A More Detailed Fort Worth Timeline

With the help of my regular correspondent, and following links on several blog posts from the period, I've been able to come up with a more detailed timeline covering the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth's involvement in the runup to Angicanorum coetibus, as well as Bishop Iker's varying pubic positions regarding unity with Rome.

• Late 1980s: Cardinal Law maintains informal contacts with Rome-leaning Episcopal clergy, particularly in the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth. At this point, little is known of the nature of these contacts, or precisely when they occurred.
• 1993: Cardinal Law arranges a meeting between Cardinal Ratzinger, then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Jeffrey Steenson, then a priest in the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, and his bishop, Clarence Pope. Steenson drafts and refines a proposal for an Anglican personal prelature, something Law had pushed for from at least 1980. However, Pope St John Paul says the proposal must be approved by the CDF, and recognizing that it would not pass, Ratzinger withdraws it to avoid a defeat.
• 1993-95: Clarence Pope continues efforts to establish his eligibility to become a married Catholic bishop, which are unsuccessful. He requests that all correspondence related to the Ratzinger meeting be sent to his home, not his office. Pope retires in 1994 and becomes Catholic. Jack Iker is named Bishop Coadjutor of Fort Worth; it is not known how much he knew of Pope's and Steenson's initiative. By 1995, unable to be ordained a married Catholic priest, Pope becomes Anglican again.
• 2002: Cardinal Law moves from Boston to Rome and apparently resumes activity related to Anglican ecumenism and conservative issues in the Vatican.
• 2003: Cardinal Law renews contact with Clarence Pope, suggesting personal prelature proposal may be renewed. However, he apparently determines Pope is not stable.
• April 24, 2005: Cardinal Ratzinger is inaugurated Pope Benedict XVI.
• August 1, 2005: Jeffrey Steenson becomes Episcopal Bishop of the Rio Grande.
• April 2006: Six priests of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, along with Bishop Iker, meet in Rome with Cardinal Law to discuss causes of Catholic-leaning Episcopal dissatisfaction. Law requests that the group make some type of proposal. The sketchy account of this meeting does not mention any specific discussion of the 1993 proposal, except that Law is quoted as saying,"What was not possible twenty years ago may be possible today."
• Summer 2007: Jeffrey Steenson carefully paves the way for an amicable resignation as bishop with Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori. He is assisted by Msgr William Stetson, a canon lawyer and close associate of Cardinal Law.
• December 1, 2007: Steenson's resignation as Episcopal Bishop of the Rio Grande becomes effective. He becomes Catholic the same day. Steenson moves to Rome under the auspices of Cardinal Law.
• June 16, 2008: Four priests of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth meet with Roman Catholic Bishop of Fort Worth Kevin Vann, with the knowledge and approval of Bishop Iker, to present a proposal for Catholic unity, which they say is the result of two years of discernment, presumably the outcome of Cardinal Law's 2006 request.

  The document states that the overwhelming majority of Episcopal clergy in the Fort Worth diocese favor pursuing an “active plan” to bring the diocese into full communion with the Catholic Church.

• August 12, 2008: Bishop Iker backs off the meeting, saying "in their written and verbal reports, [the four] have spoken only on their own behalf and out of their own concerns and perspective. They have not claimed to act or speak, nor have they been authorized to do so, either on behalf of the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth or on my own behalf as their Bishop." He adds that the meeting with Vann will not affect the business of the upcoming diocesan convention.
• November 2008: Delegates at a Fort Worth diocesan convention vote to leave the Episcopal Church and join the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone
• December 1, 2008: Steenson is ordained a transitional deacon by Cardinal Bernard Law, the archpriest of the Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome.
• December 3, 2008: Conservative Episcopal bishops announce formation of ACNA. Fort Worth becomes a founding diocese.
• February 21, 2009: Jeffrey Steenson is ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe by Archbishop Michael J. Sheehan.
• November 4, 2009: Pope Benedict XVI issues Anglicanorum coetibus.
• 2009-2010: Jack Iker gives vague and not entirely plausible explanations for backing off the possibility of the ordinariate.
• January 1, 2012: Jeffrey Steenson is named Ordinary of the newly erected Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter.