I’ve raised some questions about your project at http://stmarycoldcase.blogspot.com/2015/12/signs-and-wonders-indeed.html Since this is an investment proposal, I am following the SEC’s advice to investigate it thoroughly. Can you provide copies of the approval of your project from the bishops involved?So far, I've had no response. Perhaps he's been busy.
There's a brief promotional video on the clickthrough provided at the Ordinariate News post I referenced yesterday. It features Fr Phillips discussing the reaction of his Episcopal bishop when the bishop learned Fr Phillips would be moving to Rome. It appears that Fr Phillips was in some type of vicar or priest-in-charge position in The Episcopal Church, since the bishop basically terminated his employment directly.
I simply assume the bishop's action was covered by the canons of The Episcopal Church and his diocese under abandonment of communion. As far as I can see, this would be an open-and-shut case: I don't want to be an Episcopal priest any more, so I can expect to be fired. If I work for Sasquatch Bank and go in to tell my boss I now work for Wampus Bank, a competitor, my boss will call security, quickly ensure I have no further access to sensitive files, and have me escorted out. This will no doubt be unpleasant, but it's only what anyone can expect.
How is this suffering? Fr Phillips then struggled, as far as I understand the public story, to establish an Anglican Use parish in San Antonio, but following this effort, he was very successful. A visitor says of Fr Kenyon, also featured in the proposed project,
[He] does not seem to meet the criterion of "suffering greatly." He had been in Canada only a few years and did not have close ties with the local Anglican clergy or community. The consensus in Calgary is that he came to Canada with the purpose of leading St John's into the Catholic church. He parted company on good terms with the Anglican Diocese of Calgary, who agreed to rent the church and rectory to the departing congregation for five years at a rent far below market rate. Most of Fr Kenyon's congregation were received into the Catholic church and he said in a comment on Foolishness to the World that his stipend remained the same as it had been when he was in the ACC. The congregation tripled in size very quickly. I am not taking away anything from Fr Kenyon's dedication as a pastor; I just don't see where the "suffering" comes in.This past April, a visitor pointed me to a published version of Fr Bartus's story by Fr Bartus himself, which I covered in a post here. A summary of Fr Bartus's own account is that he grew up a middle-class white boy in the prosperous Austin, TX area. He wanted to become an Episcopal priest, but he disagreed with all but the far fringes of Episcopal culture as it is in the 21st century. Nevertheless, he persisted and succeeded in his quest to enter the elite Episcopal Nashotah House seminary, from which he received a prestigious diploma. Faced with a glut of newly minted seminarians in a bad national economy, he struggled to find work in his field, but his job search was rendered the more difficult by the fact that he insisted on telling prospective Anglican employers that he wasn't really Anglican, he was actually Catholic. (I'm not making this up.)
In spite of that, he was nevertheless almost immediately hired and ordained a deacon in a wealthy "continuing Anglican" parish, St Mary's Hollywood. His published account ends here, in mid-2010. Nevertheless, soon after publishing his account, he managed to irritate the bishop of his diocese by making indiscreet remarks and was inhibited as a deacon. (It's worth noting that a transitional diaconate is basically a probationary period.) Bartus disregarded the inhibition and proudly posted the letter on his office wall. But his astonishing run of good luck continued unbroken; St Mary's moved to the Patrimony of the Primate, and the new bishop ordained him a priest after all in spite of the earlier bishop's inhibition.
Bartus then closely associated himself with a dissident faction in the parish, becoming, only a year out of seminary, the faction's preferred candidate to replace the incumbent rector. Thwarted in this goal, he nevertheless was able to move to an Ordinariate group-in-formation in a neighboring county where, favored in Ordinariate circles, he was quickly ordained a Catholic priest. He was also quickly able to replace his salary as a curate with a day job teaching in a Catholic school.
We can interpret some of the events in this story in lights more favorable to Fr Bartus. But even in his own account of his path to his quite brief Anglican priesthood, what comes out is a remarkable string of lucky breaks, one after another, year in and year out, some simply defying what would be normally expected outcomes. How on earth has Fr Bartus suffered?
We might say that God has blessed and rewarded the ministries of Frs Phillips, Kenyon, and Bartus. Fr Bartus in particular is remarkably fortunate even among Ordinariate priests in being young, having a Catholic day job to support him, and indeed in having a group or parish at all -- fewer than half of the 70-odd Ordinariate priests have groups or parishes, after all. But where is the suffering?
The two priests left at St Mary's following Bartus's departure, on the other hand, lost their jobs there and quite possibly lost any prospect of joining the Ordinariate. One has suffered the worst sort of defamation, including "deposition" from the priesthood in a denomination to which, legally and canonically, he did not belong. He's had to keep his location concealed to avoid threats of physical violence, and he's had to shepherd the parish through years of work to maintain its legal existence.
So who's suffered?
