SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS -- That day had to come ... eventually. The day that Our Lady of the Atonement, the thriving Anglican Use Catholic parish and a jewel in the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter's crown, would officially change leadership. That the keys to the church and the Tabernacle would be turned over to a priest other than Fr. Christopher Phillips, the founding priest of the mother church of the Anglican Use and the Pastoral Provision patrimony in the United States.The visitor, who was there, said:That day came last week on the Feast of the Assumption -- August 15.
One thing worth noting is that the Bishop's sermon barely mentioned Fr. Phillips. As the above article reads like a glowing thank you letter to Fr. Phillips and speaks of a bittersweet feeling, there was scarcely anything of the sort in Steven Lopes's sermon. An unforgettable moment was when Bishop Lopes pointed to the parishioners and thanked THEM for their work in building the parish. Another memorable moment was the kind words Bishop Lopes said towards the Archbishop of San Antonio, Garcia-Siller, as also the promise of cooperation with the Archdiocese.Well, Fr Phillips has been, up to now, a hero of the dilettante Anglo-Catholic blogosphere, which has, however, disappeared almost completely. Despite Ms Mueller's overblown comparison with the Assumption, it's necessary to point out that Fr Phillips's retirement was forced on him prior to the canonical age, a black eye, and this would just as likely have happened under Msgr Steenson or Abp Garcia-Siller, as it in fact did under Bp Lopes.
On one hand, we can say that Our Lady of the Atonement was successful as a medium-size diocesan parish. On the other, it's remarkably puzzling that no other pastor or parish in the Anglican ecumenism program has been able to emulate even this success. We can, however, qualify this success by saying that from what we know, it was accompanied by financial irregularities, shielding apparent income and transactions from the archdiocese in the form of Our Lady's Dowry, as well as refusing to follow diocesan policies in the archbishop's appeal.
And this is only what's publicly known about finances. Beyond that is the strange relationship of Phillips with his deacon and longtime next-door neighbor, James Orr, and the shadow that accusations of Orr's impropriety with young boys casts on Phillips's premature retirement.
It seems to me that two related questions can reasonably be raised here. First, what went wrong at Our Lady of the Atonement? Second, why hasn't anyone in either the Pastoral Provision or the OCSP been able to do even as well as this modest performance, much less do better?
Ms Mueller, David Virtue, and the former dilettante Anglo-Catholic bloggers have done nobody any favors by not covering the serious problems and shortcomings in the Anglican ecumenism project. Effort would be far better spent in evangelizing non-Catholics as well as the fallen away toward diocesan parishes.
