- What is the status of a group that had intended in good faith to go into the US Ordinariate, but due to factors outside its control on one hand didn't become Catholic, but on the other was excommunicated from its "continuing Anglican" denomination?
- How badly do they still want to become Catholic?
- And by the way, what will happen to that building and other property?
However, once the admission of St Mary of the Angels was indefinitely postponed in January 2012, the parish itself received no identifiable pastoral leadership from the Ordinariate or the Archdiocese of Los Angeles -- the majority, with its clergy, was simply cast adrift. Andrew Bartus, who had not yet been ordained a Catholic priest, was pursuing his own agenda in the Diocese of Orange and took a small number of parishioners with him, but they were doing this as individuals, not members of the St Mary's parish that had applied for admission under Anglicanorum coetibus. At minimum, it was an error for the Ordinary to confuse Andrew Bartus and a small group with the parish as a body, if in fact that's what happened.
In fact, the visual of Bartus's subsequent reception with his small clique and his ordination was that the Catholic Church apparently felt the matter was finished, notwithstanding there were still two priests and a deacon in the parish left hanging, along with several dozen parishioners who'd been catechized and were completely ready to become Catholics. Msgr Stetson, Msgr Steenson's representative and a confidant to Abp Gomez, appears to have lent his prestige to this unfortunate visual, and whatever he may or may not have done behind the scenes, he took no further leadership role with the parishioners, who, again, had applied to join the Ordinariate as a body, not just as individuals.
As the letter I published yesterday indicates, a number of parishioners, who'd been given no clear course by the Ordinary, joined or rejoined Catholic parishes individually. My wife and I decided the most important thing was to become Catholic, with birettas, fiddleback copes, and gold patens far down our list. (This should be an indication of how well we were catechized and influenced by the personal examples of Fr Kelley, Fr Ledbetter, and Dcn Yeager.) In fact, the Catholic parish we joined a few blocks away from St Mary's could hardly be farther from Anglo-Catholic liturgy. That we've found it a holy and welcoming place has helped us grow spiritually and reinforces our view that the specifics of liturgy are of secondary importance.
I think that if there'd been any sort of leadership from the Catholic side following the Ordinary's indecision of early 2012 and then the ACA's reassertion of control, more parishioners would have taken this course. While I certainly don't speak for Fr Mott at Our Mother of Good Counsel, he appears to be sympathetic to Fr Kelley and the pro-Ordinariate parishioners at St Mary's, and there might still be some opportunity for the parish as a group to maintain some coherent existence there. My understanding is that following the prayer vigil at St Mary's on the evening of January 4, the participants were invited to Our Mother of Good Counsel for a benediction. I think that any further moves in this direction would be very positive.
Due to the continuing legal action and the prospect (however remote) of the elected vestry prevailing against the ACA on appeal, that vestry needs to continue as a body until all legal avenues have been exhausted. As a result, the fate of the building and other property is still up in the air, and it would actually not be good stewardship for the vestry simply to throw up their hands and go their separate ways. The parish majority, as a result, still has a necessary relationship to the property, though it's not inseparable from the parish as a member of the Body of Christ.
