As to the issue of membership and registration in the ordinariates, it’s actually juridical — and formally necessary because the ordinariate is a personal jurisdiction rather than a territorial jurisdiction. Every member of the Catholic Church who does not belong to a personal jurisdiction is canonically a member of the parish, or other parochial community, and the diocese, or equivalent jurisdiction, within the territory of which he or she resides (see Canons 100-107). Membership in a personal jurisdiction must be definitive, as it affects the competence of pastors to admit members to the sacraments of initiation and to marriage, of bishops or other ordinaries to admit candidates to ordination and to grant certain dispensations, and of other acts of ecclesial governance. Thus, all personal jurisdictions and parishes require some formal process of enrollment or registration — the canonical effect of which also removes the individual from the jurisdiction of the pastor of the territorial parish and the bishop of the territorial diocese, or their equivalents.But naturally, if I had been a garden-variety Protestant who'd passed through Methodism as part of a journey to the Church via Baptism and Presbyterianism, I probably would find little rewarding in a sorta-kinda 1928 BCP mass. In any case, there is apparently no tribunal in Houston passing on the validity of anyone's membership application. This also gets in passing to the question of the Anglicanorum coetibus target market -- it specifically excludes Catholics who've had the sacraments of initiation but fallen away from the Church, which is a far, far greater number than any Protestant denomination.In today’s post, you wrote: “If I started out as a Baptist but went denomination-hopping for whatever reason, but while I lived in Podunk I went to First Methodist before I moved to Second Presbyterian, does that qualify me?” The answer is NO, but you would not need it to qualify you. All that is necessary for a baptized Baptist to become a member of an ordinariate is to be received into the Catholic Church within the jurisdiction of an ordinariate. What is different in the case of a former Anglican, though, is that a former Anglican whose reception into the full communion of the Catholic Church did not occur within the jurisdiction of an ordinariate can transfer to the ordinariate at any time after that reception, whereas a similarly situated former Baptist cannot.
In today’s post, you concluded: “There's an awful lot here that doesn't add up, and the cure of souls seems to be somewhere far back on the list of priorities.” Fundamentally, the cure of souls depends heavily on what ministers effectively to each individual. The question, which only you can answer, is whether you would derive more spiritual benefit from one community and the associated liturgy or the other.
My regular correspondent notes,
It is true that the Church does not attach the same meaning to PARISH membership as Protestant denominations. But membership in a sui juris Church is important; for example a married man who was a member of the Ukrainian Catholic Church could be considered for priestly ordination while a married lifetime member of the Latin Rite could not. Presumably there are other differences---rules of fasting, for example. One can only change ones membership in a sui juris Church for certain specified reasons.Later,This said, the Ordinariates are part of the Latin Rite so there are no significant differences in discipline that would make Ordinariate membership a practical issue. Married men not previously ordained will not be considered for ordination. On the other hand, under the Pastoral Provision a married former Baptist or Lutheran minister with no connection to Anglicanism could be considered for Catholic ordination. So what's the point? Lots, from the Ordinariate perspective. Once they have your name and address you will be solicited for donations to the Bishop's Appeal, the Seminarian Fund, etc, and will receive the annual Ordinariate Observer as your reward. OCSP members not affiliated with any OCSP group are apparently major donors to the Bishop's Appeal. And of course at least in the American context it's a numbers game.
It is true that the membership criteria for joining an Ordinariate are very broad. Someone mentioned on a post that although he was a cradle Catholic he could join because his mother, although also raised from childhood as a Catholic, was originally baptised in a Methodist church. In Canada, any Catholic with family ties to the United Church can join the OCSP.Another visitor notes,The United Church, formed of a union between the Methodists, Congregationalists, and Presbyterians in 1925, is Canada's largest Protestant denomination. Most second or third generation Christian Canadians would have some family member affiliated with this denomination. Despite its Methodist roots--now almost a century in the past--it is basically aliturgical, with a presbyterian form of governance. The connection to the Anglican patrimony is zilch. But that is not really the point.
Regarding “Registration” in a Roman/Latin Diocese, I suspect the origin has more to do with mundane factors of practical bookkeeping. As the registration in parishes is primarily an American thing, I would guess that the origins of that in America have much more to do with our fascination with quantifying everything, as evidenced by the constitutional amendment requiring a census every 10 years, and the logistics of compliance with the IRS tax codes surrounding charitable contributions/deductions. In order for parishes to provide contribution amounts above the $250 threshold to the IRS, they need to know address info, etc for who is associated with envelope #106. (This also helps our Bishops and Pastors know who to ask for those big donations—again, a great American Marketing strategy—and possibly why American Catholic parishes seem to be so much more successful than seemingly similar European parishes).So the conclusion seems to be that pretty much any Protestant can find a way to qualify as "Anglican" if they put their mind to it, but even so, the appeal for this market isn't great. A visitor from Our Lady of the Atonemnt reports,Membership in the Roman/Latin Catholic Church is also tracked by parishes but not necessarily in the same way Protestant Churches consider “membership”. I don’t know how non-Catholic churches enroll members, but I know all Catholic parishes enroll members based on who receives what sacraments and when that occurs. Each parish maintains its own “big book of sacraments”, if you will, wherein it is noted the name, date, etc for every person who receives a sacrament in that parish. The controlling parish of record is the parish where a person is baptized. Since most sacraments can only be received once (or require special dispensation such as an annulment, etc.), sacraments that are conferred away from the parish where the person was actually baptized require the parish priest performing the sacrament to notify the baptismal parish so the person’s sacramental record history can be updated. That way, a person who is already married with no annulments on record can be prevented from trying to marry again illicitly.
Back during OLA's second try (since joining the Ordinariate) at registering members for the Ordinariate, Fr. Lewis made an announcement during his welcome reception that he was passing on a message from Bishop Lopes that the CDF was now makihng members of OLA "automatically" members of the Ordinariate, while adding we should still fill out the enrollment slips. There's been nothing in writing, so hard to tell exactly what that means.This does raise the question of whether anything was done to screen cradle Catholics who'd been registered at OLA from this process, since it seems to me that those baptized in another diocesan parish would have their sacramental records maintained in that parish, not OLA. So for knowledgeable visitors, are there implications here?The first drive had a special colored enrollment slip with an additional option of checking that you were previously a member of OLA for at least 6 months. There also seemed a deadline that the special forms would only be accepted for a month. The way the oral announcement was made suggests the possibility that anyone that registers to be a member of the parish can immediately join the Ordinariate.
UPDATE: I'm informed that at least theoretically, OCSP pastors review application forms from parish registrants and pre-screen them for forwarding to Houston, which then at least theoretically performs a second review, although there's a question as to whether staff currently exists to do this. However, there would presumably be no pre-screening for applicants not connected with an established OCSP community who send forms directly to Houston. In addition, there seem to be many options for "flexibility" even for pre-screening by pastors -- almost any Canadian main line Protestant, for instance, could qualify, and cradle Catholics could probably find a qualifying relative with a little effort. The consensus here is certainly that it's a numbers game, with numbers hard to find, so my guess is there's incentive on all sides not to screen too heavily, especially if nobody in Houston is looking very hard at these forms.
ALSO, it appears that people can be registered at an OCSP community, but not members of OCSP, at least theoretically. This may be what has actually sometimes taken place at Our Lady of the Atonement, but I'm not clear on how common this circumstance is.
