I think that a turning point came for many when it became clear that the implementation of Anglicanorum coetibus was precisely not a "corporate reunion," but required the individual reception of every member on precisely the same basis as would have been the case had he or she sought membership in the Church through the RCIA process in a local parish. His or her former clergyman might or might not get ordained and lead the community down the road; his or her former bishop would not be exercising any episcopal role, with the exception of Keith Newton. This was a complete non-starter for most of the UK Anglo-Papalist parishes and even in the North American "continuum" turned off many groups and individuals, earlier and in some cases a fair bit later, as we read here.I agree that the 30,000-foot version of Anglicanorum coetibus that was promoted in the media just after its promulgation was that entire parishes with their clergy would become Catholic, with little other change. This itself was a somewhat stricter version of the notion that seems to have taken hold in the TAC after the Portsmouth Letter, that the Holy Father would simply declare that Rome and the TAC were "in communion" (i.e., that each denomination recognized the episcopal actions of the other).
It's clear in hindsight that anything short of "in communion" quickly becomes impossibly complicated, but even the truncated version of "corporate reunion" we saw with Anglicanorum coetibus has a serious downside. My regular correspondent moves on:
One might point out that proximity of episcopal oversight does not in and of itself guarantee anything---otherwise there wouldn't have been a problem to start with at OLA. I know you believe that Fr Phillips had a protector in high places, but I think a bigger problem was the fact that he was starting everything from scratch with lay people who either didn't know better or were prepared to accept uncritically everything Fr Phillips did. Fr Bartus has, fortunately IMHO, not built his empire as rapidly as Fr Phillips but I am concerned that he has gathered a similarly smitten community around him, made up both of people whose idea of Catholicism has been formed by him and of people who had a negative previous experience of the Church and are looking to the Ordinariate as a fresh start. Let us remind ourselves of the many projects he has blue-skyed and the work he has put in to advance Fr Baaten and Mr Bales towards ordination. Not to mention Holy Martyrs, Temecula, which he has been trying to get together since last August, although that seems to have run into a bit of a buzz saw. But the point is that presumably his parishioners think that this is what a Catholic priest is like. So whatever he says, goes. The strength of an established parish is the knowledge that pastors come and pastors go, but St Lucy's goes on with its mission.I keep coming back to Fr David Miller's observation in my 1981 TEC confirmation class, that Anglo-Catholics are people who want the prestige of calling themselves Catholic without paying the dues real Catholics have to pay. Rome and the OCSP need to guard against enabling this attitude, although it seems to me that Abp Garcia-Siller, in his remarks about OLA being not just unique but separate, was driving at something very similar, and it seems to me that Bp Lopes is also now trying to address the same problem there.
But this doesn't change the real problem that even my correspondent raises, that the farther you get from Houston, the more likely it's going to be that clergy are going to freelance "Catholicism", and some people -- not all that many, though -- will buy into it.
