The same blog now carries an announcement of a rescheduled symposium, now down to one day, on October 15 of this year. Apparently this is now small enough that no pre-symposium is needed. My regular correspondent remarks,
While I was searching for Mrs G's original post on the now-cancelled four-day AC symposium/celebration I couldn't help noting the contrast between the AC blog in March 2018---42 posts---and that of March 2019---9. A huge drop in output, and I assume, corresponding interest. The Ordinariate Observer attempts an upbeat message, but one must balance news of a spin-off mission in a Houston exurb and a building fund to maybe buy a church in Covina with the probable demise of the group in Minneapolis, under a very unpleasant cloud, and the signal from the CDF that there isn't as much to celebrate about AC as they previously thought.A visitor recently did give this opinion:Canada is a looming crisis, with SJE, Calgary sailing towards an iceberg, IMHO, and the only competent priest about to depart for Australia. Even in the US, many groups are led by pensioned clergy who will eventually have to be replaced with men who are on the local diocesan payroll in some capacity, along with those leading new groups; not an ideal situation for Bp Lopes.
As you have pointed put, the push to establish schools without adequate planning and central management could result in messy situations down the road. So, uneasy lies the head that wears the OCSP mitre, I would imagine. Did one of your other correspondents opine that when Pope Benedict dies Pope Francis will pull the plug on the whole experiment? [Yes, see below.] If he has a moment to spare from his other headaches, that is. But at least troubled local dioceses have structures in place, even if their leadership is seriously flawed.
The Ordinariates are completely jerry-built, and unlike the OOLW, which despite very limited resources set itself up along the lines of a CofE diocese, with clergy previously known to the Ordinary and to each other, the OCSP management's priorities appear whimsical---in the first instance those of Steenson's inner circle--- and its clergy a very motley crew. A well-intentioned Organization Man is not going to be able to whip it into any kind of shape.
As soon as Benedict dies you will see changes because the ordinariates are his babies. Francis is just being respectful.That's just one opinion, of course, but I think the North American ordinariate is little more than a nuisance even to the dioceses like San Bernardino that have groups (mostly not parishes) poaching cradle Catholics and building-fund money in their territories. I wonder what one or two more scandals along the line of Luke Reese or Vaughn Treco will do, though we shall certainly find out in due course.
My regular correspondent continues,
It seems clear that Anglicanorum coetibus envisioned that the Ordinariates would consist, in the first instance, of former Anglican congregations led by their former Anglican clergymen. Over time, more former Anglicans and perhaps other former Protestants or the unchurched would join the congregations and they would experience natural growth, with, eventually, a significant number of members whose primary experience of the Church would be through the Ordinariate. Things turned out a bit differently.In the UK, the OOLW is primarily a clerical organisation made up of former CofE clergyman, with varying degrees of interest in "Anglican Patrimony," up to and including none, leading diocesan parishes which may or may not include any of their former parishioners. As a lay movement it never drew flies, but as an Old Boys' Club it may be serving a purpose. Certainly the Church in Britain needs priests.
In North America, a few, a very few, congregations followed the predicted pattern. In some cases a congregation came but its former leader was rejected or reassigned. In many more cases, a former clergyman arrived with no congregation, or a handful of former strangers he had gathered for Evening Prayer in his living room as a condition of proceeding to ordination. But only a few have been assigned to diocesan ministry full-time, and most of those have been excardinated from the OCSP.
So where are these men finding congregations? Given the average age of the first wave of ordinations, some men have retired or died and handed on their groups to new clergy.
But where there is new growth it has often come from the arrival of lifelong Catholics looking for something they apparently haven't found in the scores of local parishes available to them. "Anglican Patrimony" is whatever they want it to be; the important thing is that a Catholic priest is finally listening to them and their priorities, whatever they are.
A congregation made up entirely of such people would be problem enough, but this is compounded when the new arrivals contend with a core group of actual former Anglican parishioners, as at SJE, Calgary. Emails you have shared from those familiar with OLA and St Bede indicate a similar divide in those congregations, and I am sure they are not the exception.
Fr Ernie Davis, originally a Pastoral Provision priest in Kansas City, MO led a diocesan parish, St Therese Little Flower, which deliberately pitched itself as a home for disaffected and disappointed Catholics. When a group of Anglicans in KC was looking to enter the Church via AC, Fr Davis was incardinated in the OCSP and attempted to fold the group into his parish. The results were predictably disastrous: a group of people trying to learn about and embrace a new Church, and a group of people angry at the Church and convinced it was circling the drain everywhere but at their little enclave. Fr Davis left St Therese and for about a year led the OCSP group while working as a hospital chaplain. Eventually he went on sabbatical and is now incardinated in the Diocese of Kansas City-St Joseph as Pastor of a regular diocesan parish. There's a lesson here.
