A CARDINAL POINT

How many people live on the reputation of the reputation they might have made! Holmes

Of late, the media have been been spinning in a moral tizzy with hand-wringing outrage over fake news. Bergie himself, who stuck his nose into the uproar last week, declared it sinful. (One of the few sins still around in the Vatican Establishment, we suppose.)

In PL's view,  equally reprehensible is fake repute. Fake news is swiftly discredited as the truth swiftly comes to light. But fake repute endures because people don't want to surrender a comforting meme even when faced with evidence disconfirming their misplaced esteem. It then takes persistent effort and lots of repetition to motivate folks to abandon their misbelief.

In the aftermath of the calamitous 2009 SGG School Scandal, so much information surfaced on the web that it's probably reasonable to assume that no one, neither rite-trash cultist nor drool-glazed pesthouse completer, believes any longer that Tony Baloney is a "great scholar and theologian." Likewise, nobody with half a brain today assents to all the hype touting His Excremency, "One-Hand Dan," as a "man of broad culture" and an "expert liturgist." TradWorld 's citizens have been set straight on the Dynamic Duo:  One by one, the folks're walking —if not running — away.

But in the case of Tradzilla, there persists a widely accepted canard that he's the SUPREME AUTHORITY; that he's the revered go-to guy in Traddielandia for the last word when it comes to matters ecclesiastical; that he epitomizes the intellectual standards of pre-Vatican II clergy. This amusing but pathological delusion may explain why many, including some independent "clergy," still feed his insatiable money-lust or play the lap dog in spite of their intense, personal dislike for him.

Part of the blame falls on PL. We've spent most of our time exposing "One Hand's" and Bonehead Tone's errors. In our defense, on a number of occasions we've pilloried Big Don for cringeworthy gaffes in his turgidly written newsletter — remember his howling blunder "desirous of living a more hermetic life" (click here)? Nonetheless, as many correspondents have fraternally chided us, we haven't done as much as we should have to correct the mistaken impression of Tradzilla's "expertise."

In this busy week before the Christmas weekend, we'll make amends for our negligence. It's important for traditional Catholics to realize Big Don is definitely not the master of churchly lore that the guileful Tradistani PR machine claims he is. As is PL's custom in these matters, the Readers will zero in on one seemingly small (but in truth hugely significant) detail, inasmuch as it's the little things in life that reveal the most.

We discovered today's tell-tale blunder by happenstance, as we were scanning the November 2016 pesthouse newsletter in a fruitless search for Tradzilla's announcement of the formation of his long-promised new organization of "priests" (and possibly at least one other spineless "prelate").  On page 3, in the caption beneath a photograph of Raymond Cardinal Burke, we read the following:

The magnificence of the cardinalatial robes consists in the fact that they are reflections of the glory of the Catholic Church ...

Oh, my!

The Readers bet the hillbilly cultists and hollow-eyed completers were passing impressed with the lumbering polysyllabic qualifier "cardinalatial." Not without reason we surmise the Donster was pretty proud of himself, too. What a rare, virtuosic command of ecclesiastical protocol! How the word slips with oleaginous luxury around and off the tongue, like a mouthful of warmed petroleum jelly.

Ah! that lilting cadence, an even run of a Leonine cursus planus without caesura: 🎶TUM-tiddy-TUM-tee🎶.  This, kind friends and cult-crazy foes alike, is a word peerless, disciplinary experts trot out for our admiration and humiliation — a word from the domain of the chancery "in crowd." We, the uninitiated lay masses, recalling the lessons of freshman-year composition, would've penned without affectation, "... the cardinal's robes...." But only fastidiously schooled, real-McCoy clergy have an adjective like cardinalatial lodged in their honeyed throats. None other than an élite churchman could've mined such a sesquipedalian gem from the deepest, darkest recesses of the English lexicon.

E X C E P T ... cardinalatial isn't the lexical unit the really educated would have typed!

The adjective's etymologically correct form is cardinalitial.

Yeah, sure, lexicographers have attested to Donnie's nonstandard lexeme,* but the same can be said for that barbarity irregardless. When it comes to the form recognized by authoritative dictionaries like the New Shorter O.E.D. or Webster's Third International Unabridged, you'll find it's cardinalitial.

If, however, you don't read Church documents in Latin, then by all means you'll never come across clues to the correct English spelling in terms-of-art like rotulus cardinalitius** (= annual dividend paid to cardinals resident at Rome) and titulus cardinalitius** (= title taken by a cardinal from a titular church of Rome), or in whole clauses like Cardinales... qui dignitati cardinalitiae... renuntiaverunt... and Habitus quem vocant cardinalitium... (from Pius XII's 1945 constitution Vacantis Apostolicae Sedis).

Additionally, if you don't read Italian or French works on the subject of Church polity, you'll never encounter phrases like dignità cardinalizia or prérogatives cardinalices.*** And if you don't understand much about classical and post-classical formation of Latin words, then you won't know why the vowel is i and not a in English. Without approved models to guide you  — and if you're too slothful to consult a reputable dictionary — then you just make it up out of thin air. Perhaps, may we guess, like Big Don ...  on the misguided analogy of palatial, an adjective dear to his checked upwardly mobile aspirations?

To all you Tradzilla fans out there, we say, Go for the gusto: guzzle all the theologically adulterated cult Kool-Aid you want about women's clothing/footwear, mixed swimming, or the una-cum-as-dogma fairy tale. (Whatever floats your pervo boat is O.K. by PL. ) However, if you have any regard for ecclesiastical learning, reject the myth of Big Don as past-master of Catholica. Spit out at once any of that swill, if you took a sip.

Amid the gathering disintegration of Tradistan, try to earn a little respect from cult-free traditional Catholics by jumping off the Swampland bandwagon.  Acknowledge Tradzilla for what he is — a foiled arriviste, counting on his bamboozled boosters not to notice the unnerving absence of intellectual pedigree. And, once you do that, you won't hesitate to

STARVE THE BEAST!

* We saw cardinalatial in an old, woefully unscholarly Maryknoll Catholic dictionary and in John-Charles Noonan's pretentious, error-strewn, and incompetently edited book on ceremony and protocol (which he dedicated in part to JPII). We also laughed ourselves silly on those occasions.

** Sometimes spelled cardinalicius.

*** It's surprising the Argentinian Squirmin' Herman didn't correct the Donster, since he surely knew the Spanish equivalent cardenalicio, as in capelo cardenalicio, diócesis cardenalicias, títulos cardenalicios, Colegio Cardenalicio, etc. Deeply embedded informants tell us Hermie studied Latin in a real university back in South America before descending into the downmarket pesthouse vocational program. He, therefore, should have known Tradzilla was wrong and intervened before his loud-mouthed master publicly embarrassed himself again. Could he have been fearful of the Donster's wrath, of his envy of a minion's superior education? Or did Squirmy  let Big Don intimidate him into believing the Donster was a master of the English language?

DISORDERED ORDO XII

Editor's Note: Dannie's ORDO 2017 went on sale last week, so we hastily modified our posting schedule in order to inoculate decent Catholics against the effects of its unwholesome influence. Be aware that it's crucial to the true faith to keep this liturgical plague isolated from the rest of Traddielandia.

(N.B. To make the reading more accessible, we've assigned the most detailed, technical comments to the footnotes for those experts who enjoy that kind of stuff.)

Quarantine, the state of the persons who are restrained within the limits of a ship or lazaretto, or otherwise prevented from having a free communication with the inhabitants of any country till the expiration of an appointed time... Falconer's Dictionary of the Marine  (1769)

Fault find with the Dirtbag as we do, the Readers really admire Dannie's shameless impertinence. After PL's year-long series of posts exposing the cankered execution of SGG's error-infected ORDO 2016, "One-Hand Dan" still has the effrontery to offer for sale an ORDO 2017. Anyone else would've lain low hoping the world would forget last year's embarrassing liturgical mishap.

But not His Insolency. 

From the sample pages shown on SGGResources, we saw that he and his sidekick, Silly Sal, did fix at least one howlier uncovered by Pistrina: At the top of p. 87 (Sep. 13), it correctly reads ad unicum N[octurnum] and not the illiteracy he wrote last year, viz. ad unicam N (click here for the post.) For piety's sake, let's hope those two knuckleheads also corrected the bad grammar of the year-end doxological tag to the BVM.

But don't count on it, or on too many other corrections, for we see they still print the ungrammatical Archidiœcesi (!!) Cincinnatensis on one of their cover images of St. Pius X. (The genitive of that 3rd declension word is "Archidioecesis," or, if His Flagrancy had really wanted to show off, the Greek genitive form "Archidioeceos.")

At any rate, even if they had adopted our many posted corrections to their gross errors of Latin, there'd still be loads more in any new text they added. For instance, the caption at the top of p. 56 for May 12* (which in 2016 was the Octave of the Ascension) reads

SS Nereii, Achillei [ampersand presumably for et] Domitillæ V et Pancratii MM  [= "Of Saints Nereus, Achilleus and Domitilla, Virgin, and Pancras, Martyrs"]

As the Church's Kalendarium indicates, the Missal and Breviary print, and choice Latin demands, the conjunction before Pancras should be atque or ac (shorter form of atque), not et.

You see, in the Roman Martyrology's narration, St. Pancras wasn't martyred on the Ardeatine Way along with Ss. Nereus and Achilleus, whose remains were much later transferred with Flavia Domitilla's. His is an entirely separate entry in the Martyrology for the same day, where his place of martyrdom is specified as the Aurelian Way. Moreoever, these martyrs gained their heavenly crown, in different centuries according to the Martyrology's  accounts: Nereus and Achilleus refused to sacrifice to idols because they had been baptized by the Apostle Peter (hence, they would surely have been executed in the 1st century of the Christian era), whereas Pancras was beheaded under Diocletian (perhaps A.D. 304 according to Thurston's Butler). .

Now, the well-schooled Roman clergy who compiled the Kalendarium and the liturgical books were sticklers for precision, given that a detail-loving juridical spirit might fairly be said to inform every office of the Curia. Unlike the ill-educated Tradistani nosebleeds, these men knew how to use Latin to indicate that while Pancras is named in the feast's title along with the other three, the collocation is different from that which the others possess among themselves.

If we bear in mind Lewis and Short's careful distinction between atque/ac and et, we recognize that Pancras's connection to the three is a close, internal one, in virtue of the others' sharing the same liturgical day with him; it is not the external connection of the other three different individual martyrs with each other in the same Martyrology paragraph. Accordingly, the Roman compilers, who knew Latin as well or better than their native language, wrote ac/atque, not et.**

But all that's beyond Deficient Dan and Silly Sal. We can't figure out why he didn't just copy verbatim from the Kalendarium. What on earth persuaded those two foul-ups to go it on their own? It's a mystery. But what isn't a mystery, however, is that SGG's ORDO 2017 is sure to be as tainted as SGG's ORDO 2016.

Since shame won't stop Dannie from spreading liturgical pathogens, it's everybody else's job to make sure his ORDO 2017 remains contained within the SW Ohio-Brooksville cult, where only distempered cultists can be afflicted.  To that end, PL asks you to pass the word around never to buy His Inadequacy's contaminated garbage.  Should you have acquaintances who're looking for an ordo, refer them to England's Saint Lawrence Press (SLP) – click here. Remind them of all the festering deficiencies in "One Hand's" 2016 edition, which we clinically brought to light:

Virulent ignorance of Latin
Toxic editorial ineptitude and inconsistency***
Diseased contempt for traditiion
Morbid failure to acknowledge others' contributions
Ulcerated pretentiousness
Mephitic liturgical incompetence

If you assist at a trad chapel, stop by the sacristy to see whether your "priest" is using Dannie's ORDO 2017. If you find the septic volume, approach him immediately and demand he replace it with the SLP edition. Withhold all contributions until he removes the contagion forever to someplace where it cannot endanger traditional Catholics, viz. the trash heap.

*Incidentally, it appears that Dannie and Sal didn't insert page headers indicating the month, so once again users will have to suffer the same inconvenience as last year when trying to find an entry.

** For those of you Latin-language wonks out there in cyberspace, you can find a similar usage of ac in the Kalendarium for May 3, July 10, July 28, August 1, August 17, and October 7, where there's a separate entry in the Martyrology for each name or names joined by the conjunction. The use of ac on November 4 is slightly different, where the Commemoration of the Octave and Ss. Vitalis and Agricola are closely related internally since they're both commemorations in the day's Mass and Office. Here ac = "and also, and in addition." Likewise on January 18, where St. Prisca is also to be commemorated with St. Paul on the feast of the Chair of St. Peter at Rome.

Oct. 21 is altogether another case: there are different usages among several printers to the Holy See: some join Ursula and her companions with et, as in the Missal, Breviary, and Martyrology, and others unite them with ac. In the latter case, the editors must have felt a strong connection between the virgin and the unnamed maidens who accompanied her in martyrdom at Cologne. (Likewise the atque of June 15.)

*** Although PL hasn't to date fully inspected a hard copy of Dannie's ORDO 2017, his posted materials suggest this pervasive editing defect hasn't been ameliorated at all. As an example, for September 14 (Exaltation of the Holy Cross), he reprints the same flawed note he had in the 2016 edition:

N.B: [sic] In Epistola Missæ ad cantum Ut in nomine Jesu ... ad infernorum genuflectitur (= "N.B. In the Epistle of the Mass one genuflects at the chant That in the name of Jesus ... to under the earth")

We didn't tackle this mess in our posts this year – we didn't have space for all Dannie's goofs—so it's no surprise it reappears in the 2017 edition. We draw your attention to three major faults:

First, the sophomoric qualifying word Missæ ("of the Mass"). Where else, we ask, would the day's Epistle be found except in the Mass of the day?! Don't try to defend Dannie by arguing that pericopes from Philippians 2 are also found in the day's Office. Those of the Chapter at Vespers, Lauds, and Terce extend only to v. 7 and that of the Chapter at None only contains vv. 8-9, whereas the words requiring a genuflection in the Epistle occur at v. 10. The addition of the word was pure amateurism.

Second, there's the stupidity of instructing the celebrant to kneel when the words are chanted. Not all Masses in Traddielandia are sung, not even in the sere badlands of Tradistan. (We guess we're all supposed to be impressed with the hint that at SGG it's a Missa solemnis or cantata.) 

Third, and more significantly, there's the incompetent (and untraditional) press style with the ellipses and unneeded word. 

With respect to the last failure, in good academic style, ellipsis points within a sentence or clause indicate an omission between the first and last words. That means you don't have to add the preposition ad (= "to"): That's what suspension points mean, for cryin' out loud! Furthermore, if Dannie were conversant with liturgical Latin texts, he wouldn't have used ellipses at all. For instance, the General Rubrics of the Roman Missal (xvii. 1) enjoin the priest to genuflect 

ad illa verba in Epistola: In nomine Jesu omne genu flectatur, etc. (= "at the words in the Epistle: In the name of Jesus every knee should bow, etc.")

In the good ol' days, it wasn't necessary to cue the celebrant when to rise by giving the last word of the clause, because back then a Catholic priest understood the Latin he was reading. The reference in the Epistle's following clause to every tongue confessing was enough to signal a return to his feet.

But Tradistani "clergy" aren't too swift, so Dannie and Silly Sal felt obliged to prompt them as to when to stand up. Insofar as PL's acquainted with many of these numbskulls, we aren't opposed to Dannie's over-the-top explicitness:  if one of the pesthouse bedwetters can skip the consecration, then the whole clown crew needs all the help it can get. But at a minimum the Latin should reflect tradition and not sound ridiculous.

When you think about it in Roman terms, Dannie's note is far too long for a proper Catholic ordo. An ordo should be spare in its language, restrained in its directions, chary of notes.  Most old ordines the Readers have don't remark on the genuflection anyway because a rubric printed in the Mass text itself instructs the celebrant to genuflect! Why clutter the ordo with an instruction a properly trained priest is bound to notice, right?

Nevertheless, we understand Dannie wants to project the image that he's an exquisite liturgist, watchful that no reverence be neglected owing to poor "seminary" formation or native witlessness. To that end, if Deacon Dan must belabor the obvious, we suggest inserting into the Mass instructions, not at the bottom of the entry, the following abbreviated language characteristic of the terseness of traditional, pre-Vatican II ordines, when well-trained, real Catholics compiled them:

Ad Epist. verba: in nomine Jesu, etc. genuflect.

HAIL! TO THE VICTOR VALIANT

Times change, and men deteriorate. Gesta Romanorum

Fair is fair.  The devil deserves his due.

PL's spent a lot of time cataloguing Tradzilla's shortcomings, but today he merits our congratulations. Although he hasn't been able (yet) to swallow up Our Lady of the Sun in Arizona, his cult appears to have gained a new satellite — tiny Saint Dominic's in Highland, MI.

It seems this minor acquisition unfolded gradually over the last year.  First, Tradzilla and the Clone boldly celebrated there  "Bishop" Robert McKenna's Requiem. Next the mercurial Long-Island Jellyfish made a long-overdue "ad limina" pilgrimage to the boggy Swampland in order to participate in the "ordination" of the latest pesthouse completer (click here for the pix, last pages). Sealing the deal (at least in our view) was a notice in the cult's November schedule that the aforementioned completer was slated to say Mass on the 13th at the small Highland chapel.

The little place isn't particularly wealthy, but make no mistake: this is a huge victory for the rector.

"Why a victory?" you may ask. "A welcome boost to his badly bruised ego, yes. But how is it a triumph?"

The answer lies in the history of the contentious establishment of the Michigan mini-cult, which, in the opinion of one frequent visitor, always gave the impression of being organized around a raw and lasting antipathy to the Donster. As different as trads are socially, educationally, and economically, everyone at the splinter-group, including the "sisters," appeared to be on the same page when it came to the rector, the mention of whose name used to elicit wounded glances, furrowed brows, or venomous ridicule. (One witty, well-educated member of the group, a gifted mimic and stage-worthy comedian whose comic timing was impeccable, could induce wild fits of derisive laughter with his spot-on impressions of the loathsome cult kingpin.)

To lend credence our reading of the Highland emotional atmosphere, here's a bit of background.

Back in November 2003, amid talk of closing the "school" and relocating the Detroit-area pesthouse complex to the fetid Swampland, three members of Tradzilla's chapel filed articles of incorporation for St. Dominic Church, Inc. Then in March 2004, the Jellyfish along with a couple of so-called sisters filed paperwork for Saint Dominic Chapel, Inc., with the additional provision that "no laypersons...shall have any authority over, directorship of, management of, or financial control over this corporation."*

As you might guess, Tradzilla wasn't amused when he got hold of both documents a while later. In a February 23, 2005, communication with attachments, he charged the parties involved with hatching and executing a "breakaway plan." Hillary-like, he boo-hooed:

[...] it is deplorable that not a single one of these parishioners, some of whom I had known and served since the 1970's and 1980's, had the decency and forthrightness to come and tell me, face to face, what their grievances or accusations were, thereby permitting me to respond, a courtesy afforded even to common criminals — to face your accusers and to respond to them.

The year previous to the above communication had been one of acrimony over the closing and sale of the Detroit-area pesthouse "school," as blistering letters and combative emails bear out.  From what we can determine, the harsh exchanges started in late May 2004, when the Donster whined in a letter to parents:

Many of you have recently subjected me to backbiting, insult, and vilification concerning   these events, both in word and deed [...] most of you — not all — have displayed to me either insufficient interest, or downright bad attitude [Donnie's emphasis].

Taking umbrage, in June one of the lay signatories to articles of incorporation sent Tradzilla a long, allegedly "mortally sinful" letter airing much dirty laundry. After rehearsing a string of grievances and criticisms, he chided:

You have always said that if several people perceive the same faults in you and assess your behavior or personality in the same manner, you should consider it true and work to improve upon it. I can assure you that what I have written here is the nearly universal sentiment of the school families and many of the parish people [....] Up until recently, had you demonstrated the humility and charity to communicate in person with your parishioners, to accept the correction offered you by the elderly, pious Bishop who consecrated you, and to work in charity and justice to restore the confidence of the people in your leadership, you could have salvaged a lot of support. Instead [...] you relied upon hearsay and gossip for information dissemination, wrote increasingly mordacious letters accusing everyone and everything but yourself for all of the problems, and then wondered why you lost the respect and support of the school families and other parishioners.

Following up in October, another outspoken advocate for teeny, embattled Highland bitterly admonished Big Don:

Your interest has only been what would please your main benefactor. Does this sound like a hireling rather than a shepard [sic]? One could see that you had no respect for the other parishioners that had no interest in moving to Florida. Those that went appear to be cultists where you control every detail of their life. I feel sorry for the children in Florida, they didn't have a choice. I hope they don't drink the purple kool aid [....] On a personal note, I don't like your dividing families with no moral justification. Your simple mind control technique of taking advantage of a family tragedy. You can't hide poor management decisions behind the catholic [sic] religion. Feel free to contact me with any questions since I don't shun people nor believe that is the way our Lord spread his [sic] word.

Then, coming full circle, in response to Tradzilla's February 23, 2005, communication, yet another layman reproached the self-pitying rector for his double standards:

I truly think you should look at the mind of the Church in Her [sic] reaction to the Franciscan reforms, and apologize to Fr. Neville for suggesting he did a Judas-like act. West Highland is not in your back yard, but 50 miles from Fraser [MI]. It is outside of the radius you once set up for confessions, even at Warren [MI]. Hardly the back yard to Fraser. And it is even more ironic to see that when you moved the Armada seminary in the early 80's, out of all the places in the US, you chose to move it to Connecticut, right in the middle of two traditional mass centers in Brewster and Monroe, each about 15 miles away! [...] One can even wonder why you knowingly set up your Florida site about 15 miles from another traditional site, and then advertise in one of your public letters how you would like it to be a "center" for Catholics, thus effectively soliciting Catholics around the country and world to leave the priests they are currently helping to support....but horror that a person from Highland might have "contact" with one of your parishioners and possibly sway him towards another Mass site, so you indiscriminately forbid all St. Dominic parishioners from going to Mass in Fraser....even though the mind of the Church is to allow even heretics, Jews and pagans to attend a public Mass if they wish.

We've got lots more material, but that's enough background, we think, for you to get the picture: There was plenty of bad blood between the people of itty-bitty Highland and Big Bad Don. In fact, the animosity struck one observer as so pronounced that he can't conceive how this aggrieved community could countenance the Jellyfish's apparent communion with Tradzilla. From our perspective, it looks as though (1) the Donster didn't even have to make reparation for the hurt and pain over the last decade or so, and ( 2) the Jellyfish made his stunning one-eighty without so much as an eensy-teensy mouse-squeak of protest. (Sorry, folks, but bitter complaints over the telephone, in the car, or at the dinner table don't count as a challenge.)

Vanquishing an overmatched, former subordinate isn't that remarkable — if you know all the players' personalities. The signal triumph here is over the chapel laity.  Their non-reaction (other than a presumed private loss of respect and trust) is nothing short of startling. Why did this independent traditionalist coterie, once seemingly bonded together by a shared animus for the Donster, tolerate such abject capitulation?  Someone may correct us if we're wrong, but we haven't heard of any resistance to the cynical rapprochement.

Could it be that, like so many other trads, they'll always submit without vocal objection to their "clergy's" shifting positions, no matter how baffling? Could they be unaware that all Tradistani "clergy" come with a sell-by date?

If our speculation is right, then it sheds light on the control the cult masters wield over their prey. And it explains why cult "clerics" manifest so much contempt for the laity who pay their bills. Traddie laymen and -women seem willing to sacrifice their principles whenever their quicksilver "clergy" suffer a change of mind. Like a gullible, simpleminded child, they're willing to follow —with conscience silenced and common sense repressed— to the beckoning edge, notwithstanding the known peril awaiting them at their feet.

Theirs is an absurd noösphere, as bizarre as the word's coiner. In it antitheses dissolve, and impossibilities materialize:

What was black is now white;

Contradictory propositions may be, and are, both true and false at the same time — tertium quidem datur; 

The leopard can change its spots.

* PL wonders out loud whether someone might successfully challenge the midget corporation by arguing that trad "priests" and "bishops" are laypersons themselves. After all, how can they be bona-fide clergy if they neither belong to, nor have a commission from, an organized ecclesiastical body?

SPITTIN' IMAGE

A mirror eats donkeys and spits out fools. German Proverb

In his October pesthouse newsletter, Tradzilla pontificated:

The Protestant churches are organized from below, that is, protestants of like mind come together and form a community or “church” where they worship in common. This “church,” however, is the product of human beings, and not of God. It has no authority to teach, rule, or sanctify the faithful. 

Big Don's lack of self-recognition is astonishing: He's describing the image of his cult glaring back from the mirror before which he brays.

If you substitute traddie(s) for Protestant/protestants, the rector's words eerily characterize independent traditional "Catholic" Mass centers inside and outside Tradistan U.S.A. Following the model of Nonconformist conventicles, these chapels were not erected by the Church but by rebel adventurers operating without her warrant as they organized their revolutionary cells "from below."

Behind a scrim of menacingly re-imagined Catholicism, stinking of brimstone and malediction, each TradWorld enclave peevishly clings to its own brand of earthly "identity politics": una-cum, non-una-cum, recognize-and-resist, materialiter sedevanctism, absolute sedevacantism, conclavism, Feeneyism, and so on. Their uncommissioned, scapegrace "clergy" have no authority or jurisdiction, and those among them who might happen to possess the power to sanctify may only exercise their orders upon demand of the laity.

Like their hot-gospeler fellow-travelers in non-Catholic America, these fragmented, rootless trad sects boast wantonly eccentric liturgical practices. One faction espouses the Pius XII rite, another the so-called Pius X, and yet another the '62 iteration. One troupe of dissenters abolished the Leonine Prayers, replacing them with sundry theater pieces recited by a hammy "pastor." Another outlandish coterie embraces the reformed Holy Week liturgy of the mid-'50s yet can't manage to get through Palm Sunday Mass in accordance with its rubrics.

Several vie with each other in publishing different calendars, some with partial abstinence on the Vigil of All Saints, others with full abstinence, and one with "optional [!] feasts" throughout the year. On occasion, there are horrors like "votive Vespers." Infamously, the sleaziest gang produced an ordo filled with Latin errors and at odds with pre-conciliar praxis. In many of these rings, malformed "priests" from unapproved "clerical" certificate mills either race or stumble through Low Masses riddled with sinful defects.

These wildcat, human enterprises purporting to be "Catholic" are no better than the mainline Protestant or the offbeat non-denominational "churches" the Donster condemns as not of divine origin. If he were really the head of the "A-Team," he would've kept his pie-hole shut lest his own jabbing, accusatory finger point back to him. But he's not. Don's but a noisy marketeer for an all-too-human civil corporation. And in order to keep the dying business out of threatening bankruptcy, folks have to be tricked into thinking the SW Ohio-Swampland Cult Cabal is the same as the Roman Catholic Church.

The blasphemous marketing strategy has its pay-off.  Once foolish culties buy into the fiction, manipulative cult masters can pass off as genuine Church teaching any fabrication they please. Hence the lurid, lunatic, on-the-fly prohibitions regarding women's footwear and clothing, popular music, or the kind of people with whom you may associate (unless, that is, you belong to the untouchable élite).  If you do believe the "clergy's" tall tales, then you'll surely agree you're bound under pain of sin to contribute generously to the support of bone-lazy, renegade "clergy," won't you?

No one, not even a congenitally "slow" cultie child, should be taken in by Sinburn's frequent riffs on the superiority of the Catholic Church. Their purpose is to make you (incorrectly) infer that she is to be found whole in Donnie's man-centered enterprise. The reality is, however, that the family-owned sect he runs for now is a splintered, hideously distorted reflection of Christ's immaculate Bride.

But those of you who grasp the difference between Catholic and "Catholicoid" won't fall for deceptive, image-twisting language games.  Hee and haw and kick as Big Don might, graced Catholic faithful can't mistake the worldly traits of divisiveness, greed, self-interest, and materialism for the divine marks of the Holy Roman Catholic Church.

ACCEPT NO WACKY SUBSTITUTES. DUMP YOUR CULT MASTER TODAY!

THE CHILDREN'S HOUR

Till the walls shall crumble in ruin,/And moulder in dust away. Longfellow

Last week, in his squalid "Corner," Dirtbag Dan let slip his deepest fears when he reported on this year's All Saints' Day Kiddie Kostoom Kringe-a-thon:

I always fear anymore that the children’s participation in this day is dying out, for once we had great numbers. But the count of the children is just right each year for their little presentations before I go off for the 11:30, and the party begins. I do feel bad for the children who miss out, because they are missing out.

Wee Dan is right to be worried.

If you didn't painstakingly deconstruct his message, you might've concluded His Uneasiness was anxiously fretting over a demographic trend common to many Tradistani cult chapels. The once victimized kids have grown up and moved away in bitter resentment, leaving mostly aging empty nesters behind to fund a clerical over-the-top lifestyle. Only a handful of lupine families whelping "young'uns" remains willing to sacrifice just enough crumb-crushers to make the cult center seem a child-friendly place.

That, however, would be a superficial,  fundamentally wrong explanation for the dwindling numbers of youthful participants. "One Hand's" cri de cœur in actuality is a therapeutic tool deployed to (temporarily) banish negative thoughts of SGG's imminent collapse. It's kind of like the "rubber band technique" psychologists teach their desperate clients to drive away incapacitating anxiety.
[
But the intervention is clearly not working, as evidenced by Distressed Dan's howling, circular idiocy, "I do feel bad for the children who miss out, because they are missing out [??]."

It's no secret there are loads of Gertie rug-rats whose parents don't want them to participate. Ma, Pa and the tykes may assist at Sunday Mass, but they scurry out like Raid®-sprayed cockroaches as soon as the big show's over. No sane parents, even backward ones, want their precious bairns involved in cultie-forming group exercises.

The painful memories of the SGG School Scandal (click here), which erupted in full force around this time seven years ago, are still achingly fresh. All that delirious, syrupy twaddle parents hear from the pulpit about the dear, sweet, little ones cannot erase the lingering mental images of innocence betrayed. Although, for some mysterious reason, these mothers and fathers won't kick SGG pseudo-clergy to the curb in return for undoubtedly valid sacraments at one of the area's many competing traditional chapels, at least they're making sure their offspring keep away from the crud balls who authored the 2009 calamity.

Pretending that everything is all right won't slow SGG's headlong rush to closure. As thick headed as he is, we'd say His Regretfulness is tortured by the unmistakable signs of ineluctable doom for his failed enterprise. A dearth of solutions compounds his fears. For example, he still doesn't dare get rid of "The Principal," who commands an outsized share of the cult's declining collections and remains the source of so much continuing discontent among Gertie stalwarts. Likewise, His Weariness cannot retire to the sunny, chic Southwest, for he hasn't a successor capable of sustaining the contributions he must have to live in leisured luxury. And he cannot rustle new sheep to replace the ones breaking out of the fold: there's too much out there about him now — and much more to come.

Th already-high psychic pressure will increase by many atmospheres when Tradzilla exits the Swampland family cult compound to rattle the beggar's cup for his promised new venture. Dannie will then be barred from access to needed but scarce financial resources as the Donster aggressively fundraises among the same tapped-out marks who feed the SW Ohio cult. Moreover, Big Don's noisy recruitment activities will further lower Li'l Daniel in the esteem of die-hard Gertie misfits. Without question, the vacuum created by Dannie's dramatic loss of standing will embolden many to attach themselves to another, less embattled cult kingpin.

..........................

Don't you agree it's poetic justice that kids are at the root of the weepy Wee One's current terrors?

In late 2009, he refused to remove the cause of children's misery, opting instead to purge SGG "School" of the few caring adults who were their champions. Now the children's diminishing presence at cult events torments him with foreboding. How fitting it is that the very young can serve as the harbinger of long-overdue justice. At last, their hour of retribution has struck.

Unable to see hanging before his eyes the rotten fruits of his 2009 inaction, "One Hand" will continue his therapeutic wishful thinking as the children and paying adults grow fewer. The delusion won't keep the howling, clawing wolf from the cult's shabby door. Dannie'll try to project confidence, with no relief forthcoming. There's no recovery for what ails him.

The truth is: the number of kiddies is "just right each year" simply because Dannie has lowered his expectations so as to avoid confronting SGG's certain demise. Never to be counted again are the "great numbers" of the past. Those glory days of limitless greenbacks ended seven years ago this month. Never to be duped again are Catholics who love their young.

THIS THANKSGIVING, STARVE THE BEAST.

DISORDERED ORDO X & XI

Hold the traditions which you have learned. 2 Thessalonians

Editor's Note: We didn't offer a DISORDERED ORDO in October owing to our participation in the Lay Governance Conference. November's condensed entry will take its place. We're posting the feature earlier in the month than usual because the SGG cult has already begun hawking its "All Saints Roman Catholic Calendar 2017 A.D. (sic! The A.D. era marker comes before the year!)"*: Catholics need a strong reminder to stay away from anything the cult produces related to the Church's liturgical year: chances are, it's far from traditional and likely to be marred with errors.

This installment's example of the cult masters' incompetence will not only demonstrate how far Dimwit Dannie's ORDO 2016 strays from traditional American liturgical practice but will prove beyond a doubt our long-maintained conclusion that SGG's "universal" ordo is not universal.

That fact in itself should discourage European, Australian and New Zealand, African, and Latin American buyers from wasting their money. The year is running out, and there's still the looming danger that "One-Hand Dan" and his Silly Sal may be shameless enough to offer for sale an ordo for 2017. So let's get right to the exposé without further introduction.

For Sunday, July 3 (p. 65), we find the following caption for the day (N.B. Blogger won't allow the ampersand sign, so we replaced it with the Latin word for "and"):

SOLEMNITAS SS PETRI ET PAULI APP ("The Solemnity of SS. Peter and Paul, Apostles")

As Matters Liturgical  (❡692, 1942 ed.) explains, in the United States, the June 29 Feast of SS. Peter and Paul "is not of precept." However, by indult its "External Solemnity is transferred to the Sunday following." (Note, BTW, that Dannie's caption fails to identify it as an external Solemnity — another gross lapse of liturgical accuracy.)

Therefore, once again we see SGG's ordo is meant for Americans, despite its website's advertisement of a "Universal Edition." More importantly, the announcement of the external solemnity in Dannie's highly eccentric ordo does not follow the best practice of traditional American pre-conciliar ordines. In the good ol' days, the well-formed compilers understood that this Mass for SS. Peter and Paul was a privileged Solemn Votive Mass, so the principal caption for the Sunday remained as the "xth day after Pentecost." Notice of the permitted external solemnity was accordingly made in the entry for the preceding day.

Here's what Deficient Dannie ought to have done, if he were liturgically savvy and faithful to American Catholic tradition:

At the end of the entry for Saturday, July 2, the Wee One should have printed — at the very minimum — something like Cras Solemnitas externa Ss Petri et Pauli App celebratur ("tomorrow the external Solemnity of Ss. Peter and Paul, Apostles, is celebrated"). Then for Sunday, July 3, the caption should have read only Dom[inica] VII post Pentecosten ("7th Sunday after Pentecost"). That's what competent American ordines used to do. (Check out, for instance, this sampling from past decades: 1927 St. Paul, MN; 1937 Columbus, OH; 1946 St. Paul, MN; 1954 Cincinnati, OH.)

But, as we all know, His Independency can't be bothered to follow tradition.** It's too confining for his free-wheeling, "do-what-I-want" ways. Plus, it may be that he probably never learned tradition in the first place.

What traditional Catholics must take away from "One Hand's" demonstrated ignorance of how things were really done in the pre-conciliar Church is this:

Cult teachings are arbitrary. You cannot rely on what the malformed cult masters tell you about the liturgy, about theology, or about faith and morals. Get out today!

* Last week we highlighted an error of English usage on Dannie's July 2017 calendar page. Today, we point out a more serious illustration of his contempt for tradition. On Sggresources,  "One Hand" offers a page from his calendar profiling St. John Fisher, where His Deficiency quotes the following verses from John 17: 3-5: 

Eternal life is this: to know You, the only true God, and Him whom You have sent, Jesus Christ. I have given you glory on earth by finishing the work You gave me to do. Do you now, Father, give me glory at your side. 

The problem here is that this is a hyper-modern translation. In fact, we found the exact translation, with only minor differences in capitalization, in Prayers and Devotions from Pope John Paul II (click here. ) If Dannie were so traditional, why, then, didn't he quote from the traditional Douay version revised by Challoner?

Now this is eternal life: That they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. I have glorified thee on earth; I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now glorify thou me, O Father, with thyself. (TAN text)

And if SGG didn't own a copy of the Douay or wanted a slightly more up-to-date version, why didn't "One Hand" quote from the 1941 Confraternity version?

Now this is everlasting life, that they may know thee, the only true God, and him whom thou hast sent, Jesus Christ. I have glorified thee on earth; I have accomplished the work that thou hast given me to do. And now do thou, Father, glorify me with thyself. (St. Anthony Guild Press text)

But if Dirtbag Dannie thought the Confraternity language was still too "traditional" for his modern tastes, why didn't he at least quote from Mgr. Knox's 1945 translation?

Eternal life is knowing thee, who art the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. I have exalted thy glory on earth, by achieving the task which thou gavest me to do; now, Father, do thou exalt me at thy own side. (New Advent text)

For all his claims about the evils of the liturgical reform movement of the '50s, it's obvious that Dannie doesn't like tradition; in his heart, he seems to prefer novelty. BTW, there's also another blunder in English in the St. John Fisher profile. Dannie writes, "While imprisoned in the tower of London he was made a Cardinal..."(emphasis ours). Real traditional Catholics with an education know that the correct verb is "created."

Or is it possible that SGG "borrowed" much of their copy from another source? If you compare Dannie's text (click here and then click on the the image of St. John Fisher at the lower right ) to the the text found at Catholic Online/catholic.org (click here), you'll discover some startling textual similarities that surely cannot be the result of pure chance. (Hmmmmmm. We're thinking of a word, and it begins with p...)

**As an aside, we point out that Dannie doesn't follow American practice in listing the order of the Sunday Masses. For example, the 1954 Cincinnati ordo and many others list Mass 1 as that of the Sunday and Mass 2, as that of Peter and Paul. But not Mr. Make-it-Up-As-You-Go.  He reverses the order. 

HOMECOMING

East or West, home is best. Bohn's Handbook of Proverbs

Well, folks, Pistina's staff is finally back from the 2016 Lay Governance Conference. It was a resounding success, although we were sickened when we heard all new reports of the cult-clergy's misbehavior, especially the instances of punishing the laity by withholding the sacraments.

While we were away, some of you asked for the audio of the keynote speaker's address. Unfortunately, the conference directorate nixed our request because Father, who lives in a diocesan home for retired priests, could be in jeopardy of losing benefits. He has no means of support other than his pension. The Novus Ordo is just as vicious as the cult masters when it comes to silencing criticism. Moreover, inasmuch as Father's address contained many anecdotes that would identify him, when we summarize his remarks in a future post, we'll have to edit them carefully so as not to put him at risk.

Likewise, in the Q-and-A session that followed, conference attendees identified themselves by name and city. Many of those individuals still have relatives in cult-copntrolled chapels, and they feared that publication of their attendance would subject family members to the "bishops'" vengeance. Just like many of you, these individuals despise Wee Dan, Tradzilla, the Pivmeister, and the Long-Island Jellyfish, but they want to leave the cult on their own terms and not be drummed out.  In the "bishop"-led cults, we hear the paranoia now stands at an all-time high, so no one is safe.

Seeing that it will take several days for the word to get around that we're back online, we'll hold off posting new material until next week. And in answer to three correspondents, yes, that post will be another installment of DISORDERED ORDO, which we forewent in October owing to our participation in the conference. Dirtbag Dan is already hawking his 2017 calendar with another error-encrusted ordo sure to follow. The post will provide a timely warning not to buy either.*
Before closing, however, we must note that when we returned, we found Dannie still making awful linguistic errors. In his October newsletter, he wrote:

September 24 is the feast of Our Lady of Ransom or of Mercy (“Merced” in Spanish)... 

Although in Spanish the feast is called Nuestra Señora de la Merced, the English word "mercy" comes from the (Old ) French merci, not from the Spanish (as "One Hand" seems to be suggesting). Both the French and the Spanish words are derived from the Latin merces, whence the Missal's title B. M. V de Mercede (which, BTW, is why we translate it as "ransom" and not "mercy").

He'd just rather make it all up as he goes along, wouldn't he? Don't believe a word Dannie writes, whether it's about etymology or theology.

** FYI, we noted a big boo-boo on the July 2017 sample page Dannie posted: for July 29, he prints "St Felix II, PM, Ss Simplicius and Companions, Mm" instead of "Ss Felix, P,  Simplicius and Companions, Mm." The commemoration in the Latin Missal includes Pope Felix with Simplicius, Faustinus, and Beatrice although the pontiff wasn't martyred with the others, so the "Mm" makes the M after P superfluous. By joining the named martyrs, Roman style only requires Ss, at the beginning. If Dannie had wanted to indicate that Simplicius etc. endured a separate martyrdom, then he should have written "St Simplicius and Companions," since in English the title "Saint" must precede a proper noun.