Pistrina Liturgica

THE MORE THE MERRIER

2012-01-20T17:00:00.017+01:00

To paraphrase Nancy Mitford: The episcopacy in the Sede Vacante is like a gelding: it may prance and jump, but in fact it is impotent.

Cyberspace has been a-buzz of late with anxious rumors of yet another consecration in the offing. The general tenor of the hand-wringing lamentation seems to be that we don't need another bishop.

Rubbish! As far as we're concerned at Pistrina, we need quite a few more of these episcopi vagantes. Indeed, we argue that all priests should receive the episcopacy as soon as they can scrape together enough cash to buy the basic starter kit of miter, pectoral cross, ring, and, perhaps, a cassock with piping.

Shocked? O.K., we'll explain:

If every priest were made a bishop, then the Hermit-Kingdom monopolies controlled by these traddie mediocrities would soon come to an end. No more withholding holy oils, confirmations, ordinations; no more putting on airs and parvenu uppityness; no more deadly ecclesiastical adventurism and vain empire building. Soft-conscienced prelates would perforce have to concentrate on serving exclusively the people whose toil and sweat make it possible for them to live comfortably and play (often hilariously) the great man on their home turf.

As to objections about the great dignity of the episcopacy or the laying on of hands too wantonly, the Readers remind everyone that we're in the Sede Vacante. Let's remember that these see-less bishops possess only the bare-bones minimum: they can sanctify but not rule or teach. Moreover, they enjoy only material apostolic succession. In the utter absence of authority, there are no means to sift the chaff from the wheat to assure that only worthy men receive episcopal orders.

As the situation stands, any ambitious priest who covets a miter can get one, provided he find a willing consecrator. (And their number is legion.) In other words, self-selection constitutes "election," not the studied scrutiny of the institutional Church. Good character, piety, zeal for souls, solid learning in theology are no longer the real criteria -- they're just unsupported and sometimes tacked-on claims, which often are belied by our knowledge of these men's sorry record of accomplishment. How else, then, could we have gotten the likes of so many of the wandering bishops who now plague traditional Catholicism in the U.S.?

Traditional Catholic self-identity is best severed from the episcopacy so that the clergy can focus on the cure of souls. It's hard to focus on the faithful when self-aggrandizing petty prelates ration the sacraments in order to guarantee their corner on the market. What's funny is that these characters don't even have the span of control of a big-box discount store assistant manager. Let's face it: in the Sede Vacante, bishops really have a but very limited role to play, essentially to bless holy oils (and perhaps sacred vessels) and to ordain. They're not really needed for confirmation and the many other functions that a priest has the power to perform.

Therefore it's no big deal to multiply these orders. The cachet is gone. If everyone has the same standing, then traditional bishops may be less inclined to strive for self-promotion (particularly if the laity won't be impressed). Then we may see an end to some of these ecclesiastical kleptocracies and personal cheerleading societies. Maybe, just maybe, the salvation of souls may once again become the first law of the clergy. Maybe, just maybe, the traditional movement can be brought back to life.

WHEN IMPIOUS MEN BEAR SWAY

2012-01-15T01:15:00.005+01:00

…that no flowers be planted on my grave & that no man remember me. Hardy

A disturbing yet sadly revealing eyewitness report from out West has come to the Readers’ attention: the gravesite of Fr. Leblanc appears to be in a sorry condition. Lying only a few footsteps away from the tenants’ residence and within walking distance of the church, the final resting place for the mortal remains of a holy priest is said to be overrun with weeds and disfigured by overgrown grass.

Burial of the dead is a corporal work of mercy, and by extension so is the seemly care and solicitous upkeep of burial places. Catholic cemeteries have long had endowed funds for the continued and habitual Christian care of graves. Even the Novus Ordo recognizes that burial grounds should be hallowed places of comfort, reverence, and prayerful devotion to the remembrance of the faithful departed. Moreover, as the Novus Ordo ever affirms, the care for beauty of sacred grounds is an affirmation of the Church’s hope in the Resurrection.

Why must simple pietas, “the attitude of dutiful respect towards those to whom one is bound by ties of religion “ (Glare), be absent in a traditional Catholic community? Why, if the report be accurate, don’t any traditional religious or clergy perform this small corporal work of mercy for a deceased priest? Surely Fr. Leblanc’s efforts to build and endow the lovely chapel must have warranted some small perpetual care burse. Surely the current property tenants could spare, in their charity, a half hour (or even less) weekly to assure that Father’s grave is a place of serenity, beauty, decency, and loving, respectful attention.

Perhaps it wasn't in the contract.

Fortunately, by this writing, we trust that a pious Catholic lay person will have stepped in to remedy the scandal.

LOOKING MORTIFIED UPON A MONKEY

2012-01-05T19:58:00.017+01:00

[T]he same thing seems different and conflicting to different people: it is "transposed" by a small additional ingredient, and appears utterly other by the "transposition" of a single constituent. For Tragedy and Comedy are both composed of the same letters. Aristotle (Joachim's translation)

The letter we posted last week from a follower certainly created a buzz around here (and generated an avalanche of e-mail). For our correspondents, his suggestion that the Thuc line is defective through Carmona seems to explain why there are so many problems with those bishops and the priests ordained through that secondary lineage.

Is it possible that all the evils traditionalists have experienced in the chapels served by Carmonite clergy might just be attributable to the absence of the charism of orders?

We don't like to say it, but the Blunderer (appearing under the nom emprunté "Peregrinus" in 1983) may have for once been right when he wrote of the Thuc line:

Can we really take all this seriously and suppose that the “bishops” involved in such goings-on are the future of the Church? Impossible. Even to refer to them as “traditional bishops” lends too much respectability to the whole business, which is, in this writer’s opinion, very disrespectable indeed.

One theme which dominates the affair from beginning to end is a gross and dangerous lack of prudence regarding the transmission of Apostolic Succession – a matter in which the slightest lack of imprudence is inadmissible. St. Paul reminds us: “Lay not hands lightly on any man” – he does not say: “Lay hands quickly on anyone.”

From our understanding of that now-embarrassing monograph, Two Bishops in Every Garage, the judgment seems to have been principally directed to the Carmona sub-lineage. If there's even the minutest probability of success in the infinite monkey theorem, then surely this erring pseudo-scholar could have made one correct assertion in some 40 or so years of banging randomly (and erroneously) away at a keyboard.

We Readers are not well versed in the Thuc controversy, but we invite anyone out there who is to contact us with any information they might have about the interesting thesis that only the Carmona line my be vitiated. That would go a long way to explain how one of these Carmonite priests failed to consecrate, why so many others can behave as badly as they do, and why the Carmonite "bishops" are the laughing stock of the traditional world.

Holiday Cards (3)

2012-01-01T00:41:00.005+01:00

Ed. Note: While staff continues on Christmas vacation, Pistrina posts another interesting insight from one of its followers:

Dear Pistrina,

Has anyone ever investigated whether the Thuc line may be invalid through Carmona but valid through des Lauriers? I once read Carmona's very lame response to criticisms about the validity of his orders, and I wonder if he was such a simpleton that he didn't pay attention to the proper rite etc. Everyone knows that Thuc was at times erratic early on in conferring orders.

Des Lauriers was a great theologian, so there's no doubt he would have insisted upon the correct edition of the Roman Pontifical and the correct rite. Carmona did not have had the education and understanding required to demand the correct book and ritual,

That might explain the problems with those so-called Traddie bishops whose Thuc lineage came through Carmona. I haven't been able to find any documentation about Carmona's "consecration" regarding the Ponitifal used or the rite employed. I'd really appreciate some solid investigation here.

Ed. Note: Sounds like a worthy research project! Is anybody out there game for it? It might account for a lot of the bad behavior in Traddieland U.S.A.

Happy New Year, and be sure you keep your money to yourself. As ever...

STARVE THE BEAST!

HOLIDAY CARDS (2)

2011-12-25T00:43:00.007+01:00

Ed. Note: During the Readers' vacations, Pistrina continues with its selection of e-mail messages. This one certainly deadens any cheerful wishes we might have for the holidays. We've seen the same program, and we understand why our correspondent is concerned. If the prediction comes to pass, then at least we'll have the consolation that the Terrible Trio and all its unpleasant associates will be out of the picture.

Readers,

Something conservative, almost orthodox definitely is afoot in the Conciliar Church, and it's much more than the new retro translation of the Mass. As you posted [see the the article titled BUST, Ed. ], this new element threatens to wipe away for good the feuding, money hungry, control freaks of the traditional movement. Only the Kool Aid addicts will be left, and everyone knows they're so marginal economically that they can't support their masters.

I just watched the PBS series "Catholicism" and I'm still in shock. The language and tone may be contemporary, but the content is right out of the pre-Vatican II past. If these conservatives of New Church get their ducks in order on the liturgical front, then we should expect to see a mass exodus (pardon the pun) from the likes of the Dolan, Pivarunas, Sanborn, Kelly cults and even the SSPX.

I predict that Catholics, sick and tired of the suicidal traddie self-immolations and palace revolts, will start to think that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it IS a duck. If that happens, it's over for the sedes. I'm halfway ready to agree myself.

HOLIDAY CARDS (1)

2011-12-18T02:37:00.010+01:00

Ed. Note: While our Readers are on their Christmas break, Pistrina thought you might enjoy some of the correspondence we have received. Even at this time of the year, we will not stop reminding everyone of the Terrible Trio's bizarre circus act. Be sure you starve the beast this season. Keep your wallets closed!

Dear Pistrina,

I am new to the site, so I read through all the posts critiquing Anthony Cekada's Work of Human Hands. I also managed to borrow a copy. Let me first say, that you Readers have done a thorough job of exposing that sham piece of pseudo-scholarship. Let me add, that I am in a unique position to add to your condemnation.

My academic speciality is pragmatics (language usage) and, in particular, discourse analysis. Your detailed post mortem of Cekada's book ably demonstrated his ill preparedness and absence of mastery of fundamentals. For my part, I decided to test whether the distribution of such elements as syntax, vocabulary, sentence structure, etc. also suggested that as a writer he falls outside the normative context of scholarly prose.

I compared sample passages from Work of Human Hands to randomly selected passages from 20 recent works by recognized scholars in the humanities. The result was conclusive. Without boring you with all the methodology, the study showed that, statistically speaking, Cekada as a user of written language does not fall within the expected norms for American scholarly discourse. My model indicates that his register is that of, say, an average college junior, or perhaps a sophomore.

As you have said, Work of Human Hands can by no means pose as a work of scholarship. Perhaps if I have the leisure time, I will write up my findings for future publication.

REMINDER

2011-12-11T02:27:00.008+01:00

Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered. Auden

The Blunderer and "One Hand" Dan have been trying of late to pump of sales of that doomed, unscholarly volume, Work of Human Hands. "One Hand" has stooped so low as to hype it in a recent sermon on the necessity of Latin. As the gift-giving season goes into full swing, perhaps this is the time to remind everyone of the many failures of that rag -- failures that reflect the failed legacy of the Terrible Trio, whose pride, arrogance, and overreaching will be forgotten soon enough, as are all human vanities. All their works are best consigned to oblivion.

Just as there are seven deadly sins that we should avoid, here are seven reasons for not wasting your money on such an empty and self-serving product of amateur authorship and publishing:

The academic shortcomings of Anthony Cekada’s Work of Human Hands are legion. First, there is virtually no notion of systematic composition, for sentences are not developed into coherent, unified and structured paragraphs. Second, the author’s diction is not academic but characterized by American regional slang and colloquialisms. Third, the self-taught author commits numerous errors of translation, transcription, and citation from Latin. Fourth, the author, in several cases, has failed to attribute the source of translations. Fifth, the text is littered with non-standard English and unconventional usage. Sixth, typographical errors and misspellings abound. Seventh, the book contains factual errors, as even one favorable reviewer pointed out.

We could continue, but we will not tax your patience. Suffice it to say that Work of Human Hands is at best a mere pantomime of scholarship. For a complete post-mortem of this stillborn insult to the world of genuine learning, start with this post on Pistrina Liturgica and continue reading.

M-M-MAKING THE WORLD SAFE FOR HYPOCRISY

2011-12-04T01:19:00.012+01:00

By thy shut soul's hypocrisy/...I call upon thee! and compel/Thyself to be thy proper Hell! Byron

The November MHT Newsletter finally slithered in. No mention of the big $30 K proposal. No reference to "taking over" Our Lady of the Sun. Those pipe dreams have vanished, we surmise. However, there was an overload of hypocrisy. In a peevish fit of self-righteousness, the rector declares, with a shameless absence of self-awareness:

...we have striven carefully over the years to observe faithfully the doctrine and practices of the Catholic Church, and to distance ourselves from others in the traditional movement who are sloppy in this regard. Because of the deprivation of authority in the present crisis, the sheep are without shepherds, and the door is open to all sorts of aberration and abuse. There are many traditional priests, for example, who are ordained without proper training...They arrive suddenly in the priesthood and function poorly, either because they are ignorant, or because they have never learned how to curb their vices and lead good spiritual lives. They have never been vetted by serious seminary training. Their ignorance often leads to very serious errors in dogmatic, moral, or pastoral theology.

How, then, does this square with the practice of his completers of the MHT pesthouse? As we have noted, one of his products could not perform a graveside burial service. (The same feckless fool also committed a major doctrinal error in his requiem sermon.) Another one (even worse trained, if that's possible) skipped the consecration at Mass. That absent-minded creature has also invented a number of new mortal sins and recently could not say the requisite number of Ave, Marias at the Leonine Prayers. Another one cannot bless holy water without being wracked by self-doubt and insecurity (and one of his baptisms is a horror story of incompetent practice: perhaps we'll tell it one day).

This is preserving the the Catholic faith?

Please. Gag us with a spoon!

This is sheer hypocrisy, and yet another instance of the failure of the rector and his dynamic-duo buddies from SW Ohio to create a legacy.

Being "home alone" is far better than being in the company of these theological ne'er do wells. They think they merely have to say they are Catholic for you to believe them, when their works make it plain that they are worse than the men they despise.

Reject them all out of hand -- and anyone who associates with them.

THANKSGIVING INTERLUDE

2011-11-27T01:53:00.009+01:00

Ed. Note: Owing to the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend in the U.S., Pistrina prints an e-mail commentary on last week's post. Everyone, it seems, recognizes that those theological turkeys are just plain foul.

Dear Reader,

As a rule, I avoid SSPX Masses because of simple logic, not on that wild-eyed "una-cum" theory. In my book, either Razzi is pope or he isn't. Period! And if he is, then priests have to obey him. (I am a little more lenient with those independent chapels that are just affiliated with the SSPX, because those guys are on their own.)

I've always believed this ever since the early 1970's. It's just common sense. That's not been the case with Brooksville and Cincinnati "entrepreneurs." I remember when one of these "great" theologians was "Sede" in 1977, then pro-papa in 1980, then sede etc. I also remember when the other "theologian" blasted the Thuc lineage in 1983 and then became the great defender in 1990 when his buddy and paymaster wanted a miter. These jokers change their minds whenever it suits them.

Everyone should rely on their conscience and not the trio's opinion "du jour"... in all things!!

UNA-CCEPTABLE

2011-11-20T00:33:00.011+01:00

'tis the eye of childhood/That fears a painted devil. Shakespeare

Side by side with the Trying Threesome's failure to produce any reasoned, substantive advancement to the theory of the Sede Vacante, their venal una-cum ghost story condemns them as theological adventurers. Even one of the MHT completers recognizes this fiction for what it is: a patent attempt to keep the faithful from taking their dollars to the SSPX. That's why he gave the green light a while back to some Catholic laity to assist at society Masses. Moreover, the terminally challenged CMRI, as marginalized as it is on the far fringes of Catholic thought and praxis, has enough sense to reject this ploy to scare the ignorant into submission.

No matter what these three self-interested characters argue, the plain fact remains that the Church has not pronounced on the matter. Accordingly, their strident assertions remain just private opinion -- and rather low-level private opinion inasmuch as these three can never be considered theologians.

No one need pay one ounce of attention to this wild theory hatched in the fetid imaginations of ecclesiastical entrepreneurs. The motive behind this amateurish démarche is clearly fear that the faithful will abandon them, their bad habits, and their troubled orders for the more attractive and relatively stable SSPX. What was scary was the prospect of exiting dollars.

Rather than make up boogeyman theories out of whole cloth, the Terrible Trio should focus on getting rid of their odious cultic trappings and attempt, even at this late hour, to make a genuine contribution to Traditional Catholicism, say, by way of the liturgy or pious practices. It's obvious they should abandon theology as a science outside their limited grasp and very minor abilities.

MORE FAILINGS TO MEASURE UP

2011-11-13T00:05:00.011+01:00

To be still searching what we know not by what we know, still closing up truth to truth as we find it... this is the golden rule in theology. Milton

Our next instance of the Terrible Trio's failed legacy is in the theology of the Sede Vacante. On "One-Hand's" part, we have only his musings. Neither he nor the Blunderer has produced a credible, carefully reasoned argument for the absolute vacancy of the See of Peter. (How could they? It's not in their DNA.) It's all been just their anecdotal remarks, and you have to take them on their word! (Not likely, in view of the Blunderer's botched work in The Work of Human Hands). In the world of thinking Catholics, their position can never be taken seriously until a brighter light appear (not likely when you look at their young priests -- all pretty dim wits, just hoping for a handout).

Altough we admit that the rector has produced one admirably competent explanation in Scholastic form of the materialiter thesis in Soldalitium (see "The Material Papacy") --excepting, of course, his gross misspelling Vacantis Apostolica (read Apostolicæ) Sedis and his gauche references to "stench"-- he has yet to make a real advance in the theology of the Sede Vacante. In spite of his attempts to suggest a refined interpretation, he has really added nothing material to the Cassiciacum thesis.

All this is owing to the rector's dreadful formation. (That's why his Sodalitium article is so impressive. It's like viewing the performance of a ball-room dancing monkey: one always must ask, how did the trainer manage to pull off the stunt because it can't be real!)

In spite of all the nonsense coming out of "One-Hand," the rector (like the Blunderer) can never be considered a theologian in the classic Catholic sense. He's never studied at a pontifical university and possesses no advanced degree. He's never taught in a genuine university nor did he work under a real professor or genuine ecclesiastical superior (the archbishop might have been remotely close, but no cigar). Neither has he held a real professorship -- everything is self-declared. He's never co-authored an important work. Moreover, he's never been a department head in a recognized university nor has he authored a Latin theological manual or article (in fact, it's said that once a Frenchman severely censured a solo attempt).

In short, the Tiresome Trio really cannot claim to possess knowledge superior to that of many laymen (e.g., the learned and able John Lane of the Bellarmine Forum) or even parish priests. The Threesome had the time to acquire a sound knowledge, but they squandered it by their foolish in-fighting and connatural sloth.

BUST

2011-11-06T01:10:00.005+01:00

We know what a person thinks not when he tells us what he thinks, but by his actions. Singer

Perhaps the liturgy is the most obvious example of the failed legacy of the Blunderer, "One-Hand," and the rector. Here we are not referring to the Blunderer's embarrassingly awful book, Work of Human Hands, an ugly patchwork of misspellings, mistranslations, factual errors, shoddy scholarship, dreadful prose, and appalling taste. As Pistrina has demonstrated, that self-published rag stands as a monument of incompetence and over-reaching. (If you are new to this blog, start here and read the posts through December 2010, and you'll see what we mean; for a general criticism, read the incisive review "The Autodidact of the Credence Table.")

What we mean is the Threesome's failure to produce and publish well-researched materials that would help traditional Catholics celebrate the Roman liturgy in their chapels. The Three's failed legacy stands in high relief when we look at the work done by the SPPX and motu chapels, now widely available on the web. These zealous, conservative Catholics have spent their time productively in preparing excellent (and beautifully formatted) ceremonial instructions and reprinting useful and preactical liturgical books (see, for example, the Romanitas Press). Such practical and holy efforts are noticeably absent from the oeuvre of the Three Clerical Stoooges. They're content just to brag that they're preserving the liturgy and really do nothing. And when they've left the scene, nothing will remain other than bitter memories of division, invective, and ineptitude.

It's important to note that most of the superb online resources for the liturgy are of comparatively recent origin, whereas, the Terrible Trio has not done much in the liturgical-printing apostolate in their 35+ years of operation. Instead of promoting the liturgy, they preferred to start trouble in areas well beyond their competence, such as the Blunderer's Schiavo mess and the rector's una-cum hobby horse. All they have done is to offer overproduced spectacles for their own cult followers. (N.B. very few of the cultists actually attend these elaborate theatrical events, where "One-hand," like an enormous toadstool, presides and pretends he's pope.)

However, there is no greater proof of their failure in the liturgy than the damning fact that one of their own priests, an ignoramus who completed MHT and worked several years for "One-Hand," forgot on at least one occasion the Consecration at Mass.

In sum, the contribution of these three has been writ on water. They are legends only in their own deluded minds. Look elsewhere for the future of the traditional movement. Reject them and their failed legacy.

A DREAM DEFERRED

2011-10-30T02:32:00.004+02:00

A salesman is got to dream, boy. It comes with the territory. Miller

The October MHT Newletter blew in last week with all the other decaying débris of autumn. While silent about last spring's big $30-K plan and his highly anticipated take-over of Our Lady of the Sun, AZ, the rector does take us on a languid, somnolent trip down memory lane to the '50s, repeats the shopworn and recycled critique of Novus-Ordo impiety, speculates about the next SSPX-Rome démarche, and touches ever so lightly on the Restoration of the Church.

As we said, this is pretty much the same tired, old, dreamy fluff we've seen a thousand times. We would have ignored it all had the newsletter not arrived as we were beginning our series on the failed legacy of the Terrible Trio of the rector, the Blunderer, and "One-Hand Dan." Our thoughts about the Restoration are completely apropos of our new theme, and they make, we think, a nice introduction to the forthcoming series. After all, the rector is not the only one entitled to dream of what might be were the papacy and hierarchy to convert, renounce the heresies of the Vatican II establishment, and thereby effect the Catholic Restoration.

We'll keep it short and to the point.

If the Roman Catholic Church were restored, say, next week, one thing is for certain: Not a single wandering bishop of the Traddie movement would be called upon to serve in the restored episcopate. In fact, the restored Church would demand their resignations and suspend everyone of them a divinis. She would also demand the resignation of Traddie priests, too. After a lengthy investigation, perhaps some of the priests might be permitted to minister to the faithful after their orders had been regularized. However, not one of these episcopi vagantes would see a throne or a title or even the inside of a Church-sponsored retirement home.

Our reason for this bold assertion?

Well, although Vatican II certainly did away with the Catholic religion, it did not do away with the ethos and workings of the Curia Romana. The Church's bureaucracy is an ancient institution (the roots of which are found in classical antiquity). The Modernist revolution could not -- and did not wish -- to erase its habits of action, its subtle ways of handling difficult matters and even more difficult personalities. It has an institutional memory and rich documentary resources. Even a repentant and newly Catholic curia would realize that all these men have too much personal baggage. More critically, too much doubt surrounds their motives, their formation, their histories, and their orders to allow them to participate materially in the governance, instruction, and sanctification of the faithful.

That's why all that talk about preserving the faith, the liturgy, and Catholic culture is really just the stuff of disturbing pipe dreams. Even had they managed to preserve something (which they definitely have not done), the Restored Church would have no need for such meager accomplishments. She would have at her disposal the talents of genuinely educated men who are disciplinary experts in every field needed. Common sense, then, counsels, that there is simply no way on earth any of these characters would ever be given a role to play in a Restored Church.

For that reason, even if the signs were unmistakable that the Church had been restored, these wandering bishops would keep up their resistance until their last cult-follower stops making contributions.

NECROPTICAL ALLUSIONS

2011-10-23T03:40:00.004+02:00

Ruinous inheritance (damnosa heriditas). Gaius

The medical examiner's report is in: the long-ailing organizations under the shaking thumbs of the rector, "One-Hand," and the Blunderer are, for practical purposes, defunct. All that remains is a post-mortem assessment of these failed clergy's non-existent legacy.

In the coming weeks through a series of posts, Pistrina will sharpen its scalpel to peel from the rotting corpse, one by one, the tissue of failure and expose it to public scrutiny. You will see how the Terrible Trio has, in fact, achieved nothing beyond wretched self-complacency. In the areas of liturgy, theology, the defense of Catholic faith and morals, Catholic intellectual life, propagation of the faith, Catholic education, and priestly formation, all their expensive and unfocused efforts have yielded nothing worthy of remembrance or imitation.

Now that the traditional world has seen the Threesome for the Great Pretenders that they are, whatever influence they might have wielded is now finally at an end. Traditionally minded Novus Ordites have made more useful and permanent contributions to liturgical praxis in the short time since the Motu Proprio than the Three Stooges have after more than three decades of trouble-making.

Therefore, before they disappear from the scene and our attention, in the last weeks of this liturgical year, the Readers will conduct an autopsy to bring to light their dismal record of non-performance.

HIDEY-HO

2011-10-16T01:17:00.008+02:00

"I'll be back! I ALWAYS come back!" Chucky in Bride of Chucky

The Reader is loath to compound two disparate films into one allusion. It seems almost a kind of mixed metaphor. But this time it can't be helped. Insofar as both A Christmas Story and the many avatars of Child's Play are cult classics, it's apropos, we think, in this case.

In the September MHT Newsletter, the rector announced he was expecting the return of Scut the Prefect to the pesthouse. Now it wasn't so long ago that he bid our un-merry martinet adieu as the latter was heading off for a two-man monastery in France. But it looks like he'll soon be baaaaaack.

What happened? Why no explanation? Was the place too outré even for the sorry likes of punishment-happy Scut?

Apparently the rector wants Scut a.k.a. "Chucky the Chip-Off-the old Rector's Block-Head" to play and get the new seminarians in line. Leaving those poor man-children alone in peace is simply not in order. They'll need some rough humiliation with loads of punishment if they're ever to be fit to serve as obedient orderlies on the mop brigade. When Scut-Chucky gets his visa, those newbies will wish they were back home with mama. Just imagine: the crumbling halls of MHT will once again echo with high-pitched insults, squealing degradation, and falsetto screaming accusations of mortal! mortal! sin.

We're certain that "Chucky the Chip" will get "Squirmin' Herman" up to speed in dishing out unjust discipline. Only the Chuckster can wipe that goofy smile off that grinning, empty face! Oh, the time for a reckoning is hard upon those little babes who thought they had a chance in the swampland!

How long before the little ones will wish it was only make-believe?

ONE-HAND REDUX

2011-10-09T02:46:00.004+02:00

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook. Wm. James

Pistrina is surprised at how much e-mail traffic a comment under one of our articles about “One-Hand” Dan’s ordination has generated. Remarking about the post “‘Slight’ of Hand”, an earnest commenter admonished the Reader:

…so what if Dolan's priestly ordination was invalid? He was thereafter consecrated a bishop, thereby receiving the fullness of the priesthood. Consecration as a bishop automatically confers all of the powers of the lesser office of priest.

Pistrina's Readers replied that, according to research undertaken a few years ago, a valid priestly ordination was required for the reception of the episcopacy. However, we invited our correspondent to provide written support for his/her assertion. We also promised to publish anything the commenter found.

We aren't sure if our commenter was among the correspondents who wrote, but the Reader received quite a few e-mails both pro and con. Here’s a summary of the best:

Somewhat in favor of the commenter, one writer cited Tanquerey (the Latin moral theology author frequently used in pre-Vatican II U.S. seminaries).

…orders received by a leap are valid, except perhaps the episcopacy…some [theologians] contend that the episcopacy is not an order distinct from the priesthood, but only its complement, and therefore is not validly received unless the priesthood were received beforehand; others, however, hold that the episcopacy is a distinct order, in which the priestly order is eminently contained, and from ancient documents it is well known that sometimes this order was conferred while other orders were skipped (Synopsis Theologiae Moralis et Pastoralis, I. 1149 [b]).

A learned correspondent from abroad sent us a Spanish-language text by the Dominican Royo Marín. The eminent friar considers both positions and offers the following conclusion: the opinion “that requires previous priestly ordination for the validity of Episcopal consecration is very much more probable…” (Teología Moral para Seglares, 2. 412).

A third writer sent this citation from the Dominican Prümmer:

Is the espicopate validly received by one whose priesthood was invalid? The negative opinion seems preferable and is the one to be followed in practice (Handbook of Moral Theology,806.3).

The Dominican B.H. Merkelbach, another correspondent pointed out, refuses to hedge his opinion like others. The great moralist categorically concludes:

The episcopacy or the power of ordaining other priests cannot be conceived without the priesthood, but necessarily supposes and includes it, since no one can communicate to others a power that he does not have. And therefore, a bishop cannot be validly ordained who is not, or at least is not ordained at the same time, a priest (Summa Theologiae Moralis, III. 731.3).

We’re not here to settle the question of the validity of "One-Hand" Dan's orders. As we’ve said, the decision whether to seek a sacrament sub conditione is best left to the individual’s conscience. Our point is simply that no one should use the Blunderer’s unscholarly monograph to decide the question.

IT TOLLS FOR THEE

2011-10-02T00:24:00.005+02:00

A tale told by an idiot. Shakespeare

Ed. Note: The September MHT newsletter arrived early last week. It's interesting how once the rector boasted about three new seminarians from France, but now he reports just one. And there's still no update on his "permanent arrangement" with Our Lady of the Sun. We warn the Michigan chapel to be on guard. Things are probably tough down in the swampland. You're looking like the last resort. Hold on to your wallets.

Speaking of the Michigan outpost, we can give our readers a juicy tidbit before they wade into the contents of this week's post (in which we must flog the rector for a grievous misspelling in his newsletter): Last week, the pastor -- you know... the simian-grinning Father "What Me Consecrate?" -- forgot (once again) to say the third Hail, Mary at the Leonine Prayers after Mass. (Isn't it time to give him a refresher course?)

The Readers know that pointing out the gross spelling errors of the Blunderer and the rector can be tedious for many people. Ordinarily, we would just chalk these embarrassments up to the inferior formation these men received and leave it at that. However, these clerics persist in representing themselves as the very best in Catholicism, and they are ever so quick to lambaste others as "country priests" -- or even worse -- for their mistakes. So turn about is always fair play here.

The rector, with his flair for belaboring the obvious, tells us:

We have have five seminarians left from last year, and have two new ones this year...All tolled, there will be seven...

Had he be given a real education, he would have written "all told." One of the meanings of 'to tell,' indeed the original Old English meaning, is to count, reckon up, mention numerically, calculate the total amount. That's why we call someone who counts votes or cash a "teller."

The howler is especially horrific for a Catholic, who should have had that meaning of "tell" in mind from the idiom "to tell one's beads," meaning to say the Rosary ( as in Paul Laurence Dunbar's line, "She told her beads with downcast eyes," or in the old Percy ballad, "It was a friar of orders gray/Walkt forth to tell his beads"). The ignorance is compounded in a priest, who should have known the sense from the Douay verson of Psalm 146.4: "Who telleth the number of the stars; and calleth them all by their names."

Educated folk know that 'to toll' means to exact as a toll (charge, tax) or to sound a (large) bell slowly at regular intervals or to attract, entice, allure (as in 'toll-bait' or 'toller'). But that's our point. It's the old story of the emperor's new clothes, isn't it? Apparently, the rector's been hanging around the Blunderer for too long: he's absorbed all those bad habits of language, which an inferior education did not remove.

As an aside, if you'd like a really humorous look at the boo-boo the rector shares with many others of the stubbornly careless classes, we suggest you read the Word Detective's fine note on this error. After you read the note, be sure to remember to

STARVE THE BEAST & KEEP YOUR MONEY AT HOME

NEWS UPDATE: TYING UP SOME LOOSE ENDS

2011-09-25T01:19:00.005+02:00

We've just passed the autumnal equinox, so perhaps it's time to take a breather and catch up on some unfinished business:

1. There's been no MHT pesthouse newsletter so far for the month of September. That means, there's still no word about the rector's big $30 K proposal. Perhaps it's dead, so the cultists might be able to start saving for their children's Christmas presents.

2. With no newsletter, there's also been no word about any "permanent arrangement" with Our Lady of the Sun Chapel in Arizona. Let's hope, for the rich, little chapel's sake, that the rector is still simply a mere tenant with no immediate chance to grab the brass ring.

3. "One-Hand" Dan may be in France taking names and kicking Gallic derrière, but Pistrina has learned this week that only one of the three French seminarian candidates for the pesthouse has actually shown up in the swampland. The other two declined to attend. This is specular news, for it shows that the world is catching on to the problems with the cult.

SPECIAL POST: IN THE BURROWS OF THE NIGHTMARE

2011-09-18T01:52:00.010+02:00

De vils despotes deviendraient/Les maîtres de nos destinées. Rouget de Lisle

Last Sunday la belle France awoke to a nightmare: “One-Hand” announced early in the morning that he’s on his way. Coyly, he claimed he would abandon his Ohio cult for three Sundays in order to help his client and protégé, but Pistrina knows that he’s headed to Chambéry.

“Demolition Dan” has gotten very small in the U.S. His influence is as slight as his diminutive, though corpulent, stature. He can’t threaten Americans any longer, not even his hypnotized, semi-literate cult followers. He must treat them very gently now, lest they all walk away in disgust and leave him, and his boss, "The Principal," penniless. That’s why he’s off to France: to show the French a good, old-fashioned American whip hand after they dared to seek their own priest when Dan’s collaborateur couldn’t serve them. Making the French submit as he swaggers before their downcast eyes (he must imagine) will restore his lost grandeur while destroying their sense of self-worth. Yes, three Sundays of triumphant, pip squeak bullying will be the tonic he needs before he must return to his cult and begin begging again for meager macaroni suppers and hand-me-down stoves. No matter what, the rector will be impressed! And the Blunderer, too.

As a rule, pride and piety are impossible companions. In this case, however, the Reader sees an exception. If they awaken, the faithful of Chambéry have the opportunity to assert their independence from a destructive foreign intruder and affirm that they are Catholics, not narrow-minded, divisive sectarians of the ghastly American variety, with their nightmarish cult of personality and hallucinatory insinuations. Moreover, now might be the perfect opportunity to repudiate once and for all “One-Hand’s” well-documented inclination for destroying chapels -- his lasting legacy to traditional Catholicism.

Pistrina wouldn’t presume to tell the French how to act. That’s why we haven’t appended a French translation. We have too much admiration for the French nation. We can say only how we would behave, were we proud and pious French men and women. The solution is really very simple. If the Readers believed they had been wronged by “One-Hand’s” unwanted intervention in a private matter, they would boycott all his Masses for the three Sundays during which he proposed to darken their door.

We would stay at home. Say the Rosary. Practice acts of perfect contrition. If we happened to see the Destroyer sashaying down the street wearing his trademark rigid and foolish grin, we would cross to the other side and bless ourselves for having avoided an ill-omened presence. We would not welcome him into our homes. We would not feed him. We would demand that he live in the tiny priest’s apartment or take lodgings in a luxury hotel at his cult’s expense. We would not give him money. (We might even summon the gendarmerie.)

Yes, he would become incensed, as all puffed-up, bruised egos do at well-merited slights. We would find strength in our proud resistance to an impiety. Even if he threatened to destroy our chapel, we would be resolute. We would show him that our self-respect could not be compromised. We would remember that we were free men and women, citizens of the guardian of high culture, in need of no lessons from an underclass, ill-educated, pretentious outsider, who is vilified in his country. We would send him packing. God will provide for us, since we remain true to our conscience.

If, as our punishment, "Demolition Dan" withdrew the services of his creature in France, we would beg our beloved, former priest to return to us.

The living nightmare would then end.

BUT WHAT IF THE CHEAP HOTEL HAS A REWARDS PROGRAM?

2011-09-11T00:21:00.005+02:00

Ed. Note: Ludwig Wittgenstein was right: "Logic must take care of itself." Our bizarre series from the emailing clerical messenger concludes with this other-worldly, logic-bending, dreamscape excursus on (1) the pesthouse’s determined efforts to steer clear of demimondaines and (2) the eerie effects of the absence of control exercised by reason.

Oh, where is André Breton when you need him!

And then every once in a while we hear something else weird. The latest thing is that [two Russian seminarians] wanted to spend Easter vacation in New York City, but [the rector] would not let them because they could only afford to stay in a cheap hotel, and [the rector] said that if they stayed at a cheap hotel, people would think they were there to meet a prostitute. I didn’t hear what [the rector] said directly; I only heard what [Scut the Prefect] told us, and he tends to misunderstand and exaggerate things that [the rector] says. So I don’t know which of them said this, but [Scut the Prefect] said a priest cannot stay at a regular hotel; he can only stay at a very expensive hotel costing at least $100 a night, because if he goes to a regular hotel people will think he’s there to meet a prostitute.

Calling upon all his pesthouse logic chopping skills and powers of inference and discursive reasoning, our priestly correspondent demolishes his superiors’ artful theses:

Well, that’s about the craziest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. He also said a priest could not stay at just a regular hotel off of highway 75, for example between here and Cincinnati, for the same reason. I realize that there are very low hotels in bad parts of town, where prostitutes are walking all over the place, and where they charge you for the number of hours you stay there instead of by the night — those places are places of sin, and a priest shouldn’t stay at a place like that at all. But to say that every cheap hotel — even those places off of highway 75 that are just there for the people traveling up and down the freeway to spend the night in — are places of prostitution, is completely crazy.

Unsure that logic applies in this situation, our exasperated and unwilling epistolary informant first essays an introspective Socratic method (of sorts), staggers in the absence of synthesis, and limpingly clings to an analogy to convince himself that the pesthouse nomenklatura is as wrong as Siamese triplets on a one-wheeled bicycle.

And why is a priest safer in an expensive hotel? Do people NEVER have prostitutes in expensive hotels? I just don’t know what to think. More than 90% of the people who stay at a hotel are just there because they’re traveling a long ways, and they need to stop for the night. To say that people would think a priest is meeting a prostitute at a hotel, unless he goes to a very expensive hotel, is like saying a priest shouldn’t go into a bookstore because people will think he is there to buy bad books.

Ed Note: A dialectical effort worthy of Peter of Spain, that’s for sure! We hope Scotty beams our messenger back up to reality: There’s no intelligent life in the swampland (or at the SW Ohio cult center, for that matter). Not much of a chance for that, however. He’s been packed off to a Seattle gulag, probably for re-education, where he may have a chance to read and think about what he wrote in 2009.

Both the messenger and his new minder share the same opinions about the pesthouse, the rector, Scut, and the SW Ohio cult masters. The difference is, the minder was nastier but never put it in writing. He got his dose of therapy by shooting off his mouth to the laity. He also had the good sense to get out on his own. Now all he has to do is come wagging his tail when they occasionally whistle. Otherwise, he's got the backyard all to himself, so all strays are welcome -- under certain conditions...

THEY WON'T SHOOT THE MESSENGER, WILL THEY?

2011-09-04T00:32:00.009+02:00

Ed. Note: Below is a continuation of the Marathon of Weirdness chronicled in a 2009 e-mail message plucked from oblivion, which we introduced in the Aug. 21 post MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE? You'll recall that we interrupted this series upon learning that our priestly messenger was on vacation and therefore wouldn't be in SW Ohio to answer in person to "One-Hand" Dan when he convened the Rialto-Road star chamber. Oh, how sharp will be the thorns of the cruel trilemma upon which our diffident and epistolary informer will sit, for he seemingly has no courage to screw to the sticking place.

The first two following excerpts expose the creepy-crawly mind-control games these cult masters play; the third attests to how they game-played in micromanaging the life of a priest who, at the time, wasn't going to enter into indentured servitude to them.

"Recently [the re-admitted Russian seminarian] told me that [the rector] told him he would be expelled if he had any communication with [a French former seminarian] or [a German former seminarian]. I can understand to some extent that [the rector] would disapprove of [the Russian] talking to them, but to threaten him with expulsion just for talking to them is pretty outrageous. I mean, these guys weren’t expelled for being heretics or for immorality; they were basically expelled because they didn’t observe the rule of silence perfectly, and they didn’t clean the kitchen as well as they should have*.

Another incident was that [a then-current seminarian] asked [the rector] if he could get a ride from [an American ex-seminarian] from Cincinnati to Chicago after Easter, so his brother [name withheld] could pick him up in Chicago and take him toMilwaukee. [The rector] said no, because he said [the ex-seminarian] had a bad attitude when he was in the seminary. I don’t even know what [the rector] was referring to. It might be that [the ex-seminarian] would not give up his silly idea that geocentrism is a dogma of faith; and he also clung stubbornly to some other ideas that were wrong, though not as serious as the geocentrism thing. But [theex-seminarian] and I were good buddies, and I never got even the smallest suggestion from him that he had what would be a bad attitude; and his moral character was above reproach. So whatever disagreement happened between [the ex-seminarian] and [the rector], it remained behind closed doors. I don’t know, maybe since he has been in Cincinnati he has been speaking out against the seminary or something, but if he has I haven’t heard about it. So to forbid [the current seminarian] to get a ride from him to Chicago is disturbing.

And on another occasion recently I suggested to [the Blunderer] that I could work with [the smurf], since it doesn’t seem like there is anywhere else for me to work. He just said, “No, don’t go to him.” I asked him why not, and he said, “There’s so much baggage there… well, transeat ["Let it pass," Ed.].” And he wouldn’t say anymore or even give me an explanation. If [the Blunderer] doesn’t like [the smurf] or doesn’t want to work with him, I don’t care; but how does it hurt [the Blunderer] if I work with [the smurf], especially when he is practically the only option I have left?"

* For the true story with all the facts, read our post from January 23, 2011.

Ed. Note: Some Kool-Aid anyone? We'll be back soon with more weird tales from the pesthouse as we continue to share our intrepid narrator's further reflections on the strange and unnatural. The next post, we promise, will be positively surreal!

RASH HAND IN EVIL HOUR

2011-08-28T00:29:00.009+02:00

Here error is all in the not done. Pound

Ed. Note: We had hoped the rector's August MHT Newsletter might have commented either on the promised big $30 K proposal or on his quest for permanent status with Our Lady of the Sun Chapel. Instead, sad to say, it disappointingly contained an embarrassingly fifth-rate historico-political analysis. The rector should stick with what he knows best: distressing hapless seminarians, fearful laity, and priests without a conscience.

We recently learned that the priestly author of the revealing comments about the Terrible Triad and the pesthouse was on vacation last week. Accordingly we'll hold off publishing the rest of his tale of weirdness until he gets back. That way, when "One Hand" calls him on the carpet, the dressing down will have be fresh material. We really want our out-of-school tale bearer to have a chance to read what he wrote so he can face his off-put judges with a refreshed recollection. (This may end in tears. A resignation would be better for the man's soul.)

Our post about "One-Hand's" orders and the Blunderer's defense elicited quite a lot of anxious e-mail, and it filled the traddie forums. Here's our comment:

Many concerned Catholics wrote in, worried that the sacraments they received from "One Hand" might be invalid. In each case, we replied that their decision would be a matter of conscience. After all, we observed, many eminent canonists were of the opinion that a one-handed priestly ordination was valid.

Our central point is that the Blunderer's Latin translation of the key passage from Sacramentum Ordinis is just plain wrong, and the error has therefore rendered his defense of one-handed ordinations suspect. In each reply, we invited our correspondents to consult the Latin original of the authors Tony cites to allay any doubts.

Sure, we know that not everybody reads Latin nowadays (witness the majority of the traditional clergy), but our advice was not intended to torment. The problem is that Tony is such a bad Latinist (as we proved last year on these pages) that his translations and interpretations are not reliable. At the risk of wearying you, let us offer one, little example. (Please bear with us, if you will, for we will give you yet another substantive reason to mistrust everything Anthony writes.)

Among the strongest supporting testimony for Tony's thesis is the following quotation from the Theologia Moralis of Aertnys and Damen (Rome: 1958):

In Ordinatione presbyteri et Episcopi utriusque quidem manus impositio praescribitur sed nullo modo patet eam esse ad validitatem necessariam ad hoc ut plenioris potestatis translatio significaretur.

Now here's the Blunderer's translation:

In the Ordination of a Priest and of a Bishop an imposition of both hands is indeed prescribed — but it is plain that this is in no way necessary to it for validity, as though a fuller transmission of power would be signified.

There are two big errors in Anthony's translation. The first, in red, is merely a product of his gross ignorance of Latin idiom. The second, in violet, represents a genuine distortion in the meaning.

1) In Latin, the idiom ad hoc in this case means "for this (or the) purpose"; Anthony's laughable rendering "to it" is school-boy literalism caused by ignorance of the notion of grammatical antecedents and Latin phraseology.

2) In the Latin text, the word for "fuller" (plenioris) modifies "power" (potestatis), not "transmission" (translatio). Tony had no license to transfer the adjective to another noun in a different case, and the meaning he extracts, viz. "a fuller transmission of power," is semantically different from "a transmission of fuller power" of the original Latin.

There are a few other problems with his translation (a conjunction, the position of a modifying phrase and an adverb, a modal), but no sense in beating a dead horse. Tony's errors usually come in clusters. The bottom line is that no one should rely on the Blunderer for an answer to serious questions about the Catholic faith. (The warning is particularly apt for the abysmally ignorant traditional clergy who view Anthony as some sort of authority. )

For these and many other reasons, we say that everything about The Blunderer, "One Hand," and the rector is doubtful. It would be prudent of old "One Hand" to commission someone competent to retranslate all the Latin quotes in Tony's article. (That excludes the rector and the pesthouse completers.) Otherwise, people who have received sacraments at his hands will remain unsure.

MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE?

2011-08-21T01:33:00.004+02:00

Ed. Note: The Reader knows that for some, who haven't been around the Triple Threat of "One-Hand," the rector, and the Blunderer, it's very hard to conceive how Catholic clergy can be so wrongheaded. Therefore, to overcome any misgivings you might have had about how accurately we have been reporting their antics, this week we bring you external commentary in the words of one of their own priests (and a pesthouse completer, you'll be pleased to learn).

The original text arrived by way of an e-mail last week (it had been found in the trash by a very alert layman). Dated March 27, 2009, it came as a PDF of an e-mail message. We won't quote it all this week, but the few lines we cite will confirm everything we have asserted. Just for the fun of it, we've replaced names with our preferred epithets, and, to be sure, we've withheld the name of the author.

On the Need for Priests and the Boneheaded Un-gleesome Threesome

"...there is certainly an enormous need for priests today. But now consider my situation: I'm going to be ordained, and where am I needed? Obviously not in [my home state]. And not in Cincinnati either, although ["One Hand"] and [the Blunderer] always tell us about how overworked they are. If they needed me they would have made the very reasonable compromise that [the rector]proposed of having me in Cincinnati for two years. But they didn't want to do that because they said if I were there, they would begin new projects to have me work on, and then when I left they would have trouble continuing that work. I said I could just ease their burden for two years without them starting anything significant for me to do, or even if I did, there are other priests coming down the pipeline after me who could take my place after I left...There were several reasonable ideas that could have been worked out, but [the Blunderer] would not even discuss them with me."

On New Priests and the Newbies' Travails

"... the parish clergy are not willing to work with [newly ordained priests], so they have nowhere to go...I think we do not say Mass in enough places; we need more to do, more people, and more money. [The rector] has known about this problem for a long while now, but nothing has really been done. It also makes a bad impression on the laypeople too, because they see a new priest get ordained, and he ends up staying at the seminary to teach instead of working in a parish as they expected. And if they knew all the politics that went into my staying at the seminary, that bad impression would be infinitely worse."

On the Pesthouse and its Strange Goings-on

"Another thing is that I am beginning to lose faith in this seminary as an institution. [The rector] told me that if I stayed there I would have to avoid saying anything against the positions or discipline of the seminary. (I was never told that anti-una-cumism was an official position of the seminary, though I think that is going to change.) As far as the discipline, I approved of the rules of the seminary on the whole, with the exception of one or two details, but now I'm starting to hear about strange things being done."

"The pattern I see emerging here is that we are forbidden even to speak to people whom [the rector] doesn't like. This is a trend that I did not notice in the past, and it disturbs me...So if nonsense like that goes on in the two years that I'll be here as a teacher, I will have to verbally support the seminary in situations that may possibly get weirder and weirder as time goes on."

Ed. Note: Honestly, you can't make this stuff up. Their own people know that everything is rotten with the three stooges of Traditional Catholicism. Now don't worry. We won't leave you hanging. In a future post, we'll continue with the first-hand account of all the weirdness. In the meantime,

KEEP YOUR WALLETS CLOSED & STARVE THE BEAST

"SLIGHT" OF HAND

2011-08-14T00:36:00.015+02:00

His hand will be against all men, and all men's hands against him. Genesis

The Reader has been overwhelmed by e-mail inquiries about the origin of the sobriquet “One- Hand” Dan for the errant wandering bishop. We thought others might be curious as well. Accordingly, here’s the back-story in brief. It reveals quite a bit about the history behind the ugly SGG-MHT "association." It's also a good insight into the interpersonal relationships among this band of clerical brothers.

At "One-Hand's" ordination to the priesthood, Archbishop Lefebvre imposed only one hand, not both hands. Pope Pius XII had decreed, in the 1947 Apostolic Constitution Sacramentum Ordinis, that the matter of the sacrament consists in the first imposition of the bishop’s hands. In a letter dated September 21, 1990, nine priests then belonging the Society of St. Pius V, including the rector, cautioned Wee Dan as follows (emphasis in red ours):

In the course of the research which was being done in reference to ordinations and episcopal consecration, it was discovered that sacerdotal ordinations done with one hand are dubious…
Since your ordination was done with one hand, we must hold your ordination to be dubious, unless evidence can be brought forth that the one-handed ordination is certainly valid.
We therefore urge you ad cautelam to stop saying Mass, hearing confessions and administering the sacrament of Extreme Unction until this problem is resolved.
Please understand that our position in this matter is based purely on the dictates of Moral Theology, and has absolutely nothing to do with the disputes which exist between us.

Soon, in several rectories, the clergy began to use the moniker "One-Hand" Dan as an expression of derision, contempt, and disesteem. The nickname has stuck until this very day. It may all be harmless fun for some, but there do remain some serious considerations behind all the smirking ridicule and whispering.

In closing their 1990 letter, the signatories advised “One Hand” to do further research and report to them. The Blunderer did the research and issued an apologia, which is available here. While many have been satisfied with the findings, the Reader notes that there are several of the usual problems with the Blunderer’s understanding of Latin and his translations therefrom.

In a short 2005 note, one of our correspondents drew the problems to the Blunderer’s attention. As usual, the Blunderer dismissed the correction and offered a hasty and flimsy defense. His correspondent then sent a detailed, complete refutation. Given the complexity of the textual argument, Pistrina posts the full critique, “Lost in Translation,” on a separate page for anyone interested.*

Whatever your own conclusion is, it’s clear that traditional Catholics should avoid such men and the clergy who associate with them. They are definitely not “best in class.” Their influence is at an end. Their record speaks for itself. Too many doubts surround them. All that remains is for good and decent Catholics to

STARVE THE BEAST.

*Those ordained by “One Hand” might want to study the Blunderer's article carefully to determine whether his argument still holds in view of the corrected understanding of the Latin text of the constitution. If any priest is in doubt about validity, he may wish consult his conscience to decide whether or not to seek private conditional ordination from another bishop. Upcoming completers might wish to consider refusing orders from "One Hand."

IMPEDIMENTS ABROAD

2011-08-07T01:02:00.002+02:00

We are getting foreignized rapidly and with facility. Mark Twain

In addition to boding ill for Our Lady of the Sun Chapel, the rector’s July MHT Newsletter bade farewell to Scut the Prefect, who is off to France to join a two-man “monastery.” (Yes, we couldn't help laughing either.) One wonders how MHT will fare with his departure. True, he’s a bully and an incompetent teacher (once ending a course in theology about a month before the end of the term!), but he shouldered the lion’s share of the day-to-day disciplinary duties. Tony the Blunderer only shows up monthly. Moreover, the rector had molded Scut into the kind of punishment-happy sadist required to carry on MHT tradition. Perhaps for a few months, the twitching and cowering “seminarians” will enjoy a respite from humiliating verbal abuse and accusations of mortal sin before the rector succeeds in bringing out the inner Calvinist of Scut’s successor.

Scut may not remain abroad for long. Our sources inform us that the two "monks" at the “monastery” (a term we use for convenience, not as an accurate description) are a very odd lot, to say the least. If Scut couldn’t tolerate the high jinks of a few well-adjusted but overly exuberant young men, he’ll go ape in his new weirdo environment. If he doesn’t run home to mommy after a few months there, he’ll be back in the swampland with an even greater store of resentment and rancor to visit upon the seminarians.

France can also expect a visit from “One-Hand” Dan’s woebegone flunky, the Incredibly Dull Hulk. While Scut at least has some native intelligence and a smattering of education gained in his native land, this shambling American nobody has naught to recommend him except for the fact that he cannot think for himself. He’s the one who banished under threat of arrest some long-time members of the Milwaukee chapel just for asking about the SGG School scandal. Then, only a couple of weeks ago, the Hulk announced to the remaining faithful at the Wisconsin chapel that they had to pay his salary as “One-Hand’s” lackey in SW Ohio. Until “One-Hand” needed him to help out in the cult center, this gawky, monstrously slow underling was held in contempt by most of his fellow MHT completers. Moreover, “One-Hand” himself used to contrive to keep the Hulk out of sight. (The SGG cultists might want to ask Dumpy Dan whether SGG funds will pay for the Hulk’s airfare or whether “One-Hand” will use frequent-flyer miles. We think we already know the answer.)

At least now la belle France will be able to examine in vitro, as it were, two completely different but equally noisome, viral specimens from the pesthouse – the manic, anti-social Scut and the tongue-tied, panic-stricken Hulk. Let’s hope that one furtive glance from behind a sterilized curtain will be enough for the worried mothers of the French seminarians to recoil in horror at the kind of creature their sons will become if they complete MHT.

MOTHERS OF FRANCE: KEEP YOUR SONS HOME & CLOSE THE PESTHOUSE.

PRESENT HELP IN TIME OF TROUBLE

2011-07-31T02:59:00.003+02:00

Come on, baby, and rescue me. Aretha Franklin

Drifting in like a malodorous cloud of atomized effluvia on a current of thickly oppressive, swampland hot air, the MHT Newsletter made its unwelcome July appearance last week. It’s one of the most shoddily written and spiritless missives ever to issue from the rector’s doubtlessly expensive word processor. It appears as though no one bothered to give the piece a moment’s thought (or a quick proofreading). The Readers were mildly amused by the gauchely impolite “Both I and Fr. Selway,” and we howled with laughter at the phrase “Fr. Adam Cyr, desirous of living a more hermetic life.” Unless that priest really wanted to be sealed in an airtight compartment to escape the laity, the correct word is hermitic, or eremitic. (This is the kind of howling blunder that Anthony Cekada makes; that’s why no literate reader can tolerate Work of Human Hands. Ah, well! As they say, birds of a feather….)

In addition to all the thigh-slapping linguistic gaffes, the July screed suggests why the rector hasn’t delivered us of his promised, big $30K proposal. Just look at this quote: “we are very hopeful and confident that our relationship to [Our Lady of the Sun Chapel, Arizona] will become permanent.” The chapel, irrevocably split by an internecine court struggle between the former pastor and the board, still has an enviably healthy bank account as well as some prime acreage, in spite of the legal fees.

Yes, of course, we have heard over and over again from those close to the chapel that the lay board now running the place won’t turn over the funds or the deed to the considerable property holdings to the rector. However, very few traditionalist laymen are up to resisting the cash-starved, hell-fire-invoking rector: he is relentlessly single-minded in his pursuit of money for his pet projects.

Once the rector and his pesthouse pals get their foot firmly in the door of that poor, little, rich chapel, we fear the game will be over. The rector is firmly opposed to lay governance and will immediately begin to undermine the board’s authority. Therefore, we ask you to come to the assistance of Our Lady of the Sun. Contact Peter Reiss of the lay board and beg him NOT to make the chapel’s relationship with MHT and its priests permanent. Remind him that in May the rector pledged to bring forth a plan to get his hands on an additional $30,000 a year and then, all of a sudden, there was silence. He knew that “One-Hand Dan’s” cult members would never give him that kind of money. (Neither would "One Hand," for that matter.) Warn Mr. Reiss and the whole board that the rector may have targeted Our Lady of the Sun chapel to make up for the shortfall caused by the flight of former benefactors. Here’s the contact info we have:

P.O. Box 981
Scottsdale AZ 8525

rockyreiss@gmail.com

ACT NOW TO RESCUE OUR LADY OF THE SUN & MAKE SURE THE PESTHOUSE CLOSES!

BACK-TO-SCHOOL ADVICE

2011-07-24T03:02:00.015+02:00

Sons are anchors of a mother's life. Sophocles.

Ed. Note: We offer some advice to mothers whose sons are coming to the United States to study for the priesthood. A French translation follows. We ask our friends in France to make sure these mothers receive these helpful suggestions to make sure their sons do not suffer any of the indignities that Pistrina has reported.

Note de la rédaction: Nous proposons quelques conseils pour les mères dont les fils sont à venir aux États-Unis pour étudier à la prêtrise. Une traduction française suit. Nous demandons à nos amis en France pour faire en sorte que ces mères reçoivent ces suggestions utiles pour s'assurer que leurs fils ne souffrent aucune des indignités qui Pistrina a rapporté.

Dear mother of a new seminarian,

In September when the seminary begins the 2011-12 academic year, your son’s vocation and faith may be in grave danger. Since he will have no advocate on the faculty and will not be able to rely on his friends, you must prepare now to help him. Most young men who have only known love and goodness are overwhelmed by the culture and spirit of the place. In order to protect your son and the investment of several thousand euros you have made in sending him to the United States, we offer the following six suggestions, which we collected from former seminarians who left under very difficult conditions:

1. Before the new term commences, contact seminary officials by e-mail to put them on notice that you are holding them accountable for the spiritual, intellectual, moral, and physical welfare of your son. Let them know in no uncertain terms that you will not tolerate verbal abuse, harassment, or overly punitive disciplinary interventions.

2. In the same e-mail, remind authorities that you have sent your son to America to become a priest, not a janitor or a waiter. Make it clear that you expect your child will have ample time for his studies, prayer and meditation, and recreation. Insist that authorities inform you how many hours of each day will be devoted to mopping, dishwashing, sweeping, table-setting, table-waiting, yard work, and other menial duties. Then tell your son to keep a thorough record of hours spent per day in household chores.

3. While your son is at the seminary, tell him to keep a detailed diary of everything that happens. Instruct him to note the time, place, and the name of the official who administers punishment and scolding. Demand that he write a summary of any incident that results in disciplinary activity. If possible, provide him with a small digital tape recorder or be sure he knows how to activate quickly the recording feature on his cell phone.

4. Warn your son never to confide to an advisor anything that he doesn’t want the authorities to discover. Tell him never to give his confessor permission to share anything mentioned in the confessional with another person. Gently advise him not to speak too freely among the other seminarians, even to a friend.

5. Call him once a week and directly inquire how he is being treated, whether there are problems of any sort and how much academic progress he believes he is making. If he takes a laptop with him, be sure to download Skype so that you may see your child’s face: One glance from a loving mother usually reveals more than a hour’s conversation.

6. Remind him to stand up for his rights at the first sign of anything that even appears to be bullying, and insist that he call you immediately. Also, for the sake of safety, tell him to enter the local police department telephone number into his mobile phone’s speed dial.

_____________________________________

Chère mère d'un séminariste nouveau,

En Septembre quand le séminaire débute l'année 2011-12 scolaire, la vocation de votre fils et sa foi peuvent être en grave danger. Depuis, il aura pas d'avocat à la faculté et ne sera pas en mesure de compter sur ses amis, vous devez préparer dès maintenant pour l'aider. La plupart des jeunes hommes qui n'ont connu que l'amour et la bonté sont submergés par la culture et l'esprit du lieu. Afin de protéger votre fils et l'investissement de plusieurs milliers d'euros que vous avez fait en lui envoyant vers les États-Unis, nous offrons les six propositions suivantes, lesquelles nous avons recueilli des anciens séminaristes qui ont quitté dans des conditions très difficiles:

1. Avant que le nouveau trimestre commence, communiquer avec les responsables du séminaire par e-mail pour les mettre sur un avis que vous les tenez pour responsables du bien-être spirituel, intellectuel, moral et physique de votre fils. Faites-leur savoir dans des termes sans équivoque que vous ne tolèrez pas la violence verbale, harcèlement, ou trop punitives interventions disciplinaires.

2. Dans la même adresse e-mail, rappeler aux autorités que vous avez envoyé votre fils en Amérique pour devenir prêtre, pas un concierge ou un serveur. Faites bien comprendre qu'il faut que votre fils aie amplement de temps pour ses études, pour la prière et la méditation, et les loisirs. Exigez qu'ils vous informent combien d'heures de chaque journée sera consacrée à la vadrouille, laver la vaisselle, balayer, service, travaux de jardinage, et autres tâches subalternes. Alors dites à votre fils pour garder une trace complète d'heures passées par jour aux tâches ménagères.

3. Alors que votre fils est au séminaire, dites-lui de tenir un journal détaillé de tout ce qui arrive. Demandez lui de noter l'heure, le lieu et le nom du fonctionnaire qui administre la punition. Demandez qu'il rédige un résumé de tout incident qui entraîne l'activité disciplinaire. Si possible, lui fournir un magnétophone digital ou être sûr qu'il sait comment activer rapidement la fonction d'enregistrement sur son téléphone cellulaire.

4. Prévenez votre fils de ne jamais confier à un conseiller qui rien qu'il ne veut pas les autorités à découvrir. Dites-lui de ne jamais donner son autorisation à son confesseur afin de divulguer quelque chose mentionné dans le confessionnal à une autre personne. Doucement lui conseiller de ne pas parler trop librement parmi les autres séminaristes, même à un ami.

5. Appelez-le une fois par semaine et directement demander comment il est traité, s'il y a des problèmes de toute sorte, et s'il a fait progrès scolaire. S'il prend un ordinateur portable avec lui, être sûr de télécharger Skype afin que vous puissiez voir le visage de votre enfant: Un coup d'oeil d'une mère aimante révèle généralement plus de la conversation d’une heure.

6. Rappelez-lui de se tenir debout pour ses droits au premier signe de tout ce qui semble même être l'intimidation, et insister pour qu'il vous appelez immédiatement. Aussi, pour des raisons de sécurité, dites-lui d'entrer le numéro téléphonique de la police locale dans son téléphone mobile.

DISPATCHES FROM THE PROPOSAL PATROL

2011-07-17T01:44:00.008+02:00

By evil report and good report. 2 Corinthians

It looks as if the rector's been out recruiting more vermin for the pesthouse: it's now the middle of July, and there's no sign of this month's newsletter and the long-promised proposal to capture $30K a year now that the donations have dried up. The hard work of trapping new seminarians as well as rounding up the returning critters must be distracting him from his most important panhandling enterprise to date. No doubt, it's hard work trying to keep them all from scurrying away with the looming threat of pinched resources. If things get too bad, there might be talk of tuition hikes, and then we'll see the proverbial exodus from the sinking ship.

Our alert band of vacationers reports seeing bulletin notices urging--rather unenthusiastically we might add--support of "our" seminary. The normal surrender of the periodic second collection seems to be still active, but at one of the cult sites, a local was overheard boasting she didn't contribute a thing because it would be wasted in Florida. (When she noticed the attentive strangers behind her -- our eyes and ears this summer in Cultilandia -- her ears reddened, and she nervously turned away; after Mass, the visibly terrified woman rushed off with her head held low and her arms plastered stiff against her sides.)

The curious thing, our watchful travelers report, is the mixture of supine fear and bold-as-brass contempt the laity feel for their clerical chain-gang bosses. Whereas in summers past, visitors were welcomed with a smile or a nod, in this season of the cultmasters' discontent, strangers' faces were searched for a sign of opposition to "One-Hand" and the rector. (Do they read Pistrina?) Yet, when the people felt themselves unobserved or at least safe from their minder's penetrating and twitching stares, they were shockingly frank in expressing their displeasure at the men who jealously control their spiritual lives.

On two occasions, our trekkers into the dark heart of Traddieland spoke frankly with some well-heeled couples, who had the independent air (as well as good teeth and posture) that professional social status and good genes give. These folks had no doubts about the cult leaders' motives and admitted they had long go determined to keep their acquisitive clerics poor. But for them, convenience outweighed principle. Furthermore, they knew their awkward, dull-eyed, beaver-toothed priest was ill prepared. Then, in a move that surprised our reporters, they wished everybody in the opposition movement the best of luck! How refreshingly different from the snarls and high-pitched yelps of the usual mouth-breathers who loiter around the cult's satellites.

September is around the corner. If we hear nothing this month, surely the rector will have to unveil his proposal in August or run the risk of financial disaster. We're certain the three new French attendees will not take kindly to any Spartan arrangements. Hasten the moment of reckoning and

KEEP YOUR WALLET SHUT!

UNDER THE BLUDGEONINGS OF CHANCE

2011-07-10T00:46:00.010+02:00

There are no second acts in American lives. Fitzgerald

A decent man has no tolerance for injustice. We formed the first picture of the rector’s high threshold for clerical bad behavior when he actively supported “One-Hand” Dan, Blundering Tony, and Murky “The Principal” during the SGG School scandal in 2009. This frightening image grew sharper as Pistrina reported how he condoned the unfair treatment of his few intelligent seminarians at the hands of Scut the Prefect, the Clone, and the Toady. Now, in the wake of “One-Hand’s” coercing the people of Chambéry, France, to send their gentle, justice-loving priest away, the rector has declined to redeem himself in publicly condemning “One-Hand” for his heavy-handed treatment of traditional Catholics overseas.

Here the rector missed a rare opportunity to confound his critics, including the Reader. More than that, he could have taught the slow-witted young men interned at the pesthouse an object lesson in moral courage. These backward boys know that Danny’s cult supplies MHT with a lot of money; they are keenly aware that one whispered command from a pettish “One-Hand” (or “Dollar” in seminarians’ argot) will turn off the cash flow. Therefore, what a magnificent occasion it would have been to show dim but impressionable minds that virtue must prevail over personal interest. That’s what Fr. Hall did when he spoke truth to power and appealed to “One-Hand’s” conscience and sense of duty, for which act of moral courage he was subsequently dismissed (by a cowardly email) from his teaching post.

Characteristically, the rector didn’t seize this second chance to embrace justice; he refused to show a doubting Catholic world that he possessed a true ethical compass. Instead, the pesthouse hatchlings learned that nothing is sacred in the pursuit of a mean-spirited personal agenda. In fact, they may have witnessed a master class in the art of ruthlessly sharp dealing with innocents: There are some persistent reports about the rector’s intimating that he himself might send a priest who could pass Danny’s muster.*

Deeds reflect the inner man. From the opaque looking glass of the rector’s works peer the dusky likenesses of the host of traditional Catholics who have deserted their chapels, left the faith, and lost their vocation all for want of justice from Diminutive Danny. Added to that multitude last week were the faithful of Chambéry. The tiny chapel of the Curé of Ars, torn apart by clerical vindictiveness, today numbers itself among the casualties that are the fruit of “One-Hand” Dan’s baleful oversight.

Perhaps if the rector had taken the second chance he was offered, he might not have been able to forestall this catastrophe: Almighty “Dollar” rules in the U.S., and most American clergy are meekly groveling subjects. Nevertheless, a courageous protest might have made it easier for the rector to look himself in the mirror (if, indeed, there are any mirrors permitted in the swampland compound).

CLOSE THE PESTHOUSE.

* We’re waiting to confirm the story, but for now, the Reader thinks such an offer, if it had been made,would have been nothing but hot air -- “barroom bloviation” as it were. After all, whom could the rector send? A pathetic socially awkward recent Scandinavian convert? Scut, a silly, shrieking martinet who avoids the laity like the plague? The Toady, a third-rater who couldn’t perform a burial service? Linguistically and liturgically challenged Father “What Me Consecrate”? Sorry, but those terminally handicapped American-trained clerics aren’t the kind of missionary material suitable to regain the hearts and minds of wounded but still proud and free Frenchmen!

SPECIAL POST: BOUND IN WITH SHAME

2011-07-06T03:36:00.004+02:00

Woe to you that call evil good...that put darkness for light. Isaias

Ed. Note: This week Pistrina posts for a second time owing to late-breaking news about alarming events in France. It’s sometimes difficult, we know, for some readers outside the U.S. to comprehend the near universal contempt for “One-Hand” Dan, Anthony the Blunderer, and the rector. After reading this grotesque post, we’re certain that no one will fail to see that only a monster of self-interest could have acted as “One-Hand” has. Remember that the Terrible Triad always works in concert and thus all three share the ignominy that has attached to the lowest point in the traditional Catholic movement.

On Sunday, July 3, 2011, Fr. Bernard Hall bid farewell to the gentle people of the charming little chapel of the holy Curé of Ars in Chambéry, France. Father’s sojourn in the capital of Savoie département was brief – four Sundays in all. He didn’t seek to leave. He had traveled to France for the honor of God and for the spiritual welfare of traditional Catholics who were without a priest. The kind souls of the chapel didn’t want to see him leave either, not even the dutiful men who were compelled to ask him to return to his native land. In the mere fortnight during which Father had served the chapel by saying Mass, hearing penitents' confessions, and coming to know his flock, everyone felt he had become their priest.

The faithful, however, had no choice other than to submit to the outrageous demand from abroad for Father's departure. Throughout two weeks of frenzied maneuvering, Daniel Lytle Dolan made it clear that the little chapel would never have another priest if Fr. Hall were to continue ministering to them. The desperate faithful were aware that Father was applying for a new visa for re-entry into the United States and a return to St. Albert the Great. Fearful of the dire prospects of never receiving the sacraments again, of being branded a sect, of splitting apart in the kind of internecine warfare that has characterized Dolan’s chapels, they sadly bowed to the oppressive and unjust threat.

All they had wanted was a resident priest for the cure of their souls. The problems in West Chester, Ohio, were thousands of miles away. These Catholics didn’t know of the SGG School scandal. The raging blogs and websites were alien to their simple hope for a valid, good priest to minister to their spiritual needs.

Who would have thought that a bishop would be so selfish, so destructive as to export American disunity to Europe? Why would an American bishop, who so often preaches harmony and love from his pulpit, drive a distant chapel to the verge of collapse, setting friend against friend, brother against brother? Why would any Catholic bishop, even one who harbored a personal animus against a priest known for his sterling moral qualities, work so relentlessly to bar Catholics from regular access to the sacraments? Why couldn’t Daniel Lytle Dolan leave the people of Chambéry in peace? Moreover, why did Daniel Lytle Dolan resort to naked coercion against decent French Catholics who were not in the least interested in far-off American feuds?

The answer is simple. Daniel Dolan was afraid that the French, including his client priests, would learn the whole truth about him. He tried everything possible to undermine Fr. Hall’s apostolate in Savoie. When those shameful efforts failed, he acted according to his character and sank to compulsion. Indeed, he achieved his end: Fr. Hall will no longer make the sacraments available in France. However, Daniel Dolan also brought about what he tried so brutally to prevent: Now the cruelly abused French people see this bishop for who he really is. Daniel Dolan has, ironically, defeated himself.

Yet helpless Chambéry has lost its beloved priest.

LOOK WHAT WE FOUND!

2011-07-03T00:22:00.010+02:00

There is no art which one government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people. Adam Smith

Ed. Note: The first report from our vacationers who are in search of traces of the rector's quest for $30K. Happy Independence Day.

Dear Reader,

As you asked, we stopped by Our Lady Queen of Martyrs [the rector’s chapel] in Fraser, MI, on our way to our cabin on the UP [Upper Peninsula]. There we found the attached [see illustration above] envelope to reduce the church debt.

After Mass, we casually asked some of parishioners about the debt program and how much debt they had to pay off. The nice, unsuspecting people we spoke to were sure the church debt had been completely paid off some years earlier by a very hard working and popular priest, whom the rector inexplicably removed. The envelopes had just appeared recently. When we asked a few more discreet questions, the people became uneasy and hurried off, as though they were afraid of something. Another family that visits frequently explained the locals' fear of banishment.

The chapel is lovely inside, but the priest is very strange, to say the least. After the Gospel, as he left the altar to preach the sermon, he grinned like a Barbary ape. It was unnerving to watch. His English was so bad we couldn’t understand a word, so we weren’t able to tell whether he was asking for money or not. Throughout the audible portion of the Mass, he read the Latin haltingly and often had to begin phrases over again. We're SSPXers so we’ve never quite seen anything like this before. Those poor people!

The Reader Replies: Well, you finally saw, live and in person, the very worst of the MHT completers, viz. Father “What Me Consecrate?” He’s a hopeless case, and best forgotten.

The envelope is a real find. Our sources among traditional priests assure us that the OLQM debt was paid off years ago. We ourselves remember once overhearing the former pastor proudly tell some lay people how his chapel was free and clear of all debt, with a nice little savings account to boot.

This envelope may certainly suggest that something could be afoot. It’s still very hard to understand why the rector has not yet announced his $30K proposal, unless he's found another way to get the money. Our sources abroad report that the rector managed to recruit three Frenchmen for 2011-2012 year, so he definitely plans to continue running the pesthouse. Since the exposure of his French completer’s antics in Europe, the rector will surely want to impress these young men, who are very aware of the difficult conditions in the swampland. If the money is short, we don’t see how he’ll be able to keep a worried and hysterical Scut the Prefect from bullying the new seminarians and driving them away.

There’s got to be a story behind this envelope. We’ll let everyone know if we turn anything up before the July MHT newsletter blows in.

A CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE

2011-06-26T02:12:00.005+02:00

Cruel, but composed and bland,/Dumb, inscrutable and grand,/So Tiberius might have sat,/Had Tiberius been a cat.

Arnold

As though on cat's paws, the June MHT Newsletter arrived almost undetected a few scant days before Midsummer Eve, the night-watch for the apparitions of the soon dead. An awkwardly set photo at the bottom of the last page says far more than the rector's underwhelming prose. There, under a skewed lamppost, squatting on flabby haunches, the pesthouse's sulphur-yellow, feral moggie broods over the desolate, ill-maintained courtyard of Bubastis in Brooksville. The beast's bushy tail, a wizard's wand, points menacingly hellward as though to warn the viewer against disturbing the spirit that its flaccid body hosts.

The pesthouse is dying. The rich, fat offerings, the sacrifices of hard-won family treasure, have vanished. The interior decorators and landscape designers have fled for want of cash. The buildings seem almost to welcome the swift, oncoming decay that attends the loss of luxury. Yet for the second consecutive month, there's not been a single purr about the promised $30K proposal. That silence bodes evil for the bank accounts of the SGG chapels as well as for "One-Hand" Dan's own spa-loving felines. It spells even more danger for Our Lady of the Sun in Arizona: who knows if its lay board can resist the importunate demands?

The rector will not suffer the pesthouse to go quietly to its natural death: You may be assured of that. Pistrina will soon have a report from a family with a vacation home on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. They have promised to bring home a tell-tale souvenir from Fraser. In the meantime, the few decent people left in the cult should stand vigilant, for the silent newsletters loudly declare that something fearful their way comes. Demand to see the accounts books. Parse the bulletins carefully. If the priest can speak English clearly, listen attentively to the announcements. Ask point blank whether there is a plan to give the pesthouse the annual $30K infusion it needs to continue malforming seminarians.

Remember: your pocketbook doesn't have nine lives, so if you don't want to throw away your family's money in these hard economic times...

STARVE THE BEAST!

AID AND COMFORT TO THE ENEMY

2011-06-19T01:43:00.005+02:00

Years ago Mr. Disraeli called Sir Robert Peel’s Ministry…an ‘organized hypocrisy’, so much did the ideas of its ‘head’ differ from the sensations of its ‘tail.’ Bagehot

By now, most traditional Catholics are familiar with the sordid business of the Blunderer’s attempt to sabotage the ordination of Fr. Bernard Hall by enlisting the services of a Novus-Ordo presbyter and a lay dupe.* Like all the cult’s misadventures, this one ended in tears for “One-Hand” Dan and Tony. There’s no need to comment further on the excellent link cited in the footnote below, save remarking that the Conciliar clergyman, who used the Checkster to help him get even with a sedevacantist prelate, disparagingly characterized Anthony as a “fringe priest.”

Tony gets no respect from anyone, including Modernist bad boys. But then, how could anyone feel anything but contempt for this uneducated poster-child for the Dunning-Kruger effect? The Vatican-II presbyter, for all his faults, at least enjoyed three years of professional graduate school in Rome and is now studying at the University of Athens, Greece. For the hostile Novus Ordite, the educationally disadvantaged Blunderer offered a convenient, though crude, blunt-edged weapon easily tossed aside once the character assassination was in the bag.

All this comes as no surprise to veteran traditional Catholics, who have observed the SGG cult masters for years. What amazes us is how the rector reconciles Anthony’s conduct with the MHT pesthouse’s published mission to train uncompromising priests who “recognize the enemy, condemn and resist him, and protect the flock of Christ from further devouring by wolves.” Perhaps we lack the rector’s subtlety (or his cavalier sense of irony), but it doesn’t appear in the best interest of the Catholic Resistance to appeal for help from the Novus-Ordo foe in order to impede the ordination of a traditional priest.

Although the Readers have often recoiled in stomach-turning horror at the absurdly low intellectual quality of the MHT completers, we have never sought to interfere with their ordinations. Even this spring, when “One Hand” ordained a hastily advanced, recent Scandinavian convert to the subdiaconate, we remained silent, in hopes that the forlorn young man won’t forget the Consecration when he becomes a priest in November.

The rector, without doubt, holds himself above any need to be consistent. He’s a law unto himself; moreover, consistency is the virtue of a systematic, not a mercurial intellect. At any rate, he’ll never have to explain Tony’s unseemly behavior to puzzled seminarians. They’re probably too timid, too dull, too threatened to ask the rector to explain why one of their “teachers” conspires with the adversary against fellow traditional Catholic clergy.

In point of fact, these backward, malformed aspirants to the priesthood cannot escape the ruinous effects of Anthony’s example and influence. The lessons learned from this episode are that self-interest matters more than the faith; that settling a score justifies consorting with the Modernist enemy; that no principle is sacrosanct in the furtherance of a personal agenda, no matter how alien that agenda may be to authentic Catholic practice; that the protection of “turf” trumps the spiritual well-being of the faithful. The only sovereign remedy against such “organized hypocrisy” is to withhold all financial assistance and

CLOSE THE PESTHOUSE.

* See “Removing all Doubt”, beginning with the paragraph “The warfare against the pastoral work of Father Ramolla at Saint Albert the Great Roman Catholic Church has included Father Cekada played a behind-the-scenes role…”

"CUT THE CRAP"

2011-06-13T18:08:00.008+02:00

June Cleaver: Eddie seems to know a lot about the law.

Wally Cleaver: Yeah, he told his father, in three years he’s going over the wall.

Witnessing the antics of the SW Ohio cult masters is like watching an episode of Leave it to Beaver absent the moral rôle models of June and Ward Cleaver, the steady maturity of their elder son Wally, and the transformative repentance of the “Beav.” All that’s left are the failed schemes of three weasels: the conniving but doomed wiseacre Eddie Haskel; the awkward, slow-witted bully Lumpy Rutherford; and the “hydrant-headed” rat Gilbert Bates.

A little while ago, the mischief-maker-in-chief in the SGG-MHT cult’s confederacy of dunces—the laughingly self-styled “canon-law professor” at the rector’s swampland pesthouse—sent out an amateurishly wrong analysis of Fr. Markus Ramolla’s immigration status. It was a patent attempt to unsettle the faithful, whose hopes had been lifted by an announcement in Father’s bulletin. Citing the cult’s immigration lawyer, who has “almost always been right” (Hmmmm), our ill-starred, ill-trained agitator arrogantly reported that

since his [Fr. Ramolla’s] permanent record will also show that he remained in the U.S. for a full year after the removal proceeding began (from Dec 2009-Dec 2010), the Consulate [in Germany, where Father would presumably have to apply for a visa] will inform Fr. Ramolla that U.S. immigration law imposes an automatic 10-year ban on him re-entering the U.S. So, if he'd care to try applying for another visa in connection with ORCM, he would be welcome to come back again in 2021, but not before then.

As for the end result, to our amusement, our doubly jinxed analyst pronounced

because their cases are essentially the same, the outcome for Fr. R. will be the same as it was for Bernie Hall: CIS [Customs and Immigration Service] will "allow" Fr. Ramolla to depart "voluntarily" within a certain period of time -- though perhaps a little more than the 60 days Bernie [Fr. Bernard Hall] got.

As with all this life-long loser’s hoodooed pranks, the nasty caper failed miserably. On May 6, 2011, the government advised the immigration court that it did not oppose the motion to terminate Father’s instant removal proceedings without prejudice. On May 12, the immigration court decided in Father Ramolla’s favor: consequently, no court appearance was necessary.

As a aside, Pistrina notes that the Boy Blunder not only gets the legal analysis dead wrong, but also, in a botched attempt at smarmy sarcasm, he couldn’t spell ‘Zwieback’ correctly:

The visa that he got though (sic!) us until November, 2011 (called an I-94) then immediately became toast -- or Zweiback, if you prefer.

(Let’s not forget: this is the same minimally educated simpleton who offended the world with that shabby museum catalogue of errors and ignorance called Work of Human Hands. No wonder the rector’s completers are such ninnies with such an ignoramus as a mentor.)

As Wally would have said: What a goof! “Creeps Incorporated” were kinda-sorta wrong again. They should not-a started hollerin’ and yellin’.

We’re glad they did, though. Now there’s no doubt about their malevolence and their ineptitude.

Ed. Note: For the text of the Blunderer's analysis and an in-depth examination, see Christ Or Chaos; for the text only, see The Lay Pulpit. We'll add links as more sites come on line.

EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT

2011-06-11T13:23:00.003+02:00

What news on the Rialto? Shakespeare

Ed. Note: There’s been quite a lot of buzz on the web these past weeks about a very important announcement slated for Pentecost. As soon as we heard about it, we dispatched two Readers to get more information. Our investigators subsequently discovered that on Monday, June 13 a number of web sites would be commenting on the welcome news.

We wanted to join in the celebration. Accordingly, this week Pistrina will post not on Sunday as usual, but on Monday. The traditional Catholic world will rejoice at the news, but the Danny and the Blunderer, hunkered down in the decaying Cult Central Bunker at 4900 Rialto Road, West Chester, Ohio 45069, will see the start of many, many more brokenhearted days.

We know you'll be on pins and needles until Monday's post. As Milton said, "Suspense in news is torture." You can be sure, however, that the cult masters will prefer the agony of expectation to the misery of revelation.

NO HIGH FLYER

2011-06-05T01:08:00.003+02:00

Sir! You have disappointed us! Belloc

Flying in low with the engine cut, way, way under the radar, the rector’s shot-to-pieces May newsletter crash-landed on the Saturday of the long Memorial Day weekend. It was a sacrifice mission: the flier sported less than two pages of the usual stale, warmed over, oft repeated, hackneyed denunciations of Karol Wojtyła.* There were no pix of the noisome pesthouse, its fly-blown environs, the rector’s savage and pampered cat, or the hell-hole’s unhappy inhabitants. Notably missing was the long-promised proposal for raking in another $30,000 per annum to replace the forever-lost supplementary funds. The stealth arrival was clearly an attempt to dodge incoming flak.

Everybody is speculating why the rector didn’t deliver on his threat. It certainly wasn’t an oversight. How could the acquisitive rector ever forget about $30K? And why was he soooo late in getting out the newsletter? The last weekend of May for the May newsletter? Come on! And why did he spend all that money on printing and mailing for such a pitifully weak effort? If he got cold feet about demanding so much to prop up his failing vocational training program, why didn’t he just call the whole thing off?

It’s beyond reason that such a bold and practiced parasite would lose his nerve. Could it be that he’s found a way around asking for the money?

Don’t be fooled by the apparent absent-minded incompetence. The ol’ Flushing Rat isn’t going to abandon so easily his flights of fancy for interior decoration, conspicuous consumption, and sheer wastefulness. He may have stayed back in the swamp, but he hasn’t forgotten about – not for a minute — all that cash, glorious cash. Perhaps he thinks that with summer almost here, we’ll neglect to watch him carefully.

We won’t. In fact, we’ve tasked individuals and families who will be traveling on vacation to stop by the rector’s and his friends’ chapels to look for the tracks and droppings that signal fund-raising activity. They’ll be especially vigilant for special collection notices and pay-off-the-building-debt appeals. In addition, they’ll keep their eyes peeled for tell-tale contribution envelopes.

Let’s teach the rector that rats can’t fly. You can join us in clipping the rector’s wings before he clips the faithful. Send all reports and scanned materials to pistrina.liturgica@gmail.com. If we all do our part, we can

STARVE THE BEAST & CLOSE THE PESTHOUSE

* The Reader invites the rector to note the correct Polish orthography, with the diacritic kreska ukośna.

AN IMMODERATE PROPOSAL

2011-05-28T02:44:00.009+02:00

A nice man is a man of nasty ideas. Swift

Ed. Note: Pistrina publishes 24 hours earlier this week owing to the U.S. Memorial Day holiday.

It was so very nice not to plague us all with the promised proposal to “find a way to make up for the [$30,000] shortfall.” Still, it was naughty to tease us. In fact, so piqued has been our curiosity that we determined to make a wild guess at what the proposal could have been. (Regrettably, there’s no Rumpelstiltskin to spin gold; the only spinning going on was the rector’s lame assessment that “[t]here is no lack of enthusiasm or generosity on the part of our supporters.” Accordingly, we assumed the issue was still germane and hence a worthy exercise for our imagination.)

The Readers (who associate with a better class of folk than the bleary-eyed, open-mouthed, fly-catching SGG cultists) asked a nice certified financial planner (CFP) and a nicer CPA for a “what-if” analysis on how they would raise cash if supplementary funds had dried up. We briefed them how the cult’s chapels broke up as a result of the infamous SGG School scandal and firings. We detailed how, instead of remaining prudently neutral, the foolhardy rector openly supported Tony, “One Hand” Dan, and the school “principal,” the proximate cause of the catastrophe. We showed them the correspondence where several very able laymen gave the rector an embarrassing public spanking and sent him swampward with his tail between his legs; we also shared all the schnorrer’s appeals for parking lots, interior decoration, and costly re-builds. Finally, we explained that “One-Hand” and Tony have complete, unsupervised control over the assets and real property of their cult.

“It’s simple,” declared our advisors without hesitation. “Monetize the principal assets! The economy notwithstanding, the buildings and the land on which they stand have some value. If they’re paid off, then use them as collateral for a loan. If they’re not paid off, refinance to free up some equity. For crying out loud – it’s only 30 grand. That’s only 7-10 G’s per chapel each year. Even slum property can yield that easily.”

“If the people want to continue attending Mass in their area, then they’ll have to pitch in to pay off the debt,” interposed the CPA. “Think of it as a kind of reverse mortgage.”

“Yeah,” added the CFP nicely, “It’s either pay and stay or leave and grieve. It’s really the perfect squeeze. And since this guy’s buddies are in charge of everything without an ounce of oversight, the people will have no other choice. Besides, you said these rubes were really gullible. They probably wouldn’t question anything.”

‘You see,” the accountant nastily analyzed, “if the clients aren’t willing to support the seminary, then, if you want to keep it operating, you’ll have to get their money some other way. Now if you take on additional building debt, you can support the seminary with the loan proceeds. That means you can almost silently compel the people to contribute indirectly by making them pay back the loan on property they’ve already paid for.”

“It’s the only way,” interjected his colleague, clearly impressed with his colleague’s financial nicety. “If you can’t widen the donor pool, then there’s no other option but to deepen it or at least drain it dry. From what you’ve said, there’s nowhere else to raise the cash. The folks have to pay whether they like it or not.”

Not very nice at all, but it does seem to make perfect sense, in a cold, diabolical, nasty way. But undoubtedly, it couldn’t be the proposal. Absolutely, categorically out of the question! No Catholic would even think of such a caper, let alone propose it. For one thing, it would violate every moral precept in the book. Why, not even a Wall-Street banker would dream of it! Besides, the Butler-County cult masters wouldn’t go for the idea, not with vacation around the corner. It’s about time to hit the Santa Fe Trail again, pilgrim.

It’s obvious that the lion’s share of the $30K would have to come from the straitened SW Ohio cult center and its impoverished satellite missions. Furthermore, as everyone knows, the Our Lady of the Sun lay board in Arizona wouldn’t be receptive at all to a nasty back-door raid on its fat holdings. Maybe the rector, completely out of ideas, in the end couldn’t come up with a nice proposal. Maybe he’s going to let everyone

STARVE THE BEAST & CLOSE THE PESTHOUSE.

PROMISES, PROMISES

2011-05-22T01:06:00.021+02:00

Boldness is an ill keeper of promise. Bacon

It’s all very disappointing. In fact, we’re devastated. Since his April newsletter, we’ve been waiting for the rector’s promised, bold proposal for raising a monstrous $30,000 per year to keep the rat’s nest pesthouse breeding and the interior decorators employed. We thought it would come on Saturday. All we received instead was an advance copy of “One-Hand” Dan’s retrospective weather report from Butler County.

The Rector of Injustice just doesn’t seem to understand that Pistrina was counting on him to deliver. We were hoping for some comic relief after investigating all the foiled pranks the Ohio cult has been playing. (We’ll be exposing those antics later. You'll love it!) We know the rector’s worried about the spotlight, too, but a man’s word is his word, right? He promised — in writing — to propose a way to make up for the calamitous drying up of supplementary donations, and we want to see it. (We bet the building-code enforcers down there also want to see it: their bureaucratic patience has been worn thin enough.)

We can’t believe it’s already May 22, and we’ve heard not one rodentian squeak or shriek, not a single chirrup, not even a faint squeak-churr (although we’ve heard that Pistrina has incited quite a lot of bruxing down in Swampland.) Is the rector worried about rejection? Have “One Hand” and Tony told him to take a flying belly-roll? Or maybe he dismissed all his plague-house vermin early and no one's left to stuff envelopes. But adverse Anthony was supposedly down in the swamp, so why couldn’t he have helped?

We’re quite out of sorts with this teasing. Has the rector any idea of the many emails we’ve received from inquiring minds? They want to know how he plans to get blood out of the cult’s turnips. Will he offer an imaginative and creative fund raising plan – like enlisting Rumpelstiltskin and vowing someone’s first-born male child? No…the culties are turnips, not princes. (Hideous gnomes are definitely selective when it comes to first-born.) Perhaps he’ll set up tollbooths at the entrances of the cult’s chapels. No…the kiosks won’t be erected and electrically wired according to the building code: therefore, they won’t pass inspection. How about some hell-and-brimstone, damn-all-the-cheapskate-laity, fork-it-over-or-be-pitch-forked sermons? No…been there, done that.

Well, we’ll just have to wait and see. The suspense is unbearable. But wait! There’s still more than a week left in May for the bold and brazen rector to keep his big ($30k-big) promise. In the meantime, don’t forget to do your part in helping to close down the MHT pesthouse:

KEEP STARVING THE BEAST

NO SADNESS OF FAREWELL

2011-05-15T02:09:00.007+02:00

No evil can happen to a good man. Plato

This day, the Reverend Father Bernard G. J. Hall, M.A., reluctantly but voluntarily flies to England. The grim details that led to his departure are available here. No one will be surprised to find the name of Anthony Cekada figuring prominently in this ugly narrative of shabby betrayal and spiteful vengeance.

Father Hall is everything that Tony, "One-Hand Dan," and the rector are not. First, he holds an advanced degree from St. Andrew's in Edinburgh, i.e., a genuine institution of higher education (and a world famous one at that). Second, he is a truly accomplished linguist, who really speaks French fluently, actually knows Latin grammar, and has seriously studied German, Italian, Russian, and Arabic, among other languages. Third, he is utterly without guile: he believes wholeheartedly that the clergy must be faithful stewards of the laity's offerings. Fourth, he is a stranger to luxury and self-promotion. Moreover, in spite of his exceptional natural gifts and admirable accomplishments (e.g., see his glorious website http://www.breviary.net/), he is the humblest of men, enduring with patient forbearance the vanity and condescension of puffed-up priests and petty prelates, who are his moral and intellectual inferiors by several orders of magnitude.

While on this Sunday Giudecca, hell's bosom, may screak and roar with demoniacal applause at Father's leaving, heaven will one day soon turn the triumph of the wicked into a bitter, lasting defeat. The cause for Father Hall's return to the United States now lies under the patronage of the Infant Jesus of Prague. Therefore, the Readers, along with the faithful in SW Ohio, are confident of his return within a few months.

Meanwhile, Father journeys to the land of his birth with the purpose of reviving the English Mission so wretchedly served by a pesthouse completer. Be assured, however, that Father's return to the U.S. will not leave our English brethren without the Mass. Already plans are being completed to continue staffing the mission after Father rejoins the American traditional Catholic community.

WE BEG YOUR PRAYERS FOR FATHER HALL'S SAFETY AND HIS SWIFT RETURN...AND, YES, REMEMBER, AS ALWAYS, TO...

STARVE THE BEAST -- DON'T SPARE THE RECTOR A DIME

MAILBAG #4

2011-05-08T01:03:00.005+02:00

Ed. Note: While we wait (holding onto our wallets for dear life) for Rector Sanborn to come down from on high with his proposal to make up for his annual $30,000 shortfall, here’s one of several emails we’ve received from bright young men who decided not to enroll in the MHT pesthouse.

Hi, Readers,

I’m 22 and about to graduate in humanities from a respected (Novus Ordo) Catholic liberal arts college in [the South]. I always loved the old Mass. All through school I dreamed of studying in a traditional seminary after I got my B.A.

My father passed last year and left me with enough money to pay tuition for 7 years. (This was in addition to my share of the estate.) He also made a provision for a substantial gift to any seminary program upon my ordination as a priest.

I see that MHT is now completely out of the question though I thought it could have been a possibility. You see, Florida is not far from where we live. I don’t want to go to the CMRI because I hear the standards are too low. Can you give me some advice? Please don’t reveal my name. I’m afraid the “pesthouse” might come scratching at my door looking for its Tailypo, like the monster in the old Southern folktale.

The Reader replies: Our mouth is hushed! We can see the loss of a cash-paying legatee plus a nice completion bonus would have the vermin running in search of their Entail-y Po faster than a scalded dog – especially now that the rector wants $30K a year to keep the pesthouse incubating.

As for a seminary possibility, we’ve sent you by e-mail our recommendations, with both pro’s and con’s. You didn’t say anything about the SSPX, so we included their institution in case you might be interested. Note that the SSPX has plans to build a new seminary in scenic Charlottesville, VA – almost in your backyard. From our point of view, the SSPX is closest to the real thing, although some traditional Catholics would have grave problems in attending. Two sedevacantist seminaries on our list are located abroad. If you’re interested, we’d be glad to help with advice on how to learn a foreign language quickly. Several other correspondents are considering enrollment in these seminaries. What’s important for everyone to know is that MHT is not the only option. In fact, it should never be a consideration.

Oh, yes, and, everyone, please don’t forget...

STARVE THE BEAST – SEND THE BUM PACKING WHEN HE COMES AROUND A-BEGGIN'

MAILBAG #3

2011-05-01T02:00:00.005+02:00

Ed. Note: Here’s a word to the wise from a sadder but a wiser man, who sorely wishes he and his family had never responded to the fervent and frequent pleas for more and more money for the pesthouse.

My family supported the MHT building project at the church we attended. We stopped when we saw this unbelievable quote [in the Nov. 2009 newsletter]:

“The electrician has been working a great deal on the chapel, and practically cleaned us out of what money we have thus far collected for it...The wiring in the chapel walls has been repaired, and now they are completing the rewiring of the ceiling…Then there would remain two big projects before the completion: (1) replacing the curved ceiling in the chapel, which had to be removed for the sake of the re-wiring, and (2) the installation of the parking lot. These final stages will cost approximately $80,000 total (emphasis added by correspondent).”

It doesn’t take a construction expert to see the digusting foul-ups behind the underlined words. Tens of thousands of dollars of donor money had to be used to re-do work that should have been right in the first place. This was new construction not a remodel job. Anybody will want to know who is making the decisions before they give another nickel.

The Reader replies: When we saw the article at the time the SGG scandal erupted in all its lurid horror, we were dumbfounded that no public explanation or apology was given for the costly blunders: our experts said it sounded like the wiring must not have been up to code, to say the least. Someone should have been held accountable. Of course, the Readers had learned the full back-story, so we weren’t really surprised. What we found most unsettling was how the rector coolly and calmly concluded, “So your continued support of our building project would be very much appreciated.”

Now that’s chutzpah!

By the way…

STARVE THE BEAST – THERE ARE PLENTY OF OTHER TRADITIONAL CATHOLIC ORGANIZATIONS WORTHY OF YOUR CHARITY DOLLARS

MAILBAG #2

2011-04-23T16:52:00.009+02:00

Ed. Note: This week Pistrina’s publishing a little early. Here’s an analysis we just received about the April 2011 Most Holy Trinity Newsletter, wherein the rector dons his beggar’s weeds and aggressively demands alms.

Next month, in an attempt to return to the ancient profits, the rector will -- so he threatens -- deliver his proposal to squeeze $30,000 a year out of traditional Catholics already overtaxed by the unending solicitations to prop up their failing SGG cult masters. Before he sends out his May dunning notice, let me quickly analyze what he wrote this month.

In a rare moment of candor, the rector confesses that the “supplementary donations” he relies on to keep the pesthouse open “have dried up.” Then returning to his old ways, he blames the shortfall on “the general downturn of the economy.” Like all his amateur analyses, this one is laughably full of holes.

Anyone who has been following the reports on the charitable-giving trends of the past three years knows that while giving has declined, it hasn’t taken a dive. In fact, in 2009, the Giving USA Foundation of the Giving Institute reported that donations to religious groups increased by 5 percent in 2008! As the Association of Fundraising Professionals has commented, in this deep recession, donors are still givers, and they have not stopped making contributions. A quick glance at real data, not make-believe, is instructive here. In the comparable recession of 1973-75, giving fell by 5.5 percent in 1974, but in the current crisis, it fell only by 3.2 percent in 2009.

It’s time for that panhandling prelate to wake up and smell the coffee. Here’s my take on the data for the Big Kahuna: It’s NOT the economy, Stupid! Contrary to what the rector says, there is indeed a real “lack of enthusiasm” for that vocational clerical training program. Furthermore, although the generosity of the faithful remains completely intact, the rector and MHT will not be the beneficiaries. The well isn’t dry -- it’s just off limits to the ever-thirsty swampland beggars.

No one in his right mind buys the rector's expense list. If seminarians must be clothed, why must cassocks for some come from the papal tailor in Rome? Additionally, six seminarians (that seems to be average number, if not lower) is not an economy of scale that would justify a cook (presumably full time). There certainly exist alternatives that would be cheaper, such as meals prepared and delivered by an institutional food purveyor. (For instance, if there is a senior citizen home nearby, the rector might arrange to order several additional meals for each day; to save money, the rector or the vice rector could run over and pick them up. Bonus: the seminarians could study in the time saved by being relieved of K.P.)

Another way to raise money is to raise tuition AND require every seminarian to pay. If there is indeed a promising but needy young man, then the faithful could offer to underwrite his tuition in return, say, for service at their chapel. I don’t mean give the money to the Kahuna and let him use it as he sees fit. I mean give the money to the individual seminarian and let him pay his fees alone. (Remember, however, to insist on a receipt stamped paid!)

The worst thing about MHT is that there is no mechanism of accountability to assure donors that their money is being well spent. We always hear of all the new seminarians coming in, but we never hear when they’re expelled or leave or run away. So in the end, no one ever knows where the money went or how many seminarians there really are at any one time. The money might just as likely be going for upscale interior decoration or first-class vacations or extravagant clerical bling instead of campus upkeep.* Who can tell? There are no public, audited reports of expenditures. You just have to take the rector's word that he needs $30K more per annum.

Above and beyond all these considerations, the rector, without realizing it, provided a sovereign reason to stop giving him any more money. He claims he has to send the seminarians out to cult chapels during Holy Week because without a choir, servers, or sacristans, he can’t put on the ceremonies in Brooksville. (Hmmm⁉ Where are all the sisters and the laity down there⁈)

The only cult center that mounts really elaborate functions is SGG in West Chester, Ohio, so in effect many seminarians are being sent out to stroke the ego of the very man who’s responsible for the loss of monetary support for MHT. Everyone, including the rector, knows that if “One-Hand” didn’t have these ceremonies, there'd be nothing for him to do. (In the old days, before the majority of the faithful abandoned SGG and its satellite cults, many of the chapels couldn’t have full Holy Week rites because their priests were required to be in West Chester for the over-the-top theatrical productions featuring the "One-Hand" cult-meister center stage.)

More to the point: What kind of seminary is it, anyway, that can't accommodate the celebration of Holy Week in some form? Rather than waste time and resources on arcane pontifical ceremonies the seminarians will never need if they get a chapel of their own, it would be more practical (and cheaper) for them to stay coiled in the swamp; then they could learn how to celebrate Holy Week for small churches as detailed in the Memoriale Rituum. Now that would be of real value for their training: They would be prepared to do their jobs after ordination! Instead, these clerical trainees now spend hours and hours learning ceremonies that will be of no use to them as pastors. They’ll just remember the foul-ups; the long, tiring hours of disorganized practice; and nerve-wracking, last-minute changes that characterize “One-Hand Dan’s” stage-management style. How sad that they can’t begin to master the rituals they will need to edify the faithful who will pay their salaries and support them.

Take a page from Nancy Reagan’s book: Just say NO when the rector holds out his hat.

The Reader replies: All we can add is

STARVE THE BEAST & CLOSE THE PESTHOUSE

* Next week Pistrina will offer a post based on a revelation in an earlier MHT newsletter, which should scare any prospective donor.

MAIL BAG #1

2011-04-17T00:27:00.007+02:00

Ed. Note: While a few Readers take the next couple of weeks off for a well deserved vacation, Pistrina will post some of the many messages it has received from correspondents all over the world. From the U.S. comes this one:

I am sure you know that those three will never correct the errors you exposed. It has never been their style to acknowledge failure or incompetence. The triad's priests will go through life with those original error-stained ordination documents because the trio will never issue corrections. I suppose that no one, even in civil life, has a right to an error free certificate, and it's obvious that the triplets don't care about their reputation, or they wouldn't behave as they do. The ordinati are plain out of luck. You probably already realize that those simpletons wouldn't care anyhow.

Your stuff is very funny and very accurate, but it will have zero impact on their behavior. Your imaginary phone conversation may be quite close to reality. That said, I for one would love to read Pistrina's observations on "West Chester." I hope you'll print them some day.

The Reader replies: Yes, we're well aware that the Gang of Three won't alter a jot or a tittle of their mistakes. In fact, we're counting on it. For years their strategy has been to tell people that they were the best of all traditional Catholic groups. It's time that people know these three guys are definitely not what they claim to be. The Threesome's hard-headed persistence in error is just what their adversaries need to convince intelligent Catholic laymen to stay away from them.

As far as we're concerned, the triplets are welcome to the imbeciles who curently follow them. We don't want to have to sit next to such Neanderthals when we're in church, especially now that warm weather is upon us.

For Reader #1's comments on their pompously hilarious Latinization of West Chester, click here for "What's in a Name?"

THE ODD COUPLE

2011-04-10T01:37:00.004+02:00

O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts, and men have lost their reason. William Shakespeare

“One-Hand” Dan, a.k.a. “the old bishop,” writes a weekly weather report and potluck food blog for his cult center. Most of the time, it’s just a string of purple-prose patches, cloying pieties, dainty observations to his Dear Vacation Diary, and school girlish self-pity. In one post a couple weeks back, however, his stream-of-consciousness twaddling sounded a more ominous note when he threatened, “signs of good American vocations are appearing.”

Let’s hope this is just one of Danny’s many poetic flights of fancy aimed at getting his cult members to cough up a few hard-earned dollars for the rector to waste on interior decoration. With enough mental reservation, we can see how the birth of a few male children in Butler County, Ohio, might be interpreted as “signs” of vocations. And the present-progressive “are appearing” is really a fine way to stay just this side of science fiction, isn’t it?

We’ll rely on our knowledge of “One-Hand” Dan’s transparent fund-raising tricks to set aside any worries about young men in danger of being committed to MHT. (But we’ll keep our ears to the ground in the unlikely event that there’s some truth in the remark.) The “signs” we see and smell are of the decomposition of MHT. The rector cannot be too happy. Recall that “One-Hand” Dan’s and the blunderer’s behavior in the infamous St. Gertrude the Great School scandal resulted in the loss of thousands of dollars annually to the pesthouse.

“One-Hand” could easily have ended the crisis, but he miscalculated the just anger of Catholics and so collapsed his own house of cards. Inasmuch as the rector hitched his rickety wagon to “One-Hand” Dan’s plummeting star, this wayward little experiment in clerical vocational training is just about over. Gone forever are the heady days filled with “One-Hand’s” boasting about becoming the new Lefebvre and the "World's Bishop": nowadays he must vainly shill for MHT.

There’s a lesson here somewhere if we remember that the rector and “One-Hand” Dan were never really bosom buddies. The anecdotes are legion: a September 1990 ad-cautelam letter about someone’s “dubious” ordination; private Masses in Michigan at the homes of adversaries; a very peevish tantrum as a result of an unforeseen (and unwelcome) episcopal consecration; something about prancing around in pontificals; a heartbreaking, party-pooping RSVP over what to wear to a jubilee.

When the shocking scandal at SGG School came to light, why, then, didn’t the rector react with what he himself has recently called “proportionate intolerance and outrage”? Why did he attempt to defend “One-Hand” Dan? Why did he judge softly the clergy who brought the traditional community to the precipice? Where was his firm sense of right and wrong? Where were his vaunted hardness and rigidity? From a purely practical point, the notorious SGG crisis should have been a welcome opportunity to sever any remaining ties to one who for years had been more a rival than a colleague.

We won’t descend into the meretricious pop psychological or political analysis the rector favors in his monthly screeds. Perhaps he thought he needed “One-Hand’s” chapels to house and feed his ill-trained and inept completers. Perhaps he hoped to retain access to the pocketbooks of the faithful at SGG and its satellite cults. Perhaps he was afraid that he’d have to spend more time in the classroom if the blunderer were no longer allowed to “teach” at MHT. Whatever the reason, the rector’s continued alliance with “One-Hand” Dan attests to a catastrophic failure of judgment.

STARVE THE BEAST. DO NOT CONTRIBUTE TO MHT. SEND YOUR SONS TO LAW SCHOOL. AT LEAST THEY’LL BE FREE MEN AFTER THEY PAY OFF THEIR STUDENT LOANS.

A FLY ON AN IMAGINARY WALL

2011-04-03T01:36:00.011+02:00

Blanche DuBois: [telephone rings]

[rises out of seat]

Blanche DuBois: That's for me, I'm sure.

Stanley Kowalski: [pushes her back down roughly] Just keep your seat, I'm not so sure.

“A Streetcar Named Desire”

Ed. Note: Last week, we suggested that “One-Hand” Dan’s ordinati insist on getting a new certificate of ordination (Litteræ Ordinationis) free from the grammatical errors in Latin, which the original document contains. On second thought, that might be a problem. Here’s how such a ’phone call might go for a feckless MHT loser who dares to ask for justice:

“Hello, Your Excellency. You know, in the future, I may be working with priests and bishops who received a real formation in a good seminary, so I’d like you to correct the errors printed on my ordination certificate. Are you still there? Ahem! I...I...I don’t want them to think my ordination is...dubious, you know what I mean? Heh, heh. What errors? Well, uh, like Pistrina said, change Cincinnatensis to Cincinnatensi. All you have to do is delete a little s.

"And, while I’m on the subject, if you wouldn’t mind, it would also be rather nice if you used the better spelling archidiœcesi or even archidioecesi rather than the archidiocesi you guys printed. What the hey, since you claim we’re in the Sede Vacante, your cult center can’t be a canonically erected parish in Cinci, so why not just drop it altogether? A diocese or archdiocese is probably more about jurisdiction than about geography anyway. Hmmm? What did you say? No, Excellency, I’m not teaching my father how to make children. Just trying to help out, that’s all. No pressure, you understand. Of course you can say no. You're the boss.

“Come again? No, no, Excellency: Cincinnatensis is definitely wrong. I checked four Latin reference grammars, and the Reader is right, as usual. Well, then…why not check with the rector…you know, the Big Kahuna himself? (Your goofy buddy can ask, if you’re afraid to.) Pistrina gave the rector a private lesson last week. He’ll tell you it’s wrong. What’s that you say? The Kahuna doesn’t know his what from a what? Well, if that’s how you feel, then don’t call him! Ummmm, now that I think about it, you can leave the archidiocesi alone. That’s OK by me. Just fix the really bad grammar. No sweat, right? Right?

“Anything else, did you say? Well, why, uh, yes. Thanks for asking, because there is one other teeny, tiny request: Can you correct ad ordinem PRESBYTERATUM to ad ordinem PRESBYTERATUS… if you wouldn’t mind?

“What did you say? Whoa, Excellency! Now I know what they meant by the Ecône “Door-Mouse”! Forgive me, but I don’t think that last order is anatomically possible, do you? I mean, even if I could, my confessor wouldn’t believe me, would he? Besides, that’s one of the many topics we missed in moral theology at the rector's pesthouse. Class was probably canceled that day, I guess, or I couldn’t understand the prefect’s heavy accent.

“Now please calm down! Sorry I brought up the past. Just chill out a little. Give me a chance to explain, won’t you? What you meant to express (I hope) was: “to the order of the priesthood (or ‘presbyterate’).” Well, begging Your Excellency’s pardon, but that requires a genitive, not an accusative. You remember, don’t you, that presbyteratus is fourth declension? Yes? You think you do? Fan-taass-TIC! So then, the genitive is presbyteratūs, right? Now you don’t have to print the macron; real Latinists will understand.

“Oh, what’s that, Your Excellency? You don’t believe me? What? You want to apologize to the faithful for ordaining me? I’m a liar? Wait! What’s that he said? No way! Tell him that I’m definitely not mentally ill! What? You’re going to call in the authentic interpreter of my perpetual agreement to indentured and inescapable clerical bondage, world without end?

“Listen, Excellency, please! I’m begging you: I want to get out of here in a few years. Those slobbering peasants are going to revolt, and I don’t intend to wind up on the sharp end of a pitchfork. No, Siree, Bob! So look here! I’ve got an idea. Do you have a Pontificale Romanum nearby? You do? Of course you do! Yes, you’re the best. Good! Turn to the first page of De Ordinatione Presbyteri. Now look where the Archdeacon calls the ordinands. See that? Accedant qui ordinandi sunt ad ordinem Presbyteratus.

“It’s the same phrase! Even you can see that, can’t you, Your Excellency? I’m not mentally ill, right? You just made a typo, that’s all. A little, widdle boo-boo. Sure, I understand: you can’t soar with the eagles with all the turkeys you’ve got down here. (They were my classmates and teacher, after all, so I know what you mean.)

“You see, all you have to do is change the M to an S. (We can even use the s we removed earlier so you can save some face. Heh! Heh!) Then it’ll all be copasetic. You won’t even have to put my name in the right Latin case. I can explain that (I think). I’ll say you did it to avoid confusion. Yes, that’s it! It’ll be our little secret. Just don’t call in the Big Kahuna to authentically interpret, all right?

“Hello? Hello? Are you still there? Hello? Hello? Say something? Please! EXXXXCCCCELLLLENNNNNCCCYYYYY!”

Ed. Note: Poor soul. Didn’t even get a chance to mention the moronic Latin name that Tweedle-Dumb and Tweedle-Dumber invented for suburban and upwardly-mobile West Chester, Ohio. Don’t worry. We’ll post a little note about that soon, for anyone interested. “One-Hand” Dan, like Blanche DuBois, is very used to depending upon the kindness of strangers. Maybe he’ll clean his act up for the Finnish seminarian he’ll ordain in the fall. The Finns have a real fetish for good Latin – Radio 1 Finland broadcasts a news program in the language, Nuntii Latini. Wouldn’t it be embarrassing if the boy took home an ordination certificate full of errors, especially since the Finnish Lutherans in 2002 completed a Latin version of Martin Luther’s catechism?