In light of the 2008 Fort Worth Four fiasco, in which the Four acknowledged that their approach to Bp Vann was ill-advised and should not have occurred, I've come to think that the Catholic faction of Fort Worth clergy had become a headache to Bp Iker. I've got to think they were put on a short leash after 2008 and tolerated on the assurance that they were on their way out, but to have any more of the clique come in was not an option. And in light of the St Mary of the Angels experience, if Bartus was at all representative, there was a strong sense of spoiled-brat entitlement among the whole group -- I'm still shaking my head that the Four would publicly embarrass their bishop yet suffer so few consequences.
Handsome is as handsome does. Once the Fort Worth clique made it to the OCSP, there was a series of fiascos and embarrassments: the reversals by Our Lady of the Atonement and St Aidan's Des Moines; the protracted disaster in Hollywood; the public allegations of favoritism; the failed implementation of the ParishSoft system; and likely others that haven't come to light but influenced Steenson's and Hough III's removal. I can only think Bp Iker was happy to be rid of them all.
Let's look at what I've called the St Mary of the Angels frammis not, as I'd mostly seen it, as a hidden agenda involving primarily the Bush group and the ACA, but one in which the Fort Worth group was much more actively involved. From the Fort Worth perspective, their goal was essentially to rebuild a Catholic Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth in their image, when they'd been unable to prevail in the real Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth.
This involved finding preferments and sinecures for members of the clique, and it seems increasingly plain that Bartus, who shared both Texas A&M and Nashotah House with Hough IV, was a well-connected member -- I was told by a former St Mary's associate that Bartus would boast about how well-connected he was, but I used to discount this as just boasting. Now I think there may have been some substance to his assertions.
So I think the Fort Worth intent was to remove Fr Kelley and install a member of the clique, Andy Bartus, in his place. We now know that Steenson intended to make a similar move at Our Lady of the Atonement, so it looks like there was a pattern in operation. It appears that there was a great deal of back-channel character assassination against Fr Kelley, directed toward Fr Hurd, the vicar general, and probably Hough IV, who would have had Hough III's ear, and Steenson through both.
This included utterly spurious allegations of financial impropriety. With no actual evidence to bear them out, it was necessary to stage a scandal. This was done with the help of the parish treasurer, an essentially uncatechized and deeply troubled woman, who as far as we can tell agreed not to forward quarterly payments for employee tax withholding to the IRS. It appears that Bartus was fully aware of this scheme and may have been complicit to the extent of removing the IRS notices of overdue payments from incoming mail in the parish office.
Let's enumerate what this involved. Not paying taxes and tampering with mail are crimes, potentially felonies. Because the tax payments are deductions from workers' wages and are credited to the workers' accounts with the IRS, not paying the tax amounts to denying workers their wages, a sin that cries out to heaven. Trying to attribute this to Fr Kelley is false witness. Hurd and the Houghs, if they had any knowledge that any of this was in train and allowed it to continue, were complicit.
Let's go a little farther. Bartus had well-documented personality clashes with both his ACA bishop, Daren Williams, and his Patrimony bishop, David Moyer. He no doubt was complaining loudly about this to Hurd and the Houghs at every opportunity. Indeed, I've come to wonder how much Bartus's complaints about Moyer contributed to what appears to have been Steenson's request to Abp Chaput to deny Moyer his votum. But despite what to a normal person might have seemed a level of immaturity that required some type of probatory delay, the Fort Worth group seems to have been intent on putting Bartus, barely two years out of seminary and unstable, in charge of what would have been a major OCSP parish.
This is a sin against prudence. The frammis Bartus, Bush, Morello, and the others cooked up was too complicated, and it required too many things to fall exactly into place. It began to collapse over Easter 2012. That the Fort Worth group would think this would succeed is another sin against prudence, but it's increasingly plain that prudence was never their strong suit.
Yet it appears that Hurd and Steenson believed Strawn and Morello in May 2012 when the ACA pair assured them that they'd just get rid of Fr Kelley and straighten the parish out, turning it over to the OCSP when they were done, saving Steenson the effort. I'm still shaking my head.
I'm also still convinced that this fiasco probably can't be retrieved by Houston, no matter who tries.
