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 As we've reported earlier, he's withdrawn from sale both the ordo and the wall calendar with all its low-resolution photos of the "really big shows" at the SGG cult-center-and-feeding-grounds.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. 

DISORDERED ORDO I (part b)

One's own incompetence is a difficult fact to accept. Townsend

Editor's Note: Today's post continues last week's airing of the editorial incompetence of  Tradistani "primate" Dannie Dolan's CATastrophically botched attempt to publish a "litugical ordo." (That was how the cult characterized the mess on the SGGResources site before its speedy removal from sale. Oddly enough, their usually heavily promoted wall calendar has also mysteriously disappeared from view.)

We caution the audience that the content below is somewhat technical and perhaps chiefly of interest to traditional Catholics who pride themselves on their knowledge of the liturgy. Nonetheless, it's still accessible to anyone who enjoys seeing the cat let out of the bag with respect to the cult masters' highly dubious "expertise."

Let's pick up where we left off last week...

SIGN OF FORLORNNESS

The full-flowering of the cognitively impaired compiler's incompetence as an editor is on sorry display in the section immediately following the explanation of abbreviations. Captioned "II Signa pro Missa" (notations indicating whether certain Masses of the dead are permitted or prohibited on a given day), the first problem we noticed was there's no previous roman numeral I for the numeral II we see. (An effect of ADD perhaps?) Then a series of subject-verb agreement blunders follows along with a number of wrong morphemes for the adjective exsequialis, plus an error in case usage. These are small potatoes in comparison with this failure of rubrical understanding and punctuation opposite the signum "RD":

diebus III, VII, et XXX anniv.

Wow! This dumbo's just destitute of everything it takes to be a "priest" as well as a compiler. We want you to see what we mean, so we ask you to bear with the little excursus that follows. (Anyway, as traddies, we're certain you've got more than a passing interest in the liturgy. Yes or no?)

What the words in blue are supposed to mean, according to the 1944 edition of Matters Liturgical, is, "On the Third, Seventh, Thirtieth, and Anniversary Days...: one High Mass, or one Low Mass of Requiem may be said in any Church on all days on which it is not prohibited" (§294.1), emphasis ours. (N.B.: there are four permitted days.) 

But that's not what could be interpreted at face value as the meaning! Although the SGG compiler's phrase is really gibberish, the best we could say in charity is that it means "on the 3rd, 7th, and 30th anniversary days," i.e., three days, apparently. In other words, the little goofball doesn't understand what the "anniversary day" of death means. (We would refer him to Du Cange, but he probably couldn't read the Latin definitions.)

It's enough to make a cat laugh. This chucklehead needs lots of help for next year, so we'll give him two suggestions:

diebus III, VII, XXX et die anniv ─ or much, much better: die III, VII, XXX et anniv

Anybody willing to bet that the squirrel won't accept our kind assistance?

. . . . . . . . . .

OFF-KEY NOTE

If you were so unlucky as to buy a copy of Dannie's ORDO 2016, you may have been puzzled by the parenthesized abbreviations in the middle columns, such as:

(pdF-pd), (fff-ff), (fdf-pf), (ddd-dd), (ff²f⁴-ff), etc. 

Intriguing, huh? How would you crack the code, if you had to?

Why, you'd look for the key in the explanation of abbreviations, of course!

There, Dannie's ordo does tell you the letters refer to the psalms in the canonical Hours, although in the key to the letter F, the unlettered compiler used the wrong grammatical number for the verb. (It should read dicuntur Psalmi, not dicitur Psalmi). But, then, how do you interpret the cipher of three letters followed by two others joined to the foregoing three by a hyphen? More mysteriously, what do the superscripted numerals mean?

As hard as you might search for an answer, it's nowhere to be found in Dannie's incompetently edited ORDO 2016.  (The cat must have got the dumb compiler's tongue.) If you want to know, you'll either have to guess or, better still, consult the Saint Lawrence Press (SLP) edition's explanation of the letters. (N.B. The SLP ordo appears to be the unacknowledged source of Dannie's top-secret psalm codes.)

The only drawback is you have to be able to read Latin. The compiler's deficiency in that language may also explain why he failed to heed the SLP's assertion ─ printed on the title page ─ of copyright protection for proprietary content. (Niceties like intellectual property rights must not matter to the SGG blockhead.)

. . . . . . . . . .

"THOU BALD HEAD"[-ER]

Above all else, an ordo should make it easy for a priest (and even a dubious cult "priest") to locate what he needs quickly, especially when planning. But whoever uses Dannie's ORDO 2016 will be out of luck on that score, for the absented-minded compiler forgot to provide page headers with the names of the months. That means if a priest wants to check something, he can't just conveniently thumb the pages until he finds one with the month he's looking for and go quickly from there. He has to make a guess where the month might be, then leaf through the book until he finds the sole page that captions the month, and only then start hunting for the day he wants.

What a pain in the neck!

Why didn't the nincompoop compiler insert headers on every page so the month could be located much more efficiently? It's not as though page headers in ordines are a wicked Modernist innovation. We sampled old European ordines from 1756, 1770, 1846, 1886, 1899, 1902, 1907 as well as the Cincinnati editions of 1920 and 1954 in addition to all those published by St. Paul in the 1940s. On every page, we found the appropriate monthly headers.

When will Dannie's dimwit compiler stop snubbing Tradition? Do you think he'll ever learn to honor it? Perhaps he will -- when a cat can lick its ear.

. . . . . . . . . .

THE MOTHER OF ALL FLUBS

Of all the editorial failures in Dannie's ORDO 2016, the pièce de résistance is easily the conspicuously missing Martyrology letter needed to pronounce the day of the lunar month. In a rebellious departure from Tradition, Dannie's ORDO 2016 does not include any of the customary calendrical data available in ordines from the past. Why, on its title page, it doesn't even bother to tell us that Annus Domini MMXVI is a leap year! To be sure, we've no problem in general with the compiler's negligence. Cult "clergy" probably don't know the difference between a Golden Number and the Golden Arches or the epact and a fanny-pack. (It would have been of practical value, though, to have included a table of the 2016 movable feasts.)

However, our specific problem with the compiler's thumbing his nose at Tradition is that Dannie's ORDO 2016, in what appears to our eyes as an undisguised usurpation of  SLP practice and press style, reminds his users of the Martyrology's elogia for movable feasts and offices. The reminder can only imply, we think, a liturgical presumption of reciting in choir the Martyrology at Prime or, at the very least, encouragement of its fitting reading in private. Therefore, at the beginning Dannie's ORDO 2016 should have supplied the Martyrology letter for 2016 (viz., B)  and the new letter for 2017 (viz., b) at the end.

We call this apparently minor oversight the "mother of all flubs" because it represents the union of pretense and insouciance. The subliminal message behind Dannie's entire ordo effort is that SGG is TradWorld's omphalos of authentic Latin-rite praxis. It's the last place in Christendom that still does it right. Follow their leader, and you, too, can be fully Roman Catholic. Yet the SGG compiler can't be bothered to provide a necessary element for correct recitation. Cult affectation and mummery once again on parade.

A closely related example comes to mind. Seeing that Dannie's "copy cat" compiler adopted SLP's Martyrology reminders, if the SGG cult "clergy" were really the connoisseurs of ceremony they want you to believe they are, at December 24
how could the compiler have failed to remark upon the genuflection at the heralding of the Incarnation in the Martyrology? How nicely would the direction have paired with the fussy observation about the liturgical gesture in the Vespers' hymn "ob reverentiam divinæ Incarnationis"!* Ignorance and inconsistency cost Dannie an opportunity to reinforce his empty claim to ceremonial exquisité. Next year, "One Hand" should press into service a far less challenged bed-wetter to compile his ORDO 2017 (the publication of which we're eagerly anticipating).

You should agree by now that Dannie ought to get out of the liturgical publishing business altogether. It seems he's produced two big flops this year. Maybe he can add to Checkie's current amateur and uneasy performances on YouTube with some cat videos of his marauding familiars, the murderous Caravaggio and its fiendish pal. Those two hellish felines seem to be the only beasts at SGG that can do something right.

* From a purely theatrical standpoint, you might have thought His Staginess would've directed his out-of-sorts compiler to insert a note about the majestic Vigil-of-Christmas ceremony at Prime in preference ─ or in addition ─ to the note on a prayerful bow at the Vespers' hymn. The solemn chanting of the Roman Martyrology's synchronistic chronology, with its stately cadences, haunting tones, and inexorable textual and musical crescendo building to the choir's reverential genuflection en masse at the Christmas proclamation, is one of the signal dramatic moments in the normally reticent Roman rite.  But maybe the fact that the instruction for Vespers came from the ceremonial for bishops clouded Wee Dan's histrionic judgment: We're never to forget that this slimy maggot is a "bishop," are we? Well, at least we know the cult's priorities: personal (and unwarranted) prestige trumps ritual splendor. The cult masters can't even live up to their own hype.

DISORDERED ORDO I (part a)

There's no thief like a bad book. Italian Proverb

Editor's note: Be warned — today's post is a little lengthy and a bit technical. Ever since we laid bare numerous disgraceful blunders in Dannie's ORDO 2016, our European and Latin American readers have asked for in-depth evidence of outright incapacity. They want to warn the public against this made-in-the-USA stain on the reputation of traditional Catholicism. Additionally, several American laypersons have requested more details about the ordo's failures in order to confront their "priests" and demand a change. Whether you're a liturgist or not, the information we present will confirm everyone's suspicion that the SW Ohio cult is an utter sham.

In keeping with our December promise, today we launch a new 2016 monthly series exposing the mistakes in Dannie's ORDO 2016 (which curiously is no longer available on the cult's website*). Insofar as our two posts last month were devoted to awful blunders in Latin, we thought today's subject should, for a welcome change, focus on the editorial incompetence manifest in Wee Dan's Iliad of errors. Owing to the complexity of explaining the ineptitude we've uncovered, we decided to break "Disordered Ordo I" into two parts, the second to appear next week.

As you enjoy this series throughout the year, you'll come to agree that whoever put this mess together did so without any thought: he just went through the motions without the light of a human intellect to guide him. What a rough adolescence this cretin must have had as he tearfully endured his siblings' insults, his parents' angry disappointment, his teachers' contempt, and his schoolmates' taunts. No wonder he fled to Tradistan USA: he's a perfect match for all the other clerical misfits who suffer from similar irremediable deficits.

The trouble with letting malformed knuckle-draggers compile an ordo is they have no understanding of what the job entails. Providing correct dates, liturgical colors and ranks, special notes for the day, and accurate missal and breviary settings represents only half of a competent compiler-editor's work. The remainder consists in assuring that the product is internally consistent and user friendly so as to facilitate a priest's duty to give due praise to God in accordance with the mind of the Church.

For someone possessing intelligence and an advanced education, the first half is the easier because most of what's required is available in pre-Vatican II sources. All that's needed is a command of Latin, a working knowledge of the rules, some reference books, discipline, and the ability to transcribe with precision. The second part is really more complex, though less labor intensive. It demands attention to detail, a tidy mind, and a sympathetic understanding of the end-user's needs. We've already had a glimpse of the SGG compiler's inability to carry out his obligations in his first set of tasks. Today and next week we take a long look at the clerical moron's unfitness to meet the mandates of the second.

SIX ABBREVIATIONS IN SEARCH OF A REFERENCE

1. Scattered over the SGG text entries is the glyph + abbreviation ℞ br.  Strangely (or not so strangely, when you know these cult simpletons), we didn't find it explained on the abbreviations page at the beginning. You see, it's not a question of whether we can figure out easily enough what " ℞ br." stands for. In this unimaginatively edited waste of time and Gerties' money, we'd wager that almost every abbreviation it registers — or doesn't register — can be effortlessly divined. Our point here is that if the letter-like symbol ℞ is listed, as it indeed is, then br. should also appear somewhere on the abbreviations page if only for the sake of accuracy, consistency, and completeness. (The witless compiler, after all, explained "L br." under "L," so why not explain ℞ br.?)

As a snide aside, we note that maybe if Checkie hadn't wasted money on an unneeded old-new organ, the cult might have been able to afford a font with the conventional response (responsory, responsorium) sign.  Then they wouldn't have had to resort to the ridiculous "Prescription Take" (recipe) symbol we see.

2. Any compiler, even one so deficient as this sub-educated loser, must in practice employ the abbreviations he explains, if he wants to appear to have his wits about him. Not so with Dannie's ORDO 2016. On the abbreviations page, we find tt for the frequently used word tantum (="only"), but in the text we found the word spelled out at least at least 62 times (!!), and not once did we come across a single tt. Why have an abbreviations page at all, if you're not going to take advantage of its content?

3. On three occasions, we noted the abbreviation m.v. signaling an altered strophe in a hymn. Again, it's no problem figuring out what's meant, but if you include an entry explaining the abbreviation "mtv." for the third-verse change in the hymn Iste Confessor, then the same should be done with m.v., supposing, that is, you're gifted with an organized mind.

We're going off the track a bit here, but our liturgically minded followers in Europe and Latin America may rightly ask why an ordo produced by SGG, the home of over-the-top liturgical extravaganzas, doesn't follow tradition in the case of the proper hymn strophes for the feasts of the Finding and the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. Most of the old ordines in our collection (and we possess exemplars dating back to the late 18th century) specify kneeling at the modified strophe (as the Roman Breviary directs). 

Surely, at May 2 the following miracle of economy found in some last-century American ordines, viz., O Crux, ave ... flexis genibus, radiates a liturgical sensitivity and an editorial acuity far superior to the prolix and pedestrian "In Hymn. Vexilla Regis m.v. O Crux ... Paschale quæ fers gaudium" of the source from which Dannie's troubled boy borrowed! More significantly, we should ask why Dannie would forego the prestige of the following hyper-correct liturgical reminder printed in the 1954 Cincinnati ordo, which we know he had available: 

"O Crux, ave ...flexis cum Choro genib, a Celebr^te ad scamnum per tot stropham."

Isn't it a cult meme that SGG's the heir to the archdiocese's traditions? Why didn't Dirtbag Dan seek for treasures at home? Maybe the SGG cult crew just forgot they were supposed to be the last place in Christendom to practice all the ceremonies. (It's easy to do, you know, when there's no reality behind your claims.)

4, 5, and 6.  Despite the relatively frequent occurrence throughout the unsightly text of the abbreviations Antt., Pss(.), and capp., they do not figure in the list of abbreviations, whereas  "rel.," which we found only once (p. 14), has a place. Now even if "rel." isn't a hapax legomenon, wouldn't it be competent editorial practice to spell out in full any word so infrequently used rather than abbreviate it in such a way as to require its annotation on a master list? (And if the answer is a brassy NO!, then why didn't Dannie's pinhead compiler explicate the "rat." that appears on p. 8 at Jan. 11?)

PERIOD FAULT

Heavy abbreviation was a practical necessity insofar as the 20th-century ordines we've seen were usually printed as 32mo volumes (roughly 3" x 5"). And despite the larger size of today's traditional ordines, abbreviation is still necessary. It's worth recalling that, in the good ol' days before V II, an ordo didn't explain most of its repeated abbreviations. It didn't need to. Then the clergy could read Latin fluently and thus fill in the missing letters. Indeed, unexplained abbreviations for obvious words also appeared in the detailed rubrical notes and fore matter written in extended prose.

Inasmuch as the competent old compilers had sense, and the well-formed users of yesteryear possessed a knowledge of Latin, a period after every abbreviated word was an unnecessary threat to readability (and the demands of space). Thus when you read many an ordo from the '20's, 30's, '40's, and '50's, you'll note that periods are infrequent (used mainly to separate sections) or sometimes they're almost non-existent (as in the 1954 Cincinnati edition). The result is a clean, user-friendly text without the distracting visual clutter that excessive pointing would bring to highly abbreviated copy.

Dannie's ORDO 2016 is, as you'd expect, missing this editorial virtue. Almost every abbreviation is followed by a period, and periods also signal the section endings. Coupled with all the commas, semi-colons, and colons, the crowded pages look almost as if they had been printed in braille. Every ill-designed leaf strains the eye, making it difficult to navigate the content, thereby increasing exponentially the chances of misinterpretation (= liturgical error).  The lamentable fact that Dannie's challenged compiler didn't notice the unsightliness or its effect on readability is another token of this bird-brain's woeful preparation for Catholic prime time.

Gargantuan, however, as the above faults are, they're dwarfed by the editorial failures we'll discuss next week, where in one note we demonstrate how punctuation and bad Latin produce rubrical nonsense. So mark your calendars for an "appointment post" on January 30! See you then. In the meantime,

STARVE THE INCOMPETENT BEAST!

* Late in the first week of January, we noticed the cult masters had taken down the ORDO 2016 page on SGGResources.org — less than two weeks following our second scathing exposure of  its gross blunders in Latin (click here and here to review the posts). One implausible reason for the disappearance might be that they sold (or gave away) all their copies. However, we can hardly believe that. First, if the supply had been exhausted, the cult masters would have kept the page up as a token of their liturgical preëminence in Sedelandia and simply entered a message like "OUT OF STOCK" or "SOLD OUT."

Second, from what we understand, the cult does its own printing on an expensive copier they bought a few years ago. It then wouldn't take much effort to trumpet "MORE ON THE WAY" and then run off additional copies.  (The obviously amateur product is only held together with spiral coil binding, so even if the copier, like the organ, broke down, they could run off more copies at the local FedEx office print and ship center.)

Therefore, there's got to be a more serious reason for the SGG cult masters to forego so much prestige. We certainly didn't shame them into it, nor did the threat of this year-long series induce them to take that piece of trash off the market. These guys are shameless as well as arrogant, and we're under no illusions we can force them to behave well. Maybe one of the rector's creatures told the Donster to get Dannie to pull that embarrassment off the market to minimize the damage to the cult cartel's already greatly diminished standing in TradWorld.

If that's true, maybe the rector can get Dannie to refund the money to those who have already purchased a copy of ORDO 2016. It's the right thing to do.

RECOMMENDED READING FOR THE NEW YEAR

He that hath not the craft let him shut up shop. Herbert's Outlandish Proverbs

As we've written on numerous occasions, the Readers, as a group, don't embrace any one of the current explanations for the crisis in the papacy. Pistrina's editorial policy is aliquid pravism — something is gravely wrong with Rome, and we're arm-in-arm with any traditional Catholic, whether sede or R-'n'-R'er or Novus Ordite or conclavist, who confesses the same. Since the Church has never judged the matter, everything related to the question of loss of papal office is, as far as we're concerned, up for enlightened, civilized discussion among adults of good will. 

Our indifference to partisanship aside, we do happen to be keen on a particular dog fight between the several contenders. Actually, up until now, it's not been a fight at all, but mostly one mangy cult cur yelping at the imperturbable sleek show dogs of the SSPX. But that dynamic has changed very recently. The purebreds have stopped ignoring this scrubby stray's wild, shrill barking and have answered back with one resounding *woof* in the form of a new book titled True or False Pope? by John Salza, a trained lawyer and noted Catholic apologist, and Robert Siscoe, a gifted lay thinker. This well-written, soberly argued volume will surely send Checkie whimpering back to the pound with his raggedy tail between his legs.

The authors' calmly reasoned defense of the Recognize-and-Resist position should be welcomed by all sides of the debate, since it will silence all the noise from Erroneous Antonius. At long last, educated and intelligent sede proponents (like those at Novus Ordo Watch) can make their points without questionable, vituperative distractions clouding the issues of the controversy. Possibly realizing he hasn't the skills, knowledge, or resources to counter Salza and Siscoe's effort, Tony Baloney's been taking (ineffectual) pre-emptive action by means of, as Deacon Dan wrote last week, "articles and videos on the internet, trying to debunk some of the 'tribal myths' as he [the Cheeseball] calls them, of traditional Catholics concerning the pope and obedience." Anybody with sense realizes Checkie's video bluster about the authors' providing grist for his malfunctioning mill is no more than whistling in a cemetery.

In their measured, competent way, Messrs. Salza and Siscoe haven't been idle themselves in cyberspace: they definitely haven't let this "sooner" get away with his awkward feints. In a brilliant and hard-hitting article, "Hypocrisy Alert: Father Cekada Recognizes and Resists Pope Pius XII" (available by clicking here), they not only expose Tony's misunderstanding of fundamentals but anatomize with surgical precision his argumentative inconsistencies and fallacies. In another devastating tour de force, "Stuck in a Rut: Father Cekada's Glaring Error on Canon 151" (found here), they at last debunk the creaky and creepy cult myth that Bonehead Tone is a canon law "expert." (Salza and Siscoe also demonstrate how Cheesy and the Donster are very much at odds, Big Don getting his facts straight, the Blunderer, as usual, not.)

The Readers enthusiastically recommend this book to any traditional Catholic — of whatever persuasion — who wants not only a clearheaded, intelligent, and grounded exposition of the R-'n'-R side but also a lucid and informed discussion of the theological/canonical issues underpinning the dispute. TradWorld has labored too long under the bombast and obfuscations of uncredentialed "clerics." To read a correction of the misrepresentations, you may purchase the book from the authors' website (click here) or from the Angelus Press (click here).

We think it should be clear by now that no one, save spaced-out cult spastics, should pay any attention to anything Tony Baloney says or writes. It's also clear that Pistrina's not alone in its very low opinion of Checkie's "erudition" (LOL). Earnest sedes should exclude him, too, for his unwholesome presence in the sede camp diminishes their standing.

That's a pity: The sede argument, in all its forms, deserves a hearing, just as do the other disputants' cases. By suffering Bonehead Tone, the byword for clerical ill-preparedness, to be the face of the sedevacantist cause, its adherents enter every contest of ideas hobbled by a serious disadvantage. The Cheeseburger's liabilities far outweigh any dubious gains his snarky vapidity or his awkward intrusiveness brings to the debate.

Don't you think it's time to put a muzzle on this contemptible nuisance? Right-thinking sedes will tell this snarling, distempered mutt to scat.

INHERITANCE INCORRUPTIBLE AND UNDEFILED

A son can bear with equanimity the loss of his father, but the loss of his inheritance may drive him to despair. Machiavelli

Today we post with the naïve trust of a child who seals a message in a bottle and casts the vessel adrift upon the ocean's currents in the hope of its reaching the eyes of a distant yet receptive spirit. Along with all TradWorld, we stand at the breaking dawn of a new year, a moment when the wise take stock, pledging to put their lives to better use in the service of their Creator and their fellow man. Like that sanguine child at the water's edge watching the shimmering bottle bob out of sight, Pistrina harbors every expectation that a like-minded soul, beach combing along a foreign strand on the luminiferous æther of cyberspace, will retrieve our missive and act.

The message is not directed to cultlings. It's aimed at the adult children of aging cult victims. Chances are our intended recipients do not, or at least no longer, belong to the SW Ohio-Brooksville cult. The odds are even better that they're sorely distressed at their parents' continued allegiance to the disreputable cult and its lucre-loving "clergy," who circle hungrily over seniors like jackal buzzards eyeing prospective carrion. Adding to their anxiety is the fear that the grandchildren will be left with nothing, while ruthless clerical buccaneers sail off to chic spa vacations or play ducks and drakes with a cash-strapped family's rightful inheritance (say, for instance, buying frivolous toys like used electronic organs that don't work).

So, what do you do? Are your hands tied? Do you and your children have to suffer because of your poor parents' unwise decision?

Absolutely not.

And if you start preparing, you'll be able to keep your family's treasure from ending up as priestly booty on the Island of Lost Boys, aka Tradistan. To help you educate yourself, here's a 6-step checklist:

⎕ Search online to learn the facts about breaking a will or probate.

There are many sites with loads of useful free information on contesting a will. You'll get great advice like the following from Teo Spengler on legalzoom to help you file an objection: "Evidence that someone unduly influenced the testator also invalidates the testament, but the influence must rise to a level negating the testator's free will. Usually when a will contestant charges undue influence, the testator was feeble and the person influencing them was in a position of strength or confidence..." (emphasis ours). Common sense suggests that claim will get the attention of a reasonable judge.

⎕ Get free legal advice

Very often local TV stations sponsor free call-in segments on their newscasts, and bar associations usually have a schedule of other community venues where you can obtain legal guidance without charge. (The Cincinnati Bar Association [513-381-8213] serves counties surrounding the cult center.) You'll learn what other options are available to stop the cult masters from further victimizing your family. Professionals working pro bono can also be helpful in advising you about securing power of attorney. The Information and Resources Center of the Council on Aging of Southwestern Ohio may also be able to assist you (513-721-1025), and you can get limited legal advice or referral to an elder-law attorney by contacting PRO Seniors, Inc. at 1-800-488-6070. 

⎕ Review your parents' will

Admittedly this is a delicate matter and may not be possible in all cases. But if you can, you'll be ahead of the game. Tact and love can go a long way here. If you learn that the cult is not a beneficiary in the will, then you'll be able to relax and save a lot of time and bother. On the other hand, if you do find out your parents have named as a beneficiary the cult or individual cult masters, you'll be able to engage legal counsel before it's too late. It's also important that you keep an open flow of communication with your parents to learn whether they're contemplating a bequest. Then you'll be able to persuade them not to do it. The web is full of eye-opening material about the cult to help you make your case.

⎕ Cancel any insurance policy naming the cult as beneficiary

Here's where free legal advice could really pay off. If your parents have bought a policy to benefit the cult, it's likely they still may be paying premiums. Canceling now will not only keep the proceeds out of the money-mad "clergy's" greedy hands, but it'll give your parents a few extra dollars for necessities. There might even be a cash value that can be restored to their savings. If the policy is already paid for, you might be able to change the beneficiary: there are plenty of reputable charities.

⎕ Find another chapel for your parents

The only way to put an end to your worries is to get your parents out of the cult masters' reach. That's probably no easy task, because they may really enjoy "the show." But it's the only way for you to have peace of mind. Identify another priest from a non-cult chapel, introduce your parents to him, and encourage them to attend his Mass, even if it isn't as showy as the cult's. It's probable that this man may have a genuine love of people and will quickly win your parents over. (But be careful you don't find yourself in the same predicament you just escaped: you must be very careful with all traddie priests until you're 100% sure they're OK. Talk to your parents after every contact with clergy.)

⎕ Keep cult "priests" out of the nursing home

If your parents are in a nursing home, and you have control of their affairs, give the home's administration a list of names of cult "priests" and instruct them to deny these particular "clergy" access to your parents. If they persist in attempting to visit, ask the police or another municipal authority what you can do to assure your parents remain unmolested. 

Once you read and act on this message, reseal it, as it were, and float it once again through cyberspace so another family can preserve its rightful legacy.

RING OUT THE FALSE

The fatality of good resolutions is that they are always too late. Wilde

It's a new year.

Some of you who didn't keep your 2015 resolution to leave the SW Ohio cult may be looking for a fresh reason to renew the vow in 2016. Obviously all the hair-raising stories of un-Catholic behavior, cupidity, and stupidity haven't worked. So we looked around for something different, something more concrete to revive your will power.

We knew it had to be simple and direct, because all our grand, elaborate arguments were, perhaps, too ethereal. Furthermore, it had to be something small, for as experience teaches, it's usually the little stuff that brings down the whole structure. So we searched and searched and searched for precisely the right-sized straw to break the irresolute camel's back. Then, lo and behold, as we read last week's "Bishop's (?) Corner," we knew we'd found it, when Wee Dan whispered:

The F sharp on our organ has been coaxed back in time for Midnight Mass.

This, we remind you, is the new organ —well, old-new at any rate— that Deacon Dan just bought for Checkie in early 2015 to replace an older instrument that could've been repaired. They haven't owned the $5K-$6K instrument for a year, and it's broken already! In the midst of high heating bills, they button-holed the laity for thousands of dollars to pay for Tony's new toy, and it almost wasn't ready for His Extravagancy's biggest, gaudiest, bling-laden show of 2015.

What in the blazes is going on there?

Dirtbag Dan's seemingly insignificant disclosure should convince everyone that the cult masters cannot do anything right. The itch to spend the Gerties' money on unnecessary acquisitions must be so intense that these madcap spendthrifts throw all caution to the whirlwind when they're on a shopping spree.  Maybe they're careless because they expect the laity to bail them out when their impulsive choices prove ill-considered. Whatever the motive, "One Hand's" miniature revelation furnishes the perfect incentive for you to leave the cult this year.

The key broken so soon after the organ's unnecessary purchase condemns these men as unwise stewards of the resources of the faithful. It's another sad episode in their unbroken record of failures large and small. When they built the steadily crumbling cult center, the roof they put on proved a disaster. Now they can't find an exterminator capable of ridding them of a dangerous raccoon infestation, which seems to be getting worse with each issue of "Bishop's (?) Corner." A couple of years ago, the heating bills were so high they had to hustle special donations to cover a bill for which they should have budgeted. Yet there's always money-to-burn for luxury foreign travel, which doesn't end after they undergo the inevitable falling-out with their fed-up hosts. His Recrudescency always seems to find another far-away nest of calculating trads eager to take advantage of Dannie's irresponsible largesse (funded, of course, by you).

The need to repair the organ so soon after its reckless purchase tells you Dannie's got the wrong priorities. As many chastened former cultlings have learned, these "clergy" are not there to serve the faithful. In fact, the situation is quite the opposite. The faithful are there to supply the cash to satisfy the wastrels' "champagne wishes and caviar dreams."All the over-the-top seasonal spectacles with their meretricious glitter and shop-window tinsel are mounted primarily for the clerical scavengers' love of tacky theatrics and hearty self-congratulation. Any spiritual reward for the faithful is merely an inducement to surrender more money, to be wasted, in turn, on brutal whims and imprudent purchases, which wind up costing you yet more money.

Don't you think it's time to stop being played for a sucker? These heedless men-children cannot husband the resources you so selflessly provide. In addition, you may not be receiving valid sacraments in exchange for your financial sacrifice. If you stay at SGG, you'll only encourage more bad decision-making and waste, like the old-new organ that came within a gnat's whisker of embarrassing silence on "One-Hand" Dan's last holiday lollapalooza for 2015. Why not make it your last one, too?

LEAVE THE CULT!