🎶 AND BINGO WAS HIS NAME-O 🎶

The pancake bell rings, the pancake bell, tri-lill my hearts... Dekker*

Last week PL reported on "One-Hand Dan's" strategy of season-long, mandatory-attendance "social events" in a doomed effort to revive his cultlings' flagging enthusiasm for $GG side shows. As you can see above with your very own eyes, the Lenten assault on Gertie pocketbooks and minds begins February 26, Quinquagesima $unday 2017.

Looks as though he's pulled out all the stops, too.

Like a sleaze-bag promoter of dicey vacation timeshares deals, Li'l Daniel's recruiting the suckers with cheap free snacks and trashy gaming thrills.  According to last week's "Corner," attendees at this kick-off event are ordered to "plan to stop by ... to eat a pancake or two." (Man, oh, man, isn't he generous! Plus the chutzpah's breathtaking: he makes their plans for them and then sets stingy limits to what they may ingest. Why couldn't he be prodigal and invite 'em to a stack or two of rubbery flap jacks?)

You can tell Plannin' Dan's worried the Gerties suspect he's only interested in their money. In the same "Corner," he went out of his way to make a disclaimer: "This is a fun raiser, not a fund raiser...." If you believe that, we've got a lovely bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

What about the Bingo game at 12:45? Is everyone going to play for funzies? If that's the case, nobody'll show up, Dan's command notwithstanding. As every cultie juvenile delinquent can tell you, gambling demands prizes — preferably a great, big cash jackpot. No bucks = no fun. So, then, where's the money coming from?  The $unday collection baskets? Or will Bingo cards be "available" for a "donation"? And, if so, how much of the "donation" money will make it to the pot? Will all the cash go there, or will $GG first take a hefty cut?

The "Corner" described Dirtbag Dan's cult carnival as "a little purposeful church fun...fitting for Shrovetide or Mardi Gras."**  Huh? "Church fun"??? That's a Bergoglian contradictio in adjecto, if we ever saw one! Perhaps he isn't aware that, historically, the Church condemned and endeavored to eliminate the wanton merry-making and triumphant libertinism attendant to the excessively wild days of thinly disguised pagan revelry culminating with mardi gras.

Carnival frolic, in origin and in practice, is by definition opposed to the sacred. Accordingly, it earned its relentless persecution on the part of ecclesiastical authorities. Yet here we have a sede "bishop" (LOL) embracing lustily the transgressive, carnal spirit Holy Mother Church labored for centuries to eradicate.

Instead of exhorting Gerties to set aside an afternoon of quiet recollection in solemn preparation for the onset of the penitential season,  His Conviviality purposefully distracts them from godly thoughts with alluring games of chance, tingling whispers of licensed overindulgence, and titillating promises of good times rollin' on throughout Lent. Outrageously, he's reduced Quinquagesima at $GG to a "dimanche gras" (= "fat $unday") of frivolous abandon.

Why, the pious Catholic asks, would "One Hand" do such a thing on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday, making a mockery of the Roman Church's centuries-long opposition? What greater good could ever result from this unholy inversion of traditional values?

We think we have the answer in clues Dannie himself let slip. Notice the apparent typo in the ad reproduced above: "Games and cards available for a causal good time." The Readers are always on the lookout for Dannie's frequent linguistic faux pas, but this isn't one of them. We definitely don't think he meant "casual."

There is a very specific cause that this "purposeful church fun" supports, namely, "One-Hand Dan." If the folks don't show up for this year's Lenten bacchanals, he's at risk of losing them, their dollars, and their free chow to his stiff competition in SW Ohio. So the objective of this gravely offensive hard-partying is clear: shore up Dan's moribund enterprise before it expires.

From a cult-building point of view, Dannie's survival instincts are spot on. Frequent, large-group activities centered on a central, domineering personality are useful to increase cultish solidarity. Moreover, they make participants dependent on each other in order to find meaning in their empty lives. In this sense, all Dan's "$ocial $unday" gluttony and puerile amusement*** is not much different in aim from some shady corporate team-building exercises. There the lesson is that only a cohesive group submitting to an all-controlling head-honcho can give transcendent purpose to otherwise routine activities.

Sustaining the sense of commonality in both religious cults and secular organizations is trust. It's the magic elixir that bewitches otherwise normal people into subordinating their own and their families' interests to the objectives of the group under its overreaching, self-obsessed guru. Without this trust, not only will such activities as Dannie has scheduled for Lent 2017 fail in their purpose, they'll have the opposite effect.

The disaffected Gerties'll actively resist the crude effort to manipulate their time, their attitudes, and their money. The frightened, twitching unfortunates who hobble into one or two of the "social events" will gravitate to other wretches of a similar mind to share their resentment. Thus $GG's Lenten socials will produce a virulently subversive fifth column within SW Ohio cult.

It's time for Dannie to face the music. The mojo's vanished from $GG. Only a few, pathetic degenerates still believe he's got what it takes to direct their lives. By now, most traditional Catholics don't for a second think he's a broadly cultured churchman cut from the same cloth as pre-Vatican II clergy. Many aren't sure whether he possesses valid holy orders, and everyone is familiar with his innumerable educational shortcomings. Most importantly, all TradNation is fed up with his morbid, weekly stupid cat stories. All that keeps Gerties at the cult center on $undays is the common human aversion to change, even when conditions are almost unbearable.

But when they become absolutely unbearable, that's when upheaval breaks out. The 2009 $GG $chool $candal was too much for the really decent people. Wincing under the sting of conscience, they had to get out. The years following that first revolt brought with them an onslaught of revelations about the cult masters and their inadequacies, revelations that no one but the most depraved can ignore. Avoidance of "One Hand's" Lenten side-shows is a sure sign the culties are restive again.

Tortured by a deep moral unease with their scheming masters, Gerties are steadily opting out.  For many, Li'l Daniel's frantic, lead-fisted efforts this Lent to stop the sheep he's already lost from straying will be enough for them to break all ties with the diseased, dying West Chester sect.

Most cultlings with a shred of conscience left will get Dannie's number sooner or later. When it's called, then

B I N G O!

Gerties can collect their winnings: a Catholic life free from manic fundraising, uncharitable infighting, family-splitting dissension, and, most of all, incompetent play-acting. Why not enter this new life starting on February 26? Skip Wee Dan's "devil's week" carnival. Go home to prepare for a soul-purifying Lent at another area chapel. You've got lots to choose from.

Your children will remember you fondly in their prayers of thanksgiving.


* In England on Shrove Tuesday, a church-bell was rung to announce the time to make pancakes to use up eggs and milk before the Lenten fast. Dannie's just anticipating by a few days so he can ring in his Lenten galas to get everyone in a party-hearty mood.

** For someone who rails against women in skimpy clothing, we're surprised the Pecksniffian Prelataster referenced "Mardi Gras," the U.S.version of pagan excess and feathered, fleshy license. A quick look at the images on the web would make a old roué blush. And for those who think that by 2017 Carnival has lost its past sordid associations, read this excerpt from the travel brochure Postcards touting Venice's modern revival of the licentious fête:

This pre-Lent festival started in the 11th century when Venetians would wear masks to conceal their identity so that they could mix with different social classes and indulge in illicit activities, including gambling and clandestine affairs.

 Is that how "fellow Catholics" are supposed to "connect"?

*** With the inadequate "formation" Deficient Dannie received, he probably was never nurtured on Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics or Aquinas's commentary on that classic. He never learned that "full happiness, then, [lies] not in childish play" (1176^b27-28, our translation).    

THE TYRANT'S PLEA

Necessity has a stern face. Schiller

We must've gotten under Dannie's skin.

Two weeks ago PL remarked on "One-Hand Dan's" unusual request for Gertie suggestions about fund-raising and mind-control opportunities for 2017 Lent. As we reported, the sheep aren't flocking together for his "church suppers and recollections," so the sede amazing scapegraces were looking for another way to herd 'em in for a spring fleecing. (Click here for the full post.)

From the looks of it, the cult commissars aren't waiting for input (which wouldn't be forthcoming anyway). Peeved, no doubt, by PL's reading of his dilemma, His Authoritarianship has apparently decided to lay down the law, as evidenced by last week's "Bishop's (?) Corner," where he somberly put his thralls on notice:

We’re busy planning a good Lent, offering everything we can think of, at a convenient time, to make for a truly spiritual and holy “forty day fast.” Make your plans to change your plans and offer up a little extra church time. Recollections [ReCollections??, Ed.], Masses, devotions, Stations for adults and children and even some suppers and social events are on the calendar and in the planning stages. But pray to be generous.

Allow PL to translate "One Hand's" stark Cultspeak for you:

No more surveys. No more waiting for the tongue-tied laity to pipe up. No more Mr. Nice Guy, pouring sugar and syrup all over his cynical pretty-pleases. The forbidding cult Thought Police have gone full steam ahead with their own plans to serve up a smörgåsbord of money-milking, gut-stuffing events at all hours. N.B. The Gerties aren't invited to attend. They're commanded to be there, no matter what else they have on their schedule: "Make your plans to change your plans," Bossman Dan harshly demands with the iron-handed resolve of a banana-republic despot whose back's up against the wall.

No excuses accepted! He doesn't give a refrigerator rat's toenail how tired the Gerties are after a long day of demeaning, low-pay work or futile wrangling with out-of-control kids off their unaffordable meds. They'd better make an appearance! Dour Dan's asking-days are over, got that? He needs Gertie greenbacks!

Everybody —"adults and children" — is expected to show up for cult "social events" during the "forty day fast," which, counterintuitively but not surprisingly, has "even some suppers" calendared. (We'll bet it's more than "some": Lent at the cult isn't Lent without plenty of free eats for the ever-peckish "prelate.") There'll be no question about who's got to fatten the "clergy" — and the vacation fund: Dannie stiffly ordered the Gerties to "pray to be generous," which means they have to come up with extra cash and do all the catering.

Woe to the indigent cultling family that doesn't meet His Inflexibility's hardline standards of generosity toward himself. If he doesn't collect all the money he craves this season, that means Ma, Pa, Meemaw, and Papaw didn't "pray to be generous" as Dannie enjoined. And if they failed to "pray to be generous," then, we imagine, they surely aren't worthy of Prudently-Dubious Dan's "sacraments." (💀WARNING TO GERTIES: Telling His Exigency your prayers weren't answered will get you nowhere!)

PL's going to venture a wild guess that the cult masters'll be taking attendance at all these activities. Our advice to the cowering Gerts who feel compelled attend is to keep an eye on the flinty "principal" and his wife (to see if one or both are keeping a record of who showed up). Try to observe whether they've got a little book where they surreptitiously take names and count family members present. In addition, when the collection plate comes around, watch the usher to check whether he's keeping tabs on who gave and how much.

There will have to be a reckoning of some sort if participation in 2017's Lenten gelt -'n'-grub grab is as dismal as that of past years. Should the Gerties ignore "One Hand" again this year, then he knows it's time to throw in the towel. The conditions are already so bad that SGG has resorted to offering bingo at 12:45 p.m. on Sunday (!!), February 26. Did the cult masters decide to abolish the Third Commandment in the same way that Tony Baloney did away with the Leonine Prayers?

 If Unsparing Dan's gone to all this trouble to slate a host of crypto-fundraising activities and the turnout is still low, he's going to have to make examples of some cultie cheapskates. We kid you not. He cannot  — will not — allow absentees to take Double Decker® Taco Supremes® out of his mouth or filthy lucre out of his pocket. Vacation time is 'round the corner. He's determined to care for his crushing needs.

. . . . . . . . .

It's a little off track, we know, but PL can't resist commenting on a couple of serious errors recently committed by the cult kingpins. Traditional Catholics need constant reminders that these clowns are NOT AT ALL like the highly educated clergy of pre-Vatican II days. To be brutally honest, the cult masters aren't equal to the educated Novus-Ordo clergy of today. To err is human, we'll be the first to admit. But the mistakes the cult "clergy" make are unpardonable, because they're not simple slips of the pen or Spell-Check intrusions. They're the unmistakeable marks of the illiterate and unschooled.

Last week, one of you noticed Big Don's February schedule listed the 24th as the feast day of St. Matthew (!) rather than of St. Matthias. Perhaps another hand drafted the schedule. It might have been the sloppy work of one of the (so-called) high-school-graduate-only "nuns" or an uneducated lay cultling. Nonetheless, a subordinate's ignorance doesn't excuse the Donster in this case: he either failed to proofread the document, or he missed the blunder when he did read it over.

If Tradzilla, or Junior, or one of the pesthouse "professors" (LOL) is responsible for this disgraceful blunder, then the fool would merit our most severe condemnation. Anyone who's been celebrating Mass for as long as he  has (or, for that matter, for as long as the Kid, Scut the Prefect, and Squirmy have) should know St. Matthew's feast day doesn't fall in February. Furthermore, such a gross error might indicate that Big Don and his "priests" aren't familiar with The Acts of the Apostles and so thought Matthias and Mathew to be one and the same.

But as head-shakingly awful as this blunder is, it doesn't match the egregiousness of Dumbo Dannie's mistakes in his Feb. 12 "Corner." They signal an ignorance more profound than not knowing the New Testament, for they present a triple threat to literacy in one sentence: (1) badly mangled prose, (2) mistranslated Latin, and (3) unfamiliarity with elementary English usage. Take a look at the mess:

... Lent itself is called for a number in Latin, Quadragesima, or forty, for the forty fasting days that comprise it.

(1) The sentence, with its awkward passive and unwieldy phrasing, reads as if the English word Lent got it's name from the Latin word Quadragesima. That's impossible, as any schoolboy or schoolgirl knows. The Modern English word Lent, comes from the Old English lencten, which originally meant "springtime, spring" (compare the Modern Dutch lente). What he should have written is:  "The liturgical Latin word for Lent is Quadragesima..."

(2) After stumbling over his unsure English, Li'l Daniel then obliterates his small Latin by wrongly informing Gerties that Quadragesima means "forty." Forty — quadraginta in Latin — is a cardinal, but quadragesima is an ordinal, so the correct translation is "fortieth." (The unexpressed noun that the numeral adjective quadragesima ("fortieth") modifies is dies, "day.")  Real Catholic clergy know the difference.

(3) Lastly we come to the usage howler "comprise." His Inadequacy wasn't privileged to receive a university education, so he never learned this simple rule: the whole always comprises the parts; the parts compose (= constitute, make up) the whole. Thus Lent comprises forty fasting says, or forty fasting days constitute Lent, but never do "forty fasting days ... comprise [Lent]."  As the redoubtable Fowler complained in Modern English Usage: "This lamentably common use of comprise as a synonym of compose or constitute is a wanton and indefensible weakening of our vocabulary."

Wantonly Wrong Dan needs to buy himself a copy of Garner's Modern American Usage or Roberts' Plain English out of this Lent's collection. Then all he'll weaken is the liturgy and the faith.

* Scholarship tells us the name Matthias (probably a shortened form of the Greek Mattathias) is a variant of the Greek form for Matthew, Matthaios, which itself represents an Aramaic Mattāi, a shorter form of the Hebrew Mattityāhû or Mattanyāhû, "gift of Yahweh." Although the two names come from the same word, the apostles bearing them are separate figures in sacred history. Need we repeat that a real priest or a real bishop would know that?

WOLVES IN SHEPHERDS' CLOTHING

Fine clothes are good only as they supply the want of other means of procuring respect. Johnson

As we were leafing through old files in preparation for the recent posts on the betrayed Michiganders at Saint Dominic's, we came across a letter that classically illustrates the wrong-headedness of trad attitudes toward cult "bishops."

In a pair of sniffy rebukes to a gutsy Highlander who spoke truth to Tradzilla, a misinformed Big-Don-brown-noser wrote in 2005:

The ordination of [the Skipper*] was a good reminder for all of us of the profound respect that is owed to our priests...The dignity of a priest demands us, as mere morals, to yield a respect that is not given to any other [sic!] layperson...You and certain others have not given [the Donster] the deference that his office deserves...It is not for the laity to pick and choose when a priest is owed respect and when he does not deserve it, for the dignity of his office is, at all times, present...In the eyes of the Church we are not equal to them. 

Oh, for pity's sake! Where to begin? There's so much that's wrong here.

We suppose we ought to start by reminding everyone (again!) that Tradistani "clergy," notwithstanding the valid orders of some, belong to a sect entirely separate from the Roman Catholic Church. They have no ecclesiastical commission, for they were ordained and/or consecrated without the Church's consent. In fact, their orders were conferred without authorization from any Christian body because Tradistan itself isn't organized as a confession; it cannot even be said to be confederacy of narrow, selfish interests.  It's a no-man's land of sharp-elbowed, sub-educated free-lancers who self-declare their election and then find some mitered moron willing to do it.

In the eyes of the Church, they're laymen just like us, albeit with the difference that some may have sacerdotal and some episcopal character. (Was our self-admitted, home-schooled apologist merely ignorant of English usage [and correct reference] when he insisted a "priest's" dignity "demands... a respect that is not given to any other layperson"? Or was his remark a tattle-tale Freudian slip?) When you get right down to it, the "priests" and "bishops" of Tradistan most closely resemble the recalcitrantly scandalous priests in the old days who'd been degraded to the lay estate — deposed from office, incapable of any position in the Church, deprived of clerical privileges, and hence ineligible for the singular deference accorded to clergy in good standing.

It's worth remarking that, unlike a deposed cleric of past years, the Tradistani lone wolves don't possess a title in the Church and don't enjoy an office in the first place. Any deference shown them as clerics, therefore, is grossly offensive to a well-bred Catholic. You see, the term office has a legal meaning. In the perfect and historical society of the Church (and, we might add, in imperfect societies elsewhere), an office has rights and duties, and the acts of the office are "objectively binding on the society."

When the Church installs someone, the office is thereupon divinely conferred. Without the Church's act of installation, the sole "offices" Tradzilla and the other scurvy episcopi vagantes exercise are the private ones defined in the documents of authority of the several insignificant enterprises they run under state or federal laws. No matter what they call themselves in their kiddie corporations, they absolutely, positively do not occupy an ecclesiastical office.

But our cult-addled letter writer's oafish error is understandable. The sede vermin do everything they can to pass themselves off as higher clergy. Chief among the cult kingpins' ruses is vesture. As soon as they're green lighted for consecration, they get kitted out in all the pontifical finery their cash-strapped little chapels can scrape together: rochets, pontifical crosses, ordinary cassocks with amaranth-red silk trimming and lining, mantellettas, purple choir cassocks with trimmings of crimson-red silk, silken purple birettas and calottes, heavy gold rings set with a large central amethyst, simars trimmed with amaranth red, etc. It's no wonder the illiterate culties mistake these vultures passing themselves off as peacocks for the real McCoy.

Yet, despite their flamboyant costuming, American sede "bishops" cannot, in that delicious papal turn of phrase, episcopali charactere præfulgent ("glitter in episcopal character"):  Insofar as their orders were obtained without apostolic mandate, they are not members of the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church. For this reason, a cheeky wag we know once quipped that they were consecrated "on the other side of the blanket."  Being illicitly impressed on lawless souls, their episcopal character is of necessity tarnished.

The practical import of all this is that the sedes are barred by positive ecclesiastical law from the use of pontificals.** Unfortunately, however, civil government, being indifferent or hostile to the sacred prerogatives of genuine churchmen, allows any Tom, Dick, or Harry who styles himself a bishop to dress howsoever he fancies, thereby facilitating the usurpation of others' legitimate entitlements — entitlements legislated by the Vicar of Christ.

One of the purposes of episcopal apparel is to signal to the faithful that the wearer belongs to the "princely hierarchy" of Christ's Church, subordinate to the Sovereign Roman Pontiff.  It also furnishes a visible warrant that the man so adorned has met the qualifications for the dignity of his office as determined by the Holy See, of which the most important are "good moral character, piety, zeal, prudence, and solid learning in theology and canon law." Moreover, pontifical habiliment assures the faithful that before his elevation, the wearer had been formed as a priest in an approved seminary, where he received properly supervised intellectual training under professors with advanced degrees from officially recognized universities or faculties.

No such signs and assurances attend the malformed, jurisdiction-less Tradistani adventurers illegitimately arrayed in the Church's regal garments. On the backs of these "wandering bishops," the once glorious raiment suborns blasphemous deception.

Therefore, clerical outfitters, at least those in Rome like Barbiconi, Gammarelli, I Sarti del Borgo, and, yes, the very down market Euroclero too, should refuse sell to any prospective buyer who does not possess an office in the Catholic Church. But that's hardly realistic. Under tradition-hating Frankie, business for ecclesiastical tailors hasn't been booming, to say the least. As a National Catholic Reporter journalist wrote in 2014,

On the streets of the ecclesiastical fashion district in the center of Rome, the mood is somber.... it seems [Bergie's] personal style, combined with the ongoing economic crisis, is having an impact on business. One store with an elaborate collection of clothing for cardinals, bishops and priests declined to speak to a reporter, while another proprietor conceded: "We are working less; the pope is a simple man."

And so it is that, as the nervous shopkeepers wait out what they hope will prove to be a short pontificate, they're more than willing to take, with a wink and a nod, the dollars of the flush-with-Sunday-collection-money sede impersonators.  (On spendthrift shopping sprees to the Eternal City, boorish trad wannabes have been known to load up on thousands of dollars of bespoke clerical gear.) Hence, like the unwitting purchaser of conflict diamonds, Roman tailors trading with U.S. sedes contribute materially to the misery of innocents — viz., the impoverished lay boobs of Tradistan, who consider these mountebanks in fancy dress to be honest-to-goodness bishops of the Roman Catholic Church.

As we all have learned from the cheerleading media, the Bergomeister shoots his mouth off a lot about relieving the poor and oppressed. So far it's been pure lip service and no action. Well, he can fix that right here and now. All he has to do is to issue a decree sanctioning tailoring houses that sell prelatical vesture to any American representing himself as a bishop, whose name cannot be found in the current Annuario Pontificio.

We're not concerned about the resultant financial distress for the Roman ecclesiastical outfitters. The revenue losses will be temporary anyway — Frankie ain't immortal. The greater good is to keep poorly educated, heavily-victimized U.S. rite-trash from being snookered any more than they have been.

Assured our cause is just, we herewith petition Bergie to promulgate immediately an apostolic constitution aimed at stopping sales of prelatical vesture to American phonies, say, by way of a motu proprio titled De quibusdam episcopis vagantibus qui nullis admodum Privilegiis Prælatorum propriis fruuntur.*** To help the old heresiarch get started, we'll even supply the first words: Plani obsiti Pontificalibus...  ("Impostors covered in pontificals..."). We'll be on pins and needles waiting for the rest from the Latin Letters Office in the Secretariat of State of the Holy See.

If Frankie steps up to the plate, Tradistani "bishops" will henceforth be obliged to earn respect in the same way their fellow lay brethren have to — by setting a good example, acting with charity, practicing humility, being reliable, listening and learning, taking responsibility for their actions, going above and beyond what's required, not focusing on themselves, controlling their emotions, acting discreetly, demonstrating integrity, honoring what they say, and refusing to bad-mouth others.

No longer will they be able to play dolly-dress-up and expect everyone to bow and scrape while putting out of mind the unseemly past and the by far nastier present.

SO, C'MON, BERGIE. STOP PICKING ON THE BLUE-BLOODED KNIGHTS OF MALTA, AND DO SOME REAL GOOD!

* For those who've only recently begun reading this blog: "The Skipper" is the imbecilic MHT completer who once skipped the consecration in a Mass, and then blamed the laity, accusing them of making him work too hard. And he's a reminder of the "profound respect" owed to an illicitly ordained "priest"? Give us a break, cultling!

** At best,  malformed sede petty chieftains might be suffered to wear priest's garb — provided your ecclesiology permits, in these terrible times, a priest to be ordained without incardination and dimissorial letters.

*** "Concerning certain wandering bishops who enjoy no proper privileges of prelates at all." A transparent adaptation of the descriptive caption to Pius X's 1905 decree INTER MULTIPLICES on prelatial privileges, dress, and insignia. In spite of the sedes professed adherence to Church teaching, they thumb their noses at the magisterium by unlawfully appropriating what is not theirs to have. On a more elementary level, the cult masters' usurpation of prelatical vesture not pertaining to their  condition in life is a transgression against a fundamental norm of Catholic decorum.

Several hundred years ago, St. Jean-Baptiste de la Salle wrote a little book on boys' etiquette titled Les règles de la bienséance et de la civilité chrétienne ("The Rules of Christian Good Manners and Civility"). In the chapter on apparel, he sternly counsels that, in outfitting himself, a man "have regard for his condition, because it would not be fitting for....a plebeian to be dressed as a person of quality" ("... ait égard de sa condition; car il ne seroit pas séant qu'un ... roturier estre [= être] habillé comme une personne de qualité," ch. 3, art 1, 1708). 

American sede low-lifes' dressing up as bishops of the Catholic Church is morally equivalent to a snaggle-toothed carnival freak's decking himself out in a Savile Row suit.

CLOTHED WITH ROTTENNESS

All men that are ruined are ruined on the side of their natural propensities. Burke

If you're searching for a sign heralding the doom of the decrepit SW Ohio cult, then read what Dannie wrote in last week's "Bishop's (?) Corner":

Easter is late this year, so we have all of February for Lenten planning. I’d be grateful for any suggestions about times or services. Not that many keep even the old Friday evening tradition of Lenten Stations, much less our church suppers and recollections. What would work for you? 

When the cult masters were riding high and mighty, they never asked for lay input. Without a care for the laity's convenience, druthers, or comfort, they imposed the schedule of crypto fund-raising and banqueting events they preferred. Before the 2009 SGG School Scandal, they could count on the culties to schlep their scabies-infested young'uns and a covered dish of greasy victuals to Dannie's Lenten Friday food jamborees, where he and his gluttonous "clergy" would graze for free.

Those halcyon days, as "One Hand" seems to admit, are gone with the wind they all used break after the legume-laden, crucifier-crammed feeds. The victims clearly want no part of the cult's side shows. If we had to guess, we'd say they've already spurned some alternatives Dannie's come up with to fill the Friday-night vacuum. Otherwise, why would the Wee One step out of character to stoop to solicit the groundlings's opinion?

"My-Way-Or-The-Highway" Dan must be worried sick. He's got a clown crew of four hungry mouths to feed and at least one bloated gut to stuff. If the Gerties are having nothing to do with his Lenten schemes to fill his "clergy's" insatiable maws, the "Young Fathers" may defect to Tradzilla's new clerical institute (LOL), where the eatin' is better— and organic. (That is, if the Donster'll have those misfits, one of whom didn't even attend a fake Tradistani "seminary.")

Although we have the utmost contempt for Li'l Dan, we'll never believe he's unaware of the danger staring him in the face. To the contrary. He's terrified by the poor Friday potluck turnouts. He knows it means the Gerties have lost interest in his flyblown operation. That spells certain ruination. For now, they'll assist at the (probably simulated) Sunday Masses, but it may not be for long. There are so many better choices in the Cincinnati area. In fact, he may have heard what we did: during past Lents, furtive Gerties have been spotted at Friday devotions offered by SGG's direct competitors.

This latest appeal won't have any effect. No one's going to tell him what "would work." Not because the cultlings don't know. They do. What "would work" is dismissing the "principal," shuttering crummy SGG "School," and sending Tony Baloney down to the Swampland. Add to that a massive austerity program to reduce expenses at rundown SGG, which would entail getting rid of the idle, resource-consuming "Young Fathers." They could be shunted out of state to depraved chapels that would pay and house them, thus relieving Gerties of the burden.

But that's something Dannie won't and CAN'T do, especially the part about the "principal." His Impotency doesn't dare. That would cause the ship to go down with its captain. Therefore, the Wee One will have to undergo the slow torture of watching his cult rot away leper-like, piece of putrefying flesh by piece. The Dirty Gerties are tired. Physically. Financially. Morally. Five adult male "clergy" do nothing to help with the drudge work. The moldering, vermin-filled cult center is a bottomless money pit. The weekly revelations of bad behavior make even the riffraff cultlings feel unclean.

Under these circumstances, Gerties don't want to stop by the feculent cult center any more than they have to. Furthermore, there's nothing to motivate the Gertie Gals to do all the extra cooking required for assistance at the "Friday evening tradition" of "our church suppers." Remember, if you're a cult zombie, you don't just make the stations and head on back to your shack. No way! His Appetency expects you to tie on his feedbag for him at the obligatory feast following the show.

Actually, the show's the pretext for the food. And you know Dirtbag Dan yearns for more than the "sooooooooop" he's always cooing about (even when he's in Mexico gorging on "copious quantities of meat" in Lent).  If it was flesh-mortifying Lenten soup he wanted, the "clergy" could put on a big pot of water with rank veggies, rip open a couple of boxes of stale saltines, and spread 'em with the rancid margarine from their mouse-ridden fridge. But Li'l Daniel's counting on Gertie gals saying to themselves, "Ah ain't lettin' Pa 'n' the kee-uds jes' have sum nasty, watery soo-oup. Ah'll fix 'em up a broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage 'n' three-bean cass'role with a big ol' slab o' Velveeta!" (Fond memories of youth, no doubt.)

Before Dannie, Checkie, and the "principal" dashed their illusions in 2009, the SW Ohio rite-trash were willing to play the catering game. No more.  From here on out, they're staying put on Friday nights. (At least the air will be somewhat fresher.)

Yet Dannie will resist the message. He'll continue to reach out, and each time he does, it'll mean his predicament's becoming increasingly untenable. With Gertie morale deader than a roadkill dog, something will have to happen soon.

Let's hold our noses and watch as SGG decomposes over this year, shall we?