Sermon in Stone?

An acquaintance recently remarked that he remembered reading about what the original “vision” was for SGG (St. Gertrude the Great Church) in West Chester, Ohio.  It was to be a “sermon in stone”: a grandiose neo-gothic edifice, complementing a campus that included a new school (including gymnasium), a rectory, and a convent – all drawn up with impressive architectural renderings, and all to be “stone” of some sort.  SGG was to be a “destination,” a “magnet,” a traddieland “Mecca” -- almost a “shrine,” if you will – for traditional Catholics everywhere.  It was to be the “flagship” traddie church for not just southwest Ohio, but perhaps for the entire Midwest.

One of Dannie’s problems, though, was that his “champagne wishes and caviar dreams” only had a “peanut butter and jelly budget”: his congregation was just too small to support such extravagant plans.  Even tapping his main benefactor for several million dollars (and soliciting unrealistic “suggested donations” from the rest of the congregation), he fell hopelessly short of his goal.  Most parishioners balked at the expected amounts, and many refused to give at all.  In the end, the “sermon in stone” had to be scrapped; and the gymnasium ended up becoming the “church.”  Plus, the nuns never got their new convent (a “convent” was built, but to house priests, not nuns).  And as far as the “stone” part is concerned, it turned out to be “stone veneer”; and construction quality in general was sub-par (see Extreme, Makeover, Brain-Dead Edition).  Dannie’s “sermon in stone” was a “sermon in shoddy.”

But what really sealed Dannie’s doom (as far as his grandiose plans were concerned) was the SGG school scandal of 2009, for it was after this that his biggest benefactor left, taking his money with him.  The “big bucks” just weren’t there anymore.  (Another thing that didn’t help, even before that, was Tony Baloney’s disastrous opinion on Schiavo.  Many parishioners were “turned off” by this, and left.) Ever since, Dannie and Tony have been playing “catch-up”; and their collection-basket totals have as yet to recover to pre-scandal levels.   

Since then, they have resorted to all sorts of fund-raising schemes, but to no avail.  One of their more celebrated efforts was Tony’s Work of Human Hands, introduced with much fanfare, fawning self-praise, and canned reviews from “experts.”   It fell flat on its face.  They also tried soliciting over the internet, and have even tried gimmicks such as “commemorative pavers.”  Lately, their internet begging has gotten even more blatant: there’s a “donate” button, right there on their web page, that one can push while their “cyber Mass” is airing (see article).

But the net result of all of this is that the cash-generating juggernaut that Dannie first envisaged is now pretty well stuck in neutral (at least, according to Dannie).  Every week brings a new plea for money from the pulpit: money for “excessive winter heating bills” (at a time when Dannie was in Mexico on a winter “apostolate”); money to repair a lightening-damaged organ (as if insurance did not cover it); money for “cost-saving arches” (for a cloister that already has arches); money for roof repairs (to fix a roof that was improperly designed to begin with); and, of course, the never-ending exhortations to “use the envelopes in the pews to give us your intentions for a Triduum of Marian High Masses this month.”  Not a week goes by, in fact, without some plea for money from the pulpit (and, of course, SGG’s internet begging is a daily, ongoing thing).

One would think that such a state of fiscal neediness would force Dannie into more of an “austerity” mode.  Indeed, he talks “austerity,” and continually gives his sheep examples of this or that saint’s sacrificing, as he did in his Sept. 4 Bishop’s Column) about St. Pius X: “He willingly walked for miles to go to school. He knew the value of things. He walked barefoot so as to save the shoes his father, a poor postal worker, had purchased for him at great price, only stopping to put them on shortly before he arrived at school. What a great first lesson for our young scholars, new and returning. If only they learn the value of things, human and divine, they will have the key to a good life, nor waste it, as do most.” 

Those are fine words that Dannie had about St. Pius X -- but what about Dannie’s actions?  Dannie, what kind of example do you set for “our young scholars”?  How many miles have you walked barefoot to save your fancy buckled shoes?  Did you walk barefoot while you were down in Mexico this past Lent, pigging out on “copious quantities of beef”?  Did you think about this while you’re being chauffeured around everywhere you went?  Did you think perhaps of foregoing those winter “apostolates” to sunny, warm Argentina and Mexico so that your parishioners wouldn’t have had to pay SGG’s “excessive heating bills” during that time?  How much “sacrificing” have you done, Dannie?

Indeed, Dannie’s sermonizing in words is a lot like his “sermon in stone” – it’s all ersatz.  It’s all “smoke and mirrors.”  It’s all fake.  He and Tony talk about “sacrifice,” but it’s the sheep who are expected to do the sacrificing.  They are the ones who are asked to pay for “excessive heating bills” and “cost-saving arches” (for a cloister that already has arches), or for repairing a leaky roof over and over again (a roof that leaks because Tony Cekada unilaterally made an idiotic design decision) – yet none of the clergy’s junkets to Europe, Latin America, or sunny Santa Fe are “sacrificed.”  These “apostolates” (or “sabbaticals”) are sacrosanct; they are “non-negotiable.”

But why should this surprise anyone?  Dannie and Tony have always sacrificed NOTHING on their parts.  As they’ve demonstrated so many times before, they always have been – and always will be – about MONEY.  That’s one “sermon in stone” that will never change.

The Bottom Line

Daniel Dolan and Anthony Cekada have always had a knack for hanging themselves with their own words.  No matter how much they try to camouflage their true motives, they seem to get themselves into trouble every time they open their mouths.  Last week’s Pulpit article noted how Dannie exhorted SGG’s parents to get their children to “clean up after themselves” for “crumbs left in classrooms”; yet in the same breath, he mentioned “cups of coffee spilled in the school wastepaper baskets.”  When he wrote those words, he didn’t realize that kids don’t drink coffee.  He was so hell bent on “disciplining” kids that he missed that small but important detail. 

But that’s just another example of how Dannie’s hypocrisy betrays him, just as it did back in the 2008-09 “school scandal” days, when one schoolboy was cruelly beaten just for missing his homework, while the school principal’s sons got no punishment at all for their blatantly immoral behavior.  It always is a source of wonder to this writer how Dannie can “wax poetic” every Guardian Angel Sunday about “protecting our innocent children,” when his actions have so often proven otherwise – especially during those dark “school scandal” days of 2008-09.  Guarding our children?  He might as well have been talking about the fox guarding the hen house!

The foregoing is certainly a lucid (and typical) example of Dannie’s trademark hypocrisy; but what perhaps best illustrates his arrogance and vanity -- and what has had more far-reaching consequences – is his behavior concerning his doubtful orders: his one-handed “ordination” by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.  Some time after that, nine of Dannie’s colleagues, all priests, wrote a letter, urging him to "stop saying Mass, hearing confessions, and administering the sacrament of Extreme Unction until this problem [his doubtful orders] is solved." 

Of course, we all know what Dannie did: rather than heed the advice of those nine priests, he ignored it, and instead commissioned Anthony Cekada to craft a “defense” of the validity of one-handed orders – a “defense” that has since been dismantled, piece by piece, in a series of articles in Pistrina Liturgica.  In its refutation, not only did Pistrina do a thorough job of disproving Phony Tony’s arguments; but it also emphasized, over and over again, what Dannie should have done – and what the Church has always prescribed -- in his case: take the safe route, and get conditionally ordained (as Pistrina just recently re-iterated in a response to another reader’s inquiry regarding the same subject).

We at Lay Pulpit would like to “re-iterate” on this as well: not to attempt to match (or augment) what Pistrina said about the theological aspects of the case (which we haven’t the expertise to do), but to offer some additional remarks to Pistrina's regarding Dannie’s failure to “take the safe route.”   That is what is so disturbing about Dannie: not that his orders are doubtful, but that he didn’t take the simple, painless route of conditional re-ordination to remedy the situation.  This, more than anything else, showcases Dannie’s monumental arrogance and vanity.

Rather than heed the advice of those nine priests, and rather than have the humility and good sense to submit to conditional ordination, he chose instead to take the arrogant, “stone-wall” route: get the even more arrogant Tony Baloney to “legitimize” his doubtful ordination by concocting his bogus “validity” argument.  In doing so, this not only exposed both Dannie’s (and Tony’s) arrogance, but also the latter’s incompetence: Tony’s monograph was a pathetic mish-mash of faulty logic, mistranslations, and fabrications.  It went unchallenged for years, until, by happy accident, one of Dannie’s boot-licking apologists (one “Introibo”) -- miffed by recurring Pistrina hints that “Tony’s tome” was flawed – challenged Pistrina to provide proof of its allegations.  Pistrina took up Introibo’s challenge; and a series of articles providing that proof ensued.

Not only did the articles totally demolish Tony’s “defense,” but “comments” sent in to rebut those articles (posted by Introibo and others) were also “totally demolished.”  It is ironic that these comments – designed to weaken Pistrina’s arguments, actually strengthened them – and correspondingly made Tony’s position look even worse – and Tony has Introibo to thank for setting it all in motion!  Actually, many of those comments were sent in by Tony himself (albeit anonymously), so he had himself to “thank” as well.  Thus, Tony’s arrogance (and ignorance) only served to make him look even more ridiculous – and to a wider audience.  So, Tony’s (and Dannie’s) arrogance only succeeded in compounding their problems – and in reinforcing again that old adage: “Oh what a tangled web we weave, when at first we practice to deceive.”

Besides exposing their arrogance, this -- more importantly -- betrayed their lack of good will.  A truly good person would have had the moral rectitude (and good sense) to realize the grave consequences of having questionable orders, and would have unhesitatingly done the right thing in the first place – that is, take the safe course of conditional ordination. But they are NOT good men.  They willfully rejected that course.  Instead, Tony set himself up as a “canonical scholar” (contradicting both papal pronouncements and official Church teaching on the subject), and went on to postulate on the “validity of one-handed orders” (as if he had the authority to do so).  Why did he and Dannie choose that path?  Pride, that’s why: their monumental pride prevented them from doing otherwise.  They could not admit that they were wrong, so they “weaved their tangled web” – and, in the process, dug themselves an ever-deeper hole.

That is the worst part about Dannie’s dubious orders: NOT that they’re doubtful, but that he refuses to admit that they are.  He and Tony both knew it “going in”; but they willfully chose to ignore the warnings of nine priests, to deny it, and then to concoct Tony’s “validity” scheme to justify that denial.  And then, even after Tony’s pathetic fiction has been thoroughly discredited, they continue in their denial.  Why?  Well, for one thing, because cultists can never admit that they’re wrong – that would tarnish their “infallibility” mystique with their culties.  Just as Tony will never admit that he was wrong on Schiavo, he nor Dannie will ever admit that they were wrong on this.  But another reason that they’ll never admit it is that they don’t have to, as long as they have a critical mass of gullible suckers to fall for their bluff and bluster -- and to support them.  

As long as that happens, they really don't care what the rest of the world thinks, because the “bottom line” on Dannie and Tony is that they’re all about themselves – about M-O-N-E-Y; and they've probably already got enough "salted away" (in one of the several bank accounts that have been set up) to keep provide them with a comfy retirement.  So, after their heir apparent takes over the reins, Dannie and Tony can take their nest egg and disappear into the Desert Southwest sunset -- and then let SGG’s next huckster fleece what’s left of the flock.

The Bell Brothers: "Ding" and "Dong"

A recent Pistrina Liturgica article mused about some comments that Daniel Dolan had made in his Bishop’s Corner column (in SGG’s Sept. 21, 2014 church bulletin).  Dannie was lamenting the fact that “Crumbs left in classrooms, and cups of coffee spilled in the school wastepaper baskets create unnecessary Monday morning work for our teachers, who already have so much to do.”  “The old discipline,” he continued, “of eating neatly, and in one place, is a precious one to pass on to our children. Encourage them as well, by word and example, to clean up after themselves.”  Later in his Corner, he quoted the late Bishop Sheen as saying, “Everything in the American home is controlled with a switch, except the children.”  Dannie then commented: “Remember the gentle use of a switch which forms part of the seemingly very successful ‘To Train Up a Child’ program?”

Dannie’s mentioning about “the mess left in the classrooms,” after which he exhorted parents to encourage their children to “clean up after themselves,” seemed to imply that it was the children who were responsible for making this mess.  But Dannie also mentioned something about “cups of coffee spilled in the school wastepaper baskets.”  Well, we have a question for Dannie:  Was it children who left those coffee cups?  The obvious answer is that it was adults who left them.  So then, Dannie, why did you single out the children to “clean up after themselves?  And, subsequent to that, why did you bring up the subject of “the gentle use of a switch” to use on children?  Were you implying that this is the appropriate action to take if they don’t “clean up after themselves”?  And if so, why aren’t you recommending it for those sloppy adult coffee drinkers too?

Pistrina wondered (as does this writer) whether Dannie’s reference to the use of a switch (after his prior comments) had any connection with them, or was it simply a veiled longing on his part for the corporal punishment of “the good old days” back in 2008-09 (which caused half the parish to leave in protest).  Whatever the case, the article drew an adversarial comment from one of its readers, who protested: “What’s wrong with aching nostalgia for the use of a switch?”  The anonymous commenter then went on to quote several “spare the rod and spoil the child” passages from Scripture that approved the use of corporal punishment, and then implied that the article’s author was against corporal punishment, adding, “it’s obvious you [i.e., the author] weren’t spanked enough as a child.”

Well, we’d like to point out to “Anonymous” a couple of things: first, the article said absolutely nothing about opposing corporal punishment; it simply asked if Dannie’s talking about it signaled a yearning to return to pre-2009 school policy, when INAPPROPRIATE corporal punishment was the order of the day, such as, beating a boy on his behind with a wooden paddle -- until the paddle was BROKEN – for missing a homework assignment.  [It’s interesting to note Dannie’s mentioning “the gentle use of a switch” in his Corner, when he knew all about this incident, in which neither was a switch used – nor was it “gentle.”]   We’re also talking about inappropriate non-punishment.  Compare what that boy got with the “punishment” that other boys got for watching porn and animal torture videos on the SGG school’s computer – that is, no punishment at all.  Or compare that with the “punishment” an SGG student got for impregnating a girl at the school – again, no punishment at all.  (In fact, this boy was later feted, in a subsequent SGG Sunday bulletin, for his expertise at playing the organ.)

Why did the one boy get thrashed with a wooden paddle simply for missing a homework assignment, while those “other boys” got away scot free with something that merited much worse punishment?  It’s simple: the boy in the first example was NOT the SGG school principal’s son, and those “other boys” WERE.  There were, to be sure, many other examples of “inappropriate” corporal punishment at SGG’s school – enough to drive half the parish away – which are all documented, if “Anonymous” would only take the trouble to check. Or perhaps, in lieu of doing that, he might instead prefer to be beaten with a wooden paddle (until it breaks) to see whether or not that gives him an “aching nostalgia for the use of a switch.”  But, of course, he won’t do either, because he is just as big a phony and hypocrite as Dannie and Tony themselves.

That’s what SGG is all about: Hypocrisy.  Double standards.  It champions the brutalization of innocents while defending sick martinets.  It rewards duplicity, and punishes virtue.  It follows the law’s letter, but ignores its spirit.  It mocks justice, and shuns truth.  It’s the cult mindset; and, unfortunately, it trickles down from shepherd to sheep.  For instance, the same boy who was beaten with the wooden paddle was also mistreated by one of SGG’s parishioners.  This boy and his brother, who boarded for a while with that parishioner, were punished by him one day for “making their beds improperly.”  Their punishment was this: the man awakened them at 3:00 A.M., then made them say the rosary on their knees. That is, the rosary was used as an instrument of punishment. 

These boys, who have since left SGG, have – understandably -- also lost their faith.  They no longer go to church – any church. And their story is not unique: many of SGG’s young have rebelled against the fanaticism of parents who have applied SGG’s cultish precepts, and have consequently abandoned the faith.  (In more than one case, even parishioners’ spouses have left them.)  They have seen through the hypocrisy and falseness, and have seen it for the grotesque caricature of Catholicism that it is.  And those fanatical parents and/or spouses?  They can take empty solace in the fact that they helped drive their loved ones away from the Faith.  By emulating the cult-masters’ behavior, they have endangered those souls – and their own.

But that is the legacy of the cult mentality: whomsoever it touches, it taints.  It turns people into “sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal,” for it drains them of that one thing essential to salvation: charity.  That is what “Anonymous” lacks, for he gratuitously attacked the Pistrina article’s author, wrongly accusing him of being against corporal punishment (even though he had no proof to back up that claim), then suggested that the author should have got more spankings as a child – after which, he sanctimoniously offered an assortment of biblical quotations as “proof” for his accusation.

If “Anonymous” had had any foreknowledge of what happened at SGG back in the “school scandal” days, he probably wouldn’t have made the comments that he did.  Or would he?  In gratuitously attacking the Pistrina article’s author, his comments followed a pattern that had a familiar ring to them:  intentionally misinterpreting the author’s point, then going off on a tangent to accuse him of something else – the old “straw man” ploy.  This, coupled with a speculative comment he made about the author’s identity, betrays the commenter’s identity: he is probably none other than that “Vaudevillian Viper” himself: Antonius Balonius. 

If it is you, Tony, you might then want to cut your losses and clam up, before you embarrass yourself even more -- because, Tony, you’re an amateur.  Neither do you have the brains to pull off your argument, nor – more importantly – do you have the truth going for you.    However, we are grateful that you (and your boss) don’t keep silent, since your bungling words and deeds provide us with a constant source of fresh material about which to expose you for what you are.  The two of you, “the Bell Brothers,” incriminate yourselves every time you open your mouths.  You are “the gift that keep on giving”!

Dannie’s Heir Apparent?

A recent Pistrina article raised some speculation about Daniel Dolan’s retirement and also about who his successor might be – and the article offers some good evidence to back up that speculation.  First off, both he and Tony are getting up there in years; and they are surely hankering to retire to sunny Santa Fe (or some other warm clime).  And, actually, it’s no secret that Dannie has been looking for a successor for quite some time.

As a matter of fact, Dannie had a candidate about a half-dozen years ago: a young German priest whom he had ordained (?) a few years prior to that.  But his young Teutonic protégé proved to be even more ambitious (and Machiavellian) than Dannie himself; and he bolted from SGG, taking many of Dannie's parishioners with him.  And then, with the help of Thomas Droleskey, he had himself made “bishop”(?).  The problem, though, is that this Neanderthal then double-crossed his new congregation, and left them high and dry (and short-changed).  It was just as well for Dannie, though, because this Teutonic teufel was a pretty clumsy piece of work, who had all the finesse and grace of a grunting four-legged truffle sniffer.

However, this meant that Dannie had to start his search for a successor all over again.  And what with the sad hatchlings coming out of Big Don’s freak factory, there wasn’t much to choose from.  The only pickings he had were a country bumpkin, a moronic Latino, and an uncharismatic Finn.  But then – voilà! – along came Stevie McNewbie!  And it seems that he is to be Dannie’s heir apparent.  Let’s look at the qualifications of these four, to see why this is so.

First, let’s examine the bumpkin, “Charlie” (aka “Lurch’).  Charlie’s unfortunate stint as Dannie’s guest columnist on Bishop’s Corner was downright painful (see article).  He and McNewbie had just returned from a European vacation that Dannie favored them with; and Charlie, in his Corner, was trying to impress his boss by aping Dannie’s style – but there was more “ape” to it than “style.”  It was, in a word, embarrassing.  It’s a wonder that Dannie didn’t make him write, “I must not embarrass my boss” -- a hundred times on a blackboard.

The poor bumpkin probably thought that he was “big stuff” now that Dannie had favored him with a trip to France.  Perhaps Charlie thought that this European trip meant that he was being considered as a candidate for Dannie’s Episcopal chair.  No, Lurch, it was only a consolation prize.  (And, after all, McNewbie got the same prize too.)  The only “chair” that Dannie might consider for Lurch – especially after his awful “Corner” performance – would be in the dunking booth at a small-town street carnival.  Dannie knows that Charlie has no savvy, so he wouldn’t dare hand the reins over to him.

The next potential candidate, “Skip” (the Latino), has the same “un-credentials” as Charlie – with the added dimension of language barrier.  His English is awful; and his accent is so thick, he can barely be understood by SGG’s parishioners.  He’s also woefully ignorant -- but, at the same time, woefully tyrannical.  (He likes to ape Big Don’s hellfire-and-brimstone style, and to scold people for their non-existent faults.)  And it was “Skip,” of course, who omitted the words of the consecration at Mass one day, then tried to blame it on the parishioners (which, naturally, went over with them like the proverbial lead balloon).  So, “Skip,” with his “accent barrier” and his pit-viper social skills, is not about to be considered by Dannie in any future SGG scheme as “leader.”

Then there’s the Finn.  Forget him, too: his accent is not so “challenging” as Skip’s, but it’s still not all that “fluid.”  He’s also a bit of an introvert, and socially “awkward.”  His charisma is – well – it’s really not there.  Suffice it to say that he’s just not “future SGG leader” material.  Collectively, then, the three candidates – Lurch, Skip, and the Finn -- have about as much chance of becoming SGG’s next Il Duce as Helen Keller does of negotiating her way through a mine field.

That leaves the McNewbie.  Unlike the other three, Stevie has some advantages:  He’s passably articulate (at least, more so than the other candidates), he has a fairly pleasant demeanor, and a pleasant enough appearance (albeit a bit pudgy).  But, regrettably, that’s where his assets end.  His “priestly formation,” as Pistrina noted, amounts to some “independent study” under Cekada and another priest; but he has never completed a formal seminary program – not even from Big Don’s MHT puppy mill in Florida. 

His theological knowledge base is poor; and this was made nowhere more apparent than when he tried to bluff his way through a recent interview on Restoration Radio, whose moderator, Steven Heiner, queried him about Aquinas’s Summa Theologica; whereupon the bungling amateur stuttered and stammered his way through the whole thing.  Heiner, to our amazement, has not pulled the embarrassing interview from his website.  [Restoration Radio, which bills itself as an impartial, independent traditional voice, turns out to be what we’ve suspected all along: just another propaganda arm of the Dolan-Cekada-Sanborn cult triumvirate.  One would think, then, that Heiner would “pull” the interview, for fear of it damaging Dannie, Tony, and Big Don.]

But perhaps he doesn’t think that McNewbie’s performance was all that bad that it had to be pulled – or, more probably, that SGG’s subterranean culties wouldn’t think it all that bad.  Just the fact that he was even discussing Aquinas’s Summa was probably “profound" enough for them.  And Dannie probably felt the same way, figuring that – no matter how badly Stevie bombed in that interview – the culties wouldn’t notice.  Besides, Dannie’s standards aren’t all that high anyway.  After all, if he could consider the bellowing Neanderthal as his heir apparent a few years back, he could stomach Little Stevie Blunder.  And, the other “besides” is, who else is there?  As bad as McBlunder was on that interview, his buddies Lurch and Skip would’ve fared far worse.  And the Finn would probably have fared badly too, because his knowledge level is just as rudimentary as McNewbie’s – and he doesn’t have the latter’s “gift for gab” going for him.  So, McNewbie is Dannie’s “best shot” for a successor. 

And, again, there’s no doubt that he is being groomed for the job (see Pistrina’s Monkey See, Monkey Do).  That article has links to a couple of sermons: one by Dannie, one by McCopycat.  They’re scarily similar: the cadence, the inflections, the phrasing – everything.  (Lurch tries to ape Dannie, too, but he falls pitifully short.)  McNewbie is definitely trying to copy Dannie’s style – but will copying his style be “enough”?  For one thing (as Pistrina noted), how will he and the erratic school principal get along?  More importantly, will McNewbie be able to get the culties to jump through hoops for him like Dannie now does?  Dannie somehow seems to “have a way” with them.  Will they do the same for Stevie?  You know what they say: “Better the Dannie you know,,,” 

One thing for sure, though: as far as “competency” is concerned, McNewbie will pass muster with the culties, for their ability to think critically is woefully deficient.  If they could accept Checkie’s crap about Schiavo (and the syrupy slop that Dannie regularly dishes out), we daresay they’ll overlook Stevie’s bungling performance in that interview.  One would hope for their sake, though, that Stevie would at least get himself conditionally re-ordained, for he was “made” by Doubtful Dan.  But he won’t, because he really doesn’t see the need: if the culties think he’s “for real,” then why bother?  Besides, like Dannie, he’s in it for the money too; he doesn’t really care if he’s “real” or not.

However, Stevie is not quite ready for prime time yet.  He needs to do more work on his “Dannie presentation” (more syrup and sanctimony); and his bungling is not quite on a par with Tony’s (but with a little more “finishing” in arrogance, ignorance, hypocrisy, and duplicity, he’ll get there).  After that bit of fine-tuning, he’ll do just fine.  Then, “Lord willin’ n’ the creek don’t rise,” Dannie and Tony can retire to the desert Southwest, and Stevie can take over as the cult center’s Error Apparent.