This whole to-do also could be about money. The archbishop might want some compensation for the loss of income from the parish’s cathedraticum, or even some payback for whatever sum he thinks that the archdiocese may have invested in the erection of the parish over thirty years ago (I doubt that it was much since the parish, a distinct legal corporation from the archdiocese, purchased its own land and paid the full cost of construction of its buildings on its own).My regular correspondent had this observation:
Whatever we do or don't think about the OCSP, its existence is not the archbishop's call. Holding on to the parish as a diocesan asset seems small-minded when Fr Phillips built it literally from scratch. St Mary the Virgin, Arlington was sold to the OCSP for a symbolic $10, I gather. This is very bad news from Bp Lopes' perspective---not only the (apparently) failed negotiations and public squabble, but the membership and the revenue which OLA would provide, which I'm sure has been part of the plan.A different interpretation, toward which I'm inclined to lean, is that Fr Phillips did build the parish and school, but he had the diocesan Catholic franchise going for him. You can start a burger joint, which may or may not succeed, but if you can call it McDonald's, it has a much better chance. McDonald's clearly sees a value in its franchise -- it doesn't give away the use of its name, or indeed its recipes and practices, for free.
One thing we simply don't know is the exact terms under which the OLA parish is now proposed to move to the OCSP. A visitor suggested to me that the terms Msgr. Steenson originally negotiated with the archdiocese in early 2012 allowed the parish property to remain with the archdiocese while supposedly guaranteeing the right of the Ordinariate to have perpetual use of the church for at least one Sunday Mass. This apparently wasn't communicated to Fr Phillips and was one of the reasons the parish reversed itself on going into the OCSP at that time.
Social media protests by OLA parishioners suggest that some element of the archdiocese's plan for the parish involves a renewed attempt to limit the BDW liturgy to one mass per week. It appears to me that the terms of the transfer might have been under continued negotiation. While one might ideally expect any diocese to be generous in transferring property to the OCSP, in other cases like Bridgeport and Scranton, the properties involved have been deteriorated and otherwise unused and in fact a potential liability to the diocese. This is not the case in San Antonio.
(Note as well the Scranton instance where the diocese sold a downtown building that previously housed a Catholic bookstore. The diocese saw enough continued value in the Catholic bookstore franchise that it apparently included a restriction forbidding the purchaser from reopening a Catholic bookstore there. Generosity must be tempered with prudence.)
Certainly the archbishop might have felt that canonical moves to transfer the parish, without the financial terms of the transfer being fully negotiated, could be premature and could even be construed as being in bad faith. My main concern here is that the OLA parish has been of significant value to the diocese, and the diocese is under no obligation give away valuable property and a valuable franchise for free -- indeed, it has a fiduciary obligation and its spiritual equivalent to give it proper financial value.
The premature publicity over this has clearly caused a mess. The archdiocese may have been partly responsible, but I certainly agree with my commentator that the social-media agitation from the OLA parishioners has been unhelpful, will potentially limit a satisfactory solution, and could destroy the parish and school.
As another visitor has noted, these people are out of control.
