First, Louis Falk's Wikipedia entry, which I'd relied on for his chronology, says Falk "retired as Primate of the Anglican Church in America and as Bishop Ordinary of the Diocese of the Missouri Valley. The church re-structured itself and decided not to have a primate, but instead a president of the House of Bishops. Falk was elected the first President of the House of Bishops."
My visitor tells me that George Langberg became President of the ACA House of Bishops at some point after Falk's 2005 election, but Falk resumed his post as President of the House of Bishops when Langberg resigned to pursue graduate studies about 2007-8, and he kept that post until April 26, 2011, when Brian Marsh succeeded him. This is not reflected in published sources. If anyone has additional information on some of these dates, I will greatly appreciate it.
Second, I had been relying on hearsay accounts from Patrick Omeirs and Msgr William Stetson on whether Louis Falk passed on the 40-page set of accusations against Fr Kelley to Cardinal Wuerl. A visitor tells me, "To the best of my knowledge and belief, Tony Morello was the one who sent it -- directly -- to Abp Gomez and Cardinal Wuerl, and to Msgr Steenson, after January 1, 2012."
It is entirely credible to me that Morello could have been claiming to act on behalf of Falk, but was in fact not authorized to do so. Exactly how influential this document was in actually stalling or delaying St Mary's reception into the Ordinariate is unclear. Msgr William Stetson, who has seen the document, though neither Fr Kelley nor anyone else connected with the elected vestry has seen it, has characterized it in discussion as "gossip". I am more and more inclined to discount its importance.
This brings me to the third issue, which is probably a better reason for the delay. I brought up a key problem in a recent post, that in order to change the parish bylaws, the members in good standing who would be qualified to vote would need to be Anglican. This leads to a paradox: if, prior to changing the bylaws to reflect the parish's admission to the Ordinariate, some or all members of the parish were received as Catholics, the members who were received would automatically cease to be members in good standing of the Anglican parish (the one legally still in existence) and would be ineligible to vote to change the bylaws!
My understanding is that Fr Kelley kept trying to explain this to both Msgr Stetson and Cardinal Wuerl in December 2011, but neither completely understood this before Cardinal Wuerl requested the second vote to join the Ordinariate for January 22, 2012. There seems to have been considerable confusion on the Wuerl-Stetson-Steenson side, which I understand that Msgr Stetson has acknowledged, as to how to proceed, which probably contributed to a perception that Fr Kelley was not cooperating with bylaw revisions.
This goes to my growing impression that poor management and poor planning for initiating the Ordinariate were responsible for the initial delays. The ACA, let's keep in mind, made two unsuccessful attempts to seize the parish, in January and April 2012, before obtaining the temporary restraining order in May. More decisive action in Houston could have forestalled this outcome.
