"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.