THE ORIGINAL AMATEUR HOUR

Ignorance is not innocence but sin. Browning

If you've ever wanted additional  proof of the cult clergy's amateur standing, you've but to read the August 24 "Corner" on the sgg.org/cult website. Last week Wee Dan was on a "short Summer (sic) respite" -- does that mean the luxurious Bishop's Lodge in impossibly hip Santa Fe? -- so one of the McFakers served as guest bloviator, where he taunted the flat-broke Gerties with a travelogue of his recent extended holiday in France. His cringe-worthy account is an object lesson in how Dannie's doubtfully ordained slackers fall miles short of the mark of the thoroughly trained, broadly cultivated Catholic priests of the past.

Before we began reading the turgid prose, we were amused to observe in the place of Li'l Dan's armorial bearings a coat of arms (obviously snatched from the Internet) displaying the guest writer's surname. Hilariously, the booby left the surname on the escroll, the place for the motto.* Ignoring, for the moment, the prohibition against assuming another's arms even if you share the same last name (a big no-no under heraldic law), we point out that this simpleminded "priest" witlessly retained the helmet and mantling of the borrowed achievement.

Now, everyone with a little ecclesiastical culture knows that once a man's been ordained, he must lay aside any secular heraldic achievement, even if he had a right to it originally. Accordingly, a priest's escutcheon (shield) must be ensigned by a black galero (ecclesiastical hat) with one fiocco (tassel) on either side. Raiding the web for a coat of arms to which you are not entitled is middle-school-level dilettantism in its lowest form. But if you're trashy enough to do it, you should at least try to get the externals right.

The body of the "Corner's" message is equally awful. We won't mention the stilted narrative or the pre-adolescent ruminations or the laughable attempts to ape "One Hand's" mannerisms. What we will focus on are the amateur's misspellings of French words. Like his mentor Dannie, this laggard lacks the energy to double check the accent marks or the received spelling. Maybe he can't tell the difference.  Perhaps it's owing to a perceptual disability, say, some form of Sensory Processing Disorder. Who knows? Whatever the origin, it's the mark of a sloppy, untrained, and immature mind.

Let's take the nickel tour of this illiterate's orthographic errors:

Sacrè Coeur instead of Sacré-Cœur; Claude de la Colombiére instead of Colombière; Catherine Laboure instead of Labouré; the Curè’s feast, after somehow managing twice before to spell Curé correctly; Paray le Monial  instead of Paray-le-Monial; Mont St. Michel instead of Mont Saint-Michel.

If this yokel was able to cut and paste a coat of arms from the 'Net, why couldn't he have taken the trouble to do the same for these French proper nouns? Irremediable amateurism, that's why!

Please don't get us wrong. Our purpose here isn't to horse-whip the village idiot of Tradtown. This loser gets enough disrespect from his fellow sede clergy and his masters, who can barely tolerate his morose presence. (He's really not the "kind of guy" they want to hang with.) Our aim is far more serious -- and charitable. We want to make the case that such ignorance and inattention suggest these "clergy" aren't prepared to sweat the details in the sacred sciences either. That's the real and practical problem for today's Catholics who need guidance on moral issues in light of advances in science and technology.

Contrary to what some commenters may say, we propose that a priest's educational and intellectual attainment has a direct, practical, spiritual benefit for the faithful. A rigorously prepared priest, well versed in moral theology, not the sickly sweet, piously sentimental tracts Granny likes to read, is the best spiritual resource the laity can have. Now, this goofball is pious enough; that's for sure. In fact, he's probably the most pious of all the cult clown crew. Nevertheless, piety alone is not enough for a secular priest charged with the cure of souls. A solid, accurate, professional knowledge of theology is essential for the salvation of souls. 

Most sede priests, pious or otherwise, are unfit to provide answers to many questions that arise in the 21st century, unless the problem exactly matches conditions of the 1950s. (And even then, their frightening amateurism and poor training lead them to make up an answer rather than to research it.) Why the incompetence? First, because their seminary formation is the worst you can imagine. Second, their weak or non-existent academic preparation and the cult's anti-intellectualism bar them from attending institutions of advanced study to make up for their educational deficits. Third, their intellectual bigotry and the absence of assiduous, remedial, independent study render them incapable of evaluating the work of formally trained Novus Ordo or SSPX theological writers, who could be of use in unraveling some of the thorny moral/ethical problems that 21st-century Catholics face in their daily lives.

That's right. We did say that N.O. and SSPX writers can be of value to Trads. In spite of what the blowhard rector and Erroneous Antonius would have you believe, there are many well trained non-sede priests, e.g., Juan Carlos Iscara, SSPX, and Richard Sparks, C.S.P., who are thinking and writing today within an orthodox Catholic framework, particularly in the field of bioethics. If sede clergy possessed an adequate foundation, they would at least be able to evaluate the work of these far better prepared churchmen so as to help guide the laity in making certain decisions in a world where medical science has advanced further than 1950s theologians ever contemplated. A sede priest with an open mind, a discernment that comes from a rigorous formation, and a zeal for souls would be able to assess the orthodoxy of a particular written opinion and offer the faithful informed guidance rather than superstition.

However, insofar as sedes are not taught sufficient content and cannot skillfully reason through a theological question, they prefer to make things up or reflexively say NO. (Many are by nature intellectually inferior and could never master the material even if their teachers were professionally trained.) When faced with a dilemma, many resort to arrogant stonewalling. No research -- except, perhaps, to confer with a cult master, who's just as ill-prepared but more forcefully opinionated. No looking things up. No sober analysis based on well-learned and oft-practiced theological principles.  They just widen their eyes, vigorously shake their empty heads, and leave the laity in tears to fend for themselves.

The bottom line is that these sede know-nothings are rank amateurs, whose advice in the confessional or in a counseling session is as misinformed as their spelling of French geographical names.

* Should this bumpkin one day seek to become legitimately armigerous, may we suggest Horace's Virtus Post Nummos ("virtue after money") as a suitable motto for a groveling lackey owned by the mammonite SW Ohio cult?