Reading in greater detail the letter from Fr Liias posted on Ordinariate Expats, and also the update on Fr Seraiah posted on the parish Facebook page, I sense that the OCSP is moving closer to the model of the OOLW, where the priest responsible for an Ordinariate group also has an assignment in a diocesan parish. This is what Fr Liias is proposing for his prospective replacement. This is currently the case for Fr Chori Seraiah, Fr Randy Sly, Fr Patrick Allen, Fr Jonathan Duncan, Fr David Wagner, Fr Jason Catania, Fr Vaughn Treco, and the newly ordained Fr Luke Reese. This was the original arrangement for Fr Matthew Venuti, but he has now relinquished the Ordinariate group. (Others are doing exclusively diocesan work, or chaplaincy, with no Ordinariate duties, but that is another topic).This doesn't sound like much of a solution, for the short or medium term. I'm lucky to be able to observe a large and prosperous diocesan parish, but I can't avoid the sense that one ingredient of success is priests from the diocese who have had traditional Catholic formation within the diocese. (Wasn't this something like what St Charles Borromeo had in mind?)From one point of view this looks like the obvious solution to providing housing and/or stipends which would be beyond the abilities of the Ordinariate group, while assisting the local diocese which is no doubt short-staffed. But to return to the OOLW, which has relied on this model almost exclusively owing to its lack of self-supporting Ordinariate parishes, this has not been a recipe for growth, indeed, barely one for stability. In the case of the OOLW priests have frequently been made responsible for groups with which they had no previous connection; in the OCSP this was not initially the case but we see that, as at St Gregory the Great, Stoneham, that will be the situation in the OCSP as well in the next phase, as self-supporting retired priests leave the groups they brought into the Church to retire again.
The Ordinariate group will be only one of the new pastor's responsibilities, another collection of new faces. I think that divided loyalties and time constraints will be detrimental to the project of building up self-sustaining communities. Our Lady of Hope is not an inspiring example; granted Fr Sly has only been there six weeks, but the Holy Week schedule is still posted on the Home Page of the website and the Facebook page has likewise not been updated since March. I do not feel that St Anselm's, Greenville is any ball of fire, either, nor did St Gilbert's Boerne take off under Fr Wagner.
Priests who fetch up in random places after inchoate career paths that began without Catholic formation -- I just dunno. Nor does my visitor mention Fr Bartus. Somehow I get the feeling that his pastoral style would not work in a diocesan parish, what with the yuppie cliques, the beer breakfasts, and the whiskey evenings, but I don't see how the situation in Irvine differs from the others my correspondent mentions.
