I have two concerns. One is that, while the numbers here are so small that it's hard to establish a definite trend, it doesn't seem as though new groups are forming even at a rate to maintain the OCSP's numbers. Any small shift in the wind can blow this group away as easily as the others.
A second concern is much bigger, and it's grown as my Catholic formation has developed. I've said before that John Henry Newman is one thing, Thomas Aquinas is another. To stress Anglicanism as an element of spiritual formation is doing nobody any favors. Over the past several years, I've come to realize that not being raised in a Catholic family and not having a Catholic education have been major disadvantages in my life, and I've been doing the best I can to play catchup.
I'm enormously grateful for the Catholic resources that have been available to me in parishes, in the dioceses, in print, and on the web that have helped me to do this. One thing I've come to recognize is that all Catholics have the same set of spiritual and moral obligations. I simply don't see how there isn't something misleading about putting former Anglicans in a separate ecclesiastical structure with a separate liturgy. I'm especially skeptical about putting clergy whose formation has been in Episcopal, Methodist, or Presbyterian seminaries, and whose pastoral experience has been Protestant, in charge of the spiritual welfare of these people.
Nobody is doing these people in Louisville, or anywhere else, any favors, unless they're being brought into a much fuller Catholic life.
