Toronto Group

My correspondent continues,

St Thomas More, Toronto is Canada's only "gathered" group. Back in the eighties a former rector of a local Anglo-Catholic parish who became a Roman Catholic tried to form an Anglican Use group of former Anglicans who had preceded him into the Church but could not get the required permission. Some of these people reappeared when the Ordinariate was in formation and formed the core of the STM mission. Since then there have been perhaps eight or ten receptions from assorted denominations. The priest is one of only three who came directly from the Anglican Church of Canada to the US-Canadian Ordinariate. He has been blogging as Peregrinus here since before the OCSP was erected, and although I find his blog long-winded and tendentious it is currently one of only two Canadian on-line sources of Ordinariate news. There are about a hundred Anglican churches in the city of Toronto. The number of current or former Anglicans is probably close to 100,000. In 2013, the Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto reported that 2,478 adults were received into the Church at Easter. The fact that St Thomas More draws perhaps 30 people on a Sunday is again, I think, an indication that the market for the Ordinariate has been grossly over-estimated, along with its role in the New, or even the Old, Evangelization.

Beer Breakfast!

If you happen to find yourself at loose ends in Irvine, CA early on February 6, the Animal House "League of Ordinary Gentlemen" at the Bl John Henry Newman group will be holding a beer breakfast at 7 AM at the Olde Ship.

Thanks to a regular visitor for bringing this to my attention. I don't know if these guys have wives or families, but if they do, I don't know how many wives will appreciate having husbands and fathers come unsteadily home at 11 AM or so and, at best, find them useless for the rest of the day.

I quote from Fr Ken Wolfe's e-mail to me from last July 13:

The Ordinariate has policies on the use of alcoholic beverages in communities such as Blessed John Henry Newman. If there is a serious concern about whether actions are in compliance with our policy on the use of alcoholic beverages on parish properties, a person who has first-hand experience should bring the facts to the attention of the Ordinary or Vicar General.

I don't know what the policies are -- if anyone knows, I'd like to hear them -- but it sounds as if Fr Wolfe has carefully worded his statements to discourage anyone who doesn't actually attend this beer breakfast from bringing it to anyone's attention. But if they party at the breakfast, I assume they're OK with it and won't report it.

I can't imagine that a 7 AM beer breakfast at a pub, clearly identified as a church-sponsored activity, would be in accordance with alcohol use policies in any denomination.

Indeed, Catholic acts of contrition frequently include a resolve to "avoid the near occasions of sin". It's very hard for me to imagine that a beer breakfast is anything but a near occasion of sin.

The Ottawa Group

My correspondent reports,

The former Anglican Catholic Church of Canadsa Cathedral of The Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary is now a US-Canadian Ordinariate mission. Between 30 and 40 members of this congregation and of two smaller ACCC groups in the Ottawa area were received in 2012. Mrs Deborah Gyapong is a member of this group and was a contributor to The Anglo-Catholic in its heyday, as well as authoring her own blogs, Foolishness to the World being the most recent. She is a journalist by profession. At one point, her posts, and the comments thereon, were key sources of Ordinariate information but she seems to have gradually wound down her interest in this medium. She was appointed to the board of the new Anglicanorum Coetibus Society, but like that body has posted nothing since last November. Annunciation has an up to date Facebook page and publishes a newsletter online, with details of many regular worship and fellowship opportunities. It has two clergy, at least one of whom is below secular retirement age. It owns a church.

It is holding its own, but it is not growing. This seems to me symptomatic of the lack of demand for what the Ordinariates have to offer. This post is typical of the buzz that preceded the erection of the Ordinariates. (Earlier posts that year looked forward to 100 parish groups poised to enter the North American Ordinariate, including a thousand Canadian members, and 26 groups in Australia). Even when groups are doing the right things, there seems to be a low ceiling.

Here's An Insight

into how Mrs Bush and the squatters operate. As we noted yesterday, John Cothran, a member of the squatter group, filed a claim with the court that, although not named in the Writ of Possession, he had continuously occupied the St Mary of the Angels premises since before June 21, 2012, the date of filing of the Vestry's forcible detainer Case.

Mr Cothran, 68, is a successful Hollywood actor. He is listed in the 2012 St Mary's parish directory at an address in suburban Sherman Oaks, CA. He is married to Judyann Elder, whose web bio says, "Elder is currently married to actor and playwright John Cothran, Jr.. The two reside in Sherman Oaks, California."

Beyond that, there is no credible way in which Mr Cothran could have lived on the parish premises since before June 21, 2012. The Kelleys occupied the small cottage at the rear of the property until September of that year. While there was a small bed in the undercroft, this area was occupied by loyal parishioners during the summer of 2012, and Mr Cothran, as a member of the Bush clique, could not have stayed there.

And beyond that, Mrs Bush at that time fought to prove that there was "no residence" on the property, in order to block the Kelley Family from getting a post office box, since post-9/11 regulations require a street address in order to get one.

I simply don't know how Mr Cothran or Mr Lancaster will try to explain to the court that Cothran has lived on the parish premises since 2012. I can see no way he can do this without bearing false witness -- something the ACA bishops have repeatedly condoned, if not directly encouraged.

More Procedural Wrangling

I'm told that Mrs Bush was served with the Writ of Possession (i.e., the eviction notice) on Tuesday, January 19. However, California landlord-tenant law provides that

People who are not named as tenants in the rental agreement or lease sometimes move into a rental unit before the landlord files the unlawful detainer (eviction) lawsuit. The landlord may not know that these people (called "occupants") are living in the rental unit, and therefore may not name them as defendants in the summons and complaint. As a result, these occupants are not named in the writ of possession if the landlord wins the unlawful detainer action. A sheriff enforcing the writ of possession cannot lawfully evict an occupant whose name does not appear on the writ of possession and who claims to have lived in the unit since before the unlawful detainer lawsuit was filed. (See "Writ of possession.")

* * *

These occupants then have 10 days from the date they are served to file a Prejudgment Claim of Right to Possession form with the Clerk of Court, and to pay the clerk the required filing fee (or file an "Application for Waiver of Court Fees and Costs" if they are unable to pay the filing fee (see The Eviction Process)). Any unnamed occupant who does not file a Prejudgment Claim of Right to Possession form with the Clerk of Court (along with the filing fee or a request for waiver of the fee) can then be evicted.

On Wednesay, January 20, John Cothran, a member of the squatter group, filed a claim that he had "occupied" the premises since June 21, 2012 (date of filing of the Vestry's Forcible Detainer Case), "continuously." (This contains an admission that three weeks' rent is due to the Vestry, while the claim is being tested.) California law provides,

Five to 15 days after the occupant has paid the filing fee (or has filed a request for waiver of the fee), and has deposited an amount equal to 15 days' rent, the court will hold a hearing. If the occupant does not deposit the 15 days' rent, the court will hold the hearing within five days.

At the hearing, the court will decide whether or not the occupant has a valid claim to possession. If the court decides that the occupant's claim to possession is valid, the amount of rent deposited will be returned to the occupant. The court will then order further proceedings, as appropriate to the case (for example, the occupant may be given five days to answer the landlord's complaint).

If the court finds that the occupant's claim to possession is not valid, an amount equal to the daily rent for each day the eviction was delayed will be subtracted from the rent that is returned to the occupant, and the sheriff or marshal will continue with the eviction.

The hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, February 2, at 1:30pm.

My own view is that this is yet another hail-Mary play on the part of the squatters. I hope to attend the hearing.

More Canadian Groups

My correspondent reports,

We have touched on the St Edmund's group in Kitchener, ON, which seems to have been left in the lurch by Fr Catania's abrupt departure for Rochester. No masses have been held there since November. The city is within commuting distance of Toronto, and the group was previously ministered to by a local diocesan priest, before Fr Catania's rather mysterious arrival, but it now seems to be in hiatus. The group was never large: eleven people were received and I do not think there were any new arrivals eligible for membership, but the lay leader was very active and published a monthly newsletter for many years, although this was discontinued under Fr Catania's regime. Website is not being updated. Presumably a dead duck.

I can't help but think that if the Kitchener group is being left in the lurch, the Ordinariate enterprise exists primarily for the benefit of the clergy -- Fr Catania seems to have been moved around to suit some private agenda, with growing the number of groups a distant secondary consideration. My correspondent continues,

Good Shepherd, Oshawa, ON is another very small group---perhaps a dozen members, with a priest who has had a number of health problems, although he has resumed a full schedule of daily masses recently. A lay member, not part of the original ACCC group but a former Anglican who became Catholic decades ago, has been very active on various social media in support of the group and the Ordinariate project generally, although he has often drawn attention to problems with its poor communication. Good Shepherd owns its own church---a previous rector was an ACCC bishop---so perhaps it has an endowment from more prosperous days which supports it. But I do not think it has attracted any new members. Several members commute there from Toronto; the ACCC never got a foothold in the latter city so would-be continuers made the trek to Oshawa, about 40 minutes away. Toronto now has its own OCSP group. I do not think Good Shepherd has a long-term future.

Publicity For Ordinariate Groups In Host Parishes

Yesterday I had an e-mail exchange with a visitor regarding how much publicity Ordinariate groups get on the websites of Catholic diocesan parishes that host them. My visitor said, "I have noted that at least half the parishes which host an OCSP group make no mention of its mass time(s) in their bulletin, as one noted with Our Lady of Fatima, Fredericton." Later he pointed out, "Some of these groups have no website and no Facebook page. How do they think anyone is going to hear about them?"

This raises an interesting problem, with which, as a new Catholic, I'm not very familiar. From what I see on sites like Fr Z's blog and what I can gather from occasional remarks by priests, dioceses seem to show great interest in parish tithes, registrations, and their relation to mass times and the number of priests assigned to a parish. Last year at Our Mother of Good Counsel, for instance, there was a drive for formal registration, followed a couple of months later by the announcement that mass times would be reduced.

The parish had had three priests (including one visiting from Mexico who was handling the Spanish masses); when he returned to Mexico, he was not replaced, and the mass schedule was reduced.

This says to me that diocesan priests are under some pressure to watch their numbers. To put an Ordinariate mass time on the diocesan parish website that could, at least potentially, reduce the numbers they report to the diocese -- or reduce the offertory tithed to the diocese -- isn't necessarily in the interest of the diocesan parish.

Naturally, there are other issues, which could make this question entirely theoretical. If the diocesan parish has only guitar-and-tambourine masses where everyone holds hands around the altar, while the Ordinariate group has something more reverent, that could attract some diocesan parishioners away from the diocesan mass. I'm not sure if this actually takes place anywhere, since I know diocesan parishes exist that have reverent masses with organ and choir, while Ordinariate groups exist that have masses with guitar. So it's quite possible that actual circumstances and the actual very small numbers involved in both the number and membership of Ordinariate groups make this a non-issue.

I would be interested to hear the insights of other visitors.

Three More Canadian Groups/Parilshes

My correspondent reports,

The bishop-elect mentioned in an interview that he had never been to Canada, so perhaps rather than starting with any of the three groups you have mentioned he will go first to Calgary, to visit Canada's only full parish. The nucleus of St John the Evangelist was the only group to be led in by a priest of the ACC. Members from two local ACCC parishes and an ACNA parish were soon added. Weekly attendance figures suggest that Fr Kenyon has been successful at attracting others, cradle Catholics or previously received Anglicans, as well. As we have discussed, the parish has an ambitious plan to purchase its building from the Anglican Diocese of Calgary. Lately,

however, I have noticed a few ominous signs. Attendance seems to have plateaued. Fr Kenyon noted in a bulletin put out before the building campaign started that the parish needed $5000 a week to meet its expenses. Until very recently, Notices which included attendance and the weekly givings have been posted on the website, and since the beginning of the building campaign the regular offering has rarely met this figure, although combined givings remain significantly higher. Now the Assistant Priest is being "released to the local diocese" as of February. The Notices do not seem to be posted any more.

Given the economic situation in Calgary, I suspect that this means that the parish is facing financial problems. This has been a bright spot in the Canadian Deanery, with many parish activities going on, and the apparatus of parish life--Parish Council, Finance Committee, website--in place and well-run. I am sure Bp Lopes wishes to find that this is one place he doesn't have to worry about. I am not sure that is the case any longer.

When Bp Lopes heads to Canada's west coast he will definitely find some challenges. The Blessed John Henry Newman Fellowship in Victoria, BC is moving out of the very attractive church it has been renting from the Anglican Diocese of British Columbia to share space with a local Catholic parish. This could be due to a number of reasons but I doubt that having outgrown their space is a possibility. There has been some coming and going, but I believe the group has 20+ members, including four clergy, three of whom are over canonical retirement age (the parochial administrator is in his 60s). There are regular parish activities, though publicised only to those on the email list; the webpage is not well-maintained. The new location is served by a bus which runs once an hour on Sundays, although the website promises transportation help to those who might need it. I would say that the long-term survival of this group is iffy.

The Vancouver group is definitely on borrowed time. It actually meets in Maple Ridge, a western exurb of Vancouver, at a church which is 40 minutes from downtown Vancouver by car and inaccessible from there by public transit on Sundays. There are ten members, including a family of five, plus the priest and his wife. They were all members of an ACCC mission which met in Abbotsford, a small city west of Vancouver, which is presumably why they now worship at this church. There is no website or Facebook page. No one has joined the group since it was received in 2012; the family is young but the other members, including the priest, are in their 70s. If/when their priest retires the group will fold, I assume. This group has been listed twice on the OCSP parish list since it was put up. The fact that no one in charge has noticed this never fails to puzzle me.

Three Groups Not Listed

A visitor notes,

[T]here are [three] relatively small groups north of the border with "push pins" on the new map that don't appear on the old map -- one in Edmonton, Alberta, under the lay leadership of Mr. David Skelton (who apparently has deferred his Catholic ordination indefinitely due to a marital issue) and the other in [Fredericton], New Brunswick, under the leadership of Fr. Richard Harris (who, IIRC, received ordination as a Catholic presbyter in the last few months). There [is also] a group in Tyendinaga, Ontario, that might still be in the process of reception.

This would bring the total closer to the 42 claimed, making observers aware of 40, although I'm not sure how the official standing of such groups-in-formation is recognized. Clearly it would be better if the project of publicizing such groups could be undertaken by people other than amateur lay observers, fun as the project can be for those of us who do it!

My correspondent notes the Spanish-speaking group in formation that was received in 2015 in Flushing, NY. However, the impression I have from the diocesan announcement is that while a former Anglican priest brought them together, he passed away unexpectedly in 2014, and their catechesis and reception were completed under the auspices of RCIA, making them members of the diocesan parish.

Naturally, I solicit and welcome all such additions, corrections, and clarifications. The push pin in the new map in Northern California is still unexplained.

UPDATE: Another visitor adds,

Dr Skelton certainly has no "marital" issue. His ordination was announced, then cancelled shortly before the scheduled date owing to unspecified "health issues." . . . Seven people including two ACCC clergy were received when this group was erected, and although there was briefly a family which joined them and made their house chapel available they have since moved away. A former Anglican, now Catholic priest offers mass for them at a Knights of Columbus chapel but when/if he is no longer able to do this I am sure the group will fold. Fr Harris, in New Brunswick, is 76 and despite his wish to "grow" the group of perhaps ten after his ordination last year, I see no evidence of that. [A web page giving mass times at Our Lady of Fatima is here.] The group of twelve in Tyendinaga was received in 2012. You can read about it here. Their leader, Gerard Trinque, was rejected for ordination for delict of schism, but a local diocesan priest celebrates mass for them once a month. The other Sundays Mr Trinque leads a sort of "Deacon's mass" with Holy Communion. The group advertises on the reserve (Tyendinaga is a First Nations community) where Mr Trinque is described as Fr Trinque. [The group does not have a website.]

It's plain that the farther we get into the smaller groups, the more uncertain matters become. I suspect there's a great deal for Bp-Elect Lopes to learn.

Many thanks to my correspondents for their continued sleuthing!

Discrepancies?

A visitor seems to be still reviewing the current state of groups and parishes in the US-Canadian Ordinariate. I know one new discrepancy has come to his attention, but I also began to think again about an old one: the received official numbers from Houston appeared again in the National Catholic Register last month:

The North-American ordinariate Bishop-elect Lopez [sic] will lead consists of 42 parishes with approximately 70 ordained priests and deacons serving Catholics with Anglican traditions in 30 states and Canadian provinces.

However, a count just now of the parishes and groups on the parish finder of the OCSP web site yields 38 -- except that the parish finder has been out of date for many months and still lists the two Philadelphia groups separately, when they are now a single St John the Baptist parish, so at best, the evidence we have suggests 37, except that a new group in suburban Houston may bring the total back to 38. I once sent the OCSP press flack a question asking which groups of the 42 were left off the parish finder, but I got the standard nothing in reply.

Beyond that, there's a new and different parish map elsewhere on the OCSP web site that, at minimum, shows a group in the Sacramento, CA area (or perhaps the Roseville-Auburn area to the northeast). Neither my visitor nor I has heard anything about such a group, and I'm wondering if it might represent some candidate group, possibly an ACA parish, that briefly considered joining the OCSP but never followed through.

But here's a question: it sounds like Bp-Elect Lopes is already putting together the visitation schedule for his announced airplane time for the coming year. If there are so many maybes or sorta-kindas -- 10%, after all -- how does he know where to go? I hate to say this, but if I were Lopes, I'd want a definite current list from Fr Hough III. Names, mass times and places, phones, e-mails. I'd expect that Fr Hough III be able to print this off his desktop in a matter or minutes, if not seconds.

Does such a list exist? I have a feeling not. So what does Hough III do all day?

So What Will Bp-Elect Lopes See?

A visitor has been studying the revised website for the US-Canadian Ordinariate. He comments,

I have been looking over the updated parish map on the OCSP website and speculating about Bp Lopes' upcoming travels. Starting in your own state, as you perhaps know the Bl John Henry Newman Facebook page does not give us much indication of any parish events or activities beyond Mass, although there will be a Pancake Supper on Shrove Tuesday. There does seem to be a men's group meeting for "smokes and whiskey" next Saturday, and there is a women's group which had a "Ladies' Tea" last month, and a Knights of Columbus group in formation. The Facebook page deals mainly with diocesan groups: Theology on Tap and Catholics at Work, OC. The size of the BlJHN worship space does not suggest exponential growth.

The priest in charge of St Augustine's, Carlsbad has as we know been trying to retire for over a year to devote himself to diocesan chaplaincy work. But the ordination of Mr Glenn [Baaten], whose sketchy Anglican credentials we have examined in the past, seems to have been on hold since he arrived at St Augustine's last September, and in the meantime the St Augustine's website has not changed since January of last year. The Facebook page was updated in December 2015 but does not provide evidence of an active community. The new map shows a third community. But when one clicks on it one goes back to the old and hopelessly outdated list. I intend to work my way through the roster. My gut is that there are ten or fifteen OCSP groups that are going concerns and the rest are in various states of stasis or decline.

Smokes and whiskey, those of us who were at St Mary's in 2011 will recall, were Andy Bartus's favored fellowship activities then, too. One more time -- I have simply never seen a parish in any denomination feature alcohol so prominently in its publicity, which the Irvine group clearly continues to do. So far, the Ordinariate's official response has been to tell me to shut up about it.

Perhaps Andy could invite the Bishop to share some whiskey and cigars with the League of Ordinary Gentlemen when he arrives. No doubt he'll be impressed!

I'd also be interested in the interview the Bishop will no doubt wish to have with Mr Baaten, focusing on his extensive experience as an Anglican priest a Presbyterian pastor. Let's recall that Mr Baaten's ordination (not just to the diaconate, but to the priesthood) was originally scheduled for last year. I suspect that at some early point in the process, this arose as an issue to be reviewed by someone other than Msgr Steenson.

Bp Lopes will no doubt have a most interesting series of visits in coming months.

Head Fake?

A visitor commented on yesterday's post:

Whatever his gifts, and I have no reason to doubt your assessment of them, Mr Moyer would not have been a possible choice for Ordinary given his history of litigation against TEC. It would have been a total poke in the eye to that body. I am not sure that his attempt to hold positions in TEC and the ACA simultaneously would have borne the close scrutiny of the Vatican either. I can see why Msgr Steenson might have stabbed him in the back over his votum but I do not think that he feared at any point that Moyer was a rival for the post of Ordinary.

Naturally, we'll never know what may have been in Msgr Steenson's heart. On the other hand, we do have a visual from 2011 that shows how Moyer was at least useful:

In response to an invitation by His Eminence, Donald Cardinal Wuerl (Delegate of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for the Implementation of Anglicanorum coetibus in the United States, and Chairman of the USCCB Ad Hoc Committee for the Implementation of Anglicanorum coetibus), Bishop David Moyer (A.C.A. Bishop in charge of the Patrimony of the Primate) was received by Cardinal Wuerl this afternoon [May 13, 2011] in Washington, D.C. The meeting between Cardinal Wuerl and Bishop Moyer also was attended by Fr. Scott Hurd.

Fr Hurd, a married Anglican Use priest, was Steenson's Vicar General until 2014. But note that, although Cardinal Wuerl and Fr Hurd were at the meeting, Jeffrey Steenson was nowhere to be found. We must assume, though, that, since he'd attended the 1993 meeting with Cardinal Ratzinger, Steenson was nevertheless the inside-track candidate for US Ordinary from the time Ratzinger was elevated to the Papacy. This 2011 meeting probably fed speculation in the Anglo-Catholic blogosphere that Moyer could be in line for Ordinary.

For whatever reason, Steenson maintained an extremely low profile for several years leading up to his designation as Ordinary. His own account of the process leading to his 2007 resignation as TEC bishop indicates the great pains Msgr William Stetson and he took to avoid provoking Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori and maintain her good will. No doubt it would have been a "total poke in the eye" to have done anything else -- but it would appear that setting Moyer up for a similar provocation, with either the ACA or TEC, wasn't out of bounds.

In May 2011, Cardinal Wuerl accorded Moyer remarkable public courtesy. In January 2012, Msgr Steenson threw him under the bus. I agree with the former TEC priest who warned Fr Kelley to watch out for these people.

If Bp-Elect Lopes wants to effect any significant changes, he needs to reconsider the way Houston operates. There was only one of the original Twelve Apostles who operated this way, but he was replaced.

What Could Have Been Done Differently?

It occurred to me over the weekend that the St Mary's reception into the US-Canadian Ordinariate was originally scheduled for January 8, 2012, a little over four years ago. I think it's fair to say that over the following months, Houston spectacularly bungled the job. It's worth pointing out that in 2011, St Mary of the Angels was generally thought to be indicative of the dilemma faced by conservative Anglo-Catholic parishes, and its presumptive entry to the Ordinariate was thought to be historically significant.

Looking back, I'm struck by the complete lack of realistic planning. The Ordinariate wouldn't officially start until January 1, 2012, and Msgr Steenson hadn't been officially designated as Ordinary. As a result, the parish's contact with Catholic authorities was Msgr William Stetson, who was reduced to making coy statements like, "I don't know who the Ordinary will be, but I know his calendar is open for January 8." I should have been more skeptical, but after all, this was the Catholic Church. They knew what they were doing, didn't they?

A second issue was that nobody in charge seemed to be aware of the whole situation, in particular that the ACA was, during this time, actively working to seize the parish. The dissidents had scheduled a meeting with Stephen Strawn for the following week, which was averted only when David Moyer, still theoretically Bishop of the Patrimony, shooed him away. In response, the ACA House of Bishops voted to dissolve the Patrimony. Hindsight says they did this for the sole reason of making it easier to seize St Mary's. It doesn't appear that either Msgr Stetson or Msgr Steenson had a clue about what was going on.

David Moyer, of course, did. In fact, he was probably the only functioning adult involved in the process at that point; Steenson's fecklessness was already making itself plain. A couple of weeks after the ACA bishops dissolved the Patrimony, Archbishop of Philadelphia Chaput denied Moyer his votum, blocking his entry to the Ordinariate as a priest. When this happened, there was wide speculation on whether Jeffrey Steenson was involved in the move.

Whatever the specifics may have been, it's worth noting that Moyer was the only other former Anglican bishop who would have been in the running for Ordinary besides Steenson, and speculation in the runup certainly mentioned Moyer as a candidate. Edging Moyer out was the best possible move both for Steenson and the ACA. Steenson, advised by an apparently incompetent chancellor, dithered, requesting another vote from the parish (which had already voted on the topic twice). This uncertainty and lack of leadership simply encouraged the ACA and the parish dissidents to keep going.

My own view is that the one individual who had the best knowledge of all the players, both in the ACA and the St Mary's parish, was David Moyer. With him out of the picture, it appears that the most knowledgeable figure was Andrew Bartus, then still St Mary's curate, who met frequently with the parish dissidents and had back-channel contacts to the Houston in-group. His objective appears to have been to knock Fr Kelley out of the running via back-channel character assassination and become pastor of the St Mary's parish when it entered the Ordinariate. He bungled this job, of course.

I've heard at third hand that, while still Ordinary, Msgr Steenson complained to colleagues at bishops' conferences that he was hobbled by incompetent subordinates. My reaction is that he chose to surround himself with the subordinates he had, and if I were handicapping corporate politics the same way, I would have said David Moyer, qualified to serve as Ordinary with episcopal experience and displaying competence and effective leadership, was too much of a threat to Steenson to have him around. I certainly agree with observers who feel that a major task for Bp-Elect Lopes will be to sift through the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth-Nashotah House old boy network he's inherited.

For the Ordinariate to leave behind the air of disappointment that's surrounded it from the start and regain the promise that observers saw in 2011, it will need to reexamine the mistakes that were made in early 2012 and make it a priority to remedy the St Mary of the Angels debacle. Please continue to pray for Fr Kelley, the vestry, and the parish.

Reactions To TEC Suspension At Canterbury

This development is only very tangentially related to the purpose of this blog, except that this post, on a blog speaking for a very tiny "continuing" splinter group, makes the point,

That the Global South primates have won a kind of victory is a step in the right direction, but only a step in a long journey. Many of us in Continuing churches know that this is approximately forty years later than it should have been. We know also that the Archbishop of Canterbury, then Donald Coggan, would have made all things better by recognizing the Denver Consecrations in 1978. The presence of ACNA Archbishop Foley Beach at the primates meeting this past week is good in one sense, but it also drives home the propaganda that we need to resist; namely that only now has a genuine Anglican alternative to TEC arisen. That notion has been presented only in an implied sense, but it is strongly implied at our expense, though it has never been true at all.

So OK, the main guy consecrated in Denver was James Mote. He in turn consecrated Louis Falk and then fairly quickly withdrew from active involvement in the "continuing" movement, leaving things as they developed to Falk and Falk's adversaries. Falk in turn consecrated -- well, let's look at just some on the list, Robin Connors, Stephen Strawn, Brian Marsh -- a disreputable bunch indeed. I recently heard from a conservative-leaning former TEC priest who basically said there were grounds for complaint against the US-Canadian Ordinariate and for that matter, the ACA -- and in comparison, the very liberal TEC Bishop of Los Angeles J Jon Bruno actually comes off well.

But then, I've heard from former members of the St Mary of the Angels parish who, while they have good wishes for it, chose to remain Episcopalian. Frankly, there are only two real options for Episcopalians. Either become Catholic, but considering the overall disappointment in the Ordinariates, probably not via Anglicanorum coetibus, or remain Episcopalian. A distant option might be, if an Episcopal parish is not convenient but an ACNA parish is, the ACNA.

Those who go with any "continuing" denomination are submitting themselves to charlatans and thieves.

What Now For The Parish?

The indications I've had over the past several weeks have been that my wife and I are correct in estimating that the Bush-ACA squatters can delay things a few days here, a week or two there, but the case is reaching its end stages. I've had some inquiries from visitors about what can happen now.

There's a great deal we don't know about parish finances. Daren Williams, the last ACA Bishop of the West (who had earlier made an astute call in inhibiting Andrew Bartus when he was an ACA deacon) also raised concerns about the individual who had been the longtime St Mary's parish treasurer as of 2010. Apparently the treasurer was elderly and in poor health, unwilling to learn to use a computer, and the bishop was concerned about some other irregularity and ordered that Fr Kelley replace him. The replacement lasted only a few months and does not appear to have been up to the job.

I was brought in after that and began to clean things up, paying bills that had gone unpaid for many months. However, the Bush insurgents forced me out after a couple of months, deciding that the parish didn't need a treasurer after all(!). This appears to have been related to the scheme not to remit quarterly withholding payments to the IRS -- the last straw for them was when, worried about where the IRS payments had gone, I proposed the parish hire a payroll firm that would make sure this was properly handled.

Once the Bush-ACA group took over, they put the nonagenarian former longtime treasurer back in that position. If ACA Bishop Daren Williams had had concerns about this gentleman in 2010, I've got to think there may be reason for continued concern now. The squatters lost nearly all parish income in October 2015, yet somehow they're still paying utilities, presumably paying Lancaster & Anastasia LLP, and presumably keeping Bishop Owen Williams in his apartment. A major task that will face the vestry will be finding out what the parish's financial situation is, and frankly, I'd be looking for irregularities.

The other matter visitors ask me about is what the parish's future is with the US-Canadian Ordinariate. A week or so ago, I speculated that we don't know the atmosphere in Houston regarding the parish's possible admission. Since then, I'm informed that Fr Kelley has received a warning that can only be characterized as dire -- the atmosphere in Houston is not currently favorable to anything connected with St Mary of the Angels.

One reason I began this blog -- which is certainly not popular in official circles, either with the ACA or the US-Canadian Ordinariate -- was to bear witness to the truth and bear witness to an injustice, both of which are part of Christians' responsibility. I believe Fr Kelley, the parish vestry, and the loyal parishioners have been systematically defamed, in part by individuals currently in good favor with Houston.

My own feeling is that Bp-Elect Lopes will probably need to conduct his own very thorough review of the stewardship by the existing OCSP in-group, and a serious part of that review should include the circumstances surrounding the St Mary of the Angels parish in 2011-12. If he doesn't do this, I don't believe he will be doing his duty as bishop -- but in recent decades, we've had no shortage of bishops who've fallen short of their duty. We'll have to see how things play out.

Please continue to pray for Fr Kelley, the vestry, and the parish.

What I'm Learning From The New Diocesan Parish

In brief, there's something like a "high church" Ordinary Form mass. This includes altar servers in red cassocks and cottas carrying candles in procession, six candles on the reredos, organ with professional choir singing real hymns. There are bells. The pastor wears a real chasuble and genuflects at the altar. And this appears to be a prosperous parish, though clearly diverse, nothing WASPy about it.

Another thing that strikes me is that although there are infants and toddlers scattered throughout the nave, there is no distracting screaming, babbling, or banging. There seem to be several reasons for this. One is the acoustical effect of a nave that's nearly full: bodies on either side of the potential distraction tend to muffle the sound. In addition, the screaming and banging have to compete with the organ and a competently installed sound system. You have no choice but to listen to the hymns, the readings (capably read, especially by the deacon), the prayers, and the homily.

The pacing of the mass also has something to do with this. Yesterday's 9:30 mass had a ceremony for the RCIA catechumens, every verse of "All Creatures of Our God and King", extensive additional remarks from the celebrant after the announcements, and a second collection after those. At the end of the mass, I thought to myself they have to have gone long this time, no doubt about it. I checked the clock when we got back to the car -- nope! It had to be a minute over at most.

They get a "high church" mass done in exactly an hour. At the old parish, singing only two verses of guitar-and-tambourine hymns and dumbed-down liturgy, they routinely go over. Why is this? Trying to figure this out, and I'm not done, one reason has to be simply focus. There's no air of fecklessness, no pointless pauses (which, of course, are invitations for the little monsters to start screaming and banging).

Indeed, at the old parish, they dismiss the elementary-grade children before the readings (presumably for a really dumbed-down liturgy), but then the clergy talks down to the adults in the homily as though the kids were still there.

Irrespective of Anglicanorum coetibus, things don't have to be that way.

What Bishop-Elect Lopes Ought To Find

In a recent interview, Bp-Elect Lopes said that once he's installed,

After Feb. 2, I’m looking at my calendar, and it’s an awful lot of time on an airplane. The 43 communities of the ordinariate are spread around 20-something states and five Canadian provinces. To go out and be with the people and meet the pastors, experiencing the life of the ordinariate means going to them, so I will be very often on the road moving to the different communities and back in Houston during the week where our offices and chancery are located.

To start with, though, if there are 43 communities, there is a disparity between them and the number of pastors (or at least priests), who number more than 70, while many of the communities in fact have no pastor.

A visitor very kindly sent me a copy of John Shelton Reed's Glorious Battle: The Cultural Politics of Victorian Anglo-Catholicism. I'm in the process of giving this book a careful reading.

Reed describes a "High and Dry" high-church faction that immediately preceded the Oxford Movement, consisting of younger sons of the entitled gentry who occupied sinecures and prebendaries. They presided over a church with sometimes empty parishes, or parishes with very small numbers. This has an unfortunate parallel with the US-Canadian Ordinariate, top-heavy with prebendaries and clergy literally without cures, parishes with members in single and double digits. If Victorian Anglo-Catholicism was almost exclusively a movement within the clergy, the Ordinariates seem to be exactly the same thing, the people being a very secondary factor.

I pray that Bp-Elect Lopes will look at his see with a new set of eyes.

Status Conference On "Related Cases" January 8, 2016

I attended this hearing, which was very short. Judge Daniel Murphy is now in charge of Department 32. Mr Lancaster explained that the primary case, decided in the September 2015 trial, is under appeal. The appeal, according to him, is in an "expedited" status, since it is a forcible detainer case. He expects it to be resolved within six months.

Ms Greer, on behalf of Fr Kelley, argued that the "initial action" can be resolved separately from the primary case, and since the courts have ruled that the vestry elected in February 2012 is the legal vestry, the ACA and the Bush group (who represented themselves as "Rector, Wardens, and Vestry") do not have standing in the "initial action". She urged the judge to dismiss the case for lack of standing by the plaintiff.

The judge asked how Fr Kelley would be prejudiced by a delay to wait for the appeal to be resolved. Ms Greer said it was unfair to Fr Kelley to have the matter dragged out. The judge nevertheless ruled that Fr Kelley was not prejudiced if the matter was continued. As a result, he continued the hearing until July 8, on the assumption that the appeal would be resolved by then. Naturally, we'll see.

This case, of course, is not judge Murphy's, and my wife thinks he doesn't want to spend the time it would take to get involved at this point, when the outcome of the appeal will do a lot of his work for him. So it's a delay (nothing new there), but nothing has really changed.

Please continue to pray for Fr Kelley, the vestry, and the parish.

The Visitor's Questions In Yesterday's Post

have jogged my thinking toward a related question about what to consider should the parish regain the property. As of today, the squatters still have "Candlemass" listed for January 2, although I've pointed out that Candlemas should in fact be February 2. In the past, they've sometimes made corrections when I've noted such errors, but increasingly, they haven't bothered.

I think this is because whether Christmas is scheduled for August 16 (as it was for some weeks last year) is beside the point. I think my wife's view that the squatters have worked with the ACA to establish adverse possession of the property is the correct one. Under this theory of the case, their intent was to find a way to eject those with actual title to the property, keep them out for a statutory period while operating as something like a church, and then, having assumed de facto title, sell it. The various disputes over whether Fr Kelley had obscurely heretical views, was paying someone's dental bill from parish funds, or keeping a naked African-American girl in the parish basement, were always pretextual, designed simply to create division, which the ACA, working with Mrs Bush, could then exploit for its own purposes.

For the squatters' purposes, if they announce that Christmas comes in August, it actually suits their agenda. After all, Scientology is just down the street, and under the US First Amendment, churches have extreme latitude. All they need to do is look more or less like a church to satisfy the requirements of adverse possession. On the other hand, looking weird will also keep away people who might be sincere enough to want actually to receive a valid sacrament -- enough of those could give the squatters their own set of problems. The arrangement they have now is temporary, to be retained only until they establish adverse possession and sell the place (receiving their own lagniappes, commissions, and consulting fees in the process).

One potential issue that comes from yesterday's questions is whether, if the parish were to reopen under the vestry, the dissidents could return, renew their inactive memberships, and simply revive the old pretextual disputes. This is possible, but I think it's unlikely. To start with, the dissident group was always smaller than a dozen people. Of these, I assume that a final resolution of the case would include a court order excluding those who had assaulted parishioners or made threats, or they could be covered by a separate protective order. This would eliminate several of the remaining core dissidents.

A final resolution of the case in favor of the vestry would also add a major obstacle to the dissidents' former agenda. The trial court has ruled that the August 2012 parish vote to leave the ACA was valid. The major aim of the dissidents following the initial erection of the Patrimony of the Primate was to return the parish to the ACA, and then probably as well to participate in a sale of the property. With the court ruling that the vote to leave was valid, rejoining the ACA would require a supermajority of the membership to revise the bylaws yet again. Rumors like those spread in 2011-2012 wouldn't be enough to do this.

Good Questions From A Visitor

I opened my e-mail this morning to find this set of questions from a visitor:

Assuming that the squatters are finally evicted, I see great problems for the parish.

1. Will the church have a functioning vestry upon repossession?
2. If so, who will be the members?
3. If not, how long will it take have a parish meeting to form a new vestry?
4. Who will be considered to be voting members of the parish at such a meeting? (Will Mrs.Bush, et al., still be considered active members?)
5. Who will be the rector upon reposssession?
6. Will the parish be an independent congregation without a bishop?
7. Will the parish bylaws provide clear answers to these questions?
8. Is it likely that the Ordinariate will want anything to do with the parish until all the various property and financial issues are resolved?
9. Will members who have become Roman Catholic return to the parish?
10. If so, will they also have to attend Mass at a Roman Catholic parish and only receive Holy Communion there?

I would be most interested in you addressing these matters in your highly informative blog.

For starters, many thanks for the kind remark about my blog! These are very good questions, and some of them have taken the efforts of highly capable legal minds, while others touch on the parish's ongoing legal strategies, which are confidential, and to which as a friend of the parish who nevertheless is not on the vestry, I'm not privy. So I speak here only for myself as a lay observer.

Regarding the status of the vestry, the best answer I can give is to try to extrapolate the intent of the appeals court, which was basically to ensure as much as possible the continued legal existence of the corporation. The vestry in the eyes of the court continues to be the one elected in February 2012. There have been changes in its membership since that date, but they were made in accordance with the bylaws, and they were recognized in Judge Strobel's 2015 decision. By the same token, the 2015 trial court, in ruling that the 2012 vote to leave the ACA was valid, affirmed the appeals court's view that this also makes Fr Kelley the legal rector. Should the parish regain control of the property, it would presumably hold a membership meeting at the earliest possible date in 2016, or whenever it did regain control.

Regarding the membership of the parish, the bylaws say members in good standing are

Registered in the Parish Register as a Communicant of the Parish and upon the books of the Treasurer as a pledged, or regular weekly or monthly contributor to the support of the general budget of the Parish, or a giver of notable service acknowledged by the Rector and Vestry, for at least the preceding twelve months.

Further,

The Rector will submit to the Vestry at its January meeting and again in July meeting the names of those persons who are voting members of the Corporation, and whose names will be displayed in the minutes of the Vestry for those meetings and attested by the Clerk.

and,

Any member who has not participated in the Church activities, has not had contact with clergy or Vestry, and has not made a financial contribution within a year will be put on the inactive membership list.

but,

Persons who have been placed on the inactive membership list may be restored to active status upon reaffirming their active membership.

It's worth pointing out that a continuing core of communicants has held mass on a weekly basis at the residence of a vestry member. Consequently, there is currently a group of members in good standing as defined in the bylaws. Other members as of 2012 who, for fear of personal safety for example, stayed away from the parish during the time of trouble would be eligible for immediate reinstatement.

I simply don't know exactly what has been put before the court regarding whether certain individuals would be required to stay off the property. Several among the squatter group have either physically assaulted regular parish members, threatened to do so, or threatened violence against the property. Others, while listed in the legal actions, appear to have lost interest and moved on. How any of their cases would be handled is a legal issue I can't address.

A number of members in good standing as of 2012 had earlier been baptized and confirmed as Roman Catholics. I believe they returned to Catholic parishes when the troubles began. How, or whether, they would return to the parish if it did not join the Ordinariate is up to them, although I'm sure they would be welcome to return as communicants there in the future, recognizing the canonical issues they would face in doing so. My wife and I became Catholic in 2013 but have continued as friends of the parish, though we receive communion at a Catholic parish. Should it enter the Ordinariate, we would need to consider our future involvement at that time.

At this point, the parish is independent and has no affiliation and no bishop. The courts have deferred to the bylaws as the source for definitive answers to any questions about affiliation, and would continue to do so. The bylaws will need to be revised again for the parish to enter the Ordinariate. The parish has maintained its interest in joining the Ordinariate, and an adviser to Los Angeles Abp Gomez has continued his contacts with the vestry, although he presumably does not speak for Bp-Elect Lopes.

The Ordinariate would almost certainly not receive the parish until all legal issues are resolved. Among other things, it simply does not have the financial resources to protect the parish from continued legal action. However, this assumes that the atmosphere in Houston would be favorable to admitting the parish as well. On that, or on whether the arrival of Bp-Elect Lopes would have an impact, I can make no judgment as of now.

I hope this helps. Please pray for Fr Kelley, the vestry, and the parish.

The Tedious RouteTo Justice

The hearing on the disposition of the "related" Rector Wardens, and Vestry cases is scheduled for Friday, January 8. I plan to attend. As a lay observer, it seems to me that this hearing will at least move the process toward dismissing the "initial action", the case brought by Morello, Strawn, and the dissident central committee against Fr Kelley and the vestry in May 2012. Every judge who's looked at the specific allegations in this action has found them without merit, including Judge Jones, who acknowledged that in granting the temporary restraining order to the ACA, she had acted in error.

I'm hoping that this hearing will continue the process of chipping away the ACA's and the squatters' case. It's worth noting that late last year, "Bishop" Marsh took official notice of this blog, and it appears that there was a renewed effort to stop this blog through Catholic channels. (I'm especially grateful for this effort, since it got me off the dime of simply tolerating the liturgical and musical abuse at the Our Mother of Good Counsel parish and sent me to find a better mass and a different confessor.)

However, both these developments are a sign that the ACA and the squatters are getting nervous. Not that they'd actually try to settle the case on terms that might still carry some advantage for their position -- something's very odd there. At this point, with regular rental income either stopped or suspended, all they can rely on is the offertory from the dozen or so tightwads who attend services there, little more than spare change.

As I've calculated here, the money they have to be spending just to pay utilities and "Bishop" Owen Williams's housing allowance alone must exceed this by orders of magnitude, although we must also assume Lancaster & Anastasia LLP are not yet donating their services.

Where is this money coming from? My wife thinks there can be only two explanations for the squatter's continued holdout: either they have some agenda item they haven't yet accomplished, or they need to cover something up. Both of us think they can only delay the inevitable.

The "Angelican" Calendar

The squatter C team, busy as ever, has updated the calendar once again.

"Candlemass" is January 2 for "Angelicans", although Candlemas is February 2 for the rest of us. A visitor points out that since Christmas was August 16 last year, "Candlemass" should be in September, 40 days after Christmas.