Since before I became Catholic, I've tended to take a second look at Catholic church properties whenever I drive by. Often they're architecturally worthwhile, always well-maintained. Whatever they're named for, the sign always says CATHOLIC CHURCH. It's a brand, in other words. Somewhat like McDonald's, customers know they'll get a consistent experience there. The building will be clean and well-swept. The shrubbery will be trimmed, the lawn mowed.
This is an argument for the diocesan system. The bishop is local. Should a parish property not be well-maintained, the bishop will hear about it, and he'll see that the problem is fixed. More to the point, the parish priest has come through the corporate training system, in effect, starting with seminary and moving through subordinate jobs at parishes to learn how things are done, always within the Catholic way of doing things.
As I've given things more thought, I've come to think that Cardinal Mahony's stated reason for rejecting the St Mary's application for Anglican Use -- a characterization of the parish as constitutionally rebellious, accurate as it may have been, in my view -- was a pretext. It was hard enough to control the McDonald's franchise, in effect, without letting in random ex-mom and pop stores. Just changing the sign on the roof wasn't going to change the staff or the product. Cardinal Mahony had enough on his plate without that extra headache -- and I would guess that privately, most bishops would agree, then or now. Putting some new guy in Houston in charge of the extra stores is probably beside the point; the bishop, as regional manager, is the one who takes the heat if anything actually goes wrong.
The diocesan model, among other things, involves parishes that are large enough to sustain themselves. Our local diocesan parish, a medium-small by Catholic standards, has about 1500 families. Maintaining the building and trimming the shrubbery are among its priorities.
Archbishop of Philadelphia Chaput, for whatever reason (and it may be good, though I don't think Cardinal Mahony would understand it) has chosen to offer a potentially merged Ordinariate group its choice of redundant Catholic properties for its use, apparently free of cost. It's worth pointing out that the Diocese of Scranton sold the St Thomas More parish its building for $250,000. Nobody is doing anyone any favors by giving away things that have value for free. Mounted beggars spur their horses.
A visitor commented to me that Catholic parishioners are upset when their parish is shut down because its membership has declined to only hundreds of families, yet the Archdiocese is offering to give away buildings to an Ordinariate group with 56 members (families, of course, would be fewer). Of course, the buildings, as long as the Archdiocese owns them, must be heated and maintained at its expense, while the Ordinariate group will presumably relieve the diocese of that cost.
Except that these buildings were maintained based on plate and pledge from diocesan-sized parishes. When the parishes shrank to a size presumably larger than the largest Ordinariate parish, the Archdiocese saw the need to cut its losses. How can an Ordinariate parish of families in two digits maintain those buildings?
Nevertheless, let's say an Ordinariate group, St Swithin's of Bunbury, takes over one of the Philadelphia Archdiocese properties. Based on what I see here, which is completely consistent with what I know of human nature, some cost-cutting hero at St Swithin's is going to say, "Hey, we don't need to pay a gardener! Members of the parish can trim the shrubbery! And the ladies can volunteer to clean the toilets!"
The problem will be that the building or buildings will start to look terrible, visitors will find the toilets with rusty rings in the bowls and never return, but the sign will still say CATHOLIC CHURCH.
And the Archbishop won't be able to do much about it.
