A Trip to Nowhere

In recent weeks, we have been reporting about Daniel Dolan’s winter sojourns to Argentina and Mexico; and we have been speculating that the money spent on these boondoggles could have been put to better use.  Dannie’s laments about the winter heating bills (voiced in his Bishop’s Corner in SGG’s Palm Sunday church bulletin) reinforced our suspicions, and prompted us to comment about the dynamic duo’s preoccupation with money (see Show Me the Money), and about how their relentless appetite for extravagance necessitates the never-ending solicitation of money from their culties.

As it turns out, Dannie’s lament (in Palm Sunday’s Bishop’s Corner) was more than just idle chatter: reliable sources tell us that SGG was in arrears (about $3300) on their heating bills.  But, thanks to beggar Dannie’s whining appeals from the pulpit, some “generous donors” (aka SUCKERS) came forward to erase that deficit.  This, of course, came at a time when Dannie was taking his two unnecessary trips – one to Argentina and one to Mexico.  One wonders why he didn’t just CANCEL those trips, knowing that he was in arrears on the heating bills (and at a time when SGG’s cash-strapped parishioners had their own heating bills to pay).

But Dannie has always wanted to have his cake and eat it too, so it really didn’t matter to him that he was shamelessly begging from the pulpit for that heating money after sunning himself down in warm Argentina and Mexico.  He knew the culties would be good for it, and that they’d bend over and “take it up the tail-pipe” for him (as they always have) – even though many of them had to forego a lot of that heat that they were paying for: the young mothers, for instance, in the vestibule “crying room,” which is kept UNHEATED in the winter.  (There’s provision for heating; it’s just not used).

As long as Dannie and Tony are warm and cozy in their three-climate-zone rectory, what the hell do they care for the culties?  The latter are good for paying the bills, doing the grunt work for “the show,” and keeping their mouths shut.  As Dannie and Tony well know, “culties should be seen and not heard.”  If they’re worked to the nubs during Holy Week, no problem!  Just thank them profusely for their servitude -- showering them with flattery and all the rest of the Dolanesque BS that goes with it – and they’re good for another year!

In fact, what Dannie might want to do is to keep on begging for the culties to foot the heating bills.  That way, Dannie (and perhaps Tony too) could afford to go to Europe this summer on another “apostolate.”  Instead of the heating (or cooling) being paid for out of SGG’s “general operating fund,” it could be “a la carte”:  Do you culties not want to sweat this summer?  Then pay for it!  Do you young mothers want the vestibule heated for your newborn babies this winter?  Then pay for it!  Oh, and how about pay toilets in the vestibule?  If Mother Nature calls, then pay for it!  (And in an unheated vestibule, Mother Nature will call quite often!)  In time, this “a la carte” thing could become an effective generator of revenue -- and the culties would eventually get used to it!

Of course, besides the “studio audience” at SGG, revenue generation can also come from the “cyber culties” out there – the ones who read SGG’s web page.  And the “beauty part” about them is that, not being physically present at SGG, they’re not aware (for instance) of what the shivering young moms are going through in the vestibule.  All they see are the pretty pictures plastered all over SGG’s web page – such as the recent full-color, panoramic view of the altar all decorated for Easter, or the photo from SGG’s Newsletter depicting Dannie parading through a Mexican pueblito, flanked by a half dozen or so struggling campesinos hoisting up a heavy gold-threaded canopy over him to shield his self-importancy from the sun.  But not to worry – the “cyber culties” don’t notice that, but see only “happy, smiling faces,” with “a good time being had by all.”

The fact is, Dannie and Tony can do just about anything -- and create any impression -- that they want.  Being independent (and hence not answerable to any hierarchy -- or church board -- to police them or scrutinize their finances), they literally have a blank check to do anything they choose.  They are the epitome of that all-too-common traddie phenomenon: the tinhorn-turned-mini-pope, who passes himself off as whatever he wants to be: “scholar,” “theologian,” “interpreter of doctrine” – an easy enough thing to pull off, when dealing with the liturgically illiterate.  And with no hierarchy to police him, all one has to do is just hang out his shingle, and start proselytizing.

And don’t worry about “consistency.”  Dannie and Tony can “flip–flop,” saying one time that they’re not “sedevacantist,” and then, at another time, saying that they are (which they did) – and then use their “authority” to deny the sacraments to anyone who goes to a “non-sedevacantist” church (which they did).  They can dispense parishioners from Friday abstinence if they come to Mass that day, or deny dispensation to those who don’t come (which they did).  They can even declare a Mass as “invalid” if the celebrant prays for someone of whom they don’t approve (such as someone whom they don’t recognize as pope).  They can, in fact, make up (and change) whatever rules they want, then (selectively) punish anyone who breaks those rules.  In other words, they can say or do (or spend) just about anything they wish -- and who’s to stop them?

What all this autonomy has bred in them is an air of arrogant, tyrannical self-importance, where they demand absolute fealty from their cultie subjects, who must obey their decrees, accept whatever they spend, and perform whatever tasks they assign.  The SGG cult center now employs a small army of volunteers to help with “the show” -- a workload that has already claimed three sacristans (two nuns and a lay woman) -- and driven one of them to nervous collapse.  And since, again, there’s no hierarchy (or church board) to hold them accountable, Dannie and Tony can say or do whatever they wish – leaving the parishioners with no option but to accept it, or leave (which many have already done).

And, of course, the “mutual adulation society” of Dolan and Cekada hail each other as "ecclesiastical experts”: Tony is the “scholar and theologian,” and Dannie is the “keeper of the liturgy.”  The culties are expected to blindly accept Tony’s bogus logic and fractured, mistranslated Latin, his maniacal moral theology, and his and Dannie’s “make-it-up-as-you-go rites and rubrics – and they do.  With the dumbed down lot at SGG, Dannie and Tony don’t have to “sweat the details”; they can wow them with anything, as long as it “looks traditional” – and the culties accept it as “the real thing” (as one recent Pistrina article and another pointed out).  As they say, “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”

What Dolan and Cekada are doing at SGG is reminiscent of what happened in the Church in the late Middle Ages, where the clergy became a worldly, privileged class who exploited their flocks instead of serving them – abuses that eventually brought on the Protestant Revolt.  Dolan and Cekada are basically doing the same thing – by using the sacraments as weapons, by convincing the gullible that they are “the only game in town,” and by using a combination of flattery and fear tactics to enforce that notion.  By using shibboleths such as “una cum” to determine what is “Catholic,” these renegades -- with no authority whatsoever to do so -- are passing off their private opinions as “articles of faith,” using them as criteria for determining who is allowed to enter church, who is allowed to receive the sacraments, and so on. 

And by ostracizing people whose private opinions clash with theirs, they are splitting up – not uniting – Catholicism.  People who have private opinions on things that are not articles of faith should be able to worship without fear of being disqualified on this or that trumped-up technicality – especially by self-proclaimed, self-appointed “experts” who make and break rules to suit whatever their purpose is at the moment.  And with Dannie and Tony, that purpose is invariably worldly; and their rules are made not to protect the Faith, but to protect their turf.  And until such renegades as they are put out of business, the rudderless ship known as traditional Catholicism will stumble along on its trip to nowhere.

And perhaps “traditional” Catholicism should go nowhere.  Catholicism should not be “qualified” by such adjectives as “traditional”; Catholicism should just be… Catholicism.  And if a person holds, for example, the opinion that Jorge Bergoglio is (or isn’t) a pope, the holding of that opinion should not be used as a criterion for whether or not that person is “Catholic,” or whether or not he can receive the sacraments – especially if the “judging” is being done by some unlettered idiot like Tony Cekada.  So long as articles of faith are not compromised, one should be able to “leave his private opinions at the door,” and worship unencumbered.

In today’s troubled times, what the Church needs are not counterfeits like Dolan and Cekada, who sow dissention and discord, but good (and competent) men who will unite and heal -- men who are selfless, not self-serving; who are spiritual, not worldly; who are truly Catholic in thought and deed (and who don’t misuse and misconstrue God’s word to promote their own worldly agenda).  Until the traddie establishment rids itself of such self-seeking tinhorns as the dynamic duo – and no longer tolerates them -- rudderless traditional Catholicism will remain on its present course – on a trip to nowhere.