WELCOMING THE NEW YEAR

Charity begins at home. Proverb

Once again, as we usher the old year out and welcome the new, it's time for a firm resolution. In 2013, it's simple: Keep 'em poor!

Remember that the commandments of the Church only apply when there is a Church Visible with an intact hierarchy. In the Sede Vacante, the commandments are, as it were, suspended. We are living on a kind of desert island, and our return to civilization is not imminent. Traddie priests are not our pastors juridically, so there's no commandment to support them. And most certainly, there exists no sacred injunction to

* Fund luxurious vacations at highfalutin desert spas;

* Underwrite useless south-of-the-border and European "pastoral" tours;

* Foot the bill for gourmet-restaurant adventures;

* Pay for unnecessary building projects (that often can't pass inspection and thus cost more); and

* Support a nest of unnecessary (and perhaps dubious) "sacerdotal" personnel, who should be serving chapels of their own.

This year, think of your family. Think of your children. Think of your retirement. Think of the waste!

There's no special merit to be gained in supporting clerical freelancers. In no way do they represent the Church. They represent themselves. Therefore, your generosity is in vain. You might as well give your money to a pack of pagan Fire-Eaters, for all the spiritual good it will do you.

Trust less. Give less. KEEP 'EM POOR. 

A HOLIDAY GIFT OF SONG, DANCE, AND MIRTH

This merriment of parsons is mighty offensive.  Samuel Johnson

Ed. Note: (Our yuletide gift, to the tune of “Shall We Dance.” Click here for the original, and then sing and dance along! Be sure to skip the ad!) 

It’s almost Christmas Eve;

You know they want your bucks.

They’ll soon be asking you for

Giant sums of cold, hard cash.

So many Traddie sheep

Are fearful of their shears:

It made us think we might write

Songs to help them to bleat, "No!"

Keep ’em poor!

To a chic, de luxe spa they shall not hop!

Keep ’em poor!

We shall now put their spending to a stop!

Or what’s more,

When a wastrel wants to make a border run,

We shall tell him, “Hold your horses,

You’ll not waste our dear resources,

So stay put where you are, Señor.”

With the knowledge now assured

That our savings won’t be squandered:

Keep ’em poor!

Keep ’em poor!

Keep ’em poor!

[♬♩♫♪orchestra ♪♫♩♬]

Keep ’em poor!

Frequent tours through all Gaul must surely end!

Keep ’em poor!

We shall cure their hot itch to spend and spend!

So, therefore,

When they get those old urges to construct,

We shall dial up code enforcement

(When we’ve published our divorcement),

So they’ll cease building evermore!

With the knowledge now assured

That our savings won’t be squandered:

Keep ’em poor!

Keep ’em poor!

Keep ’em poor!

[♬♩♫♪orchestra ♪♫♩♬]

ROMAN DIARY ENTRY

But O for the touch of a vanished hand. Tennyson

Ed. Note: The Readers were busy diarists on their recent sojourn to the eternal city as they recorded the opinions of some of the distinguished citizens they met. In the coming months, Pistrina may share some of their most pertinent observations with followers of this blog. For starters, and for whatever it's worth, here's an interesting note from the other side about ordination with one hand.

We met him by pure chance on a crisp, almost impossibly bright, Roman late morning in the first week November as we visited Santa Maria del Popolo. We happened to be admiring the numerous funerary monuments of the Mellini Chapel. As one of the Readers translated aloud the inscriptions for our group, a merry priest, perhaps in his mid-sixties, energetically approached us with a broad smile. It seems our interest in the chapel -- and our colleague's fascination with lapidary prose and sentiment -- had piqued his curiosity. Our introductions were almost immediately interrupted by the announcement of the church's closing for the afternoon, so we all shuffled off for a quick look at the adjacent Chigi Chapel with its mosaics designed by Raphael.

Outside, in front of the simple but impressive travertine façade, we chatted some more with this lively clergyman and ended up inviting him to join us at Canova's, an attractive café and restaurant just across the piazza near the Via Babuino. There we learned that our new acquaintance, now living in semi-retirement in Liguria, had been a professor of theology at a diocesan seminary. (He was in Rome that week on a visit to younger siblings.) As the hours drifted by, we explained the intractable problems of the traditional movement in the U.S., and in particular its substandard, grasping clergy. Inasmuch as our priestly table companion was a professionally trained theologian, one of the Readers, after supplying background information, asked him his opinion on one-handed ordination.

Our newfound friend first protested ignorance, saying that nowadays the Church puts less emphasis on "such procedural niceties." However, with a little prodding, he soon confessed amusement that sedevacantist clergy would not have cured the defect privately. "They have dozens of bishops willing to do such things for a small consideration! Why didn't that man regularize his predicament before his consecration? Why did he ever leave the question open to continuing speculation and doubt?"

We couldn't answer him, but we observed that subsequent to his consecration a dependent found a few authors who didn't condemn one-handed ordination.

"Su! Dai!" was his impatient retort as he slapped the edge of the table with his fingers. Then, with an arch smile and a slow shake of the head, he continued, "It's not outside my experience for authors to be wrong. Even the saintly Cappello! These sedevacantists are notorious for demanding adherence to the literal letter of the law. That's their scandal: they insist on strict compliance from others but they can't follow the rules themselves."

All we could do was agree, and we assured him their day in the sun was at an end.

THE MOST MELANCHOLY OF HUMAN REFLECTIONS

Hurled headlong flaming from th' ethereal sky/With hideous ruin and combustion. Milton

We've just passed the third anniversary of the calamitous events of November 2009. Like bold Icarus, Traddie clergy flew too close to the heat of the conflict by defending the indefensible. And like that mythic heedless fool, they fell to their ruin.

Traddie-ism is dying, for all practical purposes. Only more decay awaits in the future. There are not enough people willing to give the money needed to sustain the wild spending. The giving trend undoubtedly points to regular weekly collections' dipping below subsistence level.  The younger generation will not support chapels at the budget-busting levels their poor parents did. The impending collapse is a solemn warning against allowing clergy access to assets without wise, lay oversight.

Make no mistake, the older clergy must be looking for a way out. They know how to read the red-ink written on the flaking dry-wall. Most must realize they can't ever recover -- there's not enough time -- and each angry day brings with it new losses as people flee disgusted with the whole Traddie misadventure: to remain much longer will tax the older clergy too harshly as resources disappear and looming financial horrors descend. 

Now, then, as we approach year's end, it's a good time for the Traddie laity and young clergy to take stock and face a terrifying fact: there is no hope in "organized" traditional Catholicism. The only answer (and it's a temporary one) lies in lay-controlled individual chapels with no affiliation or loyalty or obligation to another organization under the control of one man. These completely independent chapels will not be permanent; they can last perhaps another ten years at best, by which time the expansion of the SSPX, the FSSP, and other such highly qualified institutions will have rendered the few remaining Traddie chapels both intolerable and redundant. By then, Vatican II will have suffered the judgment of history and scholarship. It will stand condemned as alien to Catholic tradition, and the Restoration will be well underway. 

This means that there will only be positions for the clergy now in their very late forties or mid-to-late fifties, who had an authentic seminary formation and perhaps have a retirement fund or an inheritance to fall back on when their chapels empty out. The younger clergy, however, won't be so lucky. As the laity see more and more of the new breed of well-trained clergy, they will naturally compare them to the Traddies, and the Traddies will be found painfully wanting.

With no education or job training, today's young Traddie clergy will be virtually unemployable at an age when it will be difficult, perhaps impossible, to learn a new trade. They won't be wanted by the SSPX , FSSP, or other societies, not even as lay brothers, and there won't be enough positions among the few Traddie hold-out  chapels to support them. The old priests will make sure that no one encroaches on their shrinking turf.

To those disadvantaged young clergy, we offer the words of Cicero: Quod scis nihil prodest, quod nescis multum obest, which we'll of necessity translate for them: What you know is worthless, and what you do not know does much injury. You may be young enough if you leave right now to get some vocational training that can give you a living wage and a modest future. There are many programs available for individuals who are at risk of becoming burdens to the community. Even you can see the ruins around you, so you'd better act now and find a new career before it's too late.

And, BTW, to all the lay folk out there: Remember this holiday season to...

KEEP 'EM POOR!

A FEAST OF FAT THINGS

I have often thought, says Sir Roger, it happens very well that Christmas should fall out in the Middle of Winter. Addison
It looks as though"One-Hand Dan's" closely shorn flock is getting Pistrina's holiday message. The week after the report of a doubling of the usual offering, the collection recorded in Dannie's Nov. 18  cult bulletin plummeted once again below the normal, post-2009-scandal $3K+ average. (We think the $6K+ report of a few weeks ago represents either a one-off donation from a witless dupe, who didn't know any better, or a reprise of the creative collection statistics of the old N.Y. days.)

The big expenses of "One-Hand's" cult center require far more than $2,800 a week (and, indeed, much more than the depressed $3K+ he's been getting for the last three years). Also, the Christmas season has always been the occasion for outlandish spending so that "One-Hand" can mount his "really big holiday shew," where he's the center of extravagant and undeserved attention. That's why it's so important this year to suppress all giving: sure, they'll still spend like sailors on shore leave in Amsterdam, but they'll have to cannilbalize funds earmarked for other unnecessary but pet projects for self-promotion. By forcing them to consume the money they've sequestered for their own selfish reasons, you'll curtail their influence. As they devour their own resources -- resources that were once yours -- in a frenetic attempt to inspire you to part with more of your money, they won't have any cash to spread around in Mexico, France, and the Swampland. (That'll put the rector's big $30K plan on ice for good!)

That's why it's also important to hold back on personal cash gifts to "One-Hand," the Blunderer, the two gofer-completers, and the Pesthouse. If the holiday spirit (or a  misplaced sense of guilt and pity) compels you to give something, why not give a cash gift in their name to a children's hospital or to some other worthy charity? (What delicious irony!) You'll be doing good while at the same time you'll keep money out of their hands. Believe us, if you make this yuletide a cold and wintry one for the cult panjandrums and their flunkies, they'll get desperate after they've gobbled up all the mad money squirreled away in their several corporations. And that means they'll be softened up for negotiations with the new lay movement. 

Just remember to make them eat up their ready funds: No dough for Dannie; no checks for Ceky; no gelt for the goofy gofers; and no pay-off for the Pesthouse. Let's make 2013 the year when the cult collapses from its own excesses after a winter of discontent.

THIS XMAS, IT'S OK TO BE SCROOGE

As we commented recently, our tour in Europe confirmed that Pistrina has been on the right track in its analysis of the resurgence of traditional Catholic feeling, which might become the basis for a restoration movement. We are confident that this growing trend will render it unnecessary to affiliate with the half-educated, egotistical, Mammon-crazed sede wandering bishops who have plagued the faith for the last quarter of a century.

That's why we have been so insistent in urging everyone to starve the beast. Any money you throw their way is surely lost on a bad cause, the aim of which is to feather nests, not foster the Catholic faith. One of the worst donations you can make is to a sede seminary, because in a short time, there'll be no demand for their malformed products.

The reason we can make such a bold assertion is based on a recent visit we made to a European seminary. What a difference between their faculty and seminarians and those at the swampland Pesthouse and other Traddie disgraces! These professors possessed genuine, advanced academic degrees from world-renowned institutions. All were full-time professional instructors whose principal duty was to educate. Many had published in refereed journals and other recognized academic periodicals, and several were authors of books that had been printed and distributed by a reputable imprint, not by a vanity-press outfit. All were exceptionally well qualified for the subject matter they taught. We were especially impressed with the professor of Sacred Scripture, who knew Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic in addition to Latin. How different from the lumpen "professiorate" at Traddie institutions who barely have Latin (as we've demonstrated with the Pesthouse "faculty").

The seminarians were studious, self-confident, and mature. All had been graduates of accredited secondary schools; quite a few had won academic awards while in high school or university. None had been home-schooled, and none bore the uncertain look of fear and bewilderment that so often characterizes a Traddie seminarian. The seminarians we interviewed were split 50-50 between continuing their studies at the graduate level and entering parish work. Not one was a wild-eyed adherent of Vatican II; in fact, they all spoke openly of the importance of re-evaluating the council. Moreover, everyone we spoke to looked forward to learning how to celebrate the Tridentine rite so that he could offer it, at least upon occasion, after ordination. When we asked if they thought they were unique in their traditionalism, they said no: they had many friends and acquaintances in other seminaries who shared their opinions and aspirations.

If, indeed, there are many more like this small sample we spoke with, then a sea change is underway. These young men will join a conservative vanguard, which will soon sweep away the Pesthouse completers and their unfortunate brethren. In our estimation, the current cohort of ordained Pesthouse spawn will not be able to retire from the active priesthood inasmuch as the faithful will abandon them in a few years once they see how inferior they are to the likes of the would-be Levites we met.

This means that, if you support the Pesthouse and other Traddie enterprises like it, your money is going to waste. These underachievers are dumber and less prepared than their cynical, poorly formed masters, who themselves are on the verge of retirement (or at least eagerly planning for it).   Decide today to stop listening to the appeals for seminary support. For the good of the sede enrollees, these institutions must fail so that the ungifted young men can seek vocational training that will give them some kind of a future lest they become dependent on the government. They simply cannot compete with the new priests who are coming out of the reformed establishment seminaries.

Save your money and invest in your family. Giving to a Traddie seminary is like investing in a program to train people for hot-metal typesetting. So keep walking past those open hands and don't listen. You'll be doing the young men a favor.

KICK OFF

With the busy Thanksgiving holiday about to start, we just have a brief message this Sunday.

The board of directors of the new lay union is advising Catholics suffering under Mammonite Traddie clergy to "keep 'em poor" and begin withholding not only weekly offerings but also Christmas gifts, Mass stipends, and direct appeals to fund their special projects.

Cash is the only language they understand, and its absence is the only way to make these down-market priests and wandering bishops come to their senses.

The union knows of a number of decent priests and bishops at home and abroad who will say Masses for the laity's intentions, so there's no reason to heed any threats flying from the pulpit. Pistrina has volunteered to serve as a contact point for any Catholic who doesn't want to give "One-Hand Dan," the rector, the Blunderer, or any malformed Pesthouse completer a stipend. Just email us (pistrinalit@gmail.com), and we'll give you the contact information to have your Mass said.

Enjoy the break, and we'll see you here next Sunday.

BACK AND ENERGIZED

There's no place like home. L. Frank Baum

Thanks to hurricane Sandy and last week's storm, the Readers got to spend a few extra days abroad. We can confidently report that there is indeed something very conservative going on in the Novus Ordo Church. Oh, sure, once glorious churches still show the damage wrought by tasteless Vatican II experimenters, like the weird modernistic cube-mensa in the otherwise splendid Gesù. The majority of female religious are from the third world. The clergy on the street are generally unkempt and of apparent low breeding.  And, as ever, JPII's ghoulish image, wrapped in clouds, seems to peer down menacingly from every tacky souvenir shop display and disorderly church bulletin board. But the people themselves want to return to tradition.

Noon and evening masses were well attended. Persons of all ages could be found lighting candles or meditating in chapels where the Blessed Sacrament was reverently exposed for veneration (something we didn't see too often in past travels). In conversations with many different people, we heard bitter complaints about the policies and practices of the conciliar Church and its liberal leaders. (No one we talked to believes B16 is a genuine conservative; many even resent the fact that he's a German, who despite his years in the Curia doesn't really know how things operate in Rome.)  Well-informed Italians now know the council was wrong. Most encouraging were the words of praise for the Latin Mass. Furthermore, more than a few of our new acquaintances expressed a desire for the return of classical studies to the school curriculum. They see Europe fading, and they understand her eclipse is the result of abandoning Western culture, the center of which is the Roman Catholic Church.

Accordingly, when the Readers stepped off the plane, we all felt renewed despite the jet lag and stress of getting a flight back to a city other than New York. The union is off to a great start, and our conversations with everyday folks confirmed that aliquid-pravi Catholicism is a real alternative to the divisive and cultist ways of malformed sedevacantist adventurers. It's time Traddies in the 'States face up to the fact that "One-Hand Dan," the Blunderer, the rector, and all their associates are just plain wrong. It's the right time to tell these characters that Catholic principles, not narrow self-interest, count. It's time to show them the door.

Start by starving the Beast this coming holiday season.

HEADIN' HOME

Just a quick update. The new Catholic union planning conference held abroad has ended, and all parties have agreed on a firm plan of action slated to begin in earnest in January 2013. Pistrina hopes it can make a contribution to the effort in some small way. It's nice to know that after blogging against the Terrible Trio for more than two years that there are many well-placed Catholic leaders who agree that we must never again allow such men to have control over the laity's purse and souls.

One of the lighter notes at the conference emerged when the chairman read aloud this line from "One-Hand" Dan's nasty corner in his bulletin of last week: "No sooner had the sacred psalmody commenced then the door opened..." (emphasis ours). The Europeans present howled at the error, while the Americans cringed (but sniggered knowlingly). One elegant continental asked in what seemed to be genuine perplexity, "How can he not know the difference between then and than? Every child must know that -- even in America!"

An American tried to put on a charitable face by noting the deficient academic preparation of most of the U.S. clergy associated with the Gruesome Threesome. The Europeans grinned and dismissed the defense with a contemptuous wave of the hand.

Well, that's all for today. We're spending another week to tour the sites, and we hope to post a full article next week (if we can get into JFK, that is).

GONE FISHIN'

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

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

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

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

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

THE FAT LADY HAS ALREADY SUNG

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ANSWERING A BEGGAR

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TIME YOU WERE OFF

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

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

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

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

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

FOLLOW AN ANTIQUE DRUM

The union of hands and hearts. Bp. Taylor

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

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

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

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

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

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

...he usually gets it wrong. Marquis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TURNING OVER A NEW LEAF

The old order changeth, yielding place to new. Tennyson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

AS GOOD AS A FEAST

...'tis enough, 'twill serve. Shakespeare

Our series on a new model of priestly training set off a landslide of mail. We expected it would, because we impugned the false narrative scripted by the so-called elites of Sedelandia. (What a state we're in when a pace of braying, jack-pudding, hard-scrabble clergy can even be termed "elite.") Absit!

Several correspondents asked how a two-year program like ours could produce professional clergy. If they understand the word professional to mean fitness for the priesthood assured by many years of formal preparation in a recognized academic institution under the guidance of highly educated, experienced teachers, then the Reader frankly admits that its products will not be professional clergy. They will, however, be professionals, at least in the civil sense, in virtue of their college degrees, which they must possess in order to be admitted. (That's a lot better than most of the laughable completers.)

But, so what if our priests aren't professional clergy, in the sense of the definition above? The current batch of sede seminary Pesthouse completers can't be called professionals in that sense either. Only a few have a real college degree from a recognized university. (Their instructors' late '60s and early '70's "seminary B.A.'s" don't count a bit.) Completers emerge after several years of performing menial labor as janitors, waiters, and scullery drudges with little knowledge, having believed their clerical cheerleaders' chant, "we're the best seminary in the world." Their "teachers" either are (1) unschooled, self-taught nincompoops who embarrass themselves every time they put pen to paper or are (2) recent completers who have been pressed into instructional service because they're unfit, or too scared, to work in a chapel.

Since the sede world is incapable of producing professional clergy, our program emphasizes vocational competence as a practical solution to the problem. In this life, a competent man -- someone who knows what to do, how to do it well, and actually does it -- is the most valuable asset in a crisis. (J.M. Barrie's play "The Admirable Crichton" offers a comic morality tale on that theme.) True, our clergy won't enjoy the same educational prestige as do the alumni of SSPX or FSSP seminaries, but they'll be able to do everything expected of a priest at a sede chapel. That alone renders them far superior to the Pesthouse completers.

They'll know what's a mortal sin and what isn't. The faithful can approach the tribunal of penance in confidence that the seal won't be compromised. If our products don't have a ready answer to a question, they'll look it up, not make it up. The laity will be treated with dignity, not contempt. The chapel's funds will be secure. Our priests will say Mass with practiced ease and definitely will not skip the consecration.

 No more patience-numbing  40-45-minute Low Masses scarred by rubrical gaffes. Furthermore, the homilies will be brief, intelligible, well-organized, and spiritually grounded. Insofar as our program will produce priests who can read the Missal fluently, the laity won't have to suffer through all the stumbling, re-reading, and stammering that detracts from the Pesthouse completers' Masses; more to the point, the faithful won't have to worry that their priest may have misread something in the canon of the Mass and thereby failed to confect the sacrament. 

With our clergy, there'll no longer be any nagging, lingering doubts about the validity of their priestly orders, since we've made certain that the bishops we use have been ordained to the priesthood with two hands, as the apostolic constitution Sacramentum ordinis requires. We're too scrupulous to take two years of a man's life only to deface his résumé with a badge of shame in the form of a scarlet letter D. (This last point is so important that we'll even arrange for "One-Hand"-ordained priests to receive conditional ordination, as our gift to the laity. They just need to send us an e-mail, which we'll keep confidential.)

The bottom line is this: Today a professional priest cannot be found in the sede world.

But life's hard. In such circumstances, second best is more than good enough. We warrant competence, which no other "seminary" has been able to underwrite. Let the Restoration give back to us the professionals. Meanwhile, let's throw out all the clutter and concentrate on the basics. More on a new way of thinking about the crisis next week.