Diocese vs Ordinariate

Over the years, we've seen stories pop up here and there whereby a diocese comes into some sort of conflict with an Ordinariate (in particular, mostly, the US-Canadian one), and the diocese usually wins without much of a fight. Most recently, if my surmise is correct, the Diocese of Scranton prevailed over the St Thomas More Ordinariate parish in its (misguided) attempt to reopen a closed gift and church supply store. Not long ago, the Diocese of Rochester, at least according to what we've heard from the Ordinariate group there, refused to provide any support to Ordinariate clergy assigned to that group, for instance, by providing living quarters in a rectory.

I'm increasingly of the view that the diocesan bishops have a point. Now and then someone will argue that this or that bishop is against married clergy, or is a big liberal (Bishop of Rochester Matano, though, is pretty clearly moving that diocese back to the mainstream).

Noting the problems with the Scranton Ordinariate parish, a visitor suggested to me that one difficulty the Ordinariate faces is that it doesn't have the depth and experience in its headquarters staff that are much more typical in a diocese. My view, admittedly only partial, is that both of the US-Canadian Ordinariate's chancellors have been comically feckless and inept, in the most recent case either prevented entirely from giving the Scranton business plan a serious legal review, or unable to imagine a common legal problem like restrictive lease provisions.

Another visitor has noted that Ordinariate groups and parishes have been slow to implement the Virtus program, or simply haven't taken it seriously. As that visitor points out, when a Catholic scandal turns up on the local news, the guy who has to answer the questions is always going to be the local bishop, and it's not going to look good for him to try to say that parish is the responsibility of some obscure thing in Houston, not him. If I were a diocesan bishop, I'd worry, especially when we're beginning to see how little effective supervision US-Canadian parishes and groups actually receive.

There doesn't seem to be any financial supervision, either. Although the Ordinariate has required parishes and groups to use a standardized ParishSoft package, the implementation isn't going well. A visitor reports, "I gather that the ParishSoft software is so inaccurate, or has been so messed up by inexperienced users, that it has caused a major problem for Houston in trying to send receipts and thank yous to donors to the Bishop's Appeal. Almost all the data has had to be manually re-entered."

The finances of St Thomas More and St John the Evangelist, as we've seen, appear to be precarious. I can't imagine how things can be much different for the Bridgeport, PA parish, since equivalent small numbers are trying to heat and maintain similar old buildings. If vicars for communications or finance, or chancellors, are nonfeasant or incompetent, it might be possible for a diocese to reach down into its staff for a replacement. But the Ordinariates simply don't have a bench. This is proving to be a problem for the short and medium term.

Someone may say we need to give Bp Lopes time, he's new, but I'm not at all sure how much time the Ordinariates have.