As many of you may know, Fr. Phillips, founder of Our Lady of the Atonement in San Antonio, the first “Anglican Use” parish in the United States, has been removed for a period of “discernment.” I am not privy to inside information except that which is in the public and on the internet. I do know of the desire of Fr. Phillips and of the parish to be a part of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter. That is also public knowledge. Our Lady of the Atonement, along with Our Lady of Walsingham in Houston (now the Cathedral of the Ordinariate), and a few years later St. Mary the Virgin, were those Texas-based “Anglican Use” parishes that aggrieved Episcopalian people like me, from afar, looked on with great interest and hope. It is sad and somehow not right that the situation has come to this. There is a website offering some information on this situation and I offer it in the name of charity: http://saveatonement.org/This is even-handed, though a mild endorsement of Fr Phillips's position. It does not contain, as Fr Hunwicke's comments did, a denunciation of Abp Garcia-Siller for not being Anglo-Saxon. The biggest question I would raise is that the only reason for supporting the parish Fr Dean provides is that they want to go into the Ordinariate, which is no more convincing than any other assertion of personal preference. And how does this differ from a "continuing" parish that votes itself from one jurisdiction to another?
However, my regular correspondent redirected my attention to comments at the Texas Public Radio site. The big issue I see there is that the OLA parish is by no means unanimous:
As to the "glad you left" comment, I think that emotions are running pretty high right now. As in any large family, and Atonement Parish is definitely a family, there are going to be family members whose actions disrupt the cohesion of the whole. That is a reality. The rancor that sometimes ensues over these occurrences is also a part of it.Overall, I'm not sure what the controversy is about. Clearly it has exacerbated personal differences within the parish, although some of the commenters feel this is an inevitable consequence. But beyond that, qui bono? Another comment:
One of the aspects of this which has not been mentioned is that His Excellency, Archbishop Garcia-Siller, offered to let Father Phillips incardinate into the Ordinariate, but without the Church, school, etc. that he has worked, with God's grace, to grow. This is a land and money grab, sadly.Someone might be able to clarify this, but isn't this all Fr Phillips is canonically entitled to? Normally, let's recall, he would have rotated among several diocesan parishes in an ordinary career. And beyond that, the parish and its property are legally owned by the archbishop as a corporation sole. The same commenter says,
Another aspect to consider is why is Archbishop Garcia-Siller the ONLY bishop that has refused a Pastoral Provision Parish from joining the Ordinariate? All other parishes from the Pastoral Provision have made the switch, and they were allowed to go with all of their property as well as parishioners (even those who were not Anglican converts).I'm not sure about how totals measure up, but I would guess that, of the small overall number that were ever Pastoral Provision parishes, about the same number have simply died out or been closed as have gone into the Ordinariate -- and only three large Texas parishes had significant value to their diocese. (I continue to see Scranton as a marginal special case.) I just don't see numbers large enough to establish a definite trend.
By the same token, I assume the OLA cathedraticum is potentially valuable to Houston, which needs the money. And if the membership of OLA is several thousand individuals, this would potentially double the membership of the OCSP. But here the small numbers hardly qualify as an argument in favor of the OCSP -- the archdiocese will survive without OLA, but the OCSP badly needs the prestige, membership, and money of OLA simply because it has not developed without them.
Not an argument in support of the move, even from SMA's perspective.
