The original proposal for an Anglican personal prelature took place in a 1993 meeting between Cardinal Ratzinger and Episcopalians Clarence Pope and Jeffrey Steenson. In the meeting, Pope estimated that 250,000 Episcopalians were ready to leave TEC and enter with their parishes into a Catholic personal prelature. Then-Pope John Paul II appears to have been unenthusiastic about the idea and told Ratzinger to pursue it through the CDF, where it would not have been approved. To avoid a "no" vote, the idea was dropped.
When Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI in 2005, the idea was revived. Clarence Pope, by then in failing health, was no longer suitable as presumptive ordinary for a US prelature and was apparently replaced then with Jeffrey Steenson, who had become Bishop Coadjutor of the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande in early 2005 and would succeed to the see later that year. At that time, there was renewed dissatisfaction within TEC over issues like the consecration of an openly same-sex cohabiting bishop, Eugene Robinson. Steenson, a small clique of TEC clergy surrounding him, and presumably sympathetic figures in the Vatican like the disgraced Cardinal Bernard Law, believed that this provided an opening for the large numbers of TEC members, including their parishes and clergy, to enter a newly-erected prelature.
Steenson resigned his Episcopal Church see in 2007 and proceeded to Rome to begin the process of conversion and ordination as a married Catholic priest. It was probably an open secret, especially among the clique of TEC clergy surrounding him, that he was going to be ordinary-in-waiting of a US prelature, well before the 2009 promulgation of Anglicanorum coetibus. It's worth stressing that the clear intent of the constitution was to bring in existing Anglican parishes with their clergy. In the US, this almost certainly meant TEC, with "continuers" something of an afterthought.
In actuality, almost no full Episcopal parishes came over as units to the OCSP. In contrast to developments following the contemporary formation of the ACNA, there were no landmark lawsuits between TEC and former parishes going to the OCSP, and certainly not dioceses. This is significant: TEC did not hesitate to file suit over parishes trying to leave with valuable property. The small number of TEC parishes that entered the OCSP as units with property went in with few obstacles or even, in at least one case, with the blessing of the bishop. This means TEC simply saw their departure as no great loss.
The parallel and contemporary formation of the ACNA and the OCSP reflects a major miscalculation in the implementation of Anglicanorum coetibus. I've been told by a knowledgeable party, but have inferred the same from the public record, that Jeffrey Steenson was not a popular figure in TEC. He was seen as a climber and self-promoter and was not well liked. Few clergy outside his small clique were likely to follow him to Rome. But beyond the personal issues, Rome misunderstood the basic factional questions in Anglicanism which TEC Bp Iker and his allies saw much more clearly: Episcopalians could object to TEC's policies on same-sex marriage or gay bishops, but they didn't necessarily object to ordaining women or the 1979 BCP.
Beyond that, there was a substantial low-church faction in TEC for whom going to Rome was unacceptable. "Continuing" denominations were also largely low-church. For the Protestant groups, especially in the Bible Belt, the ACNA was a better alternative, while "continuers" chose to remain what they were.
The result was that after the erection of the OCSP in 2012, it appears that Steenson and the small clique who had gone in with him began to realize that they were not going to get what they had been planning to get all along, significant numbers of TEC parishes, perhaps entire dioceses, coming in as a body. This happened with the ACNA, but not with the OCSP. This was important: it meant that the OCSP wasn't going to get the experienced clergy it had expected, but just as important, it wasn't going to get a large pool of laity with experience as parish vestry and volunteers, nor major donors, nor experienced staff.
This became a major problem when the OCSP tried to implement parish censuses and ordinariate-wide fundraising: clergy, staff, and volunteers do not appear to have been up to fairly simple responsibilities. It's been reported to me that Msgr Steenson complained to colleagues at bishops' conferences that his subordinates were incompetent. A factor in the overall disappointment of the OCSP was that there was no talent pool from which to draw or develop clergy and staff.
This is playing out in 2017. Msgr Steenson's removal was inevitable, but a question remains whether his replacement, Bp Lopes, can produce acceptable results from the same pool of clergy, staff, and volunteers. Removing the Steenson clique has not been a guarantee that a more capable group could take over. As information about prospective new ordinands begins to emerge, a disturbing picture is coming into focus: clergy and religious with limited Anglican backgrounds, spotty and undistinguished prior careers.
It's hard to avoid the impression that Bp Lopes is under increasing pressure to demonstrate success, but he's working with the resources available to him that he's inherited from the previous regime. So far, his ability to recruit new clergy suggests that those who are filling vacancies are simply not up to the standards of those leaving or retiring. This is not an encouraging development.
