Something's Hinky About The COVID Data

I've never stopped checking the daily Los Angeles County COVID statistics. The graph above is a screen shot from today's report. While other graphs show sharp increaes in positive tests and hospitalizations, there's been no eqwuivalent rise in deaths. The graph is based on seven-day averages to compensate for daily fluctuation. By early June, the averages reached a floor of about four deaths per day in the county of over 10 million. Since then, they've fluctuated between two and four, with no increase equivalent to those for positive teats and hospitalizations.

Among other things, it's hard not to conclude that whatever the reason for an increase in hospitalizations, there are far fewer deaths resulting from them. So I went to find a graph of total COVID deaths in the US. Here it is at right (click on all the images for larger copies). A key takeaway is that, if in the past the public health authorities took cases as a leading indicator of deaths, so far, this doesn't seem to be happening with the delta variant.

As you can see, there's an uptick in the cases graph at right that simply doesn't appear on the deaths graph above it. These were taken from screen prints of web searches, both using New York Times data, within minutes of each other this morning. A smaller takeaway is that the uptick in cases that had Dr Walensky in tears on national TV last April, which she took as a leading indicator of deaths, was in fact never reflected in any actual increase in deaths. (It's worth revisiting what she and Dr Fauci said then, which I covered at the time in this post.) It's also worth noting that deaths began to decline in mid-January nationally, well before significant numbers of people were fully vaccinated.

It's hard to avoid a conclusion that as the pandemic proceeded, aftrer mid-January 2021, the disease itself became less fatal, and medical treatments became more effective. It's also hard to disagree with conclusions by variouis observers that herd immunity based on people who were already infected but had recovered was an important factor in the overall improvement.

I also ran across an intriguimig story at the Foundation for Economic Educdation, Despite ‘Delta’ Alarmism, US COVID Deaths Are at Lowest Level Since March 2020, Harvard and Stanford Professors Explain. Rather than using raw totals as the graphs above do, this graph from the story normalizes the data to deaths per million, but it draws a very similar conclusion.

[T}he actual number of COVID-19 deaths is at a nadir. Harvard Medical School Professor Martin Kulldorff pointed this out on Twitter, writing that “In [the] USA, COVID mortality is now the lowest since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.”

He shared this graph [the one at right] from OurWorldInData which clearly shows how COVID deaths per million are at, relatively speaking, extreme lows. Far more people were dying from COVID-19 months ago as we were winding down restrictions than are dying today as some call to reinstate them.

. . . Now, some would cite rising COVID-19 case counts or hospitalizations in certain parts of the country as evidence that the pandemic is indeed once again spiraling out of control. But many COVID-19 cases recorded as positive are either asymptomatic or come with very mild symptoms—especially the cases confirmed among vaccinated individuals—so high case counts are not necessarily proof of a serious problem. Hospitalizations are concerning, yes, but primarily insofar as they lead to high numbers of deaths, which, thankfully, is not the case so far with the Delta variant.

Others would say that deaths are a “lagging indicator” that come in several weeks after the increased spread of the disease. But the Delta variant has been spreading in the US for months now, and deaths have remained relatively flat, in part due to widespread vaccination.

I think a major difference between now and 2020 is that the population is getting smarter and will push back more readily against new calls for controls. Governors like DeSantis and Abbott will publicly resist reinstatment of masking, social distance, and whatever else, and the problem for the public health authorities will be that there will be no difference in statistics between states like Texas and Florida and the rest of the country.

Why the calls for reinstatement are coming is another question, which i'll tackle tomorrow if nothing intervenes.

Really, Is Fr Hunwicke OK?

I couldn't help but notice a post yesterday at Fr Hunwicke's blog, which reads in its entirety:

Like Vatican II, TC has now (after only twelve days!!) sprouted its own ghastly SPIRIT, which can even be directly contrary to the wording of TC, but still has to be as ruthlessly enforced.

According to Fr Zed, an American cardinal called Gregory has forbidden an Authentic Form Mass in an American church which ... is NOT a "parish church".

Simply a tyranny, isn't it, all this. You have to guess what Hitler or Stalin or that North Korean chappy really want, then you have to enforce it. If you know what's good for you.

This is what tyrants and their lackeys always really expect. They don't really take seriously even their own wretched enactments. They just want you to grovel.

Several things interest me here. It appears Fr Hunwicke thinks Cdl Gregory forbade a celebration of the Latin mass "directly contrary to the wording of TC". But Article 2 of Traditionis Custodes simply says,

It belongs to the diocesan bishop, as moderator, promoter, and guardian of the whole liturgical life of the particular Church entrusted to him, to regulate the liturgical celebrations of his diocese. Therefore, it is his exclusive competence to authorize the use of the 1962 Roman Missal in his diocese, according to the guidelines of the Apostolic See.

We can question Cdl Gregory's judgment in this particular case, but he's doing nothing "directly contrary" to the guidelines of the Apostolic See. § 2 of Article 3 says the bishop

is to designate one or more locations where the faithful adherents of these groups may gather for the eucharistic celebration (not however in the parochial churches and without the erection of new personal parishes)

But it does not imply that any non-parish church is automatically eligible for celebration of the Latin mass. The basilica involved is a non-parish church, but it happens not to be one that the bishop has designated. And the fact is that if a bishop orders something, the Church orders it. Full stop. One thing I'm picking up when I make these visits to Fr Hunwicke is that if I go back and read whatever document he's referring to, it usually turns out not to say what he claims it says.

By the same token, he refers to a post at Fr Z's blog, which I diligently looked up (he didn't provide a link). Fr Z quotes a release from the Paulus Institute, whose celebration of the Latin mass was canceled (italics in original):

We ask this unfortunate reply be met with controlled reactions, whether with strength, substance, and opposition, but without polemics and inflammatory or coarse words, which The Paulus Institute rejects.

So naturally, Fr Hunwicke compares the pope to "Hitler or Stalin or that North Korean chappy" and calls him a "tyrant", with Cdl Gregory his "lackey". Except that Cdl Gregory has had to "guess" nothing; he's acting entirely within his episcopal authority. And even the Paulus Institute is saying yuu may disagree with the cardinal's judgment, but by using intemperate language, you're making Pope Francis's point for him.

But this brings me back to a more basic question. Where does comparing Pope Francis to Hitler, Stalin, and Kim Jong-un stop and calling him the Antichrist begin? There are hundreds of Protestant denominations that have no problem at all with the comparisons Fr Hunwicke is drawing. Pastor John MacArthur, a highly respected Evangelical, insists that the Roman Catholic Church is not a Christian denomination. Might those views actually be more friendly to Fr Hunwicke in his current state?

In fact, Anglicans of old had no problem at all denouncing the Bishop of Rome. Indeed, Article XXXVII makes it plain:

The Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this Realm of England.

As Wittgenstein would suggest, the solution to Fr Hunwicke's problem will come from the disappearance of the problem. If he will simply renounce his misguided and clearly ill-informed conversion to the Roman church and return to the traditionial and long-established church of his own nation, which gives and has almost always given him full latitude to celebrate whatever liturgy he wants, he'll be much, much happier. Or do I have this wrong?

The Ordinariate Refuses To Confront Its Systemic Racism

A visitor sent me the above screen shot from a Facebook thread on one of the ordinariate groups there. The backstory appears to be this, according to the Black Catholic Messenger blog:

A planned council of the Knights of Peter Claver & Ladies Auxiliary at an Ordinariate parish in California has been quashed—and likely due to racism, according to the prospective council head.

It would have made history both as the first KPC unit at an Ordinariate parish, and also as the first in Orange County (an affluent region in Southern California that is only ~2% Black).

Last year, Gunnar Gundersen led the effort at Irvine's St John Henry Newman Catholic Church, a parish of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter. The plan was initially approved in December by the parish administrator, Fr Evan Simington, after the POCSP bishop Steven J. Lopes gave the green light in August.

The visitor suiggests that Fr Simington's apparent turnaround came about because Mr Gundersen is an angry guy, to say the least. In one post attacking Bp Barron, he says

Having specialized in building an online presence tackling the challenges presented by mostly White and angry atheists, he has sought to be equally relevant in the social-justice-movement debate that is growing in the United States and around the world.

He has done this by writing a series of essays on Word on Fire, and in other outlets and formats (including interviews). That effort has involved framing most modern social-justice activism as “woke” and rejecting “wokeness” as “vile"—an adjective he used in an interview with the Babylon Bee podcast.

. . . His definition and criticism are premised on the notion that those who are woke are not Christian, do not believe in objective morals, and do not seek to develop cooperative social structures.

The visitor comments on the controversy:

The young black Ordinariate member from Cincinnati [Jordan Arnold in the Facebook thread above] accused the KofSPC of embracing Critical Race Theory and promoting Marxism, which seems unlikely. A more plausible explanation is that the chapter or whatever it’s called was “gathered” and really has little connection with SJHN, Irvine. This is of course the danger with these little Ordinariate groups, as we saw at St Bede, St Louis Pk. They are easily hi-jacked by a few potential trouble-makers who have wandered in from other Catholic parishes where they did not have the influence they feel they deserve.

I am not accusing the KofSPC group of being such, but these small communities are always vulnerable. It was mentioned that the Knights of Columbus group at SJHN is inactive. Of course the KofC has no connection to “Anglican Patrimony” and is part of the post-Anglican cultural mix of the Ordinariate.

Well, one issue I keep returning to here is that Critical Race Theory, which is closely aligned with the Black Lives Matter movement, isn't Marxist, because it represents an alliance of the Lumpenproletariat, the petty criminal class and street rabble, with the wealthy elites. Both are opposed to the working class broadly considered, but Marx also understood that the Lumpenproletariat is not a reliable ally for anyone. The alliance, however temporary, feeds the narcissism of the elites and is momentarily convenient for the lumpenproles.

I think narcissism is key to understanding the larger phenomenon we've been seeing for nearly a decade with the North American ordinariate: it's attracted fewer of the disgruntled high-church Anglicans it was meant to reach than it has the tiny wandering cliques of fringe cradle Catholics of many different stripes, who've been frustrated at the unwillingness of larger novus ordo parishes to nurture their particular rage. Thus we see the odd alliance in the Facebook thread above between Peter Smith, a prominent white cradle trad who's drifted into the ordinariate, with Mr Gundersen, who self-identifies as black and woke, against Mr Arnold, who strikes me as a black member of the down-to-earth class that works for a living. Narcissism, I hate to say it, is a dominant feature in this thread; the putative class alliance here is purely for show and transitory.

But this goes to the question of Fr Simington, who in my view made the correct call. Althogh he is a graduate of the Episcopalian high-church Nashotah House seminary, he opted to spend additional time in Roman Catholic seminary formation. In his assignments since ordination, I believe he's had part-time positions as an associate in diocesan parishes and also, I believe, has lived in diocesan rectories. (I'm open to correction here.) He's celibate.

This means he has probably developed friendships with celibate, working diocesan clergy, and maybe just as important, networking contacts. He's much closer to what I see every day with real Catholic priests, which means he's far better equipped to make the kind of call he made. A priest who just recently left residence at our rectory to resume a position as a pastor said in his farewell homily, "I realize that sometimes I'll need to say 'no' in my new assignment." Looks like Fr Simington has developed this necessary priestly faculty, and I take it as a sign of maturity.

I've got to think better work will emerge for Fr Simington. He shouldn't be wasting his abilities in nickel-and-dime situations like this.

On The Prescience Of Die Hard

My wife and I normally record each night's TV schedule to watch the following night so we can fast-forward through the commercials, but if there's not enough history or animal or true crime stuff, I go looking for a film. The other night, I settled on Die Hard (1988), which neither of us had seen, and for which my expectations were low. After all, it's the dregs of summer season. It turned out not to be High Noon, but it was actually watchable, and remarkably insightful into modern culture very much like the Jason Bourne films that I've already discussed here.

The Bourne films carried the strong subtext that the CIA of Allen Dulles, North by Northwest, and Topaz isn't the CIA we have. But I made the point that the Bourne trilogy appeared between 2002 and 2007, long before Donald Trump was anything but a playboy billionaire and reality TV star. Remarkably, Die Hard makes a similar point, that the FBI is no longer the FBI of G-men and J Edgar Hoover. And it said it in 1988, long before Ruby Ridge, Waco, the bungling of 9/11, and conspiracies to kidnap Gov Whitmer.

Indeeed, the latest scandal over Richard Trask, the agent who led the undercover team that appears to have been the leadership and most of the co-conspirators in that plot, who was arrested for slamming his wife's head into the night table after a swingers' party, seems the best possible illustration that this is not your grandfather's FBI. Forget the night table, Mr Hoover would have thrown the guy out if there was even a whiff about swingers' parties. Seems like the FBI would be having a better time lately if it paid more attention in general to who's a horndog, but as they say in the government, that's above my pay grade. (By the way, who would want to go to a swingers' party with that guy?)

According to Wikipedia, expectations for the film weren't high. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone had already turned down the lead role, and Bruce Willis was definitely Plan C or worse. But the film was an unintentional success, in part due to Willis's portrayal of the character as an uncertain, conflicted hero forced into his situation.

But I think an unacknowledged factor is the film's depiction of both the Los Angeles Police Department (which had yet to disgrace itself in its handling of the 1992 Rodney King riots) and the FBI, whose failings were still in the future. Somehow, I think the public sensed an authenticity in the film's portrayal of official hot-dogging, cowardice, and careerism that were yet to be fully visible in events.

The broad outlines of the plot are that a New York cop, John McClane (Willis), travels to Los Angeles to reconcile with his estranged wife, who is an executive. He meets her at her company's Christmas party in a high rise. However, a terrorist gang suddenly arrives to seize the building and rob the vault that holds the company's valuables. When it becomes plain that the terrorists intend to kill people, McClane escapes and uses his law enforcement skills to begin killing each of the terrorists, one by one.

The police, despite McClane's efforts to contact them, refuse to take his alarms seriously. Once the terrorist attack becomes impossible to discount or ignore, the LAPD brass arrives, but it decides it can't decide who's the bad guy, and it decides McClane could well be a terrorist himself, what with all the shooting and stuff. Amid LAPD's dithering, the FBI arrives and takes command, but they agree with LAPD that McClane is a terrorist. It's plain by then that no matter any other outcome, McClane is destined for a cell at the Colorado supermax, just down the corridor from the likes of Ted Kaczynski.

The climactic scene has the terrorists shepherding the remaining hostages onto the high-rise's roof, on the pretext that helicopters will be sent to rescue them in accordance with their demands. However, McClane suddently realizes that in fact, the terrorists mean to blow up the roof once the hostages assemble there, so he has no choice but to get to the roof himself and, with no other option, he fires his weapon over their heads to get them to go back downstairs.

Just at that moment, the FBI helicopters arrive and see McClane firing his weapon over the hostages' heads, which only confirms their view that he's a terrorist. A couple of hot-dogging FBI agents in the helicopter congratulate each other that they've caught the bad guy in the act. However, the terrorists then blow up the high rise roof, although the hostages have barely escaped due to McClane's quick action, but the explosion catches the FBI helicopter, which crashes, and the hot-dogging agents are killed.

There's more action to go, but the key event is that at least the agents who could have testified against McClane and put him in the supermax are out of the picture, which strikes me as perhaps the unintended moral of the whole film.

According to Wikipedia, "Deemed 'culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant' by the United States Library of Congress, Die Hard was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 2017." Along, I might remind the reader, with Animal House.

I Got Some More Insights Into Traditionalism In Yesterday's Post From Fr Hunwicke

Naturally, in. the current controversy over Traditionis Custodes, it's important to understand our fellow Catholics on the other side of the issue. Yesterday's post by Fr Hunwicke, while it seems simple on the surface, carries two subtexts that lead to a deeper understanding of his, and traditionalists', mindset. It begins,

I have always had a soft spot for S Anne, not least because she is the Patron of my wife's college at Oxford (we sent two of our children there) . . .

In his thumbnail, he says he himself has been Senior Research Fellow at Pusey House in Oxford. But just so we're all on the same page, for those of us in the US at least, you need to substitute Yale, or possibly Princeton, for Oxford. Yalies in particular never let you forget they've been to Yale; two recent examples are Glenn Reynolds, whose actual intellectual mentors are Ayn Rand and Hugh Hefner, and Michael Medved, who lost his radio show when his NeverTrumpism became too boring even for the Salem network. Fr Hunwicke's fellow prominent Oxonians include Ghislaine Maxwell.

On one hand, it's never a good idea to cite your alma mater as evidence of your worth; there are too many felons, grifters, and general by-blows among your fellow alums. But in addition, that sort of constant name-dropping -- Fr Hunwicke effectively got four Oxfords into one short sentence -- is evidence of a deep insecurity. Trads seem to cling to figures like Scott Hahn, who not only converted to Catholicism but converted to Latin mass after that, going so far as to call it "superior" to the novus ordo, except he never explains why, just that he likes it. Again, this reflects an insecurity among many trads.

A remark by a visitor brought another issue into context. The visitor suggested that Latin masses tend to be attended by young families with large retinues of children, while novus ordo masses are less that way. The visitor suggested the trads are visibly following the Church's teaching on contraception, while the novus ordo Catholics are not. That's a matter for the confessional in the end, but the visible part is actually a problem.

I thought back to Honor Moore, daughter of Episcopal Bishop Paul Moore Jr, who noted in her memoir that, as her parents had baby after baby en route to a total of nine children, she kept wondering who they were trying to beat. It later emerged that Bp Moore had been a closet bisexual all his life. Large broods of children, especially if the girls are wearing chapel veils, are a statement, not just an outcome.

They can certaimly reflect insecurity, and I hardly think the Moore family was unique in using a large brood to cover for serious behind-the-scenes issues in a marriage. Honor Moore's memoir suggests that a divorce would have ended Bp Moore's career, so there was a mutual interest in maintaining appearances for the sake of lifestyle, though his first wife did not follow him to New York, and they effectively separated. Fr Chad Ripperger, a trad priest, has noted that the kind of stuff that reaches him in the confessional makes him worry that the Latin mass is not having the salutary effect some might claim for it.

So the first issue, which I think applies at least to Fr Hunwicke's constant name-dropping (cf his recent reference to a private e-mail from Prebendary Moreton), is the apparent deep insecurity this reflects.

But there's another issue, which is the self-contradiction that verges on ditziness. This past Friday, Fr Hunwicke placed St John XXIII in his gallery of Hitler popes, or quasi-Hitler popes or something, for promulgating Veterum Sapientia, which did nothing more than assert that Latin is valuable to the Church because it is "universal, immutable, and non-vernacular.” And since Fr Hunwicke is most definitely on the side of universal, immutable, and non-vernacular, he ought to like St John XXIII, but that guy is actually Hitler (or something).

In yesterday's post, he then basically just reprints a Latin hymn to St Anne, no translation, as of course all his readers are naturally expected to be fully conversant with the universal, immutable, and non-vernacular. But they're nevertheless expected, apparently, to hurl anathema upon St John XXIII during the implicit Two Minutes Hate, at least when it suits Fr Hunwicke. I'm sure if anyone calls him on it (I receive copies of comments left on his blog that he won't approve), he'll excuse this in some way or other, oh, no, no, no. he never meant that at all. But isn't there, in the end, a sedevacantist subtext here?

Looking for a picture to use at the top of this post, I found it. Fr Longenecker had already used it in a 2016 post at his blog, where he quotes a traditionalist blogger who says,

. . . young advocates of traditional liturgy like me found ourselves heading to worship God every Sunday in the company of individuals who, as often as not, seemed dour and judgmental. They spoke in effusive terms when they described their Mass, but appeared pained when they actually attended it. No smiles ever seemed to touch their lips, and they would glare at women (like my wife) who would at times forget their chapel veils, or wear makeup, or fail to provide some means of instant corporal punishment at the first sign of a squirming toddler.

He himslf concludes,

[W]hy does there still have to be the sour, negativity, suspicion and persecution complex among some who call themselves traditionalist? . . . The more radical ones play the victim saying they are a persecuted minority, but they sure don’t mind loading their weapons and taking pot shots at everyone with whom they disagree.

The problem is that, in the current controversy, they wind up making Pope Francis's point for him. I think insecurity, based in part on their own uncertainties over Church teaching and a resulting overcompensation, is one cause of the suspicion and persecution complex among the trads. I can't disagree that the Latin mass thing has gotten out of hand.

Advice To Priests 5¢

Yesterday's post at Fr Hunwicke's blog is another that invites further analysis. It begins:

Dear Father

Thank you for your email about whether you are bound in conscience to adhere to Traditionis Custodes.

The answer is No; certainly Not; and No.

My first reaction is that he's making a big deal in public about how priests apparently seek him out for advice on issues of conscience. In this, he's echoing Fr Z, who even now apostrophizes colleagues on his blog to the effect of "Fathers: Remain steadfast" blah blah blah. Fr Z's issue is that, by trying to pull a fast one on the local bishop, he lost his faculties and is unlikely to get new ones anywhere else. Why would any priest take Fr Z's advice on anything?

If Fr Z had behaved with ordinary prudence, he likely would have been able to continue celebrating Latin masses in the Diocese of Madison, given the bishops' wide discretion under Traditionis Custodes. Now, he can't say it anywhere. Seems he can't even give good advice to himself. But Fr Hunwicke now wants to assume Fr Z's mantle, blogger to trads, counselor to priests in matters of conscience.

I have another problem I can't resolve in Fr Hunwicke's post. Who is the "Dear Father" who's sought his advice? (I don't rule out that this guy is a figment of Hunwicke's imagination.) Vocation directors and promising deacons and seminarians cycle through our parish, either in residence or as associates. As a result, I get some idea of the quality of priests who are ordained these days, how they're formed, and what's expected of them.

From the context in Fr Hunwicke's post, it appears that the priest is so deeply troubled that the wise Fr Hunwicke must refer in great detail to remarks by St Pius V at the front of his 1570 edition of the Missale Romanum. My reaction is to think what the real priests at our parish would say:

ME: Father, I'm deeply troubled by Traditioinis Custodes. Am I bound in conscience to adhere to it?

FATHER: (Quizzical expression) What was that?

ME: You know, Pope Francis's motu proprio on the Latin. . .

FATHER: Oh, right. I think I saw something about that. Well, the point is that we priests have to obey our bishop. That's just what we do. The bishop gives his instructions on how some priests are to celebrate the Latin mass. It only affects a few of us. Are you worried it might affect our parish?

ME: No, but I saw on a blog. . .

FATHER: Well, there are lots of blogs. I wouldn't worry. See you at mass!

I feel pretty certain that this is the exchange a more or less sane Catholic would have with 99.9% of Catholic priests, and it would be along the line of the trees are green and the sky is blue in its outline of reality. There's simply no need to go back to St Pius V.

But this still raises the question of the priest who e-mailed wise Fr Hunwicke with his question. A normal priest, whom I've come to recognize is no dummy, recognizes that, although it probably doesn't concern him at all, Traditionis Custodes simply returns authority over the Latin mass to the bishops, with a few additional limitations. Conscience has nothing to do with it. So what kind of priest would take this, not even to a colleague, but to wise Fr Hunwicke?

I think it would have to be (a) no priest at all, but a creation of wise Fr Hunwicke; (b) a thoroughly confused trad priest at the Fr Altman-Fr Z-level margin; or (c) an ordinariate priest. I would say that only an ordinariate priest would have the deep deficiencies in formation that would cause him to be so troubled over a non-issue and then refer it to wise Fr Hunwicke for resolution.

Neverthelss, I think the average visitor to Fr Hunwicke's blog, likely not a priest and certainly not one with his head screwed on, will be carried away with Hier stehe ich fantasies. This is simply not healthy.

Fr Hunwicke And Standup Comedy

When I was a lot younger, I had a friend who was an aspiring comic (he wound up working for American Greetings writing gag lines, so he had talent). I used to go to his routines on amateur night at the comedy clubs to support him, so I wound up learning a little about the business. One thing a comic has to do is put his best material up front and time it so the audience gets into the habit of laughing. Then he puts the not-so-funny stuff into the mix, and even if the joke is just "it rained last Tuesday", the audience still laughs.

Fr Hunwicke, as far as I can tell, is thought in some quarters to be funny. His problem is he ran out of good material years ago, but he keeps posting the C-minus stuff, day in, day out. Let's look at a random recent post, the one he had up yesterday, Der Fuehrerbefehl. A Fuehrerbefehl is an order from the Fuehrer, viz, Hitler. I assume he's drawing some sort of parallel between that and a motu proprio. ROTFL, huh? But then he starts off,

Many of you will be too young to remember the infamous events of 1962. They led to famine and public disorder; to mobs of crazed people jostling in the streets as they struggled in the queues to register for their unemployment benefit and for hand-outs of public foodstuffs. Gaunt and famished, in country after country the hungry men, driven to despair, protested in the only way they knew. The barricades ... the street massacres ...

The cruel decree Veterum Sapientia had ordered the sacking of thousands of men, and some women, from Catholic seminaries throughout the world. Papa Roncalli, "Good Pope John XXIII" as he had ironically been called, in full consciousness of His authority, Decreed and Commanded eight important rules. Rule 5 ordered that the major sacred sciences should be taught in Latin, that the professors of these sciences in universities or seminaries be required to speak Latin and to make use of textbooks written in Latin.

So my reaction was. "huh? wha?" Fr Hunwicke's timing was way off, first a Hitler joke that wasn't funny and then a pedantic detour into the alternate universe that had nothing to do with the Hitler joke. By the next paragraph, we learn this has something to do with "Good Pope John XXIII" (clearly uttered with a sneer), who is being characterized as something between Hitler and an out-of-touch fuddy-duddy. The general idea might work for a speaker trying to warm up a Klan meeting, but the references are too obscure, and the tone is too preciously literary, so it won't even work for the Klan, though comparing a pope to Hitler isn't a good strategy for Catholics, either.

(In fact, I went to Veterum Sapientia and found most of it unexceptionable):

As is laid down in Canon Law (can. 1364) or commanded by Our Predecessors, before Church students begin their ecclesiastical studies proper they shall be given a sufficiently lengthy course of instruction in Latin by highly competent masters, following a method designed to teach them the language with the utmost accuracy.

Fr Hunwicke himself affects a level of erudition that would only look down on anyone not fully competent in Latin. It would seem that, leaving his immediate personal agenda aside, there's little for him to disagree with otherwise here.

In fact, it appears there's little discussion on the web covering this particular constitution and its history, but it actually seems like an interesting case and worthy of real investigation, not summary dismissal. But we're back to Fr Hunwicke's alternate universe:

In Argentina, no bishop was more rigorous than Bishop Bergoglio in enforcing the decrees of S John XXIII. If ever he heard of a seminary professor giving a single lecture in Spanish rather than Latin, he was instantly on the phone demanding that the man be sacked. He had the reputation of being the strictest bishop in Latin America in implementing Veterum Sapientia.

Of course, nothing like this actually took place, and Hunwicke's point is obscure. A rhetorical journey ino the alternate universe must be apt. The problem for the metaphorical structure here is that Hitler is likened to John XXIII is likened to Francis, but the result is that the three figures merge into a single raging apocalyptic fuddy-duddy, which doesn't work. Wouldn't it be even a little easier to say flat-out that the Bishops of Rome are the Antichrist? There's a problem here, because a certain no-Popery is lurking behind this whole metaphor. Once you accept one pope as Hitler, you open Pandora's box. The nicest thing you can say about Hunwicke's argument is that it's shallow and puerile.

But then he gets to his overall point:

Our privilege today, in 2021, is that we are being given a very similar opportunity for total and unthinking obedience, Jesuit style. Pope Francis possesses precisely and exactly the same authority as S John XXIII. When he decrees the extermination of the Old Mass, that decree comes to us with precisely and exactly the same force as the requirement of S John XXIII that all Priestly Formation in seminaries should be done entirely in Latin ... er ... except that possibly a motu proprio may not have ...um ... quite the authority of an Apostolic Constitution ... er ... . I wouldn't know about that sort of thing; I'm only a 'convert'.

For starters, he makes two inaccurate assertions, or suggestionis, or whatever they are. He claims Francis "decrees the extermination of the Old Mass", which he clearly didn't; nobody says that. Nor (since I went back and read Veterum Sapientia) did John XXIII decree that "all Priestly Formation in seminaries should be done entirely in Latin", he wanted only the theology courses in Latin.

But here's the problem. Fr Hunwicke clearly doesn't like John XXIII; after all, he called the Second Council. He clearly doesn't like Francis, he's a tool of the globalists or something. But he likes Benedict XVI, because he issued Summorum Pontificum and Anglicanorum coetibus. So his point is that we should follow one set of apostolic constitutions/motu proprios but not another, apparently based entirely on whether he likes the pope involved.

This is meaningless. But more important for the point here, it isn't even funny. It's a lot of unfunny stuff inserted in the routine, when he hasn't got the audience into the habit or either laughing or nodding assent.

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