Anthony Morello Passed Away

of a heart attack on January 13, 2013. I'd been told numerous times that he had been in poor health, and in fact that he had been close to death when he left the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin about 2005. At minimum, his passing poses a succession problem for the ACA, one that it seems to me they should have anticipated, and one that will be difficult for them to solve.

I've posted an outline of Morello's career here, although it leaves out his final promotion to Vicar General of the Diocese of the West on October 27, 2012. His rise in the ACA, after leaving The Episcopal Church under a cloud of scandal, is remarkable: in 2010, he was new to the ACA and a newly-hired associate at All Saints Fountain Valley; a little over two years later, he'd become Vicar General of the tiny and troubled diocese and was in line to be elected bishop. (My view when he was promoted was that the electors, assuming he'd be elected no matter what, would pretty much all vote for him out of fear of reprisal once he was installed.)

His leadership style was hamartic, so much so that it's easy to envision his passing as some sort of divine reprisal, although his poor health is explanation enough. As Priest in Charge of St Mary of the Angels, his record includes

• Serving as point for the ACA in seizing the parish in May 2012, in violation of the ACA House of Bishops resolution from January 2012 that it no longer had jurisdiction over former Patrimony of the Primate parishes
• Initiating legal action, in violation of ACA canon law, against the parish
• Convincing some segment of the members that the ACA was taking over the parish only to resolve issues related to Fr Kelley, after which it would assist the parish in entering the Ordinariate. By September 2012, he had announced there were "no plans" to take the parish into the Ordinariate
• Presiding, fully vested, over an episode in which two dissident parishioners, assisted by hired security, violently shoved members of the parish out of the basement, July 20, 2012
• Excommunicating at least nine parishioners on the spurious grounds of "abandonment of communion"
• Conducting a vindictive campaign of character assassination and legal harassment against the parish's rector, a good man and a priest
• Keeping the parish locked, with no masses said, from July to November 2012
• Making numerous threats of violence, legal action, or calls to law enforcement when faced with any sort of question from parishioners.

However, it's plain that ACA Bishops Strawn and Marsh endorsed every one of these actions at every step along the way, and indeed, the ACA House of Bishops commended these actions unanimously as "devotion to God's holy church".

My own view of his promotion to Vicar General was that Bishop Strawn wished to withdraw as episcopal visitor simply because his conscience had become troubled at what was going on, and he wanted to give the impression that his hands were clean, although he'd clearly endorsed and perhaps even encouraged what Morello had been doing all along. Morello's rapid rise, and his placement as priest-in-charge of St Mary's, indicates how completely the ACA was relying on this most unfortunate leadership style.

And this leads to the question of what will happen now. Nicholas Taylor was installed at St Mary's as a curate, reporting to the priest-in-charge. It's fairly plain that he was made curate to put him on a very sort leash, with Morello giving the orders -- it would be too easy for Taylor to get the wrong idea and be nice to the wrong people, after all. Either the ACA now has to trust Taylor, or it has to find someone else to crack the whip.

By the same token, the ACA Diocese of the West is without leadership. Left to its own devices, it could well get off the reservation. At minimum, Strawn will have to reassert himself as diocesan visitor, something I don't believe he wished to do and which will continue to trouble him, and appoint a new Canon to the Ordinary. The question is whether he can find a successor to Morello who will be as unscrupulous and utterly reliable as the late Vicar General -- the pool for even this kind of talent seems small within the ACA.

My wife cites an insightful remark by a former long-term parishioner, now among the excommunicated, made some weeks ago: "This isn't finished. A lot of bad actions have gone down in that place, but people have still had a chance to turn around and make things right. They haven't. They're going to start turning on each other. They're going to start getting really sick." That observation was perceptive and even prophetic. I still don't think things are finished there, either. If I were Strawn or Marsh, this would give me a great deal of pause. Bishops, there's still time for you, if not for Anthony Morello, to turn around and make things right.