In addition, the other day I called Msgr Stetson's role in mentoring the transition of the St Mary's parish into the OCSP "feckless". Let's look at the timeline once again. In December 2011, Stetson told the parish that it would be received on the first Sunday of 2012, but there was an immediate backtrack, and Houston requested another parish vote on entering the OCSP in late January. With a vote showing an even more favorable majority for the move, Houston proceeded to dither.
By Easter Monday 2012, the Bush group and the ACA made their first attempt to seize the property and by all indications install Andrew Bartus as rector, called by an insurgent Bush "vestry". At that time, when it became plain that Bartus was working closely with Mrs Bush, the real rector dismissed him from the parish. However, although the first takeover attempt should have been a clear warning to Stetson and Houston that the parish's entry to the OCSP could be derailed, no attempt was made to secure the parish legally, or informally, by reminding Anthony Morello and Bps Strawn and Marsh of the OCSP's intent. (Instead, the ACA may have convinced Houston that they could get rid of Fr Kelley without leaving Houston's fingerprints on the deed.)
By May 2012, the ACA made its second attempt to seize the property by obtaining a temporary restraining order, which was almost immediately revoked by the judge. In a parish meeting, Strawn and Morello announced that they were taking over the parish to correct unspecified irregularities and then turn it over to the OCSP. The "irregularities", of course were non-existent. The odd thing was that by this point, Msgr Stetson had withdrawn from active "mentoring" of the parish and was instead busily facilitating Bartus's reception, with some members of his clique, as Catholics via the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. (Shouldn't his clear willingness to undermine authority have been a bigger issue?) But the bottom line is that Stetson and Steenson between them failed to secure a multimillion-dollar property and a five-figure cathedraticum.
This is the overall background from the parish's perspective -- but the more I learn, the more Fr Phillips appears at key points in this story. Both Phillips and Stetson were involved well before 2012 in the original plans to bring St Mary of the Angels into the OCSP-in-formation. I keep coming back to a meeting at the St Mary's parish in December 2010, which was reported extensively by most of the dilettantes in the then Anglo-Catholic blogosphere. Most of these posts have disappeared with the blogs that carried them, but a typical one still exists here. (This report was from Bartus, who at the time had been ordained an ACA deacon for less than six months, but he had already clashed with his then-bishop, who had inhibited him and was refusing to ordain him a priest. This was fine with Houston, though.)
Fr Phillips, a "showboat" in the view of this blog, was clearly publicizing his role in the meeting on many venues. A video of his talk at the parish can be found here, apparently courtesy of him. Bartus clearly had been ingratiating himself with Phillips by this time -- it's not clear how much of the December 2010 meeting, with Phillips in attendance, was at Bartus's instigation. One thing I note about all the blog coverage of the meeting is that, while Fr William Bower of the ACA Lancaster, CA parish is mentioned, there is absolutely no mention of the meeting's host at St Mary of the Angels, Fr Kelley. This is discourteous to say the least, but it also shows Phillips's and Bartus's priorities.
In 2011, Fr Phillips flew out to Hollywood from Texas in the middle of the week to baptize Bartus's first child, another indication of what had apparently become a close mentor-protégé relationship. Bartus had also been feathering his nest in other ways, relying on his schoolmate at both Texas A&M and Nashotah House, Charles Hough IV, to enhance his standing with the Fort Worth clique in Houston. Among those who knew him at the time, he boasted extensively about his influential connections -- he told me at one point that he'd been tasked with writing the new liturgy. It's hard to avoid thinking that his agenda was to become rector of St Mary of the Angels, certainly at the time one of very few prosperous posts among the groups seeking to enter the OCSP, despite his youth, inexperience, and enormous ego.
By May 2012, the ACA was occupying the St Mary's property without legal authority as squatters, and that same month, the Our Lady of the Atonement parish withdrew its request to join the OCSP. It's hard to avoid thinking that Fr Phillips had intended to use the OCSP as a venue for continued showboating, and whatever the specifics of his clash with Msgr Steenson, this wasn't going to happen. By the same token, Bartus, who seems to have had the favor of just about everyone who counted in the runup to the OCSP, was relegated to putting together a gathered group in the 'burbs, with uninspiring results to this day, and teaching school as a day job.
What strikes me here is that the St Mary of the Angels parish, with its loyal friends, parishioners, and vestry under Fr Kelley, is the entity that's survived and seems to be prevailing over just about every disadvantage put in its path over this period. Msgr Steenson and Fr Phillips are emeriti, a face-saving designation for both. Msgr Stetson is, as far as I'm aware, nowhere to be found in connection with the parish or the OCSP, whatever his continued role in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. The ACA Diocese of the West is increasingly moribund, and even the survival of the ACA is not assured. My own view is that the OCSP will shrink to a small number of viable parishes, mostly in Texas, and these will eventually be given over to dioceses, where they'll be small potatoes.
"Feckless" is one of my favorite words. I do not use it in connection with Fr Kelley or his vestry.
