The Big Event Of The Year

By far the biggest event of the year, for St Mary of the Angels, the US-Canadian Ordinariate, and in fact the whole idea of Ordinariates, was the sudden retirement of Jeffrey Steenson at age 63. I'm certainly not the only person to think something wasn't right in Houston, but the idea that something might be done about it has given me a hopeful attitude I simply didn't have earlier, despite the progress on the parish's legal issues.

As someone who took the diocesan RCIA path into the Catholic Church, I probably also have a different perspective on what Bp-Elect Lopes's possible path might be. I agree with two viewpoints I've heard from visitors now and then:

1. The existing Anglican groups and parishes that could potentially move into an Ordinariate have already made their moves, with only a few exceptions.
2. No matter how dissatisfied Episcopal rank and file may be with the actions of their national Church, they're largely satisfied with their local parishes and unwilling to open the Pandora's box involved in leaving the denomination -- the fate of the parishes that left the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles in 2004 is a perfect example of the hazards implicit in that route.

I also agree with the visitors who think Bp Lopes, when he takes full control, won't be willing to preside over a steadily shrinking enterprise. I think Fr Catania suggested new avenues for growth when he said in his e-mail to the Rochester, NY Fellowship of St Alban, "In the time since I have been making monthly visits to St. Alban’s, I have come to believe that the community has considerable potential for growth."

But I don't think the growth will come from disaffected Anglicans. Frankly, as I sat in Christmas mass yesterday, I suddenly realized the priest was giving a homily to a nave filled almost entirely with adults, but he was talking down to us as though we were eight years old. (He started out by singing, "Happy Birthday, dear Jesus.")

I think there are enormous numbers of Catholics -- and if you insist, Catholics who haven't completed the sacraments of initiation -- who'd like to have a reverent mass without the guitar and tambourine and where they're addressed as adults. I think Ordinariates offer this opportunity. We'll have to see where Bp Lopes takes things.

Meantime, I need to find a new diocesan parish for the new year. I hope something can be done to keep St Mary of the Angels going so I can eventually get to mass there.