No Happy Face At The Catholic Herald

My regular correspondent sent me a link to an article at the Catholic Herald that begins, "Britain's Ordinariate is in peril." This is a refreshing change from the usual happy-face (and increasingly unrealistic) coverage of Anglicanorum coetibus we see in nearly all the Catholic or mainstream media or in places like Ordinariate Expats.

Damian Thompson, the author, says he had previously been an enthusiastic supporter, but he concedes, ". . . I’m now convinced that the Ordinariate in its present form will wither away." He is talking about the specific form the Ordinariate has taken in the UK, and to be fair, he seems to think that some measures could be taken to save it, although I'm not sure if his proposals would be remotely effective.

He also says, without citing anything to support it, that the US-Canadian Ordinariate is "now flourishing under its own 41-year-old bishop, Steven Lopes." I would say that the most optimistic reading of what's happening over here is that the OCSP has failed to thrive, though the problems in North America aren't the same as those in the UK.

I do fully agree, though, with one of his prescriptions, "the fantasy of group conversions needs to be ditched."

First, there has never been an appetite among lay members of the C of E for coming over en masse. You can disguise a new body as much as you like, but if it reports to the Pope then it is “Roman Catholic” and that’s not something most Anglicans want to be.

Second, those Anglo-Catholic clergy most likely to convert tend to be the sort who spent their careers in the C of E playing at being “Roman”, using our Missal where they could get away with it.

This applies to the US as well, though there is also a substantial faction of US Anglo-Catholic clergy who play at being Roman but are openly gay. Another observation may apply more specifically to the UK: "Also, Ordinariate priests and laity who never liked their unique Missal, Divine Worship, should slip quietly into the Catholic mainstream."

In the UK, Anglo-Catholics had been using the Ordinary Form since Vatican II and were unfamiliar with the made-up uniate liturgy dating from 1905, which is ugly no matter what English you speak. In the US, it may be more familiar to those who favor the 1928 BCP. However, his prescription that those in the UK who don't like the BDW should just become diocesan Catholics would probably cause a majority of the 1000 or so members of the OOLW to leave.

I do disagree with Thompson here:

The third obstacle for the Ordinariate was the worst: the aforementioned wily obstructiveness of the Bishops of England and Wales. A single statistic speaks volumes. Pope Benedict urged them to be generous. How many disused or near-empty churches did the bishops give the Ordinariate? None.

“The bishops pretend they’re being generous, but in reality we’re under siege,” says one Ordinariate priest. “We can’t support ourselves, so we have to take diocesan jobs in parishes, schools or prisons that might be 45 miles away from the nearest Ordinariate Mass centre.”

In other words, the bishops haven't given the OOLW more free stuff. But in the US, bishops have largely been generous -- in Scranton and Philadelphia, disused and near-empty churches have been given to Ordinariate parishes on favorable terms, but whether these parishes can survive is nevertheless an open question. Otherwise, Thompson thinks that if money magically appeared, everything would brighten:

In July, Fr Tomlinson took his family on a camping trip to France, wondering how he was going to find £9,000 to complete the beautification of the sanctuary.

“I got back to find a message from a disabled man who was fed up with the boring worship in his own parish and had decided to give us 10,000 quid,” Fr Tomlinson says. “Now tell me that’s not God at work.”

I don't deny that naive people with $10-15,000 to throw away exist, although we must also allow that people who accumulate that kind of money have often done it through the exercise of prudence -- and this suggests they want to make effective use of the money they consecrate for God's purpose. The appeals we see for funds, at least in the US, don't so far come with an impression the money will be prudently spent.

My wife and I give to our diocesan parish and other reputable Catholic appeals, but we will never send money to Fr Bergman, who seems not much more than a con artist who is damaging the OCSP's reputation. Indeed, given the failure so far of the OCSP to thrive, I've got to think the angels who donated the seed money for the Houston facilities made a bad choice.

I don't see evidence that the new OCSP leadership understands much of the problem to which Thompson partly refers.