Is The Push On?

My regular correspondent reports,

The OCSP has issued, perhaps in lieu of the Ordinariate Observer, a booklet celebrating the highlights of 2016. It will be available online in a week or two. The ordination of Glenn Baaten is one of the featured items. 'Nuff said. But the production of this puff piece corroborates your hypothesis that there is some pressure to demonstrate that things just couldn't be better at the OCSP.

As I've said before, any Catholic who isn't in danger of death who goes to Fr Baaten for confession is reckless. Bp Lopes is responsible if he holds this guy up as a celebrity of some sort. My correspondent has also had some concern that Bp Lopes has been pushing parishes to acquire property. He found these remarks from the pastor at St Luke's Washington following Bp Lopes's episcopal visit (last page):

Now that we have celebrated our fifth anniversary in the Catholic Church (and what a wonderful celebration it was!), we now turn our attention toward the future. Obviously, our most important mission is the salvation of souls; to help all people grow in the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ and his church. In addition, we are called to serve those less fortunate. We will always endeavor to keep these mandates as our focus.

With that said, we must ask the question, where? Where will this ministry take place? God has been very good to us, in leading us home to Holy Mother Church. He has provided for our immediate needs, mostly through the graciousness of Cardinal Wuerl and the Archdiocese of Washington and the people of Immaculate Conception Catholic Church. However, as Bishop Lopes stated to me during his visit with us last month, “We cannot sleep on our neighbor’s couch forever, no matter how comfortable. Sooner or later that arrangement will prove to be unworkable.” Thus, we should now turn our efforts toward securing a permanent home for the ministry of St. Luke’s, and for the Chair of St. Peter in our nation’s capital.

But the parish had already given up a permanent building when it proved too expensive -- and indeed, any smallish group in an older building, like Bridgeport or Scranton, is likely to have the same issues.

I think the OCSP runs the risk of relying on smoke and mirrors to conceal what was a bad idea from the start.