Tuesday, June 13, 2017

Mission Creep

Regarding how other US bishops might potentially look at OCSP groups-in-formation, my regular correspondent notes,
The model was supposed to be "groups of Anglicans" entering together; a clergyman leading his Anglican parish into the Church, and then attracting other Anglicans and other Protestants into the community. Many of the original OCSP communities included Catholics who had been worshipping in an Anglican parish but were reconciled to the Church through the AC process. So this is all good.

But by and large the "gathered" groups have been quite different: former Anglicans who became Catholic years ago, and cradle Catholics who had never met an Anglican until (former) Fr Lacey-Cotta invited them to Evensong and wine-and-cheese. These people have been attending and contributing to Our Lady of Czestochowa or wherever up to this point; their departure to a non-diocesan parish is not building up the Church, not building up the local diocese, it's just the Scilly Islanders making a living by taking in one another's washing.

I can well see that a diocesan bishop would feel that this is a diversion of resources that are currently his.

I would also say that to suggest the OCSP-DW mass is one of only a few alternatives to irreverent, guitar-and-tambourine OF masses in dioceses does a real disservice to the faith as actually practiced. Certainly there are guitar-and-tambourine masses, though they may be all a particular parish can afford. Certainly there are liturgical abuses, though conscientious effort at the diocesan level may be able to minimize them. But the publishers of Catholic hymnals manage to stay in business with hard copy versions like the GIA Gather.

My wife and I have found, both in the LA archdiocese and elsewhere, that there's a great deal of variation in how masses are celebrated in OF. I don't see the point of trying to start an Anglican group in some little chapel when there are so many better alternatives in easy driving distance, pretty much anywhere. Anglicans who want to become Catholic are cutting themselves off from the whole body of the Church, while cradle Catholics who reject a reverent OF in favor of a little group in a chapel are kinda crazy.