Apropos of Fr Wolfe's age, if Fr Liias (his seminary classmate) was the minimum canonical age for Episcopalian ordination in 1974 (24) he will be 66 this year. The congregation of St Gregory the Great, Stoneham has been encouraged to begin attending St Athanasius, whose PP pastor was ordained in TEC in 1970, making him at least 70. Of course aging is not a consistent phenomenon, but until 2009 70 was the mandatory retirement age for clergy in the Archdiocese of Boston (now it is 75; whether this reflects better health care or a priest shortage I can only speculate). So St Athanasius, Brookline will be facing its own leadership issue soon enough.However, a regular visitor points out,
With respect to your blog post yesterday regarding the imminent retirement of Fr. Jurgen Llias and the fact that the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter does not have an immediate replacement available, it would be highly impracticable for the members of the Church of St. Gregory the Great, currently worshipping at St. Patrick's Church in Stoneham, Massachusetts, a suburb to the north of Boston, to worship with the members of the St. Athanasius Community, which worships at St. Lawrence Church in Chestnut Hill, a neighborhood at the junction of the municipalities of Boston, Brookline, and Newton.These communities are only about ten or fifteen miles apart as the crow flies, but the saying in local parlance is that "you can't get they-ah from hee-ah." The only major road into the Chestnut Hill area is Massachusetts Route 9, which is a secondary divided highway (limited access in some segments but a few signals in others) going due west and city streets to the east, so access to St. Lawrence Church is reasonably convenient only for those who live in the western neighborhoods of the city, in the nearby inner suburbs, and in the suburbs to the west.
From the suburbs to the north or to the south, one may either take the inner beltway around Boston, originally built as Route 128 and now designated as I-95 and the southernmost segment of I-93, around the city to Route 9 and then head eastward on Route 9 -- a route that is anything but direct -- or muddle through a labyrinth of congested city streets and winding secondary roads.
The highway route from St. Patrick's Church to St. Lawrence Church is over twenty-five (25) miles -- and St. Gregory the Great Church has already moved fifteen miles southward from its original location in Beverly, Massachusetts, to its present location, so the additional commute simply would not be viable for many of that congregation's parishioners.
And going the other way, many of the members of the St. Athanasius Community undoubtedly depend upon public transportation -- which does not provide convenient access to St. Patrick's Church, so a merger at St. Patrick's Church also would not be viable.
