The Anglicanorum Coetibus Society

I spent much of my working career in the information technology field, doing things like computer security or disaster recovery planning that I couldn't have trained for in college because the fields didn't exist at the time. But one thing I noticed was that almost as soon as the fields came into existence, people started saying "Gee, what we need is a professional organization for computer disaster recovery planners", and the next thing you knew, there would be an Association of Professional Computer Disaster Recovery Planners or whatever.

While nobody in 1967 could have envisioned the need for the APCDRP and its Board of Directors, I sure knew the types who'd rise to the level of Board member even then -- self-promoters have existed at all times and in all places. The same, I fear, applies to the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society:

Over the summer, the Board of Directors has been having intense discussions about the mission of the Society and these discussions are continuing. The first fruits of our deliberations are now ready to be shared.

The pomposity is visible: they're ready to SHARE SOMETHING with us! Oh, boy, they've decided to change their name!

But I never accepted invitations to join the boards of organizations like the APCDRP or the like -- I had, frankly, too much work to do in actually planning how a company could recover its ATMs or billing or whatever from earthquakes, hurricanes, race riots, snipers, or whatever. That stuff was important. The stuff the board of the APCDRP did wasn't.

Here's why they'd throw me off the board of the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society as soon as they'd discovered the mistake of putting me on it, assuming that somehow happened:

• Over its life of 35 years, the "corporate reunion" movement, although it's always optimistically expected Anglican parishes to become Catholic in significant numbers, has never developed workable strategies for protecting those parishes from lawsuits by their former denominations, notwithstanding the fear of these is a serious impediment to the purpose of "corporate reunion".
• By the same token, the movement has never developed a workable answer to the question of how to provide pastoral care to members of parishes who do not wish to become, or have obstacles to becoming, Catholic, notwithstanding this has been a common objection raised by clergy and members of the parishes' former denominations in their discernment process.
• But even if the movement were to develop workable strategies to address these questions at this late date, the remaining number of potential parishes interested in Anglicanorum coetibus is probably insignificant, so much so that the effort of trying to do something like this now would be a waste of time and energy.
• There do not appear to be serious guidelines on the actual financial requirements to maintain a group in the Ordinariates, much less any realistic assessment of the financial demands of taking over a church building. What are minimum viable sizes? What are minimum budgets? Indeed, why not provide example budgets? But again, the remaining/existing groups and parishes have probably learned this by experience, and there are so few remaining candidates that the effort would now be a waste of time.
• What is the future of the "corporate reunion" movement? As a member of an Episcopal parish, I knew clergy who were serious enough to ask whether this or that outreach program was cost-effective, if nothing else in terms of clergy time to supervise it. I see no serious appraisal of the "corporate reunion" movement anywhere, much less among Board members, the most recent incumbents among whom would probably see a recommendation to disband the activity as a threat to their self-importance.

At basis, frankly, I've come to see both the "continuing Anglican" and "corporate reunion" movements as poor stewardship verging on the irresponsible.