Fr Phillips Back At St Luke's

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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.