There is a good chance that Fr. Phillips is the sole beneficiary of Dcn Orr’s will. Orr was from a well off family. One can imagine the scenario where the school and church are the beneficiary, but with Fr Phillips to control the use of the funds. If that’s the case, then we may see a reemergence of Fr. Phillips in a higher role. I don’t know if you are aware but the school expansion project left the parish in serious debt.I keep seeing that this must have been a very, very strange relationship. Another OLA-familiar visitor reports,
What I don't understand is how Bishop Lopes refuses to deal with Fr. Phillips now? Now that Orr's true colors have been revealed and Fr. Phillips illicit cover-up has been uncovered!What puzzles me is how some people -- though not many in the overall scheme of things -- can be convinced that the liturgical innovation in Anglican Use or Anglicanorum coetibus, promoted by a liberal cardinal who was an ally of Joseph Bernardin and the poster boy for clerical abuse, can be the remedy for liturgical innovation and post-Conciliar heterodoxy. Not to mention abusive clergy. But this is the bill of goods that Phillips and his imitators have sold.What the Archdiocese released is really just the tip of the iceberg, as you have pointed out, and yet Fr. Phillips still says masses every Sunday, he led the Rosary (and gave a lengthy eulogy at the Rosary) for his little buddy James Orr (RIP).
It's easy to blame the former Ordinaries (The Archbishops of San Antonio) for their lack of motivation to deal with this awful priest (Phillips) but what is Lopes excuse?
I can verify, as an absolute fact, that there is bad blood between Lopes and Archbishop Gustavo, but not because Gustavo did not want the parish to leave the Archdiocese, as has been widely spun by Phillips and his media machine. Gustavo and his predecessors Gomez and Flores both knew the parish would join the Ordinariate, or it's equivalent, when it was defined and when the the parish wanted it. There was never any doubt, the property belonged to the parish and the parish belonged to the Anglican Use. The bad blood exists BECAUSE Gustavo wanted Phillips removed from active ministry, because of the contents of the now released report and the years of cover-up that Phillips always offered to Orr.
If you remember Phillips was removed for a time, by Archbishop Gustavo immediately before the parish became a part of the Ordinariate. It was Archbishop Gustavo's intent that this situation remain permanent. Lopes knew of the abuses by Orr and the cover-up by Phillips and he did nothing. He knew of the cult of personality that came with Phillips and he refused to deal with it at the time - and he still refuses to deal with it today. In essence, Phillips took personal responsibility for placing literally thousands of children and their families in reach of the sociopath Orr and he is is still allowed to function, not as a pastor, but as a Catholic priest with full rights and privileges of the priesthood.
Is the Ordinariate so driven by debt-load that the money and donations attached to Christopher Phillips by the cult of personality, you so aptly identified, really all there is? Day after day - Week after week - Fr. Lewis has to deal with the megalomaniac Phillips while Lopes sits in his Ivory tower 200 miles to the East. I'm pretty sure if Phillips were the pastor at Walsingham, it would be a different story. This is cowardice!
What does this say to those abused by Orr through the years, not just sexually but abused by his pathological lust for power and his mafioso view of loyalty. How do those affected by this vicious duo see Lopes and his refusal to hold Phillips accountable for the direction, support, denials, obfuscations and fabrications he has always afforded Orr and continues to - to this day? Where is the justice in this?
