How Many New Receptions Have There Been?

We're still in the Easter season, and of course, most baptisms and receptions of new adult Catholics take place at the Easter Vigil. We know about the Ordinariate group in Flushing, NY that was received at the 2015 Vigil -- but what other growth is taking place?

The point of Anglicanorum coetibus is to bring Anglicans into the Catholic Church. If they were all supposed to come in as a bunch in 2012, well, that was a damp squib. What kind of progress is being made since then? I can think of two good indicators, one obvious: how many new Ordinariate groups are in formation and being recognized. But another is how many former Anglicans, as defined in the complementary norms, come into existing Ordinariate parishes and groups at each Easter Vigil.

Actually, I've never seen an announcement of anything like the latter. Can anyone shed light here? If Msgr Steenson is making visits, eating meals, and being encouraged, is there anything for him to be encouraged about?

Mary Pickford

Mary Pickford was born to a Methodist father and a Catholic mother and was originally baptized in a Methodist ceremony, although I've read that her Catholic grandmother had her re-baptized in a Catholic ceremony. She was already a major star when she began an affair with Douglas Fairbanks Sr during a World War I war bonds tour. Her divorce from her first husband, Owen Moore, caused a scandal in 1920, in part because she evaded Nevada's six-month residency requirement, and it may not have been valid.

Pickford married Douglas Fairbanks on March 28, 1920. (Fairbanks's first wife divorced him in 1918 on grounds of infidelity.) Accounts differ on who married Pickford and Fairbanks; the Freedom for St Mary's timeline reports a common tradition that the marriage was officiated by Fr Neal Dodd, the founding Rector of St Mary's, while another site says it was performed "at the Glendale, Calif. home of Rev. J. Whitcomb Brougher." This is typical of the urban myth that surrounds much of the parish's history. (A Rev James Brougher Jr, a Baptist, died in 2003 at the age of 101, but this would have made him 18 years old at the time of the wedding. The officiant, if this story is true, may have been Brougher's father.)

However, during the 1920s, Pickford did sponsor at least one fundraiser for construction of the current St Mary's parish building. As of 2011, there were framed Hollywood-style glossies in the hallway leading to the St Mary's sacristy of Pickford kneeling prettily at the communion rail. These photos have her in her shorter hairstyle and probably date to about 1930, when the building was completed. By then, her film career was well into decline, and I could never quite shake the feeling that this was basically a product endorsement. Whether these photos remain in the hallway is an open question.

Pickford's commitment to Episcopalianism, if it ever existed, appears to have been uncertain. In 1933, she divorced Fairbanks. At some point, Fr Dodd apparently asked her to stop attending St Mary's. It appears that Dodd took divorce seriously and would not marry a divorced couple on screen, which also calls into question the story of him presiding at the Pickford-Fairbanks wedding. By 1934, she published a booklet, ghostwritten by Adela Rogers St Johns, Why Not Try God? endorsing Christian Science; she published another Christian Science tract in 1935.

There are other urban myths and penumbras surrounding the parish, including the story that Bishop James Pike was either confirmed (Pike's biographer says Dodd confirmed him) or married (presumably to his first wife) at St Mary of the Angels. Although Pike married Jane Alvies in Los Angeles in 1938 and attended college and law school in Los Angeles from 1932-36, Fr Kelley says he has never been able to locate any record of Pike at the parish.

Mary Pickford, though, has at least one other somewhat dodgy connection with The Episcopal Church: in 1949, Pickford formed a production company with Malcolm Boyd, then a Hollywood publicist and producer, to investigate radio and TV opportunities for her and her third husband, Buddy Rogers. Boyd, who later became an Episcopal priest, achieved his 15 minutes of fame by appearing in coffee houses and on the Today program touting his 1965 book, Are You Running With Me, Jesus?. He later became a prominent spokesman for gay causes in The Episcopal Church and passed away only in February of this year at the age of 91.

Here's A Puzzle

The pattern of the US-Canadian Ordinariate may be unique. I've observed here that it resembles very closely the "continuing Anglican" denominations from which some of its parishes have come. It's small, scattered, exclusive, and inward-focused, and so far, it doesn't seem likely to change. But if you visit the Ordinariate News blog, it doesn't appear that the UK or Australian Ordinariates work the same way. Both seem to feature proselytizing initiatives directly from the Ordinaries, like the UK Called to be Holy novena:

Each group is asked to host a Day of Recollection, either during the week of the Novena or later in the year. We are asked to offer an invitation to other Christians to spend the day with us: our English spiritual heritage is one we can all share, in a powerful experience of praying together. Plenty of resources are available: a new DVD with a message from the Ordinary, a poster which can be personalised with details of local events, and materials for children’s activities.

The US and Canada haven't seen any such initiative from Houston; individual parishes do sometimes sponsor equivalent events, but on their own. Nor do we learn much about what kind of numbers such events draw: Anglicanorum coetibus is successful only insofar as it brings in more Anglicans, as far as I can see.

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops says only that the RCIA programs at local parishes bring in "thousands" of new Catholics each year. A UK source estimated in 2014 that the UK RCIA brought 3,500 to the Rites of Election at local cathedrals, but said that this didn't reflect the larger number coming in at parish Easter vigils. Do we have any figures on new parishioners at any Ordinariate parishes at all?

The most we hear from Msgr Steenson is that now and then he visits, attends receptions and suppers, has a great time, and is impressed. Is he aware of something the rest of us aren't? Will the US Ordinariate quickly, like the ACA and APA, shrink, become moribund, and die out? It's hard to avoid thinking this is the model he has in mind.

My local Latin parish played its organ yesterday, and I'm discovering wonderful Catholic hymns not in the 1940 or 1982 Hymnals.

More On "Angelicanism"

Several weeks ago, I began to ruminate on the phenomenon of "Angelicanism", the most common strain of high-church "continuing Anglicanism". It resembles the theory I've sometimes seen of the classical heresies: there's a payoff. Arianism, for instance, is thought to have given its adherents a pass on various forms of sin. While not a formal heresy, it seems to me that "Angelicanism" is a hypocrisy that has a similar function.

The main tenets of "Angelicanism" are (1) disagreement with mainstream Anglican ordination of women priests and bishops; (2) insistence on particular editions of the Book of Common Prayer; and (3) reliance on the prestige of Roman Catholic forms, without actual adherence to the Catholic catechism. These tenets are notable in that they don't actually demand much of "Angelican" laity. It reminds me a little of when I first became really uncomfortable with what sometimes emanated from the Episcopal pulpit: I once heard a homily that contained the exhortation, "Don't be promiscuous." (This was delivered to a Hollywood audience.) It didn't bother to define "promiscuous" (two people a week? a month? a year?), so nobody necessarily needed to trouble his conscience overmuch as a result.

"Angelicanism", especially since it has no adherence to Catholic definitions of sin, can be just as conveniently vague -- in that way, it's clearly descended from liberal Protestantism, and any invective hurled against The Episcopal Church isn't really sincere. The problem is that issues of conscience don't go away. This was, I think, a dilemma in the history of St Mary of the Angels Hollywood from the start: prominent early donors included Mary Pickford, whose divorces and alcoholism finally became too much even for Fr Dodd.

We see this dilemma continuing into recent times, with an extravagant gift of personal property to clergy from a political operator closely associated with pro-abortion and gay marriage interests. Something's being bought here.

I think the essential hypocrisy of "Angelicanism" is reflected in the split within the TAC following the Portsmouth Petition and Anglicanorum coetibus. The record we've seen is that the signers of the petition (who also signed a copy of the Catholic catechism in the same mass) were never sincere. Nevertheless, the ACA/TAC has never wanted to abandon the prestige of being somehow "almost Catholic".

The prestige of Catholicism is an important ingredient here. Naturally, there are large segments of the world that are anti-Catholic (and we should not minimize the fact that the Ku Klux Klan was as much anti-Catholic as it was anti-civil rights), but the Pope has always been a major figure, and a Roman collar normally commands respect. Still, there's the issue of "no sacrifice, no priest". Becoming Catholic means something. The catechism is a serious document. The problem for the ACA/TAC was that, even given the opportunity to become Catholic, its priests and bishops didn't want to make any sacrifice.

Even for the US priests who either went into the US-Canadian Ordinariate, or who've applied but haven't yet been ordained, I still wonder where the sacrifice is in some cases. They get the prestige, but behind the prestige, there's an emptiness. It's all about Steenson and a couple other self-promoters; the faithful are an unimportant supporting cast. I think it was telling when a priest who applied to join but whose process is stalled remarked that he thought the Ordinariate would be "an easy way to become Catholic". I'm not sure if there's ever an easy way to become Catholic -- although there are some Ordinariate clergy who may not yet understand this.

I've come to think from a longer perspective that Anglicanorum coetibus is less an evangelical proclamation than a put-up-or-shut-up refutation of an "Angelican" heresy.

Why We're Unlikely To See A Change

When I was young, foolish, and in graduate school, I had a part-time job as a policy-and-procedures writer for a local government. Soon enough, I began to see the point of all the verbiage: if things are spelled out, you know where you stand. If you need to do something, it's best that what you need to do is spelled out clearly. It also puts some obligation on those in authority to follow through on what they're in effect promising to do. Ever since, I've been a big fan of clear, published policies and procedures.

Soon enough after that, though, I discovered the other side of the coin. One semester, the English Department had an unexpected downturn in course enrollment, and many of the tenured faculty's courses had to be canceled because not enough students signed up. No problem! The powers that be announced, on the first day of the semester, that the tenured faculty would simply take over the courses of the contingent faculty. The contingent faculty (that would be me and many) suddenly didn't have jobs, but that was OK, because the tenured profs could still make their boat payments.

I approached my would-be faculty mentors and suggested that, at minimum, contingent faculty should be made aware of what could happen -- but ideally, shouldn't there be formalized procedures for pulling this sort of stunt, and shouldn't they be published? My would-be mentors recoiled in horror. This was simply not how things were done in the English Department, which was actually run on the basis of something like sharia law -- the big cheese made his ruling, assisted by his consigliere, and that was that. The whole episode, and eventually my career as an English instructor, ended as the distinguished incumbent of an endowed professorship muttered, "Shut up and play the game, Mr Bruce."

Published procedures simply limit the freedom of action of the big cheeses and their consigliere. I suspect that Houston will always make things up as they go along, as its chancellor acknowledged to me that she was doing in 2012. A good example of obtuseness toward this issue can be found in the comments to this post at Ordinariate News. Someone who posts frequently on various blogs as Rev22:17 and signs himself Norm opines,

In the case of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, listing as an official community on the web site seems to be dependent upon formation of a legal corporation with appropriate constituting documents. Where this has not happened, there is a cluster of individual members rather than an official community — and thus no listing on the ordinariate’s list of communities.

Norm is simply assuming that a ponderously-worded official policy exists someplace, but if it does, it would seem that nobody who is not a favored alumnus of The House has seen it. The fact is that we have no indication that all the communities have incorporated.

Nor does inclusion on the parish finder reflect official status -- the group that entered in Flushing, NY, officially received at the 2015 Easter vigil, is not yet listed. I can only conclude that there is in fact no actual policy or set of procedures that governs the admission of a group into the Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter, and it suits the big cheese and his consigliere that this should be so. Things proceed as things proceed.

For that matter, favored candidates for ordination are waved through without any serious background check -- did anyone in Houston (or indeed, Los Angeles) inquire into the circumstances under which Bp Daren Williams inhibited Andrew Bartus in 2010, almost immediately after ordaining him a deacon? Did anyone chat with Bp Moyer? No need, I guess -- Bartus went to The House. Other conscientious priests are stalled.

Shut up and play the game, Mr Bruce.

What's Missing

In the interactions I had in early 2012 with Ms Chalmers, the Ordinariate's disappointing Chancellor, she told me, "We're making it up as we go along." Well, maybe that could have been barely acceptable as an excuse in early 2012 (shouldn't there have been planning before things were launched?), but three years later, I don't get the impression that much has changed.

In the various discussions I've had with lay people involved with groups-in-formation, I simply don't get the feeling that there are any guidelines available on how to do it. Should the groups pay clergy? How much? How can a group without a priest connect with priests without groups? Who in a local diocese is best to contact in identifying worship space? Do we need to incorporate? Roughly how much money should we be expecting to raise? What other practical advice can anyone give?

Frankly, I can't avoid the impression that nobody's quite sure who in Houston answers such questions, or whether such a person, if he exists, is motivated enough to answer them at all. ("But we're all just volunteers!")

If I google "clergy pay guidelines Episcopal", I get page after page of hits from nearly every diocese. Picking one at random from the Diocese of East Carolina, I get clergy compensation guidelines, as well as many other useful policies, including those on background checks and alcohol use. On the other hand, if I go to the Ordinariate Questions & Answers page, I get desultory chit-chat about Anglicanorum coetibus but, significantly, nothing about what next steps I might take if I'm actually interested. There are references to application forms in the chit-chat, but no place on the site I can find them. Someone might want to undertake a project of requesting such forms from Houston -- I'd be interested to hear the result.

Msgr Steenson, formerly Episcopal Bishop of the Rio Grande, must certainly be familiar with how such bodies disseminate policies and make forms available. Here's a page from his former see. Check out the "12 marks of healthy church behavior assessment sheet", by the way. Three years in, there's nothing like it on the Ordinariate site.

A visitor commented,

What would be great, if there's some sort of event or conference for of all the Ordinariate and interested people to gather for some Q&A and some news and a simple "suggestion box" type of function that doesn't make the CoSP Ordinariate seem so mysterious and inscrutable (read: disorganized) and it would do well to establish a "Friends of the Ordinariates" analogue with laypersons involved.

My first question might be more along the line of what form we need to fill out to request a new Ordinary. Seriously. Where in the Vatican do we get to make our feelings known? Does anyone have suggestions?

UPDATE: A form can in fact be found from a JOIN link at the top of the home page, but there is no other reference to it that I can identify. And how hard would it be to add a link to the form on the Q&A page? In addition, there does not appear to be an equivalent way to inquire about forming a group, which of course is the coetibus part of the whole thing.

The Case For Friends Of The Ordinariate

Prof Andrew Jordan of the University of Rochester appears to be the lay driving force behind the Fellowship of St. Alban Ordinariate group in Rochester, NY. Since I've begun to learn more about the individual Ordinariate parishes and missions, I've visited the group's web site and come away impressed. The group is currently working to find a new pastor.

Prof Jordan responded to my posts on group finances with the following:

hi Mr. Bruce, I noticed your series of posts on finances for the Ordinariate groups. Thanks for your concern! We accept checks to assist our mission. They may be made out to

The fellowship of St. Alban Ordinariate group

and mailed to me:
Andrew Jordan
91 Westerloe Ave.
Rochester, NY
14620

I would be happy to forward it on to our treasurer.

We do have donors that are not local - we would be happy to remember you at the mass as a benefactor.

Best wishes,
Andrew

Three things strike me here. One is that the Fellowship of St Alban is ahead of the game in matters like incorporation, a checking account, and a treasurer, although up to now, this appears to be all the same to Houston. Another is the presence of a strong lay leader in the group. A third is that the strong lay leader isn't bashful about soliciting donations.

This is all to the good. On balance, I would discuss a fairly nominal donation with my wife and send it along -- but that really isn't an answer, is it? OK, we support our Latin parish, we support Augustinian and other charities, but why send a check to Rochester, NY out of the blue? Wouldn't it be a better idea to support a larger number of Ordinariate causes in a more systematic way?

Why no Friends of the Ordinariate? These already exist in the UK and Australia. Why no strong lay figure in the US and Canadian Ordinariate who could promote something like that?

Clearly there are donations being made, apparently sometimes substantial, to individual Ordinariate clergy in the form of personal property (ethically questionable), or in the form of multimillion-dollar pet projects like the Houston Chancery --- but both of these seem more to glorify individuals than further the cause of Anglicanorum coetibus.

I'm not sure, in fact, if Houston would be entirely comfortable with the idea of a strong lay figure or figures. But I wish Prof Jordan and his group the best, I will talk with my wife, and I hope others will think about how best to further the cause as well.

The Case For Closer Supervision

I don't mean to pursue Andrew Bartus exclusively in posts here, but things keep coming to me about the situation in (now) Irvine, and frankly, I think they're concrete examples of what's wrong with the US-Canadian Ordinariate.

The first thing I've noticed personally, based on a visit to the Newman group while it was in formation at Placentia, was that wine was served at parish functions. I now notice, based on visits to the parish Facebook page, that this practice continues, and I'm told that wine is routinely served during the period normally called "coffee hour" after 11 AM mass, to the extent that apparently some parishioners regard it as "wine hour".

Several Episcopal parishes I've observed, including my most recent one in Hollywood, have a strict no-alcohol-on-premises policy (excluding communion wine, of course). The rector of the Hollywood parish put it persuasively -- with so many people struggling with alcohol issues, it's simply irresponsible to have an environment in a church that enables abuse. But whatever the specific policy, I've simply never seen any parish in any denomination, other than this Newman group, that serves wine after the 11 AM mass. This group does, with plenty of toddlers and young children around. The liability issues are also apparent -- if you serve alcohol and someone has an auto accident afterward, you're on the hook.

Another issue that's been pointed out is that in the Newman group, there doesn't seem to be any distinction between parish activities and Bartus social events, with apparently one type just transitioning into the other. The problem is that would-be parishioners who don't conform to the favored yuppie demographic feel excluded from both. This situation is well within an ethical gray area, and as I've surmised here in the past, if people saw it at St Mary of the Angels while he was there, it would likely continue, and it apparently has.

Third, it appears that there isn't a clear distinction between gifts to Bartus personally and donations to the Newman group. My understanding is that Bartus has solicited donations for vestments, but it isn't entirely clear if the vestments become his personal property, or are the property of the Newman group. (A significant set appears to be his property.) Normally vestments belong to a parish and are kept in the sacristy, but with the group moving frequently and renting or borrowing space, ownership isn't clear. In addition, my understanding is that substantial monetary gifts have been made to the Bartus family. This is also well within an ethical gray area, and in many denominations, direct cash gifts to clergy are unethical.

Somehow an adult needs to take a close look at what's going on here, stop the "wine hour", and set clear boundaries over social activities, gifts, and donations. Requiring an accounting system for all Ordinariate groups is just a very minimal start to what needs to be done. Make it clear what things are; issue 1099s and W-2s for payments; issue receipts for gifts to the tax exempt entity. If the boundaries aren't clear in the Ordinariate, this is just one more reason I can't recommend that the St Mary of the Angels parish get involved.

Msgr Steenson, pay a little now or pay a lot later.

Vicar General For California Groups?

I'm told -- and I'm not sure how reliable this is -- that a Catholic priest due for retirement from parish work in the area, who is familiar with Anglican Use, may be designated a vicar general for the Ordinariate missions in Southern California. This is apparently based on some comments made after mass in a Latin rite parish in the area, which may have been misunderstood.

However, like the expectation that all parishes and missions use standardized accounting software (and be responsible for that minimal expense), I think this is another indication that adults may be taking over in the Ordinariate. I will eagerly follow developments and will welcome any further correction or clarification. However, the lack of effective supervision has already been pointed out here as a serious deficiency in the current state of affairs.

We do know that Fr Jack Barker, a previous rector at St Mary of the Angels who later became a Catholic priest, will be leaving his Murrieta, CA parish on July 1, 2015.

More On Finances

Regarding my post yesterday, my visitor replies (slightly edited),

Purely speculative here, but taking as an example St Edmund's, Kitchener, a group of about ten people, who previously had Sunday mass celebrated for them by a diocesan priest at a side altar in his parish church: I am sure they paid him some sort of honorarium, and perhaps made a donation to the parish, but did not pay formal rent. Now they have their own Ordinariate pastor who celebrates Sunday mass for them at another parish church and lives in the rectory with the pastor of the diocesan parish. Again, I am sure a contribution is made, but paying any kind of rent would seem beyond them. The bulletin does encourage donors to make cheques out to St Edmund's, so as you suggest they must have their own bank account and be able to issue charitable receipts. I know that the group in Vancouver/Maple Ridge simply funnels money through their host parish. In a few cases the Ordinariate priest is also the pastor of a diocesan parish, as in Mobile, AL or is on the staff of a diocesan parish (Boerne, TX). So there are creative ways of dealing with financial viability. My bigger concern was the thought of one of the elderly volunteers in a smaller group having to master the intricacies of the software to handle the $73 weekly collection. Which will ultimately be completely swallowed up in paying for the program.

This raises some interesting questions, not least about fairness and accountability. As I've been giving thought to how the small groups-in-formation work and eventually develop, I can't help but come back to the question of whether they should grow. Let's look at some ordinary expenses. The Episcopal Diocese of Missouri, an organization that we may assume is comparable in practice to the Ordinariate (or at least we should aspire to be comparable to it), specifies that the honorarium for a supply priest is $125 per one Sunday mass, $175 for two, plus mileage. Let's set this as a fairly nominal amount that a group-in-formation should be wanting to pay a priest.

St Mary of the Angels was, insofar as I can remember, collecting $75 per evening for twelve-step meetings. Based on bulletin board notices, my earlier Episcopal parish was definitely collecting rent for similar meetings, and it was renting the nave on Sunday afternoons to an Orthodox parish. A group in formation might also want to finance refreshments for any after-mass reception -- let's call it $50 for coffee, juice, pastries, cookies, and so forth. A paid organist and choir is a significant expense, $2700 per month at St Mary of the Angels in 2011. A group in formation is not being realistic if it is not at least looking toward meeting expenses at this level.

If I were the Ordinary, I think I would be irresponsible if I allowed any group-in-formation to think it could be successful over any kind of medium term without the ability to meet this level of expenses. Without a paid music program, you're still looking at an absolute minimum of $350 per week to pay a priest for saying mass, serve coffee, and have access to worship space. And if a founding priest is willing to say mass for free, what about his successor? Where does idealism stop and exploitation start? To do anything like this, you'd need a core group that can reliably pledge anything from $30-$50 per week.

Yes, I've seen the elderly parish treasurer who really isn't in a position to learn a computer app -- but the actuarial reality is you can't rely on him forever. When does a group in formation have to start to get serious about five or ten years in the future? How does it seriously expect to grow and evangelize? I'm not seeing this with the smaller groups, at least so far, and I'm not getting the impression that Houston has a sense of this, either -- though a requirement that a group front $450 per year for software is not a bad start.

Ordinariate Accounting

The questions I had yesterday about the financial status of the Blessed John Henry Newman church in California raised, in part, the question of hall rental. I simply don't know how Ordinariate groups that meet in diocesan parish buildings handle this issue. Certainly the parishes with which I've been familiar that host Twelve-Step meetings, yoga classes, or whatever, do charge rental for the space, and this is reasonable, since lights, restrooms, heat, air conditioning, cleaning, and maintenance all cost money. Parishes that allow other denominations to use their worship space certainly charge for the privilege.

Since Twelve-Step programs are anonymous, the rental from those groups came to St Mary of the Angels in cash, mostly ones. Other groups using the hall paid by check on the accounts of the groups.

I'm assuming that Ordinariate groups in formation must incorporate at some early stage in their development, and certainly must exist as formal entities to be recognized at all by the Ordinary. A visitor now tells me that Houston "will soon have a state-of-the-art parish accounting software system which will be mandatory for every group to use. This package, which will cost around $450 per group per year, is used by many Catholic dioceses (like Detroit) but seems a bit elaborate for OCSP, which has many groups with membership in the low double digits. Houston is picking up the cost for the first year."

The visitor suggests that some groups may need to set up bank accounts and so forth for the first time in order to accommodate this, but I'm simply not sure if this hasn't already been done. It does, though, lead to the question of what the typical plate-and-pledge amounts to for the smaller groups, and what their expenses are. If a smaller group has 15 pledging entities each contributing $20 per week, that's $300, but I'm not sure how realistic that is -- as an usher at my Catholic parish, I see many people putting much smaller amounts in the basket (and plenty just pass it by), and our pastor has asked those pledging less than $5 per week to increase the amount to $5.

On the other hand, I don't know what hall rental amounts to, either, nor what other expenses a small group has, assuming the clergy is non-stipendiary. This is information I badly wanted to know when I was briefly treasurer of St Mary's -- these were the sorts of things that nobody in the Diocese of Ft Worth in-group seemed much concerned about, and nobody was providing any sort of guidance. It seems to me that some uniform system of accounting must be essential to the Ordinariate -- but frankly, it raises the question of how many smaller groups can, or should, continue.

Flushing, NY Ordinariate Community

A visitor mentioned to me several times the case of an Ordinariate community-in-formation in Flushing, NY whose status had been in question following the unexpected death of its pastor in 2014. I now see that this group was received into the Catholic Church as an Ordinariate community this past Sunday.

However, the comments on this post raise several questions. First, they still have no pastor and are simply attending the regular novus ordo Spanish-language mass at a Catholic parish. Other than their supervision by Msgr Steenson rather than a diocesan ordinary, it's difficult to see what makes them Anglican, other than their prior affiliation with a Spanish-language Episcopal parish.

This raises the question, as noted in the comments, of whether the US-Canadian Ordinariate has any particular focus.

By the way, this community is not yet listed on the parish finder of the Houston web site.

New Location For Blessed John's

Andrew Bartus's Ordinariate mission in Orange County, CA, Blessed John Henry Newman Catholic Church, has moved several times since its formation. While in formation, it held choral evensong at Blessed Sacrament Episcopal Church in Placentia, CA, with an organist and choir. After the group was received in 2012, it moved to St Joseph's Catholic parish in Santa Ana, CA; in 2013 it moved to the St Luke's Room at St Mary's Catholic Church in Fullerton. (Characteristically, this location still appears on the Ordinariate parish finder on its web site.)

However, the new location is The Queen of Life Chapel, a private oratory at the law offices of the Busch Group in Irvine, CA. In addition to the photo of the interior on the main web page, another from the opposite direction appears here. I see four rows of pews, with precious little room to swing a thurible, although the main page of the Newman mission still shows one being swung. Indeed, any sort of procession looks to be awkward here.

More important, there doesn't appear to be either an organ or provision for a choir, so I'm assuming that in addition to what must be some sort of downsizing for the mission, any musical program has gone by the board in the years since 2012. (Typical cost for a paid organist and choir would be $2-3000 per month.) I will be most grateful if anyone familiar with the current situation at Blessed John's can correct or clarify my impressions, but I can only surmise that the move may have been for financial reasons -- the Ordinariate mission, I assume, was paying some sort of rental to the host parishes for use of either the main nave in off hours or a side meeting room, as is suggested by its former location at St Mary's -- and membership may have declined to the point where a less expensive venue might have been needed. UPDATE: Photos of the Easter mass in the former location are suggestive as well. At best, two dozen -- at Easter?

I'm wondering what else may be fading away in the US-Canadian Ordinariate, and whether responsible parties are paying attention. My understanding is that an attempt to start an Ordinariate group of about 50 on Long Island fizzled (at best, as described here, it's a "group left to fend for itself", attending novus ordo mass at a Spanish language parish), and now I can't help but wonder if the only mission in the second-largest metropolitan area is dying out now, too.

If you want to see a real thurible being swung, by the way, check this out. Not an Anglican in sight.

Here's What I'd Do If I Were A Warden

in the elected vestry at St Mary of the Angels. Not right away, but certainly as soon as the legal resolution became more clear, I'd recommend there be a serious sitdown between the elected vestry and three people: Msgr William Stetson, Msgr Jeffrey Steenson, and Fr Charles Hough III. They would want to do this, because, at least in terms of 2012 assets, revenue, and membership, St Mary of the Angels would be one of the principal parishes (not missions) of the US-Canadian Ordinariate. (The draft budget I prepared for 2012 included a parish tithe of 10%, about $22,000.) If they did not do this, I would take it as a pretty serious sign from the Almighty that the parish's stewardship would be best exercised in a different context.

I would want to review the things the Ordinary and his representatives didn't do in the early months of 2012. These would include:

• The assumption was that, in accordance with the announced procedure, the parish would have a Catholic chaplain who would exercise pastoral functions until the parish's Anglican clergy could be ordained. Although Msgr Stetson was designated, he never made any move to receive the parish as Catholics and never exercised any pastoral function. He was present for about three meetings and was otherwise remote. I'm not entirely sure if pastoral experience is on the Msgr's resume in any case. How would another try at joining the Ordinariate differ here?
• Although numerous allegations of doctrinal uncertainty and financial impropriety were made against Fr Kelley, I'm not aware of any serious effort by the Ordinary to get to the bottom of these. Certainly I would have been a major source for information on finances, since I had access to the books in the period just prior to 2012. Nobody ever contacted me. What specific allegations did the Ordinary receive, and what did he do to investigate them?
• During early 2012, a small parish minority was working with the ACA to seize the parish, in violation of California corporate law. Then-Bp Moyer had evidence of this. The attempted seizure of the parish, also in violation of law, on April 9 was a clear indication of this. Both Bps Moyer and Falk, in the period between January and April 2012, did what they could to protect the parish from these illegal moves and were successful at the time, without resort to legal action. What equivalent moves did the Ordinary make to protect the parish, which had, effective January 1 of that year, been assured of his protection? Given his chancellor's excuse that no money was available for legal action, what moves short of legal action were available to him that he apparently did not make?
• To what extent did the Ordinary or his associates rely on Andrew Bartus's own allegations concerning the parish to make decisions on the parish's future? By April 2012, Bartus's behavior had become visibly erratic, especially during that year's Easter triduum. What psychological testing, normal for review of diocesan Catholic priests and religious, was administered to Bartus that would have made him more credible as a source than, say, Bp Moyer, Bp Falk, Fr Kelley, the parish wardens, or even someone like me?

I'm seriously concerned that nothing appears to have changed in the Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter since 2012. Without a clear explanation of what's changed, and a serious and credible commitment to treat the parish differently (including an assurance that Bartus will have no involvement in its future), I do not see joining the Ordinariate as an appropriate future course and cannot recommend it as a friend of the parish.

What Are We Trying To Do Here, And Are We Succeeding?

A visitor sent me a reference to an entry on the blog of the UK (liberal) Catholic magazine The Tablet which is less interesting in itself than in the visitor's own remarks that seem to have been inspired by it. Here is his take, slightly edited:

It is interesting that the "teething pains" of the UK Ordinariate are very much about liturgy and the value or otherwise of the "Anglican Patrimony." While these are not negligible issues, they are issues which can be resolved, or at least productively discussed, in theological terms, as the writer goes on to describe in his description of the ongoing formation process. The US-Canadian Ordinariate, in contrast, seems pretty united in its liturgical praxis; Fr Hawkins, the former Pastoral Provision pastor of St Mary the Virgin, Arlington was perhaps the only American representative of the "anti-Cranmer" point of view, and of course it was his retirement which opened the door to the Ordinariate for that parish. Rather, the issues for the US-Canadian Ordinariate seem to reflect its recent origins largely in the "continuing" Anglican movement, ie they are personnel issues. Whatever the quality of the clergy, and some certainly have significant gaps in their resumes, to put it charitably, they are almost all men used to running things their way with little oversight from central authority. And the ongoing formation opportunities, which are available to UK clergy, are completely lacking in the US-Canada, as is consistent communication and guidance from Houston. One could never imagine a comparable article appearing in a US Catholic publication, of course. The official word from Houston, insofar as they communicate at all, is that things couldn't be better.

Let's recall that the best account we have of the formation of Anglicanorum coetibus is that it arose from a proposal made to then-Cardinal Ratzinger, that was worked through a few drafts and revisions in 1993-4, authored by then-Episcopal Bishop Clarence Pope and then-Episcopal Fr Jeffrey Steenson.

The basis of the proposal was that an unspecified but very large number of disaffected Episcopalians was poised to go over to the Catholic Church. Bishop Pope estimated the number in the 1993 meeting with Ratzinger at a quarter million, about 25% of then-TEC membership. This has been one of the founding errors of "continuing Anglicanism" and derivative movements: the actual numbers have never remotely borne out the estimates. As of 2015, the US-Canadian Ordinariate's membership is, optimistically, about 1% of the 1993 estimate given to Ratzinger. Good question: if Bishop Pope had given Ratzinger a more realistic estimate of interest, would Pope Benedict have thought Anglicanorum coetibus worth anyone's time?

Here's another question: How could an ecclesial body numbering a quarter million be governed as a single "personal prelature"? The remarks above strongly suggest a perception that a body of only 2500 is hardly being governed at all. Anglicanorum coetibus by its nature gave those tasked with setting up the foundations a great deal of leeway, but especially in the US and Canada, it's hard to avoid thinking, first, that whatever Cardinal Ratzinger might have expected hasn't happened -- but, given the structure we have, probably will never take place. Nobody seems to have given any serious thought, for instance, to how much money might actually be needed to set things up, and how it might be raised. Such donations as have come in seem to have gone into a Chancery whose purposes appear supererogatory at best.

I've remarked here that, in numbers, personnel, distribution, and governance, the US-Canadian Ordinariate resembles any of two dozen rather sorry "continuing Anglican" denominations. It seems I'm not the only one to recognize this.

In my Catholic parish, my biggest concern is that some of the music is silly. On the other hand, our younger priest seems to be working purposefully to make gradual changes. Otherwise, much as I miss things like the Prayer of Humble Access and the Prayer of Thanksgiving, these are not necessary to salvation. And our parish seems to bring in 8-12 candidates per year via RCIA. Over a short span of years, just one medium size parish will account for several Ordinariate missions' worth of new evangelization.

Liturgy is nice to have, but more is needed.

Third Anniversary Of Attempted Seizure

April 9, 2012 was the date of the first attempted seizure of the parish by the ACA. It was Easter Monday of that year. The version I've been told is that Mr Kang called Fr Kelley in the rectory from from the front office, telling him that there were two letters from the IRS there, one with his name on it. Did he want to see them? (The actual notice from the IRS had in fact arrived the previous Friday and had been immediately passed on to the parish's accountant for resolution of the problem.)

However, there were no letters from the IRS. It was apparently a ruse, to get Fr Kelley up to the front, where Anthony Morello; the Creels from Morello's parish, All Saints Fountain Valley; Mr Kang; and Patrick Omeirs were lying in wait. Mmes Bush and Kang were just outside. They had the front door keys, which the group had used to enter the building.

Instead of the IRS letter, Morello handed Fr Kelley a "Notice If [sic] Inhibition" from Stephen Strawn. Fr Kelley retired to the sacristy to read the document. Mr Kang then quickly brought in a locksmith to open the door to Fr Kelley's inner office. Fr Kelley returned to the parish office and told the locksmith that what he was attempting to do was illegal. The locksmith recognized at once that he could lose his license and livelihood and ran outside. Fr Kelley called 911, which brought the Los Angeles police.

Mrs Kelley called Abp Falk in Iowa, who was completely taken aback at this turn of events. He spoke to the LAPD officers, explaining to them that Strawn had no authority to do this; the parish was part of the Patrimony of the Primate and not under either Strawn or Morello. The officers then sent the group away, saying there was no legal authority in Strawn's document, and besides, it violated California and LA City laws. No one on the elected vestry as of that date, other than Mrs Bush, was aware of this attempt beforehand. (Kang and Omeirs had by then termed off the vestry.) This was the first indication the elected vestry and the rest of the parish had of Mrs Bush's true role.

Although Andrew Bartus was not present, he had made an appointment the previous week with my wife and me to meet with us at our home the next day, April 10. With the failure of this first seizure attempt, he simply didn't show up to meet with us then, though he didn't cancel the meeting. My wife and I assume that Bartus had worked with Mrs Bush and the ACA group to choreograph the seizure, and the purpose of his April 10 meeting with us would have been to inform certain parishioners of the fait accompli, with Bartus now installed as priest-in-charge. But when the plan fizzled, Bartus seems basically to have said, "Never mind."

Andrew Bartus Sends Warnings From America!

Someone sent me a link to the Trinity 2010 issue of the UK publication The Church Observer, the cover of which has a blurb for then-Dcn Bartus's warnings within. The warnings begin on page 14:

The editor asked me to write to the faithful in the Church of England concerning the recent vote allowing the purported consecration of women as bishops by the General Synod. I write this with a sad heart and as a warning of the likely scenario that will unfold in the Church of England over the next few years.

The consequences of consecrating woman bishops, as Bartus explains them, though, are basically that someone like Andrew Bartus will have a hard time. The piece is, to put it mildly, self-absorbed.

There is orthodoxy (Catholicism) and there is heresy (everything else to one degree or another).

Well, we know where he stands, huh? But wait:

I am originally from the Diocese of Texas. I was confirmed at the parish of St. Andrew’s in Bryan, Texas. When preparing for ordination, I had to move to Dallas because I was too conservative for the bishop or standing committee of the Diocese of Texas. I opposed the ordination of non-celibate homosexuals, not to mention the ordination of women or of divorced and remarried men! I even had trouble in the Diocese of Dallas. So I had only one option, which by the grace of God worked out: The Diocese of Fort Worth under the godly Bishop Jack Iker.

I think we need to grant Protestant denominations the choice, correct or not, to be Protestant. Dcn Bartus starts out by insisting he's Catholic, or at least admires Catholic doctrines -- fine -- but then he begins complaining that a Protestant denomination isn't Catholic. That's less fine.

He goes on to explain that via the Diocese of Fort Worth, he was sent to Nashotah House, a seminary of The Episcopal Church. Although Nashotah House is somewhat more conservative than the other Episcopal seminaries, it nevertheless has trained its share of women and openly gay Episcopal priests, although Dcn Bartus is clear in his opposition to this practice. So why even go to Nashotah House? Did he remonstrate with the authorities there? Well, he graduated, quite possibly not. But

Right before graduation, I learned I couldn’t return to the Diocese of Fort Worth, as it was already full of incumbents and curates, as many had fled there from the disintegrating Episcopal Church. And where was I to go to?

He attributes an oversupply of Episcopal clergy in the (now ACNA) Diocese of Fort Worth to the disintegration of TEC. However, the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, one of the most liberal in the US, has just as big an oversupply -- Bishop Bruno recently had to release all his seminarians from their vows, because there was no place to put them. The fact is that all of TEC has had an oversupply of clergy for generations, probably because the Episcopal priesthood is regarded as a prestigious and well-compensated profession, which is at the same time not very demanding. Join the club, Dcn Bartus. But

I tried applying at many ACNA parishes and many were eager to hear from a ‘high church’ graduate from an ‘orthodox’ seminary. This was until interviewing with them they learned that I wasn’t simply ‘high church’ but believed and practiced the entire Catholic faith.

I can imagine how that went. In fact, the whole tone of Dcn Bartus's warning implies that only he and the Holy Father have things right, but he's not quite sure about the Holy Father. Except, er, he's applying for jobs in a Protestant denomination.

But there's a happy ending!

I ended up, again by God’s amazing providence, as the curate at St. Mary of the Angels, Hollywood.

We know how that went. And all because TEC consecrated women bishops. I suppose there is in fact a warning here, but not what Dcn Bartus had in mind.

A Closer Look At The Ordinariate -- VIII

My correspondent who is highly knowledgeable about Ordinariate matters told me not long ago,

One of the drawbacks of the Ordinariate structure is that its wide geographical boundaries make it difficult to vet candidates and supervise clergy effectively. In a typical diocese men would have gone to seminary together and been observed locally. The training of the incoming US Ordinariate priests has been all over the map; some former ACCC clergy, now Catholic priests, do not have an M.Div or equivalent, for example. But at least academic training is something for which documentation can be provided. The personal suitability of candidates is much more difficult to evaluate. Candidates for the UK Ordinariate had to participate in a weekend of psychological testing at the same institute used by Catholic dioceses in England and Wales, but US candidates simply had to provide a statement of psychological fitness from a suitable professional. And while this probably weeded out those with serious problems, neither process gives the full picture. In the case of men who have served in parish ministry, in many cases for decades, there is no substitute for an investigation of their track records. This Houston had no mechanism to undertake. As you have pointed out, the "continuing" Anglican denominations accepted some very damaged and dysfunctional clergy into their ranks, and some of them have gone on to become Catholic priests. Ongoing accountability, recently instituted, consists of a quarterly "Ember letter" to the Vicar for Clergy. The letter can be of any length and on any subject, and it is not clear what mechanism is in place for ensuring it is sent at all. As we know, follow-up from Houston is spotty at best.

My understanding of background checks and psychological testing in The Episcopal Church is that they're pretty thorough. As with Brian Marsh, we're left with the question of why Andrew Bartus, although he went through the Episcopal process of aspirant-postulant-candidate for holy orders, was not ordained an Episcopal priest, although he'd graduated from an Episcopal seminary.

There are many, many unanswered questions in this story.

Walking Back The Cat -- V

So here's what we have, based on what seems to be pretty solid evidence. In fact, I have to keep reminding myself that there's evidence, because the story is otherwise wildly unbelievable -- it certainly calls the mental stability of the major players into question.

Sometime in the second half of 2010, following the arrival of Andrew Bartus in the parish as a new graduate of Nashotah House and a transitional deacon, a small group of people got together to air their dissatisfactions with St Mary's Hollywood. It's difficult to tell what they were dissatisfied with, but overall, I would guess they all were basically unhappy people, perhaps even deeply troubled. All of that group, Bartus, the Kangs, Ms Akan, and Mrs Bush, were fairly new to the parish. To the extent that Bartus's participation in this group involved extensive interaction outside parish activities, it was unethical in itself, but on top of that, it appears that the group mutually reinforced its divisive instincts, with Bartus's concurrence.

Somehow, the group objected to Fr Kelley in an unspecified way. Their publicly expressed objections involved "financial impropriety", but their main activity was simply to engage in financial impropriety themselves and then try to transfer the blame for it to Fr Kelley. I assume it took them some time to develop the scheme of not forwarding quarterly tax withholding payments to the IRS. This could have potentially catastrophic consequences for all involved, including those in the group, and it could do major damage to the parish. In other words, it was a reckless and dangerous idea, but they brought it to fruition and pursued it for over a year.

What was Bartus's issue with Fr Kelley? It does seem that he became dissatisfied almost as soon as he arrived. Mr Clark's statement cites theological objections, but my understanding is that then-Bishop Moyer discussed these with Bartus in June 2011 and decided they were unwarranted. But you wouldn't normally resolve theological issues by violating tax law.

How soon did the group apprise Bishops Strawn, Marsh, or Falk of this scheme? Certainly by early 2012, Strawn at least was aware of it. As of late 2011, Strawn was communicating with the dissidents, in violation of the agreement he'd signed in April of that year not to interfere with Patrimony parishes. By April 2012, Strawn had been informed of the likely date when the IRS would seize the parish and had prepared a letter of inhibition to Fr Kelly in anticipation of it.

It's probable that few people in this group of plotters will face accountability for what they did, at least in this life. Most probably will never be in a position to do equivalent damage to another parish, in fact. The exception is Bartus. The events he was connected with here simply call into question his suitability for the priesthood in any denomination. If he was troubled enough to do what he appears to have done at St Mary's, it's very likely that similar problems will emerge elsewhere.

Walking Back The Cat -- IV

Once the parish rank and file learned of the events of December 10-11, 2011, including a request for Fr Kelley to resign that nobody outside a small clique had heard about, a consensus emerged that the vestry election to take place at the next parish annual meeting would be a critical event. Luckily, several of the dissidents, including Messrs Kang and Omeirs, were terming off the vestry and could not be re-elected. The parish majority gradually identified a slate of vestry candidates made up of more reliable adults, and by and large, it elected them at the meeting on February 5, 2012.

The difficulty was Mrs Bush. She began attending mass at St Mary's in the summer of 2010, and was nearly as new as my wife and I. She came off as a grande dame, a well-put-together wealthy widow who lives in a luxury penthouse and is active in the community. She seemed to be friendly to everyone, if a bit reserved, and although she was new, the majority thought she would be a good candidate. Unfortunately, nobody knew how thoroughly she'd been turned by Bartus, Ms Akan, and the Kangs. That she was so close to the Kangs was a particular surprise, as their personal styles, in contrast to that of Mrs Bush, can only be characterized as tacky.

The new vestry majority wanted to reappoint me as treasurer, especially since, having attended mass for a year, I was now fully qualified to serve. In fact, it was expecting to do that in a vestry meeting immediately following the February 5 election. Mrs Bush successfully got them to postpone a decision. But in the next regular vestry meeting, although he was no longer a member, Mr Kang insisted that he be allowed to speak, and he rambled on for about three hours. (His wife and another dissident former member waited in the hallway the whole time, apparently ready to take over and continue the filibuster if needed.) It appears that their purpose was to prevent the new vestry from conducting any regular business.

Finally, late in the evening, the vestry called me in to discuss reappointing me as treasurer. Mrs Bush immediately objected. She had, it seems, information that adversely reflected on my character: I had once said, to both her and Andrew Bartus, "Pat Omeirs can feed his horse, but he can't pledge." She stressed that Andrew Bartus could, if needed, testify to this statement. In the opinion of both Mrs Bush and Bartus, this reflected an inability on my part to keep financial information confidential.

My response was that, although amounts pledged are confidential, simply whether a parishioner pledges is not, since Article VI, Section 2 of the parish bylaws says, "Any pledging member of the Church shall be eligible to be elected a member of the vestry," and the parish needs to be assured that vestry candidates pledge. Mrs Bush remained intransigent, insisting that in her view, as well as that of Bartus, I was not of good character and should not serve as treasurer.

It probably rankled that I made the point I did about Omeirs, a prominent dissident -- and they didn't like the implication that he had never been qualified to serve on the vestry. (On the other hand, I've come to learn that little Mr Omeirs says about himself is reliable, and there's a question about whether the horse he boasted about actually belonged to him or his neighbor.) However, it became plain that Mrs Bush had mastered the strategy Mr Kang had earlier employed: stubbornly insist on an off-the-wall position and then rely on other vestry members to split the difference in an effort to seem reasonable. The vestry decided to defer a decision on a treasurer indefinitely, even though the parish bylaws require that there be one.

What only the dissidents knew, and pretty clearly understood among themselves, was that a treasurer who wanted to keep the parish up-to-date on its bills was the one thing that wouldn't fit their plan. Mrs Bush and Andrew Bartus were clearly aware of, and eager to facilitate, that agenda.