Your convinced priest of the Old Guard can be a formidable adversary. An older man, saturated with the knowledge and convictions gained through decades of meditation on his Scripture and Tanquerey, his piety and sincerity arm him with disconcerting insights and as the Devil can descry the unworthy exorcist, so can the religieux de Dieu see through a phoney. And since he knows his manual of dogma inside and out, he knows his theology, at least classical theology. “Timeo virum unius libri.”
You must try never to be caught alone with such a man. You can’t be forced to speak with anyone but the police, so just brush him off. If trapped, simply refuse to take him seriously. Meet every one of his objections with a “ha, ha” and some facetious comment. Should you be embarrassed, there will be no witnesses.
Since we commonly mingle only with our own, if you should be braced by a “chump” with a question from the floor after a lecture or in a gathering, you can presume majority sympathy.
The correct and most effective tone to take is one of pitying condescension. We are the elite, the insiders now running the Church, whereas he is only one of the coolies.
Never let him force himself into the center of the circle. Keep him a bystander on the fringe, while your attention is given chiefly to a properly obsequious admirer as straight man or stooge. While the “chump” is within hearing distance, load your remarks with specialized terminology deriving from the Greek rather than the Latin: thus, not the Sanctus, but the Trisagion; not the invocation of the Holy Spirit, but the epiklesis; not Holy Communion, but the sacred Synaxis. The Gloria becomes the Greater Doxology; the Creed, the Symbol. We speak of recent developments in metatheology and diacritical theology. No need to be specific. Just get the words in.
If the “chump” quotes Scripture, refer to conflicting readings of the text in Codex Bezae and Sinaiticus. – “You do read Syriac?”
If he recalls his trip to Rome during the Marian Year, interrupt: You didn’t miss Athens, did you?”
Make remarks to your stooge showing possession of confidential information. Drop names. Oh, drop names.
“Was talking to Jack Wright the other day – the Cardinal, that is – and he told me the Sacred Congregation of Rites is thinking of putting the consecration before the offertory, right after the Confiteor …”
“Jim Casey – Denver, you know – heard rumors that Rome is experimenting with designs for new mass vestments to suit women priests. (Don’t breathe a word of this or Jim will never speak to me again!) Yes, an accordion-pleated chasuble edged with ruffles with just a touch of fine lace around the throat.”
“Ran into Jim Farley last week in the sauna at the Waldorf. He thinks McIntyre has had it. … Had a good talk with McIntyre last time I was in Hollywood, asked him what he thought of Jim Broderick to replace Cushing. I’d love to tell you what he said but I gave him my oath of secrecy.”
An occasional shocker helps: “Fellow came in yesterday, wants to be a nun. Yes! Transvestite, you know. I gave him a letter to the Good Shepherds. Hope the poor fellow makes out …”
These are only a few of the ploys and gambits found effective in banishing the bore. Your own resourcefulness will doubtless suggest many others.
[This booklet should certainly have been better circulated when written. Why was it not?
It bears every mark of clerical origin. It could well have cost its author his living, and probably his reputation. Let us suppose it had been circulated as a trial balloon among a select group of knowledgeable clerics also subject to destitution in retirement. Perhaps these constituted a sizeable portion of the priests who requested laicisation or simply quit. At any rate most of them would estimate their chances of successful opposition as rather unlikely in the corrupted Church. “I can do nothing about it.” How do you know unless you try?
You may accuse me of elitism – why could a layman not have done this? Obviously many laymen could. But most of them who cared enough to write it would have signed it.]