In addition to the uninspiring environment -- where is the roodscreen, the choir, the reredos, the intricately carved pulpit? -- I've got to say that Fr Mayer's tone is off-putting. He's talking down, but I would say that whatever height he's talking down from isn't very high, and his delivery is disturbingly close to sing-song. It fits, I suppose. This is what the local Anglicans special Catholics think are precious treasures, huh?
My regular correspondent also sent this link to the interior of the chapel being used by the spin-off community from Our Lady of Walsingham now meeting at St Anthony of Padua in The Woodlands, an exurb of Houston. Fr Justin Fletcher, who was ordained priest in January with Fr Philip Mayer, is priest for this group, which appears to be nothing but a make-work project. I don't know if Fr Fletcher also needs a visit to a speech therapist.
I have a big question here. No priest in the North American ordinariate is a Frederick Kinsman, a Ronald Knox, or an Abbot Butler. Indeed, none is a Jeffrey Steenson at this point. The two best possibilities the ordinariate had, Christopher Kelley and David Moyer, were scrubbed at the start. None, certainly, is a Dwight Longenecker. Instead, we have callow nonentities in acoustic-tile chapels with portable altars and at best electric organs.
Who on earth will be motivated to attend this? How is any of this remotely "Anglican"?
An unrelated question from Msgr Pope: "Does Your Parish Church Remind You Of Heaven? It Should!"
