So What?

by Thomas A. Droleskey

 

Father Anthony Cekada has written a response, "School Dazed," to the recent events that have unfolded at Saint Gertrude the Great Church. While a formal response to Father's article, which contains one smokescreen after another as he ignores quite specific allegations made about the manner in which parental complaints have been handled and as he mischaracterized the detailed articles that have been written about the tragic situation, will be forthcoming, this particular article, which was written a few days ago and has been held back for publication until now, might be quite useful.

What I want to do in this very brief commentary is to point out the fact that the stands we take on various matters at any given moment in our lives must not be dictated by the reputations or tactics of others who might agree with us.

That is, I received an e-mail on Sunday, November 15, 2009, from a man who was heretofore unknown to me. The man used the title of a Western-themed television program that ran on the Columbia Broadcasting Company from January 9, 1959, to January 4, 1966, starring Eric Fleming and Clint Eastwood as a pseudonym. Amused, evidently, with his cleverness the man with the television show title pseudonym sought to stop me dead in my tracks by stating I had taken a stand about the situation at Saint Gertrude the Great Church that associated me with various individuals on an internet chat room who had been very disrespectful to Bishop Daniel L. Dolan and Father Anthony Cekada. My response to this bit of ad hominem sophistry is simple: So what?

As I wrote to the individual with the pseudonym, I have taken my stand with Father Markus Ramolla and for the truth that he speaks. Period. It matters not to me who agrees or disagrees with me. We must make judgments and take positions that we believe are correct no matter the reputation or tactics or goals of those who might agree with us on a particular matter. It is indeed sophistry to contend that one's argument is discredited on the basis of those who are agreement with it. One's argument is discredited solely if it is false and not by anything else. Indeed, the emotionally manipulative trick used by the man with the Western-themed television show title pseudonym is an emotional red-herring, a veritable effort at intimidation by means of causing one to think in terms of his human respect by others rather than to remain committed to what he judges to be the truth of the facts of a given situation.

We will take positions at various times in our lives that place us in agreement with individuals who hold views on other issues that are most reprehensible and/or use tactics that are not the ones that we might employ. So what? Does that mean that the arguments we are attempting to make are invalidated solely because we are in association with people whose tactics have been pointed? No, not all.

If the argument made by the man with the Western-themed television show title pseudonym is correct, then it would be proper to condemn Bishop Donald Sanborn's and Father Anthony Cekada's support for the removal of the late Mrs. Theresa Marie Schindler-Schiavo's feeding and hydration tubes solely on the basis of the fact that their positions put them in agreement with the egregious, unfaithful Michael Schiavo and his attorney, the pro-death George Felos who believed that he could communicate with the brain-damaged to know their wishes, and the conciliar "bishop" of Saint Petersburg, Florida, the acolyte of Joseph "Cardinal" Bernardin known as Robert "I paid out 100,000 in a harassment case to my communications director" Lynch. (See Christian Order - Read - Editorials - June/July 2006 on the Robert Lynch payout to his former communications director, William Urbanski).

There were indeed some individuals criticizing Bishop Sanborn and Father Cekada in 2005 mostly on the basis that they put themselves in agreement with these terrible men rather than focusing on the fact that Bishop Sanborn and Father Cekada got the facts of Terri Schiavo's case wrong, that they misrepresented the moral issues of the case and that Father Cekada even refused to quote the expert he cited to justify his erroneous position when that expert wrote that he would never support the removal of food and water in any actual case. (See Father William Jenkins, The Execution of Theresa Marie Schiavo.)

Bishop Sanborn and Father Cekada were wrong not on the basis of how their false positions put them in agreement with Michael Schiavo and George Felos and Robert Lynch. They were wrong because they refused to accept the truth that it is never permissible to take any action that has as its sole end the death of an innocent human being. It is ironic that they agreed with Michael Schiavo, George Felos, and Robert Lynch. This fact, however, does not make their arguments supporting Terri Schiavo's murder false. Their arguments were false because they were incontrovertibly opposed to Catholic moral teaching (see Father Martin Stepanich on Terri Schiavo).

Similarly, Father Cekada's stand against the Leonine Prayers after low Mass places him in complete agreement with the liturgical revolutionaries Annibale Bugnini and Giovanni Montini/Paul VI. Those Leonine Prayers were made "optional" by Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII in the modernized version of the Missale Romanum that was promulgated in 1961 (amended in 1962 with the insertion of the name of Saint Joseph into the Roman Canon). They were eliminated entirely by Montini/Paul VI with the implementation of the Ordo Missae of 1965 on November 29, 1964, the First Sunday of Advent.

Mind you, I find Father Cekada's arguments in Russia and the Leonine Prayers self-serving and even smacking of an air of Protestantism as he sought to find written "proof" of the episode that Pope Leo XIII encountered at Holy Mass that prompted him to write the Saint Michael the Archangel Prayer. Not everything in the life of the Church is written down in a meticulous manner, which is why the rationalists in the counterfeit church of conciliarism disparage what they call "legends" about the lives of many saints, "legends" that happened to find their way into the official books of the Catholic Church, including her Breviary, meaning that God the Holy Ghost permitted Holy Mother Church to publish mere legends about saints in her official liturgical books. Indeed, Annibale Bugnini justified many of his revolutionary changes in the liturgy on the specious claim that many aspects of the traditional Roman Rite could not be documented. This is Protestantism, not Catholicism.

Moreover, Father Cekada's argument that there is no need to pray the three Hail Marys after low Mass for the Church in Russia as a result of the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the apparent "end" of Communism there, which was nothing other than an illusion as Communism is alive and well in Russia and elsewhere in the world, including in the United States of America, is an opinion that he has no right to impose upon Catholics as he interferes with popular piety and removes prayers that are hated by the devil.

It would be, however, intellectually shallow and disingenuous to assert that Father Cekada must be in league with Angelo Roncalli and Giovanni Montini and Annibale Bugnini on all matters liturgically and doctrinally because he is in agreement with them about the Leonine Prayers.

Additionally, many of us who opposed the build-up to the unjust and immoral American invasion of Iraq in late-2002 and early-2003 were accused of guilt by association by taking a position that placed us in league with various naturalists of the false opposite of the "left" and an assortment of anti-Americans around the world. We were accused of being anti-American ourselves, of being "unpatriotic," of wanting to coddle "Islamo-terrorism," of caring not one whit for American national security. Dr. John C. Rao, a professor of history at Saint John's University in Staten Island, New York, came in for particular heat from letter writers on the now dormant Seattle Catholic website, from which all of my articles have been expunged as though they never existed, being addressed by one ignoramus as follows: "Dear Stupid Idiot, You came from Oxford. Why don't you go back to France?" Dr. Rao was, for the record, born in New York City. (You can see why I do not permit the peanut gallery an opportunity to express their views on this site, which was launched on February 20, 2004.)

The fact, however, remains that Catholics who opposed the Iraq War did so because they understood that none of the requisites of the Just War Theory had been met, that American national security was not threatened by the regime of the thug named Saddam Hussein, that Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks on the United States of America on September 11, 2001, that Hussein had nothing at all to do with Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. That this put us in the position of agreeing with a variety of no-goodniks was totally irrelevant. Catholics opposed to the Iraq War--and I was one of their number--attempted to apply the precepts of the Just War Theory to the concrete circumstances that faced the United States of America at the time, concluding that there would be nothing but long term instability in Iraq at the cost of the needless loss of lives of American military personnel, none of whom should have been put into harm's way in Iraq.

In like manner, of course, those of us who helped to expose the problem of perverted bishops and priests/presbyters in the counterfeit church of conciliarism were lumped together with a variety of dissident "reformers" who wanted to do away with clerical celibacy and who supported various moral evils, including contraception and abortion. My opposition to the way that the laity were browbeaten and victimized by conciliar "bishops" and their chancery factotum thugs in no way signified any agreement with the editors of the National Catholic Reporter or with the membership of Voice of the Faithful. Indeed, I adamantly refused an offer to speak at a meeting of a Voice of the Faithful chapter on Long Island, explaining that I could never countenance open dissent from the Received Teaching that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has entrusted to His Catholic Church for its eternal safekeeping and infallible explication. To take a principled stand against the protection of perverted clergy and against the tactics of intimidation used by the Novus Ordo 'bishops" and their chancery factotum thugs was not in any way, shape or form to agree with the agenda of others who sought to expose this egregious behavior and these demonic tactics.

In other words, the man with the Western-themed television show title pseudonym doth protest a bit too much when he warns me that I am, in effect, in league with those who have used tactics and even language that I never employ in my own work as they have attempted to bring to light the problems at Saint Gertrude the Great Church. My own concerns were expressed in private. I did not come forth publicly until Father Markus Ramolla, who had been working behind the scenes to convince Bishop Daniel Dolan to take action to protect the children of Saint Gertrude the Great School from abusive behavior, was being punished by Bishop Dolan for his courageous stance in defense of truth. Father Ramolla's dismissal came just a few weeks after Mr. Bernard G. J. Hall, a longtime teacher at Saint Gertrude the Great School, was dismissed as he sought to address from within the problems that he witnessed first-hand, making the fatal mistake, as Father Cekada saw it in "School Dazed," of associating with one of his chief internet critics as he did so.

I, for one, knew that I had to stand with Father Ramolla when I found his letters to Bishop Dolan and to his flock in my in-box on Friday, November 6, 2009. As much as I will always have gratitude to Bishop Dolan for all that he taught us and for all that he has done for us, my first loyalty must be to the the truth. And it was the fact that Father Ramolla stood up so courageously for the truth and was punished and vilified so immediately by Bishop Dolan and Father Cekada that some parents have come forth to tell their own stories of horror about what has gone on at Saint Gertrude the Great School over the course of the past decade. These parents have been living in fear of losing the sacraments. This fear has been lifted from them as a result of Father Ramolla's courage and his refusal to accept false "peace" terms that would have required him to lie and to shed false tears of regret for having sought to address problems that are just now beginning to come to light, problems that should never have had to come light if Bishop Dolan and Father Cekada had taken the complaints of the faithful seriously and acted on them without concern for how this would have made their past decisions look in retrospect.

It is, therefore, no argument at all to contend that those who have sought to bring their complaints to their shepherds privately without success cannot speak out publicly because of the tactics and language employed by others. It did appear a few weels agp that the man with the Western-theme television show title pseudonym was Father Cekada. "Robert Rawhide" had been identified to the satisfaction of the moderator of one of these "chat rooms" as none other than Father Anthony Cekada himself, something "Mr. Rawhide," whose real identity has been pretty well established now (I called him out on it in an e-mail dated, December 4, 2009, telling him not to write me again unless he used his real name), has denied is the case. "Mr. Rawhide," who does not reside in Ohio, certainly had a lot of knowledge about the laws of the State of Ohio concerning the sale of cigarettes to minors.

Father Cekada certainly did not mind that an ally of his used a pseudonym to post things favorable to him even though he, Father Cekada, had criticized anonymous or pseudonymous postings in "School Dazed:"

Internet forums are ideal breeding grounds for sowing such dissension and wickedness. Postings can be made anonymously or under a pseudonym. Slackers who have nothing better to do can keep the controversies stoked. Lies and distortions stay posted forever, and by merely by repetition, they are eventually assumed to be “true." (Father Anthony Cekada, "School Dazed."0

 

Bishop Dolan himself told us some time ago now that Father Cekada loves to go on these chat rooms, where he can spend the time of day. It is just a little cheeky for Father Cekada to be so sanctimonious about chat rooms (and let me make it clear once again that I abhor these places of sins against the Eighth Commandment) when he spends time on them himself. Does not his ally "Robert Rawhide" (aka Robert "S"?) have to abide by what was written by Father Anthony Cekada about looking for information on these chat rooms and participating therein?

Internet forums can be sewers of gossip, calumnies, distortions and lies. Mortify your sinful curiosity and refuse to read such garbage. (Father Anthony Cekada, "School Dazed.")

 

This is no joking matter. One mother wrote to me to say that her sons lost the faith as a result of the bullying to which they were subjected at Saint Gertrude the Great Church that you refused to correct. "Lies," "distortions," "gas." Shameful misrepresentations of the truth, Father Cekada. The loss of the faith in a young soul as a result of the bullying you indemnified repeatedly is something to "forget." How can a mother forget about the damage done to her son's souls by the bullying you dismissed so casually or by making such comments that "boys will be boys"?

What I wrote to "Robert Rawhide" (who is an close ally of Father Cekada but not, as it turns out, Father Cekada himself), who uses another television show for his e-mail address for this pseudonym of his, "quincyme@airpost.net, still stands:

Dear Mr. Rawhide, I do not know who you are [which was true at the time I wrote the note]. This is my one and only communication with you.

I am associating with Father Markus Ramolla's defense of truth, profiting also from the direction being given me by the clergy supporting and counseling him. Period.

With prayers in Christ the King and Mary our Immaculate Queen, Thomas A. Droleskey, Ph.D. Publisher-Editor www.Christorchaos.com

May Our Lady help us to bear the crosses of this present moment in perfect union with the Cross of her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Who wants us to see in the royal road of the cross the path to our sanctification and salvation. We must be patient and steadfast in the carrying of our crosses, never once giving in to discouragement or despair, both of which are tricks of the devil to keep us from practicing the Faith. Many of us have, if we are honest with ourselves, given plenty of scandal to others in our own lives, which is why we must never be smug or arrogant in the face of the distress that others have caused for themselves.

Even as justice is pursued without vengeance, my friends, we must pray for those whose actions have caused scandal and bewilderment to the faithful, keeping close to Our Lady through her Most Holy Rosary, ever remembering these words of wisdom given us by Pope Pius XI in Quas Primas, December 11, 1925:

We may well admire in this the admirable wisdom of the Providence of God, who, ever bringing good out of evil, has from time to time suffered the faith and piety of men to grow weak, and allowed Catholic truth to be attacked by false doctrines, but always with the result that truth has afterwards shone out with greater splendor, and that men's faith, aroused from its lethargy, has shown itself more vigorous than before.

 

Never lose heart. Never be discouraged. The final victory belongs to Christ the King through the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Never doubt this for a single moment. God is in charge. He has known from all eternity that this tragedy would unfold. It is for His greater honor and glory and for our sanctification that we bear this cross with joy and gratitude as the consecrated slaves of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through the Immaculate Heart of His Most Blessed Mother.

Heaven awaits those who persevere with joy and gratitude as they go from cross to cross in their daily lives if they die in a state of Sanctifying Grace. Isn't it worth the effort to carry the cross well with the loving help of Our Lady?

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon.

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

 

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint Cecilia, pray for us.

Pope Saint Clement I, pray for us.

Saint Felicitas, pray for us.

See also: A Litany of Saints

A Post From Robert Rawhide Concerning the Sale of Cigarettes to Minors

1. Robert Rawhide said: The law? Yes, it is a law for 16-year-olds not to smoke. Is it a reasonable law? That is doubtful. St. Thomas says that a doubtful obligation doesn't bind (and that an unreasonable law is not a law). It is a law in Ohio the police admit is to be enforced by parents. It is even less comparable to buckling your seat belt, j-walking, littering, talking on the cell phone while driving, or having your license plate not lighted. Some things freely done anyway without repercussion or hardly a frown . There is also the probable Catholic opinion on the pre-Vatican II books of "penal law" where there is no moral obligation, though you are obliged to pay a fine if it really gets that far. 2. gladius_veritatis said: champions violation of an express law of School and State Saying "champions" as well as not pointing out that it is penal law would be dishonest. Do you understand, Eamon, that smoking, not wearing a seatbelt, loitering, littering, jay-walking, driving using a cell phone, etc are all penal laws allowed morally by the Church traditionally without being a sin?

......................... banned for severely insulting the forum he visited and posted to daily for the past several weeks.