Two Interiors

Based on my comments yesterday about not knowing how big the interior of the Mt Calvary Baltimore parish is, my regular correspondent went looking and found this image on Facebook:

Trying to judge from the people I see and the number of pews, I would put its maximum capacity at about 100, so if the Mystery Worshipper said it was about two-thirds full, I would guess about 60 people were there. Since the reporter himself was a guest, and since someone was apparently being confirmed at the mass, I would expect some of those 60 were not members, or would not have ordinarily attended. So it sounds like we're about at the level the parish was when it came into the ordinariate, barely meeting the minimum parish status.

A couple of other things strike me. The interior seems quite bare and even depressing. I've got to wonder when it was last painted -- over time, candles build up crud on the walls, and I have a sense of crud buildup. There are some figures in surplices in the choir loft at the far left, but I assume that's about the extent of the music program -- an organist and not much else. So based on the Mystery Worshipper's report, there's a catered brunch following the mass (presumably courtesy of an endowment), a thurifer swings the thurible in full circles (a circus act), there's the Viennese neueste Ordnung Liturgy -- and that's it. My regular correspondent reports,

There's a methadone clinic across the street from the church so I imagine the young families are making a trip into downtown Baltimore from some distance. To attend a parish "independent of many of the liturgical reforms of the 1970s," no doubt.

A parish is more than a thurible, some vestments, and a thee-thou prayer book. More even than a catered brunch. Just for starters, there's a physical plant that has to be maintained, and an interior that needs to be brightened periodically. I don't see Mt Calvary as a real parish with a real parish life.

My regular correspondent also informs me that the St James, St Augustine FL group is definitely moving 30 miles up the I-95 to Jacksonville on July 28. "This is the school chapel where they will be meeting":

Needless to say Jacksonville is well-supplied with Catholic parishes. No offence to the school, but why would anyone choose to attend Sunday mass here except in some kind of logistical emergency?

Just one thing. Here is the main nave at the host parish, St Joseph's Jacksonville. All the two dozen or so who've come up the I-95 for the neueste Ordung liturgy have to do, apparently, is go in a slightly different direction once they get to the St Joseph's parking lot, and they can worship here, rather than in the school auditorium.

There's a full web page of ministry opportunities at St Joseph's, with the opportunity to serve as a sacristan, lector, eucharistic adoration, and even Latin mass. These are the sorts of opportunites people can have at a real parish, not a group of two dozen meeting in a school auditorium.

But certainly parishes differ, and St Joseph's may not appeal to everyone. As my regular correspondent says, there are other Catholic parishes in Jacksonville.

What's beginning to disturb me here is how people -- thankfully, not all that many -- are somehow being conned into thinking they need to go to some special kind of Catholic church, and they're entitled to stay away from what often appear to be outstanding diocesan parishes that are much more convenient and offer a great deal more than cheap veneer and a portable altar, or that depressing pile of bricks in Baltimore.