EDGE OF DOOM

Out of the inner parts shall a tempest come.* Book of Job

So far, 2016 has been a rotten year for the SW Ohio-Brooksville cult.

In addition to unsuccessfully battling armies of invading rodents, Dirtbag Dan's had to walk back both his error-tarred ORDO 2016 AND his embarrassingly self-promotional "All Saints Roman Catholic Calendar," which doesn't have one image of a saint (except in the background of the grainy pix featuring untrained cult masters or their stooges). Meanwhile, on the internet, the Cheeseburger's being taken to a hard school as he repeatedly steps in his own doo-doo while simultaneously putting the rector in harm's way.

By any reckoning, just beyond the horizon there's a perfect storm brewing to wreck Cultilandia. "One Hand" may see a few gathering storm clouds, but he can't seem to chart a forecast. For instance, in last week's "Bishop's (?) Corner," His Shortsightedness wrote,

... last Lent we had weather every Sunday, and those who needed an excuse—some don’t, of course—stayed away from Church all Lent long. Last Sunday we were between snows, and it was cold. Many of you stayed home to be on the safe side. When the weatherman intones snow, people think Kroger, not church.

Understandably, Wee Dan refuses to admit that nowadays the cult zombies will lunge at any excuse to stay away from dying SGG. When cultlings are content, almost nothing can keep them away from their creepy Mass centers. Kept happy, they'll cram their huffing womenfolk and sniveling bairns into the rusted family van to plow through any weather. They like nothing better than to plop their over-sized rear ends into a filthy pew for the "big show," with the promise of loads of empty-calorie grub afterwards.

But when they're out of sorts, any reason will persuade them to stay put on the ol' homestead. And excuses are easy to come by since "goin' ta meetin'" means sitting hang-dog through aggressive, accusatory demands for more money to bail the cult masters out of their bad financial decisions. Encouraging cultie truancy is the common knowledge that Dannie and Checkie together have become the laughingstock of Trad Nation.

His Insignificancy's announcement that Bonehead Tone has "started work on another video" isn't going to improve attendance either. Anyway, that's just Dannie-speak for "Tony Baloney is incapable of producing a well-reasoned, written response in academic prose to Messrs. Salza and Siscoe." Illiterate as they may be, the Gerties intuitively sense the Blunderer is trapped with no means of escape. As long as the bloggers at True or False Pope continue to dissect Erroneous Antonius's inanities, there'll be no spiritual comfort for the unwashed as the overcompensating Checkmeister descends into all-consuming YouTube mania. The attendant neglect and resentment will only add more energy to the oncoming twister.

If the advent of the looming catastrophe solely depended on overcompensating Dannie's or Tony Baloney's awkward missteps, our models would predict a much later cataclysm than we now anticipate. The atmospherics, however, have completely changed now that the Blunderer's impolitic fight-picking has sucked Big Don into the storm's path. For years the rector's been uttering, almost with impunity, countless absurdities about faith and morals. Much to his regret, Tradistan's media outlet, True Restoration Radio, has made the Donster's droning voice accessible to a wider audience, one that, for a change, includes intelligent Catholics.

Consequently, in what must assuredly be an unintended outcome of this PR campaign gone distressingly haywire, Big Don's crackpot theories are no longer hidden from view in the murky underworld of weird Tradistani websites and chapels, where unthinking rite-trash swarm like dung flies on a freshly manured field. With True Restoration Radio, Donnie's perversely re-imagined Catholicism presents a big, inviting target for professionally educated sharpshooters who can prove he's wrong. All they needed was sufficient reason to go after him, despite his small-time status.

Checkie's parasitic relationship with the rector and the MHT pesthouse handed the critics their opening. Recently True or False Pope squarely took aim and scored a bull's eye. In a marvelously argued post (click here), they affirm what Pistrina has been saying for years: Big Don "makes a mockery out of the Catholic Faith and the episcopal office itself. He should be shunned by all true Catholics." Take our word for it: Big Don will never recover from this tour de force analysis from someone with a disciplined intellect informed by deep reading and genuine Catholic faith.

There are two compelling reasons to recommend that you immediately read this game-changing post:** First, it shows precisely how alien the Donster's mind is to authentic Catholic thought. Never again will you believe anything Big Don spouts once you see how he reduced theological discourse to a cheap vaudeville mentalist's stunt. To earn a few extra bucks to alleviate his future indigence, the rector should hang out a shingle hyping

THE AMAZING "MONSIGNORE DONALDO" 

Psychic Readings, Pseudo-Catholic Snake Oil, and Heterodox Hooey. 

Second, and more interestingly, we suspect the post will hasten the fragmentation of Tradistan. Donnie cannot be happy that Bonehead Tone put him in the deadly accurate sights of the über-competent bloggers at True or False Pope. (Those guys are good! They're sovereign proof of the practical benefit of a sound, formal education.)  The dislocation has surely jarred the rector's unearned sense of entitlement. After that post, the "Swami of Sedelandia" has to realize he's through. Like Garbo's depressed Grusinskaya, the Donster might be wondering at this moment who would trouble about a vagans who babbles fantasy theology no more. What will he do? "Grow orchids? Keep white peacocks?"

Naaaaw. He'll more than likely just consecrate his impatient successor and wait for his pink slip from the real boss.

As you read that terrific True or False Pope post, listen carefully. You'll hear the distant yet unmistakable roar heralding the whirlwind that will split the cult cabal in twain as soon as it touches ground at Dannie's ramshackle doorstep. If you'd like, you can speed its cleansing arrival by forwarding the True or False Pope link to as many of your friends and relatives as you can. For your convenience, here it is again, ready and waiting for insertion into your email or blog:

http://www.trueorfalsepope.com/p/sedevacantist-watch-why-bishop-sanborn.html

* Just as appropriate would be the King James (AV) translation: "Out of the south cometh the whirlwind." (Our emphasis.)

** "Game-changing" because, in this case, there is no credible defense for Sanborn's outlandish position.  By his own words, he stands condemned without appeal. 

DISORDERED ORDO II

The contempt of good reputation is called impudence. Hobbes

It’s time for February’s installment of our continuing exposé of the howling errors and head-smacking stupidities in Dannie’s ORDO 2016. In the four previous posts on this subject, we concentrated on technical details that may have been too obscure for non-specialists to appreciate. In reparation (a term so beloved of the cult masters  — as long as they don’t have to make it), today’s post will provide a welcome break by bringing to light two hilarious idiocies anyone can understand.

Why “hilarious” (one of Checkie’s favorite words)? Because the goofs are so thoughtlessly dumb that you have to laugh out loud at the frustrated pretentiousness.

I. TROUBLE WITH TERMINOLOGY

Before His Insufficiency took down the page on SGGResources schlepping the dead-on-arrival “LITURGICAL ORDO 2016,” he advertised his

Ordo 2016 Universal Edition.

As the Church understands the word in this context,  “universal” means the absence of local observances particular to individual dioceses or religious orders. Yet in Deacon Dan’s incompetently compiled disgrace of a “universal” ordo, we find on page 9 at January 15 a liturgical note about the feast of Our Lady of Prompt Succor celebrated in the diocese of New Orleans! 

Perhaps His Deficiency doesn’t understand what the word universal means in Roman Catholic parlance?.

Dannie (or one of his dribbling proxies) may object to our criticism by arguing that the SGG ordo helpfully recorded an American practice, as it did with the feast of Isaac Jogues and companions (Sept. 26, for all U.S. dioceses). If he dares to defend himself, we would in turn demand to know why "One Hand" didn’t include the liturgical directions for the office and Mass of the feasts of the principal patrons of every U.S. diocese.* That would at least have been “universal” for the good, ol'  U.S. of A.

But the New Orleans flub isn’t the only tell-tale sign that the SGG pinheads don’t understand the liturgical sense of universal. All throughout this cluttered, illegible, hot mess, we find, under the name of numerous feasts, italicized annotations for other local feasts kept in the United States, like Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal (Nov. 27, Brooklyn) and St. Catherine of Genoa (Mar. 22, with differing Mass texts depending on the diocese). By even a child's reckoning, then, this definitely isn’t a universal ordo!

What makes it all the more amusing is watching brassy Dannie trying so hard to impress everyone, but like luckless Tony Baloney he always ends up making a fool of himself. The humor is almost slapstick: These bums should call themselves the " Keystone 'Clerics'" and take this comedy of errors on the road.

II. INSUFFERABLE INSOLENCE

Dannie’s ignorance of the meaning of universal admittedly arouses at most a chuckle (along with a contemptuous sneer). For a real thigh-slapping, belly laugh you have to go to October 17 where you’ll find this screamingly funny note:

Cras prohibetur Consecratio Episcopi (SRC 4 April 1913) (“The consecration of a bishop is forbidden tomorrow.”)

When we saw the line, we burst into hysterical laughter. Have you ever seen such naked effrontery in your life?

This pint-sized, impudent clown, who was “consecrated” without an Apostolic Mandate and in flagrant violation of the 1917 Code of Canon Law, has the gall to assert an SRC ruling! You’d think he wouldn’t want to bring attention to his own unlawful (and dubious) orders. Or maybe he’s trying to get people to believe he’s the Church in exile. Or, on a more somber note, could it be that the consecration of the new bishop-to-be had been slated for October 18, and he hoped to postpone it? (Not that this or any injunction would stop any sede claim-jumper from poaching a miter if that’s the day he’s scheduled to pocket his illicit orders.)

When Wee Dan retires after the big, bad, new bishop takes over dying Tradistan, he should audition for Comedy Central. We're told those audiences love chutzpah.

. . . . . . . . . . .

A Meditation on Error

For decades the impertinent cult masters have been passing themselves off to simple traditional Catholics as scholars, theologians, liturgists, canonists, and, worst of all, gourmets. Thankfully that sleazy era is swiftly coming to an inglorious end.  On every front, professionally educated Catholics who have genuine knowledge are showing Trad Nation that Dannie and Checkie are definitely not the churchmen portrayed in their misleading self-promotion efforts. At long last, they’re getting the national and international reputation their antics have earned for them, now that they themselves have torn down the firewall between all the hype and the truth. 

One of the most vigorous unmasking efforts has been undertaken by John Salza and Robert Siscoe, as we reported on January 16 . Since that post, Erroneous Antonius has taken to the back alleys of YouTube in a failed effort to counter the well-framed, elegantly composed arguments of these two gentlemen. As usual, Tony Baloney recycled his shop-worn ploys and dodgy tactics to convince (unsuccessfully, we imagine) his few spastic fans that he has the upper hand in the fight.

This time, however, he’s bitten of more than he can chew. (These guys are pounding him, and everybody's talking about it.) To what must be the Cheeseball’s most bitter regret, these two solidly informed Catholic laymen refuse to allow him to get away with his customary shenanigans. Their most recent exposé of Checkie’s pathetic, error-filled video responses is a masterpiece of scholarly rebuttal. (Click here for the wholly delicious "slice-and-dice" job.) If you haven’t the time to read the full article now, at least read the first three paragraphs and then the last two. Also take a look at the stills of Checkie captured from his amateurish video: those images alone ought to teach that trouble-making dilettante not to play nasty on YouTube.

By any standard of reckoning, it's evident that the laity must to stop funding these guys’ moronic pranks, whether it’s brash Dannie’s ordo or Phony Tony’s comical misadventures in theological disputation. Both Pistrina and Messrs. Salza and Siscoe have ably demonstrated that Wee Dan and the insolent Cheeseburger have brought nothing but shame on the sede cause.  Owing to their now uncovered ineptitude, the cult masters have forfeited all respect. They have rightly earned the contempt of any right-thinking Catholic.

It’s time to tell these novices good-bye and good riddance.

*We can’t refrain from observing that on Dec. 12 Dannie's birdbrain compiler includes a liturgical note on the Mass (only!) of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of Latin America. There’s not one, single mention of the American archdioceses and dioceses where this feast was kept, viz. Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, Tucson, and — shame on you, "One-Hand Dan"! —   Santa Fe, New Mexico, His Vagrancy's beloved luxury vacation getaway-from-the greasy-Gerties retreat. (How did he miss that one?)  Likewise cheeky Dan is seemingly unaware that this feast was also  celebrated on November 16 in the Province of New Orleans. (Oh, yes, that's right! Nov. 16 is Saint Gertrude the Great. No wonder Dirtbag Dan forwent a missionary junket to "the City Different" and kicked the Big Easy to the curb. ) But, SGG Day aside, consistency has never been the hallmark of the brazen-faced cult masters except when it comes to scavenging for more and more money.

Yet we all know the real purpose for mentioning the feast was to sell copies of this monstrosity in Mexico (though we bet he “gave” the priests a copy free of charge to promote himself). So, the question is:  if he was trying to impress our good neighbors south of the border, why didn’t he use the correct Latin liturgical title for feast?

Dannie’s ORDO 2016 only reads BMV De Guadalupe, Patronæ Americæ Latinæ, whereas he should have styled it Apparitio (or [Festum] Apparitionis) BMV de Guadalupe, Patronæ Principalis Reipublicæ Mexicanæ, Insularum Philippinarum et totius Americæ Latinæ.

The answer’s easy: Dannie doesn’t know these things. It’s all for show. Anyway, he couldn't imagine anyone would have noticed.

 But the Reader did.

EVERYTHING HATH AN END

All that maddens and torments... Melville

On January 31, Back-Bitin' Dan scratched this catty announcement in his littered "Bishop's (?) Corner": 

Fr. Saavedra in Detroit took his Christmas down already. He’s more efficient than liturgical ...  

A well-brought-up Catholic layman may reflexively wonder why "One Hand" found it necessary to belittle the already well-flogged Skipper. (as in "skip the consecration at Mass"). Did he really intend to denigrate Big Don? After all, the Skipper belongs to the rector's cult circle, so taking a whack at this stooge is the same as thumping the Donster.

Or maybe after the shellacking His Errancy received from Pistrina over his failed ORDO 2016, he had needed to reassert his liturgical "expertise" for the spittle-faced folks at home. As we've reported earlier, he's withdrawn from sale both the ordo and the wall calendar with all its low-resolution photos of the "really big shows" at the SGG cult-center-and-feeding-grounds. The latter defeat had to have really hurt that insatiable ego of his. No doubt, complaints out of Michigan got under his thin skin, so he had to draw blood, especially when he learned some folks up north are buying the SSPV calendar with its inspiring, sharp, professionally executed, Catholic images.

Come March with the beginning of Daylight Saving Time, those Michiganders will be in luck: zombie DannieLand's calendar WRONGLY announces the DST start as  March 6 (LOL), whereas in the world of the living, it begins on March 13. Can't these "experts" at SGG consult reliable websites like timeanddate.com or the U.S. Naval Observatory (click here)?  Doesn't anyone down at the cult proofread anything? After springing forward a week early, those Gerties who don't follow Pistrina are going to be in for a rude awakening when they arrive at the cult center on Lætare Sunday! Beggar-Man Dan's collection baskets will be a lot lighter, too. (Rejoice!)

On closer examination, however, spurning SGG's calendar is too trivial of a motive for dragging the goofy Skipper so publicly to the woodshed. Moreover, His Enviousness and Big Don have been trading indirect swipes at each other for years, so why thrash a quivering, semi-conscious whipping boy just to spite the rector? Big Don would laugh cynically anyway. Without a doubt, there was something much bigger on Wee Dan's small mind to prompt such stinging cruelty.

We may (we think) know what's eating His Tenderness. It's just a guess, but it may be worth exploring in order to find out who or what is playing Moby Dick to Dannie's pay-back obsessed Captain Ahab.

You see, for months we've been hearing rumors of the coming of a new, rigorist "bishop" to Tradistan. It's not really news, for it's been planned for decades now. But the hour is ripening. With the passing years, the real power in Tradistan has grown impatient. Since the 2009 SGG School Scandal, the cults linked to Dannie have lost ground. Big Don, never too swift politically, made the error of backing the SW Ohio cult masters when many good people at SGG decided they couldn't tolerate what was happening at the school. The resulting fall-out left our éminence grise only one option: Elevate his Anointed to the sede episcopacy as soon as practicable.

With Dannie's loss of all influence and the validity of his orders in serious doubt, Tradistan, if it hopes to survive, needs a second bishop, one substantially independent of Big Don and very distant from Dannie. The wandering-bishop-to-be is no friend to the SW Ohio gang, reportedly once tarring a cult master with a charge of heresy. It's significant that this prelataster (elected almost from the cradle) wasn't ordained to the priesthood by Dannie, and his patron may well have been behind the rector's own consecration to assure a miter for the Chosen One.

Nothing untoward was to haunt or impede that brilliant career in the ultra-hardshell cult of remotest Tradistan.

When it takes place, the consecration will be the splashiest "clerical cotillion" ever witnessed in Trad Nation. There'll be no large-scale priestly boycott as with "One Hand's." The joint'll be jumpin'! In addition, from recent events, we predict there will be at least one co-consecrator, making this Tradistani brand-new-bishop bash the first of its kind. Miffed as he will be, Dannie will have to attend ─ if he's invited. (That's a very big if, by the way.) He may wrangle to be the second co-consecrator, to give the impression back in West Chester that the consecration came off with his benign approval. But we're not too sure that will be allowed. The power behind the faldstool won't want the occasion spoiled by the maggot with dubious orders who led Tradistan to the brink of ruin in 2009.

If all this speculation proves to be on the mark, then it may explain why Li'l Dan had to rub the Skipper's nose in his liturgical doo-doo. A new, solidly financed, cult-hardliner bishop rockin' Gammarelli pontificals spells the end of the laxist SW Ohio hegemony. With the new bishop's emergence, heralded by a heretofore unseen festive splendor, Tradistan's center of gravity will shift southward, carrying along with it the loyalty of pseudo-clergy attached to SGG. His Superfluousness won't even be allowed to "ordain" the twitching dregs of the pesthouse any more. (He may also be barred from leading retreats.) The reason, IOHO, is that at Tradistan's southern command, bishops are like extra-dry Beefeater martinis: one's not enough, and three's too many.

When you think about Dannie's nasty remark in these terms, the Skipper got off pretty easy this time, didn't he? Things won't go so lightly after the newly mitered leviathan breaches at his consecration, leaving His Wreckage to sink and draw the SW Ohio cult into the whirling vortex.

FATAL VISION

And beyond the abyss I saw a place which had no firmament of the heaven above and no firmly founded earth beneath it. There was no water on it, and no birds; it was a waste and a horrible place. Ethiopian Book of Enoch (Trans. R.H. Charles)

 

The signs are unmistakable. They’re as plain as day. Simply open your eyes.

Despite the petulantly brave face “One-Hand Dan” summons with difficulty in his weekly “Bishop’s (?) Corner,” the SW Ohio magus must assuredly envisage the cult's accelerating material, emotional, and financial disintegration. That's why he subjects us to these endless talk-therapy sessions.

 

For instance, back on January 10, Wee Dan, with his wonted beggar’s candor, whined:

We have both mice and a broken stove in the Helfta Hall Kitchen. They will both have to go, I hope in time for Lent, with its church suppers.

The chief objective of this stomach-turning admission might have been to loosen up some cash from queasy Gerties fearful of competing with rodents for cold scraps during the starch-and-grease-fueled feeding-frenzy that SGG calls Lent. However, Panhandlin' Dan's words betray much more than his own anxiety to secure free, hot, high-calorie chow for himself and his ravenous dependents. By His Esuriency's own account, we'd say the cult center is teetering on the verge of condemnation.

 

It’s not a pretty picture. Deadly optics, in fact.

 

Either the mice have decamped from the “Young Fathers’” flophouse to occupy the kitchen of the social hall, or the pesky creatures have sent out a stalwart vanguard to establish a new colony. We’d say the first is the more likely scenario, since vermin go where the food is. That's probably why the Gerties must  now contend with a new sanitation threat to Dannie’s dump.

As if the uncontrollable raccoon infestation  weren't enough for them to bear!

 

The cult’s barren, industrial-park site will soon present to the squalor-besieged cultlings' horrified gaze a stark, apocalyptic landscape of crumbling piles, rusting appliances, and disease-carrying varmints run amok. We think Deacon Dan, in his mind’s eye, can envision the looming desolation more clearly than anyone else (except for Pistrina, that is). He recognizes the same old wolf growling and pawing at the rickety front door. As acute panic sets in, he grasps at the only solution his weak imagination has ever conceived: Squeeze the already bug-eyed Gerties for more and more filthy lucre.

 

That’s why last week "One Hand" awkwardly invoked St. Paul as a lame pretext to insinuate  “greater generosity as we plan out our Lent.” Here it’s obvious Dannie’s planning on an budget-bustin' exterminator and a brand-new stove. (Will it be a high-end, top-of-the-line Wolf range?) You know, a mention of the word “generosity” from Wee Dan is like Chekhov’s gun: if you see one in the first act, it’ll go off in the second or third. So Gerties should brace themselves for some loud collection-assaults come Ash Wednesday. Only big-spending can soothe a cult master's anxiety about on-rushing doom.

 

But he won’t get the bucks he needs to stem the cult center’s irreversible decline into a dark, sere wasteland. He’s lost the cultlings’ hearts and minds. They remain because they’re afraid to stay home alone. The long years of propaganda and disinformation have paid off only in one respect: the cult masters have a captive (though restive) audience.  But the failure to mend their spendthrift, quarrelsome ways or to make reparation has produced deep, bitter resentment. The people are so alienated they openly admit they'd leave the SW Ohio cult in an instant, if they thought they could.  Only brutal spiritual terrorism keeps them from bolting.

 

Other calamities, too, are weighing heavily on the cult masters, as the bleak, dilapidated, shoddily constructed edifice continues to come unglued. Everything is going so very wrong, especially for Tony Baloney.  The Blunderer is under unceasing attack from every side. (Check out this masterly skewering from “The Remnant.”) All he can do is spin his wheels uploading painfully amateur videos where he looks like a deer caught in a hillbilly poacher’s spotlight. Those long, futile hours of script preparation and sideshow production must leave little time for him to engage in much pastoral work or lend a hand with the other duties that helpless Li'l Dan expects.  Either the indolent “Young Fathers” have to do them, or they’re left undone. And with each video release comes a lucid, trenchant counterattack forcing the Cheeseball to slip back into the rut of more YouTube folly.

 

Insider reports confirm the strain is showing. Erroneous Antonius hasn’t the resources — intellectual or monetary — to give his distinguished, learned opponents a book-length answer. Exacerbating his dilemma is the awareness that an army of eager critics — critics with a real university education — stands ready to trash anything he writes in impotent defense.

 

Therefore, he doesn’t dare publish anything. Surrounded by idiot peers, he's got no one to proofread his ad-hominem drivel (which, BTW, intimidates nobody). Better hand him a box of tissues to wipe all the tears. On second thought, make that two boxes, because the cultlings are fed up with his crackpot polemics and misplaced priorities. They just want the Mass ─ and some peace and quiet.

 

Soon they’ll have to make their demands known. They can read the ominous signs almost as well as we can. It can't go on like this much longer.

 

Through the lens of disgust, cult-drunk Gerties finally see things are falling apart. At such times, dysfunctional leadership always seeks refuge in mindless distractions. Each sign of internal decay is as clear as glass: Checkie picks senseless fights he can’t win. Dannie craves foreign travel while obsessing over his ghoulish cats (which seem intimidated by the hyper-aggressive mice). Malformed pseudo-clergy immerse themselves for months at a time in dead-end, unnecessary projects like the enormously incompetent ORDO 2016, or they escape to far-flung "missions" that will never be self-supporting. Inevitably, the laity must pay for this frivolity — financially and spiritually.

 

But not for long, we think. Something big is on the horizon. It's coming.

 

You don't need a crystal ball to perceive these are end times for the SW Ohio cult.

Trad-mageddon starts as soon as a newly spawned "bishop" crawls out from the fetid swampland muck of feculent, southern Tradistan.