I just wanted to update you on one of your stories from earlier in 2018: Dcn (Blake) Gregory Tipton and the OCSP community of St Aelred, Athens, GA, I was interested that their monthly DW mass is now celebrated on Sunday afternoon in the chapel of St Joseph School, where Mrs Tipton works, rather than in the parish church, but the investigation is complicated by the fact that the diocesan parish doesn't have a church, really. Having outgrown their downtown building the congregation has been using the multipurpose gym at the school for the last two years while a new church is being planned.Let's hold up the mirror of the gay-networks crisis in the larger Church to this minor news. One theory of Anglicanorum coetibus is that it's an attempt to swell the diminishing ranks of celibate priests by taking in disaffected Anglicans, perhaps also as an experiment to test larger acceptance of married clergy. But the examples of Dcns Tipton and Mayer aren't apples-to-apples comparisons -- Dcn Mayer appears not to have worked out over years as a Pastoral Provision candidate in the Diocese of St Petersburg, while Dcn Tipton appears to have been a marginal candidate for TEC ordination who looked to the OCSP only after he failed to get a footing in the local TEC diocese.This is obviously good news for the growing parish but I can see that attracting current Episcopalians to this worship environment might be challenging. I cannot find any pictures of the school chapel on the web, unfortunately. There are two Episcopalian churches and one "continuing" Anglican church in Athens with attractive traditional church premises. Both the rector and the associate rector of the local TEC parish of which Dcn Tipton was previously a member are former Catholic priests---the Rector was a Capuchin for many years.
Dcn Tipton has a blog on the St Aelred website, and I must say that his writing skills have not improved since the earlier samples which you labelled "word salad." A disconcerting blend of Wikipedia-style information of dubious relevance and random personal observations. Dcn Tipton is still teaching history and theology at the local Catholic high school and I must say I do not envy his students. It will be interesting to see if/when he proceeds to priestly ordination.
Mr Philip Mayer at St James, St Augustine FL is expecting to be ordained priest January 27 2019 according to the St James website.
I think we can begin to conclude that the reason for Anglicanorum coetibus is careers within the Church, with laity playing a very secondary role. In our more recent broader perspective, Steven Lopes has followed an existing career path, becoming secretary to a corrupt cardinal, William Levada, much as Donald Wuerl became secretary to John Wright. One question is why he wasn't given a small territorial diocese on the normal promotion ladder for bishops, when instead he got a project that's turned out to be a loser from the start. There's been no real change over the Steenson regime, either.
Nor is the OCSP bringing in exceptional parish priests. The roughly 60 mediocrities don't strike me as any answer to the problem of diminished celibate vocations, and in fact, there's been no real decrease in the risk exposure, given the examples of Frs Kenyon and Reese. This is almost certainly because Anglican priests who consider leaving their denominations for the OCSP are almost always doing this because they aren't succeeding as Anglicans, and a certain percentage of these aren't succeeding because their Anglican vestries and bishops want them out for good reason.
Looking at Anglicanorum coetibus from the broader Church perspective, I think a better solution to the problems it's presumptively meant to address will be to reform the seminaries and get the gay networks out of the vocation business, while encouraging vocations in parishes by strong preaching and personal example and the influence of server programs and reverent liturgy.
