MANIFOLD SINS AND WICKEDNESS

He's half-absolv'd who has confess'd. Prior

We ordinarily don't post the advice we give correspondents seeking guidance to cope with the malformed, terminally ignorant sede clergy who abuse the sacraments by turning them into blunt instruments of control. However, when we see an un-Catholic pattern developing, we head for the blogosphere.

The chief, abiding grievance seems to be the denial of absolution. Catholics tell us time and again how disgraceful sede-Trad confessors refuse absolution to rightly disposed penitents -- penitents who have made a declaration of their sorrow for the sins they confessed and who have professed a firm purpose of amendment. 

We've heard how sins never itemized in the penitent's self-accusation are broached by an intemperate confessor who thinks he's "Judge Judy." The newly introduced accusations then become the basis for the denial of absolution or for its postponement against the penitent's will. To some of these baffled souls, it seemed as if a villainous third party had fed the confessor the outré charges.

Just like all the sede-Trad clergy, we Readers are not theologians or canon lawyers. (These worthies don't exist any longer.) We cannot -- and will not --  presume to answer by our own lights. However, as we've said, we are, indeed,  R E A D E R S: we read and report what formally trained theologians and canonists from the past have opined. If the original is in Latin, we supply a scrupulously correct translation and an accurate transcription, unlike the unpardonable distortions of bumbling, incompetent Erroneous Antonius.

Today, though, we'll quote from a work written in English -- an extract of  E. J. Mitchell's 1965 Pontifical Lateran University thesis in canon law titled "The Obligation to Absolve According to Canon 886."* In Fr. Mitchell's opinion, the denial of absolution

to a disposed penitent is an outright act of injustice against that penitent and an offense against the common good of the ecclesial society. It is precisely to prevent this latter inversion of justice that the Church has promulgated canon 886: «If the confessor has no reason to doubt the proper disposition of the penitent who asks for absolution, he may neither deny nor defer absolution.» (Page 49, emphasis in the original.)

It's important to note that Fr. Mitchell, citing Cappello, cautioned that before issuing his denial, "the confessor must have certitude of the indispositions or incapability of the penitent. Probability or grave suspicion are [sic] not sufficient." (Page 47, emphasis ours.)

In a case of postponement, which is a common trick scandalously malformed clerical insects play, Mitchell concludes that 

the deferment of absolution to a disposed penitent against his will is no longer tenable and cannot be justified by an appeal to the purpose of canon 886, an implicit consent of the penitent, pre-Code solidarity, or a doubt of law. (Page 53.)

All this wouldn't help anybody with a stupid and/or malevolent confessor, even in the "good ol' days."  Mitchell frankly commented that although "[t]he penitent's right to absolution is both subjective and canonical...this right is not coercible through determined sanctions." (Page 53).

Basically, you were -- and, even more so today, are -- plain out of luck procedurally if your confessor is a scofflaw. (But, oh, that's right! For sede clericalist bottom-feeders, the law applies to the laity, not to the clergy, doesn't it?)

Fr. Mitchell did end with some practical advice, which everyone should follow: "The ultimate canonical protection of an individual penitent's right to absolution is found in his free choice of a confessor." (Page. 53).  Admittedly, that's tough to do in the current crisis, where there might not be another traditional priest in the area. Therefore, until you can get to another city to find priest with a conscience who respects the law's binding power on the clergy, there's always available perfect contrition to find your peace with Christ.

Now, for those out there who are sick of these scum clerics AND who are disposed to assert their rights, we do have a personal suggestion, grounded on Fr. Mitchell's study. If you find yourself having  confessed all your sins,  expressed your sorrow, declared your firm purpose of amendment, and  still the slimebag confessor demands, under threat of denial or postponement of absolution, that you confess and be contrite for sins of which you are innocent and with which you have never charged yourself:

1. Calmly but firmly give him notice that, as a rightly disposed penitent, you have a right to absolution and you are unwilling to defer absolution; inform him he has both a moral and juridic obligation to absolve. 

2. Let him know that you have thoroughly examined your conscience and brought before him a complete bill of self-accusations for his judgment.

3. Emphasize that you have unequivocally (a) demonstrated your sorrow and (b) made a firm purpose of amendment. Moreover, remind him that you have absolutely petitioned for absolution. (N.B. You must be so firm and directive that only a blithering idiot or a depraved control freak could not form a prudent and probable judgment concerning your right dispositions.)

4. Make it clear (a) that you will not suffer deferment of absolution and (b) that you are not asking for false mercy.

5. Assert in a forceful tone of voice your innocence of the sins he has illicitly introduced into the tribunal's proceedings and demand to know his source.** (N.B. Don't mistake wrongful pressure to force you to own a sin that isn't yours for a legitimate attempt to rightly dispose you.)

6. Finally, caution him regarding his own spiritual peril if he denies you absolution.

Without a doubt, the piece of sacerdotal filth will refuse, or the sick creep may ask for a postponement to "confer with another priest." At that point, loudly protest:

Father, before God, I assert my right to absolution. Canon 886 is a positive legislative guarantee to my right as a well-disposed penitent here and now to immediate absolution, and you are legally obligated to absolve me.

Don't expect compliance. Bear in mind that the majority of these cretinous priests operate under extreme educational and intellectual disabilities. (Most, if not all, are unfit to work as part-time bag boys at a slum discount store.) Consequently, when, with demon-hardened heart, the control-obsessed monster stubbornly refuses you again, declare him an outlaw and briskly walk out, never to return to his hell-hole of a chapel.

Tweet your friends to encourage them to leave, too.  And although the confessor's reprehensible behavior has alienated you from the sacrament of penance in your area, there's always available, as we said above, the act of perfect contrition until you find a worthy, genuinely Catholic priest to hear your confession and grant you, a sincerely repentant sinner, your right to forgiveness.

Certainly, not everyone has the pluck to defend his or her rights in the face of sinful priestly abuse. Lots of people want to avoid confrontation or they feel intimidated. (Although, we candidly ask, how could anyone be intimidated by these clerical gerbils?) One way to avoid a showdown is to steer clear of any priest who manifests cultist traits, notwithstanding hollow claims of independence.

As a general rule of thumb, a priest who has contact with sede kingpins -- even a casual relationship --  is ipso facto an unworthy priest and confessor, even if he has never denied you absolution. And it goes without saying that any priest ordained by "One-Hand Dan" may not be a valid priest at all.

If any of these these dregs of the priesthood had lived in your neighborhood when you were a child, your dad would have ordered to stay away from such riffraff, and your mom would've forbidden you to play in their trashy yard.

REMEMBER: A CHRISTIAN HAS A SUBJECTIVE RIGHT TO THE MEANS NECESSARY FOR SALVATION. DON'T TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER FROM A TOXIC MANIPULATOR WHO HAS MADE THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE ODIOUS.

*Although we don't believe the 1917 Code of Canon Law is in effect during the crisis, most U.S. sede clergy and those affiliated with them affirm it is, so the quotation and subsequent argument are apropos.

**In addition, insist on an explanation of why the confessor-introduced sin is mortal, if you think it isn't. These dopes are grossly ignorant and malformed, like Scut and the Skipper, who invent all sorts of new mortal sins.  (Here's a new example of what we mean: one of the completers once preached that it's a mortal sin not to attend the daily Mass offered at a cult chapel. LOL. Honestly, you can't make this stuff up!)

SAME OLD, SAME OLD

When you're stupid, nothing can be done. Écône's Canon René Berthod (Tony Baloney's translation)

Sometimes we Readers, setting aside our modesty, get the warm feeling Providence actively favors our apostolate.

On the very day we posted "A Tale of Two Faces," where we reminded the cult masters of "Perigrinus's" disparaging remarks about Abp. Thục's Latin, our Boneheaded Pilgrim from remotest Tradistan had the temerity to blog about that very topic.

Commenting on a priest's recollections of (1) Thục's teaching himself Spanish in order to teach Latin in that language and (2) the archbishop's impressive oral fluency in Latin, the Blunderer, apparently unaware of his own self-condemnation, had this to say:

I can assure readers that none of the clergy I know who have attacked Abp. Thuc could pull off either one of these feats. And if you doubt that, you might want to ask one of them!

Well, taking to heart the ancient Delphic maxim γνῶθι σεαυτόν ("know thyself"), we challenge Tony Baloney to question "Peregrinus" on everyone's behalf.  You rabid culties out there may also want to put the same question to him. However, before you do it, today we have a little reminder of Tony's linguistic disabilities, with brand new examples that might coax a straight answer out of the nescient oracle of Sedelandia.

Since 2010, Pistrina has documented Checkie's terminal difficulties with the Church's holy tongue. His embarrassingly shoddy Work of Human Hands fairly bristles with errors of the worst sort. In addition, after our extended 2013 exposé, friend and foe alike know in minute detail all the scholarly defects of his now-discredited monograph "Validity of Ordination Conferred with One Hand": gross mistranslation of infallible papal teaching (bad enough to alter its substance), howling errors in transcription, unwarranted addition of words, faulty renderings, etc., etc., etc.

So tenuous is the Blunderer's grasp of Latin that no one ought to accept anything he's written until someone competent retranslates all citations based on Latin originals. This caveat is especially applicable to his widely circulated 1995 pamphlet "Traditionalists, Infallibility and the Pope" (or TIP, for short), of which the True Restoration blog wrote on July 5, 2013, "To this day, that article has never been answered by any individual or group."

Perhaps the reason for all the silence is that substandard scholarship doesn't deserve an answer in the first place.

The chief failure of the little brochure is that Checkie does not supply the original Latin texts for his quotations, upon which the gravamen of his argument depends.  You are left to assume the translations are accurate.  Yet how can anyone make that assumption with any confidence?  Without the originals available for comparison, no one can trust in the accuracy of the Blunderer's translations, given Pistrina's solid documentation of his handicap with the language.

To be sure, we understand the inclusion of original Latin texts would have greatly enlarged TIP, the real audience of which is the lowest-common-denominator sede-Trad, who'd have no use for the material. To be sure, if the Blunderer's translations in his other works were reliable, we'd be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. But that's not the case, is it? You've all seen for yourselves just how grave his errors are.

Nevertheless, in fairness, the Readers agreed to thumb through TIP to see if the same types of blunders prevail. After all, Tony Baloney might have appealed to some halfway intelligent help on such an effort. What with the skeptical Novus Ordo and SSPX world watching, he'd want to cross all the t's and dot all the i's, right?

Wrong! Or if he did have some help, the jerk was as hopeless as the Bonehead.

Unfortunately (and as expected), our initial sampling of TIP found the same classes of problems that disfigure the Checkmeister's other failed efforts at playing the scholar. Today we'll look at a few that immediately popped out in our rapid survey of what the True Restoration blogger somewhat grandly called a "landmark" article.

We'll take the errors in order of severity. (Bracketed numerals identify the specific blunder.) 

CAUTION: HEAVY GRAMMATICAL CONSTRUCTION ZONE AHEAD

(We do hope you'll stay for the ride, though. There's plenty of skewered Cheeseball to make up for the slow going.)

TIP Blunders 1 and 2: On p. 20, 3rd full paragraph, quote from Coronata, Tony Baloney translates as follows (our emphasis): "Such impeccability was never promised by God." Yet in the original Latin text, the word he mistakes for "never" is nullibi, which means "nowhere" [1]. ("Never" is nun[m]quam, or non umquam). The Blunderer's mistranslation robs the sentence of its nuance and lawyerly precision: "...was (or has been) nowhere [i.e., in Revelation] promised by God." This moron should buy a good Latin-English dictionary -- and learn how to use it. Let's add that he also failed to translate the pronoun ipsi in the original: "haec impeccabilitas ipsi nullibi a Deo promissa est, i.e., this impeccability was (or has been) nowhere promised to him [viz., the Roman Pontiff] by God" [2].

TIP Blunder 3: Throughout TIP, Checkie quotes but a few isolated Latin words, so you'd imagine he'd try at least to get all of them right, wouldn't you? If you did, you poor innocent, then you're in for a big disappointment. On page 23, last paragraph, he spells repugnantiam as repugnatiam. Good grief! Wouldn't you think the English cognates repugnant and repugnance would've told him that the Latin must have an n, too?

TIP Blunders 4, 5, 6 and 7: On page 25, in the quotation from Wernz and Vidal, he translates the phrase "omnem sententiam declaratoriam" as "any declaratory judgment" (our bold). The correct translation is "every." The Blunderer's sloppy and inaccurate "any" fails to preserve the nicely exact legal idiom of the original [4]. But what else would you expect him?

In the line above Blunder 4 on the same page, the Cheeseball prints this: "the Roman Pontiff...is deemed to be deprived of the power of jurisdiction..." The original Latin reads "R. Pontifex...sua potestate iurisdictionis privatus existit..." (our emphases). The word sua does not mean "the," but rather "his own," and existit, an active voice verb, means "emerges, appears, becomes, proves to be, shows oneself." Hence, an accurate translation is: "The Roman Pontiff...becomes deprived of his own power of jurisdiction..." Again, the Blunderer's habitual inattention to detail, slovenly guesswork, and itch to gild the lily rule in place of accuracy, precision of expression, and fidelity to the intrinsic meaning of the original [5, 6].

Toward the end of the same paragraph on p. 25, the Blunderer translates "etiam ipso facto cessat esse caput Ecclesiae" as "he would also cease to be head of the Church," grossly neglecting to translate (or retain) the phrase ipso facto [7]. That phrase is stylistically and jurisprudentially necessary, for it repeats the same phrase in the preceding studiedly parallel clause, viz., "ipso facto desineret esse membrum Ecclesiae." (See below for our comments on the imbecile's wrong translation of the present active indicative cessat as "would cease.")

O.K., kids.  Pause and take a deep breath....

At this juncture, we're going to excavate the syntactical BIG boo-boos, so put on to your grammar hard hats! We'll understand if you want to skip the next two sections and head straight for the conclusion below ("THE BOTTOM LINE").

TIP Blunders 8, 9, and 10: We'll stay on p. 25 with Wernz, Vidal, still at Blunder 7. (Can you believe one little paragraph has so many blunders?) Here's the entire sentence in the original (our emphases):

At Papa, qui incideret in haeresim publicam, ipso facto desineret esse membrum Ecclesiae; ergo etiam ipso facto cessat esse caput Ecclesiae.

The fatuous Phony Tony translates it: "A pope who falls into public heresy would cease ipso facto to be a member of the Church; therefore, he would also cease to be head of the Church" (our emphases).

Let's point out immediately that Phony Tony neglected to translate at ("but"), the conjunction introducing the minor premise of a first-figure syllogism [8]. (Tone, for some odd reason, doesn't translate the major premise, although it would have helped his argument. Alas, "when you're stupid....") Please note that here, owing to its logical significance, at is not one of those connectors that can be arbitrarily omitted in translation.

Now, moving on to the really problematic goof ups, first observe that incideret is imperfect (active subjunctive),* yet the Latin-less Bonehead translates it as the present (active indicative) "falls" [9]!  Next observe how that he translates the present active indicative cessat as "would...cease," using the -- forgive our exactness -- central epistemic preterit modal auxiliary would, which in English often renders a Latin subjunctive [10].  The translation is plain wrong. Cessat must be translated as an English present active indicative because the original text is merely making a declarative statement about a liability created by operation of law.

Not surprisingly, the Blunderer, as is his nature, completely misses the point, both semantically and legally. The only genuinely hypothetical notion is in the main verb of the first clause, desineret, an imperfect active potential subjunctive used independently.  The other two verbs can or must be translated as indicatives in the appropriate tense. Here's an accurate translation of the whole thing: "But a pope who fell ** into public heresy would have ceased*** ipso facto (or by that very fact) to be a member of the Church; therefore,  he also ceases ipso facto [or by that very fact] to be the head of the Church."

TIP Blunders 11, 12 and 13: Back on page 20, just below the middle of the page, we find something similar to the errors we've just exposed. Let's first look at the Blunderer's translation followed by the Latin original (emphases on translation blunders ours):

Wherefore, if the Roman Pontiff were to profess heresy, before any condemnatory sentence (which would be impossible anyway) he would lose his authority. Proinde si R. Pontifex haeresim profiteatur ante quamcumque sententiam, quae impossibilis est, sua auctoritate privatur.

Here the Checkmeister does indeed accurately render the present deponent subjunctive profiteatur in the protasis of a "future-less-vivid" condition with indicative apodosis. "Were to" (along with "should") is a common option. However, he fatally stumbles with the two remaining verbs: Est is present indicative, so it cannot mean "would be" [11], and the present passive indicative privatur cannot be translated with the past-tense modal auxiliary would [12].**** And, true to his usual, heedless self, the Cheeseball adds without warrant the adverb anyway, to which there is no corresponding word in the original Latin [13]: it's a pure invention on Tony's part. Perhaps a little special pleading, or just rhetorical seasoning?

A close translation is: "Consequently, if the Roman Pontiff should (or were to) profess heresy before any sentence at all,***** which is impossible, he is deprived of his authority." In choosing the present indicative est, the original  merely paraphrases canon 1556, which states the legal fact that no man judges a Sovereign Roman Pontiff; privatur is present indicative because the original text expresses an event occurring by operation of law. However, the Bonehead can't see the obvious, and since he doesn't have an educated feel for Latin syntax, he makes desperate guesses based on his "gut."

THE BOTTOM LINE

Let's face it: The Cheeseball's blunted TIP is no "landmark" study. It couldn't qualify as a term paper in a down-market community college in the Ozarks. It's a promotional leaflet for the cult written for a general, lay readership disaffected by the changes wrought through the Modernist Putsch at Vatican II. (Just ripe for the plucking!)

Its central message -- a heretical pope loses his office -- was old news back in 1995 when the pamphlet was printed. That proposition has been advanced -- and disputed -- for centuries. (BTW, see our 2011 post, "An Inclination to Injustice," for a chilling reminder of what happens when someone intelligent thinks independently on this opinion.)

Even if all the citations were retranslated and the original texts faithfully transcribed, TIP would never merit serious consideration by scholars and properly formed churchmen, just as no professional student of Elizabethan literature would use the Lambs' Tales from Shakespeare to assess the Bard's contribution to English drama. Since the Blunderer will never issue a corrected version of anything, Traddies everywhere should ignore TIP.

It's important to bear in mind that the 13 blunders detailed above (a) occurred on just three pages of a 32-page booklet and (b) came from just three of the 18 references works listed in the bibliography. These blunders may be just the tip of an iceberg of error. How many more goofs await inspection? No one knows yet,****** so here's a tip from the Readers: send your copy of TIP to the recycling center.

Clearly, no one, least of all zombie cultie "rite-trash," should base an important decision about religion on this sloppy pulp leaflet. Our advice is to adopt Pistrina's position of aliquid pravi:

Something, no one's not exactly sure what, is terribly wrong in the Vatican establishment. Anyone else who feels similarly, whether SSPXer, conservative Novus Ordite, FSSPer, or Traddie of any stripe, is a Catholic worthy of fraternal respect, assistance, and fellowship (as long as they're not associated with the Terrible Trio).

* More fully it's a "generic" imperfect active causal subjunctive in a parenthetical relative clause.

** The "generic" subjunctive often was used for descriptive force alone and accordingly is frequently translated as an indicative. However, since the subjunctive in this construction is potential, a modal can be used to describe a person "with reference to his...potentialities, not with reference to some real act committed or being committed" (Woodcock, §155). Accordingly, we wouldn't have objected if he had rendered the verb modally as "would have fallen" even though it's imperfect (see below). But the ignorant Blunderer just plain erred when he translated incideret as "falls."

***The potential imperfect subjunctive is often best translated as an English perfect (so called "real perfect with have"), when it denotes an action conceivable, i.e., one that might have taken place.  That's the subtlety we wished to bring out. But note that this is not a criticism of Checkie's translation of desineret as "would ...cease."  It's acceptable, though linguistically unsophisticated.  Latinists may wish to compare the clause to Cicero's In Verrem, IV 23, 52: qui videret equum Troianum introductum, urbem captam diceret, "anyone who saw that the Trojan horse had been conducted inside, would have said it was a captured city."

****We concede it is not absolutely necessary to preserve the original voice, so that's why we don't cite an additional error; nevertheless, we don't think that lose is the best semantic solution to an awkward passive rendering in English, since privare means "to debar from the possession or use of something," something quite different from mere loss.

***** The Blunderer adds the word "condemnatory," probably by way of interpretation. We won't quibble here, but it would have been better just to translate quamcumque a little more carefully to bring out a subtler range of meaning.

****** Well, actually, we do know for a fact that there're more blunders. For instance, on the same p, 25, in the quotation from Udalricus Beste, the Blunderer leaves out one of the key qualifiers in a phrase. Checkie translates "by falling into certain insanity," but the Latin reads "certam et insanabilem amentiam" -- certain and incurable insanity." From a juridical point view, the missing words are crucial to define the additional criterion for loss of pontifical dignity.  What was he thinking? Did he stupidly confuse insanabilem for insanibilem?

Quand on est bête, on ne peut rien faire. Isn't that right, Canon Berthod, wherever you are?

IMITATION OF LIFE

Editor's Note: Owing to our travel schedule, Pistrina posts early today.

When under any kind of noxious influences an organism becomes debilitated, its successors will not resemble the healthy, normal type of the species with capacities for development, but will form a new sub-species, which, like all others, possesses the capacity of transmitting to its offspring, in a continuously increasing degree, its peculiarities, these being morbid deviations from the normal form -- gaps in development, malformations and infirmities. That which distinguishes degeneracy from the formation of new species (phylogeny) is, that the morbid variation does not continuously subsist and propagate itself, like one that is healthy, but fortunately, is soon rendered sterile...Max Nordau, Degeneration

Last weekend, as we were reading the wise, über-erudite, and always insightful Spanish-language blog Sursum Corda, we found a spot-on analysis of Scut the Prefect's two recent jaw-droppingly moronic tweets. The first reads, "One single 'una cum Mass' is more offensive to God than all abortions ever performed. Just saying..." and the second, "Abortion is a sin against the 5th Commandment, a Mass offered in union with an apostate is a sin against the 1st Commandment..." To quote the astonished blogger, "De no haber visto que realmente él lo escribió, no lo hubiera creído" -- he wouldn't have believed it without having seen that Scut actually wrote it!

Both the blogger and his lively commenter were appalled by the palpable rancor, pride, hatred, ignorance, and malice of that clerical twit's tweets. We were, too, but an additional thought came to mind: Although we don't have a direct pipeline to the Almighty as Scut seems to claim for himself, we cannot conceive how "Big Don's" 1975 ordination at a Mass una cum the apostate Montini can rise to the ghastly sinfulness of the murder of countless innocent unborn, bloodily suctioned or ripped from their mothers' wombs. Just saying...

We're not theologians or mystics, but simple common sense argues that Scutty's equation is not only false, it's absurd, even if there were some substance to the nutty una-cum hypothesis. But there is no substance whatsoever to it. As every informed traditionalist knows, the so-called "una cum" injunction is not a Church teaching. Una-cum is not even a theologoumenon. It's an invention, just a rent-seeking ploy to keep the people and their money chained to the cult centers.

The mammonite lamebrains who concocted the una-cum superstition are malformed, religious scavengers with no brief from the Church to teach. More significantly, they decidedly are not theologians in any sense of the word. For one thing, they have neither the educational credentials nor the requisite teaching and academic publishing experience, and for another, they've never worked under the guidance and supervision of the Church's magisterium.

The cult masters are crass amateurs feeling the heat from the odium plebis in their chapels. That's why they promote this cockeyed theory in order to keep their well-shorn sheep from straying to the green pastures dutifully overseen by good shepherds. The fact that they try to pass off this counterfeit theology as dogma is yet another sign of their radical deviance from the Catholic faith.

Some have commented on these pages that, despite some superficial resemblances, what the cult masters have on offer is not Roman Catholicism at all. We agree. It's some weird, twisted replica, which cannot be termed a sect in accordance with standard sociological typology. That's why Pistrina labels their foul enterprise a cult. With the manic images of Carnival still fresh in the mind's eye, it's the right time now to explore in greater depth the exact nature of the cult's degeneracy and its fundamental unlikeness to the divine faith.

* * *

The cult masters' fantasy world is nothing but tawdry, for-profit theme-park Catholicism as grotesquely imagined by some cult-intoxicated Walt-Disney-manqué. Their garish Traditionland is a freakish simulacrum of the faith, aimed at enticing the spiritually handicapped and the mentally deficient to shed their cash. Like the better managed and more uplifting secular amusement parks, Traditionland boasts a multitude of imaginary "themed lands" of its own.

Its leading attraction is Liturgyland, where you can view a comical "bishop" play dolly dress-up in an empty chapel and witness rites and devotions never-ever seen in the United States. Next door is Yesterdayland, which re-imagines the American Catholic 1950s as they never were; there you can pretend the general decree Maxima redemptionis was never in force.

In the center of it all is eerie Balderdash Mountain, featuring cutesy-pie but unnerving displays like the quaint "Baby Dr. Jesus," sporting hospital gown, surgical cap, stethoscope, and miniature medical bag. There's also a gift shop where you can shockingly overpay (errrr, uhhh, ... we mean, make a generous donation) for a chintsy packet of chalk, incense, and charcoal to inscribe the Magi's initials over your door.

Far away on the periphery, near the fetid garbage dump, is Make-Believe Curia, U.S.A., which is designed to let any unqualified idiot think he's a theologian or canon lawyer. In this land of demented whimsy, get taken for a ride to nowhere on the circular Epikeia Rail Road with stops at fictional Una-Cum Junction and the Forbidden-Leonine-Prayers City. (Be careful lest Scutty the Twitter-Birdbrain hurl a fatal imprecation at you as the train careens headlong down a slippery slope! That pathetic creature is wound tighter than a ball of rubber bands, you know.)

Finally, if you're looking for thrills and chills, visit Swampland Inquisition Square, patterned after the Palacio de la Inquisición in Cartagena, Colombia. It's got loads of vicious interactive games. Be sure to stop at the side wall where there's a small window through which you can denounce that uppity sister-in-law of yours who doesn't believe in the una-cum nonsense. And if you're itching for some more malicious kicks, stop by one of the Square's many sidewalk "confessionals." Pretend you're a "seminarian," and unburden your sedesceptic soul. Once you give the sleazy "confessor" his wickedly solicited permission "to talk to another priest," step outside and watch the sede clown-clergy go bonkers rounding up some intelligent Catholic kid who thinks for himself.  If you're in luck, you might see a summary dismissal. Go ahead and join Scutty and his Toady in cruelly taunting any unfortunate victim as he leaves.

When the hooting and jeering stop, you'll surely want to stay long enough for the nightly St. John's bonfire, where wild-eyed sede bad seeds burn in effigy the cult's critics, whom the cult masters feverishly style Our Enemies. (Warning: keep your mouth shut, or you may end up like a charred marshmallow.) Throughout your visit, everywhere you'll meet a wandering, head bobbing, stumpy mitered sewer rat, with a frozen, toothsome grin, rattling his massive beggar's cup in your face. Pause for a photo op at your own risk, and be sure to hold on to your wallet.

* * *

To get you to spend big bucks and reward their shareholders, the designers of profane theme parks use every trick in the book, liked forced perspective, to help you to suspend your disbelief as you walk through their distorted, exaggerated re-imagining of the world. You go along with the benevolent deception for family unity, the fun of it all, and the distraction it affords from the cares of the real workaday world. If you're well adjusted psychologically, when you leave -- souvenir laden and decidedly lighter in the pocketbook -- you and the kids know it was all a fiction. In the end, nobody believes that the frat boys in mouse suits, the wigged and heavily rouged co-eds turned ersatz princesses, or the jerky pirate automatons are real.

Likewise, the cult masters, in their unceasing efforts to encourage you to part with your money to feather their nests, have fabricated an implausible, cardboard semblance of reality. The difference is, they do everything they can to keep you from admitting it's all a flashy, cheap façade.  Unlike the happy families visiting normal theme parks, the ill-fated clans staggering through bizarre Traditionland end up divided to their dying day after one of their number sees through the malevolent ruse. 

In place of cherished memories of spine-tingling rides and enthralling sights, each anxious, hollow-eyed sede ma and pa, with their traumatized, snarling "youngns" in tow, head home impoverished, bedeviled by recurring flashbacks of the ugly SGG school scandal, screeching clerical cat-fights, harebrained theology, and the Bonehead's chilling Schiavo opinion.  In this wacko, suckers' playground, you're expected to deny what your conscience tells you. You're supposed to remain trapped there forever -- or for as long as you can pay the stiff daily admission fee and buy all the junk.

THE HOAX IS OVER.

IT'S OKAY TO WALK AWAY.

WHY NOT DO IT TODAY?

A TALE OF TWO FACES

Hypocrisy is the most difficult and nerve-racking vice...it needs an unceasing vigilance and a rare detachment of spirit...it is a whole-time job. Maugham

Ya gotta love a guy who pins targets on himself. For a watchdog blogger, "One-Hand Dan" is the gift that keeps on giving and giving: every time he puts pen to paper, he validates Pistrina. A perfect example is his Sexagesima Sunday weather report cum agitprop (a.k.a. "Bishop's [?] Corner"). It's replete with the cult's hallmark hypocrisy, spiteful mischief-making, and bold-as-brass revisionism.  See for yourselves:

DID DANNIE MEAN, "DO AS I SAY,  DON'T DO AS I DO"? 

Wee Dan recounts an incident where a pesthouse completer he "ordained" encounters an SSPV priest while on a visit to a shut-in. As "One Hand" spins the story, the SSPV priest lectured the cultist gofer about "Thucite bishops," whereupon Li'l Dan's tongue-tied lackey "quietly withdrew." Then Dannie rehearses the SSPV position on the invalidity of the Thục line and sums up the Blunderer's account of Bp. Méndez's disputed ordination of the SSPV priest, making sure to add that the cult masters "fear" the offensive priest "may not be validly ordained, either, come to mention it." (Pistrina covered the ordination account in its Nov. 17, 2013, post Perished Counsel.)

Inspired, Wee Dan seizes the occasion to offer this pious exhortation:

Schism is splitting the very Body of Christ, one of the many sins with which we are chastised during these days of the Church’s eclipse. If all we can do is to withdraw in dignified silence, let us do that, adding a prayer.

And then he waxes all warm and squidgy in this high-minded sermonette:

There have always been scandals and splits (knowing Church history is such a consolation), but a persevering charity on our part could go a long way towards a solution. Smile, be charitable, and leave the past to God’s mercy. Pray, and highly value these dear souls. Remember the saints teach us that our enemies who speak and act against us are our real friends, not the friends who are kind and sweet to us. Treat your enemies as though they were your best friends, and maybe one day they will be!

Let's put aside the fact that Dannie should have kept quiet about the possible defect in form of the priest's orders, considering his own priestly orders are questionable owing to a grave defect in matter, which has nothing to do with his Thục lineage. The real issue here is that he should have kept the whole episode to himself, if the Christ-like response to an insult is "dignified silence" while leaving "the past to God's mercy." As usual, Double-standard Dan preaches lofty Christian virtues but in practice plays the low street ruffian ever ready for a hurtful payback.  Some good soul should remind Deacon Dan that in Matthew's Gospel it does not read, "but if one strike thee on the right cheek, turn on him and bloody his %@?*#^$ nose!"

I'M NOT SCARED! REALLY I'M NOT -- AM I?

One of the pleasures of reporting on this clerical buffoon is watching his clownish schemes go up in smoke. Dinky Dan is really the Ralph Kramden of cult masters, isn't he? With his fatal shortcomings, none of the half-incubated stratagems he hatches stands a chance of success. Take, for instance, the following paragraph, where "One Hand" unhelpfully dredges up the agonizing past for the disedification of the souls under his thumb :

Speaking of schisms*, another sad split, fresh enough to be still quite sore, is the St. Albert Chapel started by Fr. Ramolla and now maintained by Bishop Pivarunas as St. Thérèse of Lisieux Church. This small group of our former parishioners meet in different hotels and are surely very devoted to their cause. These souls are cared for by the CMRI Fathers, who come in from a great distance. They are very hard working priests. I am sure they must have many scattered faithful who do not have the Mass every Sunday as we do in Cincinnati, and so many Masses.  

You'd think he'd be embarrassed at how patently obvious he's being here. C'mon, Dan-O! Where is your game? Only debased zombie culties can't see through you like a broken window!  This heart-on-his-shirtsleeves plea surfaced on the very Sunday when the rival prelate was in the West Chester area for confirmations. As any child can see, Dannie's floating a not-so-subtle insinuation that the efforts of the competing bishop's priests might be better deployed elsewhere since the SW Ohio region is so rich in traditional Mass centers.

"One Hand Dan's" probably counting on the faithful's crawling back to cult central loaded down with their weekly offerings and building fund, should the unwelcome bishop take the hint and pull up stakes. It must have really galled Li'l Dan to no end that another bishop, especially one so admired by many rank-and-file Traddies, has pitched his big tent in the cult's back yard. That explains the cringe-worthy attempt to shoo off the frightening (and despised) competition.

"One Hand" humiliated himself, however, to no advantage. On the very same day his message appeared, the lay leaders of the breakaway chapel announced they had "identified a church property in Lebanon [Ohio] that is a very real possibility for us to purchase." When those fine Catholic folks close on the property, Dannie's nemesis will be firmly planted in the SW Ohio area for good, something he's dreaded for many years. That's when the mass exodus from SGG will begin again in earnest. Solid pastoral care without soul-killing squabbles over trivialities will trump mammonite show-time any day of the week. All that egg on Wee Dan's face doesn't go well with those ostentatious, overpriced pontificals, does it?**

CAN WE TAKE A MULLIGAN ON THAT ONE?

As "One Hand" was busy wounding and confusing "the faithful, young or old" by recalling "disagreements" reeking of "a strong personal element," he encapsulated his bitter, decades-old feud with the SSPV in these loaded words:

It all has something to do with saintly Archbishop Thuc, whose Latin was excellent, and Bishop Mendez or Gonzalez, who repeatedly stumbled over an essential word in the form of the Ordination rite years ago.

Hold your horses there, Dirtbag Dan! What was that? "Excellent" Latin??? Yet in Two Bishops in Every Garage, "Peregrinus" -- you all know who that loser goof-ball is -- described the language of Thục's 1982 Declaratio as "extremely crude — hardly what one would expect from someone who holds a Roman doctorate in canon law."

As you know, we haven't allowed that footling masquerader to get away all that claptrap. On our page "Pilgrim's Fine Mess," Pistrina demonstrated that the Latin in the archbishop's Declaratio was competent. (We couldn't say excellent, if the word means "being of the highest or finest quality"; however, we understand that Dannie admits more elastic definitions of English words when needed. And why not! None of the depraved sede Trogs will call him out.) Notwithstanding our arguments, there wasn't a squeak, a hiss, or a chirrup out of Dannie or the Blunderer regarding the archbishop's Latinity until last year, when we noticed the first signs of their convenient revisionism after the Blunderer's appearance on internet radio.

One day Thục's Latin is "extremely crude." Then the next day, when it suits the cult masters, his Latin becomes "correct" and soon afterward "excellent." In actually what do the cult masters firmly believe, besides their own interests? Don't get us wrong. Absolutely, it's laudable to change your mind in light of evidence that a former opinion is in error. In fact, it's intellectually virtuous. However, intellectual honesty obliges us to admit our change of mind and at the same time to disavow our former opinion. And we have to do it in public if we've written publicly.

Once the Readers' textual analysis appeared, Wee Dan should have directed Tony Baloney to walk back his mistaken evaluation. The Bonehead had publicly flip-flopped on his negative assessment of the Thục lineage, so why not do the same thing for the archbishop's Latin? But, true to form, there's been no mea culpa on this matter. It must have been inconvenient: better to pretend they believed it all along.

All this distortion of the record calls to mind a celebrated episode at the beginning of chapter 9 in Nineteen Eighty-Four. There Orwell describes how an Inner Party orator smoothly transitions from denouncing the party's old enemy, Eurasia, to condemning its brand-new enemy, Eastasia. With a similar disregard for consistency, Dannie and the Cheeseball, without a trace of self-consciousness, now praise Thục's Latin without so much as an excuse-me. What's hilarious is they think no one noticed.

As we said, a muck-racking investigator can't ask for a better subject. Li'l Dan makes our job so much easier because he furnishes an inexhaustible supply of fresh examples to back up our every contention. We hope he keeps on writing so the handful of cult-enslaved souls still in possession of a rudimentary conscience realize that not only is it okay to walk away, but it's morally right to take flight from the cult.

*The separation that occurred in 2009 -- precipitated by "One Hand's" ill-advised actions and inaction -- is not schism. Schism is "the crime of one who separates himself from the Catholic Church to form another sect under the pretext that the Catholic Church errs or approves disorders and abuses" (Parente). "One-Hand Dan's" cult is not the Church, and he's not the pope. (He may not even be a bishop or a priest.) Consequently, although many people fled the cult owing to errors, disorders, and abuses, their leaving was not schismatic. It was a righteous deliverance motivated by moral outrage and disgust.

** You can help speed "One Hand" on his way out of town by donating to the chapel's building fund.  Send a generous contribution to the following address:

St. Therese the Little Flower

11711 Princeton Pike #341-205

Springdale, OH 45246