WELCOME HAPPY MORNING

There is nothing so easy but that it turns difficult when you do it against your will. (Nullast tam facili' res quin difficilis siet, quam invitu' facias.) Terence

For traditional Catholics attached to the Pius X rite, the Lenten fast ended today at noon.

Unfortunately for the overstretched Gerties, they're facing an extended mean season of belt-tightening and self-denial.

Why the prolonged mortification?

In last week's SGG bulletin, Panhandlin' Dan announced the replacement of a "dying" HVAC unit will cost "the princely sum of $11,000 to $12,000"! (Our emphasis.) Then His Mendicancy, with cruel sarcasm, delivered the "good news" of a newly imposed poll tax:

If each household or individual (including young adults living at home) would donate $100 in a lump sum, or $30-$40 in monthly payments, we would be able to cover this great expense. Please do your part.  

You've got to give Dirtbag Dan high marks for this low blow to the Gerties' stretched budgets. Right after he and Uneven-Steven arrive home from wastefully unnecessary holidays in Latin America (which must certainly have amounted to several thousand dollars, at least), the Dirtbag's right back in the feeble-minded cultlings' startled faces with a shrieking demand for more BIG bucks. That business of "Please do your part" is no polite request, you know. You can almost feel the raging menace underscoring each somber monosyllable — especially the "your".

Indubitably the cult masters will be keeping a little list. Woe to the poor working family that doesn't quickly hand over its "part." (Will non-contributing households be shown the [broken] door, to be numbered among the goats?) When Dannie said the HCAV system was a "current pressing need" (our emphasis), he meant it. If the "need" remains unmet, this year he and Tony Baloney will be pressed for money to enjoy their annual de luxe vacation in elegant, artsy Santa Fe, New Mexico. So, you see, they can't allow anyone to escape the grasping publican's reach. It's pay up or pack up, Gertlings.

But don't despair. Pistrina has some genuinely good news for you.

Tomorrow's Easter Sunday. Let a new dawn break upon your family's religious life. Don't you think it's time to end all the financial terrorism? Aren't you tired of being afraid to get on the cult masters' bad side if you don't give more and more and more? Your spouse and children —  not dubious "clergy" — deserve to meet a few necessities of their own. It's time for the cult masters to learn to live within their means, like everyone else. Why must you and your family sacrifice so they and their bloodthirsty cats can live idle lives of pampered luxury?

Listen. You absolutely do not need to belong to these pseudo-Catholic "bishop"-led sects for your personal sanctification. Any claim to the contrary is religious extortion. If you can't find an authentic, Catholic alternative to the cult you're trapped in, remember this: If you opt out of TradWorld altogether, you still have the Golden Key to Paradise in the act of perfect contrition (click here for a full discussion).

Many of the long-time followers of this blog have read the occasional comments alleging the almost insurmountable difficulty of making an act of perfect contrition. (Some of those comments were posted by cult "priests" desperate to prevent pious Catholics from eluding their greedy clutches.) Perhaps, frightened by all that misleading nonsense, you yourself chose not to leave the vampire cult that's bleeding you dry of all your savings.

Ignore the lies. The cult masters are only trying to sap your will.

Those self-interested "warnings" are just meant to frighten you, to keep you in bondage. Making a act of perfect contrition is definitely not the near impossibility that the cultists assert. As an Easter gift to Trad Nation, we want to share the results of the research of one of our correspondents. Although we've paraphrased some of the wording and rearranged the contents in order to protect the writer's identity, we assure you that the ideas and material did not come directly from us. These are the discoveries of a wayfarer much like you, an honest Catholic soul searching for personal sanctification in this unprecedented crisis of the Church.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

To PIstrina Liturgica:

I've made some substantial progress in my personal research concerning the relative ease of achieving perfect contrition; since you find the idea of a blog post about the topic intriguing, I'll share what I have discovered.

The truth lies somewhere in the middle: perfect contrition is not so difficult as to render it virtually impossible for the ordinary man or woman to achieve, nor so easy as to allow a large number of people to be almost certain they have earned it.

But that shouldn't discourage anybody, for the same dilemma obtains today, where the ordinary Catholic cannot be certain if he or she has received absolution from the many doubtfully valid clergy who run traditional chapels.

Research on Google Books and on Theological Studies suggests that the opinion "perfect contrition is quite easy and common" has been very popular among theologians since the last half of the 19th century, although the majority of Catholic books from 18th and the first half of the 19th century described it as "difficult and rare." In spite of that apparent early consensus, there were esteemed authors back then who espoused a much more comforting view. It seems that St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Charles Borromeo did not consider perfect contrition to be too difficult (click here for the discussion), and the great moral theologian St. Alphonsus Maria de' Liguori wrote:

Let no one think it too difficult a task to arouse sinners — even those heavy laden with guilt — to perfect contrition for their sins, since the man, aided by divine grace (as one must suppose), who considers the motives and reasons that he has to love the Infinitely Good God, easily feels himself moved to love Him above anything else. Those who find so much difficulty with perfect contrition do not consider that they contradict themselves when they teach that man is obligated, quite frequently even, to perform acts of love for God. (Italian original here, second paragraph, middle of the page.)

By the beginning of the 20th century, opinion settled on the accessibility of perfect contrition. Most notably, in 1916, the Jesuit Henry Churchill Semple in his book-length treatment of the subject, Heaven Open to Souls, made a powerful case that perfect contrition is quite easy for every Catholic of good will. (Click here for access to several formats of this well argued work.)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

Once you've digested all the information our correspondent has assembled, you'll have the confidence to leave the noxious influence of any toxic "bishop"-led cult without fearing the loss of your soul. Perfect contrition is not impossible, as the lying cult fanatics and malformed "clergy" have so maliciously (and ignorantly) insinuated. It's hard only if you want to make it hard. More importantly, if your whole family willingly, humbly, and lovingly practices making a daily act of perfect contrition, your children will have a precious gift to sustain them throughout a challenging lifetime, where valid (and decent) priests will be as scarce as hens' teeth.

Since Dannie and Checkie brought on the catastrophic 2009 SGG School Scandal, the sobering truth is, the American "bishop"-led cults will not survive after the current cult masters' tenure comes to a much-longed-for end. When these ecclesiastical adventurers retire or are run out of town by their angry victims, the younger "clergy," who possess decidedly less intellectual and spiritual marrow than their money-grubbing masters, will not be able to sustain the decaying chapels. Moreover, doubts about the validity of Tradistani holy orders will spread as more testimony comes to light about irregular ordinations and consecrations.

Following the collapse of Tradistan, the sole options left open to many U.S. Catholics will be to join the SSPX, the FSSP, or a conservative Novus Ordo church, or else stay home alone. Whatever the choice, the act of perfect contrition, which is easy to achieve if you ungrudgingly embrace its practice, will guide your children and your grandchildren along their own holy, lifelong quest to win a heavenly crown.

Make sure your and your family's mortification ends today, on Holy Saturday, as the Church desires. Resolve not to attend "One Hand's" wastefully expensive "really big show" on Easter Sunday. For all the glitter and Dannie's self-promoted marquee presence, it's a charade, an allegory of discontinuity, given all the gnawing uncertainties about the SW Ohio cult.

Instead, greet the happiest of all mornings by taking your family out to a joyful Easter brunch. (You can use some of Dannie's tribute money, which now won't go into his pocket.) Come home refreshed, liberated from fund-raising gone wild, and eager to begin learning how to make an act of perfect contrition. In this case, practice literally does make perfect. And practicing won't be difficult once you allow the daylight into your life in by crawling out of Li'l Daniel's bottomless money pit: It's easy for cult-free Catholics to love God.

Over the weeks and months to come, watch in grateful awe as your piety, your family's happiness, and your savings account grow.

DISORDERED ORDO III

A fool, unless he knows Latin, is never a great fool. Spanish Proverb

Editor's Note: Here's the March installment of our monthly feature publicizing the gross errors of Dannie's ORDO 2016. Think of all the money wasted on this vain effort of frustrated self-promotion, money that could have been used for the gaspingly expensive new HVAC system the cult masters want.

If you were looking in Dannie's ORDO 2016 for one example of breathtaking incompetence and ignorance, look no further than the Palm Sunday entry (p. 31). The Latin flubs there are so horrendous that we're devoting one entire post to their exposure. We ask you to bear with us as we lay the blunders bare. Have no fear: we'll explain all the Latin for you.

As is our practice, we won't focus on petty typographical errors like Dannie's printing Passonis instead of Passionis, or even possible typos like his benedicuntur Palmas rather than benedicuntur palmæ.*  (After all, the e and the s are close to each other on a keyboard, aren't they?) Accordingly, we'll stick to the monster muffs, starting with the following bungled copying job made worse by the cult "priests'" inability to navigate Latin (errors in red):**

Hodie et in Feriis III et IV in Missis privatis, itemque in Missa cantu sine Ministris Sacris, legitur Passionem in cornu Evangelii. In Missis vero solemnibus usque ad Munda cor meum in cornu Epististolæ.

You needn't be a literary critic to infer that Dannie took as —let's euphemistically call it —"inspiration" the following text from the reliable Saint Lawrence Press (SLP) ordo, where we find under Palm Sunday the following notation (the bracketed words in purple indicating our expansion of the original's abbreviations):

Hodie et Fer[ia] iii et Fer[ia] iv in M[issa] priv[ata] itemque in M[issa] cant[ata] sine Ministris Sacris legitur Passio in cornu Evangelii; in M[issa] vero solemn[i] usque ad Munda cor meum in cornu Epistolæ.

A child can see that Dannie's ORDO 2016 is heavily dependent on the SLP text. (Some of the almost negligible differences are perhaps attributable to an unsuccessful effort to avoid the label of copy-cat.) A close look at the errors printed in red will reveal the cult "clergy's" utter inability to fathom liturgical Latin. Now hang on with us here as we briefly gloss each one. Cross our hearts, we promise we'll keep it as straightforward as possible:

Cantu: It's obvious that Dannie's compiler(s) stumbled badly because he/they couldn't understand the abbreviated SLP text, "in M[issa] cant," which stands for cantata, "in a sung Mass." If they wanted to alter the original to conceal their dependence on the SLP text, they should have written in cantu. 

Passionem: The problem is that Passionem is accusative (direct object), and as such it cannot be the subject of the finite passive verb legitur. For the subject, we must use the nominative form, Passio, as does the SLP ordo. Dannie's text would translate something like "it is read the Passion" rather than "the Passion is read," as the SLP's Latin gives. Now this error really puzzled us. Even the woefully uneducated cult "priests" should know that the nominative is the subject case. Furthermore, last year's SLP version printed the correct legitur Passio, they had a correct model at hand.

So, then, how did Daniel the Schlemiel manage to produce this screaming howler? 

We think we know the answer, at least partially. We looked at back editions of the SLP and found that, before 2006, the text read lege Passionem, the imperative or command form — "read the Passion!" We hypothesize that the compiler(s) may have started with an older version of the SLP instruction, then modified the verb based on a newer edition, but neglected to change Passionem to Passio. And since they're such bad Latinists, they didn't spot the goof at proofreading because the words made sense to their English-only mindset. 

Epististolæ: "Whoa!" the traddie rite-trash out there are going to holler in their characteristic twang. "That's just a typographical error! You lying hell-fodder swore you wouldn't nitpick typos." Yes, we did promise to skip the small stuff. But we're not drawing attention to this blunder out of pettiness. 

It's symptomatic of how careless the compiler(s) is/are and how hastily he/they cobbled together this shameful piece of junk in insolent defiance of Catholic tradition and best practice. The error isn't merely a simple one-letter transposition, omission, substitution, or addition. Three whole letters added to a word that "priests" supposedly see every day should never have been overlooked, not even by these malformed slackers! The error's survival betrays a profound disrespect for the buyers of ORDO 2016 and thus deserves a memorial here. 

Moving on to the sentence that follows the failures we catalogued above, we find not only another instance of shocking incompetence in Latin but also of the cult's contempt for the law.

Let's compare the following sentence in Dannie's ORDO 2016,

Quando sacerdos duas Missas legit, potest legendi una tantum Passionem (lit., "When a priest reads two Masses, he can of reading in one only the Passion" — Huh?? THAT DOESN'T EVEN MAKE SENSE IN DANNIE'S TOPSY-TURVY CULTILANDIA!) 

to the corresponding SLP text:

Si quis ex speciali facultate binas Missas hodie celebret, potest in una legere ex Ev[angelio] de Pass[ione] Dñi [= Domini] postrem[am] tantum partem (lit., "If anyone by reason of a special faculty celebrates two Masses today, in one he can read the last part only from the Gospel of the Lord's Passion" — NOW THAT MAKES SENSE!)

The differences are substantial. We don't know whether the cult "clergy" composed it themselves or took it from another source. Apart from (1) the egregious boner of printing legendi, a gerund, instead of the complementary infinitive with potest (as correctly shown in the SLP ordo); and (2) the low-brow substitution of the cardinal numeral duas for the distributive binas,*** the Latin here and in the subsequent sentence referring to the pars Evangelii is OK, something we wouldn't expect from cult "priests." Consequently, we conclude they took it from another source, but, owing to their bad Latin, they botched the transcription.

The question we must ask is, Why did the cult compilers deviate so extremely from their SLP model (and, BTW, from the old Cincinnati archdiocese models they possess, as well)?  The answer may have to do with the "special faculty" to binate on these days. In the rudderless Sede Vacante, there is no ordinary to grant permission to a binating priest (who would have obtained the faculty in advance) to recite in one Mass the last few verses of the Gospel text rather than read (or chant) the entire lengthy Passion narrative for a second time on the same day.

Inasmuch as the cult masters find it inconvenient to follow the old rules (except when doing so is to their benefit), these usurpers pretend it's hunky-dory for any trad priest to skip reading the entire Passion in one of his Masses when he binates. Like everything else they do, from ordination to bination, they do so on their own and outside the Church. Such practices may be necessary, and even warranted in order to continue the Church's saving mission in these terrible times. Just don't pretend they're licit or, what's worse, that "Bishop (?)" Dannie's slyly granting the privilege to the suckers who bought his disastrous ORDO 2016.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

By hawking such a mess, His Idiocy announced to Trad Nation that he really doesn't care about the classic Roman liturgy at all. To this pipsqueak fool, his ORDO 2016 was nothing more than bait to lure witless donors with a view to separating them from their savings. Worried, no doubt, by all the bad publicity Pistrina's exposure occasioned, he pulled his aborted attempt to impress Trad Nation off the market. Too late. He never should have embarked on the project. He hasn't the right stuff... and never will have.

The truth is, Dubious Dan is no liturgist, and the briskly decaying SGG cult center is not the Roman liturgy's last stand. Tomorrow, the only palm that'll mean anything to "One Hand" will be is own grimy, little palm itching for the Gerties' Easter cash.

In pious memory of the late Nancy Reagan, when the Dirtbag greedily reaches for his next handout...

JUST SAY NO!

* We only called this blooper a typo out of charity. The real reason, we suspect, is the "clergy's" dismal knowledge of Latin: when they were transcribing the text, they must've substituted the accusative plural for the nominative plural because they didn't understand the elementary syntax of the passive voice.

** Although you need only to focus on the errors in red, for the boldly curious, here are literal translations for Dannie's hot mess and the correct SLP text printed shortly after:

Dannie: "Today and on Ferias III and IV in private Masses, and likewise in a Mass [in] song without sacred ministers it is read the Passion [direct object!] in the Gospel Corner. But in solemn Masses in the Epistle corner up to the Munda cor meum."

SLP: "Today and on Feria III and Feria IV in a private Mass and likewise in a sung Mass without sacred ministers the Passion is read in the Gospel Corner; but in a solemn Mass in the Epistle corner 
up to the Munda cor meum."

*** In choicer Latin diction, the distributive (binas in the SLP) is used of a pair rather than the cardinal (duas in Dannie's ORDO 2016), the pair being the two Masses allowed to a priest binating on these days.

BUEN VIAJE

If an ass goes traveling he'll not come home a horse. Fuller's Gnomologia

As any veteran traveler will attest, a costly vacation beyond America's borders yields more than memories of fine dining on "copious quantities of meat." It clears the cobwebs from your brain. It emboldens you. It liberates you from responsibilities at home. But most of all, it renews your resolve to keep on traveling.

His Vagrancy is proof of these positive effects. Look what a change a few days of leisure tourism in the middle of Lent has wrought for Dannie! A week or two ago, the Dirtbag furtively escaped to sunny, fast-mitigated México lindo without so much as a squeak until he was safely over the border.

Amazingly, he returned completely transformed. Gone is the self-conscious fear of confessing yet another frightful waste of the laity's scarce resources. No more faint-hearted, after-the-fact excuses. No, Sir!  He'll brook no restraint henceforth.  Just look how His Insistency put the penny-pinching Gerties on notice in last week's "Bishop's (?) Corner":

Thank you for your prayers for my Mexican trip, which went very well. These are always tiring but energizing affairs. We have so much at St. Gertrude the Great. It’s good to get out each month and share the wealth. Of course, thanks to the wonders of modern communication, this can be and is, done every day. “The word goes forth.” God bless the angels of the internet. “Unto all the earth.” Still, we should be sensible of all we do have, and of all those souls who don’t, and show ourselves generous and grateful.

In case you missed the point of the above "Declaration of the Wandering Rights of Dan," we'll deconstruct this monument to effrontery.  Dannie's feeling exhilarated from this last trip abroad. It's been a while since he got out of town, and he's pretty p.o.'d that the cultlings have made him feel self-conscious about the huge expenses he's racked up. As you can read for yourself, he's sick of inventing pious excuses. From now on, Dan's going to "get out each month" so he can "share the [Gerties'] wealth."

That means there's likely to be a whole lot of foreign travel as Wee Dan "goes forth" on a regular basis, whether the dirty Gerties like it or not. Awaiting Dan the Travelin' Man is a big, wide world of vacation adventure "[u]nto all the earth," or, at least, unto Mexico and the southern hemisphere.

His Itinerancy is no arm-chair sojourner who gets his kicks from browsing the 'Net or thumbing through glossy travel brochures. The SGG zombies better realize (= "should be sensible") that he hasn't been wandering as much as he used to. Therefore, the time's come for them to be "generous and grateful," that is to say, "generous and grateful" to His Spendthriftiness and his posse: The SGG "clergy" don't have everything they think they're entitled to.

To show the cheapskates he means business, "One Hand"put the Gerties' money where his mouth is. As soon as he laid down the new rules, he wrote,

But this week is not so quiet for Fr. McKenna, who travels to Quito, Ecuador for Mass and a Conference on true Catholicism. Please pray for our missionary who is trading the frozen north for the elevated Andes.

Isn't he marvelously bold as brass? Why, it's almost heroic. No explanation where the money's coming from. From the "bishop's" fund? Or perhaps from the Ecuadoran hosts? Ummmm, how about from Uneven-Steven's piggy bank? Nope. Radio silence. No justification at all. Not even a few words about the conference so as to sweeten another budget-bustin' South American trip for the tapped-out Gerties. Just an in-your-face ultimatum.

Now that's standing tough in front of the uppity laity. You go, Dannie!

With his newly found assertiveness, "One Hand" should strongly consider a little vacation getaway for Checkie Cheeseball so he can take his mind off all those failed videos he's been making. Whenever the Blunderer puts one out, Messrs. Salza and Siscoe brilliantly trash him. The latest imbecility — the one Wee Dan referenced in the same "Corner" — has already been thoroughly debunked. (Click here to read an adroitly written reply to Checkie's spastic mummery.)

It's critical: Dannie's got to get Erroneous Antonius out of Dodge, pronto. Trad Nation knows the Blunderer is incapable of producing a sober, well-articulated response in edited English prose with unified, coherent, and structured paragraphs. You don't need a therapist to tell you there's a limit to how many times a petty narcissist's opponents can have him for lunch before he wigs out in the face of their superior intelligence, educational attainment, and argumentative skill.

The question is, where should the Checkmeister go? He's not sophisticated enough for Latin America,  Europe, or Australia and New Zealand. And Dannie's not going to let this pilgrim mosey on out to chic and artsy Santa Fe all by his little ol' lonesome. Nor can "One Hand" send him home to Milwaukee because John "The Lawman" Salza is the new theological sheriff there, and he doesn't cotton to malformed riffraff in his town.

So, with all that superabundant Gertie "wealth,"  where can Bonehead Tone go to lick the wounds to his out-sized ego?

Our suggestion is Nigeria so he can visit "Father" Nkamuke and his lone seminarian du jour, but maybe those of you in cyberspace have something better in mind. Give us your suggestions in the comments section. Be creative and don't worry about the expense. Since they "have so much at St. Gertrude the Great," the Gerties will foot the bill.

His Improvidency will make sure they do.

IN THE SPOTLIGHT'S GLARE

Misera est servitus ubi jus est vagum aut incertum. ("wretched is the bondage where the law is fickle or uncertain"). Latin Legal Maxim

After last week's post, some emailers asked, "Where, along the path to the ruin, did Big Don and Co. lose their way?" Our correspondents, you see, were at a loss to explain how anyone who had attended Écône under the archbishop would dare to claim in public he could divine the intention of John XXIII, who's been dead for well over 50 years.*

Did the Swami of Sedelandia hold a séance to commune with the deceased in the spirit world?

Did he pull out a well-used pack of occult tarot cards?

Or, perhaps his cat is a spirit guide capable of channeling Roncalli at will?

OUR answer to the query is that all these sede ecclesiastical freebooters never changed. They're the same now as they were back in the day, only a little more shaken, a little more prone to wild fantasies since they scattered like cockroaches back to their grimy holes, scurrying from the lamp of scrutiny. We mean, the situation's pretty bleak when Wee Dan has to sneak off in the shadows to Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, for his 2016 Lenten run to the border.

The passing years have only ossified the lawless habits of thought ingrained many decades ago, habits never eradicated by enlightened study of authentic Catholic sources. So, return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, as we bring to light a telling anecdote recently shared with us:

Long, long ago (the very early 1980s, in fact), when The Nine were yet nestling cozily in the ample bosom of the SSPX, the archbishop ordained to the subdiaconate a man trained at its American seminary. A short time thereafter (so our source assures us) the authorities, for reasons never disclosed, decided to "dispense" the young Levite, who left the institution and was told he was free to marry. 

This simple, apparently innocuous, reminiscence from the murky past is worth pausing over, for in it we see, with the appropriate illumination, the same inconsistency and usurpation of authority that characterizes TradWorld's scofflaw "clergy" to this very day.

For some background, let's consult the Jesuit T. Lincoln Bouscaren, who notes, "the canonical obligation [to celibacy] begins with major orders, of which the subdiaconate is the lowest." Although the vow of celibacy is "no longer express" in the ordination of subdeacons, the vow, according to the more common teaching, "is implied." Moreover, "if the ordinand expressly declines the vow he is bound by the law" of celibacy. (Emphasis in the original.)

If all that's true, then where, you might well ask, did the guys in charge get the authority to reduce our subdeacon to the lay state? Was it "by rescript of the Holy See" or "by judicial decree in accordance with canon 214"? There's no evidence of that, and it's highly unlikely anyway, given the tensions at the time between the society, the archbishop, and Rome. How, good Catholics demand to know, could any well-formed churchman of good conscience and in a position of responsibility have agreed to "dispense" the subdeacon?

Even if the questionable decision came from higher-ups, why didn't some principled soul involved protest, or even resign if necessary? Such a reaction wasn't unheard of in the American SSPX. Earlier an SSPX official resigned after the archbishop ordained a candidate to the priesthood in spite of the official's strenuous objection.

Probably everybody went along at the time because they thought that by taking the law into their own hands they could mold it to their liking in the traddie gloom. Such is the way of slothful autocrats, who imitate others' bad example. For these clerical prison wardens, the law is a coercive weapon of convenience. They wield it like a scourge to impose on the prostrate laity cooperation or submission, but hang it out of sight when they want to have their own way. Consistency means nothing; expediency is everything.

Sanctioning the unspeakably cruel death of Terri Schiavo, illicitly suppressing the Leonine Prayers, inventing new mortal sins, implying canonical status, fabricating liturgical innovations like the "pontifical Missa cantata," selectively adopting or repudiating Pius XII's legislation, perversely mistranslating infallible papal teaching, etc., etc., are all of a piece with the Donster's retrospective reading of a dead man's mind. It's all part of ruling by will rather than by law. Why bother with reflection grounded in theological or canonical reality when you can imagine an answer that suits you?

In a nutshell, these "clerical" renegades are baldly making it all up as they go along. It's far easier — and more unjustly advantageous — to be arbitrary than to be subject to the same rules that bind other Catholics. There can be no messy challenge when the law is what the cult masters say it is, or when that law can be different tomorrow, if it so pleases these down-market despots. That's doubly true if the authentic interpreter of the law is also a spirit medium.

By now, we're sure some of you cult victims out there are hopping-mad at this post. So, why not go ahead and test us? Ask your cult Caligula the following questions:

(1) Today, if a pesthouse subdeacon wanted to walk away from his vow of celibacy, would it be a mortal sin?  And,

(2) if a subdeacon can be "dispensed," how could a sede "bishop" dispense him, seeing that, as Bouscaren says, "dispensation is an act of jurisdiction"?

Be sure to send us the replies (pistrinalit@gmail.com). We're waiting with bated breath for the light to shine on what they have to say.

* (Click here to refresh your memory.)

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.