Daniel Dolan and Anthony
Cekada are, as our last article noted, “in it for the money.” Everything they say or do is geared
towards that. They, in fact, use it as their gauge for success, both in themselves and others. In his Quidlibet newsletter, for instance, Cekada measured the late Abbot
Leonard Giardina’s “success” by how much
money he took in. And in SGG’s
bulletin (and web page), readers are inundated with exhortations to donate to this or that “fund-raiser”:
SGG’s “building program,” or its on-going “remember us in your will” plea. There is even a “donate” button
dedicated to “support SGG school” – as well as a “Make Automatic Monthly
Donation” Subscribe button, with
donation “options” ranging from five to five
hundred dollars monthly.
Then there are the occasional “novelty” fund-raisers, like “paver stone memorials”
– and, of course, the ongoing (futile) efforts to peddle Tony’s literary train
wreck, Work of Human Hands.
How does one persuade
people to donate to all those “causes”?
How can people fall for any of that? How can they be so subservient? so compliant? so gullible? The answer, unfortunately, is that
“trads” are naturally inclined to be that way. And, because of their disenchantment with the changes of Vatican
II, many of them were ready and willing to support anyone who opposed it; and those who “promised to bring back the
true Faith” were given almost a “blank check” to do so. The problem was (and is) that not all
those who opposed Vatican II’s changes did so for the right reasons. The
opposition, though fairly effective and legitimate
at first, gradually split up and fell into disarray, attracting factions with “not-so-lofty”
intentions: fortune seekers, opportunists, and – as so often happens in religious
movements – assorted fanatics and “loonies.”
Everyone recalls
Francis Schukardt, the tyrannical megalomaniac who ran his congregation like a
despot. If he was not traddieland’s first
to set the pattern for cult behavior,
he was certainly its defining
example. At first, he seemed to
give the people what they wanted: a return to orthodox Catholicism – or so it
seemed. What he was actually
giving them was the appearance of
Catholicism: the Latin Mass, the “old” rites and rubrics, elaborate ceremonies,
beautiful polyphonic music, etc. (sound familiar?). But
as time went on, he started introducing practices that went beyond that -- and became
more and more autocratic, more manipulative, more cult-like. Women had
to dress in almost Amish garb; and
everyone was forced to follow ridiculous rules (such as having to walk backwards out of church after Mass). Besides the dictatorial behavior, there
was also his extravagant life-style (sound familiar?). Also, he was accused by his colleagues
of being a pedophile (although the charges were never pursued in court), and
was eventually dismissed (for “incompetency”) by his colleagues. (For more, see Wikipedia link.)
The damaging
thing about Schukardt is that he set the “cult” pattern for others to follow;
and follow they did – especially Dannie
and Tony. They (and others)
quickly realized that the way to attract and keep followers was to emulate Schukardt’s behavior: get them to
join up by offering them “orthodoxy” (or what appears to be orthodoxy) but keep
them with cult tactics – an easy
enough thing to do, especially with traddies, who already have a tendency for blind obedience to authority. And that’s just what Dannie and Tony
have done. But along the way, they,
like Schukardt, over-stepped their bounds, becoming “mini-popes” – not by proclaiming themselves as popes (as
Schukardt did), but by acting as
such: forbidding parishioners to attend rival chapels (and denying them the
sacraments if they did); dispensing parishioners from abstinence on a Friday if
they attended Mass (and withholding it if they didn’t) and proclaiming a Mass “invalid”
if one prayed for someone whom they didn’t recognize as pope (the “una cum” nonsense) – as if they had the
authority to do all theses things, which
they don’t.
The irony of it
all is that these “keepers of orthodoxy” have themselves become increasingly heterodox. In addition to making up their own rules as they go along,
they are actually breaking the rules: Cekada’s Schiavo travesty was probably the clearest, most flagrant example of
this; and his lame defense of Dolan’s one-handed “ordination” – in which he
misquoted, mistranslated, and misrepresented official papal teaching -- was downright
laughable. And, denying the sacraments to someone simply for attending
an “illicit” chapel -- that is not only uncharitable, it is illicit
itself (and mortally
sinful). (Even when not actually forbidding people to attend rival
chapels, Dannie and Tony routinely discourage
them from doing so, whether they consider the chapel “legitimate” or not – as a
recent Pistrina article
noted.)
The problem is
that this sort of behavior has spread elsewhere: traddieland in general has developed a “we’re the
only game in town” mentality, where each group tries to convince its followers
that it has the only “valid” clergy,
and that its rivals are “flawed” – or even bogus. One traddie group, for instance, claims
that the “Thuc lineage” (anyone ordained by Archbishop Thuc) is invalid, and
that people who go to its churches are public
sinners (!). Other rival factions
have similar caveats and prohibitions, with much of traddieland degenerating
into a quagmire of bickering biddies, all issuing mud-slinging interdicts
against one another. There is little loyalty among traddie clergy – and certainly no unity. And, as far as “authority” is
concerned, the truth is, none of them
has the power (or right) to “outlaw” anyone,
since they’re all outside the institutional Church (and therefore have no
juridical power to do anything).
Another problem
with traddieland is that it has no intellectual
base. Many traddie clergy have
a very superficial knowledge of the Faith and of basic moral theology (not to
mention, poor academic formation in general). That’s why they know only how to “nit-pick”: condemn people
for “wearing inappropriate clothing,” call them “public sinners” for going to “the
wrong chapel,” or declare a Mass invalid if one “prays for the wrong pope” -- but
can’t apply the correct basic moral theology when dealing with Schiavo or with things like organ transplantation. Sometimes, they even go so far as to condone immoral behavior outright, as
Dolan did when he dismissed watching porn as “boys will be boys.” As for academics, the only traddie
seminaries that approach anywhere near
pre-Vatican II levels are those of the SSPX. “Seminaries” like MHT barely meet high school standards.
The good news, though, is that people are starting to
wise up to the hucksters who pass themselves off as “scholars,” or who bill
themselves as “the only game in town.” They’re starting to question why these leaders use such exclusionary tactics (fear,
guilt-tripping, etc.) to keep their flocks from scattering, why they so
jealously guard their turf, and why they conjure up such bogus reasons to “disqualify” one another. (After all, UNITY is supposed to be one
of the four marks of the Church!) They’re
finally coming to realize that clergy should be “putting out the welcome mat” instead
of turning folks away for violating
arbitrary “rules” – especially when those “rules” are not articles of Faith. They’re
increasingly tiring of men who are
interested only in money or in “empire
building” – especially second-rate outfits like SGG and “Big Don’s” Florida
puppy mill.
But more “wising
up” needs to occur if traddieland is to survive. What traditional Catholicism sorely needs are honest, principled clergy: good men, who will not sell Terri Schiavo down the river, or
compromise their principles for convenience or for material gain -- and who have
the academic acumen to really know how to deal with basic moral issues. What it doesn’t need are fly-by-nighters like Dolan and Cekada who
are just floats in a parade: all show, with nothing underneath, or pompous
firebrands “Big Don,” whose hell-fire-and-brimstone pulpiteering is only so
much flatulence -- and whose “seminary”
is indeed a puppy mill churning out incompetent stooges. Traditional Catholics need to start
recognizing such “signs” when they see them – and to steer clear. To paraphrase that well-known
marketplace admonition, “Let the traddie beware.”
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