merely unreliable but a likely source of sorrow to the Church.”

Then save the Church from further sorrow by keeping your money in your pocket. Your refusal might turn back the other panhandling raids as well. Then hitch up the horses, load up the tearful womenfolk, toss the bawlin' young'uns into the back of your arrow-pierced Conestoga, and get outta Tradistan pronto.

Wagons, ho!

SHEAVES OF DROOPING DANDELIONS

Crown'd with rank fumitor and furrow weeds. Shakespeare

After the last few heady posts, we Readers agreed it's time for a little "inane blather" (in the words of one learned commenter) to lighten things up a little. The good part is, no matter how vacuous the subject we propose, you'll always find something solid either to encourage you to leave Raggedy Dan's fake-Catholic cult or to thank your lucky stars you have nothing to do with those untouchables. Today's proudly frivolous post is no exception.

On April 19, Dirtbag Dan effused in his "Bishop's (?) Corner" cum crop-progress report:

The grass of course is back, positively Gaelic in its green, thriving on all of the wet; bright with lion’s teeth, dandelions, little yellow buttons of Spring color. You can look on them as a weed or as a Spring salad in the making.

No wonder the secular, Novus-Ordo, and Protestant worlds combined scorn Traddies as riffraff.

Only the scummiest neighbors let their yard morph into a dandelion marsh, menacing the virgin turf of better-bred homeowners who care for their lawns.

SGG is carrying five clerics -- three idlers are in their twenties or maybe early thirties -- lounging around the cult center or its missions playing church. Why couldn't the "young fathers" have gotten a little exercise in April and spread a couple bags of discount weed-'n'-feed to prevent the annual yellow blight? Couldn't the cult afford it after Dannie's wasteful winter-vacation jaunt to sunny Mexico? Waiting for the serfs to crawl out of their shacks to cut the grass isn't going to solve the problem. Even pulling weeds is a puny half measure.

The noxious cult center may be situated in a dreary industrial park, but across the street lies a nice housing division. Those star-crossed homeowners must stare in horror at the SGG eyesore as it bristles with angry weeds, unsightly débris, and filthy vermin: they must live in mortal fear for their health and property values. From all appearances, we suppose the nasty landscape reminds the cult masters of their childhood homesteads. All that's missing is an old truck on cinder blocks -- and maybe a stray tire or two to shelter the rats when it rains.

For all his boastful talk about SGG, you'd think His Indolence would take some interest in the cult center's curb appeal, if only to entice more prey. That, however, would require a sense of personal pride. The cult kingpins probably tell each other that pride of ownership is a petit-bourgeois virtue. From the way they act, they seem to fancy themselves as a kind of changeling -- upper-crust scions whom the wee folk guilefully snatched from golden cradles and jettisoned into steaming, flyblown, hillbilly hovels.

Their whole career as ecclesiastical buccaneers has been a frustrated effort to reclaim an imagined lost heritage of leisure and privilege. Reasoning that "the swells" don't bother themselves with gardening or yard work, they don't lift one sticky finger, preferring to coerce the congenitally deficient culties into rendering the honest labor that's beneath their invented dignity.

Well, it may be true that the gentry's yards aren't the shimmering, emerald glebes of the middle class, but they aren't the bleary, topaz bogs of rednecks either. The "quality" see to it that their lawns get regular, chemical treatments to keep them looking respectable.

Indeed, in the suburban Arcadias of the wealthy,  you'll frequently spy well-coifed trophy wives in designer flip-flops pertly squirting lethal streams of weed killer onto undesired sprouts, while nimble, bronze pool boys eagerly supply them with fresh banana daiquirís and Sisley® Sunleÿa sunscreen. As every sociologist knows, the élite don't strive for perfectly manicured, country-club putting-greens: they see those every weekend. They just don't ever want to be mistaken for nouveau riche trailer trash.

Scuzzy SGG will continue to offend taste and the surrounding community as well as religion. Since you'll never see toujours-pauvre Dannie the Dalit shlepping a jug of Weed B Gon® in an effort to render SGG a fit venue for decent folks, the Readers suggest the following remedy for the woefully few Gerties whose sainted mothers warned them to steer clear of socially unacceptable low life:

Tell to your family, "We'd Better Be Gone!" 

GOOD RIDDANCE

Tempus abire tibi est. ("It's time for you to go away.") Horace

The radio silence ended on April 29, when, after a lengthy hiatus, the surname of the "principal" at the epicenter of the seismic [click here] 2009 SGG School Scandal resurfaced in the "Bishop's (?) Corner." The occasion was the announcement of the upcoming high-school "graduation" of his son from SGG.

In the aftermath of the 2009 catastrophe, Dannie frequently used to praise the "principal" and his large family, no doubt as part of a brain-washing effort to allay the Gerties' resentment of the remote cause of their destruction. (Li'l Dan's failure to take action was the proximate cause.) "One Hand" must've been trying to bamboozle the cultlings into believing the "principal" was an invaluable asset rather than the enormous drain on the chapel's resources he in fact is.

Of late, however, close students of the moribund cult have marked the telling absence of his name from Dubious Dan's weekly kitty-'n'-bunny fantasy and ex-post-facto weather almanac. Since we're certain this reserve has been no mere oversight, enquiring minds that we are, we thought we'd indulge in some insightful guesswork.

In all probability, Deacon Dan is fed up, angry, and afraid. Fed up because the cult hasn't recovered financially in the five years since the epochal SGG School Scandal broke. Angry because he dare not free himself from a burden that consumes so much money -- money that could be used for trips abroad,  fancy restaurant dining, luxury vacation getaways at the chichi Bishop's Lodge in elegant Santa Fe, and sorely needed contributions to his anemic retirement fund. Afraid because the "principal" and the "school" are devouring the substance of his future. 

Before the scandal, when there were plenty of benefactors around to underwrite that sorry excuse for a school, the luxury of the "principal" was affordable. Now it's not.  In the past weeks, we've blogged about Dannie's trembling, lip-biting accounts of declining attendance at cult Lenten activities. And as late as last week Dan lamented the low attendance on Low Sunday. He knows the diminishing numbers document an irreversible trend: they loom like Banquo's ghost at every meager dinner and at the increasingly infrequent potluck suppers -- the botulism-banquets that feed him and his clown crew for free.

Finances are tightening. Before his terror-ravaged eyes, the kids are growing up, leaving. Not surprisingly, the younger generation is opting to stay away from the place of furious memories of their parents'  financial bondage to the cult, an enslavement that produced their deprived childhoods. (Their spartan Christmases, which no child forgives -- memorable for shabby, empty stockings and naught but dirty, yellow-stained carpet under a scrawny, dry tree -- fêted the self-indulgent cult masters.) The older generation is retiring. Newcomers have grown fewer owing to all the bad publicity. If he had an ounce of sound business sense -- along with the freedom to act -- Dannie would close the school and dismiss the staff, starting at the top. 

Realistically, the cult cannot -- or will not -- generate enough money for both Dan's dreams and the "principal's" needs.  The gullible Gerties have been squeezed and squeezed until they've got nothing left to give. So straitened are the circumstances that the cult can't easily afford necessities, like heating or professional exterminators to control the infestation of dangerous vermin.

As he watches so much SGG treasure confiscated for this man's support, it's dawning on Wee Dan that he and the Blunderer will never enjoy a comfortable, genteel retirement in the stylish desert Southwest of their dreams.  More importantly, he may have finally reached the conclusion that the "principal's" instinct for self-preservation will never allow Li'l Dan to retire to a swank, Spanish-Pueblo-Revival residence in Ol' Santa Fe, thereby leaving the man unprotected. Dannie is his ace in the hole. It only makes sense that he'll do whatever he can to keep Dan the Dungball tethered to sinus-destroying SW Ohio forever: A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do for himself and his own!

It's obvious when the cult has trouble meeting the winter heating bill, there's no money to pension off the "principal" and his family. If the cult masters were to leave, we'd bet even money that Dubious Dan's successor at ragged SGG would soon throw off this fiscal albatross. The vapid "young fathers" may have a very poor formation, but you don't have to be a Wall-Street wizard to understand the "principal" and the "school" are bottomless money pits. Therefore, inasmuch as there'd be no leverage with a new pastor, the "principal" knows the old one must remain, whether Dannie wants to or not. The "principal" will make certain His Captiveship remains a prisoner at SGG (and there'll be no nocturnal, angelic visitor to loosen his fetters, that's for sure).

In our informed view, the Gerties are quietly outraged at the hundreds of thousands of their dollars that have gone directly or indirectly to the "principal" and his family. They know the school should be self-supporting; it should, in fact, generate income for the chapel. Folks didn't join SGG to underwrite an unnecessary enterprise that could never pay its own way.

In their hearts, the Gerties know the "school" and the "principal's" salary represent an unholy waste of their hard-earned money. Moreover, incidental reports from the area tell us that Gerties are openly questioning the need for the "principal" as well as the "school." That's why they're voting silently with their pocketbooks --- and their non-participation.

SGG has reached an impasse.*

But what can Dirtbag Dan do? He's stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place.  Maybe the reference to the graduation was intended as a hint for the "principal" to start packing. But that won't work. Not when the "principal's" livelihood is at stake. For that reason, he'll fight hard for his grubby place in the occasional sun of SW Ohio; no one will take it away from him without a severe loss. What other options are available to him? Big-box-store greeter? Grocery-store stock boy? Not on your life! His masters have already spoken for those jobs.

In our opinion, some of the Gertie élite (LOL) who don't want to see all their efforts and sacrifices go down the toilet may soon attempt to set Dannie free. In the face of the cult masters'  inaction,  they could call for the removal of this intolerable financial burden. Judging by the events of 2009, Wee Dan, fearful of the consequences, would resist the rescue.

For "Operation Disimprison Daniel" to succeed, the laity might have to promise to back their  clergy no matter what the outcome!  Let the "principal" explode and spill his guts and have done with him! That'll take real gumption along with a strong stomach, for the fallout could prove toxic for the Gerties as well as for all Tradistan. (See the sgginfo.com editorial "Thinking the Unthinkable" here.) But act they must, and soon, too, if they don't want to witness the decaying cult center boarded up and put on the auction block in the next three to five years.

Whatever they decide, any action may be too late.

SGG is bleeding out. There's no more cold, hard cash, -- the cult's lifeblood -- to keep it alive. The effort to maintain the "principal" on the SGG welfare roll is unsustainable. According to simple economic theory, there's not enough available capital to support Dannie, Cheesy, and the crumbling cult campus on the one hand AND the "principal's" enormous household on the other. By the time the tenth anniversary of the 2009 SGG School Sandal rolls around, the accumulated losses will be staggering. As the old Vipers of Vaudeville site reported in 2011, a CPA's analysis of the impact of retaining the "principal" made this astonishingly prescient forecast:

Based upon bequests received by and legacies pledged for the new chapels [i.e., the new chapels formed by those leaving SGG as a result of the 2009 scandal, Ed.]; the money raised or targeted for the new chapels’ building and remodeling programs already in the planning and execution stages; the new chapels’ attracting traditional Catholics who may otherwise have joined SGG; the canceled or changed testamentary trusts and life-insurance policies payable to SGG or its former satellites; the personal gifts of cash to the principals [viz. Deacon Dan and the Blunderer, Ed.] for Christmas, Easter, birthdays, the Bishop’s Fund etc.; the expected increasing defections from SGG as the faithful experience buyer’s remorse; the lost interest and investment earnings on redirected capital; the loss of benefactors for MHT; the depletion of the will to support SGG among those who remain as they retire and/or become more disillusioned under the knowledge of whom they are supporting, I should think the biennial loss rate to SGG will double. I could well see an effective $6,000,000 loss to SGG occurring in the biennium of 2019-21.”

At the rate of non-participation the cult is suffering, the chapel won't make it to 2019. It'll be bust long before. Saving the place is honestly out of the question.

Perhaps some of the more disillusioned Gerties may secretly be praying for a melt down so they can start afresh once all the bums have been kicked out. We propose they forget about buying the sleazy property at the fire-sale price it will command and join instead one of the other traditional chapels in the area. There are two very good reasons for this alternative.

First, the dump is a white elephant requiring substantial capital improvements. As one engineer told us, the structure is a "20-year" building, meaning it was built to last only that long. Its useful life is coming to an end. Second, the Gerties would have to find replacement clergy, yet the only ones immediately available to take over will be "One-Hand Dan's" doubtful creatures. To be certain of the validity of their orders, the Gerties would have to find someone to confer conditional ordination. We doubt Big Don would make his services available, even for a hefty fee.

That's all too much trouble and expense. Better to add to the membership of one of the other thriving traditional Catholic chapels/missions in which SW Ohio is so rich. Everyone needs a new beginning. Gerties can get started today by just walking away.

* According to Uneven-Steven McKenna (a.k.a. the McFaker), whom we think may be Dannie's successor, this word is to be pronounced "im-pass-say,"as you can hear in this Restoration Radio broadcast at minute 42:26. Don't you just marvel at Tradistani "priestly" formation?

A VAGRANT OPINION WITHOUT VISIBLE MEANS OF SUPPORT

There is a mystery involved in the Conciliar Popes which sedevacantism passes by. R. Williamson 

Editor's Note: We received the following email just before Easter and thought it deserved a public response from the Readers (N.B. we've shortened it somewhat):

I don't always agree with your methods but at least you back up whatever you write ... I, for one, am grateful for some of what you have revealed ... I will not say you are fair, yet you seem intellectually honest ... Therefore I propose a bargain ... I grant that Father Cekada made huge errors in WWW [= Work of Human Hands, Ed.] and in his pamphlet on the conferral of priestly orders with one hand. Also, I will admit his translation of Pius XII's words is "perverse," as you incessantly harp ... Can you in turn be equally honest and admit that Father Cekada's article against attending una cum Masses [We believe our correspondent is referring to "The Grain of Incense," Ed.] is so well done that he makes fools of you when you talk about "that una cum nonsense"? It is certainly his cleanest and best work. His argument and scholarship are impeccable ... Is that why you have never attacked it?... What do you propose in place of it? The SSPX's recognize and resist policy? ... I am expecting a straightforward answer, if that is possible from you smart alecks. 

And that you'll get, though you won't like it or the fact that your challenge has obliged us to pick at the scabs of Checkie's leprous work to expose more of his unscholarly sloppiness.

First, we grant that, in this case, the Blunderer's effort is marginally better than all his other error-laden trivialities. That's probably because, as it seems to us, Big Don Sanborn did most of the conceptual frame-working for "una-cum" way back in 1993 and 2002. We're not too terribly impressed with Big Don, as you know from our many demonstrations of his own howling errors, but in comparison with Tony Baloney, the rector's a mighty prodigy of learning.

As for Cheeseball's article's being "clean," we strongly disagree. We need only mention that on p. 3, B. 1, the translation of Ex Quo differs from that given on papalencyclicals.net and in print by only one word, yet the Blunderer doesn't acknowledge the translator (or the source).  And if you need more instances of far less forgivable carelessness, then, on p. 4, footnote 13, there is the nonsensical misprint cominis instead of the correct nominis. Furthermore, in footnote 14, he prints an acute accent instead of a grave (Prières, Tony, not Priéres!), and on p. 8, footnote 37, we find the slovenly  "catholic communio" instead of "catholica communio." And how about p. 8, footnote 30, where the Latin-challenged nincompoop prints the dative or ablative "Carthaginensi" instead of the correct genitive "Carthaginensis"?

So, then, the same-old, same-old careless shoddiness and bad Latin appear alive and well in this "clean" article. LOL.

But our reasons for ignoring this piece of self-serving propaganda have nothing to do with its scholarly flaws. From our viewpoint, it looks like a blatant attempt to keep the faithful sedated and strapped to the cult, blind to the complex spiritual reality of the crisis in the Church. Not everyone who assists at a sede Mass is a dyed-in-the-wool sedevacantist; we'd guess that a sizable number are folks who just want the Tridentine rite and aren't interested in all the mind-numbing polemics.

For that reason, we'll admit that if you're a lobotomized naïf who wrongly believes that sedevacantism is a declared dogma of the Church, then you must never attend an una-cum Mass and at the same time must also vilify others who do. However, if you're not, if you're a faithful Catholic in search of valid sacraments administered in accordance with tradition and you couldn't care a fig for speculations contrived by poorly trained, clerical entrepreneurs (some of whom once said and enforced una-cum Masses), then you won't have a problem attending an SSPX Mass. (And that's what the cult masters don't want: you'll probably take your money and leave when you get a chance to compare them to priests with a sound formation in real seminaries.)

Inasmuch as our frontal lobes are intact and we know better, we should not be persuaded, even if a formally trained, genuine intellect had penned the article. We could only acquiesce to the argument if we knew for certain we were in the sede vacante.  But we don't. Nobody does. It's merely a thought-provoking thesis, no matter how well it may seem to save appearances. In fact, to be completely frank as our correspondent has asked,  the very attractiveness of the sede hypothesis gives us pause: it's too neat.

Now if the cult masters openly admitted that the proposition was only probable then we would praise them, because that's what Pistrina's sedevacantists affirm. However, many Trads have been led to believe that the sede thesis is Gospel truth with no other explanation being tenable. To oppose such childish narrow-mindedness amid so much uncertainty, Pistrina has adopted, as its editorial posture, aliquid-pravism -- something's horribly wrong with Rome, and anyone who affirms that proposition is our colleague.

As we have written to others, the weakness of all the current theories lies in their failure to account for the enormity -- the utter historical incomparability -- of the crisis Catholics have endured for the last half century. The aliquid-pravi position affirms the ultimate incomprehensibility of the divine reasons for and the eventual outcome of the Vatican II catastrophe, for it acknowledges the inadequacy of rational attempts to scrutinize the will of God in a matter beyond the reach of human understanding.

Aliquid-pravism posits that, as a result of grace, many Catholics of all stripes know that something is deeply, deeply wrong with the Vatican establishment, particularly today under the pernicious Jorge Bergoglio. Anyone who shares the simple affirmation that the faith has been altered is our brother or sister in the faith. Our job is to seek our salvation by our best lights in conformance with pre-conciliar Catholic theology and leave all other conjectures aside until the Restoration. (Today, theologizing lies in nobody's remit.) In other words, an aliquid-pravist has the courage and the humility to surrender to the mystery and trust in God, Whose guidance saved him from the Modernist horror.

(More to the point, and this is an entirely personal perspective, but we find it impossible to consider that God in His infinite wisdom would entrust the stewardship of His remnant Church to the likes of the malformed American clergy of Tradistan. Yes, we believe that with God all things are possible, but it taxes our intellect to imagine He would play such a cruel, cosmic joke on faithful Catholics by raising up these ill-trained, lucre-loving mediocrities, with all the baggage that has weighed them down for so long. Such an affirmation would require the same monstrous act of assent that Borges's fictional theologian Nils Runeberg made when he madly concluded that God chose Judas Iscariot as the Redeemer of all mankind.)

Setting aside our personal contempt for the poorly educated, mammonite oracles of Cultilandia, the argument the rector and his ape advance is still worthy of every traditionalist's attention because it's internally consistent. (Although, we must note, the attachment of their names to the proposition is a definite impediment to its tenability -- the cult masters don't have any intellectual credibility outside their disturbed cult circle. Sometimes, you know, you have to consider the source.)  Nevertheless, the other sides of the debate -- and  there are several -- also demand an attentive hearing, notably the opinion of Robert Siscoe here, here, and here. Further complicating the dispute is the absence of the informed voices of formally trained, universally recognized Catholic theologians: imperiti certant et adhuc sub judice lis est (with apologies to Horace's shades.)*

We don't know which opinion is right and which is wrong. No one will until the day the Church decides the matter. We took a poll among ourselves, and most of us agree that some form of sedevacantism or sedeprivationism might come close, but no one would censure fellow traditional Catholics for thinking otherwise or deny others the sacraments. Whichever side anyone chooses -- and each of the Readers has chosen one of the opinions as a modus vivendi --  may not, in the end, prove to be the answer the Church may someday reveal.
Divine Providence could disclose something altogether different.

In the meantime, the right-thinking Catholic -- layman or cleric -- who adopts in good conscience the sede-vacante thesis with all its implications, will not in good conscience assist at an una-cum Mass, but he also won't condemn  -- or deny sacraments to -- other Catholics whose informed consciences counsel otherwise and who, therefore, assist at SSPX Masses or do not embrace as de fide the sede hypothesis with the una-cum proscription.

That's why we make common cause with all who love the traditional faith and witness that what has happened over the last half century or so is gravely wrong. We stand opposed to those clerics who use sedevacantism as a religious test to determine to whom they will administer the sacraments. Insofar as sedevacantism is, at best, a plausible theory, the sacraments should be available to anyone who professes the true Catholic faith by his petition thereof. Period. 

As to the question of assisting at Mass, we leave that to individual conscience, not to the suspect pronouncements of malformed, agenda-driven clergy who appear more interested in keeping control of people and their money than in the cure of souls. Their real policy seems to favor binding consciences in order to keep the flock from leaving Tradistan's parched desert for a place of pasture where they will find the water of refreshment. Besides, if we are to wage the ongoing battle against Modernism and the evil heresiarch Bergoglio, we'll need more foot soldiers than the diminishing ranks that discredited Tradistan can supply.

* What's sorely needed is a non-polemical, comprehensive study (by a formally trained disciplinary master, preferably writing in Latin) of all the Latin-language canonico-theological literature related to the discussion of the defection of a pope from the faith. Tradistan, naturally, cannot produce such an individual, nor is it possible that a credentialed author will ever come from the United States. There are scholars in South America and Europe now, who are capable of the undertaking. (The Italian universities are particularly rich in a lay professoriate with all the required training, skills, and brains.)

The current literature on the subject published in the U.S. offers us only amateur efforts, at best. Without a sober, professional, coherent assessment -- an assessment that weighs the data offered by the sedes and the recognize-and-resisters --  we don't have the basis upon which to form a solid probable opinion about the status of the conciliar popes. Until we have a reputable, expert, historically centered analysis of the question of a heretical pope who has not been formally condemned by the Church, then all we can say is that Vatican II is evil and not condemn others who share that belief but hold a differing interpretation.

We don't expect this necessary work to begin until after European and/or South American academics complete their demonstration that Vatican II represents a rupture from the past. In the meantime, let every traditional Catholic practice his faith according to his conscience without self-interested fatwās from the badly educated Mad Mullahs of Tradistan, who hold no monopoly on the truth.

VILE HARD READING

Is the year only lost to me?/Have I no bays to crown it? Herbert

Like gang graffiti in a big, dirty, American city's most forsaken ghetto, the ominous writing's all over the vermin-infested walls of decaying Saint Gertrude the Great:

The cult's days are numbered. The divisive cult masters will soon be wanting.

With febrile apprehension, "One Hand" has read this dire message delivered by way of the Gerties' low attendance throughout Lent 2015. In the Easter Sunday "Bishop's (?) Corner," Dannie allowed all his pent-up angst to burst forth in a flood of dread and recrimination (emphasis ours):

It was a hard one, this Lent, as God sent the penance of the weather, making our Lenten church duties all the more difficult. Attendance was dismal. Many did not or could not come. Some simply stayed away week after week. Thank God most of those on whom we depend for all we do, mostly managed to make it.

Deacon Dan wears the panicky air of a man who knows he's about to be fired, doesn't he?  Gone is the insincere excuse-making to coax the reluctant back; the weather now shares only part of the blame. Dannie knows the truth: he's decoded the hostile body language of avoidance -- the averted gaze, the physical distancing:

It's a hot mess. He's afraid. 

The fact is, the awakening Gerties willfully chose not to attend; they pertinaciously shunned the cult center no matter what the weather was like. Apparently, even some of the hard-core, bug-eyed fanatics who keep the dying enterprise on life support didn't show up all the time. 

Gripped by his rising alarm, His Anxiousness, perhaps worrying he might trigger the early arrival of his (and the Cheeseball's) pink slip, must have had second thoughts about the harsh tone of his angry rebuke: Immediately he walked back his reflexive Nurse Ratched posturing, trying instead the indirect route in the morose persona of a wounded, stubbornly heroic soul soldiering on in the face of sullen indifference (albeit he couldn't resist scolding the Gerties just a little):

But still I could not give up the nights, although most of you have. Sometimes somebody comes to a 5 PM Mass. The Lenten Friday evenings are almost abandoned. The Stations never once drew even a modest crowd. Sad. The dead are gone, the devout grow older and can’t come, and no one takes their place anymore, although the memory of their example reproaches us. (Emphasis ours.)

Li'l Dan doesn't know much Latin or Scripture (see our footnote below about his gross misspelling of Samson), but there's one thing His Covetousness does know: absence makes the heart grow harder and draws the purse-strings tighter. The fewer events you attend, the more remote your sense of affiliation. The more remote the affiliation, the less willing you are to part with your family's money for what you know to be frivolous, sinfully wasteful expenditures.

We also suspect that Diminutive Daniel, the Mount Denali of prudentia carnis, divines in the vanishing attendance a threat more foreboding than lukewarm devotion or missed opportunities to eat for free at tepid potluck suppers. He contemplates the very heart of darkness. Since Lenten devotions like Stations or weekday Mass are not of precept, the participation of the faithful is a sound indicator of how well-disposed people feel toward their chapel and its clergy.

A happy faith community will turn out in all but the worst of weather conditions, notwithstanding the inconvenience of rushing home on a wintry Friday to bundle the family into the van for an evening trek in the blustery dark to a distant chapel. The spiritual and social rewards are well worth the hassle, as long as that chapel remains a place where you want to be.

But, as His Self-Centeredness realizes with mounting horror, low or zero attendance means the folks don't want to be there; they're tired of enduring the cult crew's relentless fund-raising and profligate big spending. (Everybody knows that Checkie didn't really need a new organ and that the scandal-scarred SGG School should be self-supporting.) Attending devotions has become a burden, not a joy:

Any excuse, like the weather, will do.

When you don't see yourself as belonging, every time you miss an event, the easier it becomes to skip the next one.  Soon you get comfortable saying the family rosary on cozy Friday evenings after a comforting, hot, home-cooked meal. You become accustomed to the freedom from harassment for more cash from badly educated, arrogant clergy whom you quietly despise. At length, after missing so many Stations, so many evening Masses, it's easy to take a pass on the Maundy Thursday night-watch at a now foreign place where you no longer feel you belong. And where you don't belong, you don't give.

The Gerties' cooling fervor must have terrified "One Hand," for again he overshared in evident anxiety (emphasis ours) :

God bless the men of the Guard of Honor, who watched at the Altar of Repose on Holy Thursday night. We would be happy to have their ladies join them in adoration, as well as to recruit new men for this apostolate .... Like Sampson’s [sic!]* hair, it is a secret of our strength. Our enemies have never managed it. Few friends have matched it. Even though we’re not big on nights anymore, let us never abandon it, lest we lose our chief defense, the source too of so many other blessings, unseen, silent, like the night. 

The cult masters are having trouble filling the roster even for the holy privilege of watching one still hour with our Lord! The situation's so perilous that "One Hand" must brandish the ultimate weapon all desperate cults resort to in times of collapse -- OUR ENEMIES. When the faithful avoid the vigil at the Altar of Repose, His Nervousness is in big, big trouble:

He's lost the people! Fleet Dispossession, on whirring moth-wing, speeds her hurried way to Raggedy Dan's cult center. 

His appeasing words of surrender, "we’re not big on nights anymore," won't help him this year or in 2016, when Easter falls on March 27, ten days earlier than 2015's "early" Easter. If weather patterns hold, the winter of 2016 will be as severe as that he just experienced, arming the disaffected Gerties with all the justification they need to sit it out again, provided they haven't already vacated Dannie's loathsome cult by then.

All the writing on the wall spells an end to the cult masters' high living at the expense of the faithful. They can no longer  make it up as they go.  It'll be tough paying the huge Duke Energy heating bill this year; it'll be far tougher next year. Unless Dannie decides to throw caution to the wind, there won't be a giddy, carefree, decadently luxurious interlude in 2015 at the aggressively upscale Bishop's Lodge in impossibly chic Santa Fe. The prospect of a well-feathered retirement in the artsy, desert Southwest will become yet dimmer. Come to think about it, next year there might not even be enough cash to rent a jackass for the garish Palm-Sunday sideshow: His Asininity will have to stand in for the beast. (Not a soul will notice the substitution, we wager.)

No wonder His Uneasiness bitterly lashed out at the Gerties' apathy: as they steadily grow more weary of the cynical theatrical distractions aimed at separating them from their money, his day of reckoning creeps nearer and nearer.

Spare Dirtbag Dan the painful uncertainty of anticipating the end of the cult gravy train.

LEAVE TODAY!

* As every schoolboy knows, the traditional English spelling of the Nazirite judge of Israel is Samson, not Sampson. The latter form is that of Biblical Greek (Σαμψών). Now, since it's a sure bet that Deficient Dan has even less Greek than his very, very small Latin, we have here another example of his severe malformation.

After all, shouldn't a cleric at least be able to spell the names of popular Biblical figures? We mean, it's not as though he were referencing, say, (for Confraternity-Version readers) Maher-shalal-hash-baz -- although, Dannie should learn that name, for the etymology characterizes the ideal greedy cult cleric of Tradistan: "quick to the plunder, swift to the spoil."

Maybe there's an explanation for the orthographic lapse, one that may be beyond Dannie's customary ignorance and stupidity: Inasmuch as we've enjoined him from celebrating bloody bunny massacres in the Sunday bulletin, maybe his raging, rebelling subconscious conjured up that gruesome scene in Catch-22, where Kid Sampson, a young pilot, is sliced in two by the propeller of a prankster's plane, as in this clip from the Mike Nichols film adaptation.

Sometimes people can't help themselves, can they?