Suspicions Confirmed – and Then Some

An associate once commented, Daniel Dolan’s words are “the gift that keeps on giving” -- “the eternal enema” (except that in Dannie’s case, it’s self-administered).  As we’ve commented so many times before, every time Dannie (or Tony) opens his mouth, his foot seems to go in even farther down the hatch.  This time, it went in so far that he was probably able to get his toe-nails clipped – by a proctologist.

Last week’s Lay Pulpit article hazarded some guesses as to how Dannie got down and back on his just-completed Mexican romp -- and why he went.  In the March 23 installment of the SGG Bulletin’s Bishop’s Corner, Dannie obligingly confirmed all of our “guesses” (i.e., suspicions) about how extravagantly things went.  But why take our word for it?  Just look at a sampling of what Dannie himself had to say, and then be your own judge.  For your convenience, Dannie’s words are in italics, followed by our comments (in standard type face).  Let’s start with Dannie’s opening line:

“It was strange to be away for a Lenten Friday. I hope somebody made some soup.”

“Strange”?  “Convenient” is more like it.  And, oh yes, how nice of you to ask if anyone back at Cult Control Central made some soup!  Did you have soup down there in Mexico, Dannie?  Well, we’ll find out a little later on, won’t we!

“My early morning flight from Dayton was four hours late, however, and I only made it as far as Mexico City late that night. Whatever would we do without cell phones and Minis for rescheduling and staying in touch? La Paz is far away, but with all of our electronic gadgets the world seems almost manageable.”

Tsk! Tsk! Life for a jet-setting ersatz bishop can be so tedious nowadays!  But thankfully, you had your “electronic gadgets” to help you out.  But did you check with Tony on the “propriety” of that?  These gadgets, after all, might comprise an “extraordinary means of communication.”  Did Pope Pius XII approve of such gadgets?  Perhaps they’re demonic!  [It’s a pity you couldn’t ask Terri -- but she’s inaccessible these days.  And, besides, what does she know?  Tony’s the real authority – on everything!]

“We were going to have a nice tour of the bay [near La Paz] in somebody’s boat, but the high waves waved us off. Still the weather was beautiful. Did you have more snow?”

Bummer!  Just when you were going to take a boat ride!  [Isn’t it reassuring, though, culties, to know that you have such a self-sacrificing bishop?]  But, you’re right: the weather was beautiful, and it was so nice of you to let the sheep back at Cult Control Central know so – and to ask them if it was snowing back in Ohio!  You’re just a well-spring of thoughtfulness!  Perhaps while you were “offering it up” in sunny La Paz, the culties were enjoying some ice-fishing in the grotto pond (to supplement their Friday night feasts).

“That evening I gave a well-attended conference on how to live as Catholics in today’s world.  [And then, of course, there’s this gem]: The Mexican Fathers were talking about the role of the public schools, as well as music and TV, in robbing the children of their innocence. I’m glad we can do something to counter this, as well as bringing the very innocent little ones to Jesus for First Communion.”

Gee, Dannie, did you tell them how you and Tony live in SGG’s world – and how the two of you and your school principal “protected the innocence” of the school kids there?  Did you explain to them how, at SGG, watching porn and animal torture flicks qualifies as “boys will be boys”?  Did you tell them that it is a mortal sin to wear an “inappropriate” headband there, but it’s okay to fornicate with (and impregnate) a fellow student [as long as you’re one of the principal’s sons]?  Did you tell them that one must “keep a dignified silence” [unless, of course, one is a bishop – in which case, one has carte blanche to publicly disparage and vilify people – including fellow priests -- at will?

“I offered the Mass of Ireland’s patron in [Vera Cruz] Mexico,” [and] “After a fine Mexican breakfast …, we headed to the airport for a flight to Mexico City. There we were met by a Chilean priest, our old friend Fr. Mardones, and by Fr. Martin Gomez of Acapulco, now Dos Rios.

Hmmm, I wonder who picked up the tab for Fr. Mardones and Fr. Gomez?  We know that Fr. Mardones is situated in El Paso, and is poor; and, unless he “thumbed his way” from El Paso to Mexico City, it must have cost more than a few pesos to get him there (not to mention, his expenses after he got there).  I wonder who picked up his tab (and Fr. Gomez’s too)?

“We had dinner at an excellent Argentinean restaurant, consuming copious quantities of meat, as is the custom in these southern countries, even in Lent! We’re one of the few countries that do keep Lent and I’m happy to get back to it.”

Boy oh boy, Dannie!  How “international” of you to observe the “Latino Lent” down there, where Gringo rules don’t apply!  As they say, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do,” right?  [Or, following that line of logic, “when in Sodom…”]  While the culties were slurping their soup back home, how did you ever manage handling your “copious quantities of meat”?  Was it, as Nero would say, a “BYOF” affair (Bring Your Own Feather)?  Folks, was Dannie’s a Christ-like example or what?!  [Yep, you’re right: it was an “or what”!]  It’s so gratifying to see that Dannie puts aside his Gringo fasting scruples to accommodate local custom – again, how “international” of him!!

And, then again: “... I ate a little of the “marrano,” the roast pork, afterwards even though I really should not have.”  “…More meat finished the day (and almost finished me off ) back in Mexico City, as we left behind us the volcano of Pico de Orizaba.

You’re right, Dannie, you really shouldn’t have: “a little of the ‘marrano,’ the roast pork” and “More meat finished the day.”  Did you bring along some Tums for the heartburn?  And I do hope they had someone down there who could perform the Heimlich maneuver, in case you choked on all that meat!  And, oh yes, did you remember to bring along some Beano® too, “just in case”?  Dannie, you’re such a paragon of self-denial!  How did you ever manage it??!

Well, folks, I think you get the picture: another one of Dannie’s “self-sacrificing apostolates” to warm, sunny Latino-land, where he “offered it up” and selflessly bore the hardship of gorging himself on beef and pork, and doing the fiesta circuit – in the dead of Lent (sorry you missed your boat ride though, Dannie!) – while the sheep were freezing their traseros off, and rationing right along on their fish sticks and gruel.  Wow, what a model of a self-denying shepherd!  That’s what I call… REALLY NAUSEATING!  If Winston Churchill were alive today, he might sum up Dannie’s Mexican trip thusly: “Never before has someone spent so much, to do so little, for so few.”

Of course, Dannie’s Bishop’s Corner had its standard mix of syrupy, superficial sanctimony, meaningless platitudes, sugary (and insincere) sentimentality, and affectation [just the kind of stuff that appeals to the hopelessly gullible!] -- and (of course) his usual helping of “name-dropping”: he made (totally irrelevant) mention of “using a chalice from Fr. Schoonbroodt” (who, by the way, couldn’t stand him); and he got in a plug for “Dr. Jesus” -- telling a local woman (whose son cannot speak) to take the boy to “the Little Doctor” for help.  I wonder what she’ll do when she finds out how much good Dannie’s advice did her?  Dannie mentioned a procession that they were having in Vera Cruz (while he was there), in which some of the niños “dressed as Moors with machetes” were marching.  Perhaps the next time Dannie comes down, this woman can give those niños some creative tips on what to do with their machetes.

But what really came through in this edition of Bishop’s Corner (and, in fact, in MOST of its editions) is Dannie’s trademark HYPOCRISY: naked, transparent -- embarrassingly obvious.  It makes one wonder if Dannie ever proofreads what he writes, for his hypocrisy is glaringly conspicuous to all but the comatose.  His “matter-of-fact” comments about how delightful the weather was in Mexico (while he, in the same breath, ascertained if it was snowing back in Ohio), or his wondering if someone back in Ohio was making some soup, while he was there in Mexico, observing his Lent by “consuming copious quantities of meat”: for sheer callous insensitivity, wanton disregard, and utter contempt for other peoples’ feelings, his comments are hard to beat. [Actually, Tony Cekada is Dannie’s equal on all of this; but, whereas Tony’s strongest suits are ignorance and arrogance, Dannie, we believe, holds the edge on hypocrisy.]

In his Bishop’s Corner column, Dannie lamented the fact that -- on one of the days when he was celebrating Mass in La Paz -- “a mighty and unwonted wind blew in from somewhere as Mass started. Some saw it as demonic.”  [This was the same wind that whipped up the waves, causing cancellation of his plans of going on a boat ride that day.]  You’re right, Dannie: it WAS demonic -- and symbolic – just as was Fr. Siordia’s dream of some years back (about SGG’s parishioners -- sad, hunched over, with heads down and oxen-like yokes around their necks – trudging in a circle around SGG’s parking lot, and seeing a vile black substance bubbling up from the pavement in the parking lot’s center).  Dannie, methinks that both that “mighty wind” and Fr. Siordia’s dream were trying to tell you something – and methinks also that it’s high time that you start listening.

As if Argentina Wasn’t Enough

In the March 16 edition of The Bishop’s Corner, Daniel Dolan recounted for the sheep his latest “apostolate” (or whatever it was) to Mexico and the Baja.  It must have been so exciting for the sheep to read what “El Pastor” had to say about his latest jaunt to south-of-the-border since going “down Argentine way” a few weeks back.  It must have been so reassuring for them to know that Dannie was able to escape the tedium of the harsh winter up here in Gringo Land to administer to the souls down in the warmer, sunnier climes of Sombrero Land – what providential timing!

The first leg of his “apostolate” took Dannie to the Baja, where he performed confirmations, we are told.  Never mind that traddie Mexican bishops are “a peso a dozen” in that neck of the woods (or that, strictly speaking, a priest could have done those confirmations) – this was Dannie’s chance to check on his ovejas down there.  From Baja, Dannie then went on to “Vera Cruz state” to (presumably) do some more “keeping in touch” over there (more confirmations?).

Now if one looks at the map, Baja and Vera Cruz are about as far away from each other as one could get, and still be in Mexico (about a thousand miles apart, as the cuervo flies).  So, unless Dannie took the ferry from La Paz to Mazatlan, and then went by motor-car from there to Vera Cruz (chauffeured, of course – Dannie doesn’t drive), he probably flew, since La Paz and Vera Cruz both have airports (he also could have flown into Mexico City, since it’s within chauffeuring distance of Vera Cruz).

While in Vera Cruz, Dannie did some more confirmations (we presume); and he also mentioned that he was going on to “Guadalupe” from there (the shrine of Guadalupe, we also presume, because it is near Mexico City).  Dannie did not mention anything about popping in on Fr. Siordia, though.  (Fr. Siordia is right there near Mexico City; one would think that Dannie wouldn’t miss the opportunity to stop by and see his young protégé, being as he was in the neighborhood).  Perhaps he did visit Fr. Siordia and his flock, but forgot to mention it in his Bishop’s Corner column.  However, it seems a bit strange that he wouldn’t, since Dannie never misses a chance to wow the troops with news tidbits from his “Latin apostolate.”  After all, Fr. Siordia was the cornerstone of Dannie’s Latino program – almost his razón de ser for being there: his south-of-the-border “jewel in the crown.”  Let us just hope that he did pop in on his old compadre, but forgot to tell us (in which case, we wait with breathless anticipation).

But, getting back to our original speculation about Dannie’s trip: how was his Mexican excursion financed?  As noted earlier, a quick look at Mexican geography tells us that Dannie had to have flown from Baja to Vera Cruz (not to mention, the Cincinnati-to-Baja leg and the return leg from Mexico back to Cincy) -- something that costs more than what the peso-strapped Mexicans could afford.  And along the way, we’re sure that Dannie didn’t stay in Motel 6’s (or their Mexican equivalent) either; for instance, when he visited Fr. Siordia some years back, he stayed at a high-end establishment in Cuernavaca (a hotel not dissimilar to The Bishop’s Lodge) -- which reportedly sat not-so-well with the not-so-worldly young Padre.  (Rumor has it, in fact, that Dannie and his protégé are not “getting on” quite so well these days.  We wonder if this is, perhaps, why Fr. Siordia has not been mentioned so much of late.)

The bottom line on Dannie’s Mexican trip, then, is probably the same as for his Argentine junket: it’s a pretty fair assumption that the amigos south of the border didn’t pick up Dannie’s travel tab, but – as is usually the case -- that the SGG bootlickers footed the bill.  But that’s what the groveling faithful are there for: to deny themselves and to “offer it up” so that their cult-masters can enjoy La Vida Buena – right?  Wrong.  It is time for the SGG faithful to ask themselves why their pastor must travel from wintry southwest Ohio to warm, sunny Mexico (or to Argentina) to perform confirmations that could easily have been done by any one of several traddie Latino bishops (or, in a pinch, by a priest)?  It is time, we think, for them to start “asking for an accounting” – and, if they don’t like what they hear, to start walking away.

“What kind of Catholic…?”

The following is a series of questions and/or observations for the reader to consider:

·      What kind of Catholic would claim that Terri Schiavo’s death was NOT a “pro-life or anti-euthanasia case,” or claim that feeding tubes [which have been routinely used for decades] constitute an “extraordinary means” of prolonging life – or claim that the cost of using a feeding tube constituted “a grave burden on society” (when the cost of doing so is, in fact, cheaper than conventional feeding)?

·      What kind of Catholic would justify starving and dehydrating to death a woman who had no need of (nor was on) any “life-support equipment” whatsoever, nor was in any way in danger of dying – and then claim that her “husband – and not her parents – had the right before God” to end her life that way?

·      What kind of Catholic, acting as pastor of a (supposedly) Catholic church and school, would tolerate the abuse of children at that school (by its principal), and then ignore the pleas of the outraged parents of those children?

·      What kind of a Catholic pastor would dismiss students’ watching of animal torture videos and porn as “boys will be boys,” and “look the other way” when one of them fornicates with (and impregnates) a fellow student – as long as those students are the principal’s sons?

“What kind of Catholic” would do those things?  The answer is simple: someone who is NOT Catholic.  Oh yes, it would certainly be someone who calls himself Catholic: someone who “says all the right prayers, and who follows all the right rites and rubrics“ – who “dots all the i’s and crosses all the t’s”; but it wouldn’t be someone who is truly Catholic.  It would be someone who offers a caricature of Catholicism, who observes its letter, but ignores its spirit -- someone who is “become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.”  And whom does this (and all of the aforementioned “bullet points”) bring to mind?  Again, the answer is simple: the “shepherds” at SGG.  (And, of course, bear in mind that those bullet points are just a sampling of what these “shepherds” have done over the years.) 

At SGG, the “letter of the law” brand of “Catholicism” IS the law; and it has been raised to an art form – or, rather, it has been elevated to a science.  Parishioners who do not “dot every I” or “cross every t” are severely disciplined – or even denied the sacraments (as one man was for going to a rival church while on vacation).  At SGG, a schoolgirl was told that (her) wearing a headband in church constituted a mortal sin – yet real transgressions (like those in the foregoing “bullet points”) were ignored (or, in some cases, even condoned).  At SGG, eating meat on Friday is a mortal sin – unless Dannie “dispenses” parishioners from abstinence (as he did when he wanted to fill up the church pews one Friday: those who attended Mass that day were “dispensed”; those who didn’t attend weren’t).

This sort of nonsense is standard procedure at SGG: renegades with absolutely no jurisdiction (ecclesiastical or otherwise) exercising their “authority” over their flock -- using manipulation, intimidation, and bluff to convince the flock that they are “the real thing.”  To the SGG faithful, Dolan is a selfless, holy man, concerned about the spiritual welfare of his sheep; and Cekada is a “real scholar,” and his Work of Human Hands  is a “landmark” work – almost as if it were right up there alongside Aquinas’ Summa.  The reality of it us that the only thing Dolan is concerned about is where the money’s coming from for his next travel junket to Latin America or Europe.  And Cekada’s painfully inept WHH would have found more practical use had it been published in roll form – and on softer paper.

Everything that Tony has ever written, in fact, has been a catastrophe, from his criminally insane Schiavo nonsense (still the yardstick by which all ignorance and arrogance are measured) and his cowardly attack on the late Abbot Leonard Giardina (who, being deceased, could not answer Cekada’s malicious insinuations), to his stillborn defense of Dolan’s one-handed “ordination.”  And Dolan?  His track record during the SGG school scandals -- which caused half of SGG’s parishioners to leave -- speaks for itself.  And, as recent events have borne out, his modus operandi hasn’t changed: two recent Pistrina articles, A Tale of Two Faces, and The Poison Pen, show that Dannie hasn’t lost his toxic touch when it comes to hypocrisy, duplicity, and vindictiveness.  The fact is, every time that either Dolan or Cekada opens his mouth, he totally annihilates himself.

As those two Pistrina articles pointed out, Dannie exhorts his flock to be “charitable” and to keep a “dignified silence,” while he himself publicly slanders others at will (both clergy and lay alike): or how he and Tony can do a “180” flip-flop on the legitimacy of Archbishop Thuc’s lineage, or how they can describe his Latin one time as crude, then competent, and yet later as excellent – depending upon which group they’re lying to at the time; or how Dannie can question another priest’s credentials, while his own one-handed “ordination” is in real doubt.  The dynamic duo simply say whatever they want to say, then contradict it the next time, hoping that their audience won’t notice the “inconsistencies.”

And that will be the dynamic duo’s ultimate downfall, because not only do their own words destroy them – but they don’t know when to quit.  They will continue furnishing their adversaries with the best ammo possible: their own words – words whose arrogance, ignorance, and hypocrisy are easily seen through, no matter how much they try to camouflage them.  The dynamic duo has so far gotten away with this camouflaged caricature of Catholicism; but it won’t last.  Eventually, even SGG’s groveling gullible will catch on to their act, and start to realize that “saying the right prayers,” “wearing the right medals, and taking part in ostentatious ecclesiastical extravaganzas -- while consigning Terri Schiavo to the dust heap, and stabbing a deceased, defenseless abbot in the back -- are not “what it’s all about.”

What it IS about is being Catholic, and standing up for real Catholic principles; it’s about loving your neighbor as yourself.  It’s about CHARITY – something which, as we’ve so often witnessed before, the “sounding brass and tinkling cymbals of traddieland” do not possess, nor even know (unless, of course, “Charity” happens to be the name of the manicurist at the Kitty Spa where Dannie’s cats (Puccini, Vivaldi, and Caravaggio) go to get their paws clipped – or perhaps the name of one of the masseurs at the ShaNa Spa).  They’re too busy going to the desert Southwest, to Mexico and the Baja, and to Europe – and trampling over anyone who gets in their worldly way.  The dynamic duo fail to realize that, as St. Paul reminds us, that “if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.”

Do Tigers Ever Change Their Stripes?

A Swiss mathematician, Dr. Charles E. Guye, once calculated the odds of a real protein being formed “by chance” -- that is, by “primordial bits of material bumping together” to form that single protein molecule (as evolutionists contend).  The odds of that happening are “100¹⁶⁰ to 1” (that is, “the number 100 multiplied by itself 160 times, to 1”) against.  To put such a number in perspective, imagine that the known universe was tightly packed with – not atoms – but electrons.  It would contain 100¹⁴³ electrons, which means that it would take sextillion sextillion sextillion universes to supply that much material (and an equal number of years) to form that one protein molecule – and we’re not talking “cell” yet (nor have we reached 100¹⁶⁰ yet).  And, that single protein molecule is just one of the building blocks of a cell.  Then, after scaling this (insurmountable) hurdle, we must consider that the cell must be alive – have life – and we haven’t even touched on cell specialization yet (i.e., why some cells become hair, why some become heart tissue, why some become lips or toes or brains, or “whales and snails and puppy dogs’ tails”).  You get the picture: it’s IMPOSSIBLE (even using “evolutionary” numbers).

The foregoing is excerpted from a book entitled The Death of Evolution, by Wallace Johnson (the book is available from Amazon.com; click on the link).  It goes on to disprove evolution in so many ways that it is a wonder why any rational creature could ever imagine evolution in a serious light, let alone as a “science.”  It is a false religion, an unimaginable leap of faith -- the most laughable leap of faith ever conceived by mankind.  Actually, it is something beyond that: it is demonic delusion of the first order.  The aforementioned book (and many more) should be in everyone’s home, and it should be preached from every pulpit.  Why? -- because evolution is the theoretical basis for atheism: it is the house-of-cards foundation on which atheism is built.  Without evolution, there is no basis for atheism; the former is a prerequisite for the latter.

Not only that, evolution is an insidious thing; it gnaws away at the subconscious, undermining the very foundations of one’s faith: if we start buying into the myth that we “evolved” from “space dust” or whatever, then we are swallowing a seed that, tumor-like, takes root and grows within us, eventually destroying our faith.  And, of course, we have a mainstream academia and media that are incessantly repeating this swill in the hope that it will grow.  The fight to refute it has been, as many know, an uphill battle.  In America’s public schools, it is taught as accomplished fact; and anything even remotely resembling “Creationism” counts as “religion” – and is therefore prohibited. 

Now one would think that evolution, or anything resembling it, would not be tolerated (much less, taught) in any Catholic school – yet it is.  Many of the textbooks in Novus Ordo “Catholic” schools -- especially its universities -- openly teach evolution as an accomplished fact.  And it doesn’t stop there: even the “Catholic” high schools and grade schools teach it.  Open up any of their textbooks, and it will talk about how animals (and we) “evolved,” about the different “eras” and “epochs,” etc.  It’s taken for granted that these things just “happened.”

Fortunately, evolution is not promoted in “traditional” Catholic schools (at least we hope it isn’t!) -- but how much of an active effort are those schools making to promote the opposite?  For instance, some years back, the aforementioned book, The Death of Evolution, was presented to Daniel Dolan by one of SGG’s parishioners.  Dolan simply “accepted” the book, then proceeded to ignore it.  If it ever made its way into the SGG school library (if they have such a thing), it assuredly never became prescribed reading for any of SGG’s students, or even recommended reading (perhaps because it was thought to be too “heavy” for a school of SGG’s truncated academic preeminence). 

The problem, however, with this book is not so much that, but that it is not a “profitable” venture, i.e., it does not further the cause of the SGG cult.  The dynamic duo are more interested in their own stuff -- like Work of Human Hands – to further their own cause (and hopefully to turn a profit for them).  Their problem, though, is that the perpetually dead-on-arrival WHH has been a box-office bust, selling only to the catatonic and to the morbidly curious.  Another “fiscal” problem is that their flock is dwindling: many of their most generous benefactors (including their biggest, who almost single-handedly bankrolled their entire West Chester operation) have already left; and the coffers are shrinking.  They have had to resort to "paver-stone memorials,” bake sales, and other short-term vehicles to keep them afloat – none of which have really done the job.

What these short-sighted charlatans fail to realize is that none of these measures work for the long haul; short-term expedients are just that: short term.  And all too often, those “short-term expedients” have taken the form of trampling on whomever gets in their way – sure to scare “return customers” and “future business” away.  And in their frenetic single-mindedness to do so, they are blind to just how nakedly maliciousness they really are.  Take, for instance, Cekada’s cheap shot against the late Abbot Leonard Giardina – a deceased man unable to respond; or Dolan’s attempted character assassination of a fellow priest (see Pistrina’s The Poison Pen).  They cannot see how their motives betray them (and their own words destroy them), and that -- although their attacks may score them some short-term “points” with their catatonic culties -- they have “turned off” everyone else.  Their vitriolic barbs turn out to be like so many boomerangs, coming back to skewer them in the end (no pun intended).

But that’s what the SGG vipers are all about: taking cheap shots, and then “crying foul” when they are found out and exposed.  That’s what they did in the two examples cited in the last paragraph; that’s what they did so many times with Schiavo; that’s what they did with so many of their own parishioners (especially during the SGG School scandal of recent memory); and that’s what they’ll continue to do with whomever gets in their way.  The victimizers will keep on victimizing --and then, of course, “play the victim” and holler “slander.” 

Their hypocrisy and duplicity (not to mention their shameless worldliness) is nothing short of disgusting (as are their pathetically amateurish attempts to appear otherwise).  At a time when they should be preparing young minds with a real Catholic education (and giving them and their parents real Catholic principles to live by), they are feeding them a diet of sentimentalism, sanctimony, and mind-control, while simultaneously draining their wallets in order to quench their never-ending thirst for ”apostolate” boondoggles and epicurean adventure.

There are so many things that they could be doing to benefit the faithful (and themselves).  As this article intimated earlier on, they could be exposing (and combating) the evils of evolution – or, for that matter, those of Islam, which, as Belloc so prophetically warned, has risen “like a phoenix from the ashes” to once again threaten Christendom.  Ironically, it is the Protestants who are taking the initiative on both of those fronts.  Meanwhile, “Franken-pope” openly courts Moslems, while the SGG hucksters bury their heads in the sand, concerning themselves not with things like evolution, but instead with feathering their own nests, and furthering their own schemes of worldly self-interest.  Like the true politicians they are, they say and do whatever they think will get them material gain.  And, also like the politicians they are, they don’t practice what they preach (nor, probably, do they even believe what they preach).

Will these tigers ever change their stripes? (Does a tiger ever change its stripes?)  Don’t bet on it.  Based on their behavior to date, there is no reason to expect that they’ll ever “reform.”  As long as there is a critical mass of SGG boot-lickers for them to feed upon, the parasitic pair will continue to intimidate and exploit until either 1) they retire with “enough,” 2) things dip below the break-even point of “sustainability” for them (in which case, they’ll have to retire with whatever they’ve salted away so far), or 3) a parish lynch mob decides the issue in the interim.