There’s Nothing “Traditional” about Tradistan

Just about every week, Dannie Dolan has something to say about how SGG keeps “the real faith,” and (implies) that it is the only one to speak out against Bergoglio & Co. (as if no one else does).  If one were to listen to him and Tony Baloney, SGG is the only “ark of salvation” left on earth.  The same, of course, goes for MHT and the CMRI folks.  They all give their followers the impression that their particular cult is “the chosen one” (although, of late, there has been some unstated “cooperation” amongst them for “political” reasons).

One common thread running through them all is that they keep the “traditional” Faith.  Actually, no they don’t.  Yes, they preach it – but they don’t practice it:  Dannie preaches about the “innocence and purity of our children,” yet writes off the watching of porn as “boys will be boys,” and the brutalizing of school kids by a sadistic school principal as “discipline.”  (Pardon me, folks, but “back in the old days,” all these things were not “traditional,” but mortally sinful.)  And both he and Tony talk about the sanctity of life, yet they justified the slow, methodical dehydrating and starving to death of Terri Schiavo – claiming that her husband had “the right before God” to end her life. (And Sanborn was no different, supporting Cekada’s monstrous position on Schiavo to the hilt.  Of course, he later tried to erase any evidence of his support, by having an incriminating letter to that effect expunged – but we found it and published it.)  (Click here to see the letter.)

And was the CMRI any different?  No, not really.  All during Schiavo, they took the cowardly way out by keeping silent.  But that is the CMRI modus operandi: they like to keep a low profile, and let blowhards like Tony Baloney do the bellowing.  But functionally, they’re no different: when one of their “prominent” parishioners’ (that is, one of their big donors) requested permission for their daughter to have a heart transplant, the Pivster granted it, even though it meant harvesting a heart from a live “donor” – a clear violation not just of Catholic teaching but of natural moral law.  The reason, of course – as it always is with the cult-masters -- was MONEY.  The cult-masters never pass up a “business opportunity.”

The cult-masters – all of them – also preach “forgiveness,” and of being “fair and magnanimous,” yet they regularly use the sacraments as weapons – refusing them to people who violate one of their cult “rules” (such as, going to an “unapproved” chapel while on vacation).  They have even bullied people in the confessional, often refusing them absolution for baseless reasons.  And, of course, they habitually refuse the last rites (and Requiem Masses) to anyone whom they suspect of being “non-traditional” (unless, of course, they have money).  (See article.)  Both SGG and MHT are notorious for doing this.

And, again, is CMRI any different?  Not really.  Their spirit of “forgiveness” and “charity” is on a par with that of SGG and MHT.  A man currently serving a prison sentence, for instance, was refused both confession and communion by a CMRI priest because his crime was considered too “heinous”  (The CMRI priest, of course, also refused to visit him in prison.)¹  This priest’s attitude was exactly the same as that of the Pharisees who were ready to stone Mary Magdalene to death.  Where is this “priest’s” Christian charity and forgiveness?  Where did this maggot learn his moral theology?

CMRI’s “moral theology” is, like the other courses taught at its “seminary,” virtually non-existent.  Its “priests,” like those of Big Don’s pest-house puppy mill, have virtually NO TRAINING in real theology, “moral” or otherwise.  The intellectual base of Tradistan’s seminaries, in fact, is on a par with that of a second-rate high school.²   The only things in which they really excel are “guilt-tripping” – one of the main staples of the cult curriculum -- and “cosmetics,” i.e., “looking good for the studio audience.” That – and little else – is what they’re all about:  a bunch of imposters dressed in Roman collars, who don’t have a clue as to what real Catholicism is all about.

They have inculcated their followers with a fanciful, revisionist view of what constitutes “traditional” Catholicism: elaborate, over-the-top ceremonies, along with insane “rules” that have turned them into mini police states.  Their “dress codes” are (as we’ve already noted in the past) particularly draconian.  In the name of “modesty,” the women especially are targeted: prohibitions against “short” sleeves and “short” hemlines on dresses and skirts,² head-coverings REQUIRED, and – at MHT – even restrictions on the “heel” height of women’s shoes (and, of course, no “open-toed” shoes or “flip-flops”).  There are also restrictions on wearing “too much makeup” (or, in many cases, no makeup at all is allowed), and prohibitions against “body piercings” (girls, e.g., are not allowed to have pierced ears).  And, of course, there are other insane “rules,” such as SGG’s prohibition against anyone re-entering the church -- if they have exited during a sermon for ANY reason -- until after the sermon is over.⁴

NONE OF THIS is Catholicism.  Such insanity was never enforced (or practiced) “back in the old days.”  The cult-masters have rewritten history, making their flock think that this was “the way it was” back then.  No, it wasn’t.  Short sleeves on dresses, for instance, were common, as were open-toed shoes and other things now verboten by the cult-masters.  We might also add that ankle-length skirts and dresses (that Big Don wants his women to wear at MHT) were also unheard of back then.  And as far as hats and other head coverings are concerned, women often wore them because it was the fashion back then, not because it was required. Similarly, men usually wore “coat and tie”; but, again, it wasn’t required (especially in summer).  And, of course, ridiculous rules about not being allowed to re-enter the church until after the sermon was over simply DID NOT EXIST. 

Another important thing to remember is that back then “in the old days,” pastors and priests lived frugally, and were subject to Church authority.  They weren’t  self-appointed, unbridled prima donnas, answerable to no one, living extravagantly at the expense of their parishioners. And, of course, back then, sacraments were not used as weapons -- refused to people for facetious, fabricated reasons.  Back then too, dogma was promulgated and implemented by Church hierarchy, not fabricated by self-appointed quasi “theologians,” each making up his own “articles of faith,” and then using them as shibboleths to determine one’s “Catholicism” (in order to retain or “excommunicate” followers at will).  And back then, the Church did not use such “police state” tactics as forbidding people to have TV sets in their homes, or telling them what friends they could or couldn’t have.  In short, there was NONE of the nonsense that now goes on at the cult centers.

Back then too, Catholic schools were superior academic institutions – not the pathetic pits of mediocrity that typify today’s trad schools, some of which (like SGG and MHT) are not even accredited, and where education takes a back seat to intimidation.⁵ And “spiritually,” the trad schools are even worse: at SGG, watching porn on the school computer is a case of “boys will be boys,” but riding a roller coaster is a mortal sin.  Where else but in Tradistan could such maniacal rules find credence – rules which (of course) apply only to the rank-and-file (as many eyewitnesses have testified), while the  “privileged” families (that is, those of the big donors, and, of course, the “clergy”) are “exempt.”  Contrast that with the real Catholicism of the old days, when NO ONE was “above the law”; and everybody adhered to the same set of rules.

In short, the “traditional” cult centers are NOT traditional at all, but cruel caricatures of the real thing: all “holy speak,” and no substance.  They are nothing more than “profit centers” for parasitic, know-nothing con men who grow rich and fat at their followers expense -- where the latter are overworked, financially exploited, and guilt-tripped into submission, and where real Catholic morality has been replaced by draconian “rules” that have no moral basis.  No, they are not traditional at all.  In fact, they are something totally alien to Catholic culture and practice.  They may have letter-perfect rite and rubrics, they may beautifully decorated altars and elaborate ceremonies, and they use all the traditional “buzz words” and phrases, but….

THEY ARE NOT CATHOLIC.

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¹ The CMRI priest is attached to St. Therese Church in Lebanon, Ohio, whose parishioners, like he, also shun the man as a pariah.  We wonder what goes through their minds (and especially that priest’s mind) when he reads the gospel about our Lord’s parable concerning the Pharisee and the publican, or the one about our Lord forgiving Mary Magdalene – or the one about the Good Shepherd reclaiming one of His lost sheep?  What about this “lost sheep”?  Where is their “Christian attitude” when it comes to him?  How is what they’re doing contributing towards reclaiming him?   How is it working towards saving his soul?

² The cult “seminaries,” besides having virtually no training in theology, philosophy, and the other classics that real seminaries used to teach, are also woefully deficient in Latin.  None of their completers is proficient in the tongue, and some can’t even read or pronounce it properly.  What many of the MHT seminarians do (like the kids in its “school”) is manual labor and assorted “grunt work” for Sanborn & Co. – and this qualifies as “class time.”

³ The “laundry list” of dress code prohibitions (much of which we’ve already reported in the past) varies from cult to cult; but in general, dress sleeves must be almost down to the elbow to be considered “modest” (and in some cases, must be down to the wrist).  And, of course, “sleeveless” dresses are strictly forbidden.  Dress hemlines must be well below the knee ((four inches or more); and in some cases, the women are expected to wear dresses that are ankle-length.

⁴ Even women with crying babies who must leave (because Dannie won’t tolerate the “noise”) must remain in the vestibule until after the sermon is over – no exceptions.  (And, of course, the cult centers provide no “crying rooms” for them.)  And one of the problems with these vestibules is that they are not heated, nor are they air-conditioned; so, mothers with newborn babies, for instance, must shiver in winter and roast in summer in SGG’s vestibule, with nowhere to go but a toilet stall inside the bathroom if they waont to “nurse” in privacy.  The vestibule also typically has no chairs on which these mothers can sit, but instead a hard bench (with no back) for them to use.

⁵ The trad schools typically have “faculty” with no real academic credentials; and their students don’t take any of the standardized scholastic aptitude tests used for measuring academic performance against other schools – and that’s because the trad schools “don’t measure up” academically.  At SGG, a good part of their day is spent in “choir practice”; and when the children sing at funeral Masses, this also qualifies as “class time.”  And at MHT, the school children are even required to clean the nuns’ “convent” and to do yard work, both of which qualify as “school.”  That is why parents with any brains choose to home-school their children (or send them somewhere else), because they know that, academically speaking, these places are ZEROES.

And, as if that were not bad enough, the cult-center schools are run like concentration camps.  The abuses at SGG are well-documented; and, although things have (of necessity) “quieted down” after 2009, barely anyone wants to send their children there.  Attendance continues to dwindle, with barely two dozen kids enrolled.  And at MHT’s school, things are even worse.  The kids there are encouraged to spy on their families, so that – if anything there runs counter to what the nuns dictate -- the errant family is “disciplined.”  For instance, television sets are FORBIDDEN in homes (unless one belongs to one of the “big three” families), and no one is allowed to socialize with other than cult families.  At MHT, “home life” compares favorably with that of Stalinist Russia.