Fr Mayer has announced on the St James, St Augustine website that the congregation is moving to Jacksonville, FL. This is now announced as his original mandate although it has only recently been mooted on the website. I note that he currently lives in Jacksonville. In 2012, St James St Augustine began celebrating a 5 pm mass at a House of Prayer near the Nombre de Dios Mission in St Augustine. About two years later they moved to St Benedict the Moor, about five minutes away by car, as the former parish administrator describes here. At some point they were given what I would regard as the prime time of 10:30 Sunday morning, plus the use of meeting facilities at the St Benedict rectory (the church is a "mission" of the cathedral) as you can see on the calendar here.The announcement of the move on the website readsSo why move to Jacksonville after seven years? Of course as the name, the address (Martin Luther King Ave) and the local district (Lincolnville) indicate, St Benedict's is in the historically black part of St Augustine, a demographic not represented in the St James congregation as far as I can tell, but the church is attractive and seems to have met their needs for the last five years. Why move to an elementary school chapel thirty miles away? The idea that this was Fr Meyer's mandate in going to the community is news to me.
On January 25, 2019 Fr. Philip Mayer was ordained and appointed as the parochial administrator of St. James Catholic Church and given a commission to move the community to Jacksonville, allowing a more central location for the community. The current discernment is pointing toward a move this summer or fall to the Mandarin area of Jacksonville.The calendar on the website says holy day masses are in the St Joseph Catholic School auditorium, 11600 Old St Augustine Rd, Jacksonville, FL. According to Google Maps, this is 30 miles and 37 minutes up I-95 from the St Benedict the Moor parish, a non-trivial distance. We simply don't know how many members live in Jacksonville and commute to St Augustine for mass.
But it's hard to escape the impression that this group, like many in the North American ordinariate, is tiny, contingent, and unstable. The announced plans for the move itself are vague and uncertain. I hate to think that it distracts new Catholics who used to be Anglican from the worthwhile programs, opportunities, and fellowship at much larger, more stable, and more prosperous parishes nearer to them.
UPDATE: My correspondent adds:
You reported on St James, St Augustine on your post of August 28,2018. This was initially an Evensong group which was formed by Fr Marziani, then a Catholic layman who had left TEC ministry in 2006, as his ticket to ordination. It started with seven people and seems to have plateaued at about two dozen over its seven-year existence, but of course the composition of the group may not have been stable. These communities often attract the kind of person perennially on the lookout for the "perfect" church. Perhaps some new and influential folk turned up who suggested that Jacksonville was a greener pasture. Perhaps it's just that Fr Mayer's day job is there.It does appear that relocations, new "branches", and the like are driven by very small groups with specific agendas.
