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.