BOXING-DAY BONUS

One error almost compels another. Coleridge

Editor's Note: Today we're giving the SW Ohio cult masters a nice Christmas Box of acute grief as we expose for the second time this month some of the awful errors in Dannie's new ORDO 2016. St. Nick and his sidekick just thundered out of sleazy Tradistan, where ol' Krampus left plenty of  stinging switches and grimy coal for the scumbag clergy. So while the tears are still fresh on these vile clerics' resentful faces, we thought we'd share with everyone our answer to the following note penned by a rabid cult loyalist:

It is positively sinful how you trashed Bishop Dolan's and Father Cekada's ORDO 2016 over just a few silly typographical errors. [Click here for our Dec. 5 post, Ed.]  They are trying to keep the Faith alive which is more than you nasties are doing, you are killing it....If you know so much, why don't you publish an Ordo so priests can say Holy Mass to keep sinners like you from burning in hell?

Pistrina has exposed -- and will continue throughout 2016 to expose -- much more than "a few silly typographical errors." To be honest, we never planned to put out on Front Street any simple typos, i.e., mere unintentional errors of omission, transposition, duplication, or character substitution. Such slips can sometimes escape the notice of expert, properly educated proofreaders.

Therefore, if our correspondent hadn't written, we never would've publicly reproved the cult compiler(s) for the obvious typo S.C.R. (p. 28) since later on we found the correct order of letters, S.R.C., on pp. 33, 90,  and SRC on pp. 88, 94, and 109 (albeit we must condemn the careless inconsistency in using periods). Likewise, we would have been silent about the erroneous "is ante auroram..." (p. 109) instead of the correct "si ante auroram..." (although we find it hard to imagine how a proofreader with a minimal command of Latin could miss that one: the clause wouldn't have made sense to a mind conscious of basic Latinity, while the si's in the two succeeding parallel clauses would have alerted all but the dullest of proofreaders that an inversion had occurred).

No, dear friends and foaming-at-the-mouth foes, what we have in Dannie's ORDO 2016 is something far worse than an abundant collection of inadvertent errors. You see, we've closely studied this mistake-studded disaster and concluded the howlers are quasi-deliberate by-products of a malformed mind so ignorant of Latin and the rubrics that once it commits an error of transcription, it is incapable of restoring the original reading. Moreover, this stingily endowed "brain" has been so badly schooled that it will of necessity make deplorable mistakes despite having at hand the correct text as a reference. It is a pathologically disordered mind that must, by reason of its perverse nature, err. Nothing can stop it from making mistakes. Erring is instinctual for this Trad-Town idiot.

Yes, we know our proposition may sound absurd. However, if you reject it as the underlying cause of the chain of errors from beginning to end in Dannie's ORDO 2016, then you'll be forced to consider the alternative: The compiler purposefully intended to sabotage Dannie and Donnie's cult and embarrass the two wandering bishops before a raucously jeering TradWorld. Although that's not impossible, we can't imagine any of the cult clergy's harboring such premeditated guile. That would require a mind in possession of itself, a mind without any signs of neurological deterioration. Clearly that's not the case with Dannie's compiler: He's a congenital nitwit of the first water. So, you see, it's far more likely this bewildered numskull is a clerical Joe Btfsplk and by no means a fifth columnist.

When Dannie's ordo-compiler typed the erroneous in loco Missa Votiva (as detailed on Dec. 5), where he entered nominatives instead of the required genitives, it was not a case of errant fingers visiting the wrong keys. Since Dannie's ordo uses the ligature -æ for 1st declension genitive and dative singular and nominative plural, a compiler who knew Latin would either have to insert a special character or type short-cut, character-code keystrokes.  That mechanical necessity, along with the repetition of the same error on pp. 7, 50, and 64, confirms it was due to profound ignorance.* Consequently, it's not a "silly" typo. Sure, the compiler may have accidentally mistranscribed -a's for -æ's, but subsequently he proved himself incapable of fixing the goof or too lazy to check his typed copy against the original. Then he later made the same mistake twice! No matter how you look at it, this dog won't hunt.

Throughout 2016, on a monthly basis, we'll be exposing the ORDO 2016 errors resulting from an ignorance of Latin and Catholic tradition that's not only invincible but also perniciously resistant to correction. There are so many of these almost purposeful goofs that we could actually fill a whole year's worth of blog posts with them. (Don't worry, we won't put you through 52 weeks of mind-numbing torture.) The errors we'll feature won't be simple typos a competent person could make. They'll be stunning examples of a malformation so severe that no priest or lay person with discretion will ever consider using Dannie's ORDO 2016.

Had it not been for the above email, we would've waited until late January to continue our exposé. But since our fan-of-Dan correspondent claimed we were nitpicking, we feel obliged to cite two additional examples, one near the beginning and the other at the end of Dannie's ordo, to support our assertion that "One Hand's" ordo is packed with outrageous, empty-headed errors from cover to cover.

The first is on p. 13 (Feb. 2) where we read in the note, "...et ab inceptio Canone...." The correct Latin would be ab incepto [or incœpto] Canone. Now perhaps you could argue that since the i and o keys are adjacent to each other on the QWERTY keyboard, this is a "silly" typo. In all honesty, we might be tempted to agree, if not for the fact that the resulting abstract noun inceptio is so syntactically and idiomatically out of place that a proofreader who understood Latin would have caught it immediately. Why? Well, first of all it wouldn't make sense when followed by the ablative Canone, and second, as every literate school boy knows, Latin style prefers the concrete expression to the abstract.

Our second example — and, boy, is it a gem of a howler, the mother of all howlers, in fact! —is found in the last two lines on the last page, printed in big, bold CAPITAL letters:

LAUS DEO BEATÆQUE MARIÆ VIRGINIS (!!!) REGINÆ

Before revealing the correct form of the erroneous word, a little background is in order.

For hundreds of years, many ordines (plural of ordo) ended with a conventionalized doxological tag rendering praise to God and to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The exact wording of the formula varies from simple single-letter abbreviations to a few lines of text bearing several Marian titles/epithets and even the addition of other saints. What's common to all, however, is a scrupulous observance of elementary Latin grammar.

Hence, insofar as praise is given TO God and TO our Lady, the dative case must be used. But Dannie's ordo — like him, an alien to Latin and authentic Catholic tradition — does not print the grammatically correct VIRGINI ("to the Virgin"), but rather the unintelligible genitive virginis, "of the Virgin" ⁉️

There may be a number of explanations for this moronic error (v.g., Beatæ, Mariæ, and Reginæ can be both dative and genitive; consequently the feckless, malformed compiler became confused as he was copying from his original). There are, however, no excuses. It's not as though the dative phrase Beatæ Mariæ Virgini is seldom heard: Good grief! Priests, whether real or pretend, say these three words every time they recite the Confiteor at Mass and at Compline! (Tsk! Tsk! What will Big Don say about this? Will he send back the copies he ordered and demand a refund? Nope ... he hasn't the guts -- or the sensus catholicus.)

How on earth could a supposedly Catholic priest, a "seminary" completer to boot, have not spotted this illiteracy immediately after typing it? How could a proof reader not have caught such a solecism, considering it was printed in large upper-case letters and set in a prominent place? That's why we characterized the goofs in Dannie's ORDO 2016 as pathological. They do more than impeach this shabby, inept effort on the part of sub-educated chuckleheads who have no competence to confect an ordo in the first place. The botches lay bare the whole cult charade of playing Church. They scream for you to get away from the SGG cult, for they frighteningly intimate that these interlopers probably don't understand what they're reciting when they simulate Mass.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .  .

Now, by way of conclusion, our final answer to our cultling nemesis:

There are two very good reasons why we ourselves won't take up our misguided correspondent's challenge to produce our own ordo: (1) unlike the SGG-Brooksville cult cabal, we know we don't possess the intimate, technical knowledge of the rubrics to dare issue our own edition, even though about 80% of ordo compilation consists in simply copying from the past efforts of competent men; and (2) there already exists a perfectly serviceable, easy to read, competently edited ordo available from England, the compiler of which has earned a master's degree from an English university with a thesis on the liturgy. So why re-invent the wheel, especially when we have one from a disciplinary expert and life-long student of the Roman rite?

If you've already purchased a copy of this dreadful failure, contact Dannie and demand a refund. (In justice he owes it to you.) If you're contemplating its purchase, don't do it. If you're a cult priest who's been told you must use it, man-up and tell "One Hand," NO. (And if you haven't the guts, buy another product and use it instead.)

* Our assessment of the compiler's ignorance is even more dramatically proved in another error we pointed out on December 5, viz., ad unicam N. We found at least 47 occurrences (!) of the same mistake. That's no "simple" typo: that's pure, unadulterated ignorance.

WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM OUR FRIENDS

No one is so rich that he does not need another's help. Pope Leo XIII

FLASH! TRADDIE TRAVEL AND VAGUS VACATION ALERT! We  interrupt today's post to bring you news that Big Don will be vacationing in London at the end of December. Does this mean that there'll be TWO (count 'em, two!) wandering bishops wandering through London Town at year's end? Or was the invitation to "One Hand" rescinded? Or maybe our informant was misinformed.  We're thoroughly baffled. We'll just have to keep visiting the befouled "Bishop's (?) Corner" until we get an answer. Now back to this week's topic...

A recent comment about Tony Baloney's second edition of his painfully amateurish Work of Human Hands prompted this post. "One-Hand Dan" is pushing that piece of ill-written trash on his website (click here for the page) with an advert that suggests to us it may not be available on Amazon. A visit to Amazon's site uncovered nothing to indicate a new edition there. It seems, then, that Li'l Dan's cult center and bizarre bazaar could be the sole source.

That means it may be a while before we can get our (latex-gloved) hands on a copy. Therefore, we need some assistance from any of you out there who may have access to this second edition. We want to find out two things before we purchase a book that rightly should be banned for its incompetent execution and shop-worn content:

1. Did Checkie correct the blunders that Pistrina exposed in 2010 (and later)? and

2. In his preface to the second edition, did the Cheeseburger give Pistrina due credit?

The second question will be the easier to answer. If anybody out in cyberspace has a copy -- or can borrow a copy -- of this second edition, could you read the new preface (if there is one) to determine whether Tony Baloney did or did not acknowledge our hard work? If he did, then please email us at pistrinalit@gmail.com or notify us on the comments page for this post.

If he didn't publicly recognize our scholarly efforts to set him straight, we ask you to look at the body of the text to see if he made corrections. Given that Phony Tony made tons of blunders of all types, it wouldn't be realistic to ask you to read through our 2010 posts to see whether he made all the corrections. So, as an alternative to such drudgery, we've chosen one error in particular, which he certainly would (should?) have corrected, if he in fact corrected anything at all.

(We hedge a little here because the cult masters usually don't admit or fix their many goofs, as you all know, so he may not have corrected any of the blunders we highlighted. He may, however, have corrected the flaws Dr. Hull pointed out so as to ingratiate himself with the man who called for a second edition soon after the first was published.)

The botch we have in mind is found on page 320 of the first edition, right under the caption "FOR YOU AND FOR — ALL." We suspect that most of the pagination will have remained the same, but it may be off by a page or so. At the beginning of that section, Checkie was prattling about "tampering with the Words of the Consecratiion themselves." Right after that, he quoted the central text for the traditional Catholic argument against the Novus Ordo Missae and therein made a huge blunder: qui pro vobis et pro multis effundeter (!!). So, then, if he corrected his original, you should now see the word spelled as effundetur.

As we observed back in 2010, this was a very grave, perhaps unpardonable, boo-boo: Erroneous Antonius reads these words every time he consecrates at Mass. What's more, they are at the heart of the trad insistence on the invalidity of the New Mass. "How on earth," we asked at the time in head-shaking amazement, "did he miss that error." Accordingly, it stands to reason that if the Blunderer were going to correct anything, he'd fix that wailing howler first. Don't you agree?

Whatever help any of you can give will be welcome. If you find the change, we'll move heaven and earth to get our own copy of WHH 2.0 in order to check out all the corrections we offered. If it turns out he adopted them without acknowledging our invaluable assistance (as a honorable and real scholar would do), then we'll demand public recognition from him. (But we won't hold our breath.)

THE COMEBACK KID

If improper bishops be made, that is not the fault of the bishops, but of those who make them. Johnson

Last December 28, we urged Gerties to make a solemn New Year's resolution to leave the cult center in 2015. As we counseled, SGG's cultlings are fortunate in having so many traddie alternatives within easy reach, including the SSPV, SSPX, an independent chapel or two and, yes, even the deservedly much maligned CMRI.

If, for some reason, none of the above options is palatable to some of the remaining Gerties anxious to escape "One-Hand's" aggressive panhandling and budget-bustin' travel schedule, we're delighted to announce the arrival of a new alternative in Tradtown:

OUR LADY OF VICTORY CHAPEL

6011 Tylersville Road, Suite 5, Mason, Ohio 45040

📞 513-668-5951  e-mail: ourladyofvictory@mail.com

(Click here to go to what they call the "official information source.")

This upstart sede venue is run by a name well known in the area: "Bishop (?)" Markus Ramolla, who six years ago almost to the day, in the wake of the suicidal SGG School Scandal, led oppressed Gertie bondservants out of Dannie's raccoon-plagued Egypt into a promised land of cult-free Catholicism. Now he's back again roaming his old stomping grounds, chastened and re-mixed for his second act in American life. The Moses-meme is out. This time he's a scrappy lightweight challenging the reigning bantamweight titleholder for the undisputed championship of SW Ohio in a shabby cage match we'll bill as the Battle of the Make-Believe Bishops.

Sure, he's got his critics and detractors. But what out-sized personality in Cultilandia doesn't?  And there's one thing you can bet the farm on: The Kid's got moxie -- and boy-oh-boy can he build chapels! What's more, the cult masters have thrown every low blow those maggots had at him, yet he's still standing on his feet, bolo punchin' and rope-a-dopin'.

He's a real contender, that's for sure. Deacon Dan's afraid of that, you can bet your booties, Granny. (So's Big Don.) The first punch -- and we think it'll be a knock out -- is the Kid's to deliver. We can't wait to be there for the count. Maybe Tony Baloney, Li'l Dan's chief second, will throw in the towel as soon as His Vagrancy returns from Merry Olde England.

(Assuming, that is, the vacation alert we received is accurate. For some strange reason, Travelin' Dan hasn't confirmed it yet. Our sources are usually impeccable, so we ask: Why is "One Hand" being so coy? Is he worried his culties won't be so generous at Xmas time if they learn about a pending, unnecessary escape to sophisticated and super expensive London? Will he stay at Claridge's, or somewhere else in posh Mayfair? Those folks over there aren't "dirt poor," so it'll be fun to know who pays for this shanty Irish-American's junket: cash-strapped, tapped-out, downmarket Gerties or well-heeled, upscale, pukka British swells from the City?)

In the meantime, the Mitered Mauler can prepare to take over the title to Cultilandia by getting himself conditionally ordained and consecrated. He's one of "One-Hand's" ordinati, you know. it might be prudent for him to seek conditional orders ASAP so he can stand tall in the ring when the ref raises his arm in victory.  Our champ's aware there are more trad bishops than a barn dog has flees, so he should have no difficulty finding one to help him out now that he's back in the U.S.A., ready to rumble in the Tradistani jungle.

So what are you waiting for, Gerties?
SW Ohio is your oyster.

Ready ... Set ... Leave!

NOCIVUS ORDO CLERICORUM

... for we must never offend against grammar. Lord Chesterfield

Editor's Note: A hot new rumor from Europe has His Peripateticality visiting London, England, later this month. Accordingly, we felt it nessary to publish the following rather longish, technically detailed post before Yankee Doodle dandy comes to town a-begging without Tony. Just in case there's substance to the scuttlebutt, we want everyone, especially the English who should know better than to traffic with malformed American cult masters, to realize cult clergy are not the real thing. After today, our English brethren may disinvite this apostle to their most bitter future.

The bumbling clerical sad sacks at Cult Central, U.S.A., are at it again: laboring mightily without success to exceed the extremely limited grasp of their pitiful formation. They claw after unattainable prestige, yet always end up failing miserably, as you'll learn once more in today's post.

Last week we saw where the SGG cult is proudly offering for sale its own ordo (pl. ordines), the annual calendar in mostly abbreviated Latin with instructions for the daily recitation of the Breviary and the celebration of Mass. "One Hand" has made a big to-do about the effort: he's bursting with pride, as, indeed, is the whole clown crew. (You can read all about it here.)

You'd think they'd've made sure there were no howling errors on the pages they selected to preview (viz., the cover, the key to the abbreviations, and the first page of January 2016). After all, why give us demon rascals at Pistrina a chance to rip it apart and shame the "clergy" in front of a jeering Trad Nation?

But you see, they can't help it. Even when they've got  -- right in front of their foolish faces -- copies of old ordines from the '20s, '30s, '40s, and early '50s, they're so malformed they can't keep from making mammoth linguistic blunders. That's why, starting today, we're launching a recurring series of posts over the next year to expose all the errors we've found in the cult masters' latest embarrassing effort to pass themselves off as authentic successors to Catholic practice (and then hilariously prove to everyone that they're not).

For Pistrina's first installment, we'll focus on the cult masters' perennial problem: L-A-T-I-N.

On the cover, we read the following grand title:

ORDO 2016

Ecclesiæ Sanctæ Gertrudis Magnæ

Archidiœcesi (!!) Cincinnatensis.

We'll have more to say about the content of this imposture at the end, but for now we observe how these sede morons have used the groaningly wrong form for the genitive singular of the Latin word for "archdiocese." The Latin nominative archidiœcesis is (a) feminine and (b) third declension, so its genitive singular ends in -is, not -i. (Archidiœcesi is either dative or ablative singular.) That means Dannie's cover page should've read Archidiœcesis Cincinnatensis. The only reasonable conclusion we may draw is that the cult "clergy" must think the word is second declension, the genitive of which is -i. (We rule out the possibility of its being a simple typo because this is the cover page, for heaven's sake: they would have tried their level best to proof it. Don't you agree?)

The pinhead compiler(s) -- the Forlorn Finn (along with Checkie Cheeseball)? -- who surely had a copy of an old Cincinnati ordo to consult, must not have noticed (or understood)  the correct form printed thereon: "ORDO... IN USUM Archidioecesis Cincinnatensis." The pompous buffoon(s) who drafted this grammatical mess went to all the trouble to spell the word with the optional ligature œ (which an old Cinci ordo in our possession doesn't use), yet couldn't get the correct morpheme. Why be elegant when you can't deliver on the most important element, to wit, the grammar.

Are these unschooled jokers first-class losers, or what?!

Now when we turn from the cover to the text of the ordo proper, right there on the very first page, on the very first day of the new year, we find another ear-priercing howler in the note at the bottom of the Jan. 1 cell:

 ...in loco Missa (!!) votiva (!!)....

In standard rubrical Latin, the phrase "in loco" (or loco) meaning "in place" is followed by a genitive (i.e., "in place of the votive Mass etc."). Therefore, the forms should have been Missae votivae, not the nominative or ablative singular, as these Latin-less goof balls have printed.  The blunder is i n-e x-c u s-a b l e. Over hundreds of years, books and journal articles on the rubrics always have always used the genitive.* If these perennial fortune's-fools had been conversant with any of the classic Catholic rubrical works, the form of the idiom would've been so solidly fixed in their little, pointy noggins that the error never could have seen the light of day. But both you and we know these Bozos aren't the real thing, are they?

The next entry on the same page, that of January 2, isn't free from a screaming howler either. Right off the bat we read in the second line

...ad unicam (!!) N...

According to the grammatical number of its modifying adjective, the abbreviation N, despite what the carelessly constructed abbreviation key** tells us, signifies "Nocturn," a singular noun, thank you very much. The Latin equivalent is nocturnus, a second-declension masculine noun. But the SGG cult blunderers must not know the word's gender because the adjective they print, unicam, is feminine. Someone who knew elementary Latin would have printed "ad unicum N[octurnum]." But obviously Dannie's boy(s) mustn't know basic Latin.

Compounding the botch is the fact that an ordo compiler doesn't need very much Latin to begin with. (That's good for the cult clergy!). The actual text can be copied from old ordines published in the good ol' days. (They used boilerplate then, too.) Therefore, all you need is someone with rudimentary Latin so you can proof the copy for transcriptional errors like, say, typing unicam for unicum. (Maybe Tony Baloney was the proof reader here, which explains the lapse.)

There's no excusing this mistake either. Agreement of adjectives and nouns with respect to case, number, and gender is one of the earliest lessons in first-year Latin. But, of course, if you don't know the gender of the noun modified, then the erroneous unicam would look fine, wouldn't it? We mean, at least it's the right case after the preposition ad. In the malformed, sloppy sede cult masters' challenged minds, one out of two isn't bad at all and, in fact, is far above their customary performance.

Beyond the shockingly erroneous concord lurks another, more serious problem, a problem that impeaches the usefulness of  Dannie's ordo, especially for the cult's own "priests." Among the chief objectives of an ordo are (1) to make it easy, in as few words as possible, for the user to find what he must recite and (2) to minimize the possibility of reciting the wrong element.

Let's see how the Gertie ordo stacks up against those criteria. The entire instruction translates as follows: "At the sole Nocturn, the lessons and the responsories [are] proper." At first blush, we have to say that this is hardly better than many of the pre-Pius X ordines, which laconically advised that the Office was proper.

Twentieth century ordines seem to give a lot more guidance. For instance, the 1937 Columbus, Ohio, and the 1954 Cincinnati ordines were quite detailed, even more detailed than those of St. Paul, counseling that the first and second lessons with their own responsories were to be taken from the occurring Scriptural pericopes, but the third would come from St. Augustine's sermon on St. Stephen followed by the Te Deum. Such explicit direction made it almost impossible for an inexperienced, careless, or ignorant priest to read the wrong third lesson (viz., the one printed for an occurring Office of nine lessons). The contemporary 2010 ordo issued by the Saint Lawrence Press in England is similarly detailed in its direction.

In an age of virtually non-existent priestly formation -- so dark a time that one of Tradistan's "priests" in Michigan (the infamous MHT completer, Ozzie the Skipper) could forget the consecration at Mass -- a functional ordo must strive for exactness in order to prevent malformed sede clergy from erring. SGG's apparently cavalier inattention to modern circumstances bodes ill for what promises to be a very sloppy,  poorly curated, amateur effort. Why the cult masters, who pretend to be in the diocese of Cincinnati, didn't copy from the old -- and better executed -- Cinci ordines is a mystery.

That thought brings us back to the text of the cover page, which (after correcting the compiler's[s'] bad Latin) translates as 2016 Ordo of the Church of St. Gertrude the Great of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. O.K. Here we go again. We've said it before, but we guess it bears repeating:

The SGG cult center does not belong to the Archdiocese of Cincinnati because it was not erected as a moral personality in the Church: SGG was not built with the express written consent of the Ordinary, and the rectors of neighboring churches with an interest in the matter were never consulted. Since it was never erected in the archdiocese, SGG has no claim to any association with the Ecclesiastical Province of Cincinnati.

To be blunt, in spite of adopting the (rightly disputed***) label "Roman Catholic," SGG no more belongs to the archdiocese than do any of the heretic and schismatic "churches," the synagogues, the Mormon temples, and the mosques scattered throughout the Cincinnati Metropolitan Statistical Area. Therefore, the ordo's title is not only grossly misleading (and ungrammatical), but also it's a further proof that these bumblers are just "playing church."

If their marketing strategy demanded they reference the archdiocese to which they do not belong, they should have described their ordo as based upon the former calendar and liturgical practice of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. That, however, would require an entirely different Latin text, the composition of which certainly lies well beyond their patently limited competence in the Church's official language. (We would do it in five words, omitting the "Church of SGG" absurdity****.)

There's only one conclusion: No one can have any confidence at all in His Presumptuousness's ORDO 2016. Permit us to re-emphasize an earlier point:  ORDO 2016's Latin should be error free.  Every syllable of copy needed to produce an ordo can be found in editions printed before the 1955 changes to the liturgy (and, truth be told, after, too). Old ordines are available from libraries, online sources, private collections, and booksellers, so there's no claiming lack of availability. That the errors we exposed today were allowed to stand is a condemnation of the whole cult crew and a witness to its abysmal malformation: these clerical cretins haven't yet begun to start thinking in Latin, as truly traditional clerics would.

Priests and laity would be wise never to consult Deacon Dan's ORDO 2016. Coming from the clownish cult masters, it's just not trustworthy. If you bought it, demand a refund.

* A one-minute search in Google Books yields a whole slew of examples, of which here are only a handful: loco Missae votivae SS. Trinitatis, loco Missae de Sta. Maria, loco Missae de Ssmo Corde, loco Missae de requiem, loco Missae solemnis, loco Missae hebdomalis, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, (as Rodgers and Hammerstein's King of Siam might say).

** The first page of the abbreviation key (that's all the preview displayed) is the work of an unkempt mind deprived by stony-hearted Mother Nature of any sense of consistency or thoroughness. As an example: for N, which in our example above is singular, the key lists the masculine plural form ("Nocturni"), yet in the phrase we translated, the word lessons is abbreviated by "LL," although the key only shows one "L" against the singular "Lectio." (These guys are thoroughly confused, aren't they?)

Tidy intellects often follow the common abbreviation convention of using suspensions consisting of one letter for the singular, then doubling the single letter for the plural  (e.g., N = nocturn, NN = nocturns; L = lesson, LL = lessons). They also understand that abbreviations like this must be catalogued in the key for the user's convenience. Furthermore, the key must be complete; users shouldn't have to do the compiler's work for him.

But, as we said, that's what tidy intellects do; sloppy pea brains produce what you find on the SGG Resources page. Over the next year, we'll point out similar breaches of orderly ordo construction.

*** An urbane Italian observer once described SGG's practice with the attenuative cattolicastro, "Catholic-ish," as we might say.

****One day we'll share with you a real canonist's opinion of the liturgical title "St. Gertrude the Great."

A LOST GENERATION

O! call back yesterday, bid time return. Shakespeare

One of the most elementary, yet essential concepts behind good pedagogy is time on task. For students to learn effectively, they must spend as much time possible in the classroom fully engaged in efforts directly related to achieving instructional objectives. Of course, some off-task behavior may be tolerated, but it must not be too long or too distracting or so tiring as to impede school's central mission.

Moreover, administrators must make certain that children view any educator-initiated interruptions from a proper perspective: they're often refreshing, at times useful, and can support indirectly children's mastery of their subjects. However, at no time are they ever to be allowed to surpass in value teaching and learning the curriculum. School officials, when scheduling extra-classroom activities or events during the school day, must plan them such that their duration is short and that they do not weaken children's emotional commitment to academics. Otherwise, it's educational malpractice.

Those who follow this blog with any regularity know our low opinion of the SW Ohio cult center's "school," the so-called principal  (LOL) of which stood at the center of the 2009 scandal that rocked SGG to its creaky, rotting foundation. Most of the Gerties, even the beady-eyed fanatics, at least know enough not to send their kids there (enrollment seems to be confined nowadays to a couple families). Well before the online exposé began in earnest in 2008, troubling stories and parents' uncanny sixth sense for the welfare of their offspring warned most people to steer clear of the creepy and kooky despite the hype from the "Bishop's (?) Corner." Good parents -- even the cult-addled ones -- recoiled at the thought of leaving their children to the harsh mercies of the Addams Family of lower Tradistan.

Although much of the shocking behavior that precipitated the catastrophic November 2009 SGG School Scandal appears to be under control (for the time being, at least), for one reason alone all Gerties should demand a thorough housecleaning before giving any more money for the support and maintenance of the "school": precious learning time, time that may never be recovered, is being wasted on the school choir.

Web watchers are aware that the "school" boasts of a daily sung Mass. (How unlike the 1950s when priests and nuns understood the importance of educating young Catholic minds and therefore offered Low Mass). To make sure the cult's poorly attended daily Big Show goes on, starting in the first grade, SGG children -- it seems to be only the girls -- must learn to chant. Now the choir isn't an after-school, extra-curricular activity optional for the kids who're interested. Reliable reports say it's required (no doubt because choral groups seem to be dear to Dannie's heart: maybe he imagines he's being serenaded -- the "Donkey Serenade," we'd venture).

Based on observations and first-hand intelligence, rehearsals and performances must consume about 90 minutes each day! So if, say, an instructional day is about six hours long, that's 25% of the time spent on just one activity, which isn't even a core academic subject!! (That estimate is all the more terrifying in view of research findings indicating that, on the average, students spend just 42% of the school day actively engaged in learning.) On some days, the loss of instructional time is more scandalous because all funerals appear to be scheduled to take place during the school's daily High Mass. Since staff members must also sing, the boys serve, and the disgraced principal act as the officious usher, a large portion of a "Requiem school day" goes to support a single, non-essential activity.

This waste of invaluable instructional time is all the more reprehensible when you read self-serving remarks like the following, which were made in a 2008 Restoration Radio interview with Dannie and Checkie:

... we’ve gotten students here who have come from a homeschooling background and they are really behind. I mean, there are some real exceptions, of people who do really well. But, my impression is that a lot of the mothers just aren’t up to it time or education-wise.*

What a load of self-serving bull feathers! Well, it's more than our impression that SGG School personnel aren't "up to it time or education-wise" either. The cult masters were obviously trying to shame the poor moms who don't feel secure in sending their children to that educational black hole. (Bear in mind that the exposure of SGG School's administrative troubles began in 2008, so there might have been another agenda at work in the interview.)

For our part, we'd like to see how these cult-bred kids perform on the state's proficiency tests against the public schools and homeschooled youth. The result might be eye-opening for everyone. If only the cult masters had the sense and conscience to weep over the time lost forever, never to be restored, rather than harass what they call "highly protective...and sometimes critical" parents whose hearts tell them not play the cult's game. Say what you will about these well-intentioned moms, but at least they don't fritter away a huge chunk of valuable learning time on choir.

In the real world, which Sedelandia despises, no real school -- public or private -- could long survive if most of the students squandered a quarter of each instructional day on choir activities. Right-thinking parents along with the authorities would have stepped in long ago to save the poor children's future. You Gerties who support this farcical "school" with your contributions must step up to the plate and go to bat for the innocent. First you must withhold all moneys. Only then will Dannie know you're serious. Once he's desperate enough to hear you out, you must tell him to close that disgraceful place down for good and get rid of the whole crew.

Members at other sede cults operating a "school" also need to take a good, long, hard look to determine whether their kids are being miseducated. They should ask their children every day about what they're doing in school. They should then write everything down. If parents notice inordinate amounts of time being wasted on activities not related to the curriculum, then their kids are at risk, too. Like the Gerties, parents stuck in other cult centers have a duty to intervene decisively.  The best way -- no, the only way -- is to

STARVE THE BEAST!

* http://truerestoration.blogspot.com/2009/03/interview-with-bishop-daniel-dolan-and.html?m=1

FAREWELL TO HARM

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see... Tennyson

After hearing nothing for quite a spell, we're suddenly flooded with e-mails about Our Lady of the Sun chapel way out West in El Mirage, Arizona.  Rumors are flying that the "priest" currently assigned there may be going to Virginia. And we have fresh accounts confirming much earlier stories about the lay leadership's active search for a replacement.

That's really no surprise. As we reported back in 2011 (click here), Big Don had bragged in a pesthouse newsletter, “we are very hopeful and confident that our relationship to [Our Lady of the Sun Chapel, Arizona] will become permanent” (a reference to the apparently once-discussed possibility of the lay board's turning over everything -- lock, stock, and barrel -- if the arrangement worked out). The board must have done its due diligence, for soon thereafter we learned it had decidedly rejected a crudely insistent demand for out-and-out control. 

After the harsh rebuff, the rector continued to play the crass hireling, probably partly for the fees and partly because he had nowhere else to house the "sisters" he'd sent out there. He couldn't have liked the situation in the least. You just know it had to stick in his craw that, according to a first-hand account we received, he was bested by a layman, a veteran lawyer, who couldn't be cowed with all that empty clerical swagger and bluster. It must have galled the rector exceedingly to think of all that money and merchantable real estate under the tightfisted stewardship of conscientious LAY PEOPLE -- a condition he naturally abhors. 

After four and a half years, IOHO, it looks as though the justly cautious lay board may never hand over the assets to Big Don. Using our mind's eye, we can envision how, as he nursed the viper of resentment in his bosom through each passing year of disappointed acquisitiveness, his resolve to strike back -- to retaliate for frustrating his plans -- must have hardened. First his lumbering, big $30-K plan* never got off the ground that year. Then his high-flying effort to take over the Arizona chapel crashed and burned, obliging him to remain a lowly hired hand of a lay board.  Unyielding lay opposition forced him to violate what seems to be his most sacred principle, viz. laymen have no right to control money and assets attached to their own chapel. Every time he figuratively outstretched his grasping paws for his servant's wages, he must've bristled with bitter, biting self-loathing. His cult followers' repeated inquiries about the status of the "permanent relationship" probably didn't make it any easier.

You don't have to be a a fortune-teller to divine it all. You just have to understand the surly nature of all these mammonite, clerical crud balls.

Now all this background along with the new whispers inspired us to hazard a not-so-wild guess at what he might have in mind for the recalcitrants at Our Lady of the Sun, who refuse to see the wisdom in forking over everything they possess to Big Don for his big-spending dreams. So, then, what will he do? It's a no brainer: He'll just pick up his marbles and go home, leaving the people hell-bound, without the sacraments.** You can almost hear him croak, "That'll show 'em, it will, it will! Let 'em buuuuuurn for eternity!"

But there's one problem with all our airy speculation: Although the rector can assign elsewhere the current "priest," who's his creature, what is he to do with the "sisters" who staff the "school" out there? We looked at aerial views of pesthouse property and couldn't see a building large enough to billet both the El Mirage muster and the Brooksville bevy at the same time. The current structure where the high-living "sisters" lounge about seems far too small in our eyes. If he wanted to bring the exiled "nuns" back just to spite the Arizonans, Big Don would have to build some kind of new convent. But that takes land and new construction, doesn't it?

Our question sent us online to look at any activity with Hernando County property near the pesthouse. Lo and behold! we found a possible candidate. It's a 16.5-acre parcel in the name of known cult benefactors.*** The purchase date was December 31, 2012 (about a year and a half after the humiliating rejection in Arizona). Most significantly, the records showed that just one day later,  January 1, 2013, the property was transferred to Queen of All Saints Chapel  -- the cult's umbrella organization -- for $0.00!

Could this be the location for a new convent, grand enough to lodge all the "sisters" in lavish style and luxurious comfort?  It just needs a building -- which may explain another set of rumors that came out of the Southeast concerning a big donation campaign on the Q.T. So the moment the cult masters announce the groundbreaking, it won't be a bad guess to predict an inevitable end to the rector's disenchanting temporary "relationship" with Our Lady of the Sun. Uppity lay people who don't know their place at the bottom of the cult food chain need to be taught object lessons!

The peevish prelataster may be planning to take these folks by surprise. We can imagine him gloating in his best Snidely Whiplash impression, 

"Boy, will they be sorry now! OOWAHhahahaha!" 

But we don't think they'll be surprised. Unlike the social outcasts/misfits he's been able to dominate up to now, the upper-crust, well-adjusted folks in El Mirage are a smart and savvy set. We'd bet they've already got someone with valid orders lined up to come in the day after Donnie's minions crawl out of the bright Western sun back to the shadows of the fetid swampland: There are many more priests around who can step in almost immediately.

The faithful of Our Lady of the Sun will be better off if it indeed turns out that we've correctly read the tea leaves. Had they turned over their lovely chapel with its considerable assets, the place would've been transformed into a full-fledged cult center, where snooping, ill-humored clerics and pampered religious transgressively intrude into the private lives of the faithful, demanding the laity serve them, cook and clean for them, and surrender their will to the cult master's whims; where vicious, backbiting fanatics spy on their neighbors on behalf of meddling clergy; where the in-crowd rich enjoy special treatment, exempt from the harsh strictures binding the rest; where women are chattel; and where childhood is smothered under the oppressive weight of bizarre, arbitrary restrictions more akin to ISIS than to authentic Roman Catholicism.

Then, after everyone had left, and the cupboard was bare, all that would've been left would be the nightmarish memories of the devastation the "permanent relationship" had visited upon a too trusting Catholic community -- a community unable to see how their desire to keep their money and property in their name should render them ineligible for pastoral care. They must've forgotten the iron motto of Tradistan: proventus cleri lex suprema esto.

Why not head 'em off at the pass, all you good folks at Our Lady of the Sun? Say adiós and good riddance before you're bushwhacked.  You'll be taking the first step toward returning to the Catholic faith you once knew but may have forgotten. As John Wayne once said, "Think about it, Pilgrim...Remember?"

* See our posts of April 23, May 22, and July 31, 2011, for more details. The promise of the plan is found here on page 7 of the pesthouse bulletin.

** Considering who ordained the current incumbent, they may not have had valid sacraments anyway, so they've got everything to gain if the cult master leaves 'em high and dry.

*** We also found a tangled web of LLC's and quit-claim deeds so complex that you'd need a battallion of forensic accountants to figure out what's really going on.

SUN HIMSELF CANNOT FORGET

Dark grows the valley, more and more forgetting:/So it were with me if forgetting could be willed./Tell the grassy hollow that holds the bubbling well-spring./Tell it to forget the source that keeps it filled. Meredith

Last week, we read, with more than a little interest, a recent notice of underwriting opportunities at Angelus Press. One of the production projects for which the SSPX is soliciting support is A Short Critical Study of the New Order of the Mass, commonly known as "The Ottaviani Intervention." Our wish is that Santa, or at least some generous soul, will step forward with the $2,500 requested:  Traditional Catholics who don't read Italian or French are in need of a reliable, definitive English translation of this "classic critique of the New Mass."

Five years ago we lamented that the only readily available English version appeared to be that of Erroneous Antonius Cekada. In our devastating review of his troubled effort (click here), we exposed many of the same linguistic and stylistic shortcomings we found in his appallingly incompetent Work of Human Hands. At the conclusion our analysis of his shoddy rendering, we concluded:

All in all, he’s an unlucky and ungifted dilettante, whose every effort to appear learned blows up in his face. His lot is to entertain pretensions that will forever outpace his limited ability to perform.

Since that time, we've brought to light many, many more of the Checkmeister's deficiencies as a "scholar" (LOL). None, however, was more damning than our exposure of his perverse translation of an infallible teaching of Pope Pius XII. (See, for instance, our posts of May 11 and May 18, 2013, as well as our rebuttal/refutation of his flawed defense of one-handed orders, starting at article VI.) This catastrophic blunder is of a kind so far-reaching in its consequences that, once made, the perpetrator can never recover from it: The ensuing universal loss of confidence creates a permanent and irremediable disability.*  

In our personal and professional lives, all of us have lost faith forever in someone who spectacularly bungled something. Perhaps it was the heedless neighbor who squandered the family nest-egg on a dumb investment notwithstanding his wife's tearful protests and sound advice to the contrary; or maybe the boss whose mismanagement resulted in the collapse of a department; or possibly the classmate whose wildly misinformed guesses landed you in the principal's office for an expulsion hearing.

The world at large, too, abounds with many more examples of royal botches. In governmental affairs, think of George Tenet, "Baby" Bush's hapless CIA chief, who insisted that the evidence of WMDs in Iraq was a "slam dunk case." History will remember him -- and his boss -- with deep contempt. More obscurely, in the area of university scholarship, we have the case of poor old Prof. Tom Burns Haber. He never really regained his reputation after the brilliant critic John Sparrow exposed his incompetence as a text editor and as a writer of plain English. Many years after the exposure appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, this genteel, soft-spoken academic's pupils, who loved him for his kindness and decency, would still whisper about "that problem he had."

And so it is with Checkie Cheeseball, the Blunderer par excellence. Had he corrected his perverse translation after he was cautioned in charity, all his other howling mistranslations would have been forgotten by now. He could have continued his painful masquerade as a "gifted scholar and theologian." The errors, egregious as they may be, could have been blamed on "editorial oversight" or put down to haste, the unfortunate byproduct of a busy life laboring in the Lord's vineyard. In other words, Tony Baloney could still be basking in the (misguided) admiration of his fellow clergy, both inside and outside Tradilandia.

Now, however, as a result of that fatally perverse translation, he can never again feel the radiant warmth of TradWorld's begrudging esteem, or the hot-air hype blowing hard from the bleak spiritual desert called Tradistan. To be sure, the debased, degenerate cultlings still believe all the bunkum put out in Dannie's grubby "Bishop's (?) Corner." But let's be frank. The Cheeseball himself discounts the high opinion of illiterate though fawning culties. They're only worth his scant attention if they obey Dannie and buy his worthless WHH. Without 'em, he'd have no sales.

Brassy as he is, Awkward Anthony secretly fears that his fellow "professors" and the pesthouse "seminarians" laugh up their sleeves at him.  Their smirking reserve and behind-his-back giggles must sting more fiercely than the cat-o'- ninetails of a boatswain's mate. One of those "colleagues," Squirmin' Herman, a South American and hence the privileged beneficiary of good schooling who once studied classics at the university level, will understand better than the rector the enormity of Checkie's blunder. Hermie and the distempered, tightly-wrapped Scut the Prefect -- both ordained by Big Don, not by "One Hand" -- must roll their eyes every time the Blunderer shows up cracking wise and searching pathetically for their deference.

Other priests mock him, too, especially those from rival Traddie sects that once dreaded his smarmy pen. Today the former objects of Tony's hauteur snicker wickedly when anyone mentions the Cheeseburger's "scholarly credentials." You can get away with a lot in Sedelandia, but you can't save face after perversely mistranslating infallible papal teaching. Trad Nation won't let you forget.

It's a certain bet that the SSPX hasn't forgotten either. Although the severely challenged Blunderer has never once ruffled the society with his sub-adolescent name-calling, the SSPX remembers his ugly exit. It remembers what he wrote, too. It remembers the lawsuits. So now that Bonehead Tone's unforgettable and unforgivable blunder has been paraded before a sneeringly scornful traditional-Catholic community, the society is poised to issue a new, trustworthy version of "The Ottaviani Intervention." Their translation will drive his sorry effort off the bookshelves of everyone except the incurably depraved.  Say what you will about the SSPX, but they've got the people with the training and education to make an accurate translation and render it into readable, edited English prose.

Today the Checkster's voice is but a fading memory in the minds of the properly educated, who'll simply recall a cautionary tale of trust misplaced in a rank amateur.  You low-class Gertie rite trash, whose money underwrites Checkie's "scholarly" misadventures, can write him off, too. He's not the Sage of Southwest Ohio. Soon you, too, will have a dependable translation of the "Intervention." So go ahead, y'all: Give your cult-kicked backsides a break from those rough corn cobs: Consign Cheesey's pulp fiction to the outhouse, where it will, at last, be of some practical use.  

If anyone out there in cyberspace has a few extra dollars, he can help erase all remembrance of Checkie's whole unreliable oeuvre by calling Mr. James Vogel at Angelus Press (785-321-3615) and offering to underwrite the new "Ottaviani Intervention." This time you'll know your money was well spent.

*For that reason alone, you can be certain the Angelus Press would never simply re-print Checkie Cheese's mess.

"ALTAR" EGO

To puff and to get one's self puffed have become different branches of a new profession. Trollope

Our post on the cult center's privileged altar  (October 24, "Dead Reckoning") didn't attract many comments, but it sure as heck brought in a ton of e-mail traffic, mostly inquisitive or supportive. The cultie nasty-grams we received were the usual illiterate assortment of holier-than-thou recriminations, but one in particular does deserve a public answer.

Here's part of what the hysterical, pants-loathing Gertie gal spat:

You lie, Piss-trina! His Excellency Bishop Dolan has NEVER said there is a privileged altar at SGG. Before God I swear it...Produce the name of the woman you quoted or retract your accusation...Heed the voice of the faithful telling you to attack the Novus Ordo, or else take your calumnious web site down!

Well, to begin with, we'll never disclose the identity of our informants, so our outraged -- and forsworn -- fan of Dan can forget her first demand. However, since she was thoughtful enough to send us hate mail, we provided her with unassailable evidence of the truth of our report so she could change her testimony and take back her charge of calumny (unless a providential lightning bolt had already found its mark).

All of you out in cyberspace will also want to take a look at the evidence, too. It's found in middle of the 2nd page, column 3, of the SGG bulletin dated November 11, 2012 (Pentecost XXIV), under the heading WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT MASS STIPENDS: 

Any altar used by a Bishop for a departed soul becomes a privileged altar as that Mass is being offered. You may request the Bishop to offer your Mass for the deceased. 

(Oh, dear me! Look at those vanity caps -- and the attention-grabbing italics! Li'l Dan really wanted you to think he was something Big, didn't he? He also wanted you to know that he was open for business that November! For those in the chorus of cult-crazed creeps shrieking that we made it all up, click here to see the smoking gun.)

So now that that's settled (and settled for good), permit us briefly to explain why Dannie -- or any other sede bishop -- cannot enjoy a personal daily privileged altar as did cardinals and bishops in the good ol' days. (And it's not because of "One Hand's" possibly dubious sacerdotal ordination, either.)

Sede consecrations are, as sedes themselves admit, unlawful: sede bishops are never appointed by the Roman Pontiff. Their fitness is never proved in a manner determined by the Holy See. Insofar as they're consecrated without an Apostolic mandate, they're suspended according to the 1917 canon law by which sede cult masters insist everybody but themselves be bound. As a result, they're outside the institutional Church that concedes the privilege to its licit hierarchy. To put it simply, they're ineligible. It's like a belonging to country club: only dues-paying members have rights and privileges; anybody else making a claim is a trespasser.

From the way that 2012 SGG bulletin spins it, you'd think a bishop's enjoyment of a daily privileged altar is one of the degrees of power received in orders. It's not.  As the name implies, it's a privilege -- a favorable private law. It's acquired by direct grant, communication, legitimate custom, or prescription. However, in virtue of sede bishops'  outsider status, there's no way they can acquire the privilege, valid orders notwithstanding. In fact, they can't even steal the privilege. 

Cheeky usurpation of privileges always occurs when the self-aggrandizing ambition of narcissistic, untutored gutter trash exceeds the limits of their less-than-meager capacities. They're like a maggot that proclaims itself a horsefly and then tries to make the animal kingdom believe it's an eagle: The higher forms of life won't buy the laughable proposition, but the biting midges, anopheles mosquitoes, and dung flies do.

Why not advance a few more links up on the Great Chain of Being and stop believing all the ego-stroking absurdities hatched by the puffed-up (and puffy)  Bishop (?) of the squalid SW Ohio cult?

The added bonus is, there'll be a lot more money for your 401(k) -- or the kids' college fund (assuming, that is, you don't believe some sedes' article of faith that a college-education is demonic.)