Walking Back The Cat -- III

Taxes are serious business, legally and morally. Employers are required to send IRS and state authorities quarterly payments for income tax withholding, as well as federal social security payments, where these apply. It's worth stressing that this money, while it is Caesar's, is Caesar's paid by the employees themselves, and thus it belongs to them. If an employer doesn't forward the withholding to Caesar, even if it's been withheld. the employee is still responsible for paying Caesar, and in such cases must often pay the same tax twice. Thus, not to forward withholding is stealing, not from the government (although the government is entitled to the money), but from the employees themselves. Failure to pay employees their just wages is one of the sins that cry out to heaven.

When I became "probationary acting interim treasurer", the quarterly tax withholding and social security payments were at the front of my mind, and they stayed there until Mr Kang engineered my removal from the position, as Mr Clark discussed in his statement. This was a frustrating matter to deal with, because I could find no reference in the parish treasurer's office to previous payments -- no forms, no copies of prior payment submissions, nothing. As far back as I could check, I found no copies of paid checks to the IRS in bank statements.

Part of the problem was that Ms Akan did her work as parish treasurer from her home, and when she resigned, she didn't return applicable paperwork to the parish. The problem was actually bigger than that, since the amounts to be withheld, and the way they're calculated, are constantly changing. I could see that it was going to take time to figure out where the parish stood, but I decided it would be highly prudent to end all the potential problems by hiring a payroll service. This would ensure several things: the deductions and payments would be properly calculated. The payments would be made on time. The payments wouldn't depend on whether or not parish volunteers were competent, dependable, or indisposed. Best of all, the fees charged by payroll services were reasonable, and the parish could afford them. And once we hired an agency, I could use them to help work out the missing payment information from 2011 and resolve any discrepancies.

I made a completed-staff-work recommendation to review a short list of candidates and select a payroll service to the vestry at my first meeting with them as treasurer. They approved the recommendation. (I assume Mr Kang and some others were nervous, but they had no choice but to vote in favor). In the following weeks, I looked at several agencies and identified the one that had the best church payroll experience and suited our other needs. In the vestry meeting the following month, I presented a recommendation that the parish engage this service. Again, I assume several members were nervous, but like ACA bishops, they voted for whatever would make them look good.

Among those who've looked at the parish's 2011 payroll withholding situation, of course, the actual circumstance appears to have been that no payments due the IRS were paid at all during that year. According to the timeline at the Freedom for St Mary site, a payment of about $800 was due the IRS for quarterly withholding on January 31 of that year, and it was not made. We know it was not made, because the IRS threatened to seize the parish a year later for not receiving it. The money was definitely in the bank. Making the payment was Ms Akan's responsibility. She did not make this nor any subsequent quarterly withholding payments that were due the IRS in 2011.

Naturally, I didn't know the whole story then, but I was worried enough about what I didn't know that I pursued hiring a payroll service for the parish as my first priority. I can see no other reason for Mr Kang engineering my removal as "probationary acting interim treasurer" at the December 11, 2011 vestry meeting. A payroll service would simply have eliminated the biggest pretext, "financial irregularities", for challenging Fr Kelley. (It might also, of course, have shed unwanted light on the payments that hadn't been made.) In the general confusion surrounding the December 10 letter to Fr Kelley and then-Bp Moyer's refusal to inhibit him, Mr Kang was able to get the vestry to change its mind and decide that, although I would have been with the parish for a year and thus fully qualified to serve as treasurer as of January 1, 2012, as of December 11, I should no longer be "probationary acting interim treasurer". The vestry agreed, perhaps as part of an implicit deal that would save Fr Kelley in his own position, at least for a while. (The dissidents, by Patrick Omeirs's account, were already talking to Stephen Strawn of the ACA.)

A dissident vestry member phoned me a few days later. I shouldn't take it personally, he said. It had nothing to do with me. It was just that I was seen as a "Kelley puppet". The vestry made no further move to hire the payroll service it had voted to engage.

Walking Back The Cat -- II

As it happens, I turn up as a figure in Mr Clark's statement:

It was also important to get someonene to do the day to day business of the church as treasurer and Fr. Kelley brought the suggestion of John Bruce as a candidate to replace Jana [Akan]. I was originally in support of this as it seemed Mr. Bruce was the only viable person able to serve, due to the fact that according to the by-laws, the treasurer must be a full member of the parish. It was later learned that Mr. Bruce had not met the time requirement to be a full member and to serve as treasurer. Mr. Kang became a vocal critic of the attempt to seat Mr. Bruce as treasurer and this began a series of events that led to the meeting on December llth.

Unfortunately, Mr Clark left the parish in frustration around the end of 2011, and he wasn't able to learn many of the details that might have changed his views. The dissident members of the vestry, including Mr Kang, were actually very selective in their enthusiasm for the parish bylaws. For instance, Article VI, Section 2 says, "Any pledging member of the Church shall be eligible to be elected a member of the vestry." None of the dissident vestry members, as of late 2011, had a pledge on file. (I knew this, because I was treasurer during that period.)

However, Mr Kang, although he was on the vestry without having pledged, was insistent that I couldn't be even an acting treasurer, because I was a few months short of the one-year attendance requirement to be a full member of the parish.

Nevertheless, after a characteristically long and stormy vestry meeting, I was voted in with some complicated title like "probationary acting interim treasurer". Oddly, Andrew Bartus called me in separately before the vote for a big-deal meeting with him. I assumed at the time that this was at Fr Kelley's request, possibly a preliminary assessment of my motivation and qualifications, but in fact this was unknown to Fr Kelley, completely unauthorized, and thus improper for a curate. I outlined for Bartus my banking experience and gave him several names of Episcopal clergy as character references, so he had to back down. (I would guess that if Bartus had called any of the references, it would have gotten back to Fr Kelley, and the jig would have been up!) Still, he tried to talk me out of taking the job.

I spent around two and a half months as "probationary acting interim treasurer", or whatever it was. It was long enough to discover that the parish's financial problems were entirely the creation of Ms Akan and Mr Kang. Ms Akan was, if anything, even closer to Bartus than Mr Kang; she socialized extensively with Bartus and his wife, and they made her godmother of their first child.

The parish had more than enough money in its general account to cover its bills. The problem was that nobody had written any checks. This, of course, would have been Ms Akan's responsibility, but she hadn't done that job for some months prior to her resignation. The parish van, for instance, was on the verge of being repossessed. My big task for weeks was to write dozens of checks to cover thousands of dollars in unpaid bills, with hundreds of dollars in late payment fees. I had to round up the authorized signers for signature sessions. This probably averted a catastrophe, although I was removed as treasurer in the December 11 vestry meeting before I could solve the biggest issue, the unpaid withholding tax, which I'll cover tomorrow.

But Mr Kang and Ms Akan were going to anyone who would listen with dark hints of financial irregularity. As several judges and the California unemployment insurance board have since determined, there was no financial irregularity or other misconduct on Fr Kelley's part. On the other hand, those making the allegations, and even trying to create evidence of irregularity themselves, were actively against what I was doing as treasurer, as Mr Clark points out. They were also closely associated with Andrew Bartus.

Walking Back The Cat -- I

"Walking back the cat" is spy terminology for retracing a trail of evidence until the cause of some untoward consequence is determined. It was only when Mr Lancaster identified his individual clients, Mrs Bush and the Kangs, in the recent procedural conference that I began to think of other connections in this case. I'd forgotten about my reference in 2012 to the statement of Mr Ralph Clark on the Freedom for St Mary site that discussed events in mid-2011, but which I think are more important in connection with what we've recently learned

Mr Clark was on the St Mary's vestry during 2011 and had some familiarity with events then. I began attending St Mary's in early 2011, but only became familiar with what was really going on in the August-September 2011 time period. I knew Mr Clark only slightly and had only a few chats with him (I can't remember if it was via phone or e-mail) after I briefly became treasurer; we never discussed the material in his statement.

Mr Clark says in his statement,

Some people (including our Curate) also complained about the content of Fr. Kelley's sermons but this was something I felt was outside the scope of the vestry's concerns (which include ALL temporal affairs ofthe church).

It is important to note that we had an episcopal visit from our Bishop (David Moyer) in June of 2011 to help deal with a growing personality conflict between Fr. Bartus and Fr. Kelley and to address some of the concerns I mentioned above. It was after this visit that the move to remove Fr. Kelley began in earnest among a small part of the parish instigated by Fr. Bartus.

The content of any meetings among then-Bishop Moyer, Fr Kelley, and Bartus is, of course, confidential, and I have heard only the vaguest bits and snippets over the years of what may have happened. It does appear, however, that the main reason for Moyer's visit was a personnel issue.

Leaving personality conflicts aside, I noted during 2011 several problems that, as an observer, did strike me as worth addressing. I recall a mostly jocular discussion with the frequent master of ceremonies on exactly what Bartus was doing during many parts of the mass -- I thought his posture a little awkward, but couldn't tell from the nave if his eyes were closed. The master of ceremonies, who had a much closer view, laughingly insisted Bartus was often asleep. (But if Bartus was asleep, it's hard to know how he could object to Fr Kelley's sermons!)

On another occasion, Bartus was to deliver the homily -- but instead, he grandly pointed out that since everyone revered Fr Davis, the former curate who had recently passed away, he would simply read one of Fr Davis's homilies from the files, and that's what he did. (The late Carroll Barbour, much-revered rector of a neighboring Episcopal parish, once fired an associate for a similar offense.) A former Episcopal priest who was close to the situation at St Mary's told me that earlier in his career, he'd been terminated as an associate for less, and on mature reflection, that termination had been justified.

I can only conclude that Moyer, reviewing Bartus's job performance irrespective of any personality conflict, had no choice but to be firm with the newly minted curate. The best evidence we have from Mr Clark's statement is that Bartus did not take this well, and he redoubled his disagreements with his superiors, stirring up the less stable and more gullible parishioners in the process.

Bartus, from the best information we have, apparently had back-channel contacts with Houston-in-formation (the Ordinariate had not yet been formally erected). I can only assume that he transmitted his own assessments of Fr Kelley and then-Bp Moyer to the in-group of Ft Worth clergy.

I don't mean to second-guess the eventual decisions Msgr Steenson and Abp Chaput made over Moyer's ordination as a Catholic priest. He'd been deposed as an Episcopal priest, and he had a history of litigiousness. Nevertheless, if any personal assessments of Moyer by Andrew Bartus figured into these decisions, I believe they should be reconsidered. The same applies to any character assassination against Fr Kelley that may have been passed on by Bartus.

Trial Postponed

I'm hearing that the trial in the Rector, Wardens, and Vestry cases, previously scheduled to begin April 14, has been postponed to August. Judge Strobel will be sitting on the California appeals court for three months, and will return in August. She had originally said a substitute judge would hear the case, but it now appears that she wants to hear it herself. As I said not long ago, I developed an appreciation for how she was handling the case, and although it means a delay, I think it also means a competent judge will continue to be involved. Judge Linfield, after all, committed a reversible error.

In any case, resolution of the legal issues is only one of the tasks facing the elected vestry, the parish, and its friends. Three other major tasks remain, and it seems to me that they should be handled, at least in part, concurrently with the legal issues.

• The parish needs better assurance of how it will enter the Ordinariate, and indeed, whether this is still an option. If it isn't, the parish needs to find an acceptable alternative. The parish in fact needs to develop an acceptable alternative affiliation simply as a matter of prudent planning.
• It's more and more plain that the divisions in the parish that metastasized in 2011-2012 were in fact largely brought about by its former curate through a series of unethical moves. It is essential that, if the parish joins the Ordinariate, it be made absolutely clear that the former curate will not return to the parish in any role.
• Appropriate clergy needs to be identified, potential obstacles to ordination be resolved, and appointed to lead the parish, in consultation with the elected vestry or succeeding parish council. This is an area where developing an acceptable alternative affiliation will pay dividends.

So What If I Wanted To Hear Andrew Bartus Celebrate Mass?

I'd be utterly delighted if someone, reading this blog, said, "Wow, this guy Bruce sure has a bee in his bonnet about some Ordinariate priest named Bartus. Hey, I don't live all that far away -- why don't I pop over to that Newman mission and hear what's happenin'?"

Easier said than done. I googled "'bl john henry newman' church california", and the first hit I got was The Parish of Bl John Henry Newman, an extremely well-done site, but, I fear, a Latin Mass parish in Melbourne, Australia. I skipped the Wikipedia entry for Newman himself and then found a Facebook page for John Henry Newman Catholic Church in Fullerton, CA. Well, there's a map, but nothing else -- hey, when does this guy Bartus show up and do his thing? A link, only partly visible on the Facebook page, takes me to another web page with a pretty picture of a thurible being swung.

When I click on Welcome, which I have to do if I want to see more than a thurible, I get another page with more pretty pictures and nothing else. The Holy Spirit, I discover, must eventually inspire me to click on one or another pretty picture to get more information -- the one I eventually find on mass, after several experiments that remind me of Minesweeper, gives times, but no location. Again, the Holy Spirit must move me to click again on Location at the top of the Mass page. There's also a garbled sentence on the Mass page: "Any Catholic in good standing is welcome to receive communion with us; those who are not are invited to attend and come forward to receive a priestly blessing." Er, those who are not what?

St Augustine had an easier time when the child sang "Take up and read". This is a made member of the Episcopal Diocese of Ft Worth clique. Handsome is as handsome does.

The Pastoral Issue -- III

Because my visitor raised the issue of possible "bad blood" between the former curate at St Mary of the Angels, Andrew Bartus, now a priest in the US Ordinariate and pastor of the Bl John Henry Newman mission in Fullerton, CA, and the St Mary's parish, I think it's time to discuss any potential problems in greater detail.

I do this simply because nobody knows if the problems from 2010-2012, when he was curate and we got to know him, are now just water under the bridge (in which case it is proper to forgive and forget), or if the parish will need to deal with him again, in which case everyone needs to be aware of potential issues that would affect his resumed ministry. As my visitor pointed out, at minimum, he could be involved in any mutual programs between two neighboring Ordinariate parishes.

I know little beyond the broad outlines of pastoral ethics. When Bartus was at St Mary's, of course, he was an ACA priest, and he is now a Catholic priest. Different standards almost certainly apply between the denominations. However, I found this fairly general discussion of pastoral ethics online

We are committed to mutually building up the body of Christ, recognizing and affirming the different gifts in the assembly. In the occurrence of criticism or complaints brought by a member of the body, we are committed to discussion leading to restoration between members of the body.

We are committed to diligently preserving unity in the body of Christ. We will not knowingly participate in the division of any local church. If such division occurs, we will not personally participate in the start of another church in the same locale.

On the whole, the discussions I've seen stress that it is inappropriate for a pastor to socialize excessively with particular cliques in a parish or to join one or another faction.

Mrs Bush and the Kangs are the individuals listed by Mr Lancaster as his clients in the Rector, Wardens, and Vestry cases. I think it's reasonable to infer that they are, or were during 2010-12, key members of one particular parish faction. However, it was general knowledge -- and my wife and I saw one instance of this ourselves, to our surprise -- that Bartus socialized extensively outside parish activities with Mrs Bush and the Kangs. I've heard at second hand that Bartus and Mr Kang frequently played poker together at one or another residence. This conduct was observed by other members of the parish during 2010-12 and recognized at the time to be unethical.

In addition, when he left the parish in April 2012, Bartus took several members, whom he had cultivated while curate at St Mary's, with him to join his Newman group in Orange County. This was also unethical, by this and other common standards of pastoral ethics. I simply don't know if there has been continued contact between Bartus, Mrs Bush, or other members of the dissident faction at St Mary's, but if I were Houston, this is an issue I would wish to assure myself was not a potential problem.

Leaving anything else aside, Bartus's conduct with parishioners and cliques in the parish was unethical, such that the elected vestry is fully justified in not wishing to have any type of renewed contact -- even participation in joint activities as Ordinariate parishes should be cause for concern to any succeeding parish council.

However, the best inference that can be drawn from known circumstances is that Bartus was, at minimum, aware of the scheme to deliberately withhold parish tax payments to the IRS, resulting in the eventual near-seizure of the property. This was averted only by the premature arrival of a final notice. It appears that the principals behind the scheme had enlisted Bartus as their candidate for Rector in the wake of the seizure, if it had taken place. My wife and I have some direct evidence of this, as Bartus made an appointment to visit us at our home, presumably to explain his new position, just after the date the IRS would have seized the parish. He simply didn't show up when that didn't happen. Here's another passage from the ethics outline cited above:

We will conduct ourselves in an honest and professional manner, always reflecting the highest biblical integrity in keeping with our call in the areas mentioned in this code. We will endeavor to do right by all people.

We are committed to keeping ourselves above reproach in all areas of life. We are committed to moral soundness, honesty, and uprightness.

My understanding, reinforced by an e-mail just this morning, is that Ordinariate officers were warned of Bartus's unethical conduct prior to his ordination as a Catholic priest. Instead, his reception and ordination were fast-tracked, ironically with former members of the St Mary's parish, whom he had poached for his Newman group, in attendance.

I pray for all those involved.

The Pastoral Issue -- II

Over the past few days I've had an e-mail exchange with a fellow who seems, in a friendly way, to be trying to steer me off the course I intend in the next several posts, perhaps because he's perceptive enough to see my direction. I think his points are worth addressing, so I'm going to paraphrase them here and then give my best answers.

1. You seem concerned that people like Mrs Bush and other dissidents might want to return to the parish if the elected vestry prevails in the legal action. But if that happens, it might well join the Ordinariate. Why would people who opposed the parish joining in 2012 want to join a Catholic parish now?

   It's worth keeping in mind that, based on past experience, we're not dealing with people whose agendas are transparent, or who can be expected to behave reasonably. St Mary's has been described in past years as more an exclusive social club than a church. Some of the dissidents are long-time members, or wannabes, whose perception of themselves is not necessarily based on denomination -- and I very much doubt that Mrs Bush or any of her associates is any more capable of naming the seven sacraments without a crib sheet than their current pastor, Mr Williams. Most of the core dissidents did in fact attend the catechism sessions in 2011, although I doubt if it took. Nevertheless, this suggests that many would theoretically be eligible to become Catholic with the parish, and they may have wished to retain that option. Based on my exposure to them, they are fully capable of exploiting the sacraments of initiation for their own purposes, should this be necessary. Their interests are not denominational, and specifics of the Roman religion would not affect them much either way.

2. You've mentioned things like burglary, assault, vehicle sabotage, and mail tampering. These are serious crimes. If you think they're so important, why haven't they been reported?

   First, it seems that however it may have happened, the Los Angeles Police Department is at some level aware of and interested in the case. There are numerous posts, like this one in the Armchair Detective section of the Freedom for St Mary blog (with which I have no involvement) that strongly suggest that LAPD is at least watching developments and may increase its attention if clearer evidence emerges. But not every reported crime results in a trial or conviction. Serious as some of the things that seem to have taken place may be -- deliberate non-payment of withholding, for instance, and removal of IRS notices from incoming mail -- there probably is not now, and may never be, enough evidence to cause an investigation. Various actions can nevertheless be taken for misconduct short of criminal trials, of course, and I believe Houston should want to assure itself that no current Ordinariate clergy was involved in, or had knowledge of, these actions when they occurred. I will return to this.

3. There appears to be some issue of "bad blood" between the elected vestry and Fr Bartus, now at the Bl Newman mission in Orange County, CA. Shouldn't something be done to resolve this? I doubt if, in any case, the Ordinariate would name Fr Bartus as pastor of St Mary's -- but there might be joint events between the two, so you ought to patch things up.

   I've heard conflicting versions of Bartus's intentions and the Ordinariate's plans. A former Episcopal priest who had remained close to Bartus as of a year ago relayed to me that, in Bartus's view, there was no place for St Mary's in the Ordinariate, and that any further group admissions in the Los Angeles area would be under Bartus's purview. Apparently this view is not shared by Archbishop Gomez or Msgr Stetson, but the lack of full clarity is disturbing, as my impression is that, from his reported statement, Bartus feels entitled to speak for the Ordinary. This is a matter on which I believe Houston should act to be sure no misunderstanding can take place. It also suggests that the problem of "bad blood" is by no means one-sided. I will discuss this more fully.

The Pastoral Issue -- I

I had an e-mail a couple of days ago that began to clarify for me what the pastoral issues probably are if the St Mary's legal issues are resolved. I believe that the vestry and its attorneys need to be planning how to resume control of the property if the parish prevails in the trial scheduled to start in a few weeks -- there probably has been some planning, but as only a friendly outsider, I'm not aware of internal deliberations. However, assuming the vestry still intends to take the parish into the Ordinariate, at some point Houston needs to be brought into alignment with what is done, and what would need to continue. Given Houston's history of dropping the ball, I have reservations about how this might be handled.

As I've noted here now and then, the pastoral problems that arose in the parish during 2011-12 went well beyond ordinary cliquishness and factionalism. Ordinary stuff would include verbal snubs, snarkiness, gossip, whispering campaigns, and the like. What went on at St Mary's credibly involved threats, physical assault, vehicular sabotage, burglary, telephone hacking, and mail tampering. I believe that if anyone allowed the people responsible for this sort of thing to return to the parish, the problems would quickly resume, but in addition, it would be a threat to the personal safety of vestry members, clergy, and some parishioners. My wife and I are careful to keep our cars in the garage and our doors locked, frankly. Morello, before he went to his judgment, pointedly e-mailed me that he had my address in parish records.

The Ordinariate needs to be aware of this, and the vestry needs to do whatever it can in trial motions to be sure the dissidents who pose the greatest potential problem are kept from the parish premises. This group numbers about six or eight people. The individuals whom William Lancaster has named as his clients, Marilyn Bush, Diane Kang, and Keith Kang, are a start. (Mrs Bush, an octogenarian, is not a physical threat, although she has assumed a leadership role among the group that is.) Exactly what the current relationship is between Bush and the Kangs is a puzzle: it's my understanding that the Kangs broke with Mrs Bush in early 2013 and stomped out of an invitation-only "parish meeting". Subsequent to that, an individual who may be Mr Kang is reported to have contacted Los Angeles police asking for some type of witness protection, as he was afraid that the death of Anthony Morello was part of a plot to eliminate witnesses.

I simply don't know if the breach between the Kangs and Mrs Bush has been patched up. However, the behavior of the individual who went to the police asking for witness protection reflects what I believe is erratic conduct consistent with my experience of Mr Kang, and I would not make any optimistic assumptions. If the Ordinariate is willing to accept St Mary of the Angels as a parish, it needs to be realistically aware of potential issues. To make some naïve gesture of welcoming members of the core group of dissidents back in the name of "reconciliation" would be reckless and dangerous. Houston needs to discuss this potential problem with the vestry, and I think it needs to do it now.

Parishes Which Once Expressed A Wish To Join The US Ordinariate But Haven't

Getting back to the earlier question of what's up with the Ordinariate, my correspondent pointed me to this lengthy list from 2013 at Catholic Left. The group is very diverse, ranging from Our Lady of the Atonement San Antonio through St Mary's Hollywood to some very small groups that probably didn't last long enough to be considered. As a result, the list doesn't say anything specific, good or bad, about the US Ordinariate, except it's another indication of how expectations in 2011 are not reflected in the realities of 2015. According to my correspondent, only St Anselm of Canterbury, Corpus Christi TX, has since joined the Ordinariate from that group.

I do think there was some low-hanging fruit there that Houston should have been able to pick up. I know of one small mission that's comparable in size to groups that have been admitted, but my understanding is that Houston somehow never followed through, and it left those concerned rather unhappy -- but of course, that's one side of the story.

Another e-mail I got recently, though, suggests there may be other groups more actively in the pipeline but that, like St Mary of the Angels, are in a legal holding pattern. (However, as I've noted here, I'm not sure if Houston and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles are on the same page as to what any next steps might be, since the St Mary's situation seems to be edging toward resolution.) If this is the case for other parishes, I'd be most interested to hear about it.

UPDATE: My correspondent informs me that the group in Dennison, TX entered a few weeks ago, under the name St Michael and All Angels. It's good to hear that there's continued progress.

"Angelicansim"

Back when this blog was pretty new, someone pointed out to me that the St Mary's dissidents had invited visitors to worship at their "Angelican [sic] church services". The whole idea of a separate denomination called "Angelicanism" has stuck with me, to the point that now and then I mutter to my wife, "When I grow up, I want to be an Angelican bishop," by which I mean a pompous and ignorant autarch without a shred of integrity.

It was the Angelicans, of course, who signed the Portsmouth Letter in a body, except for a couple who'd wandered in and didn't know what was really going on. The mistake was compounded when Pope Benedict inadvertently misspelled Anglicanorum coetibus, when if he'd spelled it correctly to refer to the little groups of Angelicans, everything would have worked out as it should.

I think my insight into the nature of Angelicans goes farther. Angelicans want to hitchhike on the prestige of seeming Catholic, they wear Roman clericals, and they're certainly insistent on being addressed as "Father" (vid Smuts and Chadwick), but when you scratch the surface, they're in fact violently anti-Catholic.

This was an issue that I worried was never adequately addressed when I was going through catechism at St Mary of the Angels. Among the parish stalwarts at the time was a highly influential political consultant and operator who was one of the people largely responsible for turning California into a blue state, using issues like abortion and same-sex marriage to get his clients elected. Another was a creative writing teacher who wasted much time in parish meetings insisting that the language in resolutions be gender-neutral -- I assume she seethed every time she heard "our Father" instead of "our Parent".

Yet these people and others insisted they are as Catholic as anyone. I keep thinking "Angelican" is a much better term. This has got me wondering more seriously if the Holy Spirit was in fact operating via the 2007 Portsmouth conference, because it brought out the issue of who was sincerely claiming to be Catholic and who was not. Clearly a faction -- probably a sizeable majority -- of those at Portsmouth were expecting that the Holy Father would, if he responded at all, simply issue some sort of blanket admission of the Angelicans into the Catholic communion.

They could operate as before, picking their doctrines as they chose, ignoring whatever they didn't like. They could have hitchhiked all the more easily on prestige that wasn't theirs. The good thing about the aftermath of Anglicanorum coetibus is it showed the Angelicans up for who they are.

At the beginning of this Lent, a visitor e-mailed me saying that, for Lent, she'd decided to stop enabling some of these people. I think this would be a good resolution for many who do so by visiting Angelican blogs.

As I Often Do, I'm Scratching My Head

I don't see where Mr Chadwick, his commenters, and I disagree. I commend Mr Chadwick for his forthrightness in announcing, as an informed insider, that almost none of the 2007 Portsmouth Petition signers took the document, or the high mass where it was signed, seriously. I do not dispute Mr Chadwick's claim that he was an informed insider in the TAC's deliberations.

I do not dispute the conclusion one might draw from the circumstances that all but a few of the signers (that is, all but the very few who actually embraced the Holy Father's gesture, usually characterized by the word "generous") abjured their signatures as soon as it became convenient.

So why on earth is this spirit of sweet agreement being described as "utter refusal to hear what anyone else is sayings [sic] and his perverse desire to warp every bit of information to support his venom?" Why call someone who agrees with you so completely a "filthy old man with flies buzzing round his head"?

Strange guy. Strange bunch. Most of them, like Stephen Smuts, have moved on. I would say, though, that Fr Z (a Catholic, so take it for what it's worth) on his blog occasionally worries that some bloggers allow their commenters to put their souls in danger. At least Mr Smuts is no longer providing that opportunity.

UPDATE: Predictably, Mr Chadwick said, "I have resolved not to answer anything further coming from this man", but his word is as good as the solemn word of any TAC bishop! I agree with him in that post, too -- to address someone as "Father" is at least a sign of respect.

The Portsmouth Petition With Its Aftermath

was, let's face it, a fiasco and an embarrassment for the Traditional Anglican Communion, the Anglican Church in America, and, to only a slightly smaller extent, Anglo-Catholicism generally. In fact, given the account from Mr Chadwick cited below, I'm inclined to add the term "scandal" in its full Catholic meaning. The failure of Anglicanorum coetibus to bear anything like its predicted fruit continues to be a major elephant in the room for the movement, and I would suggest is a big reason behind the disappearance, by and large, of the Anglo-Catholic cheerleading blogs.

The participants in the Portsmouth conference, either in person or, like Brian Marsh, by proxy, have a great deal to answer for, and this includes Mr Chadwick, who responds to my fact-finding over Marsh's involvement and manifest bad faith on his blog. Chadwick, let's recall, played a major role in the conference as its translator and de facto recording secretary, as well as a subsequent cheerleader.

Nevertheless, his post is a bizarre effort at minimizing the disgrace:

Quite frankly, I didn’t think most of the bishops took this thing very seriously. No one believed Rome would give any response to the Anglican question in our lifetimes. They did, but to the Forward in Faith clergy from the Church of England and the American Episcopal Church who had been secretly discussing things with Rome since about 1994. The TAC had the most canonically irregular Archbishop John Hepworth as Primate, and some of its clergy might be worthy of being considered on a piecemeal basis. This “interpretation” was beginning to become clear in 2010 to 2011.

Well, given the subsequent actions of all but a few TAC bishops, I suppose it's not out of line to believe they didn't take it seriously. However, a knowledgeable party told me,

There is a videotaped recording of the Bishops solemnly signing the Portsmouth Petition, in October 2007. This occurs during a High Mass. They are all vested in cope and mitre. A more solemn setting can hardly have been imagined.

Well, if they didn't take it seriously, that's fine, it's their problem. The trouble is that their hypocrisy did in fact mislead many people. Mr Chadwick again:

I had the impression that the bishops were going along with Archbishop Hepworth because it seemed a good idea, and signs seemed to suggest the impossible: some kind of “uniate” arrangement with Rome.

He continues, "I had a long conversation not very long ago with a former TAC bishop, and he confirmed many of these intuitions and conjectures." So let me figure this out. Mr Chadwick says this was a big charade, everyone was going along to get along -- and just so we don't think Mr Chadwick is any sort of dupe or rube, he more or less says he was in on it. In fact, he translated any necessary flummery into French, just in case any Francophones couldn't see the wink behind the whole thing.

Mr Chadwick's argument, it seems to me, is a variation on "everybody does it, what's the problem?" Everyone tells lies, for instance. Does that make it good? But the fact is that everyone doesn't do it. Bishops Campese and Moyer took that high mass in October 2007 seriously. Does Mr Chadwick suggest they were dupes and rubes, and he's the sophisticate?

It's hard to avoid thinking Mr Chadwick is trying to ease his conscience.

Procedural Conference March 18

Yesterday I attended a procedural conference in the Rector, Wardens, and Vestry cases downtown at the Los Angeles Superior Court. The elected vestry's attorneys had argued that they wanted to try the case with live witness testimony, in addition to written declarations. Lancaster and Anastasia (who said at the conference that they represent the ACA, the Diocese of the West, the appointed vestry, and, interestingly, Marilyn Bush, Diane Kang, and Keith Kang) opposed this.

The basis of the opposition was the same that Lancaster argued unsuccessfully in the January 16 post-remittitur conference: this new trial is actually just another phase of the existing case, that there had been an agreement in the first trial that only written declarations would be used; the whole issue of the case (now that the ecclesiastical question has been thrown out) is the narrow question of validity of the August 6, 2012 vote by the parish to leave the ACA; the procedures in the original trial must be followed, and those used simply to determine the one remaining narrow issue.

Having now attended several of Judge Mary Strobel's calendar sessions, I've gotten an impression of what happens. A lot of the cases are pretty trivial, and there is a certain proportion of bumbling attorneys. (One yesterday morning had his shirt tail out; luckily, he was facing the judge, and she may not have seen it.) Judge Strobel adopts a firm but patient tone with the bumblers, but she has them bumbling out of the courtroom in short order.

Judge Strobel, I've come to notice, adopts the same tone with Mr Lancaster. As best I can reconstruct it, she told him, firmly but briefly, "Mr Lancaster, the appeals court has sent this case back on remand. This is not just a new phase of the earlier trial. We are starting over with a new trial. The elected vestry is entitled to call witnesses." And that was just about it.

Since legal strategies are confidential, and I'm just a friend and supporter of the elected vestry, the parish, and Fr Kelley, I simply don't know what witnesses their attorneys intend to call, nor what they mean to establish. But clearly they've prevailed on this issue.

There will be a final status conference on April 7, and the trial will begin April 14. Naturally, I plan to attend both. However, Judge Strobel will be assigned to the appeals court then, and a substitute judge will preside over the trial. I'd come to like Judge Strobel!

Mr Lancaster wore black pinstripes yesterday; every other time I'd seen him, it was the same gray suit.

Let's Look Again At The Timeline

Most of the pieces have been public knowledge and published on various blogs for years. But nobody's pulled them together:

• October 2007: TAC and ACA Bishops sign the Portsmouth Petition to Pope Benedict XVI. Bps Marsh and Strawn were not present from the ACA. However, a knowledgeable party tells me that the draft of the Letter to the Vatican was in the hands of all the ACA bishops before the Portsmouth meeting. Marsh and Moyer delegated Langberg to sign on their behalf. The signed document reveals that he is the authorized signer on behalf of American bishops who could not be present, namely Brian Marsh and David Moyer. He added their names to the Petition. (They are all in his neat handwriting.)
• Nov. 4, 2009: Anglicanorum coetibus is issued together with complementary norms.
• March 3, 2010: All members of the ACA House of Bishops sign a petition to the Holy See requesting the erection of a personal ordinariate in the United States of America as soon as possible.
• Later in March 2010: Brian Marsh addresses at least one DONE parish opposing Anglicanorum coetibus.
• Summer 2010: Daren Williams refuses to ordain as priests two DOW transitional deacons who support Anglicanorum coetibus. He inhibits one, Andrew Bartus, on this basis.
• Late 2010: John Hepworth erects the Patrimony of the Primate to protect parishes wishing to enter the Ordinariate from adverse episcopal actions by ACA bishops who oppose Anglicanorum coetibus, in spite of their signatures on the March 3 petition.
• January 30, 2011: St Mary of the Angels votes to enter Patrimony of the Primate.
• February 5, 2011: ACA issues a letter through its chancellors saying it will not join with its Archbishop, John Hepworth, and accept the Pope's offer of a personal ordinariate. Brian Marsh, still only Bishop of the Northeast, speaks on behalf of the ACA. In the same letter, the chancellors announce those in the Patrimony are no longer in the ACA. Louis Campese resigns as Bishop of the Eastern US and takes numerous parishes into his own pro-diocese as well.
• April 26, 2011: ACA Bishops reach a "Solemn Agreement" that they would separate on amicable terms: The Ordinariate-bound bishops would no longer vote on any matter not pertaining to them, and the loyalists would not do anything to interfere with those heading for the Ordinariate. Following this agreement, which was brokered by Louis Falk, Brian Marsh was elected President of the ACA House of Bishops.

There's a lot -- a lot -- about the interstices between these events that I'd like to know, as, I'm sure, would many others. Clearly Marsh played a role that so far no one has disclosed. I deeply appreciate the continued insights of informed parties.

Who Is Brian Marsh? -- III

A couple of e-mails yesterday brought me back to the ACA's "received version" of its reversal on the Portsmouth Petition, given to Anthony Chadwick in a post on his blog in December 2012. Although Brian Marsh says this is his "personal view", he's the head honcho, and no other "official" view exists. In it, Marsh said,

Although I was not present at the signing of the Portsmouth Petition, Bishops Langberg and Williams signed for the ACA [oddly, he leaves out Campese, Falk, Florenza, and Moyer]. The text of the petition was not publicized until months later. I did not know of the contents of that petition until it was delivered orally by Archbishop Falk at a meeting of several ACA bishops in 2008. . . . While there are many threads in this part of the story, it became clear to several of us that the Apostolic Constitution did not offer the kind of organic union we had hoped for.

The thrust of Marsh's argument was that he didn't sign the Portsmouth Petition, he didn't know what was in it, and once he and the other ACA/TAC bishops knew everything, they had every reason not to endorse what just a few people did in Portsmouth.

However, someone pointed me to a document that discredits this version. On March 3, 2010, Marsh did sign a petition to the Holy See requesting the erection of a personal ordinariate in the United States of America, which was adopted at the ACA House of Bishops Meeting in Orlando, FL that March.

This petition read in part, over the signatures of all the ACA bishops, including Brian Marsh,

We have all read and studied with care the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum cœtibus, with the Complementary Norms, and the accompanying commentary by the Rector of the Pontifical Gregorian University.

In response to your invitation to contact your Dicastery to begin the process therein contemplated, we respectfully propose the following:

• That the Apostolic Constitution be implemented as soon as possible in the United States of America

. . .

This document was signed by +Louis W. Falk (Pres.), +John Hepworth, +Juan Garcia Germain, +George Langberg, +Brian R. Marsh, +Wellborn R. Hudson, III, +Stephen Strawn, +Louis Campese, +Daren K. Williams, and +David L. Moyer.

In other words, the record contradicts any assertion by Brian Marsh that he didn't know what was in the Portsmouth Petition or the Apostolic Constitution and in effect never had the chance to make up his mind about it. As of March 2010, Marsh and all the other ACA bishops couldn't have made it plainer that the Apostolic Constitution was in fact just "the kind of organic union we had hoped for", and they petitioned that it be implemented ASAP!

In addition, since John Hepworth appears to have been at the meeting, since he signed the petition, I would assume all the ACA bishops had ample opportunity to discuss the Apostolic Constitution with him, although in his reply to Chadwick, Marsh says Hepworth never gave them the chance.

However, by the summer of 2010 -- just a matter of months -- Daren Williams was taking episcopal actions against anyone in the Diocese of the West who agreed with the position he'd taken, with all his brother bishops, in March. But also, in March 2010, Prof Jordan was present at an address Brian Marsh gave to Jordan's then-ACA parish opposing Anglicanorum coetibus as well. Marsh signs a letter asking for it to be implemented ASAP one day, and the next he tells a parish he's against it?

We know nothing of precisely what happened here, except that the sketchy but persuasive evidence we have is that most of the ACA House of Bishops apparently reversed itself almost immediately after signing a petition unequivocally in favor of Anglicanorum coetibus. I will be most grateful for any further information anyone might be able to provide on what happened and why.

David Moyer Recovery Update

I'm told that David Moyer had sutures removed yesterday and expects to return to driving a car next week. He still experiences "a bit" of shortness of breath on stairs.

Many of us have kept him in our intentions, including the St Mary of the Angels parish in its last two masses. He is aware of this and grateful for it. My prayers and best wishes for his continued recovery.

Who Is Brian Marsh? -- II

Brian Marsh, Presiding Bishop of the ACA since 2011, has been the most secretive and elusive of the major figures in this story. I'm told, by the way, that Marsh was the first to style himself "Presiding Bishop", an Episcopal Church term, rather than "President of the House of Bishops", which Falk used. Two visitors have recently forwarded a couple of new data points that add to the information I was able to develop in 2012. One wrote,

Sometime when you have a slow day, request a list of graduates from the Alumni Association at General Theological Seminary for 1996. All the graduates, including others outside TEC, have titles now before their names such a bishop, reverend, etc. with the exception of one that is listed only as MR. in front of his name because they do not recognize his ACA ordination and he was prohibited from TEC ordination. I am sure you know of whom I am talking about.

The other is the disturbing reference in the account from Prof Andrew Jordan regarding the Fellowship of St Alban, Rochester, NY:

The former pastor of the ACA parish we attended before joining the Catholic Church via the Ordinariate was a Catholic priest who left the church to marry; various other events in his life excluded him from leading us on multiple counts. Needless to say, he was quite hostile to the whole idea (he is since deceased). As it turned out, bishop Marsh was also hostile to the whole idea also, the TAC oaths not withstanding, but it took a little time for us to learn that.

This is the first reference I've heard to Marsh interfering with the transition of an ACA parish or group, other than St Mary of the Angels, into the Ordinariate. Prof Jordan has clarified the remarks in his e-mail to reflect the circumstances of the ACA parish majority's decision not to join the Ordinariate. Marsh's involvement was apparently prior to any parish vote on this issue, and the group that formed St Alban's left the ACA parish without interference from Marsh. However, Prof Jordan's remarks above do indicate that he felt there was some bad faith on Marsh's part regarding any assurances made by the TAC bishops at the Portsmouth Conference.

(Prof Jordan has updated his remarks to make it clear that bad faith is not a matter of his own opinion, but of the public record. I certainly agree.)

A Closer Look At The Ordinariate -- VII

My correspondent has sent me information on five additional groups:

• St Augustine, FL: This group of about 20 former ACA members is led by Fr Marziani, formerly of the Episcopal diocese of Ft Worth. He became a Catholic layman in 2006 but shepherded the ACA community into the OCSP in 2012 and was subsequently ordained. The group meets for a weekly vigil mass.
• St John Fisher, Potomac Falls, VA: This is a mission of St Luke's, DC, under the leadership of Fr Sly, a former Charismatic Episcopal Church bishop who became a Catholic layman in 2006 and has since been ordained. A weekly mass is offered. Numbers and other details, except about Fr Sly, are sketchy; the website still refers to St Luke's, Bladensburg, although that parish moved to DC in September 2014, so it is clearly not well-maintained.
• St Joseph of Arimathea, Indianapolis, IN: This group (of 17, initially) has worshipped together at Holy Cross Parish since 2012. An Ordinariate Rite mass is offered weekly by a diocesan priest, and they also have a weekly service of Evening Prayer. Their former ACA clergyman recently participated in the Rite of Candidacy for Holy Orders.

There are two more groups not on the OCSP website.

• One is a former Anglican Use group in Corpus Christi, TX which has now applied to join the OCSP. They are ministered to by Fr Vidal, who is also the Catholic chaplain at the local Naval Air Station, and they have an Ordinariate rite Sunday mass on the chapel at the base. Given the security check and escort requirements for getting on the base I assume the group is small.
• The other group is in Denison, TX and is a former ACA parish that has been in the Ordinariate pipeline since 2010. About 20 members were confirmed last week. They have their own building but are currently attending mass together at a local diocesan parish.

I hope that if there are new groups forming up someone will let you, and thus others, know. I think this is an area where lack of communication from OCSP HQ is a serious obstacle to growth.

Yet again, corrections, clarifications, and updates are most welcome.

A Closer Look At The Ordinariate -- VI

Next we move o the Deanery of St John the Baptist. My correspondent reports,

• St Columba's Church Victoria, BC: maybe 20, plus 4 clergy; this represents incoming group from ACCC parish plus perhaps a half-dozen new members. This group is an official OCSP mission. Initial number received (clerical and lay) was 22.
• The Fellowship of Our Lady of Walsingham Maple Ridge (Vancouver), BC: 10 plus priest; no new adult members but one new baby.
• Edmonton, AB (not listed on OCSP site): 6; mass is celebrated by a diocesan priest as former ACCC clergyman became ill and is no longer proceeding to ordination;
• St John the Evangelist, Calgary, AB: 175+, with 3 clergy. Only former ACC group, with the addition of a few former ACCC and ACNA members, plus cradle catholics who like the liturgy. A full parish of OCSP.
• Sodality of St. Edmund, King and Martyr Kitchener, ON: 11 until recently, but noted a post from a recent attendee who observed that the crowd was larger on that date than on a previous visit, so Fr Catania's publicity efforts may be paying off.
• Sodality of the Good Shepherd Oshawa, ON: maybe 10. Priest is on indefinite sick leave after cancer surgery. Diocesan priest filling in.
• The Sodality of St. Thomas More Toronto, ON: 25+, plus 1 priest; a gathered group with official mission status. The original number received was four; others had previously become Catholic. Perhaps half a dozen new members.
• Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Ottawa, ON: 40+, and two clergy. Initial number received was 30. This group is also an official mission.
• Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory, ON: (not on list of formally enrolled OCSP members) 12+; former clergyman turned down for ordination but a diocesan priest celebrates for them once a month and on the other Sundays the former clergyman functions as a Lay Reader. This is on a First Nations Reserve so not much opportunity for membership growth.
• Fredericton,NB (also not yet on list): 10. Currently attending local diocesan parish for OF mass but former ACCC clergyman may be proceeding to ordination.

No other groups forming up; average age in the smallest groups is 70+ so I predict that they will cease to exist sooner rather than later.

Many thanks to my correspondent for this extremely helpful information. Once again, corrections, clarifications, and updates are most welcome. My object is to provide the best possible resource for those in, and considering joining, the Ordinariate, so, as several visitors have already done, please feel free to offer these.

Additional Groups

I don't know if my original correspondent inadvertently omitted these or whether he meant to put them in a future e-mail, but another visitor has provided three more groups:

• St Anselm's Greenville, SC: I have found a lot of information about the ordination of Fr Chalmers in 2012, but nothing about the reception of the St Anselm's group. I think this is a group Fr Chalmers has gathered, rather than previous members of his, or other, single, parish. They worship at an OF mass at St Mary's, Greenville, and meet for Evening Prayer on an irregular basis, as well as for other activities publicised on their Facebook page. Fr Chalmers is a full-time hospital administrator.
• Boerne, TX: Fr Mark Cannaday, retired from the Episcopal dicese of Ft Worth, offers an Ordinate Rite mass at 7:30 am on Sundays at St Peter's, Boerne but this ministry is very much under the radar, as there is no website and I had to search old St Peter's bulletins to find any mention of this mass or Fr Cannaday's presence at St Peter's.
• St Gregory's, Stoneham, MA: About a dozen people entered the Church with their rector from an ACNA parish. Hard to know if there has been growth, but there is a well-maintained website. They worship at St Patrick's, Stoneham,and Fr Liias and the Ordinariate group appear on the masthead of the parish website.

This is extremely helpful, many thanks to all who contribute this information.

More Info On The Fellowship Of St Alban Rochester NY

As I had hoped would happen, a visitor has e-mailed me with corrections, clarifications, and updates on a posting here:

[Regarding your posting on St Alban's Rochester], [m]y own family has half a dozen members; we have as our regular members of around seven families, with several more regular visitors, and various diocesian Catholic friends. The former pastor of the ACA parish we attended before joining the Catholic Church via the Ordinariate was a Catholic priest who left the church to marry; various other events in his life excluded him from leading us on multiple counts. Needless to say, he was quite hostile to the whole idea (he is since deceased). As it turned out, bishop Marsh was also hostile to the whole idea also, the TAC oaths not withstanding, but it took a little time for us to learn that. The interested laity formed our own group, and requested a priest from the Ordinariate. Not long after the Ordinariate was formed, we learned that Fr. Cornelius (a retried Episcopal priest from the Albany diocese (most recently)), was in the area, living in the Southern Tier of New York. He was assigned to our group, and drove to say mass for us regularly the past two years or so. It is true that his recent retirement from our group was because of health problems. As for his replacement, we should have an announcement concerning that soon on our website.

As for more details about our group, I have invested a huge amount of time and energy into advertising our activities via the website, Google + and Facebook pages. Since you evidently have in interest in these matters, I invite you to have a look! We have some of the best sacred music in the area with volunteer musicians from the Eastman school, which is quite remarkable for a new group, in my view. Watch some of the videos, read some of the articles, and look at various activities we have been up to. The website is here.

I am also surprised by the description of "special events with an Anglican flavor"! We have had Evensong at fairly regular intervals, as well as had Lessons and Carols at Christmas time. Since we are currently without a priest, we are somewhat limited with what we can do as Catholics, but expect to be back up to speed when we have a new priest. Our services make as extensive use of the Ordinariate rites of the mass and office as we can.

I will say that we have a wonderful group of people that love the Ordinariate, and love the Catholic faith. We have invested a large amount of time, energy and treasure into this venture, overcoming many obstaces, and are passionate about this opportunity pope Benedict XVI gave us. I don't like to see our group disparaged, and I don't like to see the Ordinariate desparaged, which happens too often in my opinion - even from Catholics.

You have my permission to post this email on your website.

Sincerely yours in our blessed Lord,

Andrew Jordan

The best possible outcome for this blog would be a thriving Ordinariate. Any information I can post here will, I hope, contribute to that, the more complete the better. I encourage anyone with more information on a parish, mission, or group to send it along.

A Closer Look At The Ordinariate -- V

We now move to other "groups" in the US (we'll cover our good neighbors to the north tomorrow). Again, "groups" properly means something like "entities recognized by the OCSP and listed on their web site but neither parishes or missions", since we have no other definition available. My correspondent continues,

• The Anglican Ordinariate Society of the Ozarks is a group gathered by Mr Shane Schaetzel in Springfield, MO. Mr Schaetzel became a Catholic long before Anglicanorum coetibus and has acted as lay reader for a group of former Episcopalians who get together to say BCP Evening Prayer once a month at the Catholic parish where most of them are parishioners. As of October 2014 an OCSP army chaplain has agreed to say an Ordinariate Rite mass for them quarterly. Mr Schaetzel posted that "about two dozen" showed up to the first mass, a larger number than usually attend Evening Prayer, including "several Catholics" by whom I assume he meant Catholics who were not former Episcopalians but were interested in this liturgy. Mr Schaetzel, who is in his forties, was a frequent contributor to the The Anglo-Catholic blog in its heyday and produces a website and a Facebook page for the group which are well-maintained. He has also posts a personal blog on topics of Catholic interest.
• The Corpus Christi Society of Charleston, SC began with "five families" (another article says 19 people were confirmed with the rector) who entered the Catholic church in 2013 with their former Episcopal rector, who was ordained for the OCSP in June 2013. They have a weekly mass, a singularly uninformative website (out of date) and a Facebook page. Various clues from the latter suggest that attendance is in the low double digits. No events posted since last year,
• The Fellowship of St Alban, Rochester, NY See this post above.
• San Agustin, Pinecrest FL may be a mission or a group. The priest, his family, and 21 members of his former Reformed Episcopal Church parish were received into the Catholic Church in 2013. Fr Toledo was ordained about a year ago. The group has its own service at a diocesan church in Pinecrest. There is no Spanish-language Ordinariate Rite so they use the Spanish OF.
• Our Lady of Good Counsel, Jacksonville, FL. I count about 15 people in the picture of their reception. Their leader was ordained last November and there is a weekly mass, but information is hard to come by as there is no website and the Facebook page is not up to date
• Our Lady of Mt Carmel, Savannah, GA: The membership of this group is unknown to me. From 2011 they met weekly for Evening Prayer but since the ordination of their leader last November there has been a mass offered once a month in Savannah and once a month in Augusta, GA. Fr Lindsey is now senior parochial vicar at a diocesan parish in Savannah. His ordination was covered in the local press but I can find nothing about the reception of a group. The website is up to date regarding upcoming masses but all the rest of the information goes back to 2011: bulletins, links to now-defunct or irrelevant websites, etc.
• Society of St Bede the Venerable, Collegeville, MN: A group of five began meeting here in 2010. The core group seems to have been composed of those with some Anglican connection who had already become Catholic, but since then there have been some receptions into the Church via this group, which now seems to be in the low double digits. There is a well-maintained Facebook page and a minimal website. An Ordinariate Rite mass is offered at irregular intervals.
• St Gregory the Great, Mobile, AL: The leader of this group is now the pastor of a diocesan parish in Mobile. An Ordinariate Rite mass is celebrated there every Sunday. I think there are fewer than a dozen members. There were no reports of a group reception. The priest has had a number of serious health issues for the last few months and a diocesan priest is currently taking the Sunday services. The website shows the current mass time and location but there is no other information available.

As usual, corrections, clarifications, and updates are most welcome.

Logos Seminary Account Suspended

A visitor reports, "The ACA's own seminary, Logos House of Theological Studies, has had their account suspended. No reasons or explanation given to date." As of this morning, if you go to the Google results and click on the link, you get a screen from the ISP saying, "This Account Has Been Suspended".

Of course, this is nothing new with the ACA. Things disappear from the web and sometimes reappear all the time. There's been no change on the ACA's News Page since the Presiding Bishop's Thanksgiving 2014 message. On the other hand, if I were the Presiding Bishop, I'd have a lot to finesse myself. Think what a debacle his tenure has been: he lost several key parishes and most of a diocese to the Ordinariate; he's got the St Mary of the Angels disaster on his hands, and now the Logos House of Theological Studies is broke. Or at least, that's how it seems. Maybe His Grace the Presiding Bishop has been so preoccupied with the financial straits of Logos House that he hasn't had time for Advent, Christmas, or Lenten messages.

I've got a question, though: it's really no surprise that there would be no seminarians in the ACA pipeline -- there's no future there. But also, why go to all the bother and expense of getting an unaccredited seminary degree, useless almost everywhere, when the ACA will ordain guys like Owen Williams and Terrance Tutor without even that degree?

A Closer Look At The Ordinariate -- IV

The second tranche of missions is below. My informant reports,

• Mt Calvary Church Baltimore: Mt Calvary entered the OCSP from The Episcopal Church. Twenty four members out of forty-five voted in favour, so the congregation is perhaps borderline for mission status, although the article I was forwarded on its reception mentions that many former parishioners had already become Catholic, so perhaps there has been some homecoming. The previous parish was apparently viable despite its small size so I assume there is money. They have a professional music director, for example. The previous rector was involved with Latin Mass enthusiasts so it may attract Catholics who enjoy traditional liturgy and music but are not eligible for OCSP membership.
• Our Lady of Hope, Kansas City: There is a reference on its blog to having over 30 in attendance "on a good Sunday" so it is also borderline (it calls itself "a mission of the OCSP" on its website). Before joining the OCSP this parish was ministered to by a diocesan priest who had been ordained under the Pastoral Provision, and later welcomed twenty former Episcopalians in 2008, ahead of Anglicanorum coetibus. An "Anglican Use" liturgy was subsequently offered. Recently their pastor left the diocesan parish and now heads Our Lady of Hope in the OCSP.
• St Augustine of Canterbury Carlsbad, CA: Thirty-five people were initially received. Seems to be holding its own, but not experiencing significant growth. [I counted 17 present for the photo of Msgr Newton's visit to the parish in February -- jb]
• St Barnabas, Omaha: left The Episcopal Church several years ago, but could not join the OCSP until it resolved a lawsuit over its building in 2013. About 50 people were received at that time. The group had to buy the building from the Episcopal diocese and has spent substantial money on repairs, so it must have significant resources.

My informant also provided some clarification on the issue of who is eligible to join the Ordinariate. This is naturally relevant to the question of how many valid members each mission or parish has.

Anyone who was formerly an Anglican of any sort, or a Methodist, or is the child or spouse of same, and becomes or has become a Catholic, can join. There is no test of one's "standing" in that denomination, as far as I know, and no distinction is made between "Canterbury" and "Continuing" Anglican. Anyone who entered the Catholic church from any background via an Ordinariate group can join, including someone who was baptised in a Catholic church but was not confirmed and/or did not receive First Communion. Of course the usual membership requirements for membership in any Catholic parish obtain, including sorting out any marriage issues, providing a baptismal certificate, etc. Someone raised a Catholic and currently in "good standing" but without Anglican family connections could of course attend and receive Communion; but they could not actually become members.

The ordinariate site gives a slightly different version:

A person is eligible for membership if they, their spouse, or any member of their family is or ever has been Anglican, Episcopalian, Methodist, or AME. This applies even if the person or their spouse has already become a Roman Catholic. Catholics who are reconciled to the Church and those Catholics who will be completing their sacraments of initiation in an Ordinariate community are also eligible for membership.

I'm not entirely sure what "reconciled to the Church" means in this context -- a google of the phrase simply brings up references to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. If it means someone who, after having received the sacraments of initiation into the Church, subsequently fell away but began returning to the Church in an Ordinariate community, that would seem reasonable, but I'm not sure if that's what it means. (I believe this would apply to several people who were intending to go into the Ordinariate via St Mary of the Angels in 2012.)

Again, corrections, clarifications, and updates are most welcome.

A Closer Look At The Ordinariate -- III

So now we can proceed with US missions, given the understanding that we don't know exactly what a "mission" is, except that someone in Houston makes the decision. My informant adds, "The calculation is complicated by the fact that presumably the figure can include only those attendees who are eligible to join the Ordinariate." This would exclude those in irregular marriage situations (at least until they can have these adjudicated), and it would presumably exclude cradle Catholics -- but would it exclude those who, while coming from a Protestant denomination, were not cradle Anglicans? Are they required to have had an Anglican confirmation, for instance? A satisfactory record of attendance for a certain number of years at an Anglican parish? Who can say? Does anyone check this?

Here is the first installment of my informant's list of missions, as before, slightly edited:

• St John Vianney, Cleburne TX has grown from eleven former Episcopalians to a congregation of "about 70 [which] includes a mix of traditional Catholics and former Protestants" according to an article in the Cleburne Times-Review. The former would probably not be eligible for OCSP membership, however. (During the negotiations between Our Lady of the Atonement, San Antonio and the OCSP it was frequently mentioned that about a third of the OLA parishioners would not meet criteria for Ordinariate membership.)
• John Henry Newman, Fullerton, CA: a total of 70 people were initially received into the Church between this congregation and the one now worshipping in Carlsbad, CA. About a year later Fr Bartus spoke of his congregation as numbering "about 50". It is extremely difficult even to find this group on the web because Fr Bartus has started up, and then abandoned, at least half a dozen websites, Facebook pages, Pinterest pages, and blogs, all of which are still hanging around in cyberspace, of course. The current site is newmanonline.org, but it is not a goldmine of information.
• Newman Fellowship Strafford, PA: Thirty-one members were received into the Church last November. Probably not an official mission, as they applied for membership relatively recently and they do not have a pastor as yet.
• Church of St Michael the Archangel Philadelphia: Twenty-five members of St James the Less, an ACA parish, joined the OCSP in 2012. Their pastor currently ministers to JHN, Strafford as well.
• Church of the Holy Nativity, Payson, AZ: Picture of reception into the Church from the ACA shows seventeen people, by my count. Recent newsletter claims that congregation has "doubled".

Corrections, clarifications, and updates will be most welcome.

A Closer Look At The Ordinariate -- II

I've been tossing around the terms "parish", "mission", and "group-in-formation" as though I were confident in what they meant, but I'm not. I asked my informant, who replied that no one in fact is exactly sure what the criteria are. He said, "When the Toronto group was applying for admission to the OCSP the leader posted on his blog that 24+ signed-up Ordinariate members were required for mission status." However, according to my informant, other blogs dispute this.

He later pointed me to this page, which says

In a conversation with Fr. Steenson following Evensong, he told me that the process of developing the particular norms for the Ordinariate were underway, and that when the new rules were complete, which will encompass everything from the way parishes are to be incorporated to the acceptance of individual petitions for membership in the Ordinariate, they will be reviewed in Rome and need to receive approval. Fr. Steenson said that three "classes" of groups were anticipated, Public Associations of the Faithful for some of the smaller groups, quasi-parishes for larger groups (but which do not have a church, for example), and parishes, of which he was sure Mt. Calvary would be one. Parishes would likely be individually incorporated, with a governing board that would include the ordinary and vicar general and pastor; in other words, the parishes would be incorporated in a way that Rome has preferred for decades, one which recognizes parishes as juridic persons in their own right, and not the corporation sole that is typical in the US dioceses.

This is all very well, but no one is aware of what stage any such proposals have reached -- but certain parishes are currently recognized as such. My informant told me earlier,

[W]hen the OCSP announced with some fanfare last October that five additional congregations had been raised to parish status, the pastor of one of them, Fr Bergman of St Thomas More, Scranton, opined in the newsletter that he would have been more excited about this had he been aware that it had not retained its parish status when it entered the OCSP from the Pastoral Provision eighteen months previously. This had legal and insurance implications, which fortunately did not have any practical consequences during the hiatus, but no thanks to the OCSP.

So the bottom line here is that for now, like so many other things in the Ordinariate, what constitutes a "parish", "mission", or "group-in-formation" is apparently in more or less constant flux and mainly in the heads of a few insiders.

Not a recommendation, frankly. But with this necessary clarification, I'll continue with the entities and their status tomorrow. Many thanks for the supportive and informative e-mails.

A Closer Look At The Ordinariate -- I

I've been exchanging e-mails for the last couple of weeks with an extremely knowledgeable anonymous visitor. Frankly, I don't know why Msgr Steenson doesn't have this guy on speed dial (or maybe I do, come to think of it). He's been extremely helpful in bringing me up to speed on what's going on, or not, as the case may be. I'm extremely grateful for the insights he's been providing.

I asked him to give a rundown on what he knows of each individual parish, mission, or group-in-formation in the US and Canada. I'm providing a slightly edited account of the information he's given me, in installments, starting below:

There are six US groups that are full parishes of the OCSP:

1. Our Lady of Walsingham, Houston
2. St Mary the Virgin, Arlington, TX
3. Christ the King, Towson, MD
4. St Luke's, Washington DC
5. Church of the Incarnation, Orlando, FL
6. St Thomas More, Scranton, PA

Attendance at Our Lady of Walsingham on Lent 1 was 700+, and it has five clergy, so it is obviously growing and thriving. As I have mentioned, I think the facilities of the so-called Chancery were mostly created for parish use, as it has a large lay staff and numerous groups and activities. St Mary the Virgin, Arlington was an Anglican Use parish until the retirement of the previous pastor, at which point it joined the OCSP. The bulletin does not give attendance figures but the budget is $6,000 per week so I assume the membership is several hundred. Christ the King, Towson was a parish of the Charismatic Episcopal Church, and then of the ACA. About 140 of its 200 members were received into the OCSP in 2012. Hard to say if it's growing; the website is not well kept up. St Luke's, DC was an Episcopal parish in Bladensburg, MD. About 80 people were received into the Catholic church in 2012, and they subsequently moved to Immaculate Conception, DC which offered better facilities than their former building. They have apparently experienced some growth at this more central location. Incarnation, Orlando was the ACA cathedral before it became a Catholic church. One hundred and forty members were received in 2012. St Thomas More, Scranton was an Anglican Use parish of the diocese of Scranton, with about 150 members. In 2012 it entered the OCSP and bought a redundant church property for about $250,000 and has an ambitious program of growth.

I'll provide more information in further installments as my anonymous informant supplies it. I'll make some comments at the end, but I think what we see will also speak for itself. I can't express my gratitude enough to my informant for this information.

My Wife Is A Retired Attorney,

and she wasn't completely happy with my post showing the contradiction between Falk's April statement to David Virtue via Anthony Morello, that he had never provided episcopal oversight to St Mary's, and his declaration to the court in June 2012 that in fact he had. "St Mary's might need him as a witness," she said. In other words, if Falk were to testify in court, an attorney could destroy his credibility by raising that contradiction. That's too bad, I suppose, although for one thing, you can never be sure which side might think Falk would testify on its behalf -- next month, he might tell the ACA he had testimony that would help them, after all. And anyone can use Google, which is what I did to find the contradictions -- a lawyer seeking to damage Falk's credibility could find the same thing I did with half an hour's work.

For friends of St Mary's who've thought well of Falk for his June declaration in favor of the parish's case, I would simply say that his record would allow an attorney to destroy his credibility if he should ever actually testify. The help he appears to have provided in his declaration is worth little. What happened at St Mary's has certainly caused spiritual crises among former parishioners -- how, for instance, could excommunicating someone who's done nothing that would warrant it do anything else? -- but it's been a part of reassessments among people not directly involved with the parish, too. Some have certainly suggested that Archbishop Falk is a figure who mitigates any disillusionment they may have with the ACA. To me, the record says pretty plainly that Falk is completely comfortable in the company of Strawn, Marsh, and Morello; he has been complicit in what's been done to St Mary's; and his own public record of personal integrity is not good.

Of those I've spoken with who've been led to reassessement -- of church affiliation, of vocation, even of how God allows evil -- none has said they'll go back to St Mary's (they can't anyhow, they've been excommunicated!) or have anything more to do with the ACA. It seems to me that this is an entirely reasonable position. This is a small scandal, but it's been instructive. One question I have is how the Anglican Province of America can contemplate merger with the ACA, knowing what it must about the key people in the ACA. What assurance does anyone in the APA have that the ACA bishops will act in good faith on any agreement they purportedly reach with the APA?

Caption This

Thanks to an anonymous visitor for the link.

Friends Of The Ordinariate?

Two visitors have e-mailed me about the UK Friends of the Ordinariate. According to Msgr Newton, the UK Ordinary:

We need funds to support our clergy and their families, train our priests, acquire church buildings and to help us play a full part in the New Evangelisation. The Friends of the Ordinariate was set up to help the Ordinariate with practical and financial support. I welcome you to its website and invite you to find out more. We count on your support.

A google of "Friends of the Ordinariate" brings up a page of links to events and press releases; it is clearly an active and enthusiastic organization. There is also an Australian Friends of the Ordinariate.

There is no equivalent group in the US.

I've been puzzled about OCSP fundraising before, to the extent that I've speculated that the admission last year of the Strafford Newman Fellowship as a group-in-formation may have been related to the need for pledges, donations, and bequests. But this may attribute too much rational motivation to the Houston clique. Someone, though, presumably donated the money for the chancery.

But even the chancery is a puzzle. I suspect that what corresponds to a chancery in most "continuing Anglican" denominations is an obsolescent desktop and a couple of metal file cabinets, and I would guess this is more than enough -- given the current size and realistic projections for the OCSP, I would think this would be enough for it as well.

This leads to other questions. Assuming all the OCSP prebendaries are volunteers, I'm nevertheless told that there's one paid employee, presumably either the Executive Assistant to the Ordinary or the Assistant to the Ordinary. (Here's a conundrum: assuming Steenson wants something like a letter taken, does he first call the Executive Assistant to the Ordinary to order the Assistant to the Ordinary to take a letter, or what? Didn't this happen once in a Preston Sturges film?)

Actually, it does seem like we're in this sort of a world: not all that long ago, I worked for an executive, in an IT department no less, whose secretary printed out all his e-mails and put them in his in-box. Then, after he'd read his printed e-mails, he'd call in his secretary and dictate his replies, which she would dutifully type and send. Yup, things like this still happen.

I'd be asking myself, assuming the Executive Assistant To or the Assistant To is the paid staff member, just how demanding this person's duties actually are, given the size of the OCSP and Steenson's own leisurely schedule. Then I would ask whether either of these people, presumably literate and indeed in possession of advanced academic degrees, might spend part of her working day issuing press releases and even updating the News section of the OCSP web site.

Just a thought.

On the other hand, based on the glimpses I see, I wouldn't give an organization like this a penny.

I've Found A Door To The Alternate Universe!

As a dedicated Fringe fan, I'm always looking for these. As Fringies know, the alternate universe is just a little bit different from ours. (For instance, did you know that Pope John Paul I reigned for 17 years on the other side and was succeeded by Bl Leo XIV?)

Anyhow, right from my home computer, I found two web addresses for the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter. That's right, two. One is usordinariate.org, which appears to be the correct site in this universe, since e-mail goes to @usordinsriate.org. (I'm obliged to an anonymous visitor for this insight.) However, there's also a site called ordinariate.net, which is almost the same as usordinariate.org. This isn't unusual -- on Fringe, people often go to the same street addresses in the different universes, and the houses and so forth are just a little bit different. The new chancery, by the way, has the same street address on both web sites, so if you're traveling, you can easily find it in either universe.

Now, the thing about ordinariate.net is that it has a secret page for news. This page takes us all the way through February 2015, the dedication of the new chancery, and our distinguished Ordinary's visit to the UK to coordinate whatever it was with Msgrs Newton and Entwhistle. (However, since this is on ordinariate.net, it's all in the alternate universe, which may be why we can't get to it from usordinariate.org.) What makes me think it's a secret page is that if I go to the ordinariate.net site, go to the News page, and click on More News, I just get same old-same old from 2014. There's no way to get to the newer page off any Ordinariate web site! (I found it by following a Google link.)

Obviously there's some Internet feature we're not aware of in the alternate universe.

But seriously. Two web domains for this rinky-dink operation? How much does this cost them? Plus you've got that Quo Vadis site, chairofpeter.org, which is so much the more redundant. Three domains, and it looks like nobody quite knows how to run any one of them. This does in fact happen in the corporate world, where an IT department gets way too big and people have to look busy, but eventually someone comes along, cuts out all the extra baloney, and lays all those drones off.

But my contacts with Ordinariate prebendaries have always elicited the complaint that there's no money for anything, everyone's a volunteer, and everyone has something more important to do.

So why bother?

Ordinariate News!

Though not, I fear, from the Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter, although an Anglican Ordinary did in fact visit a US group. A visitor pointed me to this story, wherein Msgr Keith Newton of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham visited the St Augustine of Canterbury group in Carlsbad, CA.

Msgr Jeffrey Steenson of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter was not in the group photo and was not mentioned in the story.

Actually, if you go to the News Section of the UK Ordinariate page, you find a great deal happening. For instance, the US and Australian Ordinaries visited Msgr Newton in the UK just last month and apparently discussed many things. There is no mention of this meeting, or indeed anything since Easter 2014, on the US Ordinariate News Page. A separate website, apparently containing news from our distinguished Ordinary himself, has not been updated since July 4, 2014, when members of the Houston clique surveyed the progress of the Chancery's construction. The title of this separate news page is "Quo Vadis," to which someone might answer, "Nusquam", except that our distinguished Ordinary does not endorse the use of Latin.

A google of "'Jeffrey Steenson' 2015" brings up little new; just a mutter or two about the impending dedication of the Chancery; nothing about the UK visit.

I count 18 members in the Carlsbad group photo, not including clergy.

Prayers Requested For David Moyer

I'm told that David Moyer will be going into the hospital to receive robotic bypass surgery on Thursday morning. He's requested our prayers.

My hope is that he'll come out of this trial as he's come out of all the others.

The Missed Opportunity -- VIII

I've had several e-mails raising pertinent questions about how one might explain the Ordinariate's behavior. One might be called the incompetence truism, sometimes attributed to Napoleon, "Where incompetence alone is a sufficient explanation, no other explanation is necessary," or perhaps Hanlon's razor, "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

I spent a career in corporate life trying to navigate around and under incompetence, so I know a little bit about it. Not all that many sins are solitary. Most actually need enablers of one kind or another. It takes one person to tell a lie and another to want to believe it. The kind of incompetence you see in corporations, the military, government, or for that matter the Church, has always got to be some sort of a conspiracy. Someone has to promote an incompetent and keep him in his position. Someone has to benefit from the incompetent's bumbling.

So I can't really go along with either Napoleon or Hanlon. People have reported numerous instances of lost paperwork, frustrating delays, and things left undone in the Ordinariate. Yes, you can say they're indicators of incompetence, but they're neither a root cause nor an explanation. Someone has to protect the clueless people running the show, and someone has to benefit from the cluelessness. I got an e-mail asking what my issue was with the Houston clique, and that's my answer. They protect each other and benefit from each other's incompetence. C.S.Lewis describes much the same situation in his essay "The Inner Ring", and he calls it what it is, sin.

If some ecclesiastical General Patton were to come on the scene, he'd clean house. If that doesn't happen, something else eventually will: the store will close, the corporation will go bankrupt, the ship will sink, the plane will crash, the war will be lost. The only positive thing is that we're assured the war in which the Houston group is enlisted to fight will not ultimately be lost -- although that bunch will eventually answer to someone besides Jeffrey Steenson.

There's always prayer.

The Missed Opportunity -- VII

The other issue I raised earlier is simply whether the Ordinariate can keep its word. I've discussed the representations that Msgr William Stetson made to the parish in December 2011 and January 2012, on which the Ordinariate simply didn't follow through. My exposure to Msgr Stetson gives me the impression that he is a formidable individual, and I have no reason to think he is not a person of considerable integrity. However, his position is with the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, not with the Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter, and I can't avoid thinking there is some daylight between Stetson, and by implication Archbishop José Gomez, and Houston.

Archbishop Gomez has made several clear expressions of public support for the parish, its elected vestry, and Fr Kelley, by including parish representatives in the annual Marian procession (especially significant in the City of the Queen of the Angels), and by being photographed with Fr Kelley and his senior warden, Dr Trimpi. However Houston may feel it is restricted from supporting Fr Kelley, the parish, or its elected vestry, it nevertheless has made no equivalent gesture -- and I would not characterize either Abp Gomez or Msgr Stetson as impulsive.

My understanding from those connected with the elected vestry is that Msgr Stetson has maintained regular contact, is well informed over all developments, and "doesn't ask stupid questions." My concern is whether equivalent communication takes place between the Archdiocese and Houston. For instance, I was told by a former Episcopal priest who maintains a connection with Andrew Bartus that Bartus's view is that no Ordinariate activity will take place in the Los Angeles area unless it is within Bartus's purview, and Bartus does not expect it to involve St Mary of the Angels.

It is generally recognized that Bartus is a made member of the Houston clique. It sounds to me as though Bartus perceives some difference between where he thinks things may be likely to go and where Msgr Stetson and Abp Gomez seem to wish things might proceed.

I believe it would be enormously helpful if the Ordinariate and the Archdiocese can find a way to put themselves on the same page. Certainly insofar as I'm a friend of the parish, I can't advocate much further progress toward its joining the Ordinariate until such clarification can be made.