A Wider View Of Anglican Use

In response to my request for more information on the St Mary Las Vegas Anglican Use parish, my regular correspondent very kindly sent me a link to this 1992 article from Crisis magazine. Significantly, the 1993 meeting between Cardinal Ratzinger and the Fort Worth Episcopalians must have been something Cardinal Law was actively trying to set up at the time, so that the piece's tone was already premature:

In his Apologia Pro Vita Sua, Newman wrote that Anglicans would never convert to Catholicism en masse. Rather, individuals would come home to Rome a few at a time as they grew unable to tolerate the abuses in their own communion. Ronald Knox probably provided the best explanation for such foot-dragging in his own spiritual autobiography, The Spiritual Aeneid. It was not enough, he discovered, simply to disbelieve in a Canterbury which manifested fundamental error by tolerating so many individual errors. Rather, one must affirmatively believe in the truth taught by Rome.

The personal influence of Newman and Knox undercuts their pessimism, for these brilliant, spiritual men led many Anglicans into the Church by their personal example. If the conversion of American Episcopalians to Catholicism is accelerating, then, it must be due to reasons other than the increase of abuses—foreseen by Newman and Knox—in the ever-tolerant Anglican community.

The piece lists the following Anglican Use parishes as of its 1992 writing. I'm not sure if it claims to be exhaustive:

1. Saint Gregory Plano, TX
2. Saint Mary the Virgin Arlington, TX
3. Saint Augustine of Canterbury Atlanta, GA
4. Our Lady of the Atonement San Antonio, TX
5. Saint Mary the Virgin Las Vegas, NV
6. Saint Margaret of Scotland Austin, TX
7. Our Lady of Walsingham Houston, TX
8. Good Shepherd Columbia, SC

It mentions groups-in-formation in Corpus Christi, TX and San Diego. Neither seems to be connected with the current OCSP groups in those areas. Significantly, no mention is made of the failed St Mary of the Angels Hollywood attempt to become Anglican Use. It does not mention the St Athanasius Anglican Use community in Chestnut Hill, MA, which with Our Lady of the Atonement is the only remaining Anglican Use parish.

On one hand, that only eight Anglican Use parishes had been established by 1992 should have been an indication that Episcopalians weren't rushing for the exits, and the apparent failure of groups-in-formation mentioned in the article, as well as its silence about St Mary of the Angels, should have been another indication that Anglican Use had not been a success. No wonder Cardinal Law wanted to take a second shot.

But in addition, of the eight parishes listed, only three have survived in any form, two of them going into the OCSP and Our Lady of the Atonement still remaining Anglican Use. This is simply not a record of success, and it confirms, rather than refutes, the pessimistic views of Newman and Knox.

I would greatly appreciate further information on the fates of those parishes on the list that have disappeared, as well as information on any Anglican Use parishes that may have been formed but aren't mentioned here. According to the article, by the way, Saint Mary Las Vegas was formed in 1983 and was still in existence at the time of its writing in 1992. An obituary for Fr Clark Tea, its pastor, appears here.