One obvious problem with that theory is that all three of OCSP's newest seminarians were already studying for the diocesan priesthood; one each for San Antonio, Baltimore and Orlando. The San Antonian's claim to any Anglican relationship seems to be having been part of the Schola at OLA's Latin Mass for a year between seminaries. Whether he joined the Ordinariate Seminary for the specific reason of wanting to later serve at OLA or not, it's difficult to figure what diocesan parish he might later help out at.This brings me back to a view that other visitors have sometimes given here, with which I'm in sympathy: Anglicanorum coetibus is in effect the Catholic wing of the "continuing Anglican" movement, and as such, it attracts a ready-made constituency of the unhappy. But as far as I can see, there are now at least two tiers of OCSP priests, those who came in as married Anglicans, a substantial number of whom I think are opportunists who couldn't continue careers as Protestants, and now a completely new generation of celibate seminarians who are receiving a much more complete Catholic formation.
Of the opportunists, many built their previous careers, or their networks, largely on the basis of being against TEC or what it stood for. This bears some resemblance to the strategy of medical quacks, who use legitimate objection to the medical and pharmaceutical establishment to give credibility to otherwise much less credible proposals. Not all OCSP priests are in this category, but some do fit. However, it's eventually going to shake out that they're not going to obey any authority, and I think that's what we're now seeing in the case of people like Fr Phillips.
In other words, I think there's a pro-Catholic side of the OCSP, which is altogether a good thing, and I would suggest that's Bp Lopes as well. He is a fully formed Catholic who seems to have some sympathy for Anglican liturgy, but he clearly has no intention of going native.
Another visitor takes exception to my view that Anglican (or Reformed) seminary training is insufficient for the Catholic priesthood. He says
In the four-year theology curriculum of St. John’s Seminary here in the Archdiocese of Boston( on pages 34-35), which probably is fairly typical of most Catholic seminaries, there is only ONE required course in moral theology and the listing of electives for the current academic year shows no electives at all in this area. The practical reality is that one course is about enough time to cover fundamental principles and some of the most common scenarios to which they apply. Some years ago, I took a course that specifically focused on Christian sexual ethics at another Catholic school of theology and seminary — and we did discuss various aspects of homosexuality in some detail in that course, but pornography never entered the discussion. Thus, it seems unlikely that a broader course in moral theology would go into much detail on that subject. And I have never seen a course about the occult on the syllabus of any Catholic seminary, even though it is a very significant issue in Catholic ministry today because so many ostensibly Catholic young people have gotten into it.But if you read or listen to just about any Catholic apologist, from Fr Ripperger to Prof Feser to Scott Hahn to Bp Barron to Fr Schmitz to Patrick Madrid -- and many others -- you will get very consistent and detailed views on Catholic moral theology that certainly don't water down their treatments of same-sex attraction, pornography, or the occult. These are mainstream Catholic views that must come from somewhere. If not in seminary, they must result from serious Catholic formation in some other way, and again, I am deeply skeptical that any Protestant seminary, or any informal parts of Protestant clerical formation, can have the same effect.
If subsequent cohorts of OCSP priests become pro-Catholic rather than anti-TEC or anti any bishop, so much the better. But then I'm less convinced that Anglican "distinctveness" will bring much to that party.
