In several previous Lay Pulpit
articles, we have commented about Daniel Dolan’s “putting on the show” for his parishioners at SGG (St. Gertrude the Great Church). It has almost become a cliché. Well, it might be a cliché, but it is
nonetheless true. “The show,” of
course, includes plenty of pontifical pageantry, polyphonic music, and elaborate
processions (the one on Palm Sunday,
as we’ve noted before, comes complete with donkey). And SGG’s school is showcased as a “model of propriety”:
kids in uniforms (girls’ skirts all “below the knees,” of course), and lots of photos
depicting students performing “picture perfect deeds” on cue (to put in SGG’s
Sunday bulletin and on its website, for all traddieland to see and
admire). It’s all very impressive,
very proper – and it looks very “Catholic.” Also, it’s all very nostalgic,
“just like the good old days”: a walk down Catholicism’s “Memory Lane.”
Beautiful, I must say -- but what about Catholic morality, and especially about Catholic moral theology? Where
does Terri Schiavo fit into their
scheme? When Dolan dismissed
watching porn on SGG’s school computer as “boys will be boys,” how “nostalgic”
was this? When he ignored the
complaints of numerous parents about the abuse of their children by SGG’s
school principal (and his sons), where was Dolan’s sense of moral outrage? And when one of the school principal’s
sons impregnated a fellow female student, was this too a case of “boys will be
boys”? (One thing for sure: it was some piece of apparel other than the girl’s dress that got “below the knees” this
time!) Does what happened here
call to mind anything about the sixth
commandment? And what were
Dolan and Cekada thinking when they dissolved SGG’s satellite parish in
Columbus, Ohio, sold it out from under its parishioners, confiscated their
building fund and operating fund, and pocketed the proceeds? Did they, perhaps, stop to think what
the seventh commandment had to say
about that? Probably not.
What they were thinking about, instead, was how to maximize their monetary
intake – and about how to make it happen.
Caring about Terri Schiavo doesn’t make that happen; it’s not “good for
business” -- but elaborate, impressive ceremonies are. P.T. Barnum-like
hoopla is what it’s all about, folks: give ‘em the show; give ‘em -- not
Catholicism -- but its caricature. And why? Because it works, that’s
why. The SGG clergy (and those
like them) know that there is a sizable critical mass of people out there who
are gullible, and easily swayed by “spectacle.” They also know that if they clothe their quackery in
ecclesiastical adornment and fulsome sanctimony, they can convince them that
it’s “the real thing” -- and many of their parishioners have been swallowing this
swill for so long, they can no longer distinguish
it from the real thing.
That is why SGG’s parishioners can disregard Dolan’s “boys will be boys”
comments, or ignore the abuses of SGG’s school principal and the immorality of
his sons. That is why they can pretend that one of the principal’s sons did not father a child with a fellow student
(even in the face of irrefutable DNA
evidence). That is why they can
pretend that SGG’s confiscation of the Columbus parishioners’ money never
really happened (or perhaps they can even justify
it). That is why they can pretend
that Dolan and Cekada deserve
$400-a-night “sabbaticals” in Santa Fe.
When one is mesmerized, one will believe (or justify) anything. They have become like putty in their
cult-masters hands: they’ll believe or do anything they say.
At SGG, it’s appearances that
count: the dynamic duo can insist on the girls’ dresses being below the knees,
while disregarding the fact that one
girl’s dress obviously got above the
knees. The cult-masters can wax poetic
about “protecting our innocent children” on Guardian
Angel Sunday, while ignoring the sadistic abuses that SGG’s school kids suffered
at the hands of their school principal (and which caused half the parish to
leave in protest). A student
missing his homework merits being beaten with a wooden paddle, while another
student’s impregnating a girl merits no punishment at all -- because he is the principal’s son.
There is nothing wrong with Terri Schiavo being starved and dehydrated to
death, yet an SGG student wearing a polka-dot headband in church (under her
veil) was – according to SGG’s school principal -- “inappropriate”; and riding
a roller-coaster was – according to one of SGG’s Latino priests -- a mortal sin.
This is the kind of twisted, puritanical mindset that reigns at SGG,
both in its clergy and in its congregation. They not only cannot recognize good, but they condemn it, while condoning evil. For example, a man who got justifiably angry at the base lies that
Dolan told about his deceased father (and who then called Dolan’s comments
“bullshit”), was condemned by an SGG parishioner for using that word; she said
that such language was “not Catholic” -- but, of course, she failed to grasp
the fact that Dolan’s lying about the
man’s father was certainly “not
Catholic.” She also (obviously)
forgot about Our Lord getting justifiably angry at times, and calling the
Pharisees vipers and thieves. If she had been living back then, she probably would have
been right in there with those Pharisees, condemning the God-Man Himself for
using “inappropriate language.”
But that is what happens with people mired in a cult-centered
mindset. They’ll do (and defend)
whatever their cult-masters say -- approving just about everything they do
(while overlooking every bit of wrong
that they do). They’ll lap it up,
as long as it “looks Catholic” and gives them that warm, fuzzy, nostalgic
feeling of “the good old days.” And, of course, they’ll pay dearly for it: they
willingly open up their pocket books for all the hoopla and pageantry that goes
along with “the show.” But, of
course, that’s what it’s all about: MONEY. The cult-masters put on the show for the money. On their websites (and from their pulpits), there are
constant exhortations for “donations” and for “remembering us in your will” (SGG’s website even has a “donate”
button, including one for “make automatic monthly donation”). Their latest fund-raising ploy is
commemorative “stones” (pavers in SGG’s “cloister” area) that can be purchased
for seventy-five bucks a pop(!). The soliciting game never stops there; it’s a
well-oiled machine -- and it’s always in high gear.
But why do people fall for such pap -- with such blind obedience and
groveling subservience? Why
does traddieland seem to have a bumper crop of such people: green, gullible,
easily deceived, and just itching to be exploited – willing fodder for
unscrupulous impresarios? Dr.
Droleskey, for instance, can do a hatchet job on an innocent man; and, as long
as he finishes it off with one of his trademark mini-litanies, it’ll be taken
by some for “good Catholic reading.” It seems that traddieland is full of people who,
if they are fed a diet of misinformation, will react in kind: they’ll take
sanctimony for sanctity, the show of
holiness for holiness itself, and
window dressing for the “real thing.”
Are these people really that stupid -- that gullible? The answer is, “yes and no.”
Yes, some are -- but some aren’t: some act wrongly out of pride: many at SGG, for instance, certainly
recognize by now what the dynamic duo are; they know that Cekada was wrong
about Schiavo; they’ve seen (and
recognized) his arrogance – but they are too proud to admit that they made an
initial misjudgment – that they were “taken in” by him and Dolan. Instead of leaving SGG, they’ll invent
some lame excuse to stay, such as, “Well, we know what they’re like, but we
have to go somewhere for the
sacraments” -- even though there
are plenty of viable and legitimate
alternatives elsewhere available to them. But they won’t leave.
Even if Padre Pio were saying Mass next door, they’d ignore him, and
still patronize the two vipers.
But that’s typical of today’s world -- not just at SGG, not just in
traddieland, but everywhere. People don’t want to appear “foolish” --
to admit that they’ve “been had.”
And if they do get found out (and can’t “get out of it gracefully”),
they’ll just clam up and use the “stonewall” approach, or find some other way
to ignore the embarrassing reality of the moment: the “Pamela” approach (see The
Eleventh and Twelfth “Commandments”). The SGG folks are simply a
representative microcosm of society in general – of a world that is long on
“show” and short on substance – where
the appearance of good passes for
good itself, and where what is said and what is done are
two different things: today, we
are exhorted to “save the planet”” – by rescuing baby otters and preserving the
habitats of kangaroo rats, while killing human babies and euthanizing our old. Today, it’s the planet’s flora and
fauna, not its people – not Terri Schiavo – that are what counts.
Traddieland has, in large part, evolved into a disjointed patchwork of
competing “centers,” each one a feudal kingdom unto itself, demanding fealty
from its flock (and demanding adherence to such “articles of faith” as
sedevacantism, “una cum,” and other
exclusionary shibboleths to keep the sheep in the cult corral). They give their people the appearance of Catholicism, but not
Catholicism itself: one can ignore every precept of Catholic morality, so long
as one buys a commemorative paver stone (or some other monument to one’s ego),
or underwrites the cult-masters in some other way.
Belloc spoke of the “calcification” of the Church in the late Middle
Ages, where rites and rubrics -- the “letter of the law” -- took precedence
over the spirit of Catholicism, eventually
resulting in the Protestant Revolt.
It now seems to be upon us again: what one says is more important than what one does. But Catholicism
is more than elaborate rites and rubrics and “saying all the right
buzzwords.” It is about Catholic morality, Catholic thinking, about actually being
Catholic: caring for the sanctity of life – of Terri Schiavo’s life -- and
about recognizing sin as sin, not as
“boys will be boys.” For real Catholics, fornication is a sin; riding a roller-coaster is not. Real Catholicism is not about buying one’s way into heaven by
purchasing a memorial paver stone or by saying the right prayers; it is about keeping
God’s commandments. Being the right stuff, not saying the right stuff, is the real
“bottom line.”
Worldly, self-seeking cult-masters will only bring ruin to Catholicism:
bad trees do not bear good fruit. Goodness
can only come of good men – men who
are more interested in their (and others’) souls than in where their next
gourmet meal or travel junket is coming from. Good men must take the lead; and they must rejuvenate today’s
re-calcified Catholicism with real
Catholic thought, word, and deed – not with sanctimonious pap, and showy pomp
and ceremony. Perhaps then – and
only then – will Catholicism stop splintering, and start to unite and heal. Until that happens, it will only continue
its downward spiral into oblivion.
The time has come to stop that downward spiral: to weed out the
Barnumesque hucksters and the sanctimonious hypocrites.
But how is such a thing to be accomplished? – by some sort of
ecclesiastical equivalent of the political “tea party” movement, where
concerned Catholics come together and “take back our Church” from such
men? Or should it be a “from the
top down” thing, requiring leadership from above? The answer is both:
a good tree must have good soil in which to grow. But whichever form it takes, the leading and the following
should be done by example -- as Our
Lord did – and not by coercion, fear tactics, and “guilt-tripping.” And just as people have been led astray
by bad example, so can they be reclaimed
by good example. It can start small: a mustard seed,
planted in good soil, grows into a mighty tree. In time, the good seed, properly planted and nourished, will
prevail, and choke off the parasitic chaff who have been feeding off the
faithful for so long.
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