Dispatch from the BattleField (Part 1)

Friends and supporters,

Fear not! I have received email from several individuals concerned that, since our Vocations page has not been updated for a few weeks, that perhaps the entire Order had been captured by Modernists! First, let me assure thee that the Order would never be captured--ye might find our dead bodies inside a circle of slain heretics, but never would thee find us in a dungeon of the SPV2 community! We die with our swords in hand! A verbis ad verbera!

The reason that none of the brothers have been able to update the page is because the entire Order has been afield in a most daring, most secret raid. Thou may recall that I noted that the foul anti-Pope in Kansas was a most pressing danger to Truly Traditional Catholics? Well, not anymore! We have chased the foul heretic into hiding!

On August 6th, the Order received a Bull of Excommunication from the Anti-Pope Michael of the Vatican in Exile. I was so enraged that I promptly ran outside and hacked down a tree with my sword. To think that a foul apostate anti-Pope should think he even had the POWER to excommunicate a member of a holy Order of knights of the Truly True Church! The arrogance, the heresy, the nerve!! He must be made an example of! Otherwise, what lunancy could not be justified by that heretic, or the heretics at the SPV2?

Springing into action, I ordered the knights and postulants to break camp and saddle the horses. We were a bit low on horses (since, actually, I was the only one in possession of one) so I sent the postulants to commandeer the steeds from a local horse farm. We saddled up immediately and struck out for Delia, Kansas, where the fetid anti-Pope was holed up in his sprawling estate. We rode day and night, stopping only to demand vittles and supplies at swordpoint.

Finally, we arrived on a hill outside the anti-Pope's compound (a rusty doublewide trailer perched on the edge of a swamp) on the morning of the eighth day. The postulants were extremely weary, but my fellow knights were keen and alert. I sent Postulant Shamus O'Collins, a big strapping Irishman, as a messenger to the heretic. Imagine my joy when through my eyeglass I witnessed that the anti-pope himself answered the door, dressed in his bathrobe! The postulant exchanged words with the heretic, and pointed to our glorious battleforce. The heretic's eyes grew large with fear as he saw the sun glinting off the cold steel of an entire Order of fearless Truly Traditional Catholics!

The anti-pope gave young O'Collins a mighty shove, sending him careening backwards into one of the piles of rubbish that lay about the trailer. The heretic made a mad rush out of the Vatican-in-Exile to the papal carport, fumbling with the keys to his sagging '85 Ford Escort.

I smiled, drew my sword, and yelled "For Our Church, our Patroness, and the SSLI!" Sir Denzinger unfurled the flag of the Order as Postulant Giuseppe Francesca (Vincenzo would be proud of his nephew!) blew forth upon his trumpet. I kicked my steed forward, and with a mighty yell the rest of the Order followed, swords lofted high.

The anti-Pope fumbled his keys inside the car as the thundering of numerous horses bearing down upon him unnerved him. I was almost to the rusting automobile when he finally found the keys their home, slammed the transmission into reverse, and screeched backwards down his rutted dirt lane.

Spinning around, I ordered Sir Torquemada to take the postulants, ransack the heretic's papal apartments, and seize any useful papers that could be used at his heresy trial. After that, he was to set torch to the estate as a reminder of the price of heresy. I motioned to Sir Denzinger and we took off down the lane after the fleeing heretic.

The anti-pope, his face full of recognition of where his pretension to papal authority had landed him, reached the main highway moments before Sir Denzinger and I reached him. He flew out onto the paved road, made a huge U-turn, and hurtled off down the road. Without missing a beat, we brave knights gave him chase.

To be continued...