At SGG, EVERYTHING Is About “The Show”

Dannie Dolan’s Bishop’s Corner for the first Sunday of Advent (Nov. 29, 2015) had his usual admonishment about keeping Advent as a time for preparation, not partying.  After the Thanksgiving holiday, Dannie stated, “our feasting should end for a bit, not continue unabated with Christmas parties and celebrations during Advent.”  He then exhorted his Gerties “to be quiet and prayerful and offer some penance in preparation for Our Lord’s birth,” adding, “You will never appreciate the feast if you do not know the fast.”  Well, it turns out that Dannie apparently “didn’t know the fast” this past Lent when his feasting didn't "end for a bit" -- when he was pigging out on “copious quantities of meat” down Mexico way. 

It almost makes one laugh when hearing Dannie’s words about avoiding “parties and celebrations” and doing “penance in preparation for Our Lord’s birth,” when one remembers how Dannie spent his “Lent” in Mexico.  Dannie, who are you trying to kid?  What kind of “preparation” did you do then for our Lord’s crucifixion?  Oh, but pardon us!  We forgot: this is SGG, the land of the famous double standard, where the cult-masters make (and routinely break) their own rules, but which the Gerties must unquestionably obey – and where the latter are expected to pay for Dannie’s and Tony’s trips, toys, and “high heating bills” (yet get no help in paying their own).

For many Gerties, Dannie’s words ought to be getting pretty tiresome and be “wearing pretty thin” by now.  Are they, perhaps, finally starting to wonder if -- just as his pontifical Masses et al are “all for show” -- so too are his words?  Well, they should wonder no more, for it turns out that at SGG, just about everything is “all about the show” – even its “school.”  A recent Pistrina article, for instance, confirmed a report that the school’s girl students are required to sing in SGG’s choir – and that they spend about 25% of every school-day in choir practice.  That, coupled with the fact that the choir is compelled to sing High Masses every day (and to sing even for funeral Masses) eats up even more of their precious school-day time.  (And in a school with woefully low academic standards to begin with, this is doubly disturbing.)

But Dannie needs his choir to make SGG “look good” for both his home audience and his “cyber” audience.  If one ever “clicks” on SGG’s web page, he’ll invariably find a group picture of the school kids, looking all “spit and polish” and downright cherubic; and the picture is usually about something that the kids “volunteered” to do.  Dannie is always waxing poetic on how they happily and willingly donate their time.  But in reality – as many former students (and their parents) can attest -- it’s invariably obligatory.  It’s part of their job.  It’s part of “the show.”  And if they don’t do it, they’ll probably get “disciplined,” perhaps even more severely than that boy who was beaten with a wooden paddle for missing his homework.  In reality, there is no such thing as “gladly and willingly” at SGG.

So, these kids are just part of the SGG “display window” – part of its “promotional scheme” – to make Dannie and Tony look good.  And it’s not just in church that they’re having them sing.  Apparently, they’re also being requisitioned to sing for oldsters in nursing homes.  As Dannie boasted in his ’Corner, “I am especially grateful this year that our children can grow up with a love for music, choral and instrumental, and that they share this precious treasure with the old and infirm they visit.”  Now this would be very edifying, if these kids were truly volunteering.  But our guess is that, as it’s always been in the past, they’re required to do this – as part of “the show” – that they were conscripted to do this. 

Now it may be that – volunteer or not – the kids themselves are doing this for edifying reasons.  But one cannot say the same for Dannie. We cannot see him doing anything “altruistically.”  His reasons are invariably mercenary.  And, after all, one must remember that it is “ill will Dannie” who has vilified so many over the years – and who referred to watching porn and animal torture videos on the school computer as “boys will be boys.”  (We must ask you, Dannie: are the principal’s boys taking that computer into any of those nursing homes for “performances”?)  So, again, given Dannie’s (and Tony’s) mercenary proclivities (not to mention, the rest of their “track record”), we strongly suspect that those nursing home sing-a-thons are not so much a matter of good will, but of good box-office.* 

And, of course, Dannie and Tony get all the credit for it – at the expense of those kids who have been “volunteered.”  And what do the kids get?  Well, for one, they get a crappy education, for they must donate a major portion of their school day performing in SGG’s Vaudeville act – and this in a school that is already sub-standrad to begin with.  And for this, the parents are supposed to be “grateful” that their kids are getting a “Catholic” education.  But what they’re actually getting is a raw deal: a caricature of Catholicism, coupled with sub-standard academics.

Today’s Gerties must surely be tired of getting that “raw deal.”  We’re sure, too, that they’re getting tired of being exploited, and of getting nothing in return for donating all their time, money, and effort – except perhaps more exploitation (and more “guilt-tripping” from Dannie for not coming to his “show” often enough).  Many have already come to recognize Dannie’s “show” as the costume clown act that it is (and the school as the academic cesspool that it is); and they’re getting tired of “throwing good money after bad.”  We’re sure, too, that they’re getting tired of showing these sleaze-bags “deference,” and of the latter taking advantage of that deference – of “playing their ‘Alter Christus’ card” – to squeeze them for everything they can get, while demanding unquestioning obedience from them.

The problem is, Dannie and Tony are not about to “change their stripes.”  They’ve demonstrated that far too many times.  So, the thing for SGG’s parishioners to do – that is, for those who have the good sense to recognize what’s going on -- is to give these bagworms the boot (as must those parishioners at any other cult centers who find themselves being similarly exploited).  In today’s world, trying to live a good, decent Catholic life is difficult enough, without having to put up with exploitive counterfeit clergy.  Today’s parents have a right to expect real Catholicism, and a decent education for their kids -- not some cosmetic caricature of Catholicism, and a school that is only fit for turning out professional glee-club performers.  It’s time to dispense with these imposters and their double-standard, “do as I say, not as I do” chicanery.  It’s time to tell them to take their “show” somewhere else.

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* “Box office,” for those readers (from non-English speaking countries) who might not be familiar with the term, refers to that little booth in front of a movie theatre where tickets (to the movie) are sold.  When the movie “does well,” i.e., when many tickets are sold, the movie is said to be “doing well at the box-office.”   Similarly, if someone puts on a performance for “box office” reasons, he is doing it not so much “out of the goodness of his heart,” but for far less “altruistic” motives -- that is, for self-promotional and/or “revenue” reasons.