Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Fr Kenyon's Current Status

My regular correspondent reports on what reference can be found to where Fr Kenyon is currently serving. A few weeks ago, a Stockport observer relayed news that he had been assigned to a "team ministry" in the Shrewsbury diocese, but his exact role there is still not completely clear:
As you will see on page 3 of the newsletter here, Fr Kenyon is putting in a full schedule of Ordinariate liturgies at St Aidan's Wythenshawe: daily Morning and Evening Prayer, Confession and Mass, plus a Vigil and a Sunday celebration. Given the number of OF Sunday masses offered in the St Bonaventure's Missionary Area, he may be saying one of them as well. He is living in a nearby suburb. But he is not listed as a member of the Wythenshawe Clergy Team, and only has a personal email address and phone number. The St Aidan's parish office is "closed until further notice." What gives? There is no local Ordinariate group listed on the OOLW website , other than the Manchester group led by Fr Starkie for which Fr Kenyon preached some months back. As I mentioned previously, most of the church of St Aidan, Northern Moor was converted into social and community space, leaving a relatively small worship space as a mass centre.
In a subsequent e-mail, my correspondent characterizes this as "a form of house arrest". It's hard to think other than that Fr Kenyon has a very low profile, with duties closely circumscribed even within a "team ministry". I would guess that most of the DWM liturgies he celebrates are for himself exclusively. It would seem that Fr Kenyon's return to the UK has primarily been a headache to his new bishop, adding to and not relieving his workload and that of his priests. This simply can't reflect well on Bp Lopes or the OCSP.

I've put out feelers to Stockport contacts, but so far have heard nothing back.