Serendipity

This past week, two serendipitous things happened: first, this writer was alerted to Daniel Dolan’s “Bishop’s Corner” article in this past Sunday’s (Nov. 24) SGG (St. Gertrude the Great) church bulletin; and secondly, yours truly ran across another website that he didn’t know existed.  An associate told this writer to read this particular Bishop’s Corner, the reason being that it was particularly nauseating.  It not only struck me in that respect, but it also jogged my memory back to the time when the website “VoVWatch.com”* was extant – for reasons that will be explained forthwith.  That website had a weekly feature called “Viper’s Den,” which was a parody of Dolan’s Bishop’s Corner – a parody that was (of course) not only satirical, but also dead-on accurate (and, at times, hilariously funny!) -- and whose brilliant, incisive satire was made all the more brilliant by the fact that it was written the very same morning that Dolan’s Bishop’s Corner appeared in SGG’s bulletin. 

I thought to myself, “Wow, we could have really had a “field day” with this Bishop’s Corner!!!”  This particularly ponderous article contained all the usual falderal: references to (of course!) the weather (Dannie must be a frustrated meteorologist!), comments about a procession (he must be a frustrated drum-major, too!), along with other extraneous “small talk”: waxing savoringly about how good the Chili was at a recent SGG “get-down” (as if he habitually partook of such fare with the peasants), and thanking everyone but the parking lot attendant for their servitude performed during his latest liturgical extravaganza – even thanking someone for having “straightened out our crooked candelabra.”

He even managed to squeeze in some more of his usual effeminate (and irrelevant) crap about his cats, Caravaggio and Puccini (Vivaldi must have been away at the kitty spa, getting his claws done – or perhaps he ran into one of those coyotes that Dannie mentioned in his soliloquy).  And, of course, everything was seasoned with fulsome flattery and his trademark syrupy sanctimony, as if his audience were -- instead of a congregation of mature adults -- a Sunday School class of kindergartners, waiting, like so many unfledged sparrows with mouths wide open, to gulp down his latest morsels of regurgitated mediocrity.

They say that “a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down”; and for bad medicine, one needs lots of it.  This was the case for this Sunday’s Bishop’s Corner article: Dannie needed to slip some bits of swill down the gullets of his fledglings, so he camouflaged it with lots of “sugar” to make it go down unnoticed.  The first “bit” slipped in was his mention of the “Sacrament whose valid celebration is the very raison d’être of our existence at St. Gertrude the Great.”  The key word here, folks, is “valid”: this was Dannie’s not-so-sly way of trying to convince the flock of the validity of his dubious ordination – and, by extension, the validity of Bede Nkamuke’s ordination.  And it probably worked – as it always does on those whose minds have been anesthetized by years of preconditioning.  But for the rest of us, Dannie, no amount of sugar will make that medicine go down!

The other bit of Bishop’s Corner “medicine” – make that mendacity – was Dolan’s (unwittingly hilarious) reference to “Father’s [Cekada’s] trademark precision.” Precision??!!!  Who are you trying to kid, Dannie?  “A spoonful of sugar?”  This’ll take a metric ton!!  Tony has all the “precision” of a blind spastic performing brain surgery -- with a hammer in one hand, and a vial of nitro-glycerin in the other!  Dannie’s use of the word was, of course, a veiled (and vain) attempt by him to legitimize Tony’s pathetic defense of his one-handed “ordination.”  Sorry, Dannislaus, but that just won’t wash – or were you referring to Checkie’s “precision” on Schiavo or WHH?  Either way, we’re talking “NO way!”  Please, Dannie, don’t embarrass yourself like that again!

In the aforementioned “VoVWatch.com” website, the “VoV” stood for “Vipers of Vaudeville” – a reference to Dolan and Cekada.  It was a phrase coined by the man who first brought to everyone’s attention the abuses that were going on at SGG – abuses which Dolan and Cekada not only ignored, but which they were an integral part of.  The moniker “Vipers of Vaudeville” is appropriate for two reasons: first, they behave like vipers; and second, their chicanery was (and is) so amateurishly done, that it’s like a bad Vaudeville act. 

But bad or no, they are not an “act”: they are deadly serious – and they have done much mischief – mischief which has been brought to light not only by Lay Pulpit, but by yet another website (the one that this writer mentioned “running across” at the beginning of this article).  This website is significant in that it is yet another “data point.”  That is, it provides independent documented proof corroborating that which Lay Pulpit has also proved -- that the dynamic duo have indeed lied – except that, this time, the lies have signatures affixed to them. 

It is a still extant dissident website, put up by ousted members of SGG’s satellite church in Milwaukee (St. Hugh of Lincoln), documenting instances of lying not just by Cekada, but by one of his underlings (Fr. Charles McGuire) as well.  One such instance involved something that Cekada said in his online “Quidlibet” column, where he denied dismissing four SHL parishioners -- calling their charges “more lies and distortions,” and “more hogwash, indeed, more fantasy” [Cekada’s words and bold emphasis] -- when there was written proof (by his own hand) that he did so (in letters to those parishioners).

There were two letters: one written to three parishioners, the other to a fourth – both of which were registered with the local police department, and both of which were signed by Cekada and by his dutifully acquiescent weasel, Charlie McGuire.  These letters, coupled with the website’s other article, constitute a proven, embarrassing truth that the dynamic duo, their spineless boot-licker Charlie, or their brain-blanked, rubber-stamping cultlings may obstinately deny (or defy), but which no one else can – that is, anyone who abides by the rules of rational logic.  Moreover, it is evidence that they cannot erase -- a mortifying fact that will remain for as long as the dissident SHL website stands.

In addition to the St. Hugh of Lincoln website, there are others which, though now defunct, have documented even more of Dolan and Cekada’s “escapades” – and we will be resurrecting and preserving them in due course (and referring to them from time to time).  Meanwhile, my advice to Dannie and Tony is – if they want to stop embarrassing themselves – that they had better 1) sew each other’s lips shut, 2) put each other’s “writing” arm in a permanent sling, or 3) both of the above.  But if they do write something, we suggest that they at least do not “archive” it (lest it be used as “ammo” against them later on).  However, they will probably not heed that advice.  “And for that,” as they say, “we are eternally grateful!”