Here's A Set Of Questions

These all center on when and how, should it be necessary, the CDF decides to pull the plug on any of the Anglican ordinariates. I did some preliminary research on the issue of closing and merging Catholic diocesan parishes and came up with some interesting questions:

• The typical numbers given in hypothetical examples of parish mergers and suppression are much bigger than all but the largest OCSP communities. In one example, a parish's Sunday attendance falls from 100 to 35. In another, the parish has $750,000 in debt that it can't pay. Numbers that a bishop would normally think are unsustainably small are more than are typical in the OCSP.
• Discussions distinguish between the process of suppressing or merging a parish and closing church buildings. However, fewer than a dozen OCSP parishes own their buildings, and it seems unlikely that this number will increase. In fact, of the parishes that own buildings, the status seems shaky in several.
• The majority of OCSP communities are in fact chapel groups that have the use of small spaces in diocesan buildings. When does the OCSP decide these groups are unlikely to thrive or continue? Can any such chapel groups point to significant growth, i.e., the potential to acquire property?
• In that connection, why is Houston unable to release reliable statistics on overall membership, participation in the bishop's appeal, or membership numbers for individual groups and parishes?