Friday, May 31, 2013

In The Past Few Days,

while looking for the actual current size of the Ordinariate, I found a puzzling discrepancy: the current Ordinariate Communities web page lists 25 entities (I'm not sure what else to call them) in the US and Canada. However, while poking around the web, I've found two others that claim to be in the Ordinariate, but aren't listed on the web page. St Mary the Virgin of Arlington, TX, formerly Anglican Use (and thus under the jurisdiction of the local Catholic bishop), now says on its website that it's part of the Ordinariate.

However, the Communities page at the Ordinariate site still doesn't list St Mary the Virgin, but lists St Peter the Rock Catholic Community in Arlington, which was meeting somewhere other than at St Mary the Virgin. As of today, St Peter the Rock's site is down (a cached copy is here); when I checked it a few days ago, it said that it was undergoing a transition into St Mary the Virgin. Apparently this is in process, but the Ordinariate web site hasn't been updated -- this is your public face, folks, not a good sign.

Another parish not listed on the Ordinariate Communities page is St Timothy's Church, Catonsville, MD. However, on the web site of Mount Calvary Church, also in Catonsville and part of the Ordinariate, there's a news release from February 2013, indicating St Timothy's vote to leave The Episcopal Church and enter the Ordinariate, though leaving their property behind. There's no equivalent announcement on the Ordinarite web site.

The news release about St Timothy's contains the following statement about the Ordinariate's size:

The Ordinariate (www.usordinariate.org) includes 36 communities, 30 priests and more than 1,600 people in the United States and Canada.
So why does the Communities page on the Ordinariate web site list only 25 communities? I sent the following inquiry to the e-mail address listed for the Ordinariate headquarters in Houston yesterday:
The news release covering St Timothy’s Episcopal Church Catonsville, MD’s entry to the US Ordinariate at http://www.mountcalvary.com/news.php says the Ordinariate has 36 communities. However, only 25 are listed on the website for the Ordinariate itself. Is the number 36 correct? If so, which 11 communities are not listed on the Ordinariate’s web site?

Thanks for any help you may be able to provide.

As yet, I've had no reply. We're back to the same amateur show we've seen in "continuing Anglicanism". I had an e-mail suggesting I may be mistaken in questioning Msgr Steenson's motives, when the problems lie farther down in the organization. A partial answer would be that he clearly tolerates slipshod work -- you wouldn't have this sort of conflict in public statements if he were paying the least attention. If there were problems lower down in the organization, if he had integrity himself, he wouldn't surround himself with people who allow what we're seeing here, though I don't think this is anything like the whole picture.

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Who Is Jeffrey Steenson? -- V

While there seems to be unanimity (including the strong implication of Steenson's own statements) that he abrogated his vows in leaving his post as a bishop in The Episcopal Church, I think the extensive timeline connected with the establishment of the US Ordinariate also calls into question the sincerity of his statements on why he left that denomination.

Steenson had apparently been in contact with Bernard Law, the US delegate for John Paul II's Pastoral Provision allowing married Episcopal priests to become Catholic priests, since at least the late 1980s. Cardinal Law has been a consistent figure throughout this story, in fact: he arranged the 1993 meeting of Bishop Pope, then-Fr Steenson, and Cardinal Ratzinger, and he appears to have been involved, with his close associate Msgr William Stetson, in all phases of the story through his reception of Steenson into the Catholic Church at the Basilica of St Mary Major, where Law served as archpriest, in Rome in 2007.

Like a good juror is expected to do, I have to bring my own experiences to bear in evaluating evidence. In the corporate world, nothing happens by accident at the senior vice president level. The subjects of meetings are agreed in advance. The outcomes of the meetings are foreordained as well; they are based on detailed proposals that have been carefully drafted by staff and thoroughly reviewed at lower levels before they're presented on mahogany row. If anything, I've got to assume that an institution like the Catholic Church operates like this even more than an American corporation.

Nobody just walks in on the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith -- I know things work that way, in the same way that the centurion with the paralyzed servant understood, based on his own experience in a different field, that if Our Lord gave an order, the order took. The 1993 meeting was set up by Cardinal Law, and we must assume that flights from Texas to Italy, hotel rooms, and the like, weren't booked just so everyone could shake hands. Cardinal Law had been talking to the Fort Worth crowd for years; he thought there was finally something they could say to Cardinal Ratzinger that wouldn't waste his time.

So I think it was deliberately misleading for Steenson to characterize the 1993 meeting to the 2008 Anglican Use Conference as simply exploratory. Formal sitdowns with senior vice presidents aren't exploratory, sorry. Steenson needed to mislead the Anglican Use Conference attendees, because the pattern of his conduct throughout his Episcopal Church career was, we can reasonably conclude, duplicitous.

I think this goes as well to the chronology of his final (and we may assume long-delayed) decision to leave the denomination. A House of Bishops meeting in March, 2007 was the last straw, in Steenson's account, although Steenson had presumably been ordained using a rite from the 1979 BCP into a denomination that already ordained women; he'd tolerated the ordination of Barbara Harris as a bishop in 1989; he'd been through the Jack Spong controversies in the 1990s, and he'd specifically said the ordination of Eugene Robinson as a partnered gay in 2003 wasn't a reason for leaving The Episcopal Church. But some minor thing in 2007 was positively the last straw!

By September 2007, the date of his letter to the Rio Grande clergy, he'd worked it all out with Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori. In the same 2008 address, Steenson says, "My counselors, Monsignor William Stetson and Archbishop Michael Sheehan, urged me to bring my ministry in the Episcopal Church to a close as honorably as possible." Well, all I can say is that if I had a true last-straw moment, I'd be out the door in a huff, as I occasionally was in my secular career. Yet it seems to me that Steenson spent the time between March and September being careful -- in particular, I would guess, being extremely careful that he didn't invoke Episcopal disciplinary procedures, which would almost certainly destroy his chances of becoming US Ordinary. This would have been the real intent of Stetson's counsel in particular -- Stetson, Bernard Law's right arm, is a canon lawyer, after all.

The written record indicates that Bernard Law, after years of no contact with Bishop Clarence Pope, contacted him again in 2003, somewhat to Pope's surprise. However, Law appears to have dropped the contact immediately after that. My surmise would be that the 1993-4 proposal for a US Anglican personal prelature was coming back to life, for whatever reason, and Law was trying to determine Pope's level of health and overall interest if the project should move forward. In 2003, Pope would have been the only candidate for Ordinary, since he was the only former Episcopal bishop.

Steenson, however, by 2003 was Canon to the Ordinary at the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande, a post that could easily lead to being named bishop, at Rio Grande or elsewhere. By 2004, he'd become Bishop Coadjutor of the Rio Grande, in line to become diocesan at his predecessor's retirement. In other words, he'd had his bishop ticket punched, while Pope, aged, in poor health, and unstable, was no longer a credible candidate.

My own view is that the Vatican had Steenson clearly lined up as the potential Ordinary at the time of his election as a bishop in 2004, and Steenson was aware of this. The likelihood of a US Ordinariate was assured when Ratzinger become Benedict XVI in 2005. The only small issue, when the time came to move, would be to find a pretext -- a last-straw moment -- for Steenson to leave, and then to wait a decent interval before erecting the Ordinariate and naming him Ordinary. As far as I can see, this is the only reasonable conclusion to be drawn from events -- I don't see nearly 25 years of coincidence here.

What does this say of this man's character? Careerist is probably a generous interpretation.

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Who Is Jeffrey Steenson? -- IV

Steenson's repeated expressions of gratitude (for instance, here) to Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori for her "pastoral support. . . during this time" are remarkable, because Her Grace has not been noted for her pastoral support of other departing bishops like Iker, Schofield, Duncan, or Lawrence. On one hand, this may simply be a reflection of the fact that, unlike the others, Steenson wasn't taking a diocese or its property with him.

On the other hand, there's something about Steenson that in fact makes him the very model of a modern Episcopal bishop: abrogating his vows and resigning in this way become a form of in-your-face autarchic apostasy worthy of a James Pike. In contrast, Schofield, Duncan, Iker, and Lawrence, shepherds arguably ushering their flocks to safer pastures, are only namby-pamby. Perhaps this excited Jefferts Schori's admiration, rather than her contempt -- there's something essentially narcissistic about Steenson's move, since in the end, it's all about him.

Let's look at that peculiarly sheepish letter to the clergy at the Diocese of the Rio Grande, which I linked just above. You would only have to change a few words here and there to turn it into an announcement that Steenson is leaving his wife to marry his longtime gay partner!

This is a very difficult letter to write as your bishop and colleague in the ordained ministry, and I hope that you will receive it in the prayerful spirit in which it is offered.
Let's just insert a sentence that reads something like, "Some of you are aware of the ongoing, caring, mutually rewarding, and loving relationship I've had with my longtime gay partner, Herb Throckmorton, who is a devout Wiccan. I have decided to divorce my wife and marry Herb in the Wiccan faith." Then we can continue with the rest of the letter, pretty much word for word as written:
An effective leader cannot be so conflicted about the guiding principles of the Church he serves. It concerns me that this has affected my ability to lead this diocese with a clear and hopeful vision for its mission. I also have sensed how important it is for those of us in this position to model a gracious way to leave the Episcopal Church in a manner respectful of its laws.
We might add a sentence after the praise and gratitude toward the Presiding Bishop that would read something like, "My wife and three grown children have also been most supportive of Herb and me in this difficult transition time," and so forth. But otherwise, I hate to say it, the two letters from my point of view would be precisely the same -- the total focus on Steenson and his wishes to the exclusion of the flock for which he was responsible, the sheepish tone, the touchy-feely pseudo-sensitivity. Indeed, there's the typical salve to a guilty conscience: he's not betraying anyone; he's doing them all a big favor by modeling a gracious way to leave the Episcopal Church!

Steenson is unwittingly betraying a very contemporary sensibility, cloaked not very convincingly in Catholic piety. He's out for number one, period.

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Who Is Jeffrey Steenson? -- III

Discussions of Steenson's departure from The Episcopal Church trace his dissatisfaction at least as far back as the late 1980s. A comment at the Commonweal blog says,
According to William Oddie's book "The Roman Option" - if my memory serves me correctly - Steenson and Law had a pre-existing relationship. Both men were part of a group of Catholic and Episcopal clergy who were part of discussions in which a large group of Episcopal clergy were considering going to Rome as a group in the late 80s when Barbara Harris was made an Episcopal bishop.
Steenson gave the standard reasons for wanting to become Catholic in the 1993 meeting with Ratzinger, the ordination of women and the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. This would, of course, imply that Steenson had had reservations about The Episcopal Church since his ordination as a deacon there in 1979, a priest in 1980. His defenders tend to give the half-hearted response that maybe he thought things would change, or something like that.

What did he think might happen, that TEC would suddenly decide to lay all those women priests off? Steenson knew perfectly well what the denomination's direction was at the time of his ordinations. He also must have understood that the toothpaste couldn't be put back in the tube. Yet he was happy to continue in a highly prestigious career for 28 years, playing footsie with Rome as it suited him. It's worth raising the point that, had the Diocese of the Rio Grande known of his meeting with Ratzinger in 1993, Steenson's election as bishop might not have been assured.

Not only that, but as his successor as Episcopal Bishop of the Rio Grande pointed out,

Steenson “seemed to have no trouble working with women priests” during his three years as bishop, Vono said. “He was celebrating with women at the altars.”
In other words, whatever sense of unease he may have had about women clergy didn't interfere with keeping his prestigious job as an Episcopal bishop. Vono continued,
Vono said this month that Steenson’s decision to step down just three years after taking his vows as bishop left Episcopalians “saddened” and “disillusioned.”

“He took vows, as we all do, in front of the whole church,” Vono said of Steenson’s choice to become a bishop. “It isn’t as though Jeffrey didn’t know what he was doing when he made those vows.”

The vows to which Vono refers, in the 1979 Service for the Ordination of a Bishop, include
Will you guard the faith, unity, and discipline of the Church?
To which Steenson presumably should have answered, "I will, until this other deal I've been working on comes through." But while Episcopalians understandably came away with a sense of bad faith and betrayal on Steenson's part, the puzzlement and even skepticism of Catholic observers is also significant. Mainstream Catholics do not trust Anglo-Catholics who come over, I've found, and there was little triumphalism in Catholic ranks over Steenson's move. The Commonweal blog observed at the time of Steenson's resignation, for instance,
Steenson is the third Episcopal bishop to swim the Tiber this year; the other two were retired.

Of course, all are welcome. But I find these conversions interesting because 1) they are all from self-styled "orthodox" Christians and 2) they all seem rooted in disaffection and disagreement with the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. . . .[I]f these neo-converts think they're joining a church with no disputations, well, they should check in on this blog.

I of course can't judge anyone's conscience. But going by the public comments of these bishops, I have to ask if these are "conversions of convenience"?

The voluminous comment thread for that post includes well-reasoned remarks from Catholics that the public reasons Steenson gave for his resignation were vague -- even "vacuous" -- and self-contradictory. I would summarize them this way:
  • The main reason for a Protestant to become Catholic is a revised understanding of the sacraments.
  • However, Steenson had always had a Catholic understanding of the sacraments.
  • The Episcopal Church already gave him the latitude to have this understanding, which he had publicly professed, and his career had prospered.
  • Church polity alone is not a good reason to make such a switch.
  • Steenson himself had said the ordination of Eugene Robinson as a bishop was not a reason to leave TEC.
  • So why, exactly, did he move?
But the commenters were working without the context of the 1993 Pope-Steenson-Ratzinger meeting, with its strong implication that any journey to Rome by either Pope or Steenson would be a package deal that included more than a simple affirmation of faith -- when part of the package fell through in 1994, after all, Pope backed out of the whole thing; he didn't even stay Catholic! Turning Catholic, even with his Episcopal bishop's pension assured, wasn't going to happen unless Pope got some other sweetener. Given the example of Pope, it almost certainly wasn't just a matter of faith for Steenson; it wasn't just a matter of ecclesiology, either -- it was a career move.

Monday, May 27, 2013

Who Is Jeffrey Steenson? -- II

Episcopal Bishop of Fort Worth Clarence Pope was the lead participant from the Anglican side at the October 1993 meeting with Cardinal Ratzinger. While there are formal minutes of this meeting in existence, apparently matters were discussed that did not make it into the minutes, and exactly what other items may have been discussed or promised by Ratzinger, and what Bishop Pope's response may have been, is not fully clear.

What we know is that a year after the meeting and on his retirement as an Episcopal bishop in 1994, Pope converted to Catholicism with the expectation of then being ordained as an Anglican Use Catholic priest. A liberal Episcopal blog gives one interpretation of these and subsequent events:

He had denied he was leaving The Episcopal Church right up until the day he left. When he made the announcement, he said he planned to seek ordination as a Roman priest. He told us he had known for the previous two years that he would go to Rome. This led some here to question whether or not he’d earned his quite substantial salary as bishop by fraud for those two years.
There is no question that the substance of the October 1993 meeting was kept highly confidential, and one part of the written record indicates that Pope requested communications from the Vatican be sent to his home, not his office. Wayne Hankey, a participant in that meeting who drafted the semi-official minutes, in his 1997 letter to the editor of The Tablet strongly implied that Cardinal Ratzinger had made some type of promise to Pope, which he was subsequently unable to keep.

Whatever the basis, Pope became extremely bitter and returned to The Episcopal Church in 1995. The blog cited above quotes the New York Times:

“he publicly took communion from the hand of an Episcopal priest, saying in an interview that he had left the Catholic Church and abandoned plans to enter its priesthood.” The article quoted him as saying “he had succumbed to a ‘growing unease’ about his original decision. His unease, Bishop Pope said, lay in his feeling that he could not give up his status as a bishop, which he would have to do to be re-ordained as a Catholic priest.["]
A conservative Catholic blog gives a different view, noting as well Pope's eventual return to Catholicism in 2007:
As Episcopal bishop, Clarence Pope had tried to negotiate with Rome for a personal prelature for Anglo-Catholic converts in the US: although his meeting with John Paul II went well, the plan was stonewalled by officials and nothing came of it: only Cardinal Ratzinger supported such a plan, and it did not fall within the competence of Ratzinger's Congregation, obviously. [This version appears not to be borne out by the written record; apparently the meeting with John Paul II was part of a public audience, and nothing substantial was apparently discussed there. John Paul instructed Pope subsequently to go through Ratzinger and by implication the CDF.] When Clarence Pope then converted individually, his new Catholic bishop announced that he would be willing to ordain Clarence Pope as a Catholic priest--if his diocesan Priests' Council approved (?!?). The Priests' Council rejected ordaining Clarence Pope, as they deemed him far too "traditional."
My own view is that Ratzinger may well have made some type of promise to Pope connected with the establishment of a personal prelature. It may well have been twofold, that Pope would be in charge, and quite possibly that his episcopal orders would be recognized, since the record appears to indicate that Pope spent considerable effort documenting his line of succession at the Vatican's request.

Whatever the specifics of the alleged promise may have been, it seems to me that Pope envisioned a specific path to being named ordinary that would involve his resignation from the Episcopal House of Bishops, his reception into the Catholic Church, and then his ordination as a Catholic priest and possibly a bishop as well. Some part of this process went awry, to Pope's enormous disappointment and bitterness.

Bishop Clarence Pope's somewhat erratic journey provides what I think may be a context for Jeffrey Steenson's own resignation as an Episcopal bishop, his ordination as a Catholic priest, and his designation as US Ordinary. Steenson, remember, was clearly the number two behind Pope in the 1993 meeting with Ratzinger and apparently did much of the work in preparing the proposals in the written record.

He addressed the 2008 Anglican Use Conference in July of that year on "The Causes For My Becoming Catholic"; the text is on line. He describes what he presumably hopes his audience will believe was his last-straw issue as follows:

It is not necessary to rehearse all that was going on in the Episcopal Church at that time, except to say that the tumult reached a crescendo at the House of Bishops meeting on March 20, 2007. That was the day the bishops overwhelmingly rejected the valiant work that had been done to propose more effective instruments for the Anglican Communion, and they insisted that the polity of the Episcopal Church is independent, democratic, and connected to the rest of Anglicanism by voluntary association. By sunset I knew that I could not remain in the Episcopal Church under these circumstances.
He made no mention in that address of his impending ordination as a Catholic deacon in December 2008, nor his ordination as a Catholic priest in February 2009, nor what I strongly suspect was his already-foregone designation as US Ordinary in December 2011. Nor does he honestly characterize the close call he and Pope had with going over 15 years earlier -- if he'd been so pro-Catholic then, over the usual matters of women's ordination and the 1928 BCP, why did he need to wait for a much smaller decision by the House of Bishops to make the final push? The only mention he makes of the October 1993 meeting with Ratzinger is less than fully descriptive:
In October of 1993, I had the great privilege of meeting the Holy Father at the general audience, when a group of us were in Rome to explore how Catholic unity might be realized corporately by smaller Anglican communities.
It seems entirely reasonable to surmise that, had the course that Bishop Pope intended to follow in 1993 played out as planned, Steenson would almost certainly have gone over with Pope, perhaps as his vicar general and eventual successor. When the whole business was put on indefinite hold after 1994, Steenson stayed with The Episcopal Church, continuing to advance: in 2000, he became Canon to the Ordinary in the Diocese of the Rio Grande; in 2004, he was elected Bishop Coadjutor there, succeeding as Diocesan in 2005. At that point, he'd at minimum had his ticket punched as an Episcopal bishop, should the possibility of a Catholic personal prelature in the US re-emerge.

Opinions differ on what the problem was in 1994, and as a new Catholic, I must acknowledge my inexperience at reading Vatican tea-leaves. But it's almost impossible for me to avoid assuming that sometime after Cardinal Ratzinger became Pope in 2005, any impediments to an Anglican personal prelature in the US disappeared. Some time after 2005, but I would have to think well before any public announcement of his departure in 2007, someone, possibly Cardinal Law, who'd set up the 1993 meeting and also received Steenson as a Catholic in 2007, called him up and said something like, "Remember that thing we were talking about in 1993? Well, it's on again."

Sunday, May 26, 2013

Who Is Jeffrey Steenson? -- I

As a newcomer to the dissident-Anglican movement in 2011, I certainly didn't see Jeffrey Steenson as a leader. Most attention was focused on David Moyer, whose quarrels with The Episcopal Church were much more visible, and in fact whose connection with the upcoming US Ordinariate was also plainer: John Hepworth had made him bishop for the TAC Patrimony of the Primate, the vehicle by which TAC parishes would go in. The TAC, via the Portsmouth Letter, was seen as the prime mover behind Anglicanorum coetibus, and the handicappers were putting both Hepworth and Moyer in major positions once national ordinariates were erected. The handicappers, of course, were influential bloggers at The Anglo-Catholic and elsewhere, and events proved them wrong in nearly every prediction.

When it became known in late 2011 that Steenson would become US Ordinary, it struck me as nothing I hadn't seen in the corporate world: a colorless unknown rises to the top, to the surprise of just about everyone except those in the loop. Steenson, who had been Episcopal Bishop of the Rio Grande, resigned that position in 2007 and was received into the Catholic Church the same year. Married, he was ordained an Anglican Use priest in 2009 and took up a position teaching in a Catholic seminary in Houston. Other than regular appearances at Anglican Use conferences, he maintained a very low profile, with most discussion in the blogosphere, insofar as it took place, centering on whether he'd betrayed Episcopalians in one or another way by becoming Catholic.

It wasn't until I learned of the 1993 approach by Steenson and his bishop, Clarence Pope, to Cardinal Ratzinger requesting a path to corporate union with the Catholic Church, that the reasons for Steenson's selection began to fall into place. Following the 1993 meeting, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith returned to Bishop Pope with a set of questions, to which Pope responded in 1994 with a detailed proposal that clearly formed the eventual basis for Anglicanorum coetibus: there would be ordinariates, similar to those for the military, on a national basis. Anglican Use style parishes with specifically Anglican liturgy would exist under the ordinariates. Married Anglican priests in these parishes would have dispensations from the normal requirement of celibacy. Parishioners would be catechized and received in a manner parallel to RCIA. It's worth pointing out that the TAC's 2007 Portsmouth Letter simply requested communion with the Catholic Church under whatever terms the Vatican chose to grant. The terms the Vatican granted were, with only a few differences, the terms of Pope's 1994 proposal, which we must assume was drafted in large part by Steenson.

In other words, I figured when Steenson was designated US Ordinary that he'd had some sort of inside track. I didn't realize that not only did he have the inside track, but he'd designed the whole race course! The 1994 proposal specified that, oh by the way, whoever was eventually designated US Ordinary would need to have been an Episcopal bishop. At the time, this probably meant Clarence Pope. However, Pope was diagnosed with cancer soon afterward, while the CDF fell into a decade-long silence over the proposal, which would not be revived until Ratzinger became Pontiff. At that point, the only credible candidate for US Ordinary, if the requirement remained that he be an Episcopal bishop, was Steenson himself -- Clarence Pope was still alive, but in very poor health (he passed away in 2012).

Saturday, May 25, 2013

A Different Take

on the origin of Anglicanorum coetibus: there are several versions on the web concerning how Pope Benedict XVI's Anglican apostolic constitution came about. The most complete so far appears to be that of Prof Tighe, posted by Fr Phillips on The Anglo-Catholic blog. Someone has, however, pointed me in a different direction, to a meeting between then-Cardinal Ratzinger on one hand and a group of US Episcopal bishops and priests on the other, facilitated by Cardinal Law, in Rome in October 1993.

This meeting is mentioned in a book review by Fr Allan Hawkins, retired priest of the St Mary the Virgin Anglican Use parish in Arlington, TX:

[A] further, very important initiative was undertaken in 1993. In October of that year, Bishop Clarence Pope, then-Episcopal Bishop of Fort Worth, went to Rome with Cardinal Bernard Law, then-Archbishop of Boston and ecclesiastical delegate for the Pastoral Provision, to meet with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. They took with them a preparatory document, drawn up by two noted Anglican theologians, Doctor Wayne Hankey and Father Jeffrey Steenson.
This document, of course, predates the TAC's Portsmouth Letter by 14 years, and it's significant that one of its authors is the current US Ordinary, Jeffrey Steenson. A Letter to the Editor in the UK Catholic publication The Tablet in 1997 (not available on the web) by the same Wayne Hankey mentioned above gives a further history of this initiative: then-Cardinal Ratzinger approved the proposal and brought it up informally with John Paul II. John Paul supported it, but indicated it would need the approval of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, of which Cardinal Ratzinger was then Prefect.

The CDF, according to the Hankey letter-to-the-editor, opposed the proposal, even though Ratzinger was in favor. In order to prevent an outright "no" vote, the matter was dropped. However, I believe that this proposal contained effectively the outline of what would become Anglicanorum coetibus, and we may surmise that it basically sat in Ratzinger's desk until, as Pope Benedict XVI, he could issue it in 2009.

It's worth pointing out that an account of the meeting that I've seen notes that Ratzinger asked Bishop Pope, then-Fr Steenson, and the others for an estimate of how many Episcopalians would come over to the proposed body (clearly sketched out in the proposal as a personal ordinariate) if it were established. Bishop Pope, after some hemming and hawing, gave the number as 250,000. The actual number we've seen, in the 18 months since the actual erection of the Ordinariate, has been more like 1,000.

While this is only half the 500,000 estimate that Archbishop Hepworth gave for the members of the Traditional Anglican Communion who would come over, it's nevertheless clearly off by several orders of magnitude, and it's simply the difference between meaningful and insignificant; worthy of a Pope's attention or a waste of his time. It's worth noting, too, that if Bishop Pope and Msgr Steenson gave a number of 250,000 and Pope Benedict added to this number Hepworth's estimate of 500,000, he might have had the impression that worldwide, Anglican ordinariates could number well on their way to a million.

Friday, May 24, 2013

Reality Check

Thinking further about the e-mail I had last week giving the (utterly unauthorized but, given the silence of the Ordinary on the subject, credible) view that the St Mary of the Angels parish would be essentially abandoned by the Ordinariate, but that somehow a couple of newly minted Ordinariate priests could gin up a whole new group, I did a quick google.
The United States Census Bureau estimates the population of the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Riverside, California Combined Statistical Area as of July 1, 2008 as 17,775,984. The LA metro population is the country's second largest, following New York City (New York-Newark-Bridgeport, NY-NJ-CT-PA).
Why, that's a huge potential market for ex-Anglicans who want to become Catholic, huh? They're probably storming the doors of the cathedrals as we speak! But wait -- the membership in good standing of St Mary of the Angels as of early 2012 was something like five or six dozen, only 80% of whom at best would become Catholics. I don't know precisely how many are attending the white people's parish down in Orange County led by Andrew Bartus, but, like most of the other Ordinariate parishes, it's mostly a glimmer in someone's eye, meeting between masses at an established Roman Rite church.

Exactly how many of 17,775,984 will ever be interested in the Ordinariate?

  • The Ordinariate is specifically meant for disaffected Anglicans and Episcopalians who want to become Catholic. It's worth pointing out that the number of disaffected Episcopalians of any stripe has been wildly overestimated for decades.
  • It isn't aimed at cradle Catholics, who are by far the largest group among the 17,775,984 (they may attend mass, but can't become members of an Ordinariate parish).
  • It isn't aimed at the vast majority of non-Anglican Protestants.
  • It isn't aimed at Anglicans and Episcopalians who are happy where they are -- and that includes gay or divorced-remarried Anglo-Catholics in The Episcopal Church.
  • It isn't aimed at non-Christians or unbelievers.
So, of the 17,775,984 in the Ordinariate's LA market area, the actual potential membership is -- excluding the Orange County white people's group -- gee, I dunno, maybe five or six dozen, to wit, the folks who'd been attending St Mary's, less 20%, plus maybe a score who might be attracted to the parish as a going concern under the Ordinariate.

Where is the Ordinariate going to find all these new people to build a new parish, especially once it's chased the committed core people at St Mary's away? Someone might be able to convince me otherwise, but of course, of the conservative cradle Catholics like Charles Coulombe who might want to attend mass there, most, while welcome as visitors, would not, as non ex-Anglicans, be eligible for membership.

In other words, why are we doing this at all, in the second-largest US metropolitan area? And is the story much different anywhere else?

Thursday, May 23, 2013

In The Real World,

organizations control their message. On Saturday, I posted excerpts from an e-mail I received from a knowledgeable party. My policy over confidentiality is in my sidebar; if you send me an e-mail and don't tell me it's confidential, you're under notice that I may publish it here. My correspondent made no claim of confidentiality in that e-mail, and in fact he prefaced what he wrote by saying, "I made a mistake yesterday and sent you an earlier version of my reply. Let me clarify my position, lest I give anybody false impressions[.]" Now, I misspent some years of my youth studying English, and I take that preface to be a strong implication that, first, this is a redrafted position that's been carefully considered, and second, it's been redrafted so it won't give "anybody" any false impressions. Sorry, not only was this e-mail not made confidential, but it carried the clear implication that the writer understood it could become public.

Further information suggests that, although the e-mail made the clear implication that it was stating Ordinariate policy -- for instance,

A new Ordinariate group in Los Angeles will not be a continuation of St. Mary's any more than it will be a continuation of [redacted]. It will be a wholly new Catholic community that will, God willing, leave behind the conflicts and bitterness of our Anglican past. The symbols of that past would not be celebrated in a new fellowship/congregation.
-- nobody in authority at the Ordinariate (i.e., the Ordinary or the Vicar General) had reviewed it. I was puzzled about this when I made the post, since the statements in the e-mail, although they weren't even coming from a priest, appeared to be taking a pastoral-authoritative tone, and I thought it might well have been more appropriate for the statements to be made by the Ordinary himself (though if that were the case, they would have needed quite a bit of editing). I pointed this out in a subsequent post here.

In the real world, to be involved in something like this can be a terminable offense. Claiming to speak for a government agency, university, or corporation without authorization is, in the secular world, a mortal sin. If Msgr Steenson is aware of this -- and I suspect he is, due to the traffic this site has received in the past couple of days -- he ought to be on the phone to Fr Hurd, and Hurd should be having some folks on the hot seat. Organizations control their message, period. Those who don't play by those rules don't last in an organization.

My guess is that this won't happen. It's one more suggestion I've had that Msgr Steenson is disengaged to the point of being AWOL.

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

If I've Learned One Thing On This Journey,

it's that Anglo-Catholicism can be something of a racket. I use the words "can be" advisedly; I know many sincere Anglo-Catholics, most on the Episcopal side of the Anglo-. I acknowledge, too, that few Anglo-Catholics, sincere or not, are getting rich. Nevertheless, those in the racket are getting something that clearly floats their boat: Anthony Morello lived in a trailer park, but he loved calling himself "Canon".

The sincere Anglo-Catholics often have obstacles that might prevent them from becoming fully Catholic, or for that matter reasons that would make them not wish to become Catholic. I think of them in the context of the outsiders we keep seeing in the Gospels: the woman at the well, the centurion with the paralyzed servant, the good Samaritan. They do all the extra stuff with the chasubles and the patens out of conscientiousness and, perhaps, a recognition that they're in fact outsiders. I think of the Anglo-Catholics in the racket, within the Church itself and in the "continuing" movement, who are playing the game and making all the right moves, in a different way.

Pope Francis has begun to say things about careerism in the Church, and in the opinion of some observers, this may be connected to his main mission as Pope. Here's an example of what he's said, though not the only one:

The Argentinean pope therefore invited people “to strip [themselves] of [their] many idols and to worship him alone. Idols in which we seek safety and often place our trust in.” “These are idols we often keep well hidden away.” “They could be ambition, careerism, a taste for success, placing ourselves at the centre of things, a tendency to put ourselves above others, the expectation that we are the ones who have exclusive control of our lives, a sin to which we are strongly tied and many others.”
The Catholic Church is, I would guess, the largest single human institution, so the Holy Father is likely looking at problems in areas much more consequential than the Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter. But I saw a lot of careerism in both the academic and corporate environments, and once I got to see the workings of the US Ordinariate, even as an outside observer, I began to get the feeling I'd already watched this program.

The ideal corporate middle manager is no threat to his superiors. Beyond that, it helps if he's got an ongoing problem like alcoholism, incompetence, bullying, or sexual harassment, since that means his loyalty to the powers that be is absolute -- they can walk him out the door any time they please on the basis of what they already know is going on, which they tolerate as long as it suits them.

Careerism simply opens the door to such situations: those in power want to perpetuate themselves, so they promote people who'll keep them in power. We've seen something like this in the housecleaning Archbishop Gomez has had to do in Los Angeles following the retirement of Cardinal Mahony: the problems didn't end with his departure. As the proverb says, a fish rots from the head.

Something's seriously wrong here, Msgr Steenson.

Monday, May 20, 2013

In The Matter Of "White People"

Someone e-mailed me accusing me of taking Andrew Bartus's remark that the Ordinariate was for "white people" out of context. I mentioned this to my wife, who said she'd heard Bartus make this comment herself -- I heard it at an adult forum conducted by Bartus, but my wife wasn't there. She heard this at another time. She felt it could have been made in a jocular interpretation, although she definitely recalls the term "white people" being used. I'm not sure how many jokes like this in a church are likely to go over well.

In the case where I heard Bartus say this, he was clearly serious, in effect teaching Sunday school for adults. He was being Socratic (or at least, what he felt was Socratic), trying to pull out from us some sort of conclusion that there wouldn't be a whole lot of clappin' and dancin' at an Ordinariate mass, or something like that. "In other words," I clearly remember him saying to this effect, "the Ordinariate is for who. . . ?" In response, he got blank looks, as perhaps he should have. ("Er, people who don't want to clap and dance?") But he answered his own question: "White people. The Ordinariate is for white people." I would find it difficult to imagine that he felt the Ordinariate would welcome the folks who worship by the hundreds at my local Catholic parish, though they don't clap and dance, either.

And my wife, separately, heard the expression "white people" from Bartus at another time -- if he was joking, I'm not sure what kind of joke was involved. It's possible, of course, to be telling what you think is a joke, but to reveal yourself as clueless. Sorry, but Andrew Bartus is going to come back and bite these guys in the butt, sooner or later. However, if Bartus wishes to retract his remarks, apparently heard by different people at different times, and apologize for any misunderstanding he may have caused, I'll be happy to publish it here.

UPDATE: I've had e-mails to the effect that although Bartus is a monarchist (I'm not kidding; he's the Chaplain of the Los Angeles Chapter of the International Monarchist League), he's not a Klansman. My point above wasn't that he's a Klansman; it's that he freely makes remarks that can easily be misinterpreted -- in other words, he's clueless, and his jokes are funny for reasons other than those he intends. This is not the kind of guy whose independent judgment you want to trust. Just sayin'.

Someone E-mailed Me A Very Good Comment

a week or so ago:
[I]t's with some suspicion that I view priests, parishes and individuals who could not seem to "swim the Tiber" without an accommodation such as the Ordinariate to finally push them over. . . . if it takes an Ordinariate to bring you in, may I suggest you might still not have the right idea.
There are actually a couple of other related issues here, too. There was already an Anglican Use Pastoral Provision, which is still in effect. But beyond that, the Ordinariates set up under Anglicanorum coetibus have been compared to the national Catholic uses in the US for groups like Germans, Poles, and Lithuanians -- all very good, of course; they're aimed at communities with strong ethnic and linguistic identities who want to continue certain traditions. But in the US, mass for English-speakers is in English at local parishes anyhow (which of course is why mass is in German or Polish or whatever at the other places).

So there are three official Latin-rite flavors of English use, and there may well be others, the Catholic Church being what it is. Having attended the ordinary form English mass for more than a year now, I can say that it's awfully close to Rite II of the 1979 Episcopal Book of Common Prayer. Er, what else are people looking for? Anglo-Catholic supererogatory fuss and feathers, e.g., fiddleback chasubles and subdeacons brandishing patens?

As I've said here before, this is a tough sell. Someone is going to have to convince me that the US and Canadian Ordinariate is going to grow much beyond 25 parishes with optimistically 1,000 members, which puts it roughly in the middle of the various "continuing Anglican" denominations in terms of size -- in other words, something inconsequential. Beyond that, a big part of the market for Anglo-Catholicism is among urban gay Protestant-Episcopalians, who are not going to come over to Rome anytime soon.

So the audience, or market, for the Ordinariate is obviously something other than just Anglophones. Nor in fact is it just ex-Anglicans who want married priests, since there's already the Anglican Use Pastoral Provision, with one major parish electing to stay with that regime rather than go into the US Ordinariate. All I can think is that those who most want the fuss and feathers in the Ordinariate are the snobs. Fr Kelley recounts the story of a lady at an Episcopal parish he served, who'd evaluate newcomers at coffee hour and explain to those who didn't meet her standards that she was sure they wouldn't be happy there; they should find another parish. So is the market snobbo-Catholics, the people like Mrs Bush who feel their church should resemble a chapter of an exclusive club?

I've got to say that I get this same sense from the man behind the curtain who indirectly transmitted this view regarding St Mary of the Angels on Saturday. Not only does St Mary of the Angels deserve to be rejected, it deserves to be rejected anonymously for unspecified reasons (i.e., blackballed), and it deserves to have this done snottily. And I return to the view expressed by Andrew Bartus, a highly favored Ordinarian, that the Ordinariate is for "white people". The only answer I can give for myself is the tried and true one from Groucho Marx: “I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members.” If there's a white people's mass these days out in Orange County, I've got to say that I prefer the mass for everyone else just down the street.

Something's seriously wrong here, Msgr Steenson.

Sunday, May 19, 2013

This Isn't How To Do Things

I've had several e-mails regarding the information I posted yesterday, none complimentary to the Ordinariate. I can probably get a week of postings out of the info and the reactions, actually. However, the most obnoxious part of it isn't just the policy (if in fact it's a policy), but the way it's being disseminated: not-for-attribution, not quite clear who's saying what, not quite clear, in fact, exactly what's being said.

If enough people don't like it, the Ordinary can eventually say he didn't know about it (and that may be happening, too) -- incompetent underlings, after all; we're getting that story elsewhere.

But let's look at the overall circumstances: the Ordinariate has been changing the rules as they go along since January 2012. There appears to have been little or no communication since summer 2012, although the Ordinariate had been asking for revisions to bylaws and articles of incorporation and heaven knows what else before then; the parish followed through in good faith. Then the Ordinariate stops answering the phone.

Finally, in response to mild probing nearly a year later, they put out a not-for-attribution statement by somebody-we're-not-sure-who saying the whole deal's off. Why not a polite but definite letter to the vestry from the Ordinary, instead of some rather nasty swipes by some dude behind a curtain? Steenson did send a letter last year, after all, recommending a course forward. Why on earth play these little games? Why not act like a serious organization that's being run by adults, carefully review your policies, make considered decisions in reasonable time frames, and make them public in well-written communications?

The biggest problem I have with the Ordinariate, which thanks-be-to-God is an insignificant part of the Catholic Church, is that it's an amateur show through and through, has been from the start, and is showing no change to date.

However, I'll have more to say -- almost certainly a week's worth of it.

Saturday, May 18, 2013

It Seems Less and Less Likely

that the Ordinariate will receive St Mary of the Angels Hollywood -- in response to my probing, I received the following from a knowledgeable party, which I take to be an unofficial version of what would, if one were to press hard enough, be the Ordinary's position:
A new Ordinariate group in Los Angeles will not be a continuation of St. Mary's any more than it will be a continuation of [redacted]. It will be a wholly new Catholic community that will, God willing, leave behind the conflicts and bitterness of our Anglican past. The symbols of that past would not be celebrated in a new fellowship/congregation. Any former St. Mary's or St. Thomas or St. James or All Saints or Blessed Sacrament parishioner will need to leave their past behind and embrace their new identity as a Catholic. If one is attached to former Anglican leadership then one might need to remain Anglican until he or she is moved by the Holy Spirit to convert. I am happy to make referrals to Evangelical or Anglo-Catholic Episcopal or Anglican Church in North America congregations where any St. Mary's member could find a spiritual home as an individual or together with other St. Mary's friends. That is an option for all the people of Fr. Kelley's St. Mary's congregation to consider. . . . .

I have known many people who were forcibly expelled from their homes during or after World War II. They lost everything, including their churches. They went on living and gave birth to another generation for whom home is somewhere else. They couldn't and still can't possibly regain their former homes in Konigsberg, Pomerania, Bohemia, Banat, Transylvania, Hungary or Istria. The injustices done to them are unknown and unlamented by most everyone, but they made new lives and raised a new generation.

This leaves some matters unresolved, however. The elected members of the St Mary's vestry have a moral and fiduciary obligation to provide stewardship over the parish's temporal resources until the parish's legal situation is fully resolved. They can't in good conscience simply leave that matter behind, and my wife and I have a great deal of sympathy for their situation, and frankly, we support them in it, although our own choice has been to become Catholic. It's unfortunate that the Ordinariate, having effectively led them into the situation in which they find themselves, has simply washed its hands of the whole business.

And while it's possible to find scriptural authority for nearly anything, I've sometimes found the Parable of the Persistent Widow (Luke 18:1-5) apposite to the St Mary's situation:

And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint; Saying, There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man: And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary. And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man; Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.
Certain types of persistence, it would appear, Our Lord admires. On the other hand, when I pointed this parable out to the late Canon Morello, he threatened legal action against me for harassment. I guess that serves as its own validation.

Friday, May 17, 2013

As Far As Anyone I've Talked To Is Aware,

the status of St Mary of the Angels Hollywood's request to join the Ordinariate is unchanged since the parish's letter to the Pope, published here on January 9. Of course, there's been a new Pope since then, but the parish hasn't heard back from anyone as of now. Various parties have begun the effort to see what other channels might be pursued. My inquiries to St Mary's vestry members have brought out no new contacts from the Ordinariate, at least to the knowledge of anyone I've talked to.

A core group of parishioners, including the elected vestry, meets for mass with Fr Kelley on Sundays at a private residence. Naturally, this group is unaffiliated with any denomination and has no episcopal supervision (but then, there's no episcopal supervision to speak of in the ACA Diocese of the West). It's worth pointing out that they find themselves in that situation because they'd applied to join the Ordinariate when the parish was in the TAC Patrimony of the Primate, whose purpose was specifically (in the words of the ACA House of Bishops) to serve as a holding tank for parishes that wished to do this. The members who'd followed all the procedures in good faith then found themselves turned loose by the Ordinariate, the parish seized by the ACA in violation of its own canons, and the pro-Ordinariate members then formally excommunicated by the ACA or less formally denied communion by being denied access to the property.

The Ordinary's inaction in this matter is, to say the least, puzzling.

Thursday, May 16, 2013

So, Again, What About The Ordinariate?

I'm still pondering what St Mary of the Angels parishioners might do in trying to get the ball rolling for receiving the parish into the Ordinariate. The situation, as I see it, is that some dozens of parishioners, having repeatedly petitioned the Ordinary for formation of a parish, have been left in a kind of no-man's-land -- the ACA has either specifically excommunicated them or less formally excluded them from membership by denying them admission to the property in order to receive communion, and by refusing them admission to the 2013 parish annual meeting. On the other hand, while the Ordinariate had begun the process of admitting the parish, it seems to have placed it on an unofficial indefinite hold, with no clear explanation of what might be done to continue or resume the process.

Anglicanorum coetibus and the complementary norms don't have a great deal to say. The apostolic constitution itself says,

VIII. § 1. The Ordinary, according to the norm of law, after having heard the opinion of the Diocesan Bishop of the place, may erect, with the consent of the Holy See, personal parishes for the faithful who belong to the Ordinariate.
The complementary norms say,
XIV. §3. For the pastoral care of the faithful who live within the boundaries of a Diocese in which no personal parish has been erected, the Ordinary, having heard the opinion of the local Diocesan Bishop, can make provisions for quasi-parishes (cf. CIC, can. 516, §1).
The fact that the complementary norms raise the issue of a quasi-parish is noteworthy:
While the quasi-parish seems to be of limited and even unlikely utility in most of the North American context, it is worth noting that the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus may provide a new (if limited) catalyst for the erection of quasi-parishes. Article 14 §3 of the Complementary Norms that accompany AC reads: “For the pastoral care of the faithful who live within the boundaries of a Diocese in which no personal parish has been erected, the Ordinary, having heard the opinion of the local Diocesan Bishop, can make provisions for quasi-parishes (cf. CIC, can. 516, §1).”[4] If and how this provision will be employed as these new Ordinariates unfold, and to what effect, will be one of the many canonically-interesting aspects of these new structures that I will be keeping a close eye on in the coming years.
Based on this initial research, it appears to me that someone needs to approach both Los Angeles Archbishop Gomez and the Ordinariate's newly-designated governing council to see what might be done to clarify the status and eligibility for admission of the wandering parishioners at St Mary of the Angels who, in good faith, had intended to become Catholic, but who, through no fault of their own, seem to have fallen through the cracks.

Again, any suggestions from knowledgeable parties would be helpful, but I'm beginning to get the impression that this is a hot potato that nobody who depends on the Ordinary's good will wants to touch.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

A Couple Of Questions

Two questions keep coming up in the back of my mind, and I'm wondering if anyone can provide insight.

First, how common is it for a diocese -- in this case, the ACA Diocese of the West -- to go, first, without a bishop for nearly three years (Daren Williams retired under pressure in late 2010), but now to have essentially no one acting as any ecclesiastical authority since the death of Anthony Morello, briefly Vicar General? I recognize that The Episcopal Church typically announces that, on the death or retirement of a bishop without a successor, the diocesan standing committee takes charge, although this is normally only until there is a synod to elect a new bishop. I'm not aware that the ACA ever made any equivalent announcement, and in any case, the diocesan synod for 2013 is canceled. And normally, even the ACA has designated an episcopal visitor to provide necessary annual visitations for confirmations, etc. Yet since Morello's death, all episcopal visits remain canceled. How unusual is this?

Second, what is the Ordinariate's responsibility toward the parishioners at St Mary of the Angels? On one hand, Msgr Steenson met with the vestry following the ACA's seizure of the parish in 2012, and there appears to have been recognition on that basis that the parish intended to go into the Ordinariate. On the other hand, my understanding is that the one priest remaining with the parish who would have been eligible to be ordained a Catholic priest was instructed to have nothing more to do with the parish. Thus, the parish, by order, has been deprived of recognized Anglican leadership, with no continuing path toward joining the Ordinariate. One individual has even suggested the parish attempt to resolve this problem via canon law.

Can anyone add clarification on either of these issues?

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Bishop Marsh's Hands-off Attitude

toward St Mary of the Angels ought to be troubling to the ACA, and indeed, to the St Mary's dissidents. Every account I've had, from inside or outside the parish, is that Mrs Bush is running things, with an iron hand. Mrs Bush is in fact a well-known social fixture in the local community. As it happens, there's been a highly disruptive sewer pipe project in the area. I happened to remark to a lady in the community not connected with St Mary's that it seemed like Mrs Bush might be responsible for it. The lady thought that was a most insightful remark and laughed, replying, "And how do you know Marilyn?"

One difficulty with giving Mrs Bush the free hand she has is that, as I've mentioned, she didn't begin attending St Mary's until early 2011. Prior to that, she hadn't attended church at all for 40 years, since her late husband had disapproved of religion. We may surmise that Mrs Bush used this time in learning how to achieve social prominence, not in the prayers and sacraments. Consequently, I think she views St Mary of the Angels as less a church than a chapter of an exclusive social club. This probably explains the bitter anger of Mrs Bush's small clique at the much wider membership of the parish.

But for Bishop Marsh to ignore what's happening in the parish is simply a recipe for disaster. I'm just a lay person, but my experience in the corporate world has given me many examples of why those in charge need to stay in touch and keep track of things, because cobwebs grow in undusted corners, and things can veer out of control at unexpected times. Winging it is never a good strategy. Word to the wise, Bishop Marsh.

Monday, May 13, 2013

Isn't Reconciliation A Two-Way Street?

I remember a Dilbert comic strip in which a group of managers is inadvertently locked in a conference room after hours. They realize they need to get an outside line to call for help, but they can't remember the number to dial to get the outside line -- half think it's 9; the other half think it's 8. They argue about this for some time, but then they decide to compromise and use 8.5. Eventually they starve to death because the phone system won't take decimals.

Every once in a while I get an e-mail from someone who wonders why the groups at St Mary of the Angels can't work out some sort of deal. This extends to Stephen Smuts's recent characterization of this blog as "one sided". But wait -- wasn't St Augustine a one-sided curmudgeon over the Arians? You can't split the difference over whether 2+2=4 or 5.

That's one part of the problem. But assuming something could be worked out, it's also worth looking at the circumstances surrounding the current siege:

  • The original temporary restraining order of May 2012, dissolved by the judge two weeks later, allowed the dissidents to identify 25 "John Does" whom they could keep off the property at their discretion. While there's no longer a legal basis for this exclusion, this attitude remains, and the dissidents have continued to call police if anyone in a large group of people they don't approve of approaches the property.
  • The dissidents, working through Anthony Morello and Stephen Strawn, excommunicated by letter at least nine parishioners, a remarkable number in any context.
  • In addition to those formally excommunicated, a much larger number was excluded from the February 2013 parish annual meeting simply by not being listed as an approved attendee.
  • I never received a letter of excommunication, although that doesn't mean I haven't been excommunicated, and I had no appetite for testing whether I'd be admitted to the annual meeting. But part of the problem here is that, although I'm not a member of the primary out-group, I don't want to risk the anger and threats of violence that might take place if I took it upon myself to make any approach to the dissidents.
  • The dissident party, led by Mrs Bush, has repeatedly refused any attempts at mediation or negotiation via attorneys or other qualified third parties, despite the judge's urging to do so. The ACA has also refused to meet with Msgr Steenson.
Reconciliation does require two parties. There are some differences you can't split. How do we fix this? Let half the excluded group back in? Half the excommunicated vestry/

It says a great deal about Bishop Marsh, the putative adult in charge from the ACA's side, that he seems to have a hands-off approach to the whole situation. He has a responsibility to foster an atmosphere of reconciliation, and to educate people like Mrs Bush on the limits of acceptable behavior. He has a great deal to answer for, and it's certain that he'll one day answer for it.

Saturday, May 11, 2013

A Quick Detour

on the matter of annulments. Someone sent me an e-mail recounting his experience of going into the Catholic Church and noted that it took his wife three years to get an annulment from a previous Catholic marriage. Curious, I looked up the question of how long annulments (strictly speaking, of course, "declarations of nullity") take and found this site, which says, "The complete process of an Annulment, without the involvement of an appeal, can easily take two years." My correspondent implied that his wife's three-year annulment process had been on something of a fast track, however, and these things apparently vary among dioceses.

At St Mary's, there were informal discussions with parties who would be affected by Catholic policy on prior marriages, but the only general discussion of the topic was an e-mail that went out in December 2011 basically saying that if we haven't gotten to you yet, and you have a potential impediment, you'd better get on it. I'm not sure if anyone fully understood then that they were talking about a two- or three-year process. My wife and I married late and married once; I suppose God's grace was involved.

While informed reflection can lead to a conclusion that nobody can say, "Poof! You're Catholic!" to individuals, parishes, or a whole denomination, I think this is one area where neither Cardinal Wuerl nor Msgr Steenson made the issues sufficiently clear from the start: Anglican annulments wouldn't be recognized. Annulments take several years. The Ordinariate was not going to be a free ride for anyone. Clearly there were misunderstandings about these sorts of issues from the start.

Friday, May 10, 2013

But Let's Get Back To Reconciliation

If there's one lesson to be taken from the ongoing story in this blog, it's that becoming Catholic is a major decision. While I'm not sure that the Portsmouth Letter was the actual cause of Anglicanorum coetibus, the story of the letter and the intricate misery that's cascaded from it in the TAC and elsewhere shows the implications of tampering lightly with the spiritual. Something over two dozen TAC bishops thought it might be a good idea to become Catholic, provided they didn't have to put themselves out unnecessarily. Six years later, only a few have actually followed through, while other careers, including those of John Hepworth, David Moyer, and Daren Williams, have crashed and burned. Clergy and laity who acted in good faith on the premises of the letter and what they took to be the TAC's intent over Anglicanorum coetibus have been left in the lurch.

It's plain that if people say they're "in favor of the Ordinariate", the example of the TAC bishops should be enough to show that this doesn't necessarily mean they're prepared to make whatever sacrifices might be involved in becoming Catholic. Over the past couple of years, I've been privileged to know a few people who've decided to convert to Catholicism from Mormonism and Scientology. They're good examples of the strength of character that's needed for this kind of journey.

Not everyone has this strength of character or this ability to follow through. Nor has the leadership, in either the ACA or the Ordinariate, necessarily had the ability to explain the real choices involved clearly: a good example is the story of St Aidan's Des Moines, in which Louis Falk, a prime mover behind the Portsmouth Letter, allowed his parishioners to believe Anglican annulments would be observed by the Ordinariate, or that the Ordinariate would overlook matters like being a Mason. The parish finally brought Msgr Steenson up to Des Moines to explain reality however reluctantly, at which point it voted overwhelmingly to reverse earlier elections and stay out of the Ordinariate. Falk then blamed Steenson for the whole debacle. Falk, of course, was "in favor of the Ordinariate" all along; he just happens to be one of the great majority of TAC bishops who haven't followed through.

One version of the factions at St Mary of the Angels is that there has been a group of putative good-guys, who were "in favor of the Ordinariate" but against Fr Kelley. As it happens, many of these had obstacles of the usual sort to becoming Catholic, which raises questions about their sincerity. The elected vestry of St Mary's and Fr Kelley both accepted a proposal from Msgr Steenson in July 2012 that suggested Fr Kelley be placed on an extended sabbatical that would amount to a generous severance package. Steenson would then proceed to appoint an Ordinariate priest, and things would move forward.

Wouldn't you expect the putative pro-Ordinariate, anti-Kelley good-guy faction to drop all their reservations and decide to move forward in a unified parish? Of course, no such thing has happened. Becoming Catholic as an individual is complex and difficult enough. As a parish, it's harder still. Everyone involved needs to get real about this situation.

Thursday, May 9, 2013

I've Already Raised The Puzzling Episode

of Louis Falk's 2009 pastoral letter announcing an imaginary new set of complementary norms for Anglicanorum coetibus. A couple of weeks ago, I got an e-mail saying that sometime in 2009 or 2010, the late Anthony Morello himself called my correspondent to announce that Pope Benedict's brother, or maybe it was his brother-in-law, had dropped in on Morello and then-ACA Bishop Daren Williams to announce this and much other good news regarding Anglicanorum coetibus.

Since necromancy is forbidden me as a new Catholic convert, I can't try to contact Theresa Caputo, the Long Island medium, to get Fr Tony's side of the story. All I can say is that I'm not making this up. However, I did check Wikipedia to discover that Georg Ratzinger, who is older than the Pope Emeritus, was nearly blind and had serious cardiac problems during this period and would almost certainly not have been making the rounds of the TAC bishops. A knowledgeable party also told me that Pope Benedict's sister never married, so that there was no possibility of a brother-in-law.

I was told, however, that a sometime Catholic canonist had been making similar approaches to ACA bishops with the same sort of message, although he'd turned out to be a con artist who wound up asking for major money. Whether this was related to the putative visit from Georg Ratzinger, I can't say, although my informant tells me that John Hepworth was telling people the same things as well -- that, basically, whatever people may have thought about whether parishes could retain control of their property, whether Masons could become Catholic, whether those divorced and remarried with a living ex could do the same, would all be finessed.

All I can say is that as stories like this keep coming up, it's plain that a great deal of wishful thinking accompanied the runup to the Ordinariate, and Catholic authorities did little to prevent it. The answers to some questions were pretty clear: nobody was going to make exceptions for Masons. On the other hand, would parishes need to revise their bylaws and articles of incorporation before they went into the Ordinariate? The Ordinariate itself was giving inconsistent answers on these sorts of issues.

In a meeting in January 2012, for instance, a parishioner with legal background posed just this question to Msgr Stetson, who himself has a degree from Harvard Law. Msgr Stetson gave a simple, definite "no" -- the parish would be received, and the legal issues would be resolved down the road. Yet not long after this, the Ordinariate had reversed itself and had become quite impatient that Fr Kelley had not yet revised the parish bylaws and articles of incorporation, which delay was cited as a reason for not receiving the parish.

Responding to my own complaints, the Ordinariate's Chancellor excused herself by saying, "We're making things up as we go along". I spent part of my career writing policies and procedures for corporations -- such things do in fact need to be worked out; they need to be worked out in advance; they need to be published where people know where to look. On one hand, the assortment of crazies and con artists that infest "continuing Anglicanism" have taken advantage of the vacuum the Ordinariate has allowed to continue, but on the other, the Ordinariate has been placing blame on people, such as Fr Kelley, whose faults lie in the direction of conscientiousness, when actual responsibility for confusion and delay lies much closer to home.

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

So, Do Any Of The 25 Ordinariate Parishes Now Provide Regular Communion

to non-Catholics, i.e., members of the parish when it had been Anglican/Episcopalian, but who did not become Catholic with the rest of the parish? I ask this, first, because as I review Msgr William Stetson's biography, he's clearly not a newcomer to questions relating to Anglicans coming into the Catholic Church:
Since 1983 Monsignor Stetson has also served as consultant and later secretary to the Ecclesiastical Delegate of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for the Pastoral Provision for former Episcopal priests, by means of which over a hundred men have been ordained for priestly service in the Roman Catholic Church. He maintained the Pastoral Provision Office at Our Lady of Walsingham parish, an Anglican Use congregation in the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston from 2007-2010.
In other words, before there was an Ordinariate, he was the go-to guy for the Anglican Use Pastoral Provision, stationed, not coincidentally it seems to me, at Our Lady of Walsingham Houston, where Msgr Steenson now sits. A statement from Msgr Stetson that he does not check passports at the communion rail could easily, under these circumstances, be misinterpreted, perhaps along the lines of the misinterpretation Captain Renault had that there was no gambling going on at Rick's. Just sayin'.

But my other reason for asking about this goes to the question that's on the floor right now about reconciliation. Certainly there are those connected with St Mary's who can now say, "But that wasn't my understanding -- I thought that my fourth wife and I could continue to receive communion at the parish. Now that we can't, we're definitely in favor of staying with the ACA." So that's a problem with any eventual burying of the hatchet. But frankly, just as I'm not aware of any definitive statement from Msgr Steenson on this matter over the past 18 months, I have a feeling we're never going to get one -- just as I suspect Msgr Stetson will never quite get around to clarifying his own statement regarding passports and the communion rail. If I'm mistaken, I will offer my sincere apologies at the time that either issues his clarification.

This, in fact, goes to what amounts to an ecclesiastical urban myth that several of my correspondents have mentioned over the past few weeks: the idea that Anglicanorum coetibus carried with it an unspoken but more liberal subtext -- or if the subtext wasn't unspoken, that some sort of clarification would be issued at some later time bringing in Anglicans, lay and clergy, who might have thought they had obstacles to becoming Catholic. I want to look into this more deeply, partly because it's an interesting glimpse into human nature on one hand, but also because it sheds light on what went wrong at St Mary's and what would need to be fixed should reconciliation ever become a real option there. So stay tuned.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Several Very Knowledgeable People

have added their perspectives to the question that came up in Sunday's post, which basically comes down to what sort of pastoral care a parish going into the Ordinariate can provide to members who cannot, or choose not to, become Catholic. As I revisit the issue, I've come to realize that the parish was trying to address this question immediately prior to the erection of the Ordinariate in January 2012, and so could get no clear guidance from the Ordinary, whose identity had not been announced.

Several parish meetings were held during December 2011 and January 2012, in which this question was formally or informally discussed. I don't believe anyone kept detailed notes or minutes, and I'm not aware of any recording. (If anyone has any of these, I'd naturally be interested in anything that would help complete the record.) Msgr William Stetson at the time was the representative of Los Angeles Archbishop Gomez, and later was referred to by Msgr Steenson, the Ordinary designated in January 2012, as his representative as well. Msgr Stetson was thus our most authoritative source.

The memory of several people who attended a December 2011 meeting was that Msgr Stetson made statements to the effect that (as one who attended the meeting summarized it to me) "he doesn't check passports at the communion rail and [we] took that to mean that communion would be open to Anglicans at a Catholic Mass at St. Mary's." My own understanding of the guidance we'd received from Msgr Stetson was that the Ordinariate priest would have some sort of pastoral option available that would allow him to give communion to non-Catholics remaining in the parish.

This, of course, contravenes actual Catholic doctrine, which simply says that non-Catholics who have not been properly received into the Church via the sacraments are not eligible for Catholic communion. Whether the parish and the Ordinariate would actually have gotten away with giving Catholic communion to non-Catholics at St Mary's is now a moot point. In our defense, and specifically in defense of Fr Kelley, I would say that although we had had a pretty thorough catechism throughout the summer of 2011, the specific issue of whether a priest could override this particular doctrine didn't come up. (The full Catholic Catechism is a very thick volume.) We were still Anglicans, and Fr Kelley had not yet gone through the additional training that would be needed to become a Catholic priest in the Ordinariate. In that matter, we were relying in good faith on the opinions of Msgr Stetson, a formidable individual well known in conservative Catholic circles, who had been designated by the archbishop to address precisely this sort of question.

At the time this was specifically discussed, there was not yet an Ordinary in place, and I don't believe Msgr Steenson has addressed this issue at any time following his designation. Revisiting the issue from the perspective of events in the subsequent 18 months, this is, from my point of view, one more piece of a puzzle that's given me a picture of people making things up as they go along, winging it over important matters, and letting people with intentions formed on good faith fall through the cracks.

The bottom line from the parish's standpoint, it seems to me, is that it clearly intended to provide pastoral care for parishioners who would not become Catholic, and it relied in good faith on what it took to be the valid opinion of the Catholic authorities, however misguided this reliance may have been. Should there be an opportunity for reconciliation now, of course, it would not be an option to provide Catholic communion to non-Catholics. I've heard ideas on what might actually be done from several people, which all involve having an Anglican priest come in to provide communion to those parishioners in some fashion, whether at a side altar during the Catholic service, or as a separate parish using the St Mary's building for its own Anglican mass.

This would, naturally, have to be worked out between Catholic and Anglican authorities. It's important to recognize that the elected vestry of the parish is prepared to find a way to resolve this problem in good faith, should reconciliation be a real possibility.

Monday, May 6, 2013

People Read This Blog,

including, apparently, the redoubtable Mrs Bush. Last week I posted that the St Mary's web site still listed a rededication of the parish as scheduled for April, which at the time was fast waning. The time reference in that post has since been removed, so that we may now apparently expect the rededication of the parish at the same indefinite future time as the arrival of the Kingdom. I simply don't know if this is now proclaimed as a mystery of faith in the masses said there. The parish will be rededicated again!

It's worth asking what the holdup is here. The decision from last autumn by Judge Linfield remains under appeal, but this has not changed since the rededication was originally scheduled for April. The late lamented Fr Tony was the one who'd originally proposed this rededication, of course, but the Church Universal is not a ministry of men. Why can't the ACA simply carry on? As I said last week, Bishop Marsh, the episcopal visitor, now has two suffragans to help carry his comparatively light load, and given his duty as a bishop, he should be involving himself in the affairs of the parish and diocese, when manifestly he is not.

I can only speculate once again that the conscience of anyone in the ACA who might be involved in the St Mary's situation is troubled, and they don't want to touch it, especially given the unhappy omen of the late vicar general's sudden passing. The bishop and his cronies will tell themselves in the daylight that Tony was in precarious health, but when the sun goes down, they have no such confidence. We are not going to see Bishop Marsh near the West Coast anytime soon, and only the occasional fool like James Barlow will even think of meddling otherwise. When push comes to shove, these men fear the Almighty.

On top of that, the fallout from the St Mary's situation continues to be a black eye for the ACA and the TAC, far more, I think, than they had anticipated. People read this blog. The TAC's de facto press dude, Stephen Smuts, acknowledges this when he characterizes my blog as "one sided vitriolic [sic]". People also read the Freedom for St Mary blog. Random crazies from as far away as the Canadian far north hear of the situation. It couldn't help Fr Tony to have people googling his sorry record as an Episcopal priest. It can't help "Archbishop" Falk to have that little slip in Rhinelander dredged up yet again.

I strongly suspect as well that Mrs Bush is not wearing well with anyone in the hierarchy, and they likely haven't even met some of the angrier cases now running the place. As far as I can tell, Mrs Bush quickly loses patience with whatever feckless stooge the ACA puts in as a curate or supply priest, and one explanation for the calls I've had lately could be that they're going through their rolodex in the next desperate move to provide someone who'll finally make the lady happy.

St Mary's has turned into a tar baby for the ACA. It's a distraction from the need to rebuild the whole Diocese of the West, and one reason they can't hold a synod, as far as I can see, is that the St Mary's case hasn't sat well with the other clergy there. If they can appoint someone like Morello vicar general, whom the rest can't even take seriously, what else can they do?

So, Bishop Marsh, bite the bullet. It might help to find a confessor. But at some point, you're going to have to declare victory and get out.

Step 1 will be to lose Mrs Bush. I assume this has been at the back of everyone's head anyhow. As far as she's concerned, St Mary's is her personal ordinariate, and she's going to stand in the way of any constructive action. Your best bet will be to schedule a gala retirement tribute for her. Heck, if it would help, my wife and I would attend; we'd toast her, we'd applaud, we'd talk about what a wonderful old lady she is. But when, tipsy with champagne, she leaves the dinner, she's out as senior warden.

That's the first step. There are others, but you need to do this one first. Otherwise, you're back to that nagging nightly worry about what happened to Tony.

More tomorrow.

Sunday, May 5, 2013

I've Had A Second Contact From Out-Of Town Clergy

about St Mary's in a little over a week. I simply don't know if they're related, nor whether there's a common cause for them, but both (perhaps as clergy might in any circumstance) have asked pretty detailed questions on what's going on, and what the possibilities might be for reconciliation.

So, asked this question in a serious context, I've given it some more thought. Here's what I think is the situation.

  1. Roughly 80% of the parish voted in four separate elections during 2011 and 2012 to join the Patrimony of the Primate (which the ACA itself interpreted as leaving the ACA), to join the US Catholic Ordinariate, and again in the summer of 2012 to leave the ACA, which despite two previous statements, claimed it still had control of the parish.
  2. These votes were all in accordance with canon law and the parish bylaws. You simply can't ignore them.
  3. The parish had a long-standing intent to become Catholic, dating from its early involvement in setting up the Anglican Use provision in the late 1970s, predating the ACA or its ACC predecessor. The ACA also needs to respect this.
  4. For those in the parish who did not wish to become Catholic, or for whatever reason were unable to become Catholic, they would nevertheless still be regarded as members and eligible to receive communion once the parish went into the Catholic Ordinariate. (UPDATE: While this promise was made to a parish meeting I attended, I'm told it may not be a valid canonical position in the Catholic Church. As I receive more information, I'll provide clarification.)
As a result, I simply don't see how the ACA can split the difference. If the ACA retains control of the parish, it will be against the wish of a supermajority of the parish as of 2012. While Protestant denominations will generally offer communion to all baptized Christians, only Catholics may receive communion at a Catholic mass, and they may not receive communion at a Protestant mass. There is no way an ACA priest can offer communion to Catholics. By retaining control of the parish, the ACA denies the parish the ability to receive Catholic communion. It's no different from recognizing that by stealing my car, you deny me the ability to drive my car. Singing kumbaya doesn't fix this.

It's worth pointing out that two other parishes that had been in the Patrimony or the equivalent Pro-Diocese of the Holy Family, the Church of the Nativity in Payson, AZ, and the Church of the Incarnation in Orlando, FL, went into the Ordinariate without obstacle from the ACA. The ACA clearly understands that some parishes wished to become Catholic. It is difficult to understand why it chose to seize St Mary of the Angels and not Holy Nativity or Church of the Incarnation.

Any ACA clergy, or other Anglican clergy engaged by the ACA, will have a job that seems to me utterly impossible if he thinks he can reconcile Protestant with Catholic, especially when 80% of the parish had expressed a specific wish to leave the ACA and become Catholic. Under the Ordinariate, there would have been a provision for existing members who chose not to become Catholic to continue to receive pastoral care. There is no way, however, that those who became Catholic in accordance with the parish's intent from the 1970s onward would wish to receive communion from ACA clergy, who would likely be marginal in any case.

UPDATE: Due to the question that was raised over whether non-Catholic members, particularly those with irregular marriage situations, could receive communion once St Mary's entered the Ordinariate, I conveyed my uncertainty to knowledgeable parties. Their response was that it would never have been their intention to drive any members away from the parish as a result of the Ordinariate, and that Msgr Steenson was sensitive to this. While exactly what provision might be made for their pastoral care was not definitely specified, it was everyone’s understanding all along that some provision for the pastoral care of those who did not wish to become, or had obstacles to their becoming, Catholic would be made. Whatever the specific wording of what may have been said in the parish meeting, this was unquestionably the intent. It’s worth pointing out that the 2012 controversy over a priest’s denial of communion to an avowed lesbian in Washington, DC brought out the fact that actually denying anyone communion is not a matter to be taken lightly in the real world, and in the minds of bishops, there may be solutions to these questions that escape laypeople.

It does appear to me that the ACA has got something like a tar baby on its hands here, and tomorrow I will propose a way the ACA can extricate itself.

Saturday, May 4, 2013

Who Is David Virtue? -- V

I've nailed it down: David Virtue's "DD" comes from Laud Hall. The Dean and President of that estimable institution e-mailed me yesterday in response to my inquiry:
He received an honorary DD from Laud Hall during the 2002 Synod of the United Anglican Church in Hudson, Florida.
Wikipedia does not have a separate entry for the United Anglican Church, but in its entry on continuing Anglicanism, it lists the UAC with an estimated number of parishes at six. However, the totals listed there for other denominations that I'm familiar with seem high, so I suspect six is stretching the truth.

According to Laud Hall's website,

Following the union of the Traditional Episcopal Church with the Anglo-Catholic Church in the Americas, the Seminary came under the jurisdiction of the United Anglican Church in 2001.
Not only is this honorary "DD" a worthless lagniappe from a laughable institution, it also says something of Virtue's own standards of integrity. It's worth repeating that Virtue identifies himself on his website as a journalist. The Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics says, in part:
Journalists should:
  • Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived.
  • Remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility.
  • Refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment, and shun secondary employment, political involvement, public office and service in community organizations if they compromise journalistic integrity.
  • Disclose unavoidable conflicts.
  • Be vigilant and courageous about holding those with power accountable.
By receiving an honorary "DD" from a "continuing Anglican" seminary, it seems to me that Virtue has a conflict of interest, since it involves a gift, favor, or special treatment from the seminary and the "continuing Anglican" denomination he's covering. It's been remarked that the source of his "DD" has been a hard item to track down, and I think there are two reasons for this: first, as an honorary degree from a diploma mill, it's a joke. Nevertheless, Virtue thinks it's important to have a "DD" after his name. (But why even bother to jump through this tiny hoop? Why not just claim a PhD out of thin air, like Fr Tony Morello?) But he also won't disclose the source of his "DD", since it compromises his journalistic "integrity".

What this says, I think, is that Virtue shares a lot with the disreputable crew he covers favorably on his blog. They all have phony credentials. They all congratulate each other for their phony MDivs, phony DDs, phony The Rt Revs, phony parishes, phony denominations, and they all kiss Virtue's butt. Virtue loves it.

This is a case study in the banality of evil.

Friday, May 3, 2013

Hmm -- Is There A Pattern Here?

Two features that most people cite as common to the various branches of the Continuum are use of the 1928 Book of Common Prayer and the refusal to ordain women. But I keep seeing a third feature, and I think this is an overriding one: the clergy in the Continuum are at the margins of Anglicanism. In some cases, as we saw yesterday with the Very Rev Fr Barlow, if they're still incardinated in the Anglican Communion, they claim degrees from unaccredited institutions, and they came in through one or another side door, like the Philippine Independent Church. Others, from Louis Falk to Anthony Morello to William Martin, left Anglican Communion denominations due to scandal. Still others, like Stephen Strawn or Brian Marsh, were never ordained, and probably never eligible for ordination, in Anglican Communion denominations.

In other words, when you travel with the Continuum, you're traveling third class. If there's a part of the St Mary of the Angels story that hasn't been fully elaborated here, I think it's that the clergy who'd been there while the parish was in the Patrimony had degrees, both BA and MDiv, from accredited institutions, and in the case of the more senior priests, had had credible careers in The Episcopal Church. The two more senior were pushed out by Stephen Strawn and Anthony Morello, who had neither, and anyone the ACA has brought in, or appears to be considering, is nowhere near the level of Kelley, Ledbetter, or Bartus.

This applies equally to the major "journalist" covering the Continuum, David Virtue, "DD". As I was questioning his qualifications the other week, someone suggested I look into a place in Florida called Laud Hall. This is an unaccredited institution that, according to its website, offers "non-residential mode" (i.e., mail order), low tuition, and user-friendly lesson plans and examinations. Whew! And they say the Ivy League is overrated! Diploma, Master’s and Doctoral Degrees available!

I'm told that "Dr" Virtue has some connection with this place. This is what we're dealing with, folks. One hand is washing the other throughout this sorry mess -- no wonder Virtue treats the likes of Morello and Marsh with such respect.

Thursday, May 2, 2013

There's A Resume Posted For An Anglican Priest Who's On The Job Market

here. As it happens, some guy with the same name and background had an e-mail exchange with me over the past weekend. He appears to have been closely associated with the late lamented Anthony Morello via the Philippine Independent Church and various positions at St Luke's Episcopal Mission, Fontana, CA (from which Morello was eventually removed by Bishop Borsch).

He lists both a BA in Pastoral Studies and an MDiv from St Dunstan's School of Theology, Merrilville, Indiana USA (he spells "Merrilville" differently in two places). I can find no web listing for a St Dunstan's School of Theology; I can find only one other reference online, an ACC bishop who also claims a degree from that institution. I assume it is not accredited, if it exists at all. If anyone has any info about it, I'd appreciate hearing it.

I simply don't know if the Very Rev Fr Barlow has formally applied to be rector or interim at St Mary of the Angels, though from internal evidence in the e-mails he sent me, it appears that he's heard specific details of issues and personnel there that came from a source other than me. His job history suggests he's often on the market, listing somewhat shaky qualifications.

In any case, he appears to be an example of the applicant pool for St Mary's. The job of Mrs Bush and Brian Marsh will be to identify someone desperate enough to ask no questions and do precisely as he's told.

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

But What About The Ordinariate?

I've had several replies to yesterday's post, expressing various levels of optimism over whether St Mary of the Angels can ever go into the Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter. The first question, of course, is how the case of the elected vestry and wardens, and the rector, turns out on appeal. (If the Anglican cleric who e-mailed me over the weekend does anything at all before the appeal is decided, of course, he will be a fool, but my estimate of the man's intelligence isn't all that high.)

Whether the Ordinariate would then look favorably on the parish's renewed application if the appeal went in its favor is still an open question. The opinion has been expressed that the Ordinariate might no longer be interested in St Mary's, and that position strikes me as at least realistic.

My wife and I began regularly attending St Mary of the Angels during 2011 entirely on the basis that it would go into the Ordinariate. Fr Kelley is an erudite and inspiring priest, but the likelihood that the parish would not be just a Continuum offshoot was the deciding factor for us. During 2011, several Anglo-Catholic blogs looked forward enthusiastically to the Ordinariate's erection, and a list of parishes that had expressed interest in going in grew to more than 60.

Frankly, the Ordinariate hasn't turned out that way. The enthusiastic Anglo-Catholic blogs first began to express reservations about the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth in-group that was running the show, then, apparently on orders from above, went completely silent. The Ordinariate stopped returning phone calls from good and sincere priests who'd expected to be ordained as Catholics, with no rhyme or reason: Fr Seraiah was ordained a Catholic priest in the Ordinariate despite having no parish; others were not, with no explanation. (While vocations are up, there continues to be a shortage of Catholic priests; I'm sure bishops could find a use for additional supply priests in any diocese.)

The current list of parishes on the Ordinariate web site numbers 25 in the US and Canada, far from the 60-plus that had been envisioned in just the US. My own view is that, had St Mary's been received into the Ordinariate in early 2012, we would have gone into a Catholic backwater that would almost immediately have grown stagnant. My wife and I decided that for ourselves, it was important not to delay becoming Catholic, and we took the alternate route of the RCIA program at our local Catholic parish.

Given the continuing uncertainty surrounding St Mary's and the picture we're increasingly getting of the Ordinariate, this turns out to have been the best decision for us. I look back on an adult forum conducted by the then-Curate at St Mary's during the spring of 2011, in which he was explaining the intent of the Ordinariate (the Curate was in fact a favored member of the Fort Worth in-group and is now a Catholic priest with an Ordinariate parish): he said, with no apology (and apparently no sense of shame) that the Ordinariate was meant for "white people". (Yup.)

At Our Mother of Good Counsel, we exchange the peace during mass with all of God's people; in Hollywood, that's just about everyone. Andrew Bartus can have the Ordinariate.