I notice that Ed Wills, about whom we corresponded regarding his apparently failed attempt to gather an Ordinariate group at St Robert Bellarmine, Blue Springs, MO, will be ordained to the transitional diaconate next May. This was mentioned in an issue of the local diocesan paper which also mentioned that Fr Randy Sly has been appointed pastor of Our Lady of Sorrows, Kansas City and will continue as the administrator of Our Lady of Hope, the OCSP group which meets there, and that Fr Ernie Davis, the former administrator, will be taking over a diocesan parish. Fr Davis was a PP priest who was excardinated into the OCSP; perhaps he is returning to the Diocese of Kansas City.I'm back to scratching my head over the CEC. According to Wikipedia, "Worship in the ICCEC is sacramental, evangelical and charismatic," and "Many worship services have times of 'ministry in the Holy Spirit', during which such things as prophetic messages, anointing and prayers for healing, and other charismatic gifts are active." I would certainly want to know what Houston's position is on the practice of speaking in tongues during mass, since a number of former CEC clergy have been. or now will be, ordained into the OCSP, which is not the policy of the Pastoral Provision.In any event, Mr Wills seems to be an exact contemporary of Fr Sly, both having started university in 1971. [This suggests he was born in 1953, like Msgr Steenson.] Leaving aside the assumption that Mr Wills did not gather any former Anglicans to the 4 pm Vespers service, originally billed as an Anglican-style Evensong but now apparently a combination Bible Study and social event and his own slender connection to Anglicanism (his LinkedIn page indicates that he was a CEC clergyman from 1990-98), why does Kansas City need another OCSP priest, especially one in his mid-sixties? Mr Wills has been a Catholic for some years and is working as Social Justice Co-ordinator at SRB; no doubt the local diocese needs additional priests. But he would seem to do nothing for the OCSP's manpower issues.
My regular correspondent has speculated that a reason for Msgr Steenson's ouster may have been the practice of ordaining so many OCSP priests without groups, and who were unavailable to take over groups that lose their priests. But here we seem to have a very similar situation, so perhaps the CDF didn't see this as a problem after all.
Still, it's hard to avoid the continuing impression that OCSP priests are ordained with marginal qualifications and perfunctory examination, where they in fact seem to serve little purpose, perhaps only because someone owes someone a favor. At least the experience we have since Bp Lopes's arrival is that these marginal priests can also get pushed into retirement pretty quickly. But wasn't one factor in the clergy child abuse scandals the fact that marginal candidates were ordained priests, then retained with inadequate supervision and too much time on their hands?
I'm continuing to lose sympathy with this project.
