The Facebook Story Of The Hackensack Parish Is Old And Mostly Wishful Thinking

Several visitors have chimed in on the story of the St Anthony of Padua Episcopalian parish in Hackensack, NJ and Facebook posts purporting to give a story of an attempt to join the North American ordinariate that somehow broke down at the last minute. The version posted by Mr John O'Sullivan included an apparent factoid that the rector, Brian Laffler, was denied ordination after the parish expressed an interest in joining the ordinariate, and this changed its mind.

However, a story from 2009, "Thanks But No Thanks", dating from the promulgation of Anglicanorum coetibus, contradicts this version:

They oppose the liberal tendencies of the Newark diocese and their national church, which in 2003 seated an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire over conservative opposition. The following year, St. Anthony’s began periodically hosting Bishop William J. Skilton from Charleston, S.C.

The arrangement helps explain why parish members probably will not accept the Vatican’s special offer, made last month, to allow dissatisfied Episcopalians and Anglicans to convert to Catholicism, said the Rev. Brian Laffler, the pastor. The Episcopal Church USA, with 2.1 million members, is part of the 77 million-member worldwide Anglican Communion.

“We have a satisfactory situation,” Laffler said. “We have the pastoral care of an authorized bishop who is sympathetic to our situation.”

This was echoed by a 2012 story in Virtue Online:

The conservative congregation of St. Anthony's of Padua in Hackensack, which has been critical of the positions of Episcopal leaders, resolved its differences while remaining in the church. The congregation opted to receive spiritual guidance and leadership from a conservative bishop in South Carolina rather than the local diocesan bishop, in an agreement reached with the Diocese of Newark.

"That's been an adequate arrangement so people here are pretty happy campers and aren't feeling the need to look elsewhere," said the Rev. Brian Laffler, the church pastor.

So the public version we've been told over a three-year period from 2009 to 2012 is that the ordinariate was never a serious option, and other references in the story suggest that the Episcopal Bishop of Newark has been busy with keeping his parishes in the fold. At minimum, the consensus in the Facebook discussion is misleading on two counts:

• It suggests the discernment process was recent, when it seems to have begun in 2009 and concluded not long afterward
• It suggests the process went much farther than it actually did, and that Bp Lopes was somehow involved.

Insofar as Fr Stainbrook was aware of the misinformation being conveyed, he is complicit and should be ashamed of himself. A visitor comments,

A well-informed friend writes :

"Old Italian neighborhood schism because the residents wanted a local church and the bishop at the time said no. After St. Anthony's started, he changed his mind and built St. Francis, which is still there, basic bad-taste Novus Ordo. Long story short, Brian Laffler was a Catholic layman who left so his ordination had to be approved by the CDF and it wasn't, plus the Italian old guard there didn't want to come back to the church."

So, Fr. Brian was "refused ordination" because he was originally a Catholic who left the Church to become an Episcopalian. Did that guy (John J. O'Sullivan) who posted that long account on Facebook which you reproduced know this, but not mention it - in which case his "explanation" is so severely deficient as to be worthless - or was he unaware of it - in which case his "explanation" could be regarded as an uninformed bloviation?

My regular correspondent notes,

I agree that Fr Stainbrook’s comment, although the OCSP party line, is easily contradicted. But I think it comforts people to think that dozens of groups they know nothing about are just waiting in the wings for their cue.

Boring

I was born across the river in Philadelphia, but my family moved to New Jersey soon after that, and I was a New Jersey boy until I was 15. So it was with some interest that I saw a screen shot of a discussion on the Anglican Ordinariate Facebook group about an Episcopalian parish in Hackensack, NJ that failed in an attempt to join the North American ordinariate. Thanks to my regular correspondent, here it is. (Click on the image for larger print).

I mean no disrespect to the fine people of Hackensack, but from the time I grew up nearby, there was something about that town's name that made me think it must be a terribly boring place. That it would have an Episcopalian parish that didn't make it into the ordinariate somehow strikes me as par for the course.

Only a handful of TEC parishes have ever succeeded in coming in with their property, clergy, and vestries, even though this was the clear purpose of Anglicanorum coetibus. The sun shone in this case yet again, having no alternative, on the nothing new.

Several things strike me about the discussion. One is the complete lack of insight into the situation from any of the participants, with the exception of a later contribution by a former Hackensack parishioner, John J O'Sullivan. A screen shot is below:

Mr O'Sullivan's account gives perspective to particularly obtuse remarks by Fr Stainbrook, to the effect that the ordinariate doesn't publicize the intent of TEC parishes to join the ordinariate until they make it public themselves, due to the serious repercussions that could ensue. But for starters, no parish leaves TEC without serious repercussions, no matter when, with very, very rare exceptions. Ask the ACNA. But then Mr O'Sullivan points out that the parish did make its intention public -- only to be told a week later by Bp Lopes that its TEC priest could not be ordained in the ordinariate, which killed the whole deal.

Couldn't that somehow have been better timed? But Mr O'Sullivan goes on to raise two other interesting points. The first is the strong implication that the process of deciding to join the ordinariate was actually extremely divisive for the parish, and in fact Mr O'Sullivan speaks from the standpoint of a leader in the losing faction. How on earth could this process have been healthy for anyone involved? It takes me back to the stories I've heard over and over, from the decades of controversy at St Mary of the Angels to the stories that have emerged from parishes and dioceses that left TEC for the ACNA. No good seems to come from any of this.

There's a second and more disturbing thread in Mr O'Sullivan's account. He heavily deprecates the nearby diocesan Catholic parish, which he accuses of opposing the TEC parish's entry into the ordinariate on the basis that it would poach the Spanish-speaking parishioners (?). And he's extremely bitter about the "bad Tobin" and, it would seem, the diocesan Church generally. This seems to be behind his move to an Eastern rite jurisdiction, rather than a diocesan parish.

I repeat my experience, that it's entirely possible to find a successful diocesan parish with a reverent OF mass just about anywhere. If you have to drive an extra 15 minutes, so be it. The puzzling thing is the strain of opinion I see from Mr O'Sullivan and others, common in the ordinariate, that they're somehow too good to be diocesan Catholics. If they can't be special and exclusive in the ordinariate, then by golly, they're gonna be special and exclusive some other way. The lack of insight by contributors to the discussion, such as Fr Stainbrook and Mr Reed, is a symptom of what I think is missing here.

The only good thing here is how few people the ordinariate involves.

Msgr Newton On Anglicanorum Coetibus

My regular correspondent has referred me to this interview at the Register with Msgr Newton equivalent to the one I cited with Bp Lopes. On one hand, it's very similar; Msgr Newton talks of "tarting a new structure, which is what this Ordinariate is, with very little resources", essentially the same line Bp Lopes took. On the other, i'm not entirely comfortable when he refers to "the joyful ‘Englishness’ of Catholicism". Msgr Newton is English, so I suppose this is OK for English people, but of course, reading this in the US doesn't have the same association. But I suppose this is the sort of thing the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society laps up.

My regular correspondent was particularly interested in Msgr Newton's remarks on the status of the daily offices:

We use something called the Customary at the moment, which was put together in the early days, but we’re trying to revamp an office book. We were hoping to have something which would be between America and England and Australia: just one official office book, but that isn’t going to be possible, because those in the Chair of St. Peter wants some different things, which come from a different sort of strand of Anglicanism. So the translations are a bit different. I think we’re very keen here that if we’re going to make an office book, it should be based fairly squarely upon the Book of Common Prayer. So we’re in the process of negotiations for having our own office book printed, which will be for England and Wales, and also for Australia, who would like to come in, because they come from the same source Anglican tradition as it were. But they will be very similar.

So we're talking about three different national prelatures, none of which numbers above the mid four figures, that can't agree on a single edition of the daily offices. This appears to be the reason for the delay. The only word I can think of to characterize such a situation is "boondoggle".

Msgr Newton concludes,

What we'd really like in 10 years’ time is 20 really strong communities around the country that would be on their own, where you know that the Ordinariate liturgy is celebrated regularly, where there’s the Holy Week liturgy, where there is a sense of this Anglican patrimony within the Church and so forth.

That’s happening, but it’s a gradual thing. I keep telling people: 10 years is not a lot in the history of the Catholic Church.

Nor, of course, does North America have 20 full parishes, and a ten year estimate doesn't seem unreasonable for growth here, either -- if it ever reaches that. We're talking, as a visitor put it to me not long ago, about a worldwide ordinariate membership still probably in the high four figures, just a single medium size diocesan parish. But it has over 100 priests and three ordinaries. And even in the UK, it's a boutique operation.

Another User On Bp Lopes's Path Going Forward

The individual who reported on Bp Lopes's presentation at last Saturday's Toronto conference noted that he mentioned an increasing number of ordinariate priests who would take over diocesan parishes and minister to both diocesan and ordinariate congregations. A visitor found this somewhat troubling, and I tend to agree.

I was not alive during the Brown vs Topeka Board of Education decision but I did live through its aftermath. I witnessed forced integration and am now witnessing voluntary/promoted segregation. Both are very difficult to watch. That being said, I firmly believe that separate is not equal. True integration requires patience, love, good faith on all sides, and above all, time. That is why I believe the Ordinariate is doomed to fail and so is the OF Mass in the vernacular

It has been 50 years since the Mass was encouraged to be celebrated in the vernacular, to create a rebirth of interest and devotion by the Faithful who just could not understand/get into that pesky Latin. Has it worked? By now, everybody has been trained and educated in this school of thought and yet, people/parishes are experimenting with ad orientem worship again and TLMers are not dying out, they are gaining young, fertile adherents guaranteeing at least one or two more generations of traddies.

Parishes celebrating Masses in multiple languages(or multiple liturgies) truly have diverse populations but are they integrated? My experience has been that when Mass is celebrated in more than one language (or liturgy) at a parish, subgroups separated by language(or liturgy) duplicate basic functions of the community thus cutting in half the resources available to each. So is this strategy bearing fruit? Perhaps it wasn’t the Latin in the Mass that was the problem after all. The success of Latin for almost two millennia is hard to argue with. It was the same for everyone irrespective of your native tongue(or patrimony).

Everybody got the same thus no one could claim someone else was receiving preferential treatment by the pastor. As the Church struggles through this experiment with forced integration and self-imposed segregation, the Ordinariate becomes the poster child for the underlying issue: separate is not equal. Time will tell, of course, but judging from experience and my Faith, the Church will heal itself, even if some fruit dies on the vine or perhaps even is pruned away. Jesus Himself promised us that.

Our experience in a heavily Filipino parish that's extremely successful may lend a different perspective. There are many Filipinos who enthusiastically speak Tagalog in the parking lot and on the sidewalks, but the masses are in English and Spanish -- no Tagalog. It appears that they're following the traditional American pattern of assimilation, whereby the "old country" tongue is reserved for family and close community use, but English is strongly encouraged for public interaction.

In addition, while the parish is majority Filipino, the membership is otherwise highly diverse, with Latins, South Asians, Armenians, Africans, African-Americans, and Anglos all in the mix. The same applies to the priests. Everyone laughs at Filipino jokes and loves Filipino food, though. My wife admires how extremely well Filipino women dress, but reports that Filipinos do not approve of sleeveless dresses for lectors.

So this is one formula for how things can work. People can be drawn into a parish spirit. The question of how an ordinariate group would work with a diocesan group is something else, and I think part of that model involves parishes that are struggling to survive no matter what, which seems to be the case pretty clearly at St Luke's in suburban Maryland. In such cases, we're talking about small resources overall that will be split for two prelatures.

In our successful parish, diverse communities are working toward one goal under one authority. It takes a remarkable skill set, and in fact remarkable skills among multiple clergy, to bring this off. I could imagine an especially talented ordinariate priest who might encounter a situation with two divergent congregations who could bring this off, but I think he'd be wasted on such a small-scale challenge, and frankly, I don't think the ordinariate attracts that sort of candidate. These are either men who in middle age haven't worked out as Protestants, or young seminary graduates who haven't made a career otherwise.

If there are exceptions, I hope we see them.

A Visitor On Bp Lopes's Path Going Forward

A visitor who is a canonical member of the North American ordinariate, although I believe not attending an ordinariate parish, sent an extensive reaction to Bp Lopes's recent remarks on the path going forward. These are in the Register interview as well as the presentation to the Toronto conference and in my view are not fully consistent.

Response to your post on Katy, TX. Lopes is at it again - looking to establish a parish in an area with deep pockets. You pointed out, "It's hard to avoid thinking Houston is basically hoarding priests for some future project that might emerge. Three priests for a gathered group that worships in a school cafetorium, although since it's near the Houston nerve center of the great enterprise..."

That poor Portuguese bishop, has probably given away his hand... In an interview recently profiled by you, the Bishop says he is planning to build a High School in Houston:

We are looking at, you know, the building of a new Ordinariate high school here at the cathedral parish in Houston, and there's going to be a way that we embrace an educational mission that is very particular to us, with emphasis on music, art, classical learning — all of the great hallmarks of the English Cathedral School. And that will be new. That is a new expression of Catholic education.

It is becoming obvious that Lopes is trying to build something of a monument to himself in the form of a high school. But the real question is, what is he doing to help support Anglicans wishing to enter the Catholic Church across America and Canada?

It is becoming obvious he is trying to model himself after a typical territorial Bishop, when he should be looking to the Episcopal circuit riders, like Bishop Polk and Bishop Chase. Rather hoarding priests to try and build a Houston prep school system (which will appear to be for White Catholics and NOT Mexicans) he should be working with a skeleton crew and other Bishops to build a network of parishes with a formidable liturgical life.

I think it's hard to draw a parallel between Episcopalian missionary bishops like Leonidas Polk (a highly complex figure in any case) and 21st century Catholics in the US. The Catholic infrastructure has been in place since it was established in times contemporary with Polk. An Anglican-directed missionary effort on the larger scale the visitor envisions would inevitably bring converts into an existing Catholic infrastructure. The visitor continues,

If he offered something completely, as many successful religious societies have, Bishop Lopes might find many opportunities to grow things. Instead, is he trying to establish Lopes Prep, complete with feeder parishes to serve it.

And how is this going? Is he forming clergy at any real rate?

When I became bishop, we had one celibate seminarian; now we have seven. That’s not bad for four years. And all seven and I would point out also three applicants for next year, all come from our parishes... we have marvelous vocations to the religious life. We have Ordinariate members in the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal. We have Ordinariate members studying for the priesthood in other Catholic dioceses; we have Ordinariate members at the Benedictine Sisters of St. Walburga in Colorado. So there’s a way also that the Ordinariate is contributing to the vocational vibrancy of the Church in North America in ways outside of our own diocese.

Isn't this like admitting his own failure? Why is a Bishop not building up his own jurisdiction? Is not letting these vocations "slip away" a sign that something isn't going right?

How many married clergy are there? Doesn't he need to support them into old age? The Bishop is on the wrong track here.

My prediction, Lopes will start getting complaints sent to Rome and the CDF. If he can't oversee his jurisdiction, he will be forced to give authority back to other Ordinaries. If a local group of Anglicans were to appear, in Chicago for example, and developed a relationship with the local Cardinal Archbishop, rather than Lopes, there is little precluding them from forming a parish or starting the Ordinariate Mass at an established Parish.

Considering the wise man who built a house on sand, the reality of worship in a McMansion and the disinterest of Houston in all but Texas, it is the prudent path for any Anglican Catholic organization seeking Communion with Rome, is doing so outside the Ordinariate.

My own view is that Episcopalian parishes entering the Catholic Church on a corporate basis has never been much more than a fantasy, given the real-world experience from the late 1970s on. A more realistic strategy might be for a group from a TEC parish to agree the time had come and then to locate a compatible diocesan Catholic parish, with the group going to RCIA and being received at Easter in a coherent body.

There's a certain amount of existing precedent for this -- our parish, in addition to the parish council, also has a Fil-Am council, in which Filipinos, a prosperous and influential group in the parish, can represent their particular concerns. (My wife and I find the Filipino input is always highly sensible and contributes to the reverence of the mass.)

But even there, how many actual diocesan parishes would ever wind up with a functioning Anglo Catholic council?

St Margaret, Katy, TX

Katy, TX is an affluent suburb of Houston, which in turn is the fourth largest city in the US. Katy itself had a median household income of $73,865 in 2017. According to this site, "compared to the median income of $51,111 in 2000 this represents an increase of 32.5%. "

It's certainly not incongruous that the North American ordinariate should choose to plan a community there, although of course, there are many equivalent suburbs in the New York or Chicago metropolitan areas where as far as we can tell, there's zero interest. But is the St Margaret, Katy, TX group any kind of model for growth? My regular correspondent has brought it up in several contexts in the last several days.

St Margaret, Katy, TX —- a group gathered by Fr Sellers, the former OCSP Director of Communications, worshipping at the high school of which he is President —- has three priests. Fr Sellers; Fr Scott Blick, the former school chaplain; and Fr Mitchican, the current chaplain. Fr Blick took over as chaplain from Fr Sellers when he became President of St John XXIII; St Margaret is his first Ordinariate assignment as he has been on the staff of a local diocesan parish, St Cyril of Alexandria, since his ordination in 2013. Fr Mitchican was received into the Church in Philadelphia in 2017 after a twelve year career in TEC. Since then he has worked at St John XXIII, first as a teacher, now as Chaplain.

What’s the plan, I wonder?

It's hard to avoid thinking Houston is basically hoarding priests for some future project that might emerge. Three priests for a gathered group that worships in a school cafetorium, although since it's near the Houston nerve center of the great enterprise, we must assume they're held as a strategic reserve of some sort. But then a visitor asked,

Do you think that having non married priests going forward is due to the problems experienced? I was wondering where the lot of seminarians would be sent.

I answered, "It’s hard to guess what’s in Bp Lopes's mind. Clearly even if he’s saying brave words, he hasn’t stopped ordaining them, even though there’s little for them to do once ordained." I ran this by my regular correspondent as well, who replied,

He must understand that it will not be possible for the OCSP to aspire to an entirely celibate priesthood in the foreseeable future. Maybe one third celibate, two-thirds married, best case scenario. Candidates for ordination are not overabundant in the North American Church generally; it will take a long time for Ordinariate congregations to produce significant numbers. Only a man eligible to be an Ordinariate member can be an Ordinariate seminarian, so the main source going forward will be men who grew up in an Ordinariate community. Prior to the proclamation of AC, only one man from a PP parish was ordained, and he did not choose to minister in an Anglican Use congregation.

It's hard to avoid thinking, though, that Bp Lopes is hiring for an anticipated increase in business. If a place like Katy, TX is growing explosively in population and income, that must surely mean many more will come to the ordinariate, right? My regular correspondent speculates,

Perhaps there is some thought of growing the community beyond its current membership, which seems to be drawn mostly from families of St John XXIII students, judging by available pictures. Despite his failure as OCSP Director of Communications Fr Sellers seems to have other gifts, but I do not see St Margaret breaking into the “Traditional English Mass” market under Fr Sellers’ leadership. He is frequently pictured playing the guitar during mass, with his wife at an electronic keyboard. Not the OCSP brand, although of course not unique in the Ordinariate. But if/when Fr Sellers retires from the school and the cafetorium is no longer available, perhaps the long-term plan is to emulate St John Vianney and Presentation and troll for local families who want something “reverent.” Meanwhile Fr Mitchican seems underused, although he assists at Presentation, Montgomery and perhaps at OLW.

This points to the incoherence of the project. Bp Lopes is saying he wants celibate clergy going forward, but he keeps ordaining married Protestant priests in apparent anticipation of growth that simply isn't taking place. He complained to the Toronto conference that ordinariate priests aren't following the rubrics, but right in his back yard, or perhaps his side chapel so to speak, a community is celebrating guitar masses. Is the music Dan Schutte?

It seems to me that there's no workable vision and no effective leadership, but the question is whether the product on offer is something that should even be marketed. Consider that the population in Katy, which is somehow judged to be affluent Protestants of presumptive high-church leanings, has grown hugely in size and income, but the St Margaret parish has grown hardly at all, with three underutilized priests hanging around with little to do.

The Anglicanorum Coetibus Society Congratulates Itself

I've noted here before that enthusiastic members of the North American ordinariate occasionally visit other ordinariate parishes and congratulate them on the Ship of Fools Mystery Worshipper pages. As I said in the link from last spring, this defeats the purpose of the whole project, since it's supposed to be a blinded exercise in which someone encounters a new experience and gives an unbiased critique. In these cases, people in the parish know the reviewer, who is guaranteed to say nice things or risk shunning.

A visitor sent me links to two new reviews of the non-blinded sort, one of the mass the evening before the Toronto conference this past Saturday and one of the following Sunday's mass at St Thomas More. Both were from someone styling themself as Roving Ordinaut, which is an indication from the start that this will not be unbiased, and in fact one doesn't need to have been a homicide detective for 20 years to suss out who it's likely to be. The snobbish pedantry and preening self-promotion behind both reviews gives the game away.

(As a true crime buff, I really like the live police shows where the cop says something like, "I get off at ten. Would you like to keep lying to me until then?")

Here are some of the entries for the Friday evening mass:

How full was the building?

A bit less than half full.

Which is another way of saying a bit more than half empty. And keep in mind, this was a Solemn High Mass and Te Deum of Thanksgiving (Votive of the Holy Spirit) to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Anglicanorum coetibus.

What musical instruments were played?

The cathedral organ, opus 3907 of Casavant Frères, Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, dating from 2014. The old organ, an opus of S.R. Warren and Sons of Montreal and Toronto, had become mechanically unreliable and ultimately unplayable. It was carefully dismantled and stored for future rebuilding.

Did anything distract you?

The gentleman in the pew in front of me was wearing ill-fitting jeans that appeared to have been pulled out of a garage grease pit. While I'm sure Our Lord doesn't expect all worshippers at mass to be wearing their Sunday best, especially at a Friday evening mass, I'll remember this man and hope that the wedding garment of his soul is better prepared to stand before Jesus when he comes in glory than those inglorious oil-soaked jeans.

Well, I dunno, i bet the rich man on whose doorstep Lazarus lay with the dogs licking his sores had quite a nice wedding garment himself, huh? All summer and autumn we've had these readings from Luke, and it sounds like our Roving Ordinaut has been too busy fussing with being Anglican to pay much attention to them. (Also see below)

Let's move to the Sunday mass at St Thomas More.

What musical instruments were played?

The Casavant organ, Opus 1462 (1932).

Did anything distract you?

The church is a large space, and when only one-third full, it has an unfortunate reverberation that made the homily difficult to hear over young children who were heard but not seen from my seat in the sixth row. But I do want to be clear that I am fully in favor of children being present, and would prefer to be distracted by them than for them not to become accustomed at an early age to attending mass every Sunday.

Was the worship stiff-upper-lip, happy clappy, or what?

A dignified but approachable mass in the traditional language of the English Prayer Book. While the Kyrie and Gloria were sung to the Missa de Angelis, the remainder of the ordinary, including the Creed, was sung to the Merbecke setting in the hymnal. We sang ‘All creatures of our God’ (Laßt uns erfreuen) at the offertory, ‘Author of life divine’ (Rhosymedre) after communion, and ‘Lord of beauty’ (Regent Square) at the recessional.

Whenever I think of the Roving Ordinaut, I go way back. Way, way back.

Both those masses sound as though they were very, very tasteful.

UPDATE: A visitor reacts:

I am reminded of two stories/jokes. It seems that there was this old Texas cowboy who came to church dressed in clean faded blue jeans, clean faded shirt, a tattered hat, boots and bible. When this old cowboy entered the church nobody would make room for him to sit. He stood at the back of the church. When the service was over, the minster/priest and deacon came up to the man and said that this was a house of God and that he should have a talk with God as to how he should dress for church. The cowboy left and returned the following week dressed the same way. Again, nobody would make room for him to sit. At the end of the service the minster/priest and deacon again came up to the man and asked if he had a talk with God about how to dress. The cowboy responded that he did in fact have a talk with God about how to dress, but God said that He didn't know how to dress at that church as He had never been there. You can pick the denomination.

Anglicanorum Coetibus And Dilbert

I've been reflecting on the remarks by a visitor on how poorly the numbers for Anglican-style parishes compare with SSPX and FSSP, not to mention the Eastern rite parishes that also clearly attract cradle Catholics who want a reverent liturgy. I also began to think more about Dilbert, the popular comic strip by Scott Adams that often pokes fun at misguided business culture. I began to realize that Dilbert seems to be playing out in Houston and probably the CDF in Rome as well.

One of my favorite Dilbert stories involves a group of managers meeting in a conference room. Predictably, the meeting runs on after hours. A janitor mistakenly locks the door to the conference room from the outside, so that the managers can't get out. The managers realize they have to call out to get someone to open the door, but they can't decide on whether the prefix to call out is 8 or 9, so they decide to compromise on 8.5. However, they discover that the phone won't take a decimal value, so they all eventually starve to death in the conference room.

How does this apply to Anglicanorum coetibus? Let me count the ways. Let's just go to the question of married priests, which of course Bp Lopes says we're not gonna have, except he keeps hiring then, with little or nothing for them to do. In an exchange with my regular correspondent, I said,

There are two issues with married priests. One is how to compensate former Anglican married priests to encourage them to come to the ordinariates. This is an artificial question at best, since many who do come in are desperate cases who can’t make Protestant careers and can’t eke out especially favorable circumstances for themselves. The small number of favored candidates like Hough IV or Fletcher are a completely different question and point to the incoherence of the project. An entirely separate question is how to handle prospective future intake of married priests in the Church at large, for which I don’t think the ordinariates are a serious model – and I’m not sure if Francis will offer a consistent vision, either.

My regular correspondent replied,

As for the model going forward, in the UK virtually every OOLW priest below retirement age works full-time at a diocesan parish. A few host Ordinariate groups at their parish; most meet with them elsewhere on, say, the second Tuesday of the month. This has not been a recipe for growth, unsurprisingly. Most OCSP priests who are not receiving pension income have weekday jobs as chaplains, teachers, etc but serve on their Ordinariate group on Sunday. Some have diocesan parish assignments; this generally means no association with an Ordinariate group but one or two have a regular group with a Sunday mass at an off-time.

In the short term having an OCSP priest function as a diocesan pastor solves some problems: a stipend is provided, possibly housing, a worthy worship space is available, there is a critical mass of members for Christian education and service, and social events. Whether such priests will consider it worth while to maintain the Ordinariate community is another matter. I suppose it depends to what extent the Ordinariate project was just a means to ordination.

The exchange hinged partly on the question of the ostentatious McMansion provided as a rectory to Fr Fletcher in The Woodlands, which is a highly visible exception to the usual means of compensating ordinariate married priests. Challenged on this, I replied,

The big problem I see with the one in The Woodlands is that it is in fact a pretentious bourgeois home. Yet Catholics are called to a life of humility and sacrifice exemplified by the saints, and priests are also called to such lives as examples. Somewhere I read that the pay of secular priests is meant to enable them to live simply with dignity. I don’t see a McMansion fitting that. What any OCSP parish pays for a rectory is just a manifestation of the incoherence behind the project.

My correspondent replied,

Perhaps your issue with the McMansion in Montgomery is not just architectural snobbery after all. I think that there is much unexplained there: the significant? number of families that were commuting from Woodlands to OLW, and who it was put up Fr Fletcher’s stipend as a Parochial Vicar at OLW to minister to this alleged contingent. Presumably that person or persons had a major voice in the real estate plans.

Going forward, we're going to have celibate priests who live lives of humility and sacrifice, paid enough to live simply but with dignity. Unless an oil-rich angel in Houston can fund a country estate worthy of an Episcopalisn wannabe with Leave it to Beaver family, in which case we'll bend all the rules. What problem is Bp Lopes trying to solve?

What problem were the managers locked in the conference room trying to solve? I've got to say that I worked for several companies where that scene could credibly have taken place. I rode them down almost to their acquisitions or bankruptcies. Adam Smith's Invisible Hand is, I think, just a special case of the Invisible Hand of the Almighty.

Visitor Reactions To Bp Lopes's Recent Public Statements

One visitor reacted to both the interview in the Register and his talk at the Toronto conference. On the Register interview:

In reading your blog from Nov. 16th, about the Bishop Lopes interview with the National Catholic Register it appears that Bishop Lopes is inflating the numbers for the Ordinariate and not being very honest. The difference between him and Fr. Lewis at OLOTA is that Fr. Lewis in his annual report and in the recent stewardship campaign letter, is being painfully honest about the state of affairs. Fr. Lewis does not paint a very rosy picture.

The surprising thing to me is, if Bishop Lopes is right about the numbers he claims, 80 priests and 45 parishes, the Ordinariate is not near as big as the FSSP or the SSPX. Further, the FSSP and the SSPX can draw new members from all Catholics or Protestants, where, if they play by the rules, the Ordinariate can only draw new members from Episcopalians or other Protestant converts. It is not looking good for the Ordinariate.

On the presentation at the Toronto conference:

At least Bishop Lopes is honest about lack of resources. I assume he is talking about money. It is hard to know what he has in mind going forward. At some point, I feel that the bishops and pastors of the dioceses in which Bishop Lopes operates will start to come down on him for "bending the rules" in siphoning off cradle Catholics from their parishes. It will be interesting to see the next chapter in this saga.

Another visitor sent this screen shot from a Facebook post on the St John Vianney group:

In other words, if people are supposedly going to ordinariate masses for a reverent atmosphere, they may not necessarily be getting it, and even Bp Lopes seems to have expressed discomfort with how ordinariate priests follow the rubrics. The first visitor above makes the very worthwhile point that there are other options for cradle Catholics who want a reverent mass than the ordinariate -- and let's keep in mind that even full parishes don't have much of a music program, and there are only a dozen full parishes.

The first visitor above added,

I do go to a Latin Mass whenever possible, but I have never attended a Portuguese Mass. Here in San Antonio we have St. George Maronite Catholic church. For a time I went to daily Mass at this church. The Mass is said in Aramaic, the language of Our Lord. It is a beautiful Mass.

I think these reactions raise legitimate questions over whether Bp Lopes has a good grasp of what problem he's trying to solve, and why an Anglican-inspired liturgy is any kind of solution.

• Catholics who want a serious and reverent approach to liturgy? Not necessarily in the ordinariate, and given the lack of resources, not likely in the foreseeable future. There are other, more authentic, and more easily located options for Catholics who want this.
• A model for a married Catholic priesthood? Not under Bp Lopes -- but married ordinariate priests will continue to be ordained and assigned, with no coherent plan behind them.

Report From Yesterday's Toronto Conference

A visitor forwarded to me, with permission, a report from a friend who attended the Toronto conference yesterday.

About fifty people in attendance. Some young people, mostly young men. The one liturgy I attended—-Morning Prayer—-was well-done but nothing special. Fr Barker was a no-show for health reasons. His paper was read by a young woman and described his 1970s efforts, which he'd already published on line. There was no opportunity to ask questions, a waste of time.

David Warren is a former Anglican who now attends a Latin Mass parish. He mentioned several times that his conversion predated the proclamation of Anglicanorum coetibus by a decade. He also said that if his schedule precludes a Latin mass, he attends a Portuguese mass. He also said he would not have been interested in the ordinariate had it existed when he entered the Church, because he was angry at the Anglican church and wanted to get as far away as possible from anything that reminded him of it. Why was he there?

Bp Lopes began with a “Things aren’t as bad as they look” survey of positives in the ordinariate. He is confident and articulate. He has a sense of humor. He spoke fluently with few notes, and then took questions with aplomb. He mentioned that the OCSP model going ahead would be ordinariate priests as pastors of diocesan parishes while also ministering to ordinariate communities, as in Kansas City and Washington, DC. He said there would be two more such arrangements in the new year.

He discussed the ordinariate challenges, honing in on lack of resources, A very important point he made is that “Anglican Patrimony” is what the Vatican says it is. It’s not up for discussion. Liturgy, yes. Married priests, no way. His thinking is entirely from the “Roman” side. He’s doing a job. I felt more confidence in his administrative gifts, but if I were looking for Anglicanism coming into the Church, I would be pretty bummed out.

He warmed up in talking about how there had to be more liturgical conformity in the ordinariate, how former Anglican clergy had to get in line with the rubrics and understand the difference between “shall” and “may,” and similar points. So “Anglican Treasures” are not unique, they offer nothing we don’t already have, they are means to ends the Church has already established without any input from you, was the take-away.

Bp Lopes took off for Houston right after his opening remarks. He saved what was otherwise a non-event. Fr Cross’s excellent lecture on Newman was an academic paper not appropriate for this conference. Mood was muted and low-energy. I felt tension and disappointment. Sort of like a party meeting after an election you thought you were going to win but didn’t.

Well, the reporter seemed impressed with Bp Lopes's articulateness, although I would say that had there been a transcript, we probably would have noticed the gaseous generalities that were in his interview in the Register. But that's just me.

A more interesting question is the new idea that now we're going to make the ordinariate into a deal where ordinariate priests pastor diocesan parishes. Er, wasn't that the idea behind the Pastoral Provision? Except that now, the ordinariate priests report to a different bishop but work in a diocesan bishop's parish. Who's in charge? And presumably going forward, these are going to be celibate men, so we make the problem of wives and kids in the rectory disappear poof, just like that.

What do we do with the men we're still taking in with said wives and families? We've neither laid them off, bought them out, nor ended that part of the whole program. This whole new direction sounds pretty vague -- but going beyond that, not two weeks ago, he referred in the Register interview to

people who are at least nominally within the Church, baptized Catholics or whatever, or for whoever for whatever reason their faith has grown lukewarm and their practice has grown spotty at best or something like this. That they can be welcomed and supported and encouraged in a particular way.

Which is the Bartus model, bending the rules to attract cradle Catholics when there aren't enough Anglicans to make a parish by claiming the cradle Catholics want reheating from ordinariate priests -- who in fact are married with kids and apparently, at least in The Woodlands, still deserve a 3,000 square foot million-dollar rectory. So the model going forward seems to be whatever Bp Lopes seems to think will justify whatever he's doing at that particular moment.

So I keep falling back on my experience in the corporate Dilbert world, where impressively smooth-talking golden boys run the show until what they're doing is finally so unworkable that the powers that be must back off in belatedly comical circumstances. But maybe that's just me. I still think Bp Lopes is a guy who's flailing around, completely out of his depth.

Bp Lopes Interview In The Register

My regular correspondent sent me a link to a November 3 interview with Bp Lopes in the National Catholic Register. This simply confirms my impression that Lopes was sent to Houston to get him out of the way in Rome, as he comes off as an annoyingly gaseous blatherer. Let's just start with

Well, I think the Holy Father very rightly, and this begins in my very first conversation with Pope Francis. I mean, obviously I was very involved with Pope Benedict in the work that led to Anglicanorum coetibus, so I'm very familiar with that. But in the very first conversation with Pope Francis, after he named me bishop, just a few days actually before it was publicly announced, when he and I were speaking, he directly mentioned the missionary aspect of the Ordinariate, that the Ordinariate if done well, can be a sign of not only ecclesiastical unity and communion, but the means of it. It's a way of welcoming people into full communion in a new way. Benedict opened a new way of entering full communion where all of those traditions, all of that history, all of that theology, that nurtured you to the point of seeking full communion, you don't have to leave at the door of the Catholic Church when you enter in, but you can bring these very same liturgical, pastoral, theological traditions with you in an enriching way. Yes, he doesn't stop there.

Reminds me of a senior VP I had to work with who was constantly name-dropping what "Warren and Dick" had said to him in the last get-together of the CEO clique. When the big cuts came, he was the first on mahogany row to be eased out. Bp Lopes rambles on here for hundreds of words about exactly what the Holy Father said to him.

A number of other things pop out at me.

What would you say are the milestones the Ordinariate has accomplished in the past 10 years?

Well, you know, you're building a diocese from scratch. And I wouldn't want to begin with the practical realities of that. But the practical realities of that are so many, and so varied, as to be overwhelming. We don't build dioceses from scratch.

So when you're trying to build it from scratch, I'm reaching out to all sorts of bishops with questions about clergy retirement, pension, insurance, property and liability, safe environment procedures and personnel procedures. And it's not that bishops don't desire to be helpful — they do, but in a lot of cases, they weren't able to help because their own diocesan institutions by that point are so old that nobody remembers why the decisions were made initially in this way.

So the practical thing of trying to build this Ordinariate, build a diocesan structure with very few models. . .

Why, this guy must be the Bill Gates of the Catholic Church or something! All these fuddy-duddy bishops who want to be helpful, but they have no idea why they do what they do! So Young Tom Edison has to go out and reinvent it all from scratch! He'll be telling St Charles Borromeo a thing or to when he gets to heaven, mark my words!

This does confirm my impression that, unlike the normal promotion path for a bishop, where the candidate moves through positions like seminary rector and auxiliary, Lopes was made a bishop directly from being a bureaucrat in a Vatican dicastery. Cardinal Levada pulled him from a brief stint as a parish associate and took him to the CDF, where he served as Levada's secretary. So it sounds like he had nothing of the exposure to "retirement, pension, insurance, property and liability, safe environment procedures and personnel procedures" that he claims his brother bishops can't help him with, no matter how much they want to.

And my point has been that it shows. But let's look at another exchange:

So do you see a possibility that Divine Worship: the Missal will eventually be translated into Spanish and or other languages?

There already is a proposal for that because we already have in Miami a Spanish-speaking Ordinariate community. That's not the first thing you think of when you think of the patrimony of English Christianity, right? But . . . . there are actually a whole lot of persons who are Spanish-speaking, who have been and their families have been Anglican for a long time, and are coming into the Catholic Church. So we already work with it. This is already a reality for us in Miami and a number of those folks are part of our parish in Orlando. So the priest in Miami and comes up quarterly to hear confessions in Spanish and celebrate with the people in Orlando.

He appears to be referring to the San Agustin group in Pinecrest, FL, which is one of about a dozen that have closed. These had used the OF Spanish-language mass -- is the Viennese professor who added the Elizabethan turns of phrase to the OF English mass going to crib style from Cervantes for the OF Spanish mass as well? And will this give Bp Lopes a chance now to poach Spanish-speakers from Abp Gómez? Interesting idea. If Fr Bartus is getting good results with Catholics who don't like going to mass with Mexicans, how can we expand this model? Maybe to Cubans who don't like Nicaraguans? The possibilities here are endless!

But this reflects another tendency I've begun to see in Bp Lopes, a tendency to stretch the truth, often and a lot. Here he puts a failed effort that lasted only a brief time in Florida into the present tense with an implication that he's gonna re-evangelize the evangelized Anglicans, big time. For instance,

We are dealing with a number of converting clergy and certainly in this 10 years, the Ordinariate has 80 priests. We have 45 parish communities.

Well, I guess it depends on what the meaning of "is" is, huh? These numbers clearly include retirees and even those who've had to be laicized, and about a dozen of the 45 communities have closed. And tellingly, I don't believe he mentions the actual membership number at any point. If it reflected well on him at all, even if he had to inflate it, he would.

Fr Bartus Acknowledges The Failure Of Anglicanorum Coetibus

And this isn't a headline in The Onion. My regular correspondent sent me a screen shot of this remarkable Facebook post from Fr Bartus dated November 1 (click on the image for more readable text):

Fr Bartus is referring to the same Joanna Bogle piece in the UK Catholic Herald that I've already discussed twice here. She said there,

What of the United States and Australia? The ordinariates there are small. . . . [T]he number of Episcopalians interested in the ordinariate project has been minimal.

This, of course, agrees with the observations of people like Douglas Bess, whom I noted yesterday as recognizing that "continuing" Anglicanism always overstated its numbers and impact on The Episcopal Church, and the US Pastoral Provision, even before Anglicanorum coetibus, also always reflected the minimal interest from Episcopalians in that sort of thing. In the Facebook post, Fr Bartus responds,

The number of Episcopalian/Anglican converts may have been small (there weren't many left who weren't Modernists or committed Protestants), but we've experienced many from Evangelical, other Protestant, and even non-Christian backgrounds here in Southern California at least. And the largest portion of the Ordinariate here is composed of Catholic reverts. We've also helped many who were losing their faith restore it and not formally lapse.

Well, Anglicanorum coetibus, for those ordinariate priests whose Latin is surely shaky, means "groups of Anglicans", which was the target market of the project, at least as of 2009. Just for starters, Fr Bartus is admitting we just haven't had much interest there. But that's OK, we attract Baptists, Presbyterians, Scientologists, whatever, as well as Catholic "reverts" and those who were maybe gonna lose their faith except for the charismatic Fr Bartus.

Nearly all these groups, of course, have actually always been the target markets for Bps Barnes and Vann, and Abp Gómez, ever since the Great Commission. Is Fr Bartus serious about saying the heavy furniture DW liturgy is bringing these people into the Church? And if so, are there catechists who've been through the three-year formation period to initiate them? Let's come down to earth and recognize that the path of entry for such people into the Church is RCIA at a diocesan parish, and policies for evangelization are developed through the USCCB under Bp Barron.

The opening paragraph of Anglicanorum coetibus refers to the Holy See's positive response to "groups of Anglicans" who "petition repeatedly and insistently to be received into full Catholic communion individually as well as corporately". The initial publicity stressed the ability of Episcopalians to come in as full parishes with clergy, which has seldom been the case, and not at all after the first few years. In addition,

§4 The Ordinariate is composed of lay faithful, clerics and members of Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, originally belonging to the Anglican Communion and now in full communion with the Catholic Church, or those who receive the Sacraments of Initiation within the jurisdiction of the Ordinariate.

However, it seems plain that the emphasis is on former Anglicans and probably implies "those who receive the sacraments of initiation" are also primarily Anglicans. Again, I'm not sure how many Baptists, Mormons, or "non-denominationals" are going to pick up on the importance of liturgy or the apostolic succession after being exposed to the precious treasures of the Anglican spiritual patrimony. And Fr Bartus counters Joanna Bogle's anecdotal happy talk with nothing but anecdotal happy talk of his own.

Just how many unbaptized people, or unconfirmed Protestants, are we talking about here, in comparison to the Catholic reverts, or fully initiated Catholics wavering in their faith were it not for those precious spiritual treasures? Fr Bartus does say the largest portion is composed of cradle Catholics, but he's a bit cagey about saying just how many had already been fully initiated. Keep in mind the photos of last spring's confirmations in Murrieta with all the adolescent girls in chapel veils. The moms and dads weren't in that group; their kids were probably anchor babies.

I think someone needs to ask Bp Lopes to provide some more precise numbers on how many non-Catholic non-Anglicans are baptized and confirmed at the Southern California groups, and someone needs to make a review of the actual intake via RCIA in nearby diocesan parishes. Someone needs to ask Bp Lopes what he does to license catechists in any ordinariate parish, versus the licensing criteria in surrounding dioceses. The same would apply to formal CCD programs -- so far, these appear to be almost non-existent in the ordinariate.

What Fr Bartus is doing isn't much different from the used car salesman who says, "Well, we've actually sold the 2018 Jaguar we advertised for $1500, but I've got a really sweet AMC Gremlin you'll love for the same price."

Er, we aren't bringing in hardly any Anglicans at all, although there might be a Scientologist or two in the back row at mass. But there's plenty of cradle Catholics who don't like Mexicans or Filipinos here. We're gonna start CCD any year now, too. As my regular correspondent put it,

The question is not just “What problem are we trying to solve here? “ but “Why does this problem need an ‘Anglican’ solution?” Other than issues of race and class, of course.

Major Pledge Shortfall At Our Lady Of The Atonement

An Our Lady of the Atonement parishioner sent me this e-mail:

Another letter was put in the bulletin by Fr. Lewis. "We need to increase our weekly giving by $9,000 per week to meet our expenses".

This sent me to the parish annual report linked here back in September, which says the 2018-19 annual income from offertory and pledge was $855,733. If the pledge income needs to increase by $9,000 per week, that comes to $468,000 per year, which is about 55% of the 2018-19 pledge income.

I simply don't know how this compares to last year's overall totals in the annual report, or whether the shortfall extends to the school. As of the 2018-19 annual report, the parish and school together were spending over $5 million, with income about $4 million. How a shortfall of close to half a million in pledge relates to last year's totals is not clear, and it's not clear where the school stands in relation to 2018-19, although the annual report noted that not enough students were paying full tuition, and it's generally understood that enrollment has been declining for some years.

What raises questions in my mind is the apparent lack of urgency in Fr Lewis's communications. He represents the shortfall as $9,000 per week, which makes it seem manageably small, when simple arithmetic makes it nearly half a million as an annual figure. To put this in context, if there are 300 pledging entities at OLA, each family or individual would need to increase its annual pledge by over $1500 or $30 per week. As a former parish treasurer and counter of weekly offerings at two parishes, I can say that a pledge of $30 per week itself is at the high end, and adding another $30 on top of that would require real planning by most families.

Yet the 2018-19 annual report urges families to "boost your annual contribution to the parish or school by 15-20%". To make an increase of $30 per week a 20% increase would mean the base weekly pledge would be $150, now raised to $180. Let's say $180 would now become a true tithe of 10%. This would come to $9360 per year, or 10% of a total family income of $93,600. I can't imagine that this is the mean family income in the parish, and tithing requires serious planning and discipline, which not everyone is going to do.

And Commitment Sunday was some weeks ago. The serious homilies about pledging have already been given, the pledge cards sent out and returned, and the families have already adjusted their budgets. It sounds to me as though this level of pledge shorttfall has come as a surprise in the weeks after Commitment Sunday, and Fr Lewis is suddenly having to recalibrate. A shortfall of close to $500,000 measured against previous year's income of $800,000 or so is a serious matter indeed. It presumably means layoffs and likely cuts in the music program.

Yet Fr Lewis appears to be minimizing the problem by characterizing it as just $9000 per week, when it's something more like half a million a year and 55%. I know that an equivalent problem in our archdiocese would probably involve bringing in new personnel with specific leadership and fundraising skills. As far as I can see, Fr Lewis never demonstrated them at St Luke's, and he doesn't seem to be equal to that task now. But beyond that, the ordinariate has never attracted men of that caliber and likely has nobody to turn to to correct the situation now, especially since the official line is clearly to keep Fr Phillips out of the picture.

Though even Fr Phillips seems to have poisoned the fundraising well himself.

"It Takes Money, And Lots Of It"

A visitor reacted to yesterday's post:

It would not be a stretch to think that the Roman Catholic diocese in San Antonio thought that Our Lady of the Atonement was going to be just another parish and school of the diocese or they would have never backed the loans. The diocese knew that Fr. Phillips decided to stay in the diocese when the Ordinariate first formed under Msgr. Steenson. This house of cards started to crumble when Fr. Phillips, as previously stated, realized that the walls were closing in on him and he decided to leave the diocese for the Ordinariate. Also, as previously stated, Bishop Lopes thought he was getting a parish, school and a money generating gift. What Bishop Lopes didn't realize or look at fully was the liabilities associated with this "gift."

The problem here is money, or lack of it. As pointed out, it takes money, and lots of it, to build parishes, schools and have missals printed. Not to mention the cost of salaries for priests and their families and the list goes on. As we read, even the Vatican is having some money problems, in that, people are being laid off, the staff at the Vatican is being cut back, and wrongdoing at the Vatican bank is under scrutiny for bad decisions. Putting together and trying to grow the Ordinariate is going to be a formidable task, especially if the Ordinariate plays by the rules laid down on it by the CDF. As Roman Catholic parishes see parishioners siphoned off by Ordinariate parishes, the Ordinariate parishes will come under greater scrutiny by the diocese that they are in.

I don't think Cardinal Law or the people who worked with him to develop the Pastoral Provision and then Anglicanorum coetibus ever had a serious idea of where the money would come from. I think that from the late 1970s all the way to 2009, the assumption was that Episcopalian parishes would, and more to the point could, simply declare they were no longer Episcopalian and, after some perfunctory paperwork, enter a Catholic prelature with their property, endowments, and elite laity. The history of the St Mary of the Angels parish alone should have been a wakeup call.

No denomination is going to let valuable property and income go without a fight, while even Catholic bishops (like Cardinals Msnning and Mahony in Los Angeles) don't necessarily see such a situation as just a money generating gift themselves. The fact is, though, that the parishes that did come into the North American ordniariate brought little that was worthwhile with them. My regular correspondent comments,

My understanding is that banks/commercial lenders are unwilling to make loans to individual congregations because the optics of foreclosure cast them as Snidely Whiplash. Hence the importance of a local diocese or denominational equivalent to make or guarantee loans from endowments or other institutional funds. Depending on some local millionaire to step up is not really a workable long-term organisational plan for church construction, and yet the OCSP doesn’t seem to have anything else currently on offer. St John Vianney, Cleburne bought fifteen acres of land two years ago but continues to worship in an elementary school auditorium with little indication that a building will be forthcoming.

Of the eleven full parishes, ten own their own buildings. Two built their own while members of “continuing” denominations; three built their own while members of the local Catholic diocese in the Pastoral Provision; two purchased a redundant building from the local Catholic diocese, and three bought their previous building from the local TEC/ACC diocese. Another five communities, not full parishes, own their own buildings—-six if we count Presentation, Montgomery. Four of these groups had acquired their property as members of a “continuing” denomination. St George, Republic, MO was recently given a private loan of around $250,000 to purchase a local Pentecostal church and renovate it for Catholic worship.

As we know, Fr Bartus has flown several schemes for acquiring buildings for communities in the “SoCal Ordinariate”: a “Walsingham Chapel” at the Santiago Retreat Center for St John Henry Newman; the Sacred Heart chapel in Covina for Our Lady of Grace; some other space in Silverado, also for SJHN. Presumably local land prices are prohibitive. Fr Vidal and members of St Luke, Washington, the only full parish without its own building, also explored purchasing land locally for a church before this plan was apparently put on hold in favour of sharing a diocesan church of which Fr Vidal is also the pastor. St John Vianney Cleburne I have previously discussed. As you have pointed out, Houston does not seem to have anything corresponding to the Property Committee of a typical diocese, advising on real estate acquisition and building and maintenance issues.

I think the absence of either financial or institutional infrastructure, including knowledge of how things are actually done in a real diocese, is becoming a more visible obstacle to growth, but this is simply an additional problem over and above the flawed assumption that lots of Episcopalian parishes would come in with their property and endowments -- as well as the prosperous and successful professional laity who could lend their experience and influence to any enterprise.

I think this was part of an overall fantasy picture that TEC Bp Pope and Jeffrey Steenson painted for Cardinal Ratzinger in 1993 when they estimated that 250,000 Episcopalians would come over to a new Catholic prelature. They weren't talking about just bodies, they were talking about bringing in much more than that. It simply hasn't happened.

That continues to make me wonder what the CDF had in mind when they rusticated Msgr Lopes to Houston. Someone in Rome must have had some inkling of what he'd be dealing with, though his formal portraits seem to reflect a nebbishy self-satisfaction that keeps me from having much sympathy for the guy.

The Out-Of-Print Altar Missal -- Is There Any Plan At All?

The more I reflect on the Divine Worship altar missal going out of print just in time to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Anglicanorum coetibus -- with "nothing certain" about a second printing and the publisher "gauging interest" -- the more I begin to think there was never a serious plan for the whole project, and there's certainly no strategy for going forward. My regular correspondent commented,

At first I thought that it was perhaps harsh to task Houston with helping the CTS “secure funding,” given that all three Ordinariates share DW, but on further reflection I realised that the OCSP is the only real market, since most of the OOLW groups use the OF, and would be hard pressed to come up with £300 to purchase a DW missal even if they wanted to use it, and the OOLSC, with its dozen congregations, is not going to be much help.

What do we think constituted the first run? A hundred copies? Hard to see there ever being demand for another hundred copies, but perhaps I am too cynical.

Let's back up, though, and ask how the number for the first print run was estimated. The DW Missal was published in 2015, fully six years after Anglicanorum coetibus. Whatever the actual print run, and however it was funded, it was never going to accommodate many more than the existing ordinariate groups at the time it was published (and very few have been formed since 2015 in any case). This suggests there wasn't a high level of optimism about the project as of the missal's publication. At best, there must have been a "cross that bridge when we come to it" outlook that simply deferred serious evaluation.

But I think this also reflects a steady change in how Houston, and probably the CDF, see the growth model for the North American ordinariate. The initial idea, outlined by Cardinal Wuerl in the summer of 2011, was that Episcopalian parishes would be lining up with their clergy, wardens, and property to join the ordinariate. After an initial very rocky start, with key parishes and clergy staying out, fewer than a dozen Anglican parishes that weren't already in the Pastoral Provision came in with those clergy, wardens, and property.

So then Houston seems to have moved in practice to the "gathered group" model, in which an Anglican priest or recent seminary graduate identifies a group of two dozen or so to meet in someone's front parlor or a diocesan chapel or school cafeteria in hopes that it will somehow grow to critical mass. Although Houston has tried to maintain a brave front, no new gathered groups of this sort have emerged in the last few years, and some are disappearing. This model also requires that the ordinariate priest rely on a diocesan job, either as a parish priest or a lay employee, which in turn requires a friendly bishop.

The most recent model appears to require a serious source of funding to establish a new facility that will attract a large-enough group de novo, which we might call a "fake it til you make it" strategy. The disadvantage here is that it requires a serious source of funding. Of the two examples we've seen so far, the one in Murrieta, CA a single family appears to be the source, and it may well be forgiving or heavily discounting the rent on a facility it owns.

In The Woodlands, TX, the Presentation parish has clearly been able to raise money in the low six figures to purchase a property with an expensive house on site, and it appears to be renovating a temporary structure to use as a mass site. I'm told it has acquired used pews from a Catholic parish. All of this, including mortgage payments, takes money, and it can't be coming from plate and pledge. I simply don't know if the foundation that was behind the Houston chancery might also be funding this effort, but clearly such deep pockets don't come along every day.

The bottom line, though, is reflected in the clear uncertainty about whether any further copies of the Divine Worship altar missal will ever be printed. Certainly if someone were able to put together a serious group, say, in Boise, ID that seemed to have promise, Houston would probably either scrounge a copy somewhere (maybe in the UK from a group that never uses it there?), but given the experience we've seen, this'll happen around the time pigs grow wings and start to fly.

So realistically, what we're seeing is Bp Lopes has no serious plan for growing the ordinariate, and this is reflected in the minimal likelihood that any further printing of the altar missal will take place. But given the groups that have already closed, I'm wondering why Houston hasn't retrieved the copies that those groups had been using and kept them for redistribution if it's ever needed.

More On The Divine Worship Missal's Status

In yesterday's post, i noted that the Divine Worship Missal is out of print. However, the post linked to a listing of several other editions that are still available, here. The editions available have the requisite text, but they are not the altar version, which lies flat and has type large enough to read standing at a distance.

The clergy reference version, for instance, is described as "A new, smaller-sized ritual edition of the Divine Worship Missal, useful for reference and liturgical planning". This might be kept in the rectory or parish office (that is, if there is in fact a rectory or parish office), rather than the sacristy, and it would not have type suitable for actually celebrating the mass.

The out of print status of the altar version does present a clear obstacle to continued "growth" of the North American ordinariate. My regular correspondent told me,

The person complaining about the altar missal being out of print on the Anglican Ordinariate Forum Facebook page said that the type was too small for the priest they had lined up to use it as an altar missal.

So if you're just Joe Blow and want to get an ordinariate group together, good luck finding a missal from which the priest can celebrate. So where did the Church of the Presentation at The Woodlands get their altar missal? Again, it sounds like if you're Joe Blow, you'd better have some pretty strong reading glasses. If you rate well enough to get a McMansion for your wife and beautiful children, well, I'm sure Fr Perkins can come up with something for you.

UPDATE: My regular correspondent sent me this screen shot of the Facebook post in question:

The odd thing is how little evidence there seems to be that Houston has any interest in helping out with this!

The Divine Worship Missal Is Out Of Print

Just in time to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Anglicanorum coetibus, my regular correspondent sent me this e-mail:

Someone was complaining about this on the Anglican Ordinariate Forum FB page. Seemed hard to believe, but a search revealed that this is so. One is available on Amazon from a used book dealer for $1095, however.

So, how will all the groups that are so eager to join this great success story obtain a copy for their portable altar? Interestingly, as we saw not long ago, the Episcopal Church 1928 Book of Common Prayer is actually still in print.

Yeah, I Guess The UK Ordinariate Is Hype, Too

This past Sunday, I linked to a piece in the respected UK Catholic Herald that declared the UK ordinariate a success story. I was inclined to grant this, insofar as it did strongly imply that the success hadn't carried over to North America or Australia. But just yesterday, a visitor sent me a link to another Catholic Herald story, entitled, "Our ordinariate parish has doubled in size. Here’s the secret ingredient".

I won't hold you in suspense.

For the ordinariate to flourish, control of sanctuaries is essential. Wherever this has occurred, one finds success in varying degrees. In Pembury where I minister, for example, we have overseen the transformation of the building to an English gothic style and numbers have nearly doubled. In the last decade we have averaged a vocation a year and our parish of around 150 members is now served by two deacons and four priests.

Harking back to my middle school algebra, if 2x=150, x=75. You can call this doubling in size, but this is like a football team that moves from a record of 1 win, 11 losses to 2 wins, 10 losses and crows that it's doubled its win record. More likely this is statistical chatter. And somehow there are four priests serving this group. Doesn't the surrounding diocese have any wish to use any of them? The claim raises more questions than it answers, but the story seems to fit the Catholic Herald's narrative that the UK ordinariate is a success story.

People are getting smarter, while the traditional print media is staying stupid.

I ran this link by my regular correspondent, who replied,

A classic OOLW story. The St Anselm community was offered the use of a diocesan “mass site” —-some kind of hall. I can find the exact details —- Mr Murphy followed this group closely on Ordinariate Expats cf here —-but the gist is that the hall had linoleum flooring, folding chairs, a portable altar, the side aisles were used for storage—-the kind of grotty place that had apparently been okay for years for the local Catholic yobs, but was certainly not up to the standards of “Anglican Patrimony.” Then the OOLW team got to work and turned it into a little Gothic gem with a full kitchen suitable for serving Christmas lunch. The Ordinariate Expatriates article does mention that the 72 ordinariate members joined 72 previous parishioners of the mass site, so “growth” to 150 is not exactly how I’d describe it.

More to the point, though, is that the Ordinariate Expats post that outlines the changes in the worship space is from 2016. The Catholic Herald piece that claims the parish size has doubled to 150 is by the same author as the Expats post, Fr Ed Tomlinson, but it dates from October 31 of this year. Basically, the best Fr Tomlinson can claim is that a tiny ordinariate parish of 150 was formed from equal parts Anglican converts and diocesan parishioners as of 2016, but it hasn't grown a bit over the next three years.

UPDATE: My regular correspondent comments,

Numbers (72+72) were given in the September-October 2015 issue of Faith Magazine reposted on Ordinariate Expatriates Sept 26, 2015, so there has been essentially no growth in over four years, not three.

And the Catholic Herald is using this to bolster a claim that the UK ordinariate is a success. And it's sharing the secret with the world.

A Little Bit Catholic And Anglicanorum Coetibus

Let's get back to the e-mail from the visitor I quoted yesterday on being a little bit Catholic. He has a number of points that I think operate in parallel. The first is the issue of disgruntled Catholics.

Because there are so few Episcopalian/Protestant candidates/converts to create or support an Ordinariate parish, the Ordinariate is forced to look for "disgruntled cradle Catholics" to fill the ranks, even if they have to bend a few rules to do this. What is a disgruntled cradle Catholic? The easy answer is a Catholic that is fed up with the party church atmosphere of the many Catholic parishes that exist today. . . . . The disgruntled cradle Catholic is looking for a parish that has a good reverent Mass, good preaching/sermons, good music and possibly a good choir.

Generally an Ordinariate parish offers this kind of liturgy. But, so does a Fraternity of St. Peter and St. Paul (FSSP) Latin only parish, or a St. Pius X Latin only parish, or one of the many other societies that are out there. But,these fraternity/societies have to be invited into the diocese and most bishops are loath to invite them for fear of losing parishioners and revenue. Since the Ordinariate is an entity unto itself with its own bishop this is not a problem, they don't have to be invited into a diocese.

However, it appears that the territorial bishop can still make things difficult for an ordinariate parish, as Bp Barnes in San Bernardino appears to have done for Bp Lopes. I would imagine that disputes would wind up in the CDF, but I can't imagine the CDF would appreciate too many appeals for arbitration, especially for such small and unpromising groups. Bp Lopes must presumably choose his battles. He could take on Abp Garcia-Siller, but I surmise he had to be more careful with Abp Hebda. However you slice it, the ordinariate was out in St Paul-Minneapolis.

A second problem with the disgruntled is one that Fr Ripperger, himself traddie-friendly, raises about traddies: there's often a surreptitious payoff involved for those who look for a reason to separate themselves from an OF parish. They may claim to dislike versus populum or Dan Schuette, but there's potentially a deeper reason to look for a different fellowship. They can, in Fr Ripperger's view (and he knows these folks well), be looking to exempt themselves from more basic Church teachings by insisting on Latin masses or Gregorian chant. In the ordinariate context, the faux Olde English and the ostentatious chapel veils serve a similar purpose for such a group.

The visitor raises the question of the reluctant Anglicans as well:

This Ordinariate model has a lot of problems to overcome. First is married priests and their families. How does this fit in with the Catholic church? I have found that many of the Episcopal priests want to keep one foot in the Episcopal church and one foot in the Catholic church. Why? Family/friend concerns, perhaps being moved from one parish to another, retirement pensions and the list goes on. I think many of the priests and their families would like to stay right where they are.

It is comfortable, but it has become untenable for them to stay. Why? A lot of the Episcopal churches now welcome/condone same sex couples/marriages, have accepted abortion, have women priests and bishops and the list goes on. Some of these priests are moved by the Holy Spirit to come over to the Catholic Church, but are hindered by some of the considerations mentioned above. But, again you can't have it both ways. You either cross the Tiber or you don't.

A second issue is also reflected in the more recent intake, many of the priests are dealing with a shrinking Protestant job market, made more difficult by the entry of women and openly gay men. Some haven't been able to start Protestant careers at all, while others have had careers peter out while still in middle age. The ordinariate is simply a last and least bad option for these men, for whom the Holy Spirit is at best a secondary consideration.

That the ordinariate has affected a certain amount of Episcopalian style sweetens the deal a little bit, but on one hand, it fuzzes over the question of just why these men have come into the Church, while on the other hand giving them the prestige of Catholic clericals and the title Catholic priest when, as we've seen already, there are men in the North American ordinariate who should bot be in it. The visitor continues,

Wouldn't it be wonderful if these Episcopal parishes, their priests and their families, their congregations, the buildings and everything else would just make the decision to come into the Catholic Church? Wouldn't it be easy? Very little would change except that you would add "Roman Catholic" to the name of the parish. But, unfortunately, life is very rarely that easy.

As you have pointed out to us, the story of your parish (St Mary of the Angels) is replete with horror stories of dissident groups and expensive litigation that is ongoing. It appears to me that the current administration in Rome and most of the bishops are not very warm to the idea of the Ordinariate. So don't expect a lot of help and cooperation from these folks. If an Ordinariate parish siphons off "disgruntled Catholics" from local party parishes the priests of these parishes and bishops of these dioceses will not be happy.

So what is the answer/solution to all of this? If one is moved by the Holy Spirit to come into the Catholic Church because they truly believe that the Catholic Church is Christ's true church and the church that He Himself founded, then just make the move. Just do it. It's that simple. I personally have always believed that the whole Pastoral Provision/Ordinariate thing was a big mistake and would be fraught with many problems. These problems are now seeing the light of day. As I said, if one is moved to become Catholic one should just do it. You will be happy and God will be happy.

I would think the solution for many of the mediocrities (and some charlatans) who've been ordained by Bp Lopes would be to get real, go on leave, and learn to code. For Anglican laity, there's RCIA just down the street any time.

What Does "Come Into Full Communion 'With' The Catholic Church" Really Mean?

I got an interesting e-mail yesterday from a visitor who responded to the story I linked in that day's post, which declared that Anglicanorum coetibus, or at least the part in the UK, was a success. A phrase in that piece stuck in the back of my mind all day and all night, "groups of former Anglicans who wished to come into full communion with the Catholic Church".

Anglicanorum coetibus itself uses a slightly different phraseology, "groups of Anglicans to petition repeatedly and insistently to be received into full Catholic communion individually as well as corporately". There's no "with", and I think that's important, because I think the UK writer is inserting "with" to imply a level of parity between Anglicans and Catholics that many Anglicans would like to assume, but isn't in the actual text of the constitution.

The visitor wrote,

There is an old saying, "You can't be a little dead or a little pregnant." I would like to revise that saying to say, you can't be a little Roman Catholic and a little Episcopalian/Protestant at the same time. It is one or the other. Either you cross the Tiber or you don't; it is that simple.

It appears to me that what the Ordinariate is trying to do is create a "boutique" church where there is a relationship with the Catholic Church, but not too close.

The bee in my bonnet that had been buzzing over "full communion with" all day yesterday and last night finally brought to light what I think was the real issue, the 2001 communion agreement between the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and The Episcopal Church, which is sometimes officially described as an agreement to be :"in communion with", though tellingly, this phrase does not actually appear in the official communiqués. They use the terms "among and between", but not "with".

Not stated in the official communiqués but I believe canonically implied is that denominations in "full communion" in this particular context recognize the episcopal actions of the others. The Catholic Church recognizes baptisms and marriages performed by Protestant denominations, but it does not recognize confirmation or ordination, which are canonically episcopal actions. Thus, based on the TEC communiqué linked here, TEC recognizes, as a practical matter, not only confirmations but in particular ordinations performed by the Philippine Independent Church, the Church of Sweden, and the ELCA, among others.

This wrinkle came up here when Anthony Morello discovered that he could attend seminary in the Philippines at much less expense and be ordained in the Philippine Independent Church and have his ordination recognized by TEC when he returned to the US. Through sheer persistence, he got two TEC bishops to place him as an administrator in two dioceses until one finally suspended his faculties.

This, of course, is very different from the implication in the actual phraseology in Anglicanorum coetibus, which refers only to the wish of Anglicans "to be received into full Catholic communion". The Catholic Church does not recognize either confirmations or ordinations performed by Anglican bishops. "Communion" here is simply not "intercommunion" as implied by the ELCA and TEC. In fact, my friend the ELCA Pastor Robert can describe himself as an "Anglican wannabe" and not deviate in any significant way from the policies of his own denomination.

One problem that the visitor in yesterday's e-mail brings up is that writers, like the one in the UK Catholic Herald, don't understand very clearly what they imply when they say "full communion with", versus "full Catholic communion". But Houston as a practical matter allows this misunderstanding to persist in its day-to-day actions, performing receptions into the Church (effectively confirmations), ordination as a deacon, and ordination as a priest on certain ordinands within the span of a single weekend. The performance of the episcopal sacraments is so perfunctory as to constitute de facto recognition of their Anglican validity.

But as I grow as a Catholic, I recognize more and more that Catholic priestly formation doesn't occur in Protestant seminaries, and it can't be conferred in a weekend, nor even over a period of months in webinars or seminary day courses. I think of the All Saints Day homily I heard at last Friday's mass, in which a young associate pretty succinctly outlined Catholic Sainthood 101, with particular reference to St Maximilian Kolbe. He made the point that Kolbe would likely have been sainted even had he not been a martyr to the Nazis, stressing his life of humility and sacrifice.

I never heard a homily like this as an Episcopalian. All Saints Day is not an Anglican day of holy obligation, and typical homilies on the subject, delayed to the following Sunday, basically say that since Aunt Gertrude was a nice Episcopalian lady, she was a saint just like Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. It seems to me that this is just one tiny example of how Bp Lopes can't take an Anglican -- or indeed, some other flavor of Protestant, as he often does -- and say poof, you're a Catholic priest. It just doesn't happen that way, and too many of the tiny group that's actually in the ordinariate are kidding themselves about this.

I'll have more to say about this and the visitor's e-mail tomorrow.

Some Reflections On The Upcoming Tenth Anniversary of Anglicanorum Coetibus

Although commemorations of the ten-year anniversary of Anglicanorum coetibus have begun to appear, the remarkable thing is how few there have been so far. A visitor sent me a link to this one at the UK Catholic Herald. Its title reads, "It hasn’t been easy. But ten years on, the ordinariate is a success story". On one hand, it's mostly anecdotal happy talk. But on the other, it clearly refers only to the situation in the UK ordinariate, and it adds,

What of the United States and Australia? The ordinariates there are small. In the US the big achievement took place some years earlier, with the establishment of “Anglican Use” parishes under John Paul II. These, including the Church of Our Lady of Walsingham in Texas, have now teamed up with the ordinariate. But the number of Episcopalians interested in the ordinariate project has been minimal. In Australia, vast distances separate the small ordinariate groups and, as in Britain, no church buildings have been offered by Anglicans.

Anglican Use was, of course, overall a disappointment, with fewer than a dozen parishes in total, many of which folded before the ordinariate in the US was established. The most visible, Our Lady of the Atonement in San Antonio, has been slowly collapsing following an attempt by its former archdiocese to impose normal discipline on a parish troubled by sexual misconduct and financial mismanagement. A small and inexperienced ordinariate staff in Houston is unlikely to rescue the situation.

But, while all but acknowledging the failure of the US ordinariate, the author doesn't offer any insight into the reasons. If we're going to delve into the history of the movement, it's worthwhile revisiting the St Mary of the Angels parish, which as of late 2011 was, according to the designee who was meant to shepherd it into the ordinariate, intended to be the first parish received, with Cardinal Wuerl and Msgr Steenson clearly aware of its historic significance. Instead, the project failed spectacularly in a third round of the litigation that's dogged the parish for more than 40 years.

What happened? Looking around the web, I found what I believe is the current website for the parish faction that now controls the property. (Another faction maintains a hopeful Facebook page, although this is no longer the group that supported Fr Kelley.) An insight can be gained from this photo on the website:

It shows three men vested as fantasy-Catholic priests and deacons facing ad orientem in front of the Della Robbia altarpiece. The blurbs surrounding the photo say,

We encourage you to visit St. Mary of the Angels and experience the power of prayerful transcendence of the traditional English Mass.

and

Our services are traditional Anglican, much like you might have seen in the Catholic Church or high Episcopal Church prior to the 1960's.

I simply don't know what liturgy they're using now. As of 2012, they used a "uniate mass" dating from about 1905 consisting of Cranmerian prayers perhaps from the 1662 BCP inserted into an English translation of a Catholic Latin mass -- nothing "traditional English" about it. But whatever market this satisfies is very, very small. And that market is an important segment of the somewhat larger (though still small) market for "traditional worship". There's simply a group of people that wants fuss and feathers, no matter the fussbudgets and feather-shakers are fringe figures often unqualified to represent themselves as clergy in any real denomination, be it Anglican or Catholic.

This faction doesn't need to be Catholic, and in fact it doesn't want to be. I think it's a descendant of the "tree and branch" theory of Anglicanism espoused in the 1960s by the UK Anglican scholar S L Greenslade, against whom Bishop B C Butler argued. Fr Jack Barker's mentor Canon Albert DuBois clearly maintained this view, that certain Anglican denominations had a "Catholicity" that inhered, whether they were in unity with Rome or not.

I think a problem with the intellectual history behind Anglican Use and Anglicanorum coetibus is that this faction, DuBois and Barker specifically, was the initial leadership behind the dissidents at the 1976 Episcopal Church General Convention, which in succeeding years founded the "continuing Anglican" movement focused primarily on the ordination of women and the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. "Continuers", as things have shaken out, were primarily just disgruntled and had no serious interest in becoming Catholic, especially if they had infrastructure that allowed them to look Catholic without adhering to pesky Catholic moral theology.

Thus the photo above. which I think sums up very concisely the misreading of us Episcopalianism behind the whole Anglican outreach project. No wonder a UK writer simply glosses over the problem.