Gately's residency: the limpest dickless pap, done faithfully
the knee-stuff seemed like the limpest kind of dickless pap, and he felt like a true hypocrite just going through the knee-motions that he went through faithfully every A.M. and P.M., without fail
Context
The scene's core is the split the narration refuses to resolve away: Gately holds the prayers in total contempt AND does them without fail, and both halves stay true on the page at once. He finds the ritual "the limpest kind of dickless pap," feels like "a true hypocrite," can only get himself onto his knees "by pretending to look for his shoes" — and he "beseeched the ceiling and thanked the ceiling" twice a day anyway, treating "prayer like setting an oven-temp according to a box's direction." The register point is exact and it's what the roster flags: the profanity and the sincerity are not reconciled, they're held together. Irony isn't converted into belief; it's simply outlasted by practice. You keep the contempt and do the thing, and the doing is what counts.