Yes, the “Gift” DOES Keep on Giving!

Many people wonder how we at Lay Pulpit (and Pistrina Liturgica) can find so much to write about regarding Dannie (Dolan) and Tony (Cekada), week after week.  It’s simple: Dannie and Tony “hand it to us on a silver platter,” so to speak.  They are, as we often like to say, “the gift¹ that keeps on giving.”  By that, we mean that they, by their own words, incriminate themselves, thereby giving us plenty of “ammunition” to use against them.  (And for that, we thank them profusely!)  Case in point: the August 14, 2016 (Pentecost XIII) SGG Bulletin, there was a piece about SGG’s “school.”  (Click here, then go to “Back to School?” to see it.)

It went as follows: “Are your children attending the sub-pagan schools? Get them...out of there. What are you waiting for? It’s not as if sub-pagan schools actually teach children English grammar and give them facility with numbers and make them familiar with the lands and rivers and seas of our world, let alone introduce them to the great works of western civilization. If your children are in the sub-pagan schools, it will require almost a miracle of God to keep them from becoming sub-pagan themselves. They too will learn to worship the three-poisoned god of our times, self, sex, State. Take for granted that everything in their classes will be sexuality and politics; even in science classes.  Shakespeare?  Sexuality and politics and nothing else.  Get them out.  Begin, if necessary, with one room and one teacher and ten children.  Begin.”

That segment was then followed by this (parenthetic) addendum: “(The above was written by Anthony Esolen in Crisis Magazine, but deserved again a place in our bulletin, as your children do at our school. And God bless our persevering home-schoolers!)”

The first paragraph (written by Anthony Esolen) was legitimate, Esolen being a still-living professor at Providence College in Rhode Island.  But the “parenthetic” reference to his quote (written by Dannie, Tony, or one of their lackeys) IS NOT.  It was just another cheap attempt by the SGG mountebanks to link themselves to a legitimate personage – and, more importantly, to give everyone (reading their trash) the impression that SGG’s “school” embodies all those qualities outlined in Esolen’s quoted passage.²   Nothing could be farther from the truth.

SGG’s “school,” – scholastically speaking – is (as the evidence has shown so many times) a DUNG HEAP.  To begin with, it is NOT accredited.  And, as for “the three R’s” (reading, writing, and [a]rithmetic), SGG fares no better than the average “lowest-common-denominator” public school (actually, not even as well).  None of SGG’s (or MHT’s) kids has ever reached any level of educational distinction (such as national merit scholar), nor do they take any of the standardized tests that are required of accredited institutions.  (For more “stats” on the school, see SGG’s School: A Bad Bargain.)

By the way, that quoted passage (from Esolen) seemed to insinuate that grammar was not taught in “sub-pagan schools.” However, we beg to differ with Prof. Esolen’s “insinuation,” if that’s what it was.  As it turns out, virtually ALL public schools (if that’s what he’s calling “sub-pagan” schools) teach grammar (and “the other two R’s”) as a matter of course.  They MUST, because government standards mandate it. ³  If children in the public schools don’t learn their grammar, etc., it’s not because the schools don’t teach it, but because the students don’t “absorb” it.  (This is especially true in inner-city schools, whose students are from families “at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder.”  Such people, as a rule, place little value on education.)

At one time, perhaps, the quality of the teachers (or the curriculum) might have been a legitimate reason for students not getting “the three R’s”; but that is no longer the case – especially in most “higher end” public schools, such as those in “good school districts.”  However, there are schools where the teaching staff (and the curriculum) are sub-standard: the cult-center schools.  Not only (as pointed out earlier) are SGG’s, MHT’s, and the CMRI’s schools not accredited, but their teachers in most cases have no credentials either.  (One of SGG’s “teachers” was the “principal’s” daughter, who was only a high-school graduate – and from SGG’s cesspool school at that.  And as for the “principal” himself – the man who heads SGG’s “school,” his “educational expertise” leaves something to be desired.⁴  (The same can be said for MHT’s school, most of whose “nuns” are high-school grads at best, and who have no teaching expertise whatsoever.)

“But,” one of Dannie’s bootlickers, in self-righteous indignation, might remonstrate, “Well, even though SGG might not measure up academically, the kids there are still getting a Catholic education!”  Well, the answer to that is:  NO, THEY ARE NOT.  SGG is, if you will recall, the institution whose resident “theologian” (and erstwhile “expert on everything”) – Tony Baloney (aka Erroneous Antonius) -- postulated most emphatically on the “right” of Michael Schiavo to have his wife, Terri, starved and dehydrated to death.  It is also the place where the children were taught that riding roller-coasters and wearing sport-logo headbands were mortal sins – but that watching porn, watching animal-torture videos, and impregnating a fellow student are (apparently) NOT -- as long they’re done by the principal’s sons.

SGG is, by anyone’s yardstick, a moral leper colony.  Its only “Catholicism” – as Dannie and Tony have proved so many times – is purely COSMETIC.  It is nothing more (as is MHT) than a CULT, where fear reigns, and where ignorance and intimidation are the order of the day.  And the really sad part about SGG’s “school” is that the Gerties are paying a PREMIUM for it.  If they really knew what the “principal” and his family were being paid for providing this academic train wreck, they’d be in a pretty foul mood indeed!

Another “sad” (but true) thing is the sanctimonious pap Dannie added at the end of the other remarks (in the aforementioned Bulletin) about SGG’s school: “And God bless our persevering home-schoolers.”  It’s “sad but true” because there is (for once) “more truth than poetry” in that remark -- because those home-schoolers are at least getting a better education than those poor suckers at SGG’s “school.”  Another point to ponder -- and this is a really scary thought -- is that, as bad as SGG’s school is, it’s probably better than what those poor schmucks are getting at MHT’s sewer.  At least at SGG, students are not used (at least regularly) as “janitors.”  But in either case, though (SGG or MHT), the parents are “paying through the nose” for an absolutely WORTHLESS “education.”  (Now that IS a scary thought!!)

What we suggest to Dannie is that he and Tony dissolve the school, before SGG’s parishioners “dissolve” him, Tony, and the “principal.”  And we also suggest that, in future, Dannie and Tony both refrain from opening their mouths about “how good” their school is (or from promoting any of their other “ventures”).  Their “success rate” for doing such has been nothing short of catastrophic (their “Ordo 2016,” their “calendar,” Tony’s excremental “videos,” etc., etc., etc.).  But we know that they won’t refrain.  They can’t help themselves: they’ll keep making the same mistakes over and over again – “the gift that keeps on giving.”  And for that, as we’ve often said before, “we are eternally grateful.”

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¹ The word “gift” is very apropos -- in both English and German.  As an English word, it is appropriate, because it certainly IS a gift for us at Lay Pulpit (and Pistrina) to have Dannie provide us with so much “ammo” to use against him.  And, auf Deutsch, it’s also appropriate, because “das Gift” (in German) means poison – and Dannie’s verbal screw-ups certainly ARE “poison” -- for him and Tony, that is!

² It was probably Checkie’s idea (to link themselves to Esolen).  He did a similar bit of misrepresentation some years back (just as Dannie is doing now with his plagiarized “Latin for You”), when he wrote the article School Dazed -- his (futile) attempt to “defuse and deflect” the hard evidence of the scandalous events that occurred at SGG’s school back in 2009.  A refuting article, School Dazed Revisited (click here for it), shows how, in the very beginning of his School Dazed, Tony tried to mislead the reader, just as he and Dannie are doing now in the Bulletin piece.  (We recommend, by the way, reading the entire School Dazed Revisited article, as well as all of its sequels, here, here, here, here, and here.  They absolutely DESTROY every one of the arguments in Tony’s original School Dazed article.)

³ Prof. Esolen knows this: he knows that public schools (as well as Novus Ordo schools) have high academic standards.  Therefore, his insinuation is both naïve and irresponsible.  True, public schools have no “religious standards,” but neither do many traddie schools – at least those at the cult centers.  The public schools might teach no morality – but the cult centers preach wrong morality.  As they’ve proved so many times, they’re good at marketing the cosmetics of Catholicism, but not its substance.

By the way, it is, shall we say, “curious” that Dannie and Tony picked Prof. Esolen to quote, because he is a professor at Providence College, a Dominican institution (and, hence, a Novus Ordo one).  So, why would Dannie and Tony choose to quote from a “Novus Ordo Catholic” (whom they claim to be not Catholic)?  Why would they “consort with the enemy,” so to speak?  Why?  Because Dannie is not above using anyone, “friend” OR “foe,” to suit his purpose -- that’s why.  (Dannie did the same thing with the late Bernie Brueggemann  -- using his name several times for its “propaganda value” with the Gerties, who still revere Bernie’s memory.  And, as we mentioned before, he’s been doing it a lot lately with his plagiarized “Latin for You,” using someone else’s material, and passing it off as if it were his own.)

Bottom line: as to whether Esolen’s claims are true or not, is totally immaterial; he is not talking about the cult centers’ schools, but something else.  And besides, the cult centers cannot “ride in on the coattails” of what he said, because their schools, by and large, are the absolute worst.  It is they, not the “sub-pagan schools,” that are woefully deficient in everything -- academics AND “religion.”  And the worst part of it is, the Gerties are paying a premium for this garbage that SGG’s “school” puts out.

⁴ The following anecdote should give one some idea of the level of “erudition” of the principal himself: Once, after uttering the oft-repeated (but erroneous) phrase, “between you and I,” he (the principal) was accosted by a parishioner, who corrected him, saying, “No, Mark, it’s ‘between you and me.’”  Whereupon, the “principal” – miffed that anyone would dare “challenge” him -- condescendingly retorted, “No, ‘between you and I’ is correct.”  The parishioner, undaunted (and not backing down), countered, “No, ‘between you and me’ is correct – and I’m sure that your grammar book says so.”  Whereupon, the “principal” – visibly irked by such “impertinence” -- fired back (in an even more irritated and authoritarian tone), “No, it [the book] says that ‘between you and I’ is correct.”  At this point, the parishioner, realizing that he was dealing with an intransigent ass, walked away.  So, with a “headmaster” like that, one ought to have a fair idea of what to expect from this “school,” and what passes for “erudition” there at Dannie’s Dunce Factory.