A web search on Fr Michael Eldred shows him in cassock, biretta, 70s-hipster sideburns, and sunglasses on the Facebook page of All Saints Fountain Valley, where he appears to have served as a supply priest. The history page for the Episcopal Church of the Blessed Sacrament in Placentia notes that he has been on staff there since 2003, although that site elsewhere says that Eldred has a day job.
Eldred's ecclesiastical status is puzzling; I've got to assume that Bishop Bruno thinks it's OK for Eldred to be doing this, assuming Eldred is still an Episcopal priest (he's still listed on the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles clergy page). Blessed Sacrament Placentia, however, is under the episcopal supervision of TEC Bishop Ed Little of Northern Indiana, a noted traditionalist. On top of that, it has an ACNA parish meeting on its property, so I assume Eldred is familiar with angry people.
Eldred will be the third temporary priest at St Mary's in the year since the ACA seized the parish. The first two, Fr William Ledbetter and Fr Nicholas Taylor, were chewed up and spat out in a matter of months. Another priest turned down the offer after Taylor left. Eldred faces the same situation of his predecessors, an absentee priest in charge, an unelected "vestry" dominated by angry people who know little of religion, and an episcopal visitor who wishes Anthony Morello were other than where he is. We'll have to see what happens with Eldred, but I'm not impressed with the biretta, hipster sideburns, and sunglasses. I guess if his style is 40 years out of date, it makes him a traditionalist, huh?
