The Cult – and Its Consequences

One of the commenters on a recent Pistrina article sent in the following, excerpted from Big Don’s MHT bulletin: “It is not permitted on Sundays and holy days to do a change of clothes on the premises of the seminary. It is not permitted for men to remove their ties in the parking lot. One should arrive in his or her Sunday Best and leave the church in Sunday Best. Please note a change in the dress code: Women's heels may not exceed 2 inches. This is in order to maintain modesty in The House of God.”  Yes, you heard it right: men can’t even remove their ties “in the parking lot” after Mass; and women’s heels, heretofore restricted to three inches in height, must now be a maximum of two inches.  

But wait!  Not to be outdone by the deranged Donster, Dannie Dolan (aka “The oracle of West Chester”) has recently uttered (from his pulpit) this latest decree: that going to an “una cum” Mass is a mortal sin.  Yes, boys and girls, going to an “una cum” Mass is no longer just a “no no.”  It has been “upgraded” to the status of mortal sin.

The foregoing dictums beg the following question:  Have Dannie and the Donster lost what’s left of their diseased minds?!  Well, perhaps – but whether that’s the case or not, what it signifies is a desperate attempt by these two bloodsuckers to reassert “authority” over their respective flocks -- to show them that they are still their bosses.  Big Don, reeling from the loss of Our Lady of the Sun in Arizona -- and Dannie, disappointed that his Quinquagesima “Sunday Social” didn’t lure any more suckers into coming to his Friday Night ordeal-a-thons – are feeling pretty insecure these days.  And what does an insecure dictator do when he feels like he’s losing his grip?  He becomes even more authoritarian -- that’s what.

But it really shouldn’t surprise anyone that Big Don should issue his latest insane “dress code” missive and Dannie his equally insane “una cum” decree. These are just two more of the telltale signs that SGG and MHT are (and always have been) CULTS – exhibiting all the classic cult traits: making up arbitrary (and invariably irrational) “rules” that their followers must obey (but from which the cult-masters and their “favorites” are exempt); “living large” at their followers’ expense; and passing themselves off as “the real thing,” when in fact they are not.

That is why Dannie could summarily dismiss watching porn and fornicating with a fellow student (and getting her pregnant) as “boys will be boys” – because these deeds were done by the sons of one of their “favorites”: the “school principal.”  But let some poor unfortunate student miss his homework assignment, and he gets beaten with a wooden paddle – in front of faculty members called in to witness the “discipline.”  Or let some “rank-and-file” parishioner attend an “unapproved” chapel while on vacation, and he gets refused Communion.  Also, the rank-and-file are expected to obey the Lenten fast and abstinence rules, while Dannie skips off to Mexico for “copious quantities of meat.”  And that is also why Dannie and Tony dine at fine restaurants and go off on “apostolates” to posh destinations, while the Gerties get peasant fare back at the cult center: the former “enjoy” while the latter “obey.”

And what do the Gerties get for putting up with all this nonsense?  What do Dannie and Tony pass off as “the real thing”?  “The show,” of course.  Drop in on SGG’s High Mass any given Sunday, and chances are you’ll find a procession (or some other form of pontifical pageantry). Nary a Sunday goes by when His Self-Importancy isn’t oiling his way through SGG’s aisles (in full ecclesiastical regalia, of course, and surrounded by a huge contingent of servers, torch-bearers, and other assorted tinsel), with church bells blaring away -- and (of course) with enough incense billowing into the air to send everyone nearby into coughing spasms.  (In the past, it has even set off a smoke alarm.)

But is all of this “the real thing”?  Is SGG a place where one gets real Catholicism?  No, of course not.  It is a place where the “shepherds” preach about “protecting our innocent children,” but in practice condoned the aforementioned immoral behavior and the brutalization of those innocent children by a sadistic “school principal.”  (And the insanity doesn’t stop there: one of Dannie’s “religion teachers” proclaimed that riding a roller coaster or wearing a sports headband in church were mortal sins!)  And what kind of lunatic, we may ask, would say that one “una cum” Mass is worse than all the abortions ever performed?  MHT’s “prefect,” that’s who.  The sad fact is, there is no such thing as morality or real Catholicism at the cult centers.  So much for cult “Catholicism.”

So why do the Gerties put up with all of this?  Are they not aware of it all?  The answer is, in most cases, YES THEY ARE.  And that’s the problem: because they are, that’s what makes them, in fact, WORSE than the cult-masters themselves.  One could understand why Dannie, Tony, and Donny do the things they do.  They can’t help themselves: villains do what villains do.  But the Gerties – these “Catholics” who KNOW how evil these scumbags are, and who have personal knowledge of the many who’ve been victimized by them – why are they still there at SGG?  If they know, why do they stay?  That is why we reiterate that they are, in fact, WORSE than Dannie and Tony, because – with full knowledge of what kind of scum Dannie and Tony are – they still support (and therefore enable) these worms – simply because they can’t do without their “show.” ²  

And the most culpable of “those who know” are perhaps those who have children or grandchildren (whom they’ve kept “insulated” from all the chicanery of the cult-masters), who stay for “the show” simply because they want to see those youngsters make their first communions (or get married) in a “churchy” setting.  This is SICK.  These people are the real whores in the sordid SGG soap opera: willing to sacrifice those young peoples’ souls just for the sake of “the show.”  Do they not realize that those youngsters are eventually going to find out the truth about Dannie and Tony one day – and when they do, that they most likely will become thoroughly disillusioned – perhaps to the point of losing their Faith? Do they not realize that their allegiance is to their families, not to the cult, that they are responsible for their children and their spiritual well-being -- and that they are answerable to God for that?  Do they not realize that their children’s souls are far more important than “the show”? ³

If not for the support of these spineless wretches, the cult-masters would be out of business.  But, because of their support, Dannie, Tony, and Donny are able to continue to wreak their havoc.  And, whatever evil the cult-masters’ do, these people must realize that they are the cult-masters’ accomplices – that they share equal responsibility and equal accountability along with them.  Actually, their accountability goes beyond that, because, to reiterate, they are accountable as well for their children, many of whom -- because their parents put “the good of the cult” before the good of their families -- have gone astray and/or lost the Faith.  The importance of this (and its consequences) cannot be over-emphasized.

Do these people not realize what’s at stake here – and the lives (and souls) affected?  Do they not realize the consequences of their actions (or their inaction)?  Are they that blind that they cannot see the handwriting on the wall?  The answer is “yes” and “no.”  Yes, they have been “blinded” in a sense by the cult-masters – with the dazzle of the spectacle, and the syrupy “holy speak” that the cult-masters pass off as “Catholicism.”  But no, they really don’t care, as long as they get their “show.”  Deep down, they know “something’s wrong”; but they allow themselves to be deluded, because that is the path of least resistance.

Will they come to their senses?   We doubt it, because their problem is not so much “blindness” as it is something more basic -- PRIDE – which no amount of “elucidation” can remedy.  They’re too proud to admit that they’re wrong, and that they’ve been “backing the wrong horse” all these years (or some other such bogus reason as that).  Dannie has them convinced that, like the Pharisee in the parable, they’re “right” and everybody else isn’t.  And once they have taken that moral high ground, it’s hard for them to relinquish it.  Humility comes hard to people -- but especially to the Pharisaic.  Besides, they’ve become too “comfortable” with their ersatz “Catholicism” (and change comes hard to the “inertial” as well).  But their “moral high ground” is quicksand – and if they don’t change, they will surely “sink,” along with the cult-masters.  So, will they come to their senses?  Well, we certainly hope so – but, again, we doubt it.

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¹ Overburdening people with “chores” is a classic cult tactic:  preoccupying them –both physically and mentally – with the cult, to the point where they haven’t time to think of anything else but that, to where it becomes the single most important thing in their lives.  The classic case of this is the Jonestown cult, where the “Reverend Jim Jones” persuaded his followers to commit mass suicide by drinking cyanide-laced Kool-Aid.

² There probably isn’t one person at SGG who is not aware of Schiavo, and the sordid part the cult-masters played in that sad saga.  THIS ALONE should have been cause enough for them to send Dannie and Tony packing.  Add to that the myriad (and well-documented) 2009 school scandals – of which virtually all the parishioners were aware – and there was absolutely no excuse for any of them to remain with (and support) these lepers – but they did.

³ Many of SGG’s young have already found out, and have left – especially back in 2009.  Back then, when one of the principal’s sons got a girl pregnant, word of it “spread like wildfire” amongst the younger set.  Word also spread about the other abuses that happened (especially at the school); and the kids saw through all of this -- and the hypocrisy of the cult-masters’ wretched laissez faire attitude toward it.  This obviously disillusioned many of them – some to the point of losing their Faith.  We can only imagine the disillusionment of those “insulated” youngsters when it’s their turn to “find out” – and the consequences of their disillusionment.

And many such “consequences” have already occurred: As we noted in at least one previous article, not only have many of the younger set left the Faith and “gone astray,” but some have even had children out of wedlock -- and one became a lesbian, and another, a “transgender.”  But the even sadder thing is that in many of these cases, the parents involved don’t seem to care that their children went astray – nor do they seem to have any sense of accountability for what happened: they “wash their hands” and continue on, sanctimoniously following this or that cult-master, pretending as if nothing ever happened -- as if one’s children going astray is no longer one’s concern or “fault.”  (But what else could one expect from a cult-indoctrinated mind?)