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.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.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.”
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anyone planning to attend the harp concert at St Mary of the Angels this afternoon, the original soprano soloist has been replaced by the talented Claire Plauzoles.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.
