I got an email telling me to stop it at once! It’s a real gem. It’s from someone called Matt Wykoff. He tells me:
www.vaticancatholic.com I hereby declare- you to be – – an unlawful obstructionist. I order all those assembled to immediately disperse. I repeat- to immediately disperse. I order all your activity to immediately cease. I repeat-to immediately cease. It is not in accord with the ordinances of Canon Law. Due to your catalytic tendency of disseminating objectives adverse to Christendom – you are therefore ordered to discontinue your illegal profession. Failure to do so will result in proactive, responsive, and co-active measures. I judge, adjudge, adjudicate, deem, determine and declare your thoughts, words, actions, public or secret, and omissions, biological and spiritual property, subject to the Jurisdiction of the Unfathomable, Infinite, and Ineffable Excellence of OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST. Further, your humanist anachronism, obscurantism, absurdum, intent, mission, and schemes, are henceforth proscribed and condemned. You may be arrested and or subject to other police action!
It has so been declared: It is declared that all non-Catholic government exists in a state of inauthenticity. It is thenceforth declared that all modern constitutional states lack canonical legitimacy. It has therefore been thenceforth declared that their existence is an offense to the Divine Majesty and a crime against humanity. The aforesaid Freemasonic corporations are hereby declared anachronical to true human progress. It is decided in order for modern constitutional states to gain authenticity they must recognize the Supreme Jurisdiction of the Papacy and all Papal Dogmas. As a failure to do so will only inflame the Catholic against such blasphemous tyrannical backwards regimes. Lord God is due to make Visitation to such blighted and noxious governments and tyrannies. He will Visit the iniquities upon the infidels and the Anti-Church bigots. Terror will overtake the faces of the unwashed masses. These exquisite bigots against the Papacy will know that the Lord God Himself has done it. The infidel are richly fattened for such Visitation.
It is hereby determined. ‘Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo, et in terra’. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in Heaven. Libertarianism (and the constitution) are simply tyrannical failures and instruments that lead to false flag attacks and government-run pedophilia through their Manual (and Visual) Body-Cavity Searches of Juvenile Hall youth. A Catholic Monarchy simply is the answer to today’s varied and many problems. There is Absolutely No Salvation Outside the Catholic Church see www.vaticancatholic.com
I like it. I like all the orders. I like the claim that I may be arrested, also that he lectures me about libertarianism and freemasonry. I like the passive voice with the complete lack of an agent – “It is declared” – Ya mean, “I say”? Matt Wykoff says, and I don’t listen.
I know there’s a bit of a stigma on immediately calling Poe, but I’m finding it next-to-impossible not to. I am seriously expecting the sender of that email to comment here saying “just joking, Ophelia. Probably not as funny as I thought it was at the time. Sorry. Hope you can forgive me!”
Because if this person is serious, then Mabus has a legit competitor, and this person knows how to use big words and paragraph breaks!
I’ve seen that person level threats at other atheists. If that’s a Poe, it is a long-running version.
Wykoff asserts the authority of the Catholic Church. However he’s a follower of Michael Dimond, a sedevacantist who says all the Popes after Pius XII are anti-popes. Dimond and his half-dozen adherents claim to be the True Catholic Church and Pope Frank’s billion or so followers are non-Catholics.
Subject to other police action!
“It has therefore been thenceforth declared!” Jesus Christ. You just have to wonder how the world looks to these people.
Totally hilarious.
Perhaps it was intended to be serious, but it is hard to take it seriously.
That’s the exact email he sent P.Z. as well!
so new type of spam?
At the moment he is merely fantasizing about the day when he has the power to drag people down into his basement and punish them for not being like him. What happens when he comes across a potential victim and decides that this might be a good time to make things a bit more realistic?
Ed got this as well, back in March, PZ a few weeks ago. It seems to be accelerating here on FTB.
Whether a troll or for real, that’s some of the worst writing I’ve ever had the displeasure of reading. That’s the kind of email that can only be the result of a bad trip. Some people just can’t handle their hallucinogenic intoxicants.
Not quite the same email as the one PZ got; this one has paragraphs. Who says these bozos can’t learn?
Some of the way it’s written reminds me of the baroque legalize of the “sovereign citizen” movement. Not the exact vocabulary, but the use of what might appear to the writer as necessary legalistic terminology as a magic spell of sorts. As though saying “you suck and should go away” won’t work, but lengthy screeds will. Because magic words.
If all non-Catholic governments are declared illegitimate, then who’s going to arrest and prosecute you? The Swiss Guard and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly known as the Inquisition)?
Then you don’t understand 1) Poe’s law and B) the fact Poe’s law is a silly joke, very much in the spirit of Godwin’s.
A corollary to Poe’s law is “there’s no way to tell the difference between an honest claim and a joke”.
Part of me wants to suggest poking the animals by declaring their authority null and void. But these guys can be dangerous. Once you think you have authority from God, secular laws have no meaning. I’d contact the authorities about Matt Wykoff.
But his complaining about pedophilia while speaking on behalf of the Catholic church breaks the irony meter.
Eamon Knight::
I’m not expecting the Inquisition………
Not meaning to be a jerk here, but this guy needs all the pills.
Exactly.
Because nobody expects the Inquisition. After all, the second of their main weapons is surprise. In fact, those who do expect the Inquisition… are apparently denied a visit.
I can see why everyone else think this is hilarious, but it reads to me like the sort of manifesto Anders Brievik admired enough to cut and paste together declaring universal political truths as absolute reality, so I find it chilling rather than amusing.
According to “QI” and Stephen Fry…
“- Just about everyone expected Spanish Inquisition because you were given 30 days notice to prepare your case. It was set up in 1478 under the rule of Ferdinand and Isabella in order to find Jews who the Spanish believed had not truly converted to Christianity. You had to be Christian to stay in the country. This was a separate inquisition from the Papal one, which is still going but has changed its name over the years. In 1908 it became known as the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office; in 1965 it was the Congregation for the Doctorate of the Faith. The leader of it under Pope John Paul II was Cardinal Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI.”…
And if Stephen Fry says so it must be true.
Mister W-koff needs to be told “stop it or you’ll go blind”.
Psychopomp Gecko
Meh, you should have stopped there…
Initially this seems funny, but on further reading I find it chilling too.
@Ysidro – September 21, 2013 at 7:54 pm (UTC -7)
Good point. The screed does seem to come from a similar mentality to that of the “Sovereign Citizens”. The incantation-like nature of the screed also recalls the magical/legal beliefs of the “Redemption Movement“. I guess far right extremists think similarly?
Huh. A Catholic complaining about ‘obscurantism’.
<spoing!!!>
(Anachronism… Also interesting…)
Seriously, I begin to wonder if he even knows what half the stuff he’s put in his list of alleged crimes even is.
(/We deeply, deeply regret any anachronism committed, dude… But you do know it doesn’t mean we haven’t set our clocks precisely enough to network time, right?)
@23: Actually, Sovereign/Freemen theology (that’s the only word for it) includes Redemptionist ideas about the secret bank account. (Source: A talk at the local Skeptics a few months ago).
And they think Pius XII is the last ‘legit’ pope?
Read ‘Hitler’s Pope’ by John Cornwell, if you can bear the irony. Cornwell actually set out to write an exoneration of Pacelli. The facts wouldn’t permit it.
It had paragraphs, but I did tidy up the formatting a little, I suppose because I’m anal about it.
It is potentially chilling of course, but there are far more manifesto-issuers than there are people who go on shooting sprees, so…I find it funny for now.
johnthedrunkard @26
The sedevacantists believe that John XXIII committed the heresy of modernism with the reforms of the Vatican II council. These included a rational look at the Bible and dogma. Modernism is strongly influenced by Protestant theology (for instance, Luther’s sola scriptura) and the Enlightenment. The sedevacantists claim that no heretic can be pope.
The mainstream Catholic Church considers the sedevacanists to be heretics.
This is fairly chilling, except I’ve received these sorts of threats from people in other online spaces so it’s not really surprising. This doesn’t look like another Mabus though, this just looks like some sedevacantist kook to me????
I met Michael Dimond a few years ago and he told me about how they had served both John Paul II and Benedict with excommunication letters. I’m betting the letters read a lot like this.
I think the writer started with a copy of, literally, The Riot Act (the three-times abjuration to “disperse” is part of the language of acts that perform the function of a riot act: refusal to disperse is one of the key elements of a “riot”).
But then it all went horribly weird.
It is important for you to gain a proper appreciation for the sacred institution of the Holy and Universal Inquisition. It was necessary to restore normalcy back to Western Civilization. Martyrdom for the Christ is twofold: you must be willing to both die and kill for Christ. The Christ Dignity and Majesty does not and will not tolerate false religions nor their recognition by the state. It is not man’s right to worship false gods. The Popes have condemned and have thus declared it.