Yet More On Stockport

The first visitor who provided an update here on Fr Kenyon's situation has elaborated further:

Fr Kenyon knew months in advance that he had been appointed to Our Lady's parish. Unknown to the parishioners, his parents had been coming to the weekend masses observing and no doubt reporting back to him what Our Lady's was like. Even from the outside it must have been obvious to his parents what the presbytery was like. The comment “a precipitous drop overlooking a railway marshaling yard" is incorrect. The busy railway sits across a busy road and is protected by a high wall. There is no realistic danger of falling onto the tracks.

When it was announced that our parish priest was leaving Our Lady's to make way for Fr Kenyon and his family, there was considerable anger by many parishioners. A lot of people wrote to the Bishop protesting at the appointment of Fr Kenyon before he had even arrived at Our Lady's. Of course, this was wrong and did nothing to make him feel welcome. Fr Kenyon knew that the Bishop had received unwelcoming correspondence about him and that a volatile situation existed before he even arrived in Stockport, yet almost immediately, he started making changes in Our Lady's much to the annoyance of many. Instead of attempting to calm things, he did the exact opposite. Could it be that Fr Kenyon failed to 'read' the situation correctly? An experienced priest would not have allowed the situation to deteriorate in the way it did. Things then escalated rapidly out of control. This could be attributable to a lack of experience.

It was suggested that the parishioners were cruel and unfriendly to him. Whilst some did indeed treat him unfairly, it must be said that the situation was not helped by rumors circulated that all the parishioners were hostile to him. From certain perspectives, it appeared that he was attempting to shift the blame for his problems onto the parishioners. That certainly did not help matters at all.

This unfortunate matter has done considerable damage to the reputation of Our Lady's Church. Whilst Fr Kenyon cannot be entirely to blame, he must shoulder the majority of the responsibility for whats happened. He has put his family through a traumatic experience, and he has left our parish community seriously damaged and hurt.

A common list of pastoral qualities that I see on Catholic sites includes these, among others:

• Ability to work with others
• Respect for other people
• Good social skills
• Capacity and desire to learn
• Capacity for friendship

Fr Kenyon was among the most senior priests in the OCSP, leading a full parish and the vicar forane for a deanery, yet it appears that he was lacking in many of these qualities. The visitor suggests, quite reasonablhy, that Fr Kenyon had a "lack of experience". This raises once more the question of why he left Calgary, what Bp Lopes knew, and why he thought moving Fr Kenyon was a good idea. I find it very hard to imagine that, given the reputation he's so quickly established, Fr Kenyon can find another appointment in the Diocese of Shrewsbury, or perhaps anywhere in the UK.

Another visitor noted,

RE: Fr. Kenyon, it’s very common that a new job proves to be utterly wrong almost from Day 1. Infant mortality in such positions happens all the time. It’s a shame that this case with Fr. Kenyon happened, given what apparently should have been careful pastoral oversight in his making the move. Yet I know you know such things happen in the real world, just as they do in marriages, sports coaching, etc.

I agree that I have unhappy personal experience of jobs being wrong from day one! On the other hand, looking back on those experiences, they arose pretty consistently because I was working in a new field, and in one particular case, it was a highly secure environment where I couldn't have known much about it beforehand anyhow. In those cases, expectations were unknowable or unreasonable-but-concealed. In Fr Kenyon's case, it seems as though the qualities that would be required of him were very clear, expectations were consistent throughout the Church, and in fact, given the account above, his parents had been scouting out the parish for months.

It's entirely possible, though, that Bp Lopes had no real understanding of the problems that might confront an ordinariate priest going into a UK diocesan parish, and the Bishop of Shrewsbury had little understanding of what a fuss-and-feathers OCSP priest might be like. This reflects especially on Bp Lopes, as it seems as if his job knowledge is limited and overspecialized, and he seems to have been unaware of possible issues with Fr Kenyon's personal style.

I see a subtext in the account above, that the parishioners at Our Lady's somehow sensed that the personnel move involved in Fr Kenyon's arrival was not in their primary interest, and it was somehow to be in furtherance of Fr Kenyon's circumstances, not their spiritual well-being. The clergy-centered culture in the OCSP is a major factor here. The need for repeated visits to St Luke's by Fr Phillips and the apparent short-notice visit by Bp Lopes to Calgary make me think the problem in Stockport isn't unique.

I think Abp Hepworth, Fr Kelley, and the people and vestry of St Mary's need to hold off on any decisions to join the OCSP until such matters become clearer.

UPDATE: My regular correspondent comments,

Virtually all of the OOLW clergy below retirement age are in diocesan ministry; the UK Ordinariate has no stipendiary positions. But I have read of no situations along the lines of Fr Kenyon's epic fail. Presumably they have mothballed their birettas and gotten with the local program. Of course there will be disappointment when a highly valued pastor has to be moved to make way for an unknown commodity. But the push-back must have been epic.

This suggests to me that the Bishop of Shrewsbury thought he was getting something much more like an OOLW priest, he didn't understand the difference -- and, I'm afraid, neither almost certainly did Bp Lopes.

The Missed Opportunity In Stockport

Another parishioner at Our Lady and the Apostles Stockport e-mailed me:

I've been enjoying reading your posts on Fr Kenyon, since I met him during his very brief time at Our Lady. I was disappointed that he did not stick around in the post, but fully understand why he thought it better to leave it straight away.

The stated reason for his departure has nothing to do with spiritual differences, even though he did seem like a fish out of water. The problem was that the presbytery, although massive, is totally unsuitable as a family home, and the diocese made little effort to rectify this before his arrival. There were some things they could not change: it has no garden, opening out straight onto a concrete car park with a busy road just feet away, and a precipitous drop overlooking a railway marshalling yard. I'd rather bring up my family next to a nuclear reactor than there

I hope that he finds another post in the diocese soon, since whatever his faults, there's a desperate shortage of priests around here, and most are elderly and overworked.

I have a few reactions here. One is that whatever changes may have been made to accommodate Fr Kenyon's family, no rectory was ever designed or meant to be a family home suitable for toddlers and kids. Isn’t this part of the contradiction that seems rooted in Kenyon’s expectations? My regular correspondent said, "Well of course the idea that children have to be raised in the middle of a country estate is absurd." A search of Google satellite indicates that while an important rail line is perhaps half a block away, there doesn't appear to be an actual risk of falling onto the tracks from the back door. Rail lines in the UK are typically well fenced.

The visitor here does liken Fr Kenyon to a "fish out of water", whether his spiritual needs were being met there or not. My regular correspondent remarked,

I do feel that he must have found the OF mass a trial. There were, gasp, girl servers! Versus populum. No altar rail. Female EMHCs administering the chalice. Etc. Presumably parishes with liturgies resembling SJE are in short supply. But surely he knew this.

and later,

Was he expecting the Brompton Oratory? A number of OOLW clergy have built up the diocesan parishes to which they have been assigned by making changes in ceremonial, music, etc that have been appreciated by locals as well as any Ordinariate members in the neighbourhood. Could Fr Kenyon not have taken this on as a challenge? So many alternatives, it seems to me, to throwing in the towel after 3.5 weeks..

But look at the Our Lady and the Apostles church building itself. It's a registered architectural landmark, although the Wikipedia entry doesn't mention that it's a fascinating example of art nouveau. Quick aside: the only potential equivalent candidate for the OCSP is St Mary of the Angels Hollywood. The Wikipedia entry says that Our Lady and the Apostles Church replaced St Philip and St James Church. In 1905, the church was built. It was designed by Edmund Kirby. The front of the church is similar to Sacred Heart Church in Chorley which Kirby designed in 1894. The stained-glass windows in the church are attributed to Margaret Agnes Rope. In 1925, the sanctuary was redesigned to become a First World War memorial.

Regarding the organ, Wikipedia says

The church contains a 3 manual pipe organ with 49 speaking stops and 2088 pipes. The organ was originally built by the local organ builders Hardy & Son as a 2 manual instrument. The organ was rebuilt and considerably enlarged by the Manchester company of Jardine & Co in 1955. In 1985 George Sixsmith, organ builders, carried out further changes including the rebuild of the choir organ as well as adding new pipes and other minor changes. Apart from the changes to the choir section, the instrument remains largely similar to the rebuild of 1955.

Surely something could be tried, if not actually accomplished, with the opportunity. That Fr Kenyon should so quickly give it up, for whatever reason, is a most disappointing situation.

UPDATE: A visitor remarks,

I had to laugh when I read about the train tracks. I did a Google Street view and I did not see anything overly dangerous. I saw a typical European city street. The "precipitous drop overlooking a railway marshalling yard" is down the street, and guarded by 7 foot tall brick walls. You might want to show a screenshot. I have noticed this pattern in clergy. I expect this attitude when I watch millennials on Property Hunters. But from a priest, I expect behavior more like that of Abraham setting out.

Beyond that, I assume many folks in North America would be delighted to have the train service available from the Stockport station!

There's A Lot That's Upside-Down Here

A visitor probably spoke for many others when he commented regarding Fr Kenyon, "Saying it was 'for family reasons' -- certainly a cheap excuse that makes his noncommittal sound virtuous." I'll say this: I've been selected for criminal juries from large prospective juror pools, which implies that I have common sense and an ability to surmise the likely truth behind conflicting stories and complicated evidence. Even people who disagree with me here, including priests, acknowledge that I have a remarkable ability to get things right. To the question of whether "family reasons" actually led to the Stockport calamity, I'd say they almost certainly didn't.

In fact, whatever the actual cause, we can conclude that Fr Kenyon chose to become a Catholic priest, a field for which he was clearly unsuited for a range of reasons beyond any specific one, and he put his family at high and unnecessary risk by doing so. My sympathy and prayers go out to all his relatives, his wife, and his children. I'll discuss the responsibility of other parties below.

But let's give the known circumstances the most innocent possible reading (although a juror isn't necessarily called to do this; jurors have to ascertain the reading they can agree on beyond a reasonable doubt). The reasons Fr Kenyon left Calgary earlier this year aren't clear, but the public version is that they were at least vaguely family-related. My regular correspondent commented,

I don't think "family reasons" was cited as a cause of the departure from Calgary. Fr Kenyon just pointed out that his parents and three siblings all lived in the Manchester area. This was interpreted by some commenters as a statement that he was needed to look after elderly parents or something of that sort but he never said that. My personal guess was that he wanted his kids to get an experience of living in England and spending time with that side of the family. He took his younger son there for March Break this year.

So maybe he was homesick for England, and maybe he was concerned that his kids weren't growing up sufficiently English (leaving aside whatever that means). So he decided to relocate them to Stockport, prevailing on his bishop to find him a different appointment and prevail on the Bishop of Shrewsbury to empty an otherwise occupied rectory so he and his family could relocate to a parish there. But after a matter of weeks, he decides, as far as we can tell, that Shrewsbury was still not English enough for his family, since he cites them specifically this time as a reason for leaving the parish so quickly. According to my regular correspondent, though, Mrs Kenyon hails from Idaho, so I'm not sure if even she was a judge of Englishness. (However, his farewell letter clearly indicates he expects to pursue a continued career as a Catholic priest in "pastures new".)

OK. We have the recent testimony of Msgr Kurzaj, appointed parish administrator of Our Lady of the Atonement by Abp Garcia-Siller, that a diocesan priest goes where his bishop sends him, and it didn't sound as if he wanted that job at OLA. But he went and did his best at it. We have the ancient examples of St Paul, St James the Great, and St Thomas the Apostle, who died many miles from their native places. We have Luke 9:59-61:

59 To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” 60 But he said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” 61 Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.”

For some reason, Bp Lopes seems to have found an overriding need to accommodate Fr Kenyon's family issues. Again, I doubt if it was family issues that actually led to the Stockport calamity, bad as it must be for the Kenyon family. I suspect it's a bigger calamity for Bp Lopes and the whole Anglican ecumenism project. We're looking at a very clear situation where accommodating a priest's family was beyond inconvenient, it created a situation that was completely unnecessary. I would venture that the UK bishops have their own lines of communication to the Holy See and through it the CDF, and this business can't be good for Bp Lopes's career.

Another issue is whether the OCSP ever had a competent vocations director, or whether Fr Kenyon ever had competent supervision. There was an issue, whatever it was, that was serious enough (even acknowledging that wanting his kids to speak more like Mancunians could, at least in some universe, be a serious matter) to force him out of Calgary. Somehow, Fr Kenyon's superiors seem to have thought the best way to handle it would be to pack him off where nobody would notice, because whatever the actual problem, they were incapable of dealing with it themselves.

My wife, reading yesterday's post, said at best, this is a powerful argument for clerical celibacy. Clearly it's an issue in OCSP, as it was in the Archdiocese of San Antonio and the Phillips family, that wives and children of priests become little groups of hostages that prevent normal imposition of clerical discipline. But I'm starting to see shortcomings in Bp Lopes that go beyond even these constraints.

More On Fr Kenyon; Bp Lopes To Visit Calgary October 1

In response to my e-mail to the Our Lady and the Apostles Stockport, UK, I received the following:

Fr Lee Kenyon did indeed come to Our Lady's in early August of this year. He stayed for approximately 3.5 weeks. The reasons for his sudden departure are complex, suffice to say that Our Lady's was not suitable for his spiritual needs. I attach a letter that was circulated to the parishioners of Our Lady's following his departure. As far as I am aware, Fr Lee Kenyon is now residing in the Manchester area. He now has no involvement with Our Lady's Stockport

The text of the letter from Fr Kenyon to the parish reads thus:

Dear Parishioners of Our Lady's

As some of you already know, on Friday 1st September Father Francis Nnadi assumed the pastoral and sacramental care of Our Lady and the Apostles.

Whilst it has been my very real privilege to have served and ministered in this parish, albeit for only the month of August, I am sorry to say that, for family reasons, this appointment has not worked out as we had either hoped or anticipated. I am, nonetheless, grateful for the kindnesses shown to myself and my family, and we wish to assure you that we will continue to hold the people and parish of Our Lady's in prayer as we seek to do God's will, for the work and mission of both the Ordinariate and the Diocese of Shrewsbury, in pastures new.

Please extend to Father Francis a very warm welcome back to Our Lady's.

In Christ and Our Lady,

The Reverend Lee Kenyon

I hardly know what to say, except this must be an enormous black eye to Bp Lopes and the OCSP, putting the Bishop of Shrewsbury to what seems to have been a great deal of trouble to rearrange clergy accommodations to suit Fr Kenyon and his family, only to have the thing turn into an epic fail in less than a month. Well, it didn't meet Fr Kenyon's spiritual needs. I assume word of this has quickly gotten around chanceries in the UK, and probably in the US as well.

My regular correspondent informs me that Bp Lopes is to visit St John the Evangelist Calgary next Sunday, October 1. I assume they'll have a lot to talk about.

Fr Phillips Back At St Luke's

l

A visitor pointed out this announcement on the St Luke's web page. I was puzzled why this was taking place, since Fr Phillips had already visited the parish after the announcement of Fr Lewis's move to Our Lady of the Atonement, and Fr Vidal is scheduled to arrive just the following Sunday. I ran this by my regular correspondent, who discovered that Fr Phillips is driving on to New York today to receive some kind of Catholic education award on behalf of the Academy. In Washington, according to his FB page he has been staying at St Anselm's Abbey there. Nevertheless, air fare and car rental, with other incidental expenses, will be well over $1000. Presumably St Luke's is sharing some of these expenses and paying Fr Phillips an honorarium as well. My regular correspondent comments,

Fr Rick Kramer was supposed to be filling in until Fr Vidal arrives next week. He is the Director of Family Life or some such for the local archdiocese. By OCSP standards St Luke's seems pretty robust: it has a very professional-looking monthly newsletter, an up-to-date website, is involved in local social ministry. [T]hey have a building fund (the amount of $80,000 sticks in my mind, but I am still looking for it). They recently solicited donations for vestments, including a $900 cope. The rectory in Bladensburg where the Lewises lived has been "closed" (sold?) and a former convent next to Immaculate Conception Church, where St Luke's worships, is being turned into a residence for the Vidals (at parish expense?)

All not bad for a congregation that worships in the 8:30 am time slot in a diocesan parish. If Fr Phillips is actually seen as a parish-building guru this is a community that seems to have potential. To the extent that Fr Lewis was a force behind their current state there could be challenging times ahead, since Fr Vidal has little to show for his tenure at St Anselm's, Corpus Christi---indeed it is not clear that the community is going to survive once he leaves. Msgr Steenson made Fr Lewis the Eastern Dean of the OCSP although this seemed to mean little in practical terms as the Deanery has no geographical definition, in the absence of a Western, Northern, or Southern Deanery. But he must have wanted to recognise qualities in Fr Lewis not otherwise in large supply in the OCSP.

My correspondent had already noted the problem of what will become of Fr Vidal's former community, St Anselm Corpus Christi. Despite the OCSP being 30% overstrength in clergy and planning numerous additional ordinations, there's no clear way to give that group a successor. I can't avoid thinking that St Luke has no choice but to hope for the best with Fr Vidal, since his track record suggests he could be little more than a plodding time-server.

Perhaps one purpose of Fr Phillips's visit was to buck them up and keep them with the program.

No News Where It Counts

My regular correspondent notes,

Two men were ordained to the diaconate for the OCSP this July at Our Lady of Hope, Kansas City, MO, but you will search in vain for any mention of this on either the OCSP website or the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society blog, (or the Our Lady of Hope website or FB page, for that matter). Ditto the diaconal ordinations of two men at Incarnation, Orlando in August. Mrs G says that the AC blog "welcomes news" as long as she doesn't have to actually gather it, but it must be provided by an AC Society member. I think that someone with an interest in OCSP matters might have welcomed a link to this article even if provided by a Snake-Handling Baptist.

Well, if news of diaconal ordinations were to be published, someone (the diocesan visitors to this blog are pretty sharp, anyhow) might ask if these were permanent or transitional, and if transitional, why. The OCSP is somewhere around 30% overstrength in its priests, yet Bp Lopes had to ordain one new man and plan to ordain another to replace Fr Kenyon. What's up with that?

This leads to another question, the formation of all these ordinands, past and present. The tendency, no matter what, is for the OCSP to go "Poof! You're a Catholic priest/deacon!" with at best some perfunctory distance-learning program. A Catholic priest is more typically formed in the parish, in the family, often sometimes in the school, before entering seminary, and the process is facilitated by parish clergy and a professional vocations director.

Recent problems with Frs Phillips and Kenyon, two stalwarts of the whole Anglican outreach movement, suggest that going poof is not adequate as formation. I repeat, pace Bartus partisans at Ms Gyapong's blog, that there are devout, prayerful, and thoughtful people who feel this man's ordination was ill-advised, and the processes in the OCSP are not capable, then or now, of screening out unworthy candidates. I would not advise anyone to go to an OCSP priest for confession, again, without grave reason. My correspondent continues,

Meanwhile she has recently reposted pictures of personal oratories, where I note Byzantine-style icons, a copy of the Crucifix which spoke to St Francis of Assisi, the da Vinci "Last Supper," Durer "Praying Hands" (both in copper tooling), and St Faustina's Divine Mercy image. A real festival of Anglican Patrimony! Only things missing are the Sallman Head and the Infant of Prague. Originally posted on a closed Ordinariate FB page, which underlines the clubby nature of what little news trickles out. Lots of space for another CV of the musical Mahon family, or another picture of Cardinal Burke. But none for, say, the Chesterton House initiative of St Benedict, Edmonton https://chestertonhouse.wordpress.com/ up and running since last year.

Well, the precious treasures of the Anglican patrimony are what Ms G says they are. Poof!

The Arc Of Hype

Fr Kenyon's earlier history prior to his move to Calgary comes up here and there in web searches, mainly by my regular correspondent. He turns up as one of several hundred Church of England clergy signatory to this 2008 letter objecting to the consecration of women bishops published in the Guardian. At the time, he listed his title as “Assistant Curate, S.Cuthbert, Darwen with S.Stephen, Tockholes”, which, if they were not actual places, would seem more to belong to the fictive worlds of Anthony Trollope or Kenneth Grahame. As far as my regular correspondent can determine, this was his sole pastoral appointment in the Church of England. It appears that later in 2008, he moved to Calgary, although my correspondent points out that women have been ordained as bishops in the ACC since 1994.

This post at the Anglican Wanderings blog from 2007 shows him substituting as a deacon, visiting from St Cuthbert's, at a typical fuss-and-feathers Anglo-Catholic mass. The most recent post at that blog is 5 July 2009. The blog's title is Anglican Wanderings, with the subtitle, "Passionately Anglican. Unapologetically Catholic." Since these are Anglican priests saying this about themselves, it's self-contradictory to the point of meaninglessness, at least if one takes these words in any sort of conventional sense -- think just of Apostolicae curae.

If you don't take it literally, then it has contextual meaning, or perhaps several contextual meanings. One might be, "We want to be Catholic priests, but we don't like the Church's teachings on sexuality, so we're glossing that over without apology." That's a variation on what the TEC priest told me in confirmation class, "We want the prestige of calling ourselves Catholic priests (unapologetically in this case), but we don't want to pay the dues real Catholic priests have to pay." This goes as well to Frederick Kinsman's observation that the brilliance of the Anglican compromise was that it allowed some Anglicans to fancy themselves Catholic if that's what they chose to do.

This early stage of Fr Kenyon's career arc corresponds closely to the general Anglo-Catholic hype in the runup to Anglicanorum coetibus and the erection of the ordinariates. It was most prevalent in blogs -- the list of Anglo-Catholic blogs on the Anglican Wanderings blogroll is long indeed, but certainly some of the publicity bled over into the Catholic and even the general press. Then-Bp Steenson left TEC and moved to Rome in 2007, the same year the TAC issued the Portsmouth Petition. Considering the clubby nature of the Anglo-Catholic world, impending events must have been known to groups like the one of which Fr Kenyon was a member, and enthusiasm was building.

The puzzling thing is how quickly the Anglo-Catholic blogs began to die out, fairly soon after this first wave. Anglican Wanderings ceased to update even before Anglicanorum coetibus was issued. Mr Chadwick notes that two important Anglo-Catholic blogs, the eponymous one and that of Mr Smuts, ceased to be interesting in 2012, the same year the US-Canadian ordinariate was erected -- although significantly, the idea of a separate Canadian ordinariate had already died in the womb. The Catholic and mainstream press, behind the curve as usual, continued to hype the ordinariates well past that date. In November 2014, the National Catholic Register published this:

A former Anglican priest said, ‘Every now and then, a momentous event takes place. Few if any since the Reformation have more significance than Anglicanorum Coetibus.’

The question is why the hype began to taper off even before the OCSP got going. The answer is probably close to the expressed expectations from some in the TAC at the time of the Portsmouth Letter, that Rome would simply declare itself "in communion" with the TAC, which implied that Rome would recognize the episcopal actions of the TAC, the TAC would recognize Rome's, and everything would be fine -- Fr Joe Schmo of St Charles King and Martyr Podunk would become a Catholic priest, wife and all, his assorted Freemason and thrice-civilly-remarried parishioners would become Catholics in good standing, and they'd recognize the same of Our Lady's down the street.

The issuance of the complementary norms probably killed this idea for good, if the text of Anglicanorum coetibus itself didn't. The problem, it seems to me, is the fantasy that Kinsman recognized was built into the Anglo-Catholic project. Some number of priests in effect brought the TAC assumptions into the Church with them, even if they didn't canonically come from that denomination. By ordaining them priests, the Church was effectively recognizing all of their petty Anglicanisms, not insisting that they reject those and become fully Catholic.

I think this was a game Fr Phillips had been exploiting all along, running an operation that his bishop in terminal exasperation called not just unique but separate. It's significant that as sort of a fin de siècle excrudescence of Anglo-Catholic hype, Mr Murphy covered in his blog (now also discontinued) the effort of Mr Alex Trevino, a wannabe filmmaker, to produce a documentary on the "sufferings" (their word) of Frs Phillips, Kenyon, and Bartus as they fought the evil Anglican establishment to become Catholic priests. (My regular correspondent has given this project the working title My Struggle.)

All mention of this project, in the post at Mr Murphy's blog and the crowdfunding site, has long since been deleted, and as of now, only Fr Bartus remains an active priest in the triumvirate. The hype was based on what we're seeing increasingly as comical assumptions. But consider as well that, needing for whatever reason to find a replacement for Fr Kenyon, a major figure in the OCSP until some kind of glitch came up, Bp Lopes has been forced on one hand to rely on the highly unusual step of ordaining a permanent deacon to the priesthood, and on the other to accept as a candidate for ordination a gentleman who probably would not be accepted as a diocesan parish volunteer, much less admitted to a Catholic seminary.

The wheels are coming off this thing.

What Problem Are They Trying To Solve With Fr Kenyon?

A quick answer is we don't know, but it must be an awfully big one. "They", for one thing, is not only the OCSP, but the Diocese of Shrewsbury in the UK, and considering the air of confidentiality around this matter, the CDF. Let's look at the level of disruption we see in the effort to solve the problem, whatever it may be. I keep pointing to the principle of sufficient reason in questioning the minimal public explanation for Fr Kenyon's move -- but now it seems that after all the effort to solve it to date, the problem still hasn't been solved.

Ordaining a Permanent Deacon a Priest. My regular correspondent has found confirmation that Fr Kenyon's replacement, now-Fr Martens, was originally ordained to the permanent diaconate in 2014. This site suggests that ordaining a permanent deacon to the priesthood, while not completely out of the question, "must always be a very rare exception, and only for special and grave reasons..." The site, in fact, speaks mainly to the question of ordaining a widowed or celibate permanent deacon to the priesthood and hardly mentions married ones. A major issue is that permanent deacons don't have the same formation as priests, and it's incumbent on the bishop to ensure that the deacon candidate for the priesthood is adequately prepared.

This suggests two possibilities: either the OCSP deviated from standard Catholic practice in quickly ordaining a permanent deacon to the priesthood to fill a sudden need, or now-Fr Martens's preparation was extensive, which would imply that a problem was well known to Houston for many months. However, deviation from policy and standard practice, certainly to the point of slapdash ordinations to the priesthood, has been a hallmark in Houston. This is yet a further instance of what could well be inadequate formation of OCSP priests, which I've mentioned many times here.

The Disruption in the Diocese of Shrewsbury. Preparation for Fr Kenyon's move to the UK had been in train for some time prior to the announcement, and it was a serious matter.

This notice was published in the St John the Evangelist Calgary bulletin for June 25, 2017:

Today marks Father Kenyon’s final public Mass at St John’s after over eight years in the parish. Since the announcement has now been made in his new parish, he is able to name his next appointment as the Parish Priest of Our Lady and the Apostles, Stockport, Cheshire. This is a parish of the Diocese of Shrewsbury, four miles from Father Kenyon’s parents’ home. In addition to his diocesan duties, Father Kenyon, who continues as a priest of the Ordinariate, will also develop an Ordinariate apostolate for the South Manchester area, based at Our Lady’s. Father Kenyon takes up his new position on 1st August. Please gather in the Cross Hall after the Solemn Mass for an informal farewell to the Kenyons.

My regular correspondent pointed out that although I've previously referred to Fr Kenyon as being "reincardinated" to the Diocese of Shrewsbury, he was in fact on a five-year loan there and is still a priest of the OCSP. However, the Diocese of Shrewsbury went to considerable effort to place Fr Kenyon and his family in the rectory at Our Lady and the Apostles, including moving a priest out. The August 2017 newsletter of The Sacred Heart & Our Lady of Lourdes parish of Moreton carries the note,

Fr Tony Myers retired from Timperley and he is replaced by a former curate from Sacred Heart, Fr Pat Munroe who, at the age of 66 has been asked to take on this big parish. Pat has been asked to move from Stockport to accommodate a Fr Lee Kenyon, a priest of the Ordinariate who moves in to Edgeley with his wife and 5 children.

But as noted here September 19, although the announcement here and in the Diocese of Shrewsbury referred to him starting at Our Lady and the Apostles on August 1, there has been no mention of his arrival. As best we can tell, the associate at the parish, Fr Francis Uchenna Nnadi, is filling in as pastor, which presumably adds to his workload, and so far, it appears that moving Fr Pat Munroe out of the rectory was for naught.

On September 19, I sent the following e-mail to the parish office at Our Lady and the Apostles:

I note that letters from the bishop and the previous pastor announced the pending arrival of Fr Lee Kenyon from Canada. However, so far, there doesn’t appear to be any mention of him on the parish website. Can you confirm his current status?

Many thanks!

So far, I've had no reply. One credible interpretation would be that this is a confidential personnel matter, and the parish is not authorized to make any statement on Fr Kenyon's status.

Where is the Kenyon family, if not in the Stockport rectory? The May 1 announcement of Fr Kenyon's departure from Calgary was noted here. But as best we can tell, although my regular correspondent cites Mrs Kenyon's Facebook page indicating the family now lives in Manchester, there is no evidence that Fr Kenyon ever took up his planned residence in the Stockport rectory.

It appears tha the family's previous residence in the Calgary area has been sold.

After All This Effort, The Problem Isn't Solved, whatever it is. From what we see in the public record, there was some need to relocate Fr Kenyon, not just to another OCSP parish, but back to the UK. But the canonical move hasn't taken place, although it appears that the Kenyon family is living somewhere in the Manchester area. It's hard not to speculate that some sort of personnel issue was involved in the move, and during the course of the move, the problem somehow resurfaced or was exacerbated, such that Fr Kenyon is not functioning as a priest, as had been clearly anticipated, and his current circumstances appear to be under a seal of confidentiality.

A Visitor Responds To Ms Gyapong's Post From Last Week

A diocesan visitor who's sent me a number of well-informed and insightful e-mails in the last several weeks recently sent this one in response to Ms Gyapong's post at the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society blog from September 14. It's worth pointing out that my visitor attempted to publish the gist of it as a comment to that blog post, but Ms Gyapong did not approve it for publication. There are several comments in that thread that seem uniformly unfriendly toward this blog, which presumably had Ms Gyapong's approval, but we must surmise that others like this one may have been submitted but not approved.

This is the gist of what I said:

Two things, one, she mischaracterized your blog post about Obamacare. She totally missed the point that the quality of Obamacare/Anglicanorum Coetibus was not the issue, their lack of wider appeal is. She states, “There is no possibility of a renewed Pastoral Provision for communities. It’s over. The choices are: join the Ordinariate, remain a Continuing Anglican group, or become Roman Catholic like the Bruces did and disperse into the wider diocese.” I agreed with her wholeheartedly but pointed out that given such choices, the majority of the people will still choose options two and three because of the more robust support networks those options provide. Down with logic of limited appeal!

Second, I called her out a little on one of her closing comments, “Remember Christ’s desire for unity is not an option, and the Catholic Church has generously provided a way for you to maintain your precious Anglican patrimony.” Christ’s desire for unity is NOT an option? I pointed out that Christ himself only established one Church and all the Holy Fathers have and continue to work toward making that so again, so how is it Jesus Christ’s desire for unity not an option? Down with difficult tasks!

Lastly, I noticed one of her seemingly regular contributors had posted comments about how the Ordinariate was here to stay. Possibly so, I posited, but the examples the person used to buttress the claim were a little off the mark, similar to the mischaracterization of the Obamacare issue. Rev22:17 (the username of the poster), lists several Eastern Catholic Churches and their relatively small populations (sourced from Wikipedia) that use a different rite and still exist as separate in the Latin/Roman Church. The comparison is not apple to apples. To wit, the three churches listed, the Albanian, the Bulgarian and Greek Catholic Churches all use the Byzantine Rite and each of those churches can trace their clerical origins back to at least one of the original apostles of Jesus Himself. The Ordinariate can make no such claim. The Anglican patrimony can only trace its direct connection to Christ through the Latin/Roman Church. Additionally, the numbers for each of these Churches are dwarfed by their Latin/Roman Catholic brethren over the exact same geographical boundaries, so again, the limited appeal thing. Looking at the population numbers for these three Eastern Catholic Churches, one can see a decline in membership over the last 15-20 years or so, with the exception of the Greek Catholic Church which went from 2,500 to 6,000 in just a few years, which I am guessing is the beneficiary of the huge influx of Christians fleeing the Middle East because of persecution. (My numbers are from a Catholic website that uses the Annuario Pontificum as its source for population data )

As an interesting side note, Ordinariate population figures for Chair of St. Peter were from the Annuario Pontificum book from 2015 (so numbers from 2014) and listed 6,000 members. Assuming 1,500 or so new members via OLA’s entrance, the total population is probably still less than 8,000, which is 20% smaller than the tiny Diocese of Juneau that was used as an example also by Rev22:17. Funny, the Diocese of Juneau was started in 1951, grew big enough to split into two dioceses in 1966, Juneau and Anchorage. The population of the Juneau diocese in 1966 was 3,000. As of 2013, it had climbed to 10,400. I do not see the same pattern occurring with the Ordinariates. Darn you, again, Spock Logic!!!

I guess you are just a disparaging blogger who attracts more disparaging folks like me.

The only thing I would add is that the 2014 number of 6,000 given in the Annuario Pontificum is still hard for me to credit, since even if we allow an average of 500 members for the half-dozen biggest communities -- and given the 80-20 rule, the numbers will fall off steeply after those -- we'll get 3,000, with probably less than 1,000 additional from all the rest, given the large number that have a dozen or two members. I've always thought actual OCSP membership pre-OLA was in the low to mid four digits. Several visitors now estimate actual membership at OLA as 1,500, so I think a realistic 2017 estimate of OCSP membership is closer to 5,500 or 6,000.

Naturally, if someone has a better basis for a different estimate, I'll be happy to publish the thinking here.

Speaking Of Whom, What's Become Of Fr Kenyon?

In addition to the announcements of Fr Kenyon's departure from St John the Evangelist Calgary, his planned arrival at the parish of Our Lady & the Apostles, Stockport was also extensively announced there, for instance in this letter from the Bishop of Shrewsbury dated July 2:

I also write to welcome a new priest to your parish and explain something of his wonderful story and so commend him to your prayer. . . . Father Lee Kenyon only comes from neighbouring Manchester and yet he has made a long journey to be with you at Our Lady’s. Father Kenyon was an Anglican priest for the Diocese of Blackburn subsequently serving in an Anglican parish in Canada where he responded with his parishioners to the invitation of Pope Benedict XVI to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church. He was subsequently ordained in 2012 into the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter in Canada. This is the wonderful journey he has made, not without sacrifices, together with his wife Elizabeth and their five children ranging now in age from 1 to 13. In receiving the grace of ordination the Church makes provision for Anglican and Lutheran clergy to continue with all the obligations of marriage and family life already promised before God. The presbytery built at Our Lady’s for a Parish Priest and Curates of past years will serve as a family home while continuing to be the working presbytery of the parish.

The farewell letter from the previous priest dated July 23 also mentioned Fr Kenyon:

I ask of you that you show that same love and support to Fr. Lee Kenyon and his family as you have shown to me.

My regular correspondent says Fr Kenyon was to start at Our Lady & The Apostles on the first of August. However, there is no mention of his name in parish newsletters since then, and a search of the parish site does not bring up his name. I also did a search on the Diocese of Shrewsbury site, which brought up a John Kenyon but not a Lee Kenyon.

Can anyone confirm Fr Kenyon's current circumstances? This certainly adds to the list of puzzling questions surrounding him. I've e-mailed the parish in an attempt to gather more information.

More Information On The Our Lady Of The Atonement Membership Drive

An observer provides additional information on the OLA membership drive and the potential reason for it:

The duplicate oral announcement about the Ordinariate Membership Drive given by both Fr. Lewis and Fr. Phillips was repeated last Sunday. While I don't believe it was mentioned in the bulletin or "parish e-mail", it is listed on the parish website under "Upcoming Events". [However, there is no other comment, unlike the oral discussion in the mass annoucements.] What has been mentioned in the oral announcements as a reason to register for the Ordinariate if you consider OLA as your parish is that the Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and Marriage might not be available through the parish if you are not an Ordinariate member.

I would guess that a good number of the families with students at the Atonement Academy do not consider themselves regular parishioners, and aren't so interested in being part of the Personal Ordinariate. Whether or not the oral announcements at the end of Mass followed by the membership drive even reaches them seems questionable, since they're likely attending Mass elsewhere. My guess is there's an additional announcement through the school to indicate students whose families have not registered in the Ordinariate may not be able to receive First Communion and Confirmation (as 2nd or 3rd graders) with their classmates but would have to go through their Archdiocesan parish.

It seems when Fr. Phillips was away recently, Fr. Lewis did the 6pm Mass in English rather than the usual Latin. When Fr. Moore has done that Mass, he also has to do it in English. Should Fr. Phillips not be available, the availability of the Mass in Latin seems questionable. That might make those that come to OLA for the Latin Mass less than entirely enthusiastic about the Ordinariate.

I could be wrong, but as far as I know, an OF Latin mass in English is just an OF English mass. Big whoop. But Canon 249 says,

The program of priestly formation is to provide that students not only are carefully taught their native language but also understand Latin well and have a suitable understanding of those foreign languages which seem necessary or useful for their formation or for the exercise of pastoral ministry.

Now, people can say that the average diocesan priest is a pretty ignorant guy whose knuckles drag on the floor, much less knows Latin, but aren't the likes of Ms Gyapong going to insist that the OCSP accepts only the crème de la crème? I had four years of high school Latin and a college semester of Catullus. I don't find the Latin our diocesan parish sometimes uses in the gloria, sanctus, memorial acclamation, agnus dei, and litanies especially challenging. (Almost all diocesan priests I know are fully capable of delivering a homily in Spanish or English, and hearing confessions in either. Latin as far as I can tell is no problem for them.)

I might have problems with Church pronunciation, but if it were me, I'd go to a sympathetic diocesan priest and get a little coaching, and then I'd go ahead and do the Latin. (YouTube might be good, even if no coach could be found.) If I needed some additional license, I'd do what I needed to. Not Frs Lewis or Moore, it would seem. I refer to my previous remarks on the disappointing quality of OCSP clergy. I see a sense of entitlement here, but no initiative. These guys have their preferment -- what else could anyone want? The visitor continues,

The nave of the OLA church building has a capacity of not much more than 500, though there could be another 100 in the cry rooms and choir loft. The 9 and 11am Mass would seem to have the best attendance, though Latin Mass might be close. If a pew is full, it's usually due to 2 or 3 children with parents. A number of pews have only 2 or 3, so my guess is about 2/3 full or 350 or so at Mass. The 4 Sunday Masses therefore likely have 1,200 or so attending on a somewhat normal Sunday, which is likely between 350 to 400 families.

So if 300 families is the number that's currently registered, it looks like there's not going to be more than maybe 350 or 400 at the end of a membership drive, and quite possibly some cradle Catholics are going to get fed up with the politics at OLA and drift away. Mr Wilson seems like a pretty heavy-handed guy. Another visitor comments, "I wish we had a real meeting. Everything is scripted."

I'm pretty sure this is not what the CDF had in mind when it gave the parish to the OCSP.

Let's Get Real

Ms Gyapong seems to see enough substance in my post here Wednesday to mount a reply. People are naturally entitled to their own judgments, but what interests me here is how little Ms Gyapong and a commenter can marshal to provide a counter-argument to what they refer to as an overly gloomy picture of the OCSP.

Ms Gyapong first concedes my point as to overall scope by referring to various highly specialized jurisdictions, but she concludes,

clearly an entity the size of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter or the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham are [sic] viable in the Catholic Church. The viability of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of the Southern Cross may seem a bit more tenuous, but the reception of the Church of the Torres Strait will strengthen it considerably. This is an area in which Mr. Bruce clearly has missed the mark.

But within the past week, I quoted remarks from Msgr Newton, the ordinary of OOLW, to the effect that its numbers there were unsatisfactory as of 2014. Those cited were "around 85 priests and 1,500 lay members", and this prompted Msgr Newton to comment, "We must be honest and say the ordinariate has not grown as much as we hoped it might. The vision has not been caught[.]" This isn't me saying it, it's Mr Big. The OCSP has never released any verifiable total membership count, but I believe the most optimistic estimate would give an order of magnitude -- somewhere in the low to mid four figures -- consistent with the OOLW. By extension, this would also be unsatisfactory.

But note that even Ms Gyapong effectively concedes that the numbers in Australia are not satisfactory, but perhaps with the addition of the Church of the Torres Strait, they might become so. I don't see this as a rosy picture at all.

She cites the Roman Catholic Diocese of Juneau, with about 10,000 members. This exceeds any realistic estimate of OCSP membership by at least double, but it's worth noting that it has 11 priests, not the 60 or more in the OCSP. I assume these priests and their bishop must often travel to their parishes and missions by plane or boat. This suggests to me that the allocation of resources is more efficient and productive than what we're seeing from Houston, which struggles to provide even the bishop's travel. The 11 priests there are paid, several more than in the OCSP. I just don't see a comparison between a functioning diocese and a someday-maybe-it-will-get-better prelature.

I would also say that we know so little about Albanian, Bulgarian, or Greek Catholics that any comparison is a stretch -- but let's get a little Abrahamic here. The Diocese of Juneau is, it seems to me, at least double the size of the OCSP, and it appears to own more properties, as well as being better able to fund clergy and their travel. I would say it's really out of range for comparison. But let's look at the Eastern churches cited, just on the basis of numbers.

What's a viable number, leaving all other considerations aside? 10,000, sure. 1,500, according to Msgr Newton, awfully shaky. Less than that, like three figures in Australia, by Ms Gyapong's concession, no. The OCSP won't release a hard number, with wildly varying estimates from Bp Lopes between 8,000 and 20,000 -- not credible, based only on what we see for numbers in the four or five largest parishes. The best Ms Gyapong can suggest is that in places like Albania, if you dig, you can find a jurisdiction that might be around the same size as the OCSP. We know little or nothing else about it.

I would cite Herbert Stein's Law in economics: if something cannot continue forever, it will stop. The Church will continue forever, parishes will be suppressed.

So where do we draw the line? Will the Almighty destroy the city if there are ten righteous men there? Well, Fr Kelley is fond of pointing out that the Lord said he wouldn't destroy the city for the sake of the ten -- but he did in fact destroy the city. It seems to me that we have very sound scriptural basis for the idea of negotiation, as well as the idea of lower limits on things.

Is 1,500 a viable number? Is 300 families at OLA a viable number? We have some evidence for the idea that these numbers are unsatisfactory.

Regarding whether the St Mary's vestry and Abp Hepworth are correct to set conditions on things, I'm puzzled that Ms Gyapong would equate her somewhat shabby worship environment in Ottawa with a property whose total value, including the Della Robbia, is somewhere in the high eight or low nine digits, according to Abp Hepworth. He and the vestry have a fiduciary duty to see that the value of this resource is most appropriately used. I could, for instance, conceive of a disposal of the resource, should it be prudent, through a sale, with proceeds donated to a Catholic cause other than the OCSP, though this would be entirely up to the vestry and Abp Hepworth.

They would have the very serious duty, however, of determining the best use of the resource, pace Ms Gyapong.

How Would St Mary Of The Angels Fit In The OCSP, If The Move Were Possible?

When I spoke with Abp Hepworth in April, he indicated that he is, at least in a low-key way, pursuing the continuing possibility of St Mary of the Angels entering the OCSP. Among other things, this would require the outstanding legal issues surrounding the parish to be resolved, so at this point, the matter is largely hypothetical.

On the other hand, the parish is rebuilding itself after a series of potentially cataclysmic setbacks. My wife and I visit from time to time, especially for the community outreach programs and concerts it's been providing. These efforts are impressive.

An influential parishioner asked me this past Sunday if I thought the OCSP had a future. My answer was, "Not in its current form." Let me expand on this. I've got to think that if Our Lady of the Atonement's clergy are conducting a new membership campaign so that Houston and the CDF can somehow better recognize its success, this must certainly imply that such recognition has not happened yet and is not a sure thing. And by inference, any recognition of the whole OCSP's success must be uncertain as well, if Houston and the CDF are uncertain about the putatively most successful parish in it. I assume people in the CDF at least, with a new prefect, must be taking this seriously.

So I question whether, by the time the parish and the OCSP reach any point where the prospect of the parish joining the OCSP could realistically be contemplated, the OCSP may well not be the same thing it is now, if in fact it still exists. If I were Abp Hepworth, Fr Kelley, and the vestry, I'd be factoring this into any thinking. At minimum, the OCSP as we see it in 2017 is not the OCSP that was sold to the parish and the Anglo-Catholic blogosphere in 2011. A realistic question might be what form a rationalized structure under Anglicanorum coetibus might take. It seems to me that it could well involve suppressing the smaller communities entirely and devolving others back to dioceses. This is likely to be an unstable canonical environment no mater what.

Here are some questions that won't go away for me.

• The parish is a small worship space only a few blocks from a diocesan Catholic parish, Our Mother of Good Counsel, that can't fill its much larger worship space despite recent cuts to its mass schedule. The OMGC parish is run by the Augustinians, which complicates its staffing issues. The Augustinians have already had to give up a California parish due to a shortage of their own priests. The current pastor at OMGC is about 77, almost certainly past canonical retirement age, and is probably continuing because the Augustinians don't have an available replacement. Another difficulty is that the parish is very liberal, a few years ago sponsoring a Lenten program by the very strange and very liberal Bp Remi De Roo. This may have some relation to dwindling attendance.
• The small size of St Mary of the Angels, combined with the surplus capacity at OMGC, means it isn't a credible diocesan supplement. In fact, the Augustinians and some factions in the archdiocese might resist taking in St Mary of the Angels as a diocesan parish if the OCSP were to fold and the ordinariate were no longer an option. But even if the idea of a DW mass as an alternative to flip-flops and halter-tops a few blocks away were to take hold, St Mary of the Angels would be too small to accommodate any significant number coming over from OMGC. (Even if you had half a dozen masses at St Mary's on a Sunday, you'd then have the problem of finding and paying clergy to celebrate them)
• St Mary of the Angels has a succession problem. Fr Kelley, whose ability to persevere through enormous difficulties and rebuild the parish has been clearly demonstrated, is about 70, which is the canonical retirement age in the OCSP. He is extremely fit and in general good health, but obviously, nothing lasts forever. The OCSP doesn't appear to have any credible replacement. If I were Abp Hepworth and the vestry, I would strongly insist on some type of assurance from Houston or its successor that current or prospective OCSP California clergy would absolutely not be considered for Fr Kelley's replacement. But the overall disappointing quality of OCSP clergy is nearly as big a concern.
• St Mary of the Angels is unique as a prospective member of the OCSP in several ways. Its physical plant is architecturally significant. The Della Robbia altarpiece has major artistic and financial value. The commercial rental income provides stability. It is a community institution, centrally located in an area with a great deal of sidewalk traffic, something Abp Hepworth noted on his visit in April. It attracts members from the local community, but it also has members who travel from distant suburbs. All of this suggests that it wouldn't fit well into a territorial diocesan model, but the personal prelature model seems currently too shaky to consider as a realistic alternative.
• Another problem is that the parish has tended to attract people who march to a different drummer. I can certainly think of the original group who surrounded Our Lord as something similar, but this presents its own set of problems -- the dissidents who caused so much trouble in 2011-2012 found the different drummer types a fertile field for recruitment. And let's face it, this is Hollywood, which has pros in the talents it can attract among members as well as cons. But Cardinal Mahony understandably saw the different-drummer factor as a deal-killer for accepting the parish in the Pastoral Provision. It would take a very flexible ordinary to keep all the parish's unique qualities in perspective, but an unstable canonical environment could be a real detriment, as it was in 2010-12.
• Finally, the parish has for some decades relied mainly on the rental income from its commercial property, rather than pledge income from members. While this would enable it to meet a substantial cathedraticum, a Catholic bishop's appeal could be problematic -- members would be asked to contribute from personal resources amounts consistent with the cathedraticum, a level of giving to which the laity has not been accustomed. A new pastor would need a new set of inspirational fundraising skills, consistent with those I've seen in diocesan parishes. The parish would need to respond to such appeals in a new way.

I think the parish has a dllemma going forward. On one hand, there's no good option in "continuing Anglicanism", which is dying out. Beyond that, the property value of the parish and the value of the Della Robbia altarpiece would continue to be too much of a temptation to a "continuing" hierarchy, which would probably try yet once more to seize the assets. But I think there would be serious obstacles to the parish going into the Archdiocese of Los Angeles under some renewed Pastoral Provision, as there were in the 1980s, assuming this might be the upshot of a dissolved OCSP. But I think it's realistic in trying to think two years out (or whatever) that the OCSP will not continue in its current form, and some type of renewed Pastoral Provision for the small number of surviving communities is one credible outcome.

And finding clergy well suited to the unique parish and its unique requirements is not a trivial problem. I keep the parish in my prayers.

Is The Problem Really The Message?

A diocesan visitor reacts to my posts from the past weekenf:

I was struck by a similarity between the Ordinariate view of Msgr. Newton that, “… We must communicate our message much more widely and with more vigour and enthusiasm.”, and Fr. Phillips’ inability (or unwillingness) to recognize the sizeable cradle Catholic population in his parish (that allowed it to be sustainable and successful) with what is going on in our political arena with Obamacare. Let me describe the Obamacare dilemma and see if it rings a bell…

Regardless of the media spin, Obamacare has not ever been very popular with the American people, and not making pro or con arguments about Obamacare there are some things that are verifiably true. To wit, it required many executive, extra-legislative orders and rules to accommodate the shortfalls of the law. . . . [T]he Democratic party kept telling us the problem wasn’t with Obamacare, the problem was that the public did not understand how it was benefiting them. The support for this law was there, they just needed to get their message out to a wider audience. This played out spectacularly in the 2016 presidential election. Even today, there are some Democrats who are still saying the reason they lost the election was because they couldn’t get their message out wide enough in those red states or they should have re-phrased it so that more (simple-minded) people could understand it. Never once did it occur to these very smart people that the masses could see very well what Obamacare was and, what its potential was as well, and they simply rejected it. They wanted another option.

Substitute Pastoral Provision Parishes for Obamacare, the Vatican jumping through hoops and changing the rules (i.e. creating Anglicanorum Coetibus instead) for the executive orders/extra legislative action, clergy and laity for doctors and patients, the dubious ordination processes for the constitutional issues and the Ordinariate cheerleaders for the Democratic party and media supporters of Obamacare. The idea of simply spreading the message to a wider audience or re-phrasing the same message so more can understand it may look good on paper, but in the real world, it seems to be a pretty poor strategy. True some people supported Obamacare because they thought it was the right thing to do or because they thought they were going to get an outsized benefit for what they actually contributed. These people might be likened to some of the cradle Catholics in OLA’s parish, who expected to receive benefits without risking anything of their own. When the chips were down, how many dragged up stake and walked away? The Fr. Phillips/Save The Atonement coalition seem to either not have recognized this or are willfully denying it.

Anywho, we all see how the Obamacare thing is working out… not very pretty. If the analogy holds, can we expect a different result?

I don't think the CDF ever gave much thought to what was on offer. It's worth pointing out that there are numerous Catholic apologists on blogs and YouTube -- Peter Kreeft, Scott Hahn, Edward Feser, Fr Schmitz, Msgr Pope, Fr Z, Bp Barron, Michael Voris, to name only a few -- who are putting out a Catholic message without embellishment. This message, like the message of Ven Fulton Sheen, which clearly inspires many current apologists, has a universal appeal. It reaches Anglicans just as much as Jehovah's Witnesses, Wiccans, Presbyterians, or vegans.

The ordinariate message seems to involve some kind of body-English transmitted through some sort of "precious treasures of the Anglican spiritual patrimony". So far, nobody in Houston or Rome seems to be backing off and asking what was successful about Our Lady of the Atonement, vs what has not been successful about the efforts of Fr Phillips's protégés, like Fr Bartus.

Nor is anyone asking why there is no OCSP priest with a credible message on blogs or YouTube. Some people do seem to like Fr Hunwicke, but his fuss and feathers are at best an acquired taste.

New Tenant For St Mary's Commercial Space

Several weeks ago I posted that there was activity renovating the St Mary's commercial space for a new tenant. That tenant's sign is now up on the building, but I'm told that this is the first-floor tenant, and there will be a massage therapy group on the second floor.

You can find the most comprehensive update to the story, with a fuller photo of the very attractive building from the other direction, in a post here from November 2015. Fr Barker undertook construction of this building with Citibank's predecessor after TEC was forced to issue a quitclaim on the property about 1984. The land itself was gradually acquired from property surrounding the parish under Fr Jordan. Citibank vacated the property in October 2015 at the expiration of its 30-year lease.

The arrival of tenants now provides the parish with a substantial income. Among other things, I'm told it enables the parish to re-hire the gardener. However, the outstanding issue of the 2014 mortgage the Bush group took out on the property without having title must still be resolved. A trial for damages against Mrs Bush and other defendants, including the ACA, will take place this coming November.

Public Pessimism From Msgr Newton

The UK Tablet reported in 2014 about Msgr Keith Newton's remarks in a homily:

The leader of the ordinariate has lamented the lack of growth of the group, set up in 2011 to allow former Anglicans to enter Communion with the Catholic Church.

Mgr Keith Newton, the ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, said more must be done to boost the numbers in the canonical structure, established under Pope Benedict XVI to allow Anglicans become Catholics while preserving their “Anglican patrimony”.

In a Chrism Mass homily on Monday, Mgr Newton conceded: “We must be honest and say the ordinariate has not grown as much as we hoped it might. The vision has not been caught … We must communicate our message much more widely and with more vigour and enthusiasm.”

I've got to wonder whether something like this was under discussion when the three ordinaries met in Australia the other week. One problem is simply what strategy might be employed to "communicate our message more widely". It's hard to avoid the impression that nobody thought past the 1993 projection that 250,000 Episcopalians would join a US personal prelature, people would be lining up at the doors, and the market would be there for the taking.

By the late 1990s, the experience of "continuing Anglicanism" led Douglas Bess to conclude that this hadn't taken place and never would. I also surmise that the actual experience of taking over Our Lady of the Atonement, with so far disappointing numbers, must be convincing Bp Lopes and by extension the CDF that even the much-vaunted strategies of Fr Phillips have been less effective than had been thought.

By the way, for anyone planning to attend the harp concert at St Mary of the Angels this afternoon, the original soprano soloist has been replaced by the talented Claire Plauzoles. All other information remains the same.

Membership Shortfall At Our Lady Of The Atonement

A visitor tells me that Fr Lewis made an announcement at the end of mass this past Sunday that only 300 families had registered for the Ordinariate during the first membership drive. This leaves the parish underrepresented with both Houston and the Vatican, so there will be a second drive over the next few Sundays.

Fr. Lewis then introduced the founding pastor, Fr. Phillips, to repeat the pitch that everyone who considers OLA as their parish should consider Bishop Lopes as their Ordinary, and register with the Ordinatiate. Otherwise neither Houston nor the Vatican can recognize the success of the parish.

For reference, a visitor knowledgeable about the Archdiocese of San Antonio recently told me, "I would be surprised if OLA has 800 families." I would say that my gut feeling since getting to know more about OLA and Fr Phillips is that everything about the place is probably overstated. This would include the number of families and the proportion of them that supported moving to the OCSP. If 800 families is a high estimate, then half or fewer seem to have had much enthusiasm about leaving the archdiocese, despite the hype of the Save Atonement group. The argument now seems to be that it's done, you've all now got to get with the program.

Another interpretation could be that 800 families is not just a high estimate, it's a very high estimate, and 300 may be much closer than believed to actual membership. Fr Phillips's apparent unwillingness to cooperate with the archdiocese could support this view, that nobody really had a clear picture of the parish, and only with Fr Lewis's arrival are we going to start to see what the reality is.

None of this can be encouraging to Houston, whether it's a question of enthusiasm or actual numbers. I think Bp Lopes anticipated that the addition of OLA would change things for the OCSP, and I think there's now some reason to question the assumption. It's significant too that the visitor who told me about this said that the announcement wasn't mentioned in the printed bulletin or the web version.

Contrast

Regarding Annunciation Ottawa, my regular correspondent notes,

Annunciation, Ottawa, whatever we may think of its worship space, is actually the second or third largest group in the Canadian Deanery. Most are barely in double digits. But it has certainly failed to grow much beyond the original 30 who joined five years ago, although there have of course been arrivals (and departures). Mrs Gyapong wonders regularly why people are not "lined up to get in the door" of her church, but she apparently never really pauses to reflect on possible reasons. As a journalist writing regularly in Catholic publications, as well as on three Church-related blogs (two closed) she certainly has more opportunity to get the word out than most parishioners. Why is it falling on stoney ground?

Let's think of St Mary of the Angels in contrast. Over the past five years, it's had its facility closed to all use for nearly a year, with services in the parish building limited to a tiny group of angry dissidents for nearly three years additional. It's struggling back financially from having its commercial tenant leave, on the watch of the dissident group in charge. The dissident group took out a $600,000 mortgage without having title to the property, which the legal parish is forced to pay for the time being.

Under Fr Kelley, despite its continued struggles, the parish is attracting new members and continuing a program of community outreach. Meanwhile, Houston sends Fr Phillips out to tell groups how to grow and thrive.

The Real Policy On Dioceses

Yesterday I noted that the grandstanders in the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society have announced their de facto policy on the relationship of ordinariate groups to their dioceses. The grandstanders, of course, have no influence on actual policy and serve little purpose other than to make those who do have influence on policy, like Fr Bergman, look bad. Houston clearly needs an effective press operation, and Fr Perkins needs to make a greater effort to make sure Ms Gyapong, Mr Schaetzel, and Mr Murphy are on the same page.

A visitor notes,

During the lengthy installation Mass of Fr. Lewis, he took several oaths. That portion of the rite concluded with him physically signing a document presented by the Bishop, thereby making him officially the new Pastor. One of the oaths was essentially a promise to, for lack of a better description, "cooperate with the diocese and Bishop within which the parish geographically resides". Perhaps one of your readers can recall the words that were said, or from which document they were read. Or it could be that Bishop Lopes really wanted to stress cooperation - remember, he was and is not an Anglican. My point is, maybe the Gyapong's and Schaetzel's are reading from the old personal-parish era playbook?

The OCSP Guide to Parish Development has a section entitled VITALITY: RELATIONSHIP WITH LOCAL DIOCESE that reads

A clear indication of an Ordinariate’s community to act in communion is their relationship with the bishop, diocesan administration, and parishes of the territorial Catholic diocese. Ordinariate clergy and communities are urged to participate in common endeavors, including especially penance services and social engagement projects.

It's worth noting that Ms Gyapong and Mr Schaetzel are from two of the smallest and least-active groups in the OCSP, with two of the dreariest worship environments, as we've seen here. Mr Murphy lives in Germany and seems to be a member of the OOLW only in his mind. None can point to any local success as a basis for their exhortations to the rest of us. Of Ms Gyapong's group, my regular correspondent points out,

The latest person to be received at Mrs Gyapong's parish is the mother of two other members, both of whom were previously students of a college program in which the rector is a professor. Also an old friend of Mrs G. Pretty much a collection of PLUs ["People Like Us"]. She has often wondered, editorially, why the parish has not grown, but apparently doesn't see that its clubby atmosphere is not necessarily welcoming, however congenial it may be to those already there. As you said, Small Ball rather than Long Ball.

It appears that the actual policy of the OCSP is at variance with public statements, and indeed personal actions, of the grandstanders in the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society. In fact, I would say that Gyapong, Schaetzel, and Murphy are devotees of the discredited Phillips model of parish-building.

Long Ball vs Small Ball

A diocesan Catholic comments,

In regard to your blog, “It’s Not A Bug…” , Small Ball vs Long Ball is how this Diocesan Catholic thinks about it, but I can roll with the film analogy…

I somewhat agree with your idea that various groups are watching the same movie and seeing very different films but I think the reason is because the “The Church has admitted there are certain groups who are holier/smarter than the pope” crowd has only seen the first part of the film. I also think this same crowd does not realize this film is a variation of other, similar films, one in particular, a cautionary tale about the Society of St. Pius X.

The few Diocesan Catholics who have been watching this movie have not only seen the SSPX film and ad nauseam variations, but they have also read the spoiler alerts for this AC adventure on IMDB and know how the film will end. Either AC will be a glorious success at bringing many new sheep into the fold or, the new sheep brought in will eventually see how green the pasture is in truth, on the Diocesan side of the fence.

The box office gross seems to be declining. Maybe word of mouth can revive it. Maybe it will cease its theatrical run and go straight to DVD for archival purposes. It seems only the Diocesan Catholics know how it will end. It’s like betting on a sporting event, Small Ball vs Long Ball. I think games can be won by playing Small Ball but the series goes to the team playing Long Ball. And guess what? Diocesan Catholics are playing Long Ball.

It's worth pointing out that the position of the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society, based on Ms Gyapong's enthusiastic endorsement of Mr Schaetzel's post, is that diocesan parishes are somehow detrimental to the ordinariates' mission.

Let's look at this. While you can't generalize about diocesan parishes, there are successful ones that can be found with some effort in any diocese. These offer a wide range of activities, such as LifeTeen, Steubenville, rosary, adoration, Bible study, pilgrimages, schools and school-related activities, music programs, fellowships, catechism, RCIA, and of course the sacraments, including frequent confession. I don't believe any parish in any ordinariate offers anything like this range (in fact, I assume some of the successful diocesan parishes that host OCSP groups might count a DW mass as just another option among the wide range available.)

Beyond that, I've certainly heard and read comments by priests that it's an advantage for Catholics to worship with Catholics from other traditions. In our part of our archdiocese, there will be many Latino and Filipino members, as well as Armenians and a wide range of others -- Catholics from India, for instance. The Anglicanorum Coetibus Society specifically endorses the idea of cutting little ordinariate groups off from such influences.

My regular correspondent points out that the ordinariates just recently celebrated the OLSC's fifth anniversary.

Last Sunday, Bishop Lopes celebrated Mass with Sydney’s fledgling Ordinariate community of St Bede in Lewisham, together with the leaders of the UK and Australian Ordinariates, Mgr Keith Newton and Mgr Harry Entwistle, respectively.

Around 80 people attended the Lewisham Mass, held at its regular time of 12pm in the parish of St Thomas Becket.

In the week prior, the three leaders had attended the Australian Ordinariate’s annual residential in Brisbane along with 25 other priests, celebrating five years since the foundation of the Australian Ordinariate on June 15, 2012.

There were 80 people at this joyous event!

Reminds me of all too much that we've seen in the OCSP.

Russian Hackers!

Last week I mentioned working for underperforming high-tech companies. One way I learned how the world works there was several years spent with a company that bought up underperformers at a distress price, aggressively enforced the license agreements with the underperformers' existing customers, and used the newly acquired customer base as opportunities for cross-selling other underperforming products.

One thing I noticed, though, was that the assets of the underperformers often included facilities in Silicon Valley and similar places -- but what puzzled me was that they'd acquire a half-used building from Underfperformer A that would be half a mile from another half-used building from Underperformer B. I could never figure out why they didn't consolidate half-used building A with half-used building B and sell one of them.

Well, a couple years after I left that company, the CEO and CFO went to federal prison for securities fraud. They weren't making money from running an efficient operation, they were running a second-cousin to a Ponzi scheme. They didn't care if they could save millions by selling half-used buildings.

In short, I was seeing something a little hinky, and some time later, I recognized that this was a sign that bigger things were wrong. I'm now wondering if something hinky's up with Google, which owns Blogger, which is the platform this blog uses.

I check my statistics. It gives me an idea of my audience, and a writer needs to know his audience. On the left is a listing of my statistics (unique page views) for the past week by visitor's country. It's pretty much what you'd expect, most of my visits are from the US, with Canada usually in second place, then the UK, Australia, and a smattering of European and other countries. The odd thing is the past week -- 715 page views from Russia.

Pretty much the only time I get hits from Russia is when I get these massive clusters. I don't get them every week. It's against my expectations -- normally I pretty much know I'm writing for a limited audience in places that have an active interest in the progress (or lack of it) of Anglicanorum coetibus and related issues. Not many Russians, let's face it, have this interest. Why the occasional blips? And the blips, let's face it, are clearly enough to throw my statistics off. These aren't just fat-finger mistakes at the keyboard by occasional people.

There are various possibilities. Maybe Putin has ordered his intelligence operatives to jack my statistics up as part of his conspiracy with President Trump, but I doubt it. Maybe other Russians are doing this for some obscure criminal purpose, but I also doubt that. The numbers, while they throw my own statistics off, aren't big enough to make a difference overall. And Russian hackers, as far as can see, have nothing to gain simply by visiting my site, and nothing to gain by scamming my visitors in some way.

Also, I get no money from Google. I don't "monetize" my blog, and my audience is so small I wouldn't get much of anything if I did. So who benefits by jacking up my statistics? I don't, my visitors don't, and ordinary Russian nerd-crazies don't. Not only that, weeks can go by without the sort of blips I got in the past week.

One answer is that the past week, with a US holiday, might normally have lower-than-usual viewership, not just at my blog, but at blogs generally. This hurts Google. Remember that everyone who visits a Blogger blog is a product for Google. Google sells advertising on some blogs, and it also sells advertising elsewhere on the basis of what it learns from visits to this and all other Blogger blogs, whether they're monetized or not. The advertisers may pay, at least in part, based on total hits.

I'm wondering if Google is jacking up statistics for all Blogger blogs overall to jack up payments from advertisers. The hits from Russia may be coming in concert with Google as part of an overall pattern. I can't imagine another explanation for this phenomenon right now.

A lot of bloggers and YouTube commentators are more and more suspicious of Google. Certainly others have seen examples of Google manipulating statistics to benefit its position with advertisers.

It's Not A Bug, It's A Feature!

This is the punch line to many high-tech jokes. So maybe it's no coincidence that one of the most insightful commentators on the current cultural and political scene is Scott Adams, the Dilbert cartoonist. (Do a search for his name on YouTube.) One of the views he gives most often is that it's as though two different audiences are watching two different movies on the same screen. I think what he means is that the images are the same, and the dialogue is the same, but the two audiences are seeing them in the context of two completely different stories.

I'm beginning to realize that this has applied to Anglicanorum coetibus since its promulgation. Recall that Louis Falk in the runup to the erection of the OCSP was claiming to have seen complementary norms that no one else had discovered. Indeed, Msgr Steenson eventually had to travel to Des Moines to explain to Falk's ACA parish that, well, membership in the Freemasons was not an option for Catholics, and Anglican annulments would not be valid in the Church.

A debate in the TAC around the time of the Portsmouth Letter took place over whether Rome would simply declare itself "in communion" with the TAC, requiring no other actions on the TAC's part. This, of course, would allow Anglo-Catholics to continue with the fantasy that they're Catholic without making any particular effort to follow the Church's teachings. In thinking about Mr Schaetzel's post that I discussed yesterday, I get more and more of a sense that there's a strain of opinion in the OCSP that definitely agrees that Anglo-Catholics, as my TEC priest once put it, want the prestige of calling themselves Catholic without having to pay real Catholic dues.

It's not a bug, it's a feature!

Let's look at the Anglicanorum coetibus movie that two groups are watching on the same screen. One faction, represented by Mr Schaetzel, Ms Gyapong, and Mr Murphy, seems to be watching and thinking in effect, "Yes, the Holy Father finally recognized that Anglicans are in fact better than Catholics! He's ending centuries of division and bringing Rome to Canterbury!"

This may seem extreme as an interpretation, but I do find the Rule Britannia outlook of people like Mr Murphy and Fr Hunwicke, even if it has antiquarian appeal, annoying. We fought a war once, after all. But beyond that, I think some people are drawing the wrong interpretation from the fact that Anglicans have until very recently been received with the sketchiest of catechesis (viz, Evangelium) and ordained following perfunctory webinars.

It's not a bug, it's a feature!

Now, not many diocesan Catholics at all are watching this particular movie, but the few that are seem to be getting a different story from the same images and dialogue. The diocesan visitor who wrote me a few days ago seems to be among those few seeing this different story:

Part of being a true Catholic is having the humility to be OBEDIENT to the Pope and by extension, his bishops and clergy, even when you don’t like what they are doing or saying (or not doing or saying). This is anathema to some and part of why being a practicing Catholic is so hard and why, in my humble opinion, the OCSP can’t seem to get it’s act together.

Abp Garcia-Siller seems to have come to the same conclusion over Fr Phillips's role in the same movie. My regular correspondent pointed out in response to yesterday's post that in fact St George Republic now offers a more or less standard cathechesis program requiring candidates to attend 15 sessions and purchase the Catechism (no Evangelium, in other words). Fr Seraiah must interview each candidate. My correspondent feels this is new, and it's unclear how many, if any, candidates have been received this way. (However, our RCIA program required nearly a year of weekly sessions, and I've seen catechism programs at other parishes that take as long as two years. This is serious stuff.)

Fr Seraiah, of course, has been de facto a diocesan priest serving diocesan parishes since his ordination. Mr Schaetzel doesn't mention this in his list of tips -- his clear implication goes the other way, he's happy with anyone who walks in the door, the door being as far away as he can get from a diocesan parish. No interview, the fewer questions the better. I'm not sure if Mr Schaetzel even really understands what's going on in his own group, or what the Church actually requires of catechumens or candidates.

As far as I can see, he's an ignorant guy running off at the mouth. The little club at the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society thinks this is copacetic.

It's not a bug, it's a feature!

Tips For Parish Growth?

As I've sometimes pointed out here, I don't normally visit the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society blog. However, a visitor sent me a link to a post that was put up there yesterday that I think illustrates some of the puzzling viewpoints associated with laity who are enthusiastic about the Anglican evangelization project. For that reason, it's worth reproducing the post here, with my comments inserted in bold.

The following are 8 recommendations from what I have witnessed to work. This is how we are growing one Ordinariate parish so fast we can barely keep up with the building size

I ran this post by my regular correspondent, who is familiar with group size and building projects throughout the OCSP. My correspondent said, "Throughout the summer there has been a notice in the St George, Republic bulletin (available on their FB page) to the effect that they are outgrowing the 'humble chapel at Little Portion' and are at 'nearly standing room capacity on Sunday mornings.' This could mean 25 people; if you go to their website and wait for the picture of the chapel to scroll past at the top of the screen you will see that it is quite small and spartan. The Seraiah family numbers seven, and I think there are five in the Schaetzel family." All I can say is that the fairly recent photo here does show plenty of empty spaces in the pews.

1. Get away from established Catholic parishes. You can’t build your own house in somebody else’s backyard. Embrace the missionary spirit. Move away from your host parish and set up shop in a populated area where no Catholic parishes are nearby. Even if you have to meet in somebody’s home, or in a storefront, it’s better than trying to build your own house in somebody else’s backyard. My regular correspondent commented, "His parish-building points are clearly indebted to Fr Phillips," and I get some sense here that the same attitude noted by Abp Garcia-Siller, that there's a wish to be not just unique but separate, is in effect in Missouri as well. The problem is that a substantial number of OCSP communities do meet in diocesan facilities, and many of their clergy, certainly including Fr Seraiah, are dependent on diocesan assignments. The exhortation here is wildly unreal.
2. Get a good website and reliable contact info. Work your Google business listing for the highest visibility. Make sure people can easily find you. OK, but shouldn't the bishop be on this?
3. Behave like a parish. Make sure you’re offering mass and reconciliation regularly. Obviously, ditto.
4. Make sure you have a parish name — patron saint — don’t go by “Ordinariate Community…” Nobody understands what that means. Obviously, ditto. And where is this advice not being followed? Whom is Mr Schaetzel trying to impress?
5. Accept everybody, even cradle Catholics looking for a new home. Remember, people don’t have to be Ordinariate eligible to become members of an Ordinariate parish/community. Also, think outside the box when it comes to evangelism. If you’re only reaching out to Anglicans, you’re doing something wrong. You need to reach out to all non-Catholics. Remember, any non-Catholic (regardless of religious background) who is received into the Catholic Church through an Ordinariate parish/community is automatically eligible for Ordinariate membership as well. Here is where I'm really getting puzzled. Reach out to everybody -- cradle Catholics, non-Anglican Protestants, well, OK -- but St George Republic is one of the smallest groups. Mr Schaetzel doesn't mention how one might catechize these newcomers, which must be done before they receive sacraments -- is anyone among the two dozen or so at St George equipped to do this, especially for non-Anglicans? (See the California requirements for catechists in the link below.) What about newcomers who might be in irregular marital situations? Would these people even understand the problem they might have in a Catholic context? Would anyone be able to ask them tactfully about any of this? What would the local bishop have to say about offering a catechism program for all and sundry? But how many non-Anglicans have been confirmed there anyhow? Whom is Mr Schaetzel trying to impress?
6. Offer highly traditional liturgy. Youth are more attracted to tradition these days. Don’t fall for the hippy happy-clappy trap. Nothing is more dated than contemporary worship. If you want young people to join your community, you need to offer old traditional liturgy. The more “high-church” the better. So use that Divine Worship Missal regularly and vigorously. The only thing I'll say here is that Divine Worship -- The Missal is about the most recent liturgy you will find in the Church. Nothing "highly traditional" about made-up early modern English, any more than you'll find at the Renaissance Faire.
7. Offer challenging homilies. People today are sick and tired of watered-down, non-offensive homilies that don’t challenge them to live the faith. Don’t get me wrong. We need to show the love of God in all of our teaching, but at the same time we need to clearly define sin and challenge our people to overcome it. Maybe Mr Schaetzel could even suggest OCSP clergy take a short drive to a neighboring diocesan parish to get inspiration for good homilies. Just sayin'.
8. Don’t over-explain yourself. There is a tendency to want to explain the whole thing when it comes to the Ordinariate, Anglican Patrimony, our history, etc. Er -- isn't this called catechesis? Don’t do that. Just answer people’s questions as they ask them, and only give them the information they ask for. I don't understand. When do you mention the Church's teachings? Last I checked, the Catechism was 600 pages or so. They gave us a copy in RCIA. Don’t over explain it. That confuses average visitors and makes them think something is “fishy.” Just tell people what they need to know, only when they ask. Then carry on as if what you’re doing is the most natural thing in the world. I'm sorry, how does this differ from a cult? What I'm hearing is try to get just about anyone in the door, don't ask them questions, and if they don't ask any themselves, so much the better. Wouldn't many people, including Mormons, the unbaptized, Jehovah's Witnesses, and the like, be much, much better off in the care of a diocesan pastor and qualified catechist with far more experience dealing with the whole range of drop-ins?

This basically confirms my existing view of the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society, a small group of complacent -- even ignorant -- people far more concerned with grandstanding than anything of substance. The implication I see in these tips is that an OCSP group can grow by just kinda skipping over the Catholic business, putting plenty of distance between the group and the diocese, by finessing complicated stuff like catechesis, and by not asking, or answering, many questions at all. Clearly Ms Gyapong thinks this is a great idea. I wonder how the adults in the room feel about it.