Inaugural service/social event attracted fourteen attendees, according to Facebook. Many of the long-established groups attract fewer than that number for Sunday mass, so this is not a not a negligible start by Ordinariate standards, although we are always left to wonder what purpose it serves to have Catholics worshipping at Parish A switch their allegiance to Parish B, and why, if Fr Bartus is looking to grow his flock he does not focus his efforts on BlJHN.In effect, my correspondent is piping up with the inconvenient question, "What problem are we trying to solve here?" I think if we approach this from the supply-side perspective, we might get a better answer. The OCSP, especially in the US, has been clergy-centered, not people-centered, from before its official inception. It makes no difference from the viewpoint of its founding clergy whether 14 people show up or 1400, the point is that the Fort Worth clique advances in its respective careers.They currently worship in a relatively small chapel whose location may not be convenient for everyone in the congregation, but I do not think these problems will be solved by setting up satellite operations in communities where no one is available (other than Fr Bartus) to minister to them. In the past year least five OCSP groups have folded or greatly reduced their activity because their priest has retired or become incapacitated. It is presumably unrealistic to expect that clergy would be appointed to these new groups.
So the relevant question in Pasadena is, "How can Fr Bartus build an empire and look good to Bps Lopes, Vann, and Gómez?" It is more to his advantage to have a separate group where maybe a dozen celebrate evensong once a month than to add a dozen regular parishioners in Irvine, although from a diocesan perspective, all these numbers are nothing but statistical chatter. I suspect as well that he has another highly marginal candidate for ordination who will become his protégé in Pasadena a la Fr Baaten in Oceanside.
I think a better question for Bp Lopes to be asking would be, "If there is a market amounting to perhaps 100 people total in the Hollywood-Pasadena area for an OCSP parish, why not center it in the St Mary of the Angels facility? -- that group is the largest to start with and has a very nice church." Where there's a will there's a way.
