In point of fact, of course, the necessity to have some prior connection to Anglicanism to become a member of an Ordinariate only applies to people who are already Catholics, either lifelong or previous converts. Anyone else---Baptist, Mormon, Sikh, Scientologist---who enters the Church by way of an Ordinariate group or parish is eligible to become an Ordinariate member. So the target market, at least for conversions, is not "Anglicans," but those who wish to become Catholic while worshipping in a way that some people might identify as Anglican.But this simply skips over one of the functions a real diocese performs, which is to certify catechists. At least where I am, diocesan certified catechists undergo a three-year formation. How are these fomer Baptist, Mormon, Sikh, or Scientologist catechumens or candidates being prepared in the temporary spaces their little groups occupy? We're back to this strange question, where the original idea behind Anglicanorum coetibus was that existing "groups" (read already formed Anglican parishes) would be received with their existing clergy and undergo an abbreviated catechesis (for instance, with the Evangelium program aimed at former Anglicans).
This paradigm was exhausted within a year or two of 2012. The paradigm established since then is basically that groups of "Anglican" wannabes get together in someone's parlor for monthly evensong, primarily to justify ordaining some guy who couldn't get a career going as Lutheran or even an Episcopalian, undertaking this as a desperate last resort before he goes back to school to learn to code, which he probably should have done years earlier anyhow.
The laity, whatever their status, are a distant secondary consideration. At some point, deus volante, Fr Luther V. Cromwell is ordained a married Catholic priest after months of distance learning, and his little flock is received, having absorbed whatever Anglican patrimony they can pick up in evensong, or maybe reading the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society blog. Under the interpretation of the Complementary Norms that's evolved, this is all perfectly OK. Hey, sounds like they're gonna get a homeschool supplement program going! Virtus? What's that?
My correspondent continues,
As I have often mentioned, I suspect that in a decade, perhaps sooner, OCSP parishes will settle into the liturgical/devotional equivalent of Tex-Mex, Hawaiian pizza, and similar examples of "fusion" cuisine.The problem is that even if you go for Tex-Mex, the restaurant is certified by the health department. If you buy a frozen Hawaiian pizza at the store, you've got the supermarket standing behind it, as well as the regulators. It seems to me that you have an issue arising that if you go to St Vincent's parish, you can assume the priests have been formed via the usual process and the catechists are certified. If you go to the St John Fisher Ordinariate Evensong, you have no such assurance. So Tex-Mex and Hawaiian pizza are not an apt analogy. A better one might be Joe Schmo's Cancer Cure masquerading as an FDA approved drug.To clarify, Ordinariate communities will become increasingly "fusion" communities because of the large number of attendees with no actual Anglican background, and this will be enabled by the leadership of a bishop who himself has little exposure to the real thing. The Knights of Columbus are a prime example. No OCSP event is complete without the KofC with their swords and feathers, and yet even Catholics in England never went in for this kind of thing, so obviously meant as a validation of immigrant Italian culture in a hostile American environment.
I keep seeing a bigger and bigger issue with the fact that a normal bishop approves the use of the term "Catholic" in his diocese. But even in the examples we've seen, for instance with Mr Treco, we get someone who somehow slipped through the ordination process but turns out to be offering an unapproved product. Tex-Mex, my left foot -- it's Ma's Road Kill Grill. and let's face it, Mr Treco isn't the only one doing this stuff.
Put another way, it's the Precious Treasures of the Anglican Spiritual Patrimony.
