E-Mail to David Virtue

I sent the following e-mail to Mr Virtue:

On October 26, 2015, Judge Mary H Strobel issued a decision in the retrial of the St Mary of the Angels case, which had been returned to the trial court in September 2014 following a successful appeal by Fr Christopher P Kelley and the elected vestry of the parish. In her decision, Judge Strobel ruled, “Following the directions of the Court of Appeal to resolve the question of the validity of the August 2012 vote, the court finds the proposal to amend the Articles of Incorporation and bylaws of St Mary['s] of the Angels Parish in Hollywood to disaffiliate itself from the Anglican Church in America was approved by a 2/3 majority and thus is effective. Based on the stipulation of the parties that the other elements of Plaintiff's cause of action for forcible detainer are deemed proven, the court finds in favor of Plaintiff and against Defendants on the cause of action for forcible detainer.”

Since you covered this matter extensively in 2012, I feel you should cover its resolution on your site now. Fr Kelley and the elected vestry are completing the legal motions necessary to regain physical possession of the property within the next several weeks. So far, I’m not aware of any statement from the ACA on this matter, although it amounts to a major setback for them.. However, Presiding Bishop Marsh’s e-mail is spiritstage@yahoo.com The ACA’s attorneys are Lancaster & Anastasia LLP www.lancaster-anastasia.com/ although when I checked, the site was not available. The number listed for it was (213) 232-1352.

I will be happy to provide any additional information you may need, although while I’m a knowledgeable and interested party, I am not a spokesman for either the parish, its vestry, or Fr Kelley.

Both Mr Virtue and "Father" Stephen Smuts covered the initial trial in 2012 with some glee. We'll see if either gives this development any play: at the time, in their comment sections, they both happily provided an ostensibly neutral platform for virulently anti-Kelley rants from Anthony Morello and other unbalanced individuals. I note that Smuts, the de facto public relations voice of the "worldwide Traditional Anglican Communion", has resumed blogging, although the quality of his current effort may be reflected in a recent post, "Priest Builds Ministry One Lego At A Time".

By the way, I checked several times today, and Lancaster & Anastasia's web site isn't available.

Decision Summary

I've been sent the summary wording of Judge Strobel's decision, from p 18:

Following the directions of the Court of Appeal to resolve the question of the validity of the August 2012 vote, the court finds the proposal to amend the Articles of Incorporation and bylaws of St Mary['s] of the Angels Parish in Hollywood to disaffiliate itself from the Anglican Church in America was approved by a 2/3 majority and thus is effective. Based on the stipulation of the parties that the other elements of Plaintiff's cause of action for forcible detainer are deemed proven, the court finds in favor of Plaintiff and against Defendants on the cause of action for forcible detainer.

dated 10/26/15 Hon. Mary H. Strobel, Judge of The Los Angeles Superior Court

The stipulation, of course, was the result of Mr Lengyel-Leahu's tactical win on the second day of the trial. There are, as I understand it, procedural moves to be made between now and November 17, when it is anticipated that, God willing, the judge will sign an order for the squatters to vacate the premises, after which the sheriff will deliver the order, upon which the squatters will have five days to vacate.

Although if I were "Bishop" Owen Williams, since he's the local ACA honcho and the one most reachable under the law, I'd be headed as far away from the state as I could get, much sooner. However, as of today, the pariah website, under control of the squatters, contains no announcement.

Where Now?

I assume the vestry's attorneys (I'm going to drop the "elected" henceforth) are on top of legal options and developments, and legal strategies are confidential. Fr Kelley and Dr Trimpi, his senior warden, make information available to friends of the parish as appropriate. So I can only speculate for now on where things might be headed, although I would note that my wife and I called things right last month, so sorry, folks, no refund!

Here are some open questions. The first is insurance. The Church Mutual Insurance Company had an attorney observing the September trial. Mrs Bush and others had sued Church Mutual in 2013, hoping to be reimbursed for legal fees they paid (or pledged) to Lancaster and Anastasia, certainly amounting to hundreds of thousands, which Church Mutual has refused to pay on the basis that Bush et al are neither the policyholders nor the insured. That case, based on both the appeals court decision and the outcome of the September trial, is now hopeless.

I simply don't know if the Church Mutual attorney was observing the trial out of interest in that case, or whether it saw potential claims arising from the September trial of the Rector, Wardens, and Vestry cases, or both. Among the questions my wife and I have are whether the squatters kept up premium payments on the parish's Church Mutual policy. They are fully capable, of course, of screwing this up.

But assuming a policy is still in force for the St Mary's parish, the next question would be what it covers. Does it cover physical damage to the building? Theft? Who knows? An insurance expert would have to take a close look at the policy. But depending on what it covers, the vestry could file a claim based on losses, once it gained entry to the building. Church Mutual would then pay -- but Church Mutual would subrogate, which is to say they'd turn around and dun Mrs Bush, Mr Omeirs, "Bishops" Marsh, Strawn, and Owen Williams, and other parties for that money. If that's what the policy covered, and if it's still in force.

Another question is Citibank. As far as we know, Citibank allowed Anthony Morello and the squatters to open a new account under "St Mary of Angels" or something like that, and deposit and write checks on the parish's behalf, although the squatters had been instructed by Judge Jones in June 2012 to return control of the accounts to the vestry, and the parish was subject to continued litigation. Citibank may have major liability here, and they are a deep pocket.

But there will need to be a forensic audit. We simply don't know who got paid by the squatters, from three years' income to the parish amounting to nearly $750,000. We have more and more indication that the ACA seized the parish to get money. But the trial court has presumably established that after the August 2012 election, the parish was not part of the ACA (though it was in the Patrimony, not the ACA, after January 2011). Any money paid the ACA by the squatters would need to be recovered, possibly through insurance (depending, as above, on the policy), but otherwise through litigation.

I've already called this situation a slow-motion train wreck for the ACA, the squatters, Marsh, Strawn, and Owen Williams, and the bank. So far, it looks like I've been calling it right. Mrs Bush, at least 85 years old, appears to be a very sad case. I think her family needs to get involved.

Preliminary News: Fr Kelley And Elected Vestry Win

I'm told that Judge Strobel issued a written Statement of Decision on Monday, October 26, as a "tentative", in favor of Fr Kelley and the elected vestry. I haven't seen the decision. Since it's a "tentative", attorneys for both sides will have the opportunity to offer challenges and considerations before November 12, the day after Veterans' Day. The elected vestry and Fr Kelley still don't know when they will be allowed back in the building.

From Fr Kelley, "Please continue to pray that the Judge will hasten to sign the Writ of Execution, directing our speedy, if not IMMEDIATE, reinstatement."

"Anglican Spirituality"?

Now and then (for instance, here) I see rather precious references to 'Anglican spirituality", "Anglican spiritual patrimony", and the like.

I owe a great deal to Billy Graham. When I was in my twenties and had fallen away from the Presbyterianism in which I was raised, the radio station I often listened to ran Graham's program on Sunday nights. It always began with him calling out, "This is the hour of decision!" My life had been going badly enough that I never quite turned the radio to another station or turned it off entirely, and the girlfriend with whom I'd broken up was out of the picture -- she would never have tolerated Billy Graham -- so I listened.

Was this "Baptist spirituality"? Of course not. Graham is an Augustinian. His "hour of decision" was probably my "Take up and read!" Actually, when I studied English literature in college and graduate school, my professors seldom stressed Anglicanism with authors like Donne, Herbert, Milton, Bunyan, Swift, or Johnson: they called them "Pauline and Augustinian Christians", which may be redundant, except perhaps if contrasted with "complacent and halfhearted Christians".

But if you think about it, John Bunyan, author of The Pilgrim's Progress and Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, is probably the most-read English spiritual writer, a figure almost comparable to Dante, but he wasn't Anglican. Neither was John Milton. Neither was Isaac Watts, who wrote the words to some best-loved hymns. What on earth is "Anglican spirituality"?

Actually, it reminds me of the university that, in response to complaints from Muslims and atheists that there was a cross in the chapel, elected to remove it from the altar and place it in a vitrine as a "historical exhibit", allowing it to be placed back on the altar only during actual Christian services, after which it had to be promptly removed. That's more like a first cousin to "Anglican spirituality", a somewhat precious and pedantic historical exhibit.

Yet More Clarity

A clerical visitor notes:

Noting that you have lately referred to vestments as "Tridentine", a little clarity might be in order.

It is my observation that MOST Anglican churches in the US that use classical eucharistic vestments use what is called "Gothic" style, the full-cut, as covering the arms of the priest to the wrist.

The "Tridentine" style is also known as "fiddleback", as these are cropped to the shoulders, and cover front & back of the body rather like a sandwich board. This is the cut used in the Franciscan missions in California, for instance. (One can understand a smaller vestment being easier to pack for travel on mission trips, etc.) The number of priests in the US in Anglican circles that prefer this style is small, in my experience. There might be a close affinity to the "Anglican Papalist" group, thinking it was following an Italian model more doggedly. It is generally thought of as "extreme" to go for the fiddleback.

This gives me even more insight into how Anglicanorum coetibus has been put into practice -- I'm not sure that this is what either Cardinal Law or Pope Benedict had in mind.

Toward A Definition Of Anglo-Papalism

I've been ruminating on how to define "Anglo-Papalism" or "Anglican Papalism" for much of this year. In July, I specifically raised the problem of how to define it. Since then, an erudite visitor has made many very useful suggestions for further reading and research that have helped clarify the movement for me. Many thanks.

At the same time, Anglicanism overall is a moving target. It's pretty unusual in the US to attend an Episcopal eucharist that isn't held in a church with candles on the altar, a reredos, stained glass, and a communion rail, with clergy in Tridentine vestments. Before the late 19th century, many of these would be cause for scandal and, in the UK, even prosecution, but they're now common even in the lowest-church parishes, at least in the US.

We might also say that an Anglo-Papalist believes Anglicans should return to Papal authority, but here, Catholicism is a moving target. Some historians trace the rise of the movement to Apostolicae curae, the 1896 encyclical that declared Anglican orders null and void, but in the US, there are three formal paths for Anglicans to become Catholic, either as priests or laity, as individuals or with groups -- RCIA, the Anglican Use Pastoral Provision, and the US-Canadian Ordinariate.

However, a bishop can ordain a former Anglican outside these structures, as was done with Fr Barker, and a priest can receive lay Anglicans outside the RCIA process. As a practical matter, there are few obstacles to Anglicans becoming Catholic even outside Anglican Use or the Ordinariates, and thousands probably do this each year -- but they're hardly Anglo-Papalists.

So Anglo-Papalism is hard to define without a context. In context, at its peak between 1900 and 1960, it was an extreme, even eccentric, wing of Anglo-Catholicism. Two of its identifying characteristics were use of an unauthorized liturgy and reservation of the Sacrament, including Corpus Christi processions, illegal in the UK and cause for raised eyebrows at minimum in the US. However, even at its peak, the movement was small and distinguished from "moderate" Anglo-Catholicism, which has since moved into the Anglican mainstream.

In addition, as a small and eccentric minority, it carried other baggage: it attracted people with actively gay lifestyles, occultists, and, at the time of the Spanish Civil War, fellow-traveling Stalinists. Although there are some holdovers and sympathizers even now, it's primarily a historical curiosity (one historian calls it a "museum piece"), and although it might provide an amusing digression in a Church history lecture, I don't think it can be seriously considered an important part of "Anglican patrimony".

This leads me to the puzzling question of why the Ordinariates would choose to use a version of the Anglican Papalist missal from 1905 as the authorized liturgy. On the other hand, in one of his few official utterances, Msgr Steenson has said,

Some of our clergy want to learn also how to celebrate according to the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite. They are certainly encouraged to do so, under the provisions of Summorum Pontificum and under the supervision of the local bishop, to assist in those stable communities that use the Extraordinary Form. But as the Extrordinary Form is not integral to the Anglican patrimony, it is not properly used in our communities.

But both the Latin mass and the 1905 English Missal, which forms the basis of the Ordinariate liturgy, were used by Anglican Papalists. The 1905 Missal was no more authorized in Anglican denominations than the Latin mass -- strictly speaking, neither is part of an Anglican patrimony -- or if either is, how do we distinguish it from other accepted parts of Anglican Papalism, like the occult?

I'm inclined to say that if Ordinariate leadership wants to salvage the outcome of Anglicanorum coetibus, a good start might be to rethink "Anglican patrimony", lose the Anglo-Papalist craziness and the 1905 Missal, and go to something much more like the 1979 Rite Two.

100,000 Page Views

This blog isn't Drudge or Fr Z, but overnight it crossed the 100,000 page view threshold. It's been going for about three years. In recent months, it's had well over 100 page views per day, with visits from around the world.

Groups In Formation, Etc

A visitor notes, in response to my request for information:

One hardly expects OCSP sources to keep us informed of defections. But the priest in charge of the Savannah group is in palliative care for cancer and I see no evidence on the website that he has been replaced, which makes this at best a group without a pastor. As you mentioned, the group in Arlington, VA has "merged" with the group in DC. I am not sure that many people who worshipped at an Ordinariate Saturday Vigil Mass in suburban Virginia are making the trek into DC for a Sunday mass at 8:30 am. I think that we can see downsizing of some groups, reading between the lines. . . . Despite the fiasco of the situation at St Mary's, the rest of the ACA parishes that wished to join the OCSP seem to have been able to take advantage of the mechanism put in place to enable that to happen. I very much doubt that any of the remaining ones are still contemplating this step. Certainly the ACCC has been tapped out in this regard. ACC or TEC parishes? What are they waiting for? No doubt individual clergy could step forward, and then try to gather a group. Fr Sellers is still trying to get something off the ground in Cypress, TX. But the OCSP, at least, has done so little to make itself known or give evidence of being a viable operation that I can hardly think that anyone who wanted to "wait and see" has become convinced.

I'm still not convinced of the need for, or possibility of, confidentiality if a group, with priest, from an existing parish wanted to come over. Consider that as soon as an Anglican parilsh priest or curate, either on his initiative or on the initiative of a friendly group of laity, said, "OK, let's keep this very quiet, but I'm thinking of giving the people in Houston a call", the bishop would learn about it in hours, if not minutes. I can't believe that there could be any reasonable expectation of confidentiality in such a case -- it would be above-board, with the blessing of the bishop (good luck, though it happened) or not at all.

But if it were a group-in-formation independent of an existing parish, there would be absolutely no benefit in keeping things confidential. You would want everyone possible to know about it. You'd have a website, a newsletter, and a Facebook page.

Not happening.

Are There Any Groups-In-Formation In The US-Canadian Ordinariate Pipeline?

A visitor responded to my earlier post today suggesting

[N]obody publishes the identities of clergy and congregations of various Anglican or "continuing Anglican" bodies who are discerning their call, or even preparing for reception into full communion of the Catholic Church and, in the case of clergy, Catholic ordination. Thus, there is no certainty that the initial wave has ended. Rather, most likely, it has not. Indeed, St. Mary of the Angels could well be added to the list as soon as the legal cases get wrapped up.

I would say on the contrary that lists of parishes and clergy intending to enter the US-Canadian Ordinariate were frequently published on the various Anglo-Catholic blogs during 2011 and 2012, and the progress of parishes like the Church of the Incarnation and St Mary of the Angels, and clergy like Fr Chori Seraiah, Fr Andrew Bartus, and others was discussed in detail and at length. There was no reason to keep that information confidential. If parishes are going through discernment now, there is no reason to keep the process in confidence, and it would presumably be discussed in parish newsletters, Facebook pages, etc, and announced in venues like the Ordinariate News blog.

As far as I'm aware, the most recent reception of a group-in-formation was the Flushing, NY community that was received into a diocesan parish at the 2015 Easter vigil. However, I believe the blog post was erroneous in calling this an Ordinariate group at its reception. Although as I pointed out in the earlier post, the OCSP website list of parishes is not reliable, the Flushing group has never been on it.

In addition, the group's reception was noted in the diocesan newsletter, with acknowledgement to the parish RCIA coordinator, which strongly suggests to me that although their Anglican pastor, Dr. Antonio Contreras, had been leading them into the Ordinariate at the time of his passing, their ultimate reception was via the Flushing, NY diocesan parish RCIA program, and they continue to attend the Spanish-language mass there. I am not sure what the most recent Ordinariate group reception was before this one.

I haven't heard of any new prospective Ordinariate groups in formation. Clergy without groups attached are, of course, being ordained fairly frequently, for whatever that's worth. If anyone is aware of new groups actively discerning Ordinariate membership, I would be most interested to hear of them, and I'll post any information I get here.

What Is To Be Done?

Yesterday I posed the question of what might be done to salvage the outcome of Anglicanorum coetibus. Although there are attempts elsewhere to paste a happy-face on the situation, it's very hard to avoid the conclusion that the US-Canadian Ordinariate has peaked in size and is in the process of shrinking.

• All the self-sustaining parishes, about half a dozen, existed under other jurisdictions prior to the erection of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter. The OCSP does not appear to have had its own success story.
• A trend toward merger of nearby groups is developing, with two Washington DC-area groups already merged, two in the Philadelphia area in the process of merging, and the Boston-area group beginning to share activities with the Anglican Use group in the area. However, the size of such groups, even merged, does not augur for long-term viability.
• The status of smaller groups-in-formation at the fringe is not always clear, and it is not certain whether all such groups are still active.

In part, this is because Houston has not kept its own website parish list up to date, and official news updates of any kind appear to be sporadic and incomplete. This in turn may be either a reflection of demoralization among the Houston in-group, or complacency among the in-group may be the the cause. Flip a coin.

However, I think it's reasonable to conclude that Anglicanorum coetibus has been a test of whether any real demand exists among Anglicans for corporate reunion with Rome. Pope St John Paul II promoted the new evangelization. If Anglicanorum coetibus was an effort in that direction, I'm simply not convinced that further resources toward fostering it are well spent.

Consider that Houston has taken years to gestate an unresponsive, inward-focused administrative structure that ministers to about 2500 people in the US and Canada. This is the size of a single smallish urban diocesan parish, which itself might be subject to merger or closure. We have no sign that it is likely to grow, and some sign that it is already shrinking. I have serious questions about whether stewardship of an organization like that is a responsible use of resources; even more would I be giving this matter the most prayerful reflection if I were a member of the Houston in-group.

My biggest disappointment about becoming Catholic is seeing how little cradle Catholics value their own faith. It's deeply frustrating to go to mass and see no atmosphere of reverence; silly music; idle chatter from adults; out-of-control children babbling, banging, or screaming steadily throughout the mass without being taken out by the their parents; and so forth.

I would like to find a way to work with fellow Catholics to focus efforts at renewing faith and its manifestation at the diocesan level. No need for Latin mass, no need for Ordinariates if we can just start to establish ordinary decorum on Sunday mornings. I think that's where the real need exists. Frankly, I think that for 99.99% of Catholics, the Ordinariates are something overspecialized, irrelevant, and a waste of stewardship.

What Is The Market For Anglicanorum coetibus?

I realize that my approach to Anglicanorum coetibus doesn't match that of other observers. Nevertheless, it's worth posing the question why its outcome has been such a disappointment, and perhaps to go a little farther and ask what might be done to salvage the situation.

It seems to me that the evidence we have indicates that those who advised Pope Benedict in putting Anglicanorum coetibus together had two groups in mind for a target market. In the US, the initiative seems to have come from Cardinal Bernard Law, who initially proposed the Anglican Use Pastoral Provision in the wake of the same movement that resulted in the 1978 Congress of St Louis.

While the "continuing Anglican" movement is usually defined as comprising the breakaway denominations derived from the 1978 Congress and the episcopal consecrations that followed it, Fr Jack Barker also began talks with the Vatican at that time, facilitated by Cardinal Law, under the assumption that conservative Anglicans might choose some type of corporate reunion with Rome instead of forming new Anglican denominations.

I think this was a basic misunderstanding of Anglicanism. It's generally recognized that Anglicans have three factions, high church, low church, and broad church, with broad church dominant. The popularity of Tridentine vestments and gothic church architecture that swept Anglicanism generally since the 19th century has obscured this essential division. "Continuing Anglicanism" and the subsequent secession of the ACNA are low church movements, as was the Reformed Episcopal Church, which the ACNA has absorbed. (Web commentary I've seen notes that even the ACA, felt to be the highest of the "continuing" groups, is in actuality pretty low church.)

The October, 1993 meeting between Episcopal Bishop Clarence Pope, then-Fr Jeffrey Steenson, and then-Cardinal Ratzinger appears to have been an effort by Cardinal Law to reboot the Anglican Use initiative by bypassing the resistance of Catholic bishops, perhaps attributing an overall lack of enthusiasm for corporate reunion with Rome among Anglicans to certain Catholic bishops' resistance to the idea. I think it's significant that in the 1993 meeting, Bishop Pope pointed to a pent-up dissatisfaction with US Episcopal liberalization that could result in 250,000 Episcopalians coming over.

The flaw in that approach was an unwillingness to recognize that among those dissatisfied in TEC, most were low church, and in fact, "affirming" high church parishes in TEC are closely allied with broad church bishops. This is the sort of thing Frederick Kinsman clearly understood in the 1920s; it's hard to imagine how either Clarence Pope or Jeffrey Steenson could have been so obtuse in the 1990s.

The second bit of evidence for Anglicanorum coetibus's putative market is the Ordinariate liturgy, derived from the Church of England's Papalist movement. As I pointed out in a previous post, the Papalists were a very small high-church faction distinguished by an unwillingness to use the liturgy in the Book of Common Prayer, substituting either the Roman Latin liturgy in whole or part, or a "uniate" liturgy consisting of an English translation from the Latin mass that incorporates certain Cranmerian prayers. Fr Hunwicke has traced the Ordinariate liturgy now in use for the mass to an English Missal dating from about 1905, illegal in the Church of England but with some sort of naughty appeal to the small number of priests who used it.

The source I noted in my earlier post points out that on the whole, the people of the parishes where Papalist priests were incumbent at best tolerated the Latin or uniate liturgy or were drawn by the charismatic personalities of some Papalist clergy -- but the movement never had widespread popular support. This is borne out by the reported experience of UK Ordinariate parishes, where the people have deserted "uniate" masses in favor of Ordinary Form masses in nearby diocesan parishes, leading Ordinariate leadership to complain that this deprives the Ordinariate of a cohesive identity.

Again, it seems to me that the historical record has been clear in showing that the Papalist movement was esoteric and limited to a small clique of clergy. It never had large-scale popular demand.

Hearing Continued to November 18

A source close to the elected vestry reports that they received word late yesterday from the court clerk that Judge Strobel hadn't finished writing her decision yet. Therefore she was "continuing" the hearing originally scheduled for today until November 18. This will be before a different judge, unknown at this time.

Fr Kelley and the elected vestry ask for our prayers for the parish until then, and for spiritual protection for Judge Strobel.

More On Anglican Papalism

A visitor very astutely insisted that I order Michael Yelton's book Anglican Papalism, which focuses on the extreme wing of Anglo-Catholicism between 1900 and 1960. Yelton, though, doesn't provide much more clarity on how you might define either Anglo-Catholicism or Anglo-Papalism than I've tried to find already.

On one hand, Yelton says the movement was a "bottom-up" effort to make the Church of England more Catholic, but the "bottom" he refers to definitely doesn't include the people of the parishes -- it was a movement almost exclusively limited to clergy and (Anglican) religious, and Yelton goes farther to say it embraced sbout 1000 Anglican priests in total between 1900 and 1960. Most, though, died off by the 1940s. It ended entirely with the adoption of vernacular liturgy and other reforms by Rome during Vatican II, when the ultramontane Church it aspired to emulate disappeared.

In fact, I would say that rather than being "bottom-up" it was more like an esoteric passive-aggressive effort either to irritate Church of England bishops or render them irrelevant, and in doing this, it probably achieved its end. The resistance to the authority of Church of England bishops among Anglican Papalists as defined by Yelton centered on two of the Thirty-nine Articles, XXIV, which says it is "repugnant. . . to minister the Sacraments, in a tongue not understanded of the people", and XXV, which says, "The Sacraments were not ordained of Christ to be gazed upon, or to be carried about, but that we should duly use them."

As opposed to Anglo-Catholics, which were more likely to use Tridentine vestments and Continental church furnishings but in the context of the Book of Common Prayer, the Anglo-Papalists were more likely to use the Latin mass in whole or part, or some uniate English translation, and were more likely to reserve the Sacrament or use it in Corpus Christi processions, all illegal and a direct challenge to the bishops. An attempt to revise the Church of England prayer book in the 1920s was on one hand meant to compromise with Anglo-Catholic innovations, but on the other intended to make existing prohibitions more enforceable; the effort failed.

Frederick Kinsman was plainly familiar with this movement, and he saw it as part of a fundamental difficulty in Anglicanism. On one hand, there were priests who said the mass in Latin, on the other, there were priests who denied the Resurrection or the Trinity; once he became a bishop, he recognized the futility of imposing some sort of discipline on any of them. Through the 1920s and 1930s, the peak of the Anglo-Papalist movement, Church of England bishops mainly looked the other way, and although holdovers like Fr Hunwicke allege that Anglo-Papalists were somehow persecuted, formal actions against even the most extreme adherents were rare.

There's another difficulty with Anglo-Papalism on the ground. Of seriously Anglo-Papalist priests, we see ultramontanism that appears to aspire toward unity with Rome, although what form this would take -- should Rome simply declare the provinces of York and Canterbury again under the authority of the Holy See, should there be some unspecified other structure, or should certain Anglo-Papalists become the primates of their own tiny groups? -- was never remotely explained or agreed on.

On the other hand, as Diarmaid MacCulloch and others have pointed out, Anglo-Catholicism has been a refuge for gay priests from the start (he has his questions about William Laud), and that goes the more for Anglo-Papalists. Yelton's account is peppered with arrests for indecency or immorality, which may or may not have ended priests' careers. Some early members of the movement were closely associated with Oscar Wilde at Oxford; Yelton also says that TS Eliot's involvement with the movement is underreported (as is Eliot's homosexuality). This is not compatible with Roman Catholicism, which does not ordain men who are actively gay.

Yelton also covers interest in the occult among Anglo-Papalists very lightly. Necromancy is a mortal sin according to the Catholic Catechism, but influential figures in the Church of England, including Anglo-Papalists during this period, don't seem to have seen any contradiction between their version of Christianity and occultism. James Pike's ultimately fatal descent into the occult was fostered and encouraged by Anglican clergy and prebendaries.

As a result, while some Anglo-Papalists did eventually become Catholic priests or laymen, most did not, and the movement on the whole strikes me as delusional. I think there are lessons to be drawn in explaining the currently disappointing outcome of Anglicanorum coetibus.

Disposition Hearing Scheduled For October 16

I'm told that there is a hearing for disposition of the three related Rector, Wardens, and Vestry cases scheduled for Friday, October 16. Presumably, Judge Strobel will have issued her decision by then, but so far, there's no word on what it will be.

John Hepworth On The Patrimony Of The Primate

John Hepworth made no public statements following his 2012 "expulsion" by the TAC College of Bishops. My understanding is that he had a serious medical issue around this time, was hospitalized as a result, and was presumably not in a condition to comment or engage in public disputes.

However, on February 24, 2014, he gave an affadavit in support of the St Mary's elected vestry that has now been posted on the Freedom For St Mary Site. Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5

The affadavit covers a number of areas relating to the Patrimony of the Primate as well as the circumstances of Hepworth's retirement (or, as some TAC bishops would have it, his "expulsion"). Regarding the canonical status of the Patrimony, he says,

The Patrimony of the Primate is a canonical device used by both the first Primate, Louis W Falk, and myself, to manage situations not anticipated by the Concordat (1990) of the world-wide Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC).

The Patrimony belongs to the Primate himself, not to the bishops of a national province (such as the ACA), and does not require the consent of the national province involved (if a province is involved). It is a "personal property" of the Primate. It is not a "diocese" as such, but an extension of the Primate's personal pastoral care, as required by certain unusual situations.

. . . . The powers were used again to prevent dissident U.S. bishops from taking legal action against Ordinariate-bound clergy and parishes by removing them from the jurisdiction of those bishops.

Hepworth then cites the August 2010 e-mail request from the ACA House of Bishops, via Louis Falk, to renew a previously-erected Patrimony to contain Ordinariate-bound parishes. He says,

It will be noted that there is, in this Consent, no mention of the Patrimony expiring "on the establishment of the American Ordinariate" as asserted in a letter of Brian R Marsh, newly Presiding Bishop of the ACA, on 10 January 2012. [The letter is posted here.] (That would appear to me as his own self-serving assertion.) It was always my understanding, from discussion with my Roman Catholic counterparts, that it would be some time after the Ordinariate was established before all applications could be processed and admissions and ordinations conducted; the Patrimony would serve as the vehicle for completion of that journey.

This understanding was entirely reasonable and borne out by events. The implication that Marsh's announcement of the "dissolution" of the Patrimony was self-serving is also borne out by events: Marsh did not attempt to seize any other Patrimony parish, presumably because only St Mary of the Angels was a property worth seizing. Hepworth's account of the events surrounding his retirement also strongly suggests that a desire on Marsh's part to seize St Mary's was involved:

The letter to the world-wide TAC bishops indicating I expected to resign on Easter Day, 2012, was signed and distributed by email on 28 January 2012. There were failed attempts by a certain few TAC bishops opposing the Ordinariates to force my resignation earlier. They had no power to do so.

Although I had announced on 28 January my intent to resign on Easter Day, 2012, I saw by then that the dissident U.S. bishops were making life and pilgrimage more and more difficult for chosen Patrimony parishes there [i.e., St Mary of the Angels]. I realised that signing any formal documents of resignation at that date would create even more problems for those parishes, so I refrained from doing so. I never dissolved the Patrimony.

Hepworth also says in the affadavit that, from his perspective, St Mary of the Angels is still a parish in good standing in the Patrimony, and Fr Kelley a priest in good standing as well.

Lancaster ex parte Application Rejected By Judge

I'm told that this past Tuesday, September 29, Judge Strobel rejected an attempt by Mr Lancaster to insert an additional brief in the trial record via an ex parte motion. An ex parte motion is "usually reserved for urgent matters where requiring notice would subject one party to irreparable harm." The initial action in the St Mary of the Angels cases resulted from an ex parte motion by Mr Lancaster on behalf of the dissidents and the ACA, as a result of which Judge Jones issued a temporary restraining order granting them control of the parish.

The problem was that Mr Lancaster concocted an "emergency" that rushed the judge into issuing an order that, on reflection, she realized was a judicial error. This error has left the ACA and the dissident group in control of the parish for over three years.

I'm told, though, that even before she left for her term on the appeals court, Judge Strobel instructed Mr Lancaster not to make any more ex parte motions in the case. It appears that Mr Lancaster s strategy was, at least in part, to distract or rush judges into premature decisions. I've been puzzled how, in litigation that's lasted more than three years, any sort of sudden "emergency" can arise. Apparently Judge Strobel has the same question.

I get the impression that Judge Strobel finds Mr Lancaster's strategies annoying.

She will apparently mail her decision on the trial within the next two weeks.