Just read your last two posts, John. the parish has declined greatly from the plummy days of Fr. Jordan when I was a member. Remember, I was baptized and confirmed there as a teenager in the 50s. There was a thriving Sunday School, [and] adult school of religion on Sunday afternoons, before Evensong and Benediction in the evening. Daily Mass, Confessions on demand and scheduled on Saturday evenings. After Fr. Jordan's untimely death [update: in 1971], Fr. Barker took over and things started going south, from my recollection. I left the parish soon after and never looked back. I still think that Fr. Jordan might have taken the parish into a western rite Orthodox jurisdiction, [if] there had been one then. I never in all my years there heard him say anything favorable to the RCC as it existed then.I checked the timeline on the Freedom for St Mary's site, but unfortunately, it gives no dates for Fr James Jordan's tenure. (The timeline on the Facebook page linked above says it was 1952-1971.) I asked my correspondent what was on the corner property before the bank building (which acquired its tenant in 1984), and he replied,
As I recall, two small apartment houses, I believe two story duplexes. At one time, Fr. Jordan moved out of the little house behind the church, which became class rooms, and moved into the apartment house facing Hillhurst. it was there he died from a heart attack.It's worth noting that both Frs Jordan and Barker were Episcopal priests. My correspondent has said in the past that Fr Jordan seems to have flirted with becoming Orthodox and possibly taking the parish with him; he notes that Jordan would take groups to Orthodox services. This would have been well before the Affirmation of St Louis. Fr Barker, of course, eventually did more than flirt with Catholicism, but in consequence of his various moves was inhibited by The Episcopal Church on January 28, 1977, which was also before the Congress of St Louis, which took place on September 14-16 of that year.
My correspondent does not venerate Fr Barker as others seem to do; I take no position, since I don't know the man. I do note that other priests who have left The Episcopal Church out of dissatisfaction have resigned, rather than wait to be deposed, and under its current policies (which, however, it adjusts or not depending on what suits its purpose), the US-Canadian Ordinariate does not ordain priests who are under discipline in other jurisdictions.
This short trip down memory lane has brought me back to the time around 1977 when I first became aware of the St Mary of the Angels controversy on the five o'clock news. I believe Mrs Brandt was the spokesperson for the parish at the time, and when asked by the reporter what the parish's objections were to the Episcopal Church's ordination of women, she vehemently insisted that it destroyed "our catholicity". (She was speaking, so I don't know if the "c" was capital, but considering her subsequent positions, I'm assuming it's lower-case.)
The problems facing the parish are generational. Clearly they go back before 1977, and they probably started with Fr Dodd. I will be most eager to hear any other accounts of circumstances under Frs Jordan and Barker, as well as more specific dates for the rectorship of Fr Jordan.
