So What Have I Learned in 2012?

For those of us at St Mary of the Angels Hollywood, this has been an eventful year. My main task has been to make local sense of events as each has taken place, while trying to understand what the pattern has meant overall.

My wife and I started attending the parish in January 2011, almost exactly two years ago. This was after the parish had identified itself as Ordinariate-bound and after it had moved into the Patrimony of the Primate for protection from adverse actions by the ACA diocesan bishop. My initial motivation in going there was a particular issue: the rector of the Episcopal parish I'd attended for the past dozen years was heading for his second stay in rehab, his condition was more and more obvious, and I needed a break. St Mary's was close by and a possible alternative. Since it was ACA, I was dubious, but I held my nose and tried it out.

I'd gone through Episcopal confirmation about 1980, during the first controversies over St Mary's leaving TEC, and the various lawsuits, demonstrations, prayer vigils, and so forth then were on the local news (much more, in fact, than now). I'd asked questions about what was happening then during confirmation class. That TEC parish, in the snobbiest and stuffiest of Los Angeles's affluent neighborhoods, looked down its nose at the unseemly events at St Mary's, as did its clergy. Attempting to leave The Episcopal Church was not the thing that was done. I absorbed that attitude and avoided the splinter groups for 30 years afterward.

However, the growing controversies in TEC had become too much for me to ignore by the mid-1990s. I've gotten some heat for saying that the 1970s controversies over the ordination of women and the new prayer book were no longer controversial by the 1990s, but I stand by that assertion. By 1995 or so, the issue had become Bishop of Newark, NJ John Spong, his ordination of openly gay clergy, and his non-credal statements of belief. New groups of priests and parishes were mooting breakaway moves then, too.

I remember particularly one web-based essay at that time by an Episcopal priest who said that, while he held no brief for Spong, on balance, heresy was less bad than schism. I thought he was right. Spong actually had a heresy trial but was essentially acquitted for lack of evidence. An Episcopal priest who was a close friend of my family certainly thought this was unfortunate, but not the sort of thing that should drive people out of the church. I agreed there, too.

What I've seen in 2012 has convinced me one more time that heresy is less bad than schism. I never would have continued to attend St Mary's if it had been just another ACA parish. That its clergy and the great majority of parishioners wanted to go into the Ordinariate, on the other hand, was a point in its favor. Now that the parish rump is firmly back in the ACA with no intent of going into the Ordinariate, it simply restores my earlier instinct to hold my nose at the place. That instinct, Ordinariate aside, was completely correct. The Episcopal clergy who've influenced my views over a 30-year period were also correct. The St Louis-derived "continuing Anglican" denominations are tiny splinter groups made up of easy marks, nut cases, and anti-Catholics led by scoundrels. In their constant re-divisions and re-combinations they deserve each other.

While my wife and I have many friends at our former Episcopal parish, and we intend to visit there now and then, the exposure to the Catholic catechism we received when St Mary's was attempting its transition was enough to convince us that we needed to take that step in our spiritual growth. We're now going through the RCIA process at a local Catholic parish, which I've discovered has its own history of bitter controversy. We hope to be received at Easter.

At this point, we're middle-of-the-road Catholics. Someone else can fight for the Latin mass. The Ordinariate at St Mary's would have been a nice-to-have; the biggest thing we miss about being Episcopalians is the hymnal and the organ. On the other hand, a low Ordinariate mass with a sorry group of 25 is no more appealing than the ACA.

We look forward to what 2013 has in store.

Despite The Overall Tone of Mendacity

and tergiversation in Presiding Bishop Marsh's statement of December 26, one part of it rings true. If I were a juror obligated to determine the truth of what had happened, I'd say that one piece fits the rest of the jigsaw puzzle quite nicely:

Although I was not present at the signing of the Portsmouth Petition, Bishops Langberg and Williams signed for the ACA. The text of the petition was not publicized until months later. I did not know of the contents of that petition until it was delivered orally by Archbishop Falk at a meeting of several ACA bishops in 2008.

As a matter of fact, despite much searching on the web, I haven't been able to find a published text of the Portsmouth Letter earlier than January 27, 2010. The note accompanying the text on that blog says,

Though excerpts of this document have been released to the media, the full text has remained confidential pending a formal response from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith as is normal in such circumstances. As the CDF has formally responded to the TAC bishops and vicars general, it is now published exclusively on The Anglo-Catholic at the behest of Archbishop John Hepworth, Primate of the TAC.

So Marsh's statement appears to be credible as far as it goes. He had, though, been Suffragan Bishop of the Diocese of the Northeast since 2006 (he was not consecrated diocesan bishop until 2009, when Langberg retired). He had every need to know what was in that confidential document; Langberg, a signer, should have provided him with the text. Whatever the combination of Langberg's reticence and Marsh's incuriosity may have been, the result is telling.

Based on what we've learned from other accounts of how the Portsmouth Letter came together, this says something important about the dynamic within the Traditional Anglican Communion:

• In developing their original strategy for approaching the Vatican, Hepworth and the other Australians who worked with him recognized that they had nothing to bargain with. Thus they wanted to make it plain in the Portsmouth Letter that the Vatican would make all the decisions, assuming it made any decisions at all.
• In this alone, Hepworth was realistic. The Vatican is assumed to have a highly effective intelligence operation, and it must certainly have recognized that the TAC had nothing like the membership Hepworth was claiming for it, nor a priesthood or polity remotely worthy of the name.
• However, from numerous accounts, including this most recent one from Presiding Bishop Marsh, it appears to have suited both Hepworth and Falk to keep the actual terms of the approach, as expressed in the text of the Portsmouth Letter, confidential, while allowing interested parties to gain the impression that the request was actually for some unspecified type of "corporate union".
• Those parties, I would nevertheless say, were in the position of the mark who's easy to cheat. They wanted to hear that the Vatican was going to give things away, because they didn't want to pay the cost of coming by them honestly.

Building on what I've learned about both Hepworth and Falk, this is completely credible to me. Both of these prelates thrive in environments where they can tell one person one thing and another person another. (That's the polite way of putting it. Another way to put it would be that they are practiced liars.) Actually I don't have much faith in the integrity of the other bishops, either: Langberg and Marsh go on ecumenical cruises to the Greek islands together, after all.

Langberg was lucky enough to duck the issue of what Anglicanorum coetibus actually offered the TAC by retiring and leaving the issue of backing out of it to Marsh. Poor Williams was probably too ill, or too stupid, or both, to understand fully what he'd signed at Portsmouth, and his career ended on the wreckage of his diocese when the reality of the Apostolic Constitution became known. Actually, the same thing happened to Hepworth. Only Falk has been slippery enough to get away with his role in the disaster.

But this is the truth of the TAC and the ACA. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Fr Chadwick? Fr Smuts?

The Most Rev Brian Marsh Explains It All To You

Going through the remarkably unquestioning series of posts by Fr Chadwick on the current state of the Traditional Anglican Communion, I come upon this astonishing version of the Portsmouth Letter and the ACA's relationship to it by Presiding Bishop Marsh himself.

Although I was not present at the signing of the Portsmouth Petition, Bishops Langberg and Williams signed for the ACA. [The list is incomplete -- Campese, Moyer, and Falk also signed, all then ACA bishops. I suspect the omission is deliberate.] The text of the petition was not publicized until months later. I did not know of the contents of that petition until it was delivered orally by Archbishop Falk at a meeting of several ACA bishops in 2008. That meeting was held in Fort Worth. Also present were bishops Iker and Wantland of The Episcopal Church. Upon hearing the text, it was my impression that the petition sought “organic unity” with the Roman Catholic Church on a corporate basis. Indeed, that is what I and others had been led to believe was in fact on the table.

In other words, what went on in Portsmouth in 2007 was of so little interest to Marsh that he showed no curiosity about it until sometime in 2008, when he listened to an oral presentation from Louis Falk, and his version is that Falk and Hepworth misled him as to what was in it. I'm not going to disagree that Falk made a misleading presentation -- I've found other reason to question his credibility over Anglicanorum coetibus here. But Marsh's lack of curiosity is remarkable. Marsh goes on:

The Portsmouth Petition was just that – a petition. To suggest that it was a contract of any kind would be to misrepresent the intent of the document. The Portsmouth Petition was a request on the part of some members of the College of Bishops, a request for a means whereby the TAC might enter into unity with the RC Church.

The Vatican had no reason not to take the Portsmouth Letter seriously, and more importantly, parishes within the TAC who responded favorably had every reason to rely on Hepworth's eventually necessary assurance to them that they would be protected from the adverse actions of ACA bishops. (In the end, the ACA purged Hepworth, regained full control, and resumed adverse actions. But it wasn't a contract, so ordinary bad faith is OK!)

Then we have:

The signing of the Roman Catholic Catechism as the most complete statement of the catholic faith was simply a statement of fact. The subsequent statement that the bishops aspired to teach that catechism in no way implied their full acceptance of the catechism nor their intent or desire to become members of the Roman Catholic Church. While there were undoubtedly some bishops present who wished to do just that, the simple signing of the catechism does not imply their wish to become Roman Catholics.

This is meaningless and absurd. (I'm told that Bishop Strawn has given this version privately as well, so notwithstanding Marsh's assertion that he's speaking only for himself, this is apparently received ACA opinion.) The problem continues to be that ACA members had every reason to take the Portsmouth Letter as a good-faith expression of what the denomination intended. Marsh here has aleady acknowledged:

• He had little interest in the letter when it was issued;
• he didn't read it;
• he relied a year later on Falk's unreliable oral representation of what was in it;
• and as soon as it was convenient, he said it didn't mean anything anyhow.

He also minimizes the US Ordinariate as a good-faith result of the Portsmouth Letter. (Some, like Prof Tighe, will say that other influences also led to Anglicanorum coetibus, but nobody can say the Portsmouth Letter was unimportant.)

A few hundred “former Anglicans” have entered the Ordinariate established here, along with some former Episcopalians. . . . Although individuals are welcome to seek membership in the Ordinariates, until now few have chosen to do so. We certainly wish those who have entered Ordinariates godspeed! We pray that they will be happy with the choices they have made. We believe God has called us to labor in another part of the vineyard and we will attempt to do so as best we can.

Marsh is utterly misrepresenting the situation here. The number that has already entered the US Ordinariate seems to be between 1-2000, not far from the original estimate of Cardinal Wuerl in 2011, and probably equal to or larger than the entire ACA. Second, as Marsh must certainly be aware, the major focus of Anglicanorum coetibus was to allow Anglicans to become Catholics in groups, not only in parishes but conceivably in dioceses, and former ACA parishes -- some of its most important, in fact -- have indeed joined the Ordinariate on that basis. It's not just individuals, and not just a few!

But third, Marsh and the ACA most definitely have not wished them "godspeed"! The House of Bishops specifically read former ACA Bishop and Portsmouth Letter signer Louis Campese's Pro-Diocese out of the ACA in its letter of January 10, 2012 in decidedly non-conciliatory terms. It then proceeded to seize St Mary of the Angels Hollywood, another Ordinariate-bound parish, which had voted twice in accordance with its Bylaws to join the Ordinariate, and a third time to leave the ACA. It also excommunicated at least nine St Mary's parishioners who had favored the Ordinariate on the sole and spurious grounds of "abandonment of communion", presumably for the sin of wanting to join the Ordinariate. Godspeed indeed! (It's worth pointing out that the former ACA parishes that have gone into the Ordinariate were among the largest and most successful of a generally scrawny bunch. Even the 64 members in good standing of St Mary's prior to the excommunications placed it among the ACA's very largest.)

I simply don't know what game Fr Chadwick is playing here -- if I had to characterize it based on what I'm seeing, I might call it footsie. In his current series of posts on the TAC, he's giving thoroughly disreputable figures like Brian Marsh, who has officially expressed the ACA's complete confidence in the despicable Anthony Morello, an uncritical platform. If in his own complicated priestly journey he's painted himself into this particular corner, I can only offer a heavily qualified sympathy. But as the saying goes, he who sups with the devil best have a long spoon.

The TAC As An Epistemological Exercise

Fr Anthony Chadwick has undertaken a survey of the current Traditional Anglican Communion. This has been part of my intent here, but I have two differences of approach from Fr Chadwick. First, I'm not sure if it matters whether ACA Diocese A has 11 parishes or 12, and whether this totals 400 members-in-good-standing or 350. I see little moment in whether someone can eventually send a message in a bottle from the Torres Strait as to the current number of the worshippers there. As far as I can see, the worldwide membership of the Traditional Anglican Communion is, optimistically, about 3000. If on the off chance Fr Chadwick can assert "Aha, Bruce! Adding the now-verified numbers in South Africa to the newly-establilshed total at Torres Strait, the actual membership of the TAC faithful stands at 4,358! Thus do I confute you!" my response to that will be a yawn.

But second, while it doesn't make much difference which small number we're talking about, there are nevertheless serious issues of credibility here. The TAC prelates have been consistently dishonest about the actual size of the denomination. Fr Chadwick reposts a description from 2010 concerning the Anglican Church of India:

The Anglican Church of India consists of six dioceses: Lucknow, Chotanagpur, Amritsar, Madras, Travancore & Cochin and Nandiyal. The Indian Church uses the 1928 English Book of Common Prayer, the English Missal and the King James Bible. . . . The Diocese of Nandiyal has 41 congregations “with 2672 communities”.

Except that I've already cited here the first-hand account of a retired TAC priest of what he actually saw in India:

When I arrived .... I found out from +Prakash that I would be living in the "Diocese of Nandyal" - - unfortunately, there is only one "parish" here... and "here" is the village of Nandyal - around 300 km. due-south of Hyderabad - and the Bishop is the Rector..."parish" is his family, meeting in his [house]...and no English is spoken - only Telugu.

So which do I choose to believe? I've mentioned here my experience as a juror and the need to evaluate testimony to determine truth and falsehood. It is, in effect, an epistemological exercise, and commentators have pointed out that the accounts of the Gospels are similar, in that they give testimony about events, with those who hear them obligated to determine their truth. One statement, from someone connected with the TAC, insists that the Diocese of Nandyal or Nandiyal has 2672 communities that use the 1928 Book of Common Prayer and the KJV. An eyewitness says instead that the bishop and his family make up the entirety of this diocese, and that they have no English with which to read said BCP or KJV.

Here's how I have to approach this: I've discovered Archbishop Falk, one of two former Primates of the TAC, telling an apparent untruth via Anthony Morello, himself well thought of in the TAC, although his own reputation for veracity is not good. If, as a juror, I had to make a choice between the TAC's version of the Anglican Church of India and that of an eyewitness, I'd have to rely on what would almost certainly be the judge's instruction: if a witness tells a lie about one matter, jurors are entitled to assume the witness is telling lies about other matters.

I've been taking a close look at my experience with the ACA and the TAC over the past two years. I'm concluding that the TAC is basically a con game, and the current disputes are, in my view, largely the result of a collapse in temporary arrangements of convenience among thieves. On the other hand, as the saying goes, you can't cheat an honest man. If Fr Chadwick is now taking statements from demonstrably dishonest clerics in the TAC at face value -- and acknowledging that some of these clerics are in fact "despicable" -- it doesn't speak well for him. Fr Smuts, for that matter, is promising that Bishop Gill will get the South African totals to Fr Chadwick real soon now. We'll see.

Yesterday's Post

brought some unhappy reaction, and I want to clarify one or two things. First, I'm not endorsing gay conduct. On the other hand, no one since the Saviour and His Mother has been without sin. The Church deals with sin in several ways, in this life and the next. Exactly what happens to Christians who commit sexual sins, combine that with scandal, and then repent in however imperfect a way is something we don't know in this life. St Augustine fathered a child out of wedlock, his repentance from that and other sins appears to have been a matter of struggle throughout his life, yet the Church made him a saint, which as I understand it means that the Church is as certain as it can be that he's in heaven.

Last year I read a fasincating life of Christ by a peculiar Catholic figure, a Dominican priest named Raymond Leopold Bruckberger. I appreciate good writing, and I learned as much as I could about him via web searches. Here's part of an obituary:

He was both a revolutionary and a traditionalist, an iconoclast and a devoted believer. It must be added that he was at one and the same time a legendary, heroic figure and a ridiculous exhibitionist. . . . when the population of Paris first rose against the Germans on 19 August 1944, [he] became a familiar sight, cycling in his white Dominican robes which soon became black with smoke and dirt, going from one site of fighting to another, carrying out his missions as chaplain. . . . he tried to appease some of the more ferocious aspects of the settlement of accounts that was an inevitable part of the Liberation. Notably, when his old friend Darnand was condemned to death by the High Court of Paris in 1945, he attended him in his cell at Fresnes every morning until the day of his execution. . . . There were many quarrels: with the Pope over the Second Vatican Council, for example. There were many scandals, notably the presence of an American mistress named Barbara, or his holiday on the Greek islands with Albert Camus in 1958, when he dressed as a check-shirted cowboy. For some he became known as "the good-time monk".

I'm not endorsing mistresses, I'm not endorsing gay conduct. I'm not endorsing scandal. On the other hand, none of us is without sin, and even people of strong faith clearly have complex lives. It seems to me that one point of the Gospels is that we can't have certainty about how sin, repentance, and forgiveness operate. If we're forgiven when we repent, then why is there Purgatory? Did St Augustine spend time there? Is Bruckberger there, in hell, or in heaven? I have no idea. I have my own struggles; I do my best; I can't judge; I've made my own decision to become a Catholic, and one point I was making yesterday was that those who want to remain Protestant are buying into a whole bargain, one that overall I like less and less.

The "Continuing Anglican" Dilemma

I had an e-mail from a reader this morning who expressed some puzzlement about the whole question of what the focus was for the "continuing Anglican" movement that stemmed from the St Louis Declaration: the first ACNA, the ACC, the TAC, the FCC, the APA, so on and so forth: were they "broad" Anglican at the start? When did they begin to become "Anglo-Catholic"? In effect, what did they intend to do at first, and who was right in taking them in the "Anglo-Catholic" direction that led to further fractionation?

My short answer would be that this is probably not worth the time to try to figure out! Let's look at the issues over which the St Louis-derived groups left The Episcopal Church: women's ordination and the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. I referred earlier to an Episcopal priest who expressed the opinion half a dozen years ago (before the second ACNA split off) that women's ordination and the 1979 prayer book were no longer controversial except among tiny splinter groups, and he was completely correct.

The second ACNA left in effect due to the election of openly gay Bishop of New Hampshire Eugene Robinson. It continues to use the 1979 prayer book, and the ACNA has women priests. But to me, a gay bishop, self-admitted or not, isn't really an issue. The Roman Catholic Church has gay priests. Gay Catholic priests have come out, and although various forms of discipline have been applied, some continue in parishes. Same-sex attraction in and of itself is not a sin according to the Roman Catechism. I assume the Catholic Church has had bishops with same-sex attraction; I assume some of those may have sinned in that direction as well. Some Catholics, as Cardinal Dolan has pointed out, are even in jail.

I just don't see the specific problem with a gay bishop, open or otherwise. It may or may not be a good or bad example to believers; it may or may not be a scandal in and of itself. (It's certainly no more a scandal than the conduct of openly straight ACA Bishop Strawn.) "Gay bishop" is basically something for certain TEC parishes and certain dioceses to hang a hat on, and in turn, it's hard for me to see what gain is involved in hanging a hat on it. But beyond that, the much larger ACNA left TEC for a generally vague issue, or vague set of issues on a liberal-conservative divide, completely unrelated to the issues on which the small St Louis Declaration groups left 30 years earlier. Those issues by the mid-2000s were simply no longer controversial.

The Episcopal Church is generally identified as a main line Protestant denomination. Most main line denominations, along with Reform Judaism, have accepted women priests and rabbis. The 1979 Book of Common Prayer follows a general trend, not just among Protestants but in the post-Vatican II Catholic Church as well, to modernize liturgy and liberalize at least some theological positions. I simply don't see the problem: if we accept that The Episcopal Church is a main line Protestant denomination in the 21st century, we've got to accept that it will act like one, for better or worse. Deal with it!

The schism of the second ACNA is related in many ways to discomort in conservative quarters with same-sex attraction -- Bishop Robinson has been a major focus in all discourse related to it. This leads to a problem in Anglo-Catholicism: it has always had a special appeal to gays, and this dates to the beginning of the Oxford Movement. By no means the only author or the first to point this out, the highly respectable Diarmaid MacCulloch does discuss it in his A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years. While I came to St Mary of the Angels very late in the game (and I came from a largely gay, urban Anglo-Catholic Episcopal parish), I've been told by several current and former parishioners that St Mary's had, for much of its history, also been gay-friendly as part of its Anglo-Catholicism; a much-revered curate (now deceased) had been openly gay.

I've mentioned here the tendency among some Anglo-Catholics to want to shade the difference between the small-c "universal" catholicism of the Nicene Creed and the capital-C Catholicism of the Catechism. An additional problem is that Anglo-Catholicism now exists in a kind of pre-Vatican II time warp, since the Catholicism it emulates, with ad orientem celebration, subdeacons, bells, incense, copes, and birettas, is now very seldom encountered in Roman-rite parishes. In fact, Msgr Steenson, the US Ordinary, has had to tread a very careful path in maintaining a polite distance between the Ordinariate and those traditionalist Catholics who want a general return to pre-Vatican II liturgy, including the Latin mass.

The fact is that this brand of Anglo-Catholicism is a tough sell. Its appeal is specialized. And beyond that, the gay-friendly urban Anglo-Catholic TEC parishes are fully supportive of TEC's overall direction -- Anglo-Catholicism is by no means synonymous, or necessarily even compatible with, "continuing Anglicanism". It seems to me that it's hard enough to be a Catholic without having to be more Catholic than Vatican II! In general, I don't see a good future for either Anglo-Catholicism or the "evangelical" version of "continuing Anglicanism" that we see promoted at Virtue Online and elsewhere. If you want to be Protestant, well then, be Protestant and deal with it. If you want to be Catholic, well then, be Catholic and deal with it!

Of Christmas Carols, Candlelight Vigils, and the Police

I was chatting the other day with a reader who said this blog was fine as far as it went, but I hadn't done enough to cover some of the specific episodes of this past summer, such as the time when Anthony Morello, fully vested, presided over an event where several of his rump parishioners, assisted by hired security guards, physically shoved other parishioners out of the parish basement. (I'm told that police and fire personnel, who were present after this happened, asked of the fully vested Morello, "Is that the Pope?") There are two reasons I haven't been saying as much about this: one is that there are too many conflicting versions, and the other is that I want to avoid characterizing individual lay rank and file.

On the other hand, it's worth referring to the events surrounding the Friday evening prayer vigils that the now mostly excommunicated parishioners have held on the sidewalk outside the parish this past autumn, as well as the Christmas carol session they held on December 21. A copy of the flyer they distribute at the vigils can be found here.

The prayer vigils are, of course, just that, orderly demonstrations on public property. Most of the participants are in late middle age, normally about half a dozen of them, although I'm told that more than a dozen turned up on December 21 for the Christmas carols. It's an example of the hysteria surrounding the parish conflicts that the "senior warden" appointed by the ACA "priest in charge", Mrs Marilyn Bush, has called the police at least three times in an effort to stop these vigils.

When the police arrive, of course, they find nothing untoward, and the displaced parishioners are allowed to continue the exercise of their free-speech rights on public property. In fact, one LAPD officer noted a 1902 city ordinance, still in force, that specifically allows citizens to carry candles on public streets as an aid to navigation. At one point, in an effort to circumvent this, Mrs Bush reported that the half-dozen or so gray-haired parishioners involved were "lighting up", apparently implying that they were about to inhale controlled substances! On December 21, Mrs Bush called again in an attempt to stop the Christmas festivities, although by the time the police arrived, the carolers had proceeded to serenade residences farther down the street.

I have two questions here. One concerns the position of the newly designated "curate", Fr Nicholas Taylor, who lives on the premises. It appears that he's either unwilling or unable to exercise any responsible influence on Mrs Bush or other members of the rump-parish who are so hysterical that they're calling the police at the threat of quiet and peaceable prayer vigils outside the locked gates of the parish. My surmise is that every move Mrs Bush makes is closely coordinated with Anthony Morello, and since Taylor, as "curate", works for Morello, as "priest in charge", he's terrified of what might happen if he tried to impose any sort of sanity on the proceedings (that is, if he's even capable of recognizing what a sane approach to the circumstances might be).

The second question I have is about Mrs Bush, who is an octogenarian. What on earth does she do around that place all day? "I've called a couple of times and tried to talk to her," said one parishioner. "All they'll say is, 'She's in a meeting'. They must have a lot of meetings." Mrs Bush is a very sad case, but then, so is Fr Taylor. How can he claim to preach the Gospel on Sundays when he's utterly impotent to preach it by his actions on Friday evenings?

There Hasn't Been Much New

to post about, and I've been winding down for the holidays anyhow. Nevertheless, I note this about the "worldwide Traditional Anglican Communion" remnant in the UK. The totals given in the post and the comments involve 20 "parishes", of which according to a comment nine are small missions. The comment isn't completely clear, but it appears there are additional "parishes" in this total that have fewer than 50 members.

This is the story of the whole TAC, as far as I can see. The ques5tion that comes to my mind is who benefits. At the top of the pyramid, such as it is, people like the US ACA bishops are probably living fairly well. Cruises to the Greek islands aren't cheap. Others, like Anthony Morello, are doing better than they otherwise would. The people who don't benefit are the parishioners. Those who pledge are supporting marginal operations with little future, while some part of their pledges are also supporting "bishops" whose sees are smaller than many single parishes in main line Protestant denominations.

Christmas Digression

The station my car radio is normally set to plays The Jesus Christ Show when I'm driving to or from mass on Sundays, so I often listen. I keep listening for stuff to shake my head at, but so far, the program seems broadly based in its theology and basically intelligent. Yesterday, Neil Saavedra, the host, was talking about Santa Claus and arguing that, even though some variants of Christianity disapprove of Santa and other ostensibly pagan-originated aspects of Christmas, Santa is a type of Christ and a good vehicle for teaching children the meaning of Christmas.

This took me to the animated film The Polar Express, which my wife and I have on DVD and watch most years. Each time we see it, I see something more. Last year, it struck me that the Santa the children finally reach at the North Pole on Christmas Eve is anything but namby-pamby, and it's worth pointing out that when he appears, Frank Sinatra sings "You Better Watch Out", which is as good a substitute as any for an Advent carol. Beyond that, it also struck me this year that Santa's face is the face of an icon, but with a bushy white beard. Santa here is the Second Coming. It's all the more surprising in that the guy who wrote the book on which the film is based is a convert to Judaism.

This year it struck me as well that the various comical crises and emergencies that happen to the train on the way to the North Pole are a G-rated parallel to The Pilgrim's Progress. The film is sending a message that faith is a struggle. We need to get past the idea (Ms Gyapong and many others) that faith is something namby-pamby, something cutsie-pie, something to swoon over. I think the Enemy would prefer that we view frauds like the TAC and its bishops uncritically and not ask questions about such people.

Well, It Put My Traffic Up a Little,

but Ms Gyapong's post wound up as something of a disappointment -- 6 comments, only one that I thought was helpful:

The plain reality is that many congregations of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) are very small — no more than a handful of people. Here in North America and in England, the largest congregations — and many smaller congregations as well — have entered or are about to enter the Catholic Church, and the remnants are not large enough to be sustainable. In Australia, it’s not clear that there is a remnant.

I have a couple of observations on both the post and the comments. First, something may not matter to someone, but that doesn't mean it doesn't matter. Second, and Ms Gyapong seems to be referring to this theory of St Mary's in this post as well, I'd say that I got to know the people in the St Mary's majority (i.e., the ones who've been excommunicated and their friends) pretty well. They're mature, capable adults who hold, or have held, responsible jobs. They're not "wounded" or "tormented by demons". I would say they're doing what people knowledgeable in behavior and counseling would say is finding a constructive outlet for anger and frustration. If they're resilient enough to do that, they're resilient enough to put up with snarkiness. Don't condescend, Ms Gyapong, we aren't children, and the world isn't a nursery.

I'll Be Interested To See

what comes of this. I chatted the other day with an individual who came to St Mary's late in the game in 2011, who said "I wish I'd seen your blog before I started going there." Me too, me too. Regarding Hepworth, I've been moving toward the view that he was in fact the most honest of the bunch, since he was the one who worked to provide an honest exit via the Ordinariates. The others basically just want to keep the scam going.

I Referred The Other Day

to a faction among the St Mary of the Angels dissidents that thinks its denomination is "Angelican", and that a diocesan officer in said denomination is a "Cannon". It's worth pointing out, of course, that the ACA has done what it can to drive out or specifically excommunicate all in that parish but this enlightened group. While on one hand I can think of Groucho Marx's observation about the club that would have him as a member, on the other, I think this says something more about the split within Anglicanism and its "continuing" branch.

The bottom line is that people who are comfortable with truly egregious errors in spelling and usage don't expect much of themselves. The observation has been made in recent years, though, that the denominations that are growing are in fact the ones that expect more of their members -- Catholicism and Mormonism are the most frequently cited examples, but one less noticed is the Amish, which have also been growing. (Should it be a surprise that there are at least two popular television shows about the Amish? I watched Amish Mafia just the other night!) Nobody, by the way, sees a whole lot of future in the "continuing Anglicans".

At St Mary of the Angels, risking oversimplification, we might even delineate the factions as those who believe they are "Angelican" versus those who wanted to become Catholic -- in other words, those who expected little of themselves, versus those who expected more. It's apposite that Fr Kelley, bitterly unpopular among the "Angelicans", delivered a homily in 2011 suggesting that it was OK for us to expect a lot from God, because God expects a lot from us.

In looking at discusssions on "continuing Anglican" blogs and websites, I see a strain of opinion that tries to shade the difference between small-c catholic and capital-C Catholic. It's worth pointing out that I heard exactly the same explanation of small-c versus captial-C in my Presbyterian confirmation class in my early teens and in my RCIA confirmation class a month or so ago: both Protestants and Catholics see a small-c in the "holy catholic church" of the Nicene creed. Both say small-c catholic is universal, something bigger than the denomination led by the Bishop of Rome. Capital-C Catholic is the part of the universal church headquartered in the Vatican. This is not controversial at all.

Yet time after time, I see "continuing Anglican" bloggers trying to argue that you can somehow be capital-C Catholic without ascribing to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which among other things makes claims for the authority of the Pope. No. These people are pretending that small-c catholic is the same as capital-C Catholic. This is like claiming that there's no difference between referring to John and referring to a john. Words mean something.

I think the basic difference here is one of conscience, which is probably just a variation of what people expect of themselves. Many in the ACA hierarchy seem to think it's OK to abuse their canons and tell lies -- they don't expect much of themselves, and they seem to have squared this with their consciences as well. I think this goes to a basic flaw in the reasoning behind "continuing Anglicanism", and it may also be at the root of the near-hysterical anti-Catholicism that often seems to accompany that school of thought.

The Presbyterianism of my childhood and adolescence did not, I fear, survive an elite-school education, and I didn't return to the Church until I was well into adulthood. I went to an Episcopal confirmation class about 1980 right when the first controversy over St Mary of the Angels was on the local TV news. "I don't understand," I asked the Episcopal priest leading the class, "What do these people mean by 'Anglo-Catholicism'?"

"You know what they are?" he answered. "These are people who want to claim they're Catholics without actually paying the dues you have to pay to be a Catholic."

Over the years since then, no matter how I've turned it over, and I've thought about it many times, I've never been able to get away from the fact that he was right.

So Let's Revisit

the actual size of the "worldwide Traditional Anglican Communion" in light of the firsthand account from India that the TAC franchise there is essentially nonexistent, as well as his observation that any TAC membership numbers are unreliable. The actual numbers of the churches where membership is non-trivial goes, as far as I can tell, something like this: Canada, less than 500. Australia, 400. South Africa, while I haven't seen any official figure or estimate at all, I'm going to put at 400 to make it comparable to Australia and Canada. I had previously estimated US membership at 2300, based on what I'm increasingly seeing as very generous averages of 19 members per mission and 60 members per parish, when even such an important parish as St Aidan's Des Moines has only 25. To be a little more consistent with the best-available estimates for the other national franchises, I'm going to lower my estimate of US membership to 1500.

It seems to me that, especially with former TAC parishes in the UK going into the Ordinariate there, we can probably say that each of the other provinces, in places like India, the UK, other Asian and African countries, and Latin America, has membership totals that are simply trivial. This means that a realistic estimate of actual TAC worldwide membership would be in the range of 2500-3000. Wikipedia still cites a membership, "from the TAC itself", of 400,000. I would go so far as to say that this number passes from wild exaggeration to actual fraud. I would suggest that for Fr Smuts to pass himself off as a "priest" in such a tiny and corrupt denomination, implying from his blog content that he's somehow in the same league as Catholics or mainstream Anglicans, is also fraudulent. It seems to me that he's got to do more to separate himself not just from Hepworth (who seems to be merely a TAC scapegoat), but from Prakash, Marsh, Falk, Strawn, Morello, and the rest of the whole sleazy crew.

I challenge Fr Smuts to respond.

More on the Empty Shell

that is the "worldwide Traditional Anglican Communion". I had an e-mail exchange with a retired TAC/ACA priest who went to India. I've been curious about the size of the Anglican Church of India, the TAC India franchise under the current "acting Primate", Samuel Prakash. The priest replied,

[E]very "number" I have ever seen published by the TAC or any member church has been greatly inflated or totally falsified from the beginning ... I have actually never seen any "church" here whatsoever - it's like a ghost.

The reason I decided to transfer my canonical residency to the TAC Church of India was because I fully expected to find an organized, thriving church here under Archbishop Samuel Prakash. A [thriving] group of TEC'ers poised and ready to enter the Ordinariate. +Hepworth was going to make a trip here (to Delhi, where +Prakash is located) in November of 2010. I was invited to go. I was told so by none-other-than +Hepworth during several Skype conversations. That meeting never took place.

When I arrived .... I found out from +Prakash that I would be living in the "Diocese of Nandyal" - - unfortunately, there is only one "parish" here... and "here" is the village of Nandyal - around 300 km. due-south of Hyderabad - and the Bishop is the Rector..."parish" is his family, meeting in his [house]...and no English is spoken - only Telugu.

Curious as to the state of affairs there, I went to the Anglican Church of India's website and found the following:

The following members were removed from the Anglican Church of India (CIPBC) in accordance to the Constitution, Canons, and Rules of the Anglican Church. John Augustine, Gabriel Buxla, Johnson T. John, and Suraj Mashih for their self interest. Such persons spread rumour against the highest office of the Metropolitan. Some say that Archbishop Samuel P. Prakash is no more, or he is serious in bed and all of them claim to replace the Most Rev Samuel P. Prakash,Metropolitan (sic). They misguide the Government offices and general public. We mustbe (sic) careful from these persons who are claiming to be Anglican leaders only to sell the dedicated and consecrated Anglican church properties in their own interest. They are defeated in Court cases up to the High Court and Supreme of India.

Seems like things are going about the same in India as in Hollywood, huh? We mustbe careful from these persons who are claiming to be Anglican leaders indeed.

This Speaks Volumes

The updated website for the St Mary of the Angels new regime is here. Whenever they catch on -- which may be quickly or not, as these folks are somewhat slow on the uptake, a copy of what they put up for those on Facebook is here.

YOU ARE INVITED TO ST. MARY OF THE ANGELS ANGELICAN [sic] CHURCH SERVICES

Farther down:

The Reverend Cannon [sic] Anthony J. Morello, Priest in Charge

They can't even spell the name of their denomination, and they don't know what a canon is. (Maybe they think it's a big deal to name somebody for a gun? Or maybe a towel? I dunno.) Er, did Morello review this? (Once I generously performed their review and proofreading for them, they did update their site, although as I write this, Morello is still a Cannon. The facebook version is still as originally posted.)

As some folks have pointed out, it's an honor to be excommunicated from this bunch.

Who Is Louis Falk? -- III

In my research into the ACA/TAC bishops, I've come up over and over again with the impression that acting in bad faith and sudden, radical reverses are nothing unusual for them. We started here with the bishops who signed the Portsmouth Letter and then changed their minds. But then I ran into this post at The Anglican Continuum regarding a statement by Archbishop Falk:

Archbishop Louis Falk of the Anglican Church in America has issued a statement on the website of that jurisdiction concerning a set of "complementary norms" allegedly in addition to the Norms already stated in the new Apostolic Constitution, Anglicanorum Coetibus. In it he has said the following [italics in original]:

"An initial set of Complementary Norms has been issued by the Confraternity [sic] for the Doctrine of the Faith, which we be [sic] discussed in detail by representatives of that body and of the TAC College of Bishops within the near future. We are now asking members of the ACA (and other TAC provinces) to study the Norms and then pose such question [sic] as may occur. (Some already have, such as: Question: Will we be able to continue to have married priests indefinitely? Answer: Yes. Question: Will those of us who were formerly Roman Catholics be excluded from the Anglican Ordinariates? Answer No. Question: Will we loose control over our Church finances and property? Answer: No) There will be more. These can be sent to your own Bishop, and he will see that they get to the appropriate TAC representatives. Your concerns, as well as your thoughts and prayers, are an essential element and a vital part of this process."

Up until this whole business started I have tried to be "ecumenical" and to hope for some sign of good faith from the ACA/TAC. Sadly, I must state very bluntly that it is very obvious that what Archbishop Falk has promised his people in this statement cannot be reconciled to the new constitution. We have read the constitution put forth by Rome. I stand by all the essays written heretofore both by Rev. Canon Charles Nalls, and by myself. I do not know why these promises are written on the ACA website, but I know that Rome cannot grant these "complementary norms" and also implement the new constitution; neither could Rome grant these "complementary norms" without first undertaking a major overhaul of its Canon Laws and establishing in their place new polity.

I may be placing a target on my back, but I must protest: The statement of Archbishop Falk cannot be true. Why are they doing this? What is the purpose? That I cannot answer: But I can read the Apostolic Constitution for myself, with the added advantage of understanding Roman Catholicism and specifically the Pastoral Provisions to the boundary line, the limits to which it has been extended. The reality does not match the rhetoric.

If you go to that post, the comments are illuminating as well: nobody can figure out what set of "norms" Falk is referring to, and they think he may have made something up out of whole cloth!

The statement by Falk linked in that piece no longer appears on the ACA web site, for whatever that's worth. It appears that some of the opinions Falk gives either oversimplify the situation or misstate it completely. There is no question, for instance, that parishes that go into the Ordinariate with property do surrender a great deal of control to the Ordinary and the Catholic diocese. Married clergy are approved on a case-by-case basis, and those with prior marriages would need to receive annulments. Former Catholic priests are never re-ordained. Catholics already baptized outside the Ordinariate aren't usually eligible to become full members, although they may certainly attend mass at any Catholic parish, including Ordinariate.

Put in the context of my posts over the last several days, I think this suggests several things about Falk. First, he simply doesn't let the truth get in the way of anything he says. This probably goes along with a tendency to tell people what they want to hear. If, in yesterday's case, Morello wanted Falk to say he'd never offered episcopal authority over St Mary's, he was happy to say it. If, a few months later, he was sworn to tell the truth under oath, well, then, he'd tell the truth.

The statement above, from 2009, was presumably made to try to calm the growing dissatisfaction within the TAC regarding Anglicanorum coetibus and the fact that the tiny TAC, not having asked for any special deal from the Vatican, wasn't going to get one. (It's also worth pointing out that Falk, retired as a bishop since 2007, was still meddling at will in ACA affairs.) It also appears to be a somewhat bleary attempt to shade the issue. Tell everyone something like what they want to hear and sort it all out later -- I've had bosses like that. The problem is that eventually, you've got to face the fact that not everyone is going to get what they thought, and that becomes an obstacle down the road.

My surmise is that this is a credible explanation for what happened at St Aidan's Des Moines. I've heard accounts of events from various sources, but I want to stress that none of those sources was Fr Seraiah. It appears that things went pretty much as you'd expect: people were considering becoming Catholics. Some of them had impediments, like divorces and remarriages, that would make the process difficult or impossible. In fact, the law of small numbers would say that in a sample size as small as the 25 members of St Aidan's, you were going to get a higher-than-expected proportion of special cases. Just a few families where a divorce and remarriage is involved create an outsized problem. Someone should have had a plan for dealing with this, or perhaps someone should have thought it wasn't a good idea for St Aidan's to have applied in the first place.

Nevertheless, none of these potential impediments was a secret to anyone. But if we follow the pattern we seem to see with Archbishop Falk, he would have done everything he could to shade the issue, tell people it would be different under the Ordinariate, or whatever. I know nothing about the situation in which this placed Fr Seraiah, who sincerely intended to become Catholic and did enter the Ordinariate as a priest earlier this year, but I assume there had to have been conflicts between what Falk was telling people and what he felt he could honestly say.

In the end, as I understand things, it appears that the parish was sufficiently confused between what Falk was telling them and what they were hearing anywhere else that they called Msgr Steenson up to Des Moines to make things clear, and that in effect was the end of any fairy tales -- the parish voted overwhelmingly to stay out. It sounds as though the parish may have blamed Steenson or Seraiah for the outcome, rather than where the blame belonged.

Commenters at Fr Chadwick's blog, unhappy at this series of posts, have accused me of "McCarthytism", although nobody's sure what that means any more, and some figures, such as Alger Hiss, were demonstrably Stalinist spies and proven in court to be liars. McCarthy was an alcoholic opportunist; Hiss and the Rosenbergs were Stalinist spies, and McCarthy's antics never made them less what they were. People have to make up their own minds.

Fr Chadwick comments,

I met Archbishop Falk in Portsmouth in October 2007 and found him to be a very pleasant fellow and worthy of respect. I don’t know what happened to make him not go through with application to the Ordinariate. I suspect he smelled a rat. Who knows?

Of course Falk is a very pleasant fellow when you meet him. Some folks are like that -- they tell you what you want to hear; that's one of the points I've been making. But that always just hides their own agenda. I suspect Falk never seriously intended to go into the Ordinariate; he was always just working both sides until, once Steenson turned up in Des Moines and told his flock what he'd been unwilling to tell them, he couldn't do it any more. Then nobody can figure out what happened! Falk seems to me basically a con artist, hardly a bishop.

Who Is Louis Falk? -- II

The choreography of events in December 2011 and January 2012 is intricate. From the remarks of the St Mary's anti-Ordinariate dissidents in December, they went with their concerns to Archbishop Falk. From the remarks of Msgr Stetson in January, either Cardinal Wuerl (prior to January 1) or the Ordinary (after January 1) listened to Falk and acted on whatever unspecified issues he raised. Certainly one issue was whether the May 1, 2011 vote to join the Ordinariate was valid; the parish re-voted in late January with the same result, over 80% in favor.

The record also shows that Bishop Stephen Strawn was involved in these events during this time. The timeline on the Freedom for St Mary site says that on January 10, 2012, Strawn "stayed away from a secret meeting with some Vestry when informed by Patrimony’s Bishop Moyer that he had no Jurisdiction over, no interest in, nor business with St Mary of the Angels." On that same date, however, the ACA House of Bishops announced that ". . . the Patrimony of the Primate has, with the erection of the Ordinariate, ceased its operations within the United States as of January 1, 2012."

By their own remarks, the dissidents indicated they had been trying to go around Moyer. They clearly worked with Falk to do this. Meanwhile, Strawn had been making a parallel effort to meet with the dissidents. It's very hard for me to think that there was no coordination between Strawn and Falk in this process, especially considering the resolution of the ACA House of Bishops dissolving the Patrimony on the same day that Strawn was prevented by Moyer from meeting with the dissidents. The entire ACA House of Bishops was involved. How could Falk not have been complicit in all these actions?

On the other hand, in its resolution of January 10, the ACA House of Bishops was explicit in casting the approximately 29 parishes of the US Patrimony of the Primate into ecclesiastical limbo:

Given that the American Ordinariate was erected on January 1, 2012, the term of the Patrimony of the Primae [sic] has thus lapsed. Those who were formerly part of the Patrimony of the Primate must now make a decision regarding their future jurisdiction. Anyone, whether clergy or laity, who may now wish to return to the Anglican Church in America, should do so by contacting the diocesan bishop in their area.

In other words, nobody was in charge of St Mary's after January 1, 2012, since the ACA had dissolved the Patrimony, and the Ordinariate was delaying its reception of the parish. Although Bishop Strawn was made Episcopal Visitor to the ACA Diocese of the West following the retirement of Daren Williams in 2010, he'd had no episcopal authority over the Patrimony of the Primate, and since St Mary's had not (per the directive in the House of Bishops January 10 resolution) contacted him following the dissolution of the Patrimony, it still wasn't under his authority.

But what was Falk's involvement in December? A clerical observer who'd been in the Patrimony told me, "Once we were in the Patrimony, I often had questions myself as to precisely who was our bishop at any given time. Was it Bp. Moyer, or Abp. Falk, or Abp. Hepworth? It seemed to be a moving target." Clearly lines of authority in the ACA are what anyone who can get away with it says they are at the time -- we've already seen that. In an interview with Fr Kelley following Strawn's inhibition of him, David Virtue reported,

A source has told VOL that Fr. Kelley would not comply with the inhibition "because God told me" and because he does not recognize Bishop Strawn as his bishop.

Kelley told VOL that Bishop Louis Falk is his bishop. Falk is the former Primate of the Anglican Church in America and is Bishop Ordinary of the Diocese of the Missouri Valley. [Virtue got that fact wrong; Falk had left that post in 2007, replaced by Strawn.]

Regarding the first part of that, if I'd been Kelley, I'd have been trying to get through to God myself. It appears from the account above, though, that other clergy in the Patrimony had also been confused as to who was actually in charge. However, at the end of the article, Virtue added (bold in the original),

Addendum to this story. We have just received word from the Canon to the Ordinary who received a letter from Bishop Falk stating that he was not asked nor did he offer [e]piscopal oversight to Fr. Kelley or St. Mary of the Angels.

The Canon to the Ordinary was, of course, Anthony Morello, and this serves simply as another example of how the ACA operates: it tells its lies through Morello. Falk told the Los Angeles Superior Court in June 2012:

In November 2010, St. Mary’s, specifically Father Kelley, contacted me seeking my episcopal care of the St. Mary Parish instead of and in place of Bishop Darren K. Williams, then presiding as Bishop of the DOW. The reason Father Kelley gave to me for asking that I do this was that Bishop Williams was growing increasingly hostile towards Parishes considering leaving the DOW in order to join the Ordinariate. After discussing the concerns in great detail with Father Kelley, I telephoned Bishop Moyer and asked him if he would accept St. Mary’s into the Patrimony. Bishop Moyer told me that he would. I then told Father Kelley that the St. Mary Vestry, with the consent and approval of the Parishioners, should write to Bishop Williams and seek a discharge from the DOW and a release into my episcopal oversight, which would then allow me to release St. Mary’s into the Patrimony, and under the control and authority of Bishop Moyer.

Beyond that, if Falk never offered episcopal oversight, what sort of oversight were the dissidents who sought him out in December 2011 expecting? Moyer chased Strawn off the case for the reason that St Mary's wasn't in his see. Yet Falk, although he was retired, clearly felt he had the authority to transfer St Mary's to Moyer's jurisdiction -- but he says he never offered episcopal oversight! I see. The St Mary's dissidents, not satisfied with Moyer's inaction on the Kelley issue, clearly felt they had to go over Moyer's head. And how did Falk see this? Clearly he felt entitled to intervene. How on earth did this differ from being asked or offering episcopal oversight? What's he going to try to say? -- "Er, I wasn't being asked to provide episcopal oversight, I was just doing a little freelance meddling where I didn't belong." Falk via Morello is simply playing word games here, or maybe more simply, he's telling a lie.

And in what matter was he intervening? Was it over Moyer's refusal to assist in removing Kelley as Rector? Why borrow trouble? Once the Ordinariate took over St Mary's, theoretically in a matter of weeks, two things would have happened. One was that Fr Kelley would have immediately become a layman, since he hadn't gone through the Catholic ordination process. He would not be Rector, period. Steenson would have appointed a temporary Catholic chaplain for the parish. Second, Kelley's eventual ordination and reappointment would have been completely at the discretion of the Ordinary, who would have been free to do all the investigating he wanted and make up his mind about Kelley at his leisure. If Falk had been solely concerned about Kelley's suitability as a priest, all he had to do was nothing, and the matter would have been in Steenson's lap, with any blame, bitterness, or controversy going to him, not the ACA.

The only interpretation I can draw of Falk's involvement is this:

1. The St Mary's dissidents effectively sought Falk's episcopal authority, requesting that he override Moyer in a situation where lines of authority were unclear
2. The issue was not Kelley at all; the issue was that the dissidents wanted to reverse the May 1, 2011 80% vote for the Ordinariate
3. Falk provided what was effectively episcopal prestige in intervening with the Ordinariate to delay the parish's acceptance, despite any denials
4. Falk in this matter was clearly complicit in engineering the same objectives that Strawn and Marsh had in mind, viz, keeping the St Mary of the Angels income and property for the ACA.

Nor is Falk apparently the least bit squeamish about working through Anthony Morello. Birds of a feather. But here's another question: if all the evidence we see suggests that Falk was coordinating his efforts with the parish dissidents, Strawn, Marsh, and presumably Morello to keep St Mary of the Angels out of the Ordinariate and preserve its property and income for the ACA, then how sincere was he in wanting his home parish, St Aidan's Des Moines, to go into the Ordinariate? Did he have a conflict of interest there, and could that have had an effect on the craziness in Iowa?

More to come.

Who Is Louis Falk? -- I

Louis Falk has been involved in the St Mary's fiasco from the start, and it's a thread in the story that now looks like I need to tug on it to see what else it pulls out. Last week I expressed only the most recent of my puzzlements over this guy: how was it that he was somehow Mr Let's All Become Catholic, but his own tiny parish voted overwhelmingly not to do that? It had also bothered me slightly -- let's say, out of the corner of my eye -- that in electing to go back to the ACA, Falk and his parish saw no problem going back under the thoroughly unreliable Bishop Stephen Strawn. Then once I realized that the ACA House of Bishops fully endorsed and encouraged Anthony Morello's large-scale misuse of excommunication to manipulate a parish majority, I wondered again who Louis Falk is.

Falk's bio on Wikipedia gives some basics -- born 1935, BA from Lawrence University, MDiv from Nashotah House, ordained an Episcopal priest in 1962. Then for some unspecified reason he left the Episcopal priesthood and went into business. It's worth pointing out that this must have been well before the issues of women's ordination and the 1979 prayer book drove small groups out of TEC in the 1970s -- he left TEC when it was a liberal Protestant denomination hardly distinguishable in its social policy from any other, or indeed, from the Catholic Church (all, for instance, supported the Civil Rights movement).

Then at some point in the late 1970s, presumably soon after the St Louis Declaration, he changed careers again and became rector of the tiny prefab mock-Tudor St Aidan's Des Moines, maximum occupancy 60, current membership 25, where he's been ever since in one or another capacity. From that base, he rose rapidly to become Primate of the Anglican Church in America (membership at any time optimistically in the low-to-mid four figures) and the "worldwide Traditional Anglican Communion" (membership not a whole lot more). I would suggest there's a very great deal we don't know.

I've heard good things about Falk from several clergy. I don't think it damages Fr Kelley's reputation to relate a comment he once made to me that Falk is a "holy man" not like the "scoundrels" Strawn and Marsh. The Rector of St Stephen's Athens TX said, referring to some ACA figures, "I respect, honor, and love . . . my ordaining bishop Louis Falk (without whom I never would have joined the ACA). . ." Just today I heard from a clerical observer who said, "Abp. Falk has a relatively pure heart. He has been cooperative with Fr. [Kelley] in his and your quest to retain control of St. Mary's temporalities."

I've done jury duty a couple of times. One thing I began to see from sitting on juries, charged officially with finding facts in particular cases, was that in evaluating evidence, a funny thing happened. I'd hear some testimony, and I'd try to match it with other testimony. Sometimes a single piece of testimony would pop out because, like a piece in a jigsaw puzzle, it wouldn't fit, no matter which way I turned it. I'd try it one way, then another. I'd go home and think about it. I'd wake up in the middle of the night and try it yet another way -- and it would never quite fit. Those pieces that wouldn't fit, I slowly began to understand, were lies. My job, as it happened, was to be one of 12 people who had to figure out which pieces of testimony were lies. And so I have some experience with lies, and I can't help thinking about just that in the context of Archbishop Falk -- I'm sorry to say this, Fathers, but hold on, let's find an usher and put on our crash helmets. We're going to talk about Falk.

Prior to December 2011, I had just the normal view of Falk, a venerable retired prelate, mentioned weekly in the prayers. But then that December I wound up in a heated discussion with members of the small anti-Ordinariate minority at St Mary's. "We're going to stop this!" one of them said to me. "We're going to Falk!"

(Huh? I thought. Falk?) "Huh?" I asked. "Falk? Falk's retired. He's a lame duck anyhow -- we go into the Ordinariate in a few weeks. What's Falk got to do with it?"

"You can get a lot done even with a lame duck," was the reply. I filed this, but as far as I knew, St Mary's had been told that it would be received into the Catholic Church during the first weeks of January 2012.

Except that, of course, it wasn't. The date was never firm; we were supposed to be making first confessions prior to that, and I began to ask when and how this would take place, but nobody quite knew. Then we learned the whole thing had been indefinitely postponed. Instead, a parish meeting was called for January 22, 2012, at which Msgr William Stetson, who was the representative of the newly-appointed Ordinary, Msgr Steenson, spoke and answered our questions. "Archbishop Falk contacted the Catholic Church with new information that's caused us to re-evaluate what's happening," was the general tenor of what Msgr Stetson told us. He definitely mentioned Archbishop Falk several times, and in fact he mentioned no other ACA figure.

For now, we're talking about one piece in a jigsaw puzzle that won't quite fit. The dissidents at St Mary's had gone to Moyer, the bishop and legitimate authority over St Mary's and gotten nowhere, so they went to Falk. Falk was retired -- at least officially -- and had no direct authority over the parish or knowledge of the circumstances, but clearly too he had enough credibility with Cardinal Wuerl or Msgr Steenson to stall the process on his say-so, and that he did.

But this particular jigsaw puzzle is too big, and there are too many pieces that don't quite fit, to cover this in one post. I'll have more to say.

On The Matter of Comments

Several people have noted on various other blogs that I don't have comments enabled here. I had a blog dealing with writing for several years and had comments for part of that time. What I discovered from experience was that while there are some sincere commenters, most post as pseudonyms for a reason, and the reason usually isn't good. I decided that the added trouble of responding, moderating, fuming, or dealing with comments in whatever way, just wasn't worth it. I've made my e-mail available here, and knowledgeable people have sent me worthwhile information. If someone like Ms Gyapong feels I've left something out, all she needs to do is e-mail me, and I'll correct or add to anything I've said. On the other hand, someone who comments under a pseudonym and feels s/he can be abusive that way probably won't be as quick to do it from an e-mail address where his or her name is available, and this contributes greatly to my peace of mind. If bloggers feel it's worth their time and effort to host food fights on their own blogs, that's well and good -- I just don't feel it's the best stewardship of my time and energy.

"Well done, good and faithful servant;

thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things". The ACA has announced that The Very Rev Canon Anthony J Morello, PhD, has been promoted to Vicar General:

Dear Canon Morello,

The Rt Rev Stephen D Strawn, Episcopal Visitor to the Diocese of the West, Anglican Church in America, has informed the House of Bishops that on October 27, 2012 he appointed you Vicar General of the Diocese of the West. The House of Bishops extends its congratulations to you and has, by unanimous vote, confirmed the action of Bishop Strawn.

Your responsibilities as Vicar General will include the overall administraiton of the diocese. As appropriate and necessary, you will visit parishes, provide support to clergy, and seek to resolve any differences that may arise. Above all, you should promote a feeling of godly harmony in all you do.

Please know that the House of Bishops deeply appreciates the dedication you have shown to the diocese during the past year. Your devotion to God's holy church during a difficult and challenging time is an example to us all.

Know of our prayers as you begin this new challenge.

Faithfully,

The Most Rev Brian R Marsh
President, The ACA House of Bishops

Knowing what we know about Morello, we can add a comment from someone calling himself "former parishioner" on Fr Smuts's blog;

Fr. Morello made assurances to many, including the parish’s former unpaid clergy, that he would do nothing to stop the parish from becoming Catholic and made much of his being on a first name basis with the Ordinary. He also made promises to retain clergy intending to become Catholic as the pastoral presence at the parish until St. Mary’s entered the Ordinariate.

Once he had the keys all those promises were out the window. That so many of the parishioners who supported our parish becoming Catholic left almost immediately is due to his brutish treatment of all except his appointed vestry. We Catholic-minded St. Mary parishioners who trusted Morello to simply be trying to straighten out the parish out of good will towards the Ordinariate found out quickly how little we were now needed.

How can this be? The Most Rev Brian R Marsh has commended Canon Morello for his dedication, and he charges him with promoting a feeling of harmony in all that he does! Actually, I detect a certain sneer in Marsh's tone here. This is the ACA.

I appreciate the links from Fr Smuts and Ms Gyapong, and considering that neither is a particular friend of this blog, I appreciate their recognition of the issues involved in their own posts. To Ms Gyapong, I would say two things: first, I have in fact attempted to comment on your blog, but you've never approved the one or two that I've left. Second, I've made every attempt to portray the history of the "worldwide Traditional Anglican Communion" as accurately as I can, with reference to public documents available on the web, and indeed, consulting with knowledgeable individuals. If you have additions or corrections, I've made my e-mail available.

Perhaps if we can get past personal issues, we might all accomplish more together than we can separately.

Mass Excommunications!

Over the past week, at least seven parishioners at St Mary of the Angels have received the following letter:

Dear [name],

I am advised that Bishop Stephen D. Strawn, Episcopal Visitor to the Diocese of the West ("DOW") in the Anglican Church in America ("ACA"), has determined and informed you that as and from June 17, 2012, you ceased to be and are no longer a communicant in good standing in the Church, but have as of that date been removed as a communicant within the ACA, the DOW and all of its constituent parishes, specifically including St. Mary of the Angels Anglican Church ("St. Mary's"), by virtue and as a result of your having abandoned comunion, from and including the aforesaid June 17, 2012 date, as stated and set forth in Bishop Strawn's letter to you.

This letter is to inform you that consistent with your abandonment of communion and the determination thereof by Bishop Strawn in accord with the Rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer, the Constitution and Canons of the ACA and the DOW, and the Bylaws of St. Mary's, effective as and from June 17, 2012 you have ceased to be a Comunicant of the Parish of St. Mary's, a communicant in good standing or a member thereof, and your name has been removed and stricken from its Parish Register.

Sincerely,

The Very Rev. Canon Anthony J. Morello, Ph.D.
Rector and Priest in Charge
St. Mary of the Angels Anglican

My wife and I haven't received ours yet, although we expect to get one, which means that these letters will have gone out to at least nine people. In our case, since we're in the process of becoming Catholics, it's not important. But there are several comments to make here.

First, excommunication is an unusual and serious matter. (It doesn't send you to hell, but it does have a fire-and-brimstone connotation.) In my 30 years as an active Episcopalian, I heard of only one in any of the parishes I attended. Since I was peripherally involved in the situation, I know a little about it: the clergy began to suspect that a man who'd been hanging around some of the social events was basically a con artist out to snare wealthy widows (it was an Episcopal parish in a good part of town, after all).

This would, of course, have been part of their pastoral responsibility to protect their flock from marauding wolves. Since I'd gotten to know the suspected con artist at some of these social functions, the clergy pulled me aside for a serious talk and asked for my considered evaluation of what the guy was there for. At the conclusion of the meeting, the two clergy decided to take some unspecified action to tell the guy he wouldn't be welcome around the place in the future -- in fact, I'm not sure if they formally "excommunicated" him; they may just have told him to get lost, which probably had the same effect.

I've also heard of a single threat of excommunication: I knew a rector who'd served at a parish in Mississippi during the Civil Rights period. The decision was made to integrate the Episcopal parishes in that diocese. Some members of this rector's parish objected: the rector simply replied that if they didn't go along, they'd be excommunicated. I assume the bishop had planned this response in advance. But these are examples I've seen in Anglicanism of excommunication: you're either a crook or you're definitely not with the program.

A clerical observer has pointed out that the reason Morello cites for the excommunication of seven-plus members of the parish is "abandonment of communion". However, "abandonment of communion" applies canonically only to clergy; i.e., if a priest goes rogue and joins the Scientologists, he can be deposed on that basis. This is one of the canonical charges that were applied to David Moyer during the lengthy process of removing him from Good Shepherd Rosemont Episcopal, for instance: he'd become a bishop in the ACA. That's abandonment of communion, involving clergy.

A Protestant lay person, on the other hand, is in a different situation. If I'm a Presbyterian and decide to try out the Methodist congregation down the street, there's no penalty. Especially if the ACA authorities lock St Mary of the Angels and parishioners have no choice but to attend a church service elsewhere on Sundays, the parishioners are doing nothing wrong, canonically, legally, or morally. The canons and the parish bylaws do say that to be a member in good standing, you have to go to communion at the parish twice a year, at Christmas and Easter, but none of those who've been excommunicated have omitted that so far in 2012. In fact, by barring members from communion during Christmas 2012, they're forcing them to give up their membership eligibility, which is a different matter.

My own estimate of the seven people I know to have been excommunicated is that they were solid, regular parishioners who had no particular agenda other than to attend mass, volunteer as appropriate, pay their pledges, and eventually to go into the Ordinariate. None was a diehard Kelley supporter; several of the seven (though not all) were on the same elected vestry that took Msgr Steenson's recommendation to place Fr Kelley on an extended sabbatical that would effectively have been a severance package. All, however, supported the entry of St Mary's into the Ordinariate (as did 80% of all parishioners).

It's pretty plain that the intent of these excommunications is to secure a compliant majority at the next parish meeting for whatever Strawn and Morello have in mind. In any real denomination, I can't imagine a bishop sustaining these excommunications, but as we're seeing, the ACA simply isn't a real denomination.

UPDATE: An eighth parishioner reports that he received an excommunication letter as of December 10.

Craziness At St Aidan's: A First Look

Via replies from a person named Michael Frost relating to my posts about St Aidan's on Fr Chadwick's blog, I'm starting to piece together a story. Frost says he's Eastern Orthodox and not a member of St Aidan's, but apparently has been moved to post enthusiastically on their behalf, a puzzling factor in itself. But here's the story he gives, which I piece together from several comments he makes on that site:

• Per Fr Seraiah's blog post from November 2010, St Aidan's took some type of a vote in favor of the Ordinariate, enough to convince him he should move from Virginia to Iowa, selling his house in Virginia in the process, to become Rector of St Aidan's.
• St Aidan's appears to have gone into the Patrimony at roughly the same time that Fr Seraiah started there.
• Acording to Mr Frost, "When I attended St. Aidan’s in April 2012, I was told they had just recently started celebrating the Anglican liturgy on Sundays. I believe with the recent Palm Sunday. I was told that prior to that, as part of the Ordinariate process, they had ceased celebrating liturgy and were doing mainly morning prayer and catechesis." What on earth was Seraiah doing there if he wasn't celebrating an Anglican liturgy mass? St Mary's had catechism during 2011 to be sure, but since they were not yet Catholic, there was no reason an ACA priest couldn't have celebrated mass at St Aidan's the same way it was done at St Mary's, another Patrimony parish. I can say at first hand there was no "Ordinariate process" that required them to stop saying mass!
• Mr Frost quotes from a letter sent to the parish by the senior warden in July 2012: “As you know, a more informal vote was taken last autumn which seemed to indicate a strong majority in favor of seeking such admission [i.e., to the Ordinariate]. However, during the period of catechesis associated with such a move, it became clear that the mind of the Parish was not so definitively positive, and the decision was taken to seek a clarifying vote. That is the vote we are now taking. … Ballots will be opened and counted on July 22nd upcoming. By Vestry action, a majority of [sixty] (60%) of ballots cast will determine the outcome.”
• The result of that vote, according to Mr Frost, was ". . . the parish officially voted 15 No and 3 Yes to the Ordinariate."

On one hand, this confirms the estimate of 25 members in good standing that I've cited in earlier posts. On the other hand, I've got to shake my head and say "wow" about this whole story. Two votes in favor of the Ordinariate, the parish hires a rector who seems to be pro-Ordinariate and is himself headed that way, it goes into the Patrimony of the Primate, but, er, once they learn a little more about Catholicism, they change their minds big time. Gee, what was it they didn't know about? Artificial birth control? Sex outside of marriage? Divorce and remarriage? The authority of the Pope? None of these things was a secret, it seems to me.

This is the home parish of His Grace the Archbishop, the Most Rev Lous Falk, founder of the TAC whose avowed purpose was unity with Rome, and his parish at the last minute starts to learn about Catholicism and changes its mind? This is absolutely screwy. What was Falk's role here? As Fr Seraiah posted on his blog, Falk then elected to stay with the parish and, according to Mr Frost, re-enter the ACA. So, perhaps facetiously but perhaps not, what didn't His Grace the Archbishop know about Catholicism prior to the catechesis that was taking place? Did he change his mind about it in 2012 as well?

I'm seeing less and less reason to take the ACA seriously if this sort of thing is going on at what is, in effect, its heart. The other week I estimated an average membership of the 25 or so parishes in good standing at 60, but I'm seeing that St Aidan's clearly has about 25, if the 15-3 vote represented a quorum but not the full membership. Mission status in the ACA is below 20, so even the mother church isn't much more than a mission!

This denomination is tiny. It's corrupt. It's flaky.

The Story of St Aidan's Looks to be a Small One,

but I've been told there are many sides to it. The parish hasn't returned my phone message, which simply asked it to clarify if it was independent or affilicated with the ACA, which I assume should be noncontroversial. (Can you imagine what would happen if you called Our Lady of ____ and asked them if they were affiliated with the Catholic Church? First, someone would actually pick up the phone there. Second, they'd be mildly amused but happy to answer. . .) Neither has Fr Chori Seraiah replied to my e-mail, which is understandable, I suppose, although the desire of many players here to stay out of controversy is not in the spirit of the Gospels. [Fr Seraiah did kindly reply on December 7, but he referred questions to Abp Falk, providing me with Falk's e-mail.]

For now, I'm going to back off and look at this from the perspective of the Patrimony of the Primate and try to fill in some gaps with my surmise. For starters, I'm simply not aware of any definitive list of which parishes were actually in the Patrimony. I e-mailed Bishop Moyer several weeks ago simply asking him if he could provide such a list and of that list which parishes, to his knowledge, went into the Ordinariate and which stayed out. Again, I think this request was noncontroversial, but the good bishop has made no reply (notwithstanding his January 2011 sermon on the Church as battleground).

On the other hand, come to think of it, a simple list of which parishes were in the Patrimony of the Primate and what became of them must in fact be so inflammatory that nobody wants to touch it! Versions of that problem do in fact appear in the Gospels, don't they? The story of the blind man in John 9 came up in RCIA just last night. No wonder I keep getting e-mails from people who say "I know what happened here, and I read your blog, but I don't want anyone to know it, so don't tell anyone about this!" Some of you folks need some prayerful reflection. Oh, well, onward.

First, I'm going to assume St Aidan's was in fact in the Patrimony, taking as my authority this newsletter, which I cited yesterday as well -- I'm simply not aware of any other source. Again, if Bishop Moyer or anyone else can clarify this, I'd appreciate it. So now we have a post on The Anglo Catholic from Fr Chori Seraiah regarding his appointment as Rector there:

I have recently accepted the position of Rector at St. Aidan's Church (ACA) in Des Moines, Iowa (yes, they have already voted to join the Ordinariate in case any one was wondering), and we would like to ask for everyone's prayers.

The post is dated November 23, 2010, which would put Fr Seraiah's appointment at roughly the time the Patrimony was set up, specifically to protect parishes from the adverse actions of Bishops Williams and Strawn. The best I can say here too, by the way, is that Fr Taylor left as Rector of St Aidan's at some time prior to Fr Seraiah's appointment -- whether there was a connection with a vote to join the Ordinariate is an interesting question. So we've got to assume something pretty simple, which is such a dynamite question nobody's going to answer it!

Assuming they were in the Patrimony, then from the public record, they were there until January 1, 2012, when the ACA House of Bishops resolved the following:

Almost two years ago, in anticipation of the erection of the American Ordinariate, the House of Bishops of The Anglican Church in America authorized the creation of an entity styled the Patrimony of the Primate. This entity was designed to be a temporary structure, something of a “holding tank,” for those parishes, clergy and people who desired entry into the Ordinariate. It was agreed that the Patrimony of the Primate would cease to exist once the Ordinariate was established. Given that the American Ordinariate was erected on January 1, 2012, the term of the Patrimony of the Primae has thus lapsed. Those who were formerly part of the Patrimony of the Primate must now make a decision regarding their future jurisdiction. Anyone, whether clergy or laity, who may now wish to return to the Anglican Church in America, should do so by contacting the diocesan bishop in their area. . . . Now that the circumstances regarding the Ordinariate have been clarified, we welcome those who wish to return to the ACA and encourage them to communicate directly with their ecclesiastical authority. The process of return is designed to be as simple as it is pastoral. But, in any case, the Patrimony of the Primate has, with the erection of the Ordinariate, ceased its operations within the United States as of January 1, 2012.

Faithfully,
+Brian R. Marsh
Presiding Bishop

So the expressed policy of the ACA was that the Patrimony expired -- OK, that wasn't necessarily in the original plan, but we'll grant them that -- and once it expired, the parishes that were in it (a dynamite question nobody will answer!) had to "make a decision regarding their future jurisdiction". My assumption is that by July 2012, the 25 or so members in good standing of St Aidan's got as far as voting that they didn't want the Ordinariate after all, but couldn't quite make it to deciding if they'd go back to the ACA -- so I would guess that if St Aidan's returns my message, they'll say something like "yes, regarding your question, we haven't reaffiliated with the ACA, and as of right now, we're independent." But I'm wondering if they're willing to do even that. By their fruits. . .

Now we come back to St Mary of the Angels. As we see here, the expressed policy of the ACA as of January 2012 was that once the Patrimony expired, the parishes that were in it did not automatically return to the ACA. They had to make a specific communication to their ACA area bishop. St Mary's, which was in the Patrimony, never made, and never intended to make, any such communication, and certainly never did between January 1, 2012, and April 2, 2012, when Bishop Strawn seized control. In fact, on January 22, the parish voted a second time, by over 80%, to join the Ordinariate.

Subsequent to the April 2 takeover, however, Strawn asserted that with the dissolution of the Patrimony, the parishes that had been in it automatically reverted to their area diocese. This was the basis on which he inhibited Fr Kelley, appointed "Dr" Morello as priest-in-charge, and replaced members of the vestry. This was contrary to the clear policy statement of the House of Bishops. Not only that, it appears that St Aidan's Des Moines hasn't yet been officially returned to the ACA -- at least, that's my interpretation of events. Indeed, other parishes that had been in the Patrimony, like Holy Nativity, Payson, AZ, were allowed to go into the Ordinariate without any attempted clawback from the ACA.

The reason, of course, is money. There wasn't any money to be had from St Aidan's in its prefab mock-tudor building with the IKEA-style reredos. There's money to be had at St Mary of the Angels. To me, this is one more sign of the kind of folks we're dealing with in Strawn, Morello, and Taylor.

UPDATE: There's a reply to my question on Fr Chadwick's blog. Someone named Michael Frost says,

- I have talked to the (retired) Metropolitan about the ACA & DMV web sites. St Aidan’s is aware, but it apparently has nothing to do with St. Aidan’s. (I wonder if the ACA-DMV are a bit…slow with technology? Anyone know their tech person? )

- After the vote, St. Aidan’s did get in official contact with the ACA-DMV. It appears, based on what they’ve told parishioners, that St. Aidan’s is “back into the ACA” and DMV. (When I asked about an ACA/DMV episcopal visit, I was told there likely will be one in 2013, as would be done in accordance with that process and their parishes. I don’t believe there was one in 2012 and not sure about 2011.)

This resolves one question about St Aidan's, but it leaves open the question I asked just above: St Aidan's apparently did contact Bishop Strawn and ask to be readmitted to the ACA. Fine. But if St Mary's never did this, why does Bishop Strawn give a different story and say St Mary's somehow automatically reverted back to the ACA? The ACA-DOW/DMV under Strawn put St Mary of the Angels right back onto its list of parishes very quickly after someone pointed it out, so contra Mr Frost, they're pretty quick with the tech stuff when it suits them. Again, I think it comes back to money. They'll deal with St Aidan's when they get around to it.

By The Way, What Happened To St Aidan's Des Moines?

In the process of tracking down Fr Nicholas Taylor, formerly of that parish, I've discovered that St Aidan's Des Moines, which is or was the home parish of former Archbishop Louis Falk, former Cathedral of the ACA Diocese of the Missouri Valley, is no longer listed as a parish on the ACA DOMV web site. Whether this is an oversight or whether there's a reason for it I simply don't know. Nor is there a current listing elsewhere on the web with a contact -- I wanted to confirm the dates that Taylor served as rector there, which so far parishes and dioceses in The Episcopal Church, at least, have been willing to provide when I've inquired about former TEC priests now in the ACA.

But to provide further context regarding the ACA, I note a review of the parish from about 2001:

St Aidan's is tiny, prefabricated worship construction on a well-tended lot, with mock-Tudor exterior. . . . [attendance was] probably around 40 in a church which may hold 60. . . . Apart from the server's ghastly running shoes, there is that matter of the imitation pre-formed strips that formed the reredos on which the crucifix is hung. I realize that this congregation possibly could not afford real polished wood, but for me the invasive influence of IKEA-dom seemed supremely unneccessary. If anyone from St Aidan's reads these words, please consider removing that stuff behind the altar, and hanging the crucifix directly on the wall.

And this was the mother church, the Bodhi-tree as it were, of the TAC. This estimate from the Fellowship of Concerned Churchmen of parishes potentially joining the Ordinariate (St Aidan's finally stayed out) puts its 2011 membership at 25. This is the actuality of the TAC and the ACA.

In July, Fr Chori Seraiah, who was apparently rector between 2010 and 2012, posted

My former parish St. Aidan's here in Des Moines has made its final decision and chosen not to join the Ordinariate after all. They will remain Anglican and Bp. Louis Falk is remaining with them (any questions about the parish itself should be directed to them and not to me).

However, as I've discovered, there doesn't seem to be any current way to contact them. If anyone can provide further information on the current status or fate of St Aidan's, I'd like to hear it. (Update: I did find a listing with a phone number on a yellow pages-style site. I called the number, which still works, and left a message asking about the parish's status with the ACA, but as yet haven't heard back.)

Partly to satisfy my own curiosity, I intend to expand my inquiries on this blog to cover the actual current state of the ACA and the TAC.

You Heard It Here First!

I prompted David Virtue to see if he could get more information on the current status of St Mary of the Angels, and this is what he forwarded to me:

David,

St Mary of the Angels reopened its doors on Dec 2nd, the first Sunday in Advent, with 30 parishioners in attendance. It was a marvelous celebration with much excitement and joy amongst the congregation present.

Fr Nicholas Taylor has been brought in to serve as curate for St Marys for a period of time. He's now living in the cottage on the property since Mr Kelley was removed.

Mr Kelley was deposed by By Bishop Strawn last week so he no longer has standing as apriest as far as we are concerned. What that does for him and the Ordinariate is between them.

The Superior Court has dismissed Mr Kelley's case against the ACA, DOW, and other individuals stating he had no standing to bring the action in the courts.

More to come soon.

Regards,
Tony+

The announcement of this was apparently private to say the least. For now, the observations I have are

• Fr Nicholas Taylor comes up most recently as Priest-in-Charge of ACA St Luke's Anglican, Colorado Springs. Before that, he comes up as Rector of St Aidan's in Des Moines, an interesting shift -- St Aidan's is a parish; St Luke's is a mission. If anyone has other biographical info on Fr Nicholas Taylor, I'd appreciate anything anyone might have.
• The Rev Larry Kirchner is now listed as Priest-in-Charge at St Luke's Colorado Springs. An ACA newsletter from Trinity 2012 (June 3) says, "Fr. Larry Kirchner is now at St. Luke in Colorado Springs, Colorado where he will work to rebuild that parish." Er, wait -- so Taylor leaves St Luke's Anglican earlier this year, apparently with no plans, and Strawn brings in Kirchner to rebuild the place? What does this bode for poor St Mary of the Angels?
• Taylor is President of the House of Clergy of the ACA. I would surmise it means, among other things, that Strawn considers him utterly reliable. Yet somehow his parish ministry at St Luke's didn't work out, from all I can surmise -- yet Strawn puts him in at St Mary's. Is he gonna do what he's told, or what?

Notice as well that the title Morello provides for him is "Curate", which means he works for Morello, who works for Strawn, and he lives in the tiny cottage behind the church building. Not a deal, frankly, that I'd want to take. And his career, from what I can see, is in a downward spiral: rector to priest-in-charge to curate. I wonder what his alternatives were.