... it is wise to concede that all things are one. Heraclitus (Fragment 50)
Deacon Dan must be getting fidgety about his doubtful orders: lots of traditional Catholics in the U.S., France, South America, and Mexico are talking about His One-Handedness and the real threat of invalid sacraments.
We wonder if that's why Daniel the Dirtbag is sending two of his doubtfully ordained "priests" abroad "for a Summer vacation visit to La France Sacré (sic!)," as he boasted in his August 3 "Bishop's (?) Corner." (Grammar-challenged Dannie, the relentless vulgarian, apparently never learned that la France is feminine, so the adjective must also be feminine -- Sacrée. He really shouldn't try to put on airs with such a lousy formation and unrefined personal background: he looks so very silly.)
Perhaps this tour is an attempt to allay some of the concerns over there about his one-handed ordination. The question over here is: Are the two goofball "priests" paying their way out of their own savings, or is the cult center underwriting all or part of the trip? Considering their "formation," it's hard to see how this odd couple could calm Gallic anxieties about dubious sacraments. We doubt the highly cultured, education-loving French will pay heed to the two meatballs if they go as ambassadors for Dannie's orders.
On this side of the Atlantic, fresh tales from the East Coast inform us that CLODs ("close loyalists of Dannie") are feverishly telling everybody who'll listen that only a substantial change in the matter of a sacrament renders it invalid. According to Li'l Dan's surrogates, when Abp. Lefebvre imposed one hand on Wee Dan's pin head in 1976, it was not a substantial change to Pius XII's rite (which, we point out again, without question specifies the imposition of hands). Apparently they've wisely abandoned Tony the Blunderer's other arguments and are circling the wagons on this one point. Although last year we defeated or rebutted all the arguments Tony Baloney marshaled to support this contention, today we'll put to bed the specious "defense" in a way even a child can understand.
Let's first pose the central question of the debate:
A substantial change in the matter of a sacrament occurs when the matter employed, according to common usage and the estimation of prudent men (secundum communem usum et prudentium aestimationem), is not of the same appearance and name as that determined by Christ and the Church.* Accordingly, in light of Pius XII's very specific, infallible teaching that determined the imposition of hands as the valid matter of the sacrament of priestly orders, Catholics must ask whether, according to common usage, one hand means the same thing as -- and looks like -- two hands.Now, we'll answer the question by way of a case:
Inflamed by prurient sermons on women's dress and their sandals, Spurius, a leering, sede juvenile delinquent with a menacing overbite and terminal post-nasal drip, sits in a sticky back pew busily eyeballing hemlines and ankles. He spies an "immodestly dressed" and summer-shod young fashionista, Virginia, as she gingerly shuffles out of the howling cult center in her spiffy, new Okabashis after being denied communion. Amid a spray of mucous-coated spittle, he snorts to himself, "Dat widdle fwoozie's gotta wearn a wesson in humiwity and iwwumination." He then clumsily springs to his two clubfeet to pursue her, as the crumpled, soiled newspapers on his lap fall noisily to the floor. When the on-trend maiden pauses to dab away a shimmering tear before exiting the squalid industrial park where the fly-blown cult center stands, the yellow-toothed, teen-aged cultie expertly breaks into the trunk of the coördinator's rusted 1992 Pontiac Firebird -- shredding, in the process, a faded I [HEART] TRADISTAN decal that masked the few, stray streaks of original primer. He steals the tire iron and, awkwardly twirling the deadly tool like a baton, menacingly resumes stalking the unsuspecting maiden. Two alert police officers in a passing cruiser observe the foaming, stumbling Trad hoodlum. Alarmed, they determine to shadow him. When the pot-holed access road dead ends, the pert young miss, absorbed in the stinging memory of her ill treatment at the hands of the mentally unbalanced priest and the shrieking harpies of the altar guild, turns around. To her astonishment, the excitedly panting sede bad-seed collides with her. Brandishing with wicked intent the greasy tire iron, the unsightly Traddie youth screeches at the startled lass, "Gimme yer fwip-fwops!" At that moment, the police leap from the patrol car, swiftly draw their side arms, and shout, "Put your hands in the air!" Curling his impetigo-ravaged lips into a crusty Elvis-Presley sneer, the junior sede thug and home-school-valedictorian raises just his one free hand.Well, we've all watched enough TV to guess what happens next, haven't we? Any resultant investigation by the cops' Internal Affairs Bureau will rule the ensuing police response justified: Every prudent man knows that hands doesn't mean hand.
The same goes for Sacramentum Ordinis: when Pope Pius XII decreed the imposition of hands as the matter of priestly ordination, he surely did not mean one hand would do. The Sovereign Roman Pontiff knew that, according to common usage, 1 does not equal 2.
Only a restored Church can give us a definitive answer to the puzzle of the archbishop's negligence. (Was it a Freudian slip?) In the meantime, all Catholics must follow the safer course and consider, as did the nine priests in 1990, "One-Hand Dan's" orders to be doubtful. (Naturally, the same goes for the Unfortunate 14 he's "ordained.")
Put an end to the ongoing threat of sacrilege. Tell all these losers to seek conditional orders immediately.
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