Fr. Z's Blog

Look. Ketchup is divinely revealed as a basic food group.  I get it.  I get it, in fact, by the demijohn.

But this has to stop.  Something must be done.   I cannot be silent.   If not I, who?  If not now, when?  If not here, where?  If not… those other things, then….  I digress.

Divine Revelation provides all things necessary for salvation and human flourishing. Human flourishing clearly includes French fries. And French fries, by natural law, demand ketchup, not mayo, not vinegar, ketchup. So, because whatever is necessary for the proper use of God-given foods is part of God’s providential plan and since ketchup is necessary for the proper use of French fries, which are clearly God-given, therefore, ketchup is part of God’s providential plan. This fact rises to the level of at least sententia certiora: a teaching “more certain” because all right-thinking people accept it without complaint. HENCE, ketchup is not merely a condiment, it is a basic food group, divinely intended, doctrinally secure, and pastorally indispensable.

Except when hot dogs are involved.

What God ordains for a specific purpose may not be distorted for an unholy purpose. But God ordained ketchup for French fries (and related potato-based delights… okay hamburgers, scrambled eggs sometimes, grilled cheese sandwiches perhaps), not for hot dogs.

Therefore, using ketchup on hot dogs is a distortion of divine purpose.

Furthermore, Tradition must be considered.

Across the ages, from baseball stadiums to parish cookouts, there exists a living magisterium of the grill in which mustard, onions, relish, and sauerkraut form the legitimate constellation of hot-dog condiments. Except in recent times (Get it?  After Vatican II!) ketchup is conspicuously absent as though Providence Itself decreed non licet.

This non licet is strengthened by negative revelation: no saint, Church Father, or approved apparition has ever endorsed ketchup on a hot dog. The silence is thunderous.

In NYC you eat hot dogs without committing heresy with mustard, kraut and some chopped onion.

In some places you can use chili, like in Cincinnati or at Coney Island. Detroit too, if I remember, but with mustard and onion.

You can travel the world and there will be ubiquitous mustard. But ketchup? For a guy who grew up in CHICAGO? Maybe in California… which figures… and Jesuit houses.

But CHICAGO?

In Chicago, you can do a lot of things to a hot dog, including “drag it through da garden” which means generally the addition of yellow mustard, chopped onions, a dill pickle, tomato slices, neon green relish, hot peppers, and celery salt.

Given the clarity of purpose, the witness of Tradition (NB: upper case T), and the sentiment of every self-respecting grill master, we may therefore state:

To put ketchup on a hot dog is contrary to divine revelation, and should be avoided under pain at least of raised eyebrows and tisking and blog posts.

Pastorality, however (NB: my use of a newly “walking together” neologism because I’m really trying communicate in a post-Conciliar Church… church… ), suggests that ketchup on hotdogs for children under the age of 10 as well as for Minnesotans … and Canadians… may be tolerated per modum dispensationis, but they should be catechized promptly.

This is where things get serious and I risk my ecclesial neck but retain my good conscience. Dear readers… everything I do is for YOU.   I am a river to my people.

Try to follow even if you are from Columbia Heights.

Now, Chicago TRADITION intensifies the situation. In that windy city, presently being punished by God according to St. John Eudes, the hot dog is treated with dogmatic reverence: mustard, onion, relish, tomato, sport peppers, celery salt, and a pickle spear. Never ketchup. To violate this is not merely a breach of taste, but an act akin to denial of doctrine taught de fide.

A heretic is one who obstinately denies or contradicts a truth held de fide. The doctrine that ketchup is divinely ordained for French fries (etc. ut supra) and forbidden on hot dogs has been established as at least sententia certiora, but the fact of the Traditio culinaria Chicagiensis introduces a qualitative distinction. Leo XIV, from Chicago, is bound by Tradition.   Who more than he?   When it comes to hot dogs he is bound by Traditio Chicagiensis. Therefore, he who obstinately places ketchup on a hot dog contradicts a truth held as de fide and stands on the brink of heresy.

But Leo PUBLICLY stated ketchupify for hot dogs.

This is not just offensive to pious ears, my dear readers. This is serious.

A Chicago-born Pope who knowingly and publicly endorses ketchupifying a hot dog (I’ll use bullet points to show I am being argumentative):

• rejects authentic tradition (Traditio culinaria Chicagiensis),
• defies the universal magisterium of street vendors,
• and, being from the south-side gives grave scandal to the faithful of both Wrigleyville and whatever it that other place is called now.

Therefore, such a pontiff could be accused of condimental heresy.

Important Clarification

If previous theological, traditional, and Chicagoan claims were not sufficient, we now appeal to the ultimate authority in all serious matters: Latin etymology.

In classical Latin, we find two distinct words:

Cónditor, from condo, cóndere (“founder, establisher, creator”) as in Cónditor alme siderum … Loving Creator of the stars.”   This is applied to God, and by extension (in a subordinate sense) to a Pope as guardian of what God has founded in the realm of doctrine.

But there is also Condítor — from condio, condíre (seasoner, one who spices or pickles, maker of condiments).

Though spelled the same, they belong to utterly different realms.

One is about creation and divine order.

The other is about adding relishes, etc. to … hot dogs.

The Pope, as successor of Peter, participates analogically in the role of Cónditor: the protector of what God has established, not the inventor of new culinary dogmas.

He is not a condítor (from condio) in the sense of “One who concocts condimental novelties.”

Nihil innovetur.

And so, the Pope, as Cónditor, must preserve what is established and not innovate in matters contrary to divine order.  But, declaring ketchup as desirable on hot dogs constitutes a condimental innovation proper only to a condítor.

ERGO, a Pope may not declare ketchup licit on hot dogs, lest he confuse his role as Cónditor with that of a condítor.

To do so would collapse the majestic office of the Supreme Pontiff into that of a rogue sandwich artist an inversion so grave it borders on .. don’t know what it borders on but it is not good.  Why?  Since in Chicago the hot dog’s proper “creation” (conditio) is mustard-based and universally received, a Pope from Chicago who introduces ketchup would violate the divinely implied ordo condimentorum, blur the ontological line between founding and flavoring, and effectively claim a power proper only to a lesser condítor, a mere condiment tinkerer.

Such confusion of offices is intolerable.

Therefore, by the witness of Latin, theology, and every hot-dog stand from Cicero Avenue to Wrigley Field, we declare that a Pope from Chicago must not even suggest ketchup on a hot dog, lest he betray his role as guardian of creation and descend into the heresy of condimental innovation.

Leo may bind and loose, but he mustn’t squeeze ketchup on a Vienna beef.

Does he have the power to put ketchup on a hot dog?   Yes, but he doesn’t have the moral authority to do so, just as Karl Rahner – who understood sausages with mustard and kraut – argued about abolishing the Eastern Rites, just as no Pope has the moral authority to suppress the Traditional Latin Mass.

Q.E.D.

To correct this scandal, I think the only path forward is that Pope Leo, during a trip to Chicago, must go to the NORTH side and order not just a “hot dog” but rather a Superdawg at… well… SUPERDAWG and tell them to drag it through the garden. If he want’s ketchup with his fries, great! That’s his job after all, to point us to divinely revealed truths and NOT this … other thing.