The answer here is clear: in 1993, Clarence Pope told Cardinal Ratzinger that 250,000 disaffected Episcopalians (of a denomination numbering a million) were poised to become Catholic, if only Mother Church would give them a bishop. The actual number as of 2016 in the US and Canada is probably fewer than 2500, although significantly, Houston seems to keep this figure a secret.
The first attempt at outreach to disaffected Episcopalians came in the context of the 1977 Congress of St Louis. Cardinal Law was directly involved in the breakaway movement, to the degree that those planning the 1978 Anglican Catholic Church consecrations of "continuing" bishops were advised against it if they wished unity with Rome. Whatever the outcome, Douglas Bess, the one serious chronicler of the "continuing" movement, made the point that the actual numbers of "continuers" were never enough to make TEC take notice.
The problem, as it has been presented to policymakers in Rome, has clearly been misstated and misrepresented. What are the actual problems facing the Church? Msgr Charles Pope suggests,
There is a growing consternation among some Catholics that the Church, at least in her leadership, is living in the past. It seems there is no awareness that we are at war and that Catholics need to be summoned to sobriety, increasing separation from the wider culture, courageous witness and increasing martyrdom.The problem for Houston -- or at least, the problem that I see most closely to hand -- is apparently this:It is long past dark in our culture, but in most parishes and dioceses it is business as usual and there is anything but the sober alarm that is really necessary in times like these.
Let me see. The Santiago Retreat Center currently has at least two chapels (a Marywood Chapel and a Rosary Chapel, as far as I can tell from its web sites). Additional chapels are planned. The two existing chapels serve 2-300 people per weekend, generally a lot fewer than go to mass at a typical diocesan parish. However, Fr Bartus, with Houston's approval, is seeking donors of $100,000 per year for what seems to me an ill-conceived project to renovate a cheap temporary building to make the interior look more like a medieval English country church, or something like that (actually, a mid-19th century fantasy of a medieval English country church).
This renovation will apparently serve two tiny groups: one, in Carlsbad, numbering perhaps 20; the other, in Irvine, numbering optimistically 100. The only situation I can imagine that parallels an effort like this would be a folly funded by an eccentric member of the lesser nobility (or an underperforming scion of a robber baron), a local curiosity in a rural neighborhood. It's hard not to think that this reflects at best an astonishing sense of entitlement among the priests and parishioners, as well as what seems to be an utterly misguided understanding of the issues facing Christians.
Is there no better purpose for which these fundraising appeals can be used? However, my regular correspondent has suggested that the proposals and appeals regarding the Walsingham renovation and related projects are "smoke and mirrors", largely a self-promoting enterprise by one of the priests involved. In my view, it reflects poorly on OCSP leadership that this sort of thing is permitted.
