Church Militant Doesn't Have The FULL STORY

A story on the Poor Clare sisters leaving OLA for Alabama appears now at Church Militant. My immediate reaction is that this story is such a puff piece for Fr Phillips, including a smarmy photo, that it must have come from the freelance Phillips press office that I hypothesized yesterday. Several things follow from this. The story can do absolutely nothing to help relations between Bp Lopes and Abp Garcia-Siller, and if I were the archbishop, I'd be asking if this is done with Lopes's tacit approval.

My second reaction is that the comment section reminds me of the issue Fr Z sometimes raises, that Catholic web sites allow such vivid flame wars to erupt in their comment sections that some of the people involved are putting their souls in danger. And this goes to the demonic issue that has lately had me concerned here. People ask why I don't have comments on this blog, and I will submit the comments on that post as my answer.

My third reaction is that this story not only threatens any good relation between Bp Lopes and Abp Garcia-Siller, but it raises a question for any diocesan bishop: why would I want a bunch of essentially anti-Catholic agitators to come into my territory, calling themselves "Catholic" but outside my authority, picking squabbles with me and running to Church Militant with their side of the story? I can't imagine the way this is being spun doing anything but damage -- and, I suspect, more damage, not damage de novo -- to the OCSP's cause.

I noted yesterday the puzzling phenomenon of recent OCSP groups-in-formation having apparent difficulties in gaining the use of diocesan facilities. And Bp Lopes is not on top of this. Fr Phillips has become a loose cannon here. Bp Lopes, this is not a good look.

But let's get to the actual situation of the nuns' departure and the possible reasons for it. Mr Schaetzel actually left a constructive comment at the Church Militant thread:

In the case of these three nuns, while they too are Ordinariate members, they are also under the Mother Superior of their religious order in Alabama. They have to follow their Superior's orders. Such is the nature of religious orders. The article states that +Gustavo contacted the order's superior in Alabama, revoked his predecessor's invitation, and asked that they be removed immediately. He can legally do this, since they were originally there under the invitation of the previous archbishop of San Antonio, back when Atonement was under the Archdiocese. It's a technical matter really. . .

However, even this doesn't go into much more ambiguous background. An observer contacted me yesterday noting

As religious groups usually serve in a diocese under the auspices of the Bishop, these women by their applications for OCSP membership would have thrown this relationship into some serious ambiguity, if that was the case. It would not be out of line for the Archbishop to request clarification of their intentions or to re-evaluate the original mission of these nuns in the archdiocese.

However, it appears that the Poor Clares themselves had been reassessing their mission for some time prior to last year's events in any case. The visitor continues,

[T]hese nuns originally had five members housed here in San Antonio but [t]wo returned to the Motherhouse in Hanceville, AL several years ago because they were unhappy/unable to support the ongoing mission in San Antonio, which was ostensibly to pray for the community and fundraise to build a monastery in the San Antonio area. Looking into the Poor Clares order online, I can see that it has undergone a pretty significant consolidation over the last decade with a monastery in OH consolidating into NC and the NC monastery has now been merged into the AL monastery. Moving these three remaining nuns back to the main monastery at this time would not be inconsistent with what is occurring within this order as discernment.

Another visitor notes several errors or obscurities in the Church Militant piece.

• The article says the archbishop "had commanded three Poor Clare nuns attached to the parish back to their motherhouse in Alabama after nine years in San Anotonio." He made a request to the Mother Superior, as shown in the excerpt.
• The article says "They had been in the process of raising funds to build a monastery." This had been ongoing for 9-10 years, but as discussed above, there was some disagreement, and the status of the land acquisition is unclear at best. The article says, "Texas lost an entire monastery," but the monastery is at best rumored for the future and entirely notional.
• The article says, "The sisters left Sunday morning before the announcement was made; parishioners weren't even given the chance to say goodbye." Not given a chance by whom? This was at the mother superior's order, not the archbishop.
• The article says, "Fr. Phillips was reinstated shortly after, but has since retired." The announcement of his retirement was effectively simultaneous with the admission of the parish to the OCSP.
• The article says, "This, parishioners believe, set the stage for Sunday's expulsion — a move they have described to Church Militant as punitive, vindictive and godless." As discussed here, the move was consistent with the canonical status of religious orders in dioceses and seems to be consistent with an ongoing process of discernment within the order, not necessarily related to any events at the OLA parish.

A question I have is why, if all that would have been needed to keep the nuns at the OLA parish would have been a re-invitation from Bp Lopes, such a re-invitation hasn't been issued. My regular correspondent notes,

There is now a group of Dominican nuns in residence at OLW, Houston. One of them is helping out in the Chancery; another two are teaching at the school of which Fr Sellers, former Communications Director of the OCSP, is the President.

Bp Lopes is entirely capable of inviting an order into his see -- so why didn't he just re-invite the Poor Clares to OLA? I think it's entirely possible that the mother superior saw good reasons to re-discern the sisters' mission at OLA, not necessarily related to any other developments.

An observer has these questions:

• How is a Monastery supported?
• What are the Canon Law governing codes for a Monastery within an Archdiocese or Ordinariate?
• Why wasn't the parish informed until the sisters were packed up and already on the road?
• Why didn't the Mother Superior contact Bp Lopes? Did she? Why such a quick decision to uproot before exploring other options.
• Why the drama of leaving on Ephiphany?
• Is the Archbishop King Herod in this story?

These are worthwhile questions, and if anyone can help, I'll publish the info, especially on the Monasticism 102 material here.

But backing off the specific issue, I've got to say I think the black eye here goes to Bp Lopes, who hasn't been able to control the loose cannon in his see, who hasn't been able to get a favorable contrasting message out, and indeed, whose essentially non-existent press office hasn't built favorable relations with outlets like Church Militant. Keep in mind that a good press person would find ways to build confidence with Mr Voris's operation such that they would contact Houston for comment and clarification before running this sort of a story.

Yeah, the usual angry traddies will get stirred up in the comment section, but the people who count -- Bp Lopes's colleagues in the USCCB and CCB -- will have different reactions. If I am Cardinal O'Toole, Archbishop of Gotham, how eager will I be to allow some new little group of angries who aren't even sure if they're Anglican or Catholic to meet after the Korean mass at St Ipsydipsy?