Bp Lopes At Incarnation Orlando

It's remarkable how few videos of ordinariate masses are available on YouTube, especially in light of the assumption among its communities that they're somehow doing things better than the rest of the Church. Look, for instance, at this video from St Luke's with Fr Lewis, touting the fact that unlike those who may regard the mass as a dreary weekly obligation, at St Luke's, it's a foretaste of heaven.

But as far as I've been able to determine, St Luke's has never put a full mass on YouTube at any of its venues. You'd think they'd be proud of it, huh? How's that all working out in the DC area, anyhow?

Actually, the most YouTube videos from ordinariate communities may well be from Incarnation Orlando. At least three feature visits by Bp Lopes. I'll say in passing that the interior at Orlando, like a number of other full [parishes in the ordinariate, comes off as pretty shabby -- even a little effort to dress the place up would pay huge dividends, and if the selling point is to make the ordinariate a foretaste of heaven, it'll help to lose the purgatory part there.

The video below is from a mass celebrated there by Bp Lopes on August 13, 2017.

It's worth noting that Bp Lopes speaks clearly and audibly even when facing the altar. We can probably attribute this to his Catholic formation as a priest, which of course the Anglican converts in the ordinariate have not had -- in fact, those who come from "continuing" backgrounds, or those with only marginal Episcopalian careers, won't have had good speaking skills you'd expect from a successful pastor in any mainstream denomination. But let's focus on the homily, which begins at about 14:30.

He refers to that weekend as "a time for us to be front and center with who we are as Catholics of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter, what we do in the celebration of liturgy, in our evangelization, with our school, with all of the things that go into bringing up and bringing together our life in God. . ."

This is another example of what I've already noted is a tendency by Bp Lopes toward grand but gaseous generalities. He clearly points to "who we are" as something important and unique, but he never quite gets down to what that is. He mentions a "school" at Incarnation, but this is in fact a very iffy thing. My regular correspondent recently noted,

In checking the Incarnation, Orlando mass schedule for Christmas I noticed that there is a 7 am TLM celebrated “privately” on Thursdays for the “Homeschool Ministry.” When one looks under “Ministries” on the (unattractive and amateurish) website there is no mention of anything involving home schooling. The parish hosts a preschool established by Louis Campese’s daughter, although she no longer seems to be involved. When the OCSP website was first set up, the drop-down menu under “Parishes” included “Parishes” and “Schools,” of which the only one was St Vincent’s Academy, the Incarnation, Orlando pre-school. This has now disappeared from the OCSP website. In any event, I doubt anyone involved with the daycare is showing up at 7 am for the TLM.

Bp Lopes himself never evangelizes, in the sense that Anglican converts to Catholicism have evangelized in the past (from John Dryden onward, in fact). Nor does he evangelize as Catholics sympathetic to Anglicanism, like Hllaire Belloc, have. Mostly he congratulates himself and his little flock, the size of a single average diocesan parish, for nobody's quite sure what.

The other thing I notice here is his condescending tone. "So, Catholics come here, and what we do -- is the mass -- and what we do -- is recognizable -- as the mass -- and get the little distinct accents -- that we have -- these prayers -- that we do. . ." He's almost apologetic over using the word "recognizable" which might be hard for eight-year-olds to absorb, so he goes slowly.

One thing that came back to me in watching the video of the Easter mass at St Thomas Episcopal, and recognizing some of the faces, is that Episcopalans continue to be prosperous people, intelligent, capable, accomplished professionals. If you get involved in an Episcopal parish, you inevitably meet doctors, attorneys, judges, PhDs, accountants, administrators, teachers. The clergy themselves, especially in prestigious parishes, are accomplished people. You do not talk down to Episcopalians.

So how well does Bp Lopes understand his audience, or indeed his flock? Incarnation Orlando was previously always a "continuing" parish, so it may not be at an Episcopalian cultural level to start with. But we're getting back to the question of what Anglicanorum coetibus was trying to accomplish. If ordinariate members in fact aren't Episcopalian types, and you do need to talk down to them like eight-year-olds, what was the point of setting up a whole special prelature?

On the other hand, if Bp Lopes is talking down to Episcopalians, what does this say about him as an evangelist? When St Paul addressed the Areopagus, he respected them as intelligent people. He knew his audience. If Bp Lopes doesn't know his audience -- either in Orlando or in the target market of Episcopalians -- he doesn't know his job. If in fact the people in Orlando need to be talked down to, then something else is wrong, but it's certainly wrong.

But our diocesan parish clergy are intelligent men themselves. In fact, although the parish has widely diverse occupational and educational levels, they speak to all of us directly. They don't talk down. Something's off kilter here.

A Tour Of Ordinariate Parishes On YouTube -- II

Each of the North American ordinariate communities here celebrates its mass in a provisional facility that it doesn't own or fully control. The impression I'm starting to have is that ad orientem celebration, with communion kneeling, requires some degree of modification to facilities that aren't set up for that style of worship.

But even the example of St Thomas More Toronto shows that an ad orientem altar and communion rail in a traditional space won't provide a good worship experience comparable to St Thomas Episcopal Hollywood without major expense in updating the sound system and building acoustics.

On the other hand, the acoustics of versus populum celebraton at St Timothy Catonsville are far better.

Here is the Christmas 2018 mass at Our Lady of Grace Covina, CA. I counted about 40 coming forward for the sacrament. The portable communion rails seat only two or three at a side, which extends the process tediously.

This group meets in a former diocesan parish building that had been sold and repurposed as an event facility. The altar has been reworked for use by the ordinariate group there, which is apparently making some effort to purchase the building.

However, it does not appear that any work has been done to change the existing sound system or acoustics to accommodate ad orientem celebration at the new altar. In other words, the job is only partly done here.

The celebrant, when not singing the liturgy at the top of his lungs, is speaking directly into the flower arrangement on the altar and is largely inaudible.

Here is the mass for the most recent second Sunday in Advent at St Timothy Catonsville, MD.

This is in a chapel at a local Novus Ordo Catholic parish, which is set up for versus populum celebration. There is no communion rail, and the sacrament is received standing, either in the hand or on the tongue. I counted about 25 coming forward for the sacrament, in addition to about half a dozen in the altar party. Two priests celebrated this mass. What kind of shortages are in the archdiocese?

One thing I noticed is that the acoustics were far better in this versus populum celebration.

Here is the sung mass for the most recent fourth Sunday in Advent at St Thomas More, Toronto, which meets in an archdiocesan facility that has a communion rail and is set up for ad orientem celebration.

The first thing to note is that the community has an outstanding cantor, and it's my understanding that a musical family has been involved with the group. However, the acoustics of the space are favorable only to the cantor, who is apparently in the choir loft. As far as the celebrant at the altar is concerned, we're seeing again the problems with ad orientem celebration if the sound system and building acoustics haven't been set up to accommodate it.

The celebrant's voice is faint to start with, and facing the altar, he's often not understandable. The echoes in the nave reinforce this effect, and the echoes probably are increased by the lack of bodies to absorb the sound. In fact, the echo makes children crying in the nave far more audible than the celebrant.

While the camera angle made if difficult to see exactly how many were at the communion rail, it appears that about 12-15, including small children, came forward for the sacrament.

When Fr Davies came to St Thomas Episcopal Hollywood, the altar had been set up for versus populum celebration. He moved the altar back against the wall, but in the following year, he completely redid the sound system and made changes to the acoustics in the nave, with the result you can hear in yesterday's post. There is no echo, although it helps that the nave is always well filled for the main Sunday mass.

I suppose some may think an echo isn't a bug, it's a feature. I may well be spoiled, coming from a 1979 BCP, versus populum background in expecting to be able to follow along in the celebration and hear clearly everything that's said -- maybe, in fact, that's my Protestant, liturgy-in-the-vernacular inheritance. If the sacrament is the same if all you hear is mumbling in Latin that you can't understand anyhow, well, fine.

But in that case, why bother with the Divine Worship missal? Yet again, what problem is Anglicanorum coetibus trying to solve? Why do so few people come to hear that marvelous cantor? Is there some way the Church can make better use of her talents?

A Tour Of Ordinariate Parishes On YouTube -- I

With many thanks to my regular correspondent, who's managed to track down a number of good links to masses and other services at North American ordinariate parishes on YouTube, I can provide something of a tour in the next few posts. I'm also going to hold up a sort of standard for comparison, our former Anglo-Catholic parish, St Thomas Episcopal Hollywood. It's important to point out that Anglo-Catholic is not Catholic, and there are aspects of the service that I think some would caution "don't try this at home".

However, I put this in the context of an Episcopal bishop's visit to Our Lady of Walsingham, which I noted here in 2018. Bp Daniel Martins of the conservative TEC Diocese of Springfield, IL was invited to give the homily at an ecumenical evensong at OLW. His reaction to a mass there, which I quoted at the time, was

I told a friend that it sounded like Westminster Abbey and looked like All Saints Margaret Street (an Anglo-Catholic shrine church in London),

Well, as I've noted here before, the rector who celebrates the Easter mass below is Fr Ian Davies, a Welshman, who was recruited by the parish from his post as an associate at that same All Saints Margaret Street. So St Thomas Hollywood's current liturgy is inspired in some measure directly from All Saints Margaret Street. My wife and I remember Fr Ian and many of the other familiar faces at the mass very fondly.

So here, for the purpose of Anglo-Catholic comparison, is the Easter 2014 mass at St Thomas Episcopal Hollywood:

Below is the Maundy Thursday 2019 mass at Our Lady of Walsingham in Houston

For starters, we're comparing Maundy Thursday to Easter, so among other things, you've got to ignore the floral decoration and Mozart setting of the mass at St Thomas. But other similarities are there, for instance, the procession in which the choir enters and then diverts down the side aisles. The liturgy at St Thomas is basically 1979 Rite One with little bits that Fr Davies inserts here and there as the spirit moves him.

The overwhelming impression I have, though, is of an enormous difference in atmosphere and enthusiasm. The people at St Thomas are actually enjoying themselves. At OLW, the processional hymn, Crucifer, drags. The organist is a touch slow and not very spirited. I've heard Crucifer done well, but mostly badly; it actually wasn't until I heard it at our current diocesan parish that I came to like it. The OLW version I would give a C. St Thomas's version of Jerusalem the Golden, a favorite at that parish, was in my head for the rest of the day.

Another surprise was that I would judge St Thomas's capacity, including the transepts, at about 50% larger than OLW, and St Thomas is on the small-to-medium size for LA area Episcopalian parishes. (An Easter mass would have overflows into the parish hall, with the mass piped in.)

Another big difference, which so far I've noted in all the ordinariate YouTubes I've watched, is that none has a sound system equivalent to St Thomas. You can barely hear the readings at OLW. Some may feel the echoes are somehow churchy, but if they keep you from the substance, they shouldn't be there. But beyond that, I think we'll hear throughout this tour that if you're going to do ad orientem, you'd better have a sound system that supports it. Otherwise, it all comes out as mumbling.

The bells at the consecration at OLW sound like Jacob Marley's chains.

But a storefront rental, a basement chapel, a school cafeteria are none of them going to have a sound system that supports ad orientem. I think the takeaway here is that what you see at St Thomas, while Anglo-Catholic is not Catholic, does represent what decades of work, commitment, imagination, and not least money can accomplish. On the other hand, for Bp Martins to suggest OLW's mass is anything like Anglo-Catholic is pure politeness.

I'll have more examples in the next few posts. But at least in my mind, it's worthwhile to keep the example of St Thomas in mind in a spirit of asking how the ordinariate can do better than it has.

How Many Other Ordinariate Masses Are On YouTube?

I've got to say the YouTube of the Christmas mass at Incarnation Orlando that I linked yesterday, with 25 attending, was dispiriting. One question that came up for me overnight was, if this was the third mass of the day, were the others recorded? Might one of the other two have given a better impression? Or were they all about the same? Who knows?

UPDATE: My regular correspondent says,

I think that the video from Incarnation, Orlando was not the third mass of the day, but the third mass (of Christmas) in the day. In other words, there was probably a mass Christmas Eve, an early morning mass “of the dawn,” and this mass “of the day.”

But in terms of overall size, Incarnation is a full parish and we must presume one of the dozen or so brightest spots in the North American ordinariate.

But that's making me recalibrate one of my assumptions, that diocesan bishops might see competition from ordinariate parishes seeking to poach cradle Catholics. I can't seriously see this happening in Orlando or San Antonio. The DW liturgy, clumsily handled by a mediocre priest, is clearly something dreary. Nobody is going to be drawn to it as something positive, and as my wife commented, the somewhat desultorily emended Rite One at St Thomas Episcopal Hollywood, celebrated ad orientem, moves along, is in fact attractive, and is nothing like the monstrosity in Orlando.

Perhaps Bp Lopes could dispatch an observer to see how the Anglo-Catholics actually do things there and learn a few lessons. But then, he could as easily seek out a reverent OF mass closer to home that gets hundreds out of mass in an hour and draw some lessons there, too.

So I'd be interested if visitors can send me links to other YouTubes of ordinariate masses at other parishes. In addition to giving an idea of how they're celebrated, how long they take, the music, and the general atmosphere, it's also worthwhile just to get a count of attendance. I'll post links to intriguing examples here if visitors find them.

The Ordinariate In The Media

A visitor sent me a link to an appearance by Frs Lewis and Moore of Our Lady of the Atonement on a San Antonio local Catholic radio program this past November. The interview itself starts at about 14:30. The tone of the show is happy-clappy, with the word "blessed", as in "I am blessed to. . ." and "'We are blessed to be. . ." overused to the point of annoyance.

Fr Lewis is not an inspiring presence, sorry. Fr Moore continues to wear an Anglican style clerical collar. A visitor noted not long ago that he doesn't seem to have made the full transition. What's up with that?

This is simply not how I would do media, but there's nobody in Houston to provide guidance, and as far as I can see, there's nobody in the North American ordinariate who would be more telegenic or articulate, and that includes Bp Lopes. Maybe someone at Word on Fire could coach the bishop, or maybe he could study YouTubes of performances from Ven Fulton Sheen or Billy Graham. Press packages with photos of him raising the chalice ad orientem don't make it.

My regular correspondent sent me a link to the Christmas mass, said to be the third of the day on this past December 25, at Incarnation Orlando.

I would note that 25 people were visible in the nave. At a Christmas mass. Fr Holliday's delivery of the heavy-furniture liturgy is an irritating, monotonous drone. I suppose the 25 people there think mass is supposed to be this way. It took fully 20 minutes to get through the confession and start the mass of the catechumens.

My regular correspondent says,

A Toronto tourist/lifestyle blog recommending churches for Christmas Eve put St Michael’s Cathedral here in the #1 spot, but warned that it was likely to be filled to capacity (1600) for each of the three masses and two carol services. Today on the Anglican ordinariate Facebook page, someone volunteered that the Christmas Eve mass at St Thomas More, Toronto attracted “about” 60. They had no mass Christmas Day, so this was the total attendance for a Holy Day of Obligation, not to mention a feast which traditionally attracts those who otherwise attend church rarely.

I've got to say that if the new line from Houston is to appeal to Catholics who'd prefer pre-Conciliar styles, the picture of priest-as-set-in-his-ways old guy is not appealing -- nor is the picture of a bishop as a wannabe set-in-his-ways old guy. Ad orientem at Incarnation Orlando with the unnecessarily repetitious, deliberately archaic and overformal liturgy that takes longer (over 90 minutes) to serve mass to 25 than it took our OF parish to serve maybe 1000 at a Christmas mass is not an argument for the ordinariate.

I've got to say that at Episcopal and "continuing" parishes that celebrated ad orientem, I had a much better sense of pace and delivery than I got from watching the Incarnation video, but then, they were using 1928 BCP or 1979 Rite One and not the DW Missal. If ordinariate masses are anything like that awful production at Incarnation, the CDF really needs to scrap this thing and start over -- or maybe leave evangelization to Bp Barron.

"Perhaps The Most Prominent Evangelist In English"

As a Christmas gift, our parish distributed free copies of Bp Barron's Letter to a Suffering Church at all Christmas masses. The priest described Bp Barron as "perhaps the most prominent evangelist in English today".

Why, I had to force myself not to stand up on the spot and shout from the pew, "WHAT ABOUT BISHOP STEVEN J LOPES? HAVE YOU NOT HEARD OF THIS MAN, WHOSE ENTIRE MISSION IS TO EVANGELIZE IN ENGLISH?"

But I thought better of it, even before my wife sensed any need to shush me or settle me down. And of course, personal experience has already taught me that to mention Anglicanorum coetibus to a diocesan priest will bring only a quizzical expression.

And I thought in fact to search out Bp Lopes's Letter to a Suffering Episcopalian, but so far, nothing like it has turned up on Amazon. And actually, it seems as though through his clergy, Bp Lopes has tacitly acknowledged that he's no longer even trying to evangelize Anglicans. The new line is his diocese (he seems to prefer this term to "ordinariate" now) is there to reheat lukewarm Catholics and deepen their faith.

Except that with Letter to a Suffering Church, Bp Barron seems to have that market already covered as well. But of course, he addresses other secular figures like Jordan Peterson in the Areopagus. And he speks to other topics in the larger culture, as well as the Church, via regular YouTube presentations. He's shown an erudite ability to outline St John Henry Newman's place in Catholic thought in the context of Newman's canonization -- to a YouTube audience of over 25,000 so far.

Meanwhile, Bp Lopes displays no special understanding of Newman, and I'm not sure if he has much to say about B C Butler, Ronald Knox, G K Chesterton, or Frederick Kinsman. He's shown no particular interest in that sort of intellectual appeal, which is a little strange for someone who at least theoretically was tasked with evangelizing Anglicans.

Instead, his position seems to be that he and this Viennese professor worked up a heavy-furniture version of the OF mass, and that should be enough. And if the Anglicans haven't come streaming into the school cafeterias, basement chapels, and rented storefronts, then maybe some disgruntled Catholics will. What else does he need to do?

Something's deeply wrong here. I hope 2020 will see changes.

Fr Moore And Deacon D'Agostino At Our Lady Of The Atonement

Several visitors have sent me e-mails to bring me up to date on the status of Fr Moore and Dcn D'Agostino, who have in fact both been active and involved with mass at the parish for many years. The most complete explanation:

Deacon Mike D'Agostino went through diaconate training with Deacon Orr, both were ordained at the same time. To my knowledge Deacon D'Agostino is a cradle Catholic not a convert. He is married with two daughters. He is a retired Lt. Colonel from the US Army. I think he came to OLOTA not long after leaving seminary. He is very reverent and his sermons are spirit filled and uplifting. He has served OLOTA in many capacities.

Fr. Jeffery Moore was ordained an Episcopal priest. Very soon after his ordination he came to OLOTA and converted to the Catholic Church. . . . . He is truly one of these with one foot firmly in the Episcopal church and one foot in the Catholic Church. Fr. Phillips had tried to get him involved with Tenebrae, the Latin Mass and other activities in the parish. I am not sure, but he may teach a class at OLOTA school.

Another visitor pointed out that although yesterday's post carried an account from a visitor whose experience was that Fr Phillips simply made him Catholic once he signed a declaration of faith, there has also been a regular class for Episcopalian inquirers and Catholics wishing to brush up on their faith.

It occurred to me that January 2020 will mark three full years since Abp Garcia-Siller began the Time of Troubles at OLA, removing Fr Phillips and setting in turn a train of events including transfer of the parish to the North American ordinariate, partial restoration of Fr Phillips. partial removal of Fr Phillips, complete re-removal of Fr Phillips, and so on. It's interesting that the continuing years-long Phillips drama has kept the spotlight almost completely off the other clergy in the parish.

And another visitor suggests the Phillips drama isn't over yet:

I am betting that early in the new year a "lift the ban on Fr Phillips" campaign will arise. I have heard that there are some who are not happy about the situation.

I replied that I found this a bit astonishing,

I would think that with the holidays intervening, there’d be a loss of momentum. And what gets me is the tendency for as long as I’ve been hearing about this is for people to be disillusioned with Fr Phillips. How many true believers are left?

The visitor replied,

I think there are still many true believers and some feel the Latin Mass removal was planned with Fr. Phillips's removal. To be fair, many had a devotion, not only to the Latin Mass but other devotions that have ceased as Fr. Phillips was sidelined. They feel they weren't dealt with straightforwardly and the transition into the Ordinariate has been one of taking things away. People feel disaffected.

I would think a contributing factor here has been the demonstrated willingness of Bp Lopes to temporize. If the parish senses they can push him, they'll at least try.

Another Former Our Lady Of The Atonement Parishioner Weighs In

In this morning's e-mail:

As a young Episcopalian during the Gene Robinson fiasco, I would frequently visit OLA masses and evensongs. My Episcopal parish was perhaps a mile from OLA. This was when I began to research and eventually affirm the Catholic faith, ultimately deciding to join the Church. I approached Fr. Phillips about it. We sat in a few and I briefly told him my story. I could tell there was absolutely no interest whatsoever. I shrugged it off and waited for him to come back from the sacristy with what I assumed would be RCIA info to get me started. He ushered me to OLA's (quite beautiful) Lady chapel where I knelt on a kneeler and signed a "Solemn Declaration of Faith" pledging fidelity to the Pope, the Magesterium etc as soon as I was done he took the paper walked off and viola! I was a Catholic...sigh. In ignorance I went along with the "English Country Cathedral" fairytale for awhile, moved on, and got properly taught. Nothing too shocking, but in hindsight a clear indicator that things were done quite different at OLA.

Two things I have not seen mentioned on your blog has been Dn. Michael D'Agostino and Fr. Jeffrey Moore, were they transferred to Houston as well? I have NEVER seen Fr. Moore celebrate Mass, or do anything but confessions.

I wish I could describe in words the morose and strange feeling when one is there. I have not been there in a couple of years, so perhaps the new priest has brought a glimmer of light and hope.

I've mentioned before that traffic on this blog is at record levels, and interest in the situation at Our Lady of the Atonement has been a major factor since early 2017. One thing that puzzles me is why mainstream media religion reporters, either in San Antonio or elsewhere, haven't picked the story up -- but I suppose it would take real time and effort to get into the full story, and it wouldn't fit anyone's pre-formed clichés.

So throughout this story, I've kept seeing Fr Moore as on staff, but not a peep otherwise. What's up there?

The 2019 Mission Creep

In this last part of 2019, I think we're seeing more and more evidence that the Anglicanorum coetibus project isn't just not growing, it's in fact not viable at all. It looks, for instance, as though the income from parish tithes won't support the minimal chancery operations that exist in Houston, while the ordinariate seems not to have other resources like endowment or real estate that sustain dioceses. So we're seeing a certain amount of desperate flailing to find a new mission.

A visitor pointed out to me a post by Mrs Gyapong on the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society blog from December 13. Evangelization and deeper conversion, which

has augmented “Anglican Patrimony” with “English Patrimony” and the description of which is “…recovering that English Catholic patrimony that preceded the Reformation…” Apparently, “Bishop Steven Lopes has described this two-fold approach as English Christianity.” The full article is not really worth the read, but the opening paragraphs show an alarming devolving of logic and culpability for the rest of the article’s claims of patrimonial appropriation.

I didn’t know Jesus created national/ethnic kinds of Christianity. Silly me, I thought there was only one kind, hence the ability of people to recognize the mark of the true Church of Christ, it would be catholic (with a small “c” meaning universal), not a collection of (insert flavor variety here) Christians. I used to give this group(ACS) the benefit of doubt because they were new to Catholicity, but the more time passes, the more it seems they do not want to fully embrace Christ’s Church. They keep looking backward* and making up their own stuff as they go (Does the Gilbertine situation ring any bells here?), hence pulling others backward with them. Yes, sometimes looking back can help with perspective but fixation on the past and the inability to move forward in times of great change slows, if not altogether halts, onward progress. How did all that looking back work out for Lot’s wife and family? It’s time for Lot’s family to move on from this backward-looking side show.

In our area, Catholic parishes celebrate particular Mexican and Filipino expressions of Catholicism, but one thing that's missing is that neither Mexicans nor Filipinos have been told by the Church that they're entitled to separate hierarchies. In fact, the Cahenslyite proposal was tacitly disapproved by Leo XIII. The idea that English Catholics get a separate hierarchy was bad in the 1890s, but it's now proving unworkable in practice.

Mrs Gyapong's ideas in that post seem incoherent, leading eventually to what I dreamed about not long ago, that Houston would wind up streaming episodes of Upstairs, Downstairs and Downton Abbey into masses.

.A second mission creep is the position, I assume tacitly authorized by Houston, that we've noted on some parish websites, that the ordinariates somehow started as a project aimed at Anglicans, but now exist for any Catholic who feels their faith will be deepened with a heavy-furniture liturgy. How's that going?

The last development seems to be abandoning Potemkin village "gathered" groups that might someday turn into parishes -- the short answer is they don't -- for jump-started parishes do novo that rely on funding from major donors. To the extent these can be found, they seem to compete with dioceses for donor money, which is unlikely to be a winning formula. But another question is simply how many donors can be found to fund such startups.

The robber-baron families, Morgans, Harrimans, and others, that funded Gothic parishes a century ago have moved on. If I had several millions to donate, I'd want to take a close look at any such projects, and the record we see for the ordinariates is just not promising.

Stein's Law: "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop."

A Little Bit More Info On Omaha

My regular correspondent points out,

St Barnabas probably emptied out their endowment purchasing their property from TEC, but I believe you heard from a parishioner that they were left a very substantial amount of money more recently. There has been a multi-year program of renovation of the church and basement, demolition of the former rectory, acquisition and renovation of a new multi-use property, creation of a parking lot, etc. They now house a full-time school. So there is, or was, capital. Their Bishop’s Appeal goal in 2016 was $3,200. They did not become a full parish until late 2017, and probably do not have many more than the minimum number of parishioners required. I see that their Bishop’s Appeal target for 2017 was also $3500. I don’t know what the formula is for calculating the BA targets but if it was $5000 this year they must have experienced a significant increase in revenue between 2017 and 2019.

But let's still keep in mind that if there are somewhere around 30-50 pledging entities, we're talking a bishop's appeal goal in the neighborhood of $100 per family, which, if this year's performance is any indication, is not met. If the parish is able to meet the shortfall the following year from endowment income, well, that's something, but it gives an idea of where the ordinariate stands in the parish's priorities. What's the difference between that and, like some "continuing" parishes, dropping out of the denomination entirely and just continuing as St Barnabas Independent Anglican?

This also reminds me of one among many other problems with how Fr Barker left the St Mary of the Angels Hollywood parish. The income from the commercial property was so substantial that nobody in the parish felt compelled to pledge more than a token amount, so nobody really had skin in the game. But the valuable property then became a football for parish factions to struggle over.

My regular correspondent also commented,

Most dioceses fund their chancery functions from the cathedraticum and hold a special appeal for charitable works in the diocese. The North American ordinariate seems to be unique in relying on the bishop's appeal to fund its operational budget. Any shortfall in a community’s bishop's appeal pledges from parishioners is billed to the community and paid out of its general revenue.

So in fact the cathedraticum (currently not a “tithe,” more like 16% ) is split into two parts, one of which may be met through direct donations by parish members. Of course, collectively, donors not affiliated with an Ordinariate parish contribute more than any individual parish, so perhaps this is why the OCSP’s finances are structured this way.

I think a better overall explanation for how the ordinariate funds its operating expenses is simply that interest in the project is so limited that the cathedraticum from parishes is insufficient to fund ordinary diocesan functions. Under the Pastoral Provision, the small number of Anglican Use parishes could avail themselves of diocesan departments. Bp Lopes and Msgr Newton, on the other hand, both refer to the need to build these functions "from scratch", but even building from scratch requires expertise on one hand and raw materials on the other, neither of which the ordinariates have.

So what we're seeing is "growth" that occurs only by fits and starts when parishes receive bequests, as seems to have been the case in Omaha, or angel donors, in cases like Our Lady of Walsingham, Murrieta, and apparently now in Montgomery County, TX. But the bequests and angel donors don't create thriving parishes with an interest in supporting a diocese. Without angel donors, the project just doesn't grow at all.

Isn't There A Typo Here?

Browsing the St Barnabas Omaha bulletin I linked yesterday from December 1, I found this among the notices at the back:

BISHOP'S APPEAL 2019

Saint Barnabas has been asked to contribute $5,000 to the 2019 Bishop's Appeal. Nearly $1,000 has been pledged, and any shortfall will be billed to the parish, so please consider making a contribution as part of your end-of-the-year giving. See the Ordinariate website to make a contribution. Payments must be received by the Ordinariate by December 31 in order to count toward this year's asking.

As someone who's used to seeing such appeals in diocesan bulletins, I was surprised to see the minimal amounts listed, both for the asking and the pledge from the parish. I wonder, in fact, if whoever typed this left out a zero or something. I'm used to seeing amounts in the high five figures in arcdiocesan parishes, with shortfalls much smaller.

So I decided to dig a little deeper. The median household income in Omaha, NE is $56,406. Let's take that as a basis to estimate how much income the parish would have if every pledging entity tithed and followed the normal recommendations from the bishops, which would be 5% to the parish and 5% to other charities including the bishop's appeal. Further, let's assume 50 pledging entities in the parish.

The ordinariate Guide to Parish Development puts minimum size for a full parish, which St Barnabas is, at 30 families. In the absence of better information, we'll say a family is simply a pledging entity and peg that number for St Barnabas at 50. Even if it's not exact, this will give us an idea of the general scope we're dealing with. We'll assume each family or pledging entity makes $56,400 per year, although if these people used to be Episcopalian, it might well be higher. (It's probably not lower, though.)

So each pledging entity would tithe $5640 per year, of which 5%, or $2820, would go to the parish pledge and another 5%, or $2820, would go to other charities, including the bishop's appeal. If in fact St Barnabas has 50 pledging entities, and they're all tithing, that would make 50 x $2820 or $141,000 available for the bishop's appeal. No need to direct it all to the bishop's appeal, of course, there are many other worthy charities, but you'd think the bishop's appeal might be an important one among them.

Instead, according to the parish bulletin, all of $1000 had been pledged to the bishop's appeal for all of 2019, as of December 1. That amounts to $20 per pledging entity if there are 50 of them.

"Aren't you expecting a lot to ask these people to tithe?" someone might ask. Well, at least to judge from the fancy-schmancy 20-page Sunday mass leaflet, plus the business about kneeling and on the tongue, these people take their religion very, very seriously. You'd think they'd back it up from their household budgets, huh? So maybe one explanation is someone mistyped and left out a zero from the asking and the pledge.

Because as I understand this, although the annual quotas for the bishop's appeal for each parish aren't published, we do know that they're a proportion of the parish tithe that's sent to Houston. That Houston should expect only $5,000 from one of its 11 full parishes is somewhat disturbing, leaving aside only $1000 has been pledged. This has got to be a typo, or I have this wrong in some other way. Can someone set me straight on this? My profuse apologies to the parish in advance if I've got this wrong, because I'm just scratching my head here.

The other thing that makes me wonder if I have this wrong is that performance on the bishop's appeal is, at least in our archdiocese, a key measure of parish, and the priest's, performance. I shudder to think what would happen to a pastor who'd had an 80% shortfall on the bishop's appeal in a Los Angeles archdiocesan parish. That it would be an 80% shortfall on an utterly trivial quota would be just the icing on the cake.

If I don't have this wrong, on the other hand, it makes me wonder if there's a lot else that isn't being made public in the North American ordinariate that maybe people should be taking much more seriously. Keep in mind that until very recently the Our Lady of the Atonement parish was thought to be a great success story. Now its pastor is in disgrace, it's a focus of the overall Church abuse scandal, and it hovers on the brink of bankruptcy.

It does seem to me that the parishioners in Omaha are delighted to be special, unique, even nearly separate from their fellow Catholics as long as they don't have to make any sacrifices.

I guess that's what riding first class is all about.

We Don't Need No Stinkin' USCCB!

Here are some excerpts from the USCCB web page on The Reception of Holy Communion at Mass:

The General Instruction asks each country's Conference of Bishops to determine the posture to be used for the reception of Communion and the act of reverence to be made by each person as he or she receives Communion. In the United States, the body of Bishops determined that Communion should be received standing, and that a bow is the act of reverence made by those receiving. These norms may require some adjustment on the part of those who have been used to other practices, however the significance of unity in posture and gesture as a symbol of our unity as members of the one body of Christ should be the governing factor in our own actions.

Those who receive Communion may receive either in the hand or on the tongue, and the decision should be that of the individual receiving, not of the person distributing Communion.

There are many reactions and interpretations of this policy on the web. My own view is that as a convert, I'm the last person to second-guess the teachings of the Church via the USCCB in this matter, and in any case, this guidance has been followed at every Catholic mass I've attended since I was received in 2013.

However, the North American ordinariate doesn't work this way, which is a conundrum, since Bp Lopes is a member of the USCCB. But my regular correspondent pointed me to a recent article by Shane Schaetzel, one of the unreflective but prolific lay cheerlleaders for the North American ordinariate. It's significant that he repeats the recent line that any Caholic can now "join" (whatever that means) an ordinariate group or parish:

There is no need to learn Latin responses, or follow carefully in a Latin-English Missal, as one needs to do in a TLM. So it makes for a fairly easy switch from a contemporary parish to a traditional parish, without having to relearn everything. Many regular Catholics find this appealing for various reasons.

But my regular correspondent also points out,

I am also interested that he states that communion in the OCSP is always given on the tongue. Really? This is certainly not part of the “Anglican Patrimony” although no doubt practised in a certain sort of Anglo-Catholic parish. Communion in the hand, like the use of the vernacular, is an example of an Anglican practice that has been subsequently adopted by the Church. Why revert?

Yes indeed, in my Episcopalian confirmation class in 1981, I was taught communion in the hand exclusively. Even in my experience at Anglo-Catholic bastions like St Thomas Manhattan and St Thomas Hollywood, communion in the hand was nearly universal; on the tongue was pretty unusual. I suppose if I were to e-mail Mr Schaetzel to ask about this, I would get no reply.

Looking farther, my regular correspondent found at Mt Calvary Baltimore,

On page 10 here, communicants are "encouraged" to receive communion on the tongue. I can’t find a more recent bulletin.

My correspondent found a similar message in the bulletin at St Barnabas Omaha:

Communicants at Ordinariate Masses receive the sacrament kneeling at the altar rail unless prevented by health. We encourage communicants to consider the example of Papal Masses, where the faithful receive the Sacred Host directly on the tongue.

Nevertheless, immediately above this advice, the bulletin cites none other than the USCCB in urging the faithful to "express in their hearts a prayerful desire for unity with the Lord Jesus and with one another", except, one must conclude when it comes to differences in how to receive the sacrament.

The bulletin of St Mary the Virgin, Arlington, TX says

All Catholics are invited to participate in our Divine Worship liturgy and receive communion by kneeling (if able) at the altar rail and receiving our Lord on the tongue.

I've printed reports here that elsewhere, like Our Lady of the Atonement, intinction is the standard use for all communicants, which essentially forces communion on the tongue. The USCCB, however, says on the page linked above

It should be noted that it is never permissible for a person to dip the host he or she has received into the chalice. If, for some reason, the communicant is not able or willing to drink from the cup then that person should receive only under the form of bread.

There's no mention of having the priest dip the host, but it's plain that intinction for the purposes of the USCCB is not normally on the radar.

I assume that if Mr Schaetzel or anyone else connected with the ordinariate were to reply to an e-mail inquiry, or offer a clarification in response to this post, they might say that deviations may be authorized by the bishop. But this still leaves open the question of why, if the ordinariate is there to retain elements of Anglican heritage, it replaces the communion-in-the-hand Anglican option with compulsory communion on the tongue and in fact stresses this as a difference with the US Church at large.

Even though, in the words of the USCCB,

It is difficult for some of us to embrace this emphasis on Mass as the action of a community rather than an individual act of my own faith and piety, but it is important that we make every effort to do so. Christ himself at the Last Supper pleaded with his Father: "Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are... as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us..." (John 17:11, 21).Baptism has joined us to Christ and to one another as the vine and its branches. The life of Christ, the Holy Spirit, animates each of us individually, and all of us corporately and guides us together in our efforts to become one in Christ.

Unless, I guess, we used to be Anglican, or in fact if we used to be Catholic but don't want to be that kind of Catholic any more. In that case, Mr Schaetzel will greet you warmly.

Let's Get Real: What Do Anglicans Bring To The Church?

I keep coming back to Fr _____'s homily from two Sundays ago, where he spoke of the gifts of the Spirit we received in baptism, Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety, and Fear of the Lord. In part, this brought me back to the question of my own baptism and what I was, or wasn't, taught about it as either a Presbyterian -- I had Presbyterian confirmation class at age 12 -- or an Episcopalian, at age 33. Neither had a thing to say about the gifts of the Spirit, even though these have scriptural authority in I Corinthians 12, elaborated by the Church Fathers, presumably in days before Rome corrupted the ancient faith.

So one of the takeaways I had from that homily was that a Catholic priest could tell me a great deal about my baptism that, while it was true and valid, I was never seriously taught as a Protestant, even though in the eyes of the Church, this baptism had the same effect no matter a Protestant denomination performed it. I thought I knew everything, huh? All of a sudden the Church is teaching me new things about stuff I took for granted. Not long before I heard that homily, I belatedly added my late godparents to my prayers, possibly because I was already moving toward that new understanding.

The homily also brought me back to the reading I'd done by the convert from Anglicanism, theologian, and bishop B C Butler, who spends a lot of time in The Idea of the Church with the debate among the Church Fathers on the validity of schismatic sacraments. He concludes, with St Augustine, that the Church recognizes schismatic baptisms as a way to bring those outside the Church into the Church, but it does not imply that the schismatic groups are in any way equivalent to the Church.

If you can get to the sacraments, especially to baptism, you must of course do so. But if, through no fault of your own, you cannot receive grace sacramentally, then God has his own ways of dealing with your predicament. (p 148)

But once I listen to the Church and have these issues clarified for me, I have an obligation to take the Church seriously and continue to develop as a Catholic in a spirit of humility. The thrust of Butler's arguments throughout much of his career was that Anglicanism is not a denomination somehow separate but equal from Rome. Theologically it is schismatic and in a position no different from Arianism or Donatism. The Church recognizes Protestant baptisms for its reasons, though it doesn't see anything special about Anglican baptisms over and above Church of the Nazarene baptisms.

Thus I feel profoundly uncomfortable with remarks, most recently by Fr Bergman, that Anglicans have some special status that entitles them to fix the Catholic Church. As he put it in the essay I linked yesterday, "The refuge we sought was populated in many quarters not by shepherds in the mold of St. John Paul but by scoundrels and wolves who could be aptly described as Judas priests. . . . Our unique background means we don’t have time for the confusion . . . . We do not question the Faith but wonder only how better to communicate and share it with those who desperately need it."

The strong implication here is that Fr Bergman, his fellow ordinariate priests, and presumably right-thinking members of their exclusive little flocks, haven't left the faith at all and don't question it. There was nothing they needed to come into. They're going to fix their newly acquired co-religionists, though. All one billion of them. I've heard this line from Fr Hunwicke as well; I won't cite lay spokespeople, simply because it's the responsibility of their priests and their bishop to teach them correctly, something it would appear men like Fr Bergman haven't yet been fully formed to do.

This idea that there's something special about Anglicans that makes them experts on being Catholic -- indeed, it would seem more Catholic than the Pope, and these people really mean it, they're gonna fix the Church now -- is simply bizarre.

What puzzles me is that when I realized that Anglicanorum coetibus wasn't going to work out for the St Mary of the Angels parish, and my wife and I would need to start over with RCIA, I began to understand for the first time that the Catholic tradition was something I would need to spend the rest of my life learning and understanding. It wasn't something I would get after a few months of Evangelium and a quickie confirmation. I wouldn't be entitled to go out and show the Church how it's done.

Why, by the way, do none of the self-important spokespeople for any of the ordinariates ever mention the Catholic intellectual tradition that's at the basis of Western culture? It reminds me a little of a member of our Bible class who asked me if I'd ever read Chesterton. I asked him in reply if he'd ever read Summa Contra Gentiles. He came back the next week and told me maybe he needed to start reading Aquinas after all.

So far, I can't imagine having that exchange with anyone in any of the ordinariates.

Bp Lopes Struggles With Numbers

My regular correspondent sent me a link to an article in North Texas Catholic covering a December 7 mass celebrating the tenth anniversary of Anglicanorum coetibus. Buried deep in the piece is the most recent version of the numbers in the North American ordinariate:

Eighty priests currently serve 45 ordinariate parishes in the U.S. and Canada. Approximately 20,000 worshippers attend Sunday Mass. When Lopes was ordained bishop, the ordinariate had no seminarians. Today there are six in formation.

The eighty priests must represent a total including retirees, those excardinated, military chaplains, and quite possibly even those on the path to laicization. There are 42 parishes currently listed on the parish finder for the web site, though in most cases they aren't full parishes, and the level of activity varies widely. But the number that caught my eye was the 20,000 who attend Sunday mass. I remarked that if you were to multiply the number of scheduled Sunday masses over the entire ordinariate by the maximum capacity of each venue, you couldn't possibly reach 20,000.

My calculator says, in fact, that 20,000 divided by 45 is 444. This means that the average venue -- a mixture of storefronts, basement chapels, cafeterias, and other provisional accommodations in most cases -- would need to have a capacity of 444. Even distributed between two Sunday times, each mass would have to have an average attendance of 222. I don't believe that any but a few full parishes in the North American ordinariate has anything like that as a Sunday attendance, even leaving canonical membership aside. 2-400 wouldn't even fit in the space.

So an estimate of 20,000 is wildly inaccurate with just a few moments' reflection. But what's a more realistic estimate? Yet again, the ordinariate doesn't publish statistics, other than the unrealistic estimates we see here. But let's apply rules of thumb like the 80-20 rule, where one might guess that 20% of the parishes have 80% of the attendance. My regular correspondent says,

Approximately 1,000 people attend Our Lady of Walsingham on a Sunday. But other numbers I have seen recently are Mt Calvary 100; St Luke 150 (including diocesan parishioners); St Alban 65; St Thomas More, Toronto 70 (a record, I believe—-swelled by AC conference attendees); St Aelred 40; Good Shepherd 27.

I've been told that with the cancellation of the Sunday evening Latin mass at Our Lady of the Atonement, Sunday attendance is down about 100, with the current number in the 3-400 range for all masses. My regular correspondent added,

[T]here are only eleven full parishes, a designation which requires a minimum of 100 members. The other 31 groups (going by the list on the website, there are 42 OCSP communities) must therefore have fewer than 3,000 members total (I am sure the actual number is far less).

So without more explicit information from Houston, applying a reasonable standard like the 80-20 rule to the best numbers we have, it seems pretty plain that we're still in the mid four figures at best for either canonical membership or weekly attendance. My regular correspondent also noted, while browsing the St John the Evangelist Calgary website,

I looked further down the page, to “Volunteers Needed” and noticed the request for people to help with “identifying Catholics and Anglicans in the Inglewood neighbourhood to invite them to worship at St John’s.” Frankly I prefer to leave doorstep solicitation of those who are currently happily worshipping anywhere to Mormons and JWs, but I would have thought that even those who regard current Anglicans as fair game for active recruitment might draw the line at practising Catholics. But obviously I thought wrong.

Another visitor noted,

The Annuario Pontifico 2019 came out in March and is being distributed in Italian. It shouldn’t be too much longer before some of the online sites that track this data can get it translated and uploaded and the true numbers for the Ordinariates will be readily available. Bishop Lopes and his Ordinariate Bishop brothers already know the numbers because they had to report them. Perhaps that is pushing this “add some people quick” drive.

UPDATE: A visitor comments, "You haven't taken into account that they’re including the angels and archangels who are said to attend every mass."

So, Exactly Why Did Abp Gustavo Remove Fr Phillips In 2017?

I should start this by saying I have no position on exactly why Abp Garcia-Siller removed Fr Phillips, other than to say he wasn't the first archbishop to make the attempt. This post here refers to discussion in a 2017 Our Lady of the Atonement parish meeting in which Mr Wilson referred to an attempt by Abp Flores to remove Fr Phillips, which was forestalled only at the intervention of Cardinal Law. This contradicts the current legend promulgated by Fr Phillips via Mary Ann Mueller that the relationship with Abp Flores was deeply spiritual.

What we know as a result of input from parish insiders and other visitors familiar with the Archdiocese of San Antonio is that there were multiple issues, any of which in a secular environment would have led to termination or major demotion:

• Violation of archdiocesan policy regarding the bishop's appeal, whereby Fr Phillips had parishioners pay their pledges to the parish, which the parish forwarded to the archdiocese only at the end of the year
• A large mortgage for expansion of the school, although the expansion was never completed and the building is largely empty
• As of 2016, four reports of abuse by Dcn Orr, which the archdiocese learned of belatedly because Fr Phillips did not follow policy and report the complaints.

What often happens in such personnel actions is that there's a buildup of issues that eventually culminates in a "last straw" event. We simply don't have Abp Gustavo's desk calendar, nor Fr Phillips's schedule, for 2016, but it's hard not to avoid thinking there would have been one or more meetings over the Orr complaints that belatedly reached the archbishop, but there would also have been friction with the chancery over financial issues as well. Nor do we know precisely when Fr Phillips renewed the parish application to join the North American ordinariate, which he'd withdrawn in 2012.

But it's hard not to think Fr Phillips initiated these discussions prior to his removal in January 2017. Certainly if Abp Gustavo learned of such discussions indirectly, he could well have seen this as Fr Phillips going behind his back to save his career and as an act of bad faith. This could certainly have been a "last straw" event, but also certainly not the only possibility. My regular correspondent pointed to wording in the archbishop's letter to the Atonement parish of January 19, 2017 regarding "expressions in the life of the parish that indicate an identity separate from, rather than simply unique, among the parishes of the archdiocese."

My feeling is that this wording is extremely vague, and in and of itself it would not constitute grounds for removal. It's worth recognizing that that personnel issues are confidential. If the archbishop said he’s disputing with Phillips about financial irregularities or covering up for Orr, that would be a breach of confidentiality and potential liability. What we now know of the timeline was that Orr had been forced into retirement as of 2016, very recently, and I’ve got to assume this was on the archbishop's mind. But probably other things were as well.

There would have been a buildup of issues over some period of time. For Phillips to change his mind over the ordinariate could well have been a last straw, in particular effectively giving the archbishop a rude gesture. The wording in the letter had the benefit of being vague and not flirting with breach of confidentiality.

My regular correspondent then asked why Bp Lopes was so much more explicit in the reason for inhibiting Fr Phillips. For one thing, the accusations against Orr had been made public since the archbishop removed Phillips. But in addition, Bp Lopes was in a more difficult position, since he'd come in as a white knight to rescue the parish in 2017, which Fr Phillips had been able to play as at least partial vindication. So Bp Lopes was forced in effect to be shocked, shocked in accounting for his action.

I continue to think that, had the parish stayed in the archdiocese and a consistent policy on Fr Phillips's removal been followed in 2017 -- which I think has been shown to have been the right move all along -- the parish would have dealt with the issue then, the wounds would have healed, and the parish would be in a better position to move forward now. What we see now, Phillips gone, the Latin mass ended, a substantial faction of parishioners departed, would have been an inevitable result in 2017 as well.

Except that the parish going forward would have had the support of an influential archbishop who'd placed a confidant in as administrator, the advice of experienced archdiocesan staff, and a certain lesson in what it really means to be mature adults in a serious Catholic environment.

More Trickles Out On Fr Phillips

A visitor notes that many parishioners at Our Lady of the Atonement read this blog, and OLA is the second-largest parish in the North American ordinariate. The parish and Fr Phillips are key figures in the history of the Pastoral Provision as well, so I think it's worthwhile to continue compiling as accurate a record as I can of the parish history and the connections with the conduct of its founders, Fr Phillips and Dcn Orr. A visitor sent me an e-mail last night:

[A]llegations were made as late as the 2015 to 2016 school year. I accidentally found hard-copy printouts of emails between the heads of the lower, middle, and upper school, Sister and Father Phillips, discussing a parent accusation. Father Phillips wanted advice from his leadership team as to "how to get this woman (who was making the accusations) off his back." The woman was claiming that an adult male staff member made a habit of watching the teen boys change in out of clothes in the locker room, and that her son found it very uncomfortable. The mother felt the boys were too old to need someone watching them change in the locker room, but despite her objections, he continued to watch. Father Phillios was furious with this woman and as I said, wanted his leadership team to help him "get her off his back."

The back-and-forth emails between the leadership team and Father Phillips had an angry tone. At that time, I had no idea about accusations against Deacon Orr.

I did not keep the hard copies for fear someone might notice them missing.

This would have been very close to the time of Orr's retirement. According to the 2019 report from the Archdiocese of San Antonio,

Between 1997 and 2016, [Orr] was assigned to Our Lady of the Atonement in San Antonio. . . . in 2015, the Archdiocese was contacted by a psychologist who said that one of her clients had disclosed sexual abuse committed by Orr that occurred in the 1990s. Soon after, Orr requested retirement and resigned from active ministry.

As of the January 2019 report, the archdiocese listed

1. In 1992 or 1993, a child claimed that Orr had sexually abused him at a neighborhood pool, when Orr was a volunteer for the parish.
2. In 2007, a second survivor came forward against Orr, alleging sexual abuse in 1995.
3. Eight years later, in 2015, the Archdiocese was contacted by a psychologist who said that one of her clients had disclosed sexual abuse committed by Orr that occurred in the 1990s.
4. In 2017, a civil lawsuit was filed against the Archdiocese over Orr’s abuse, which the Archdiocese has now acknowledged is credible.

So this is four cases that were known to the archdiocese as of 2017, which were not forwarded to it by Fr Phillips, and were publicly reported in 2019. But in his December 6 letter to the OLA parish, Bp Lopes wrote,

More recently, the Archdiocese provided me with documentation of still other instances wherein Father Phillips neither informed nor reported to the Archdiocese credible complaints concerning Deacon Orr's conduct,

So this is multiple instances beyond the four that the archdiocese disclosed in early 2019, but the precipitating event for Bp Lopes's December 6 announcement was yet another accusation, this one brought to Bp Lopes by the complainant in person. I think it's reasonable to surmise that that newest individual had brought his complaint to the archdiocese, but Abp Garcia-Siller saw fit to refer the man to Bp Lopes. One might also surmise that a threat of legal action was behind that confrontation, and Bp Lopes took his final action under this threat.

Recall that a visitor not long ago told us of reports that an angry exchange took place between Abp Garcia-Siller and Cardinal Wuerl in Washington, heard all over the building, when the CDF placed the OLA parish and Fr Phillips into the North American ordinariate, which had the effect of restoring Fr Phillips to the parish in "emeritus" status and still involved with it.

In the two years following, Bp Lopes has temporized over this problem and seems not to have acted as justice would have required until still another complainant came to him with a presumable serious threat.

Let's keep in mind that in the normal process of reincardination, both bishops review all outstanding issues regarding the priest in question. We may assume that Abp Garcia-Siller was bound to discuss at lest the now publicly disclosed allegations against Dcn Orr, covered up by Fr Phillips, with Bp Lopes at the time.

The more I learn, the better Abp Garcia-Siller looks, and the more timid and feckless seems Bp Lopes.

There's Always A Payoff

The response to the news of Fr Phillips's suspension of priestly faculties has been remarkably subdued. In the Anglo-Catholic blogosphere, this site has carried the only report, with no mention on Facebook groups, the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society blog, or parish websites.

The exception to the general radio silence is Virtue Online, which carried a lengthy and generally complete story by Mary Ann Mueller on Tuesday. Before I go into that, I'll comment that the dog that isn't barking here is that so far, there seems to have been no "Save Atonement" parish rebellion of the sort that broke out over Abp Garcia-Siller's removal of Phillips in late 2016.

While Ms Mueller does her usual very conscientious job in reporting, a certain pro-Phillips bias does come out.

Fr. Phillip's [sic] lack of judgement may have been because through the years he and Deacon Orr became close friends. They worked together, they prayed together, and they labored together in Our Lady of Atonement's vineyard. This close relationship may have clouded Fr. Phillips' thinking and sacerdotal actions concerning the allegations leveled against his friend, the deacon.

She goes on to put a similar soft focus on Abp Flores:

It was on Aug. 15, 1983 that Archbishop Flores ordained former Episcopal priest Christopher Phillips into the Roman Catholic priesthood, and a strong lasting spiritual relationship was cemented.

The real villain here is Abp Garcia-Siller, who, the implication seems to be, made too big a deal out of one or two slips in judgment based on true spiritual friendship, which in any case are long in the past. She then speaks with someone close to the USCCB, who tells her,

[I]n today's #METOO climate, bishops are more than willing to throw a priest under the bus to avoid civil and criminal litigation.

While Ms Mueller has the chronology generally correct, I think her interpretations lean toward sympathy for Fr Phillips that I don't think is justified. She places the Atonement parish decline beginning with Abp Garcia-Siller's removal of Fr Phillips in late 2016, but the accounts of several people familiar with the parish indicate that Phillips had chased away key donors and the school enrollment was declining for years before that time, and in fact while still under Fr Phillips, the school undertook an unjustified expansion for which construction was never completed.

The uncompleted interior remains a drain on morale and a fire and safety hazard, while the parish must still pay off loans for the ill-advised project. Personnel issues that began well before Fr Phillips's removal have continued to plague the organization.

And we simply don't know how many additional credible allegations were made against Dcn Orr, their exact nature, and exactly what Fr Phillips didn't report, when that was, and how many times. It's hard to avoid thinking that Abp Garcia-Siller had accumulated a backlog of concerns about Fr Phillips and the Atonement parish by 2016 and placed a new administrator there in an effort not just to avoid litigation but to turn the parish away from a course that was inevitably leading toward where it finds itself now, on the verge of bankruptcy with dwindling numbers.

Ms Mueller doesn't mention a troubling issue that's been covered here in some detail, the Our Lady's Dowry charity that was outside diocesan control and which appears to have operated in some years exclusively to pay Dcn Orr a substantial salary. A question remains whether Orr was paid as a deacon in the parish and a teacher in the school a salary in addition to the one from Our Lady's Dowry, which itself was generous for a man in his position.

That Orr lived in a house adjoining Fr Phillips's property suggests the relationship was close in ways beyond the spiritual, and the connection between the two seems to have been tangled. More than one visitor has suggested that by covering up for Dcn Orr and apparently by providing him with financial rewards beyond those normally paid to a vocational deacon, Phillips may have been responding to some sort of leverage Orr could exert. Exactly what Abp Garcia-Siller may have learned about Phillips, and what he may eventually have transmitted to Bp Lopes, we'll never know, but I think what's public is just the tip of an iceberg.

Since I broke the news of Fr Phillips's inhibition on Sunday, my traffic has more than doubled. My regular correspondent suggests this is because other outlets have provided no news at all, and I think Ms Mueller's analysis falls short, so people have had no choice but to come here. However, I think it says something about the growing maturity of the audience for Anglo-Catholic news that so far, there's been no "Save Atonement" movement to restore Fr Phillips equivalent to what took place in 2017.

I think Fr Phillips is a deeply flawed but charismatic figure, a minor league version of John Corapi or Fr C John McCloskey. Men like these develop a following because they tell people what they want to hear, although what people want to hear in these cases usually involves some way to bypass the teachings of the Church, and such figures prosper as a result. There's always a payoff.

Certainly naive but well-intentioned people have been led to believe there's something special about Fr Phillips, although what I've learned from numerous visitors here has been that the better people came to know him, the more disillusioned they became. The best solution, as a priest whom I've come to respect deeply said in Sunday's homily, is to pray for the grace that will let us realize the gifts of the Spirit we received in baptism, Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety, and Fear of the Lord.

Again, I think it says something about the people who've been following ordinariate news that Fr Phillips's inhibition in fact hasn't caused the level of hysteria that his removal incited even two years ago.

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Complementary Norms!

A visitor sent me a quote from the FAQ page on the Presentation Church in Woodlands, TX web site (italics mine):

Who can be a "Canonical" member of the Ordinariate?

First, all of our parishioners — whether diocesan or Ordinariate Catholics — are full members of our parish community. To become a "canonical" member of the Ordinariate, however, is to officially put yourself under the care of the Ordinariate's bishop. Any person who receives their sacraments of initiation, any protestant who has been converted by the ministry of the Ordinariate, or any Catholic whose faith has been enriched and deepened by participation in the life of the Ordinariate may become a member of the Ordinariate. It is a simple process. Please talk to Fr. Fletcher if you're interested or have questions about this.

When I read this, I was concerned to follow up as conscientiously as I could. Had the Complementary Norms for Anglicanorum coetibus been quietly updated, and had I missed it? Well, I checked them out, and Article 5 §2 still reads:

A person who has been baptized in the Catholic Church but who has not completed the Sacraments of Initiation, and subsequently returns to the faith and practice of the Church as a result of the evangelizing mission of the Ordinariate, may be admitted to membership in the Ordinariate and receive the Sacrament of Confirmation or the Sacrament of the Eucharist or both.

There is a footnote to this paragraph that says, "This paragraph was added to the text of the Complementary Norms according to a decision of the Ordinary Session held on 29 May 2013, approved by Pope Francis on 31 May 2013." It is apparently still in effect and is the current version. An explanatory note dated April 9, 2019 linked at the bottom of the Norms makes no mention of any changes to Article 5 §2.

Another puzzling entry on the Presentation FAQ page reads (emphasis mine),

What diocese is Presentation Catholic Church a part of? <

Our parish is a part of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter — a structure that was originally created by the Pope for former Anglican communities, clergy, and individuals seeking to become Roman Catholic, and which has now grown to nourish and serve Catholics of all backgrounds through its liturgy and tradition.

This is so far the only mention of the ordinariate, or even of Anglicans, I can find on the parish web site, but that stuff is now dismissed as just fine print. So far, I can't find any reference to Anglicanorum coetibus, which still refers to itself as a

structure for regulating the institution and life of Personal Ordinariates for those Anglican faithful who desire to enter into the full communion of the Catholic Church in a corporate manner. This Constitution is completed by Complementary Norms issued by the Apostolic See.

In other words, company policy as published continues to be that the ordinariates are for Anglicans who wish to enter the Church in a corporate manner. According to the Complementary Norms, it is not intended primarily for initiated Catholics, who may certainly come to mass and stay for coffee hour, but they can't be counted as canonical members. So the FAQ page, as far as I can see, directly contradicts published company policy.

And this is important, because the Church counts numbers. Bp Lopes must report numbers of canonical members. Beyond that, Bp Lopes has had to reassure his brother bishops, like Bp Barnes in San Bernardino, that he's directing his efforts toward Anglicans and Catholics who aren't fully initiated. If someone like Bp Barnes were to get the impression that the ordinariate had quietly widened its mission, this could be problematic, as it could be seen as poaching.

Now, there may well be revisions under way. Clearly the person to contact over any questions, as stated in the FAQs, is Fr Fletcher, who might well be able to point to, say, a clarification in a statement from Bp Lopes on the ordinariate web site, or he might give some other guidance to clear up my confusion. Given the Catholic principle of subsidiarity, my first duty is to contact Fr Fletcher. So I sent him this e-mail yesterday afternoon:

Fr Fletcher, I’m contacting you because the FAQ entry on ordinariate eligibility on the Presentation web site makes you the contact point for questions. The FAQ entry adds “or any Catholic whose faith has been deepened” by participation to eligibility for membership. However, Article 5 §2 of the Complementary Norms still says, “A person who has been baptized in the Catholic Church but who has not completed the Sacraments of Initiation, and subsequently returns to the faith and practice of the Church as a result of the evangelizing mission of the Ordinariate” is eligible but says nothing about any Catholic otherwise deepened in faith. As far as I’m aware, the 2013 revision of the norms is the most current. Can you clarify policy in this matter?

Thanks!

A perfectly acceptable reply might be to refer me to the ordinariate press office or Fr Perkins, but so far, I've had no reply at all to what seems to me is an entirely reasonable question, and Fr Fletcher is listed as the contact point for any such questions.

If I hear further from Fr Fletcher, or perhaps from someone in Houston whom he's asked to respond more authoritatively, I'll be happy to update this post. I'll have more to say on this tomorrow.

"The Catholic Church Is Starting A New Parish In Montgomery County"

As long as we're talking about the Presentation parish in The Woodlands, TX, I might as well bring up a branding issue that I find somewhat troubling. The home page of the parish carries the claim in the title. The About Us page says,

We are a Roman Catholic community gathered together in and through our Lord Jesus Christ, standing gratefully under the leadership of his vicar on earth, the Holy Father Pope Francis. , , , We are a mission of the Cathedral of our Lady of Walsingham, which perceived the need for a new Catholic community in fast growing Montgomery County.

At no point does it say anything about Anglicans, an ordinariate, or how an ordinariate isn't the local diocese. Farther down, it offers visitors the opportunity to "help start a new Catholic parish in Montgomery County". Again, there's no mention of Anglicans, Anglicanorum coetibus, or "membership" in an ordinariate. Beyond that, as I've noted before, there are two Episcopal parishes in The Woodlands, Trinity and St Isidore, and an ACNA parish, HopePointe Anglican. None of the Presentation promotional material seems aimed at any of these; instead, it's aimed at Catholics who might want to try a new parish.

Normally it's up to the diocesan bishop to decide where to locate a new parish, or indeed whether to close an existing one. Somehow here, it's the Cathedral of Our Lady of Walsingham that perceived the need for a new community in the county. But Catholics who aren't detail-oriented or well informed are going to think it's the archdiocese downtown that perceived the need.

What need was it? Has any of the three Anglican parishes in The Woodlands petitioned to join the North American ordinariate? Or is there a faction of Anglican parishioners there big enough to support a parish aimed at Anglican converts if they decide to make the move in a body? That's doubtful indeed. Instead, it sounds like Bp Lopes has decided to second-guess Cardinal DiNardo on where he should open his next parish. Or do I have this wrong?

There's a related issue that I find just as unsettling. Fr Andrew Bartus is using the Catholic brand, including Spanish subtitles, to address Catholics in California generally in the YouTube video below:

However, it's posted on a YouTube channel called Our Watch, which seems to be a group of secular conservatives who may or may not be Catholic and who may or may not promote a larger Catholic agenda. They seem, based on other videos, to be active in expressing conservative viewpoints at local school board meetings.

Abp Gómez in Los Angeles has had some success in promoting a Catholic political agenda by speaking for Catholics in the wider political arena. But he does it by choosing his issues and controlling the message, with politically savvy people who can get practical things done. It's hard to avoid thinking that, whether or not Fr Bartus is saying the right things, he's freelancing and allowing the Catholic brand to be used by secular groups who may or may not have the Church's larger interests or strategies in mind.

In other words, there continue to be things that dioceses and experienced bishops should be controlling. This includes political agendas and even where new parishes are needed. I've got to wonder whether Houston, having begun to recognize that evangelizing Anglicans isn't a winning idea, has decided to meddle in areas well outside its mission. My regular correspondent pointed to a post no the blog of an ordinariate member at St Thomas More Toronto, who said of his group

Currently we have people attend who are from many Christian traditions, both eastern and western – a man from the Coptic Church of Egypt, a family of Croatian origin, our Italian/Scottish administrator, a young woman who is a PK from a Seventh Day Adventist family. Over the years these folks have joined with Mennonite friends and even a few Anglicans who have found their way into the fullness of the Catholic Church.

My correspondent calls it "another admission that most people attending an Ordinariate mass are not former Anglicans". Further, "Maybe the Ordinariate is just a tough product to market. Maybe disaffected Catholics are in shorter supply in Canada than in Texas."

So we're gonna branch out and, with access to the brand, set up a parallel amateur version of the Catholic Church, huh?

So The House At The Woodlands Isn't A Rectory, But

The newly established Catholic Church of the Presentation in The Woodlands, TX first appeared on the radar here this past June, when it was still meeting in a local diocesan facility. In October, this blog covered its purchase of what I referred to at the time as a McMansion, a 3,000 square foot, million-dollar residence. I speculated that it must have been for use as a rectory. A visitor attended mass there recently and had an opportunity to see more of the property and reports:

The house situated on the property in The Woodlands where this ordinariate mission has set up camp seemingly serves as something more akin to a parish hall from what I saw. As far as I could tell, nobody seems to reside in the home and Mass was celebrated in a relatively large steel barn located behind the property. [The visitor later suggested "barn" wasn't fully accurate as a description, although I think "garage" might also be correct.]

Confessions were heard in the house in an upstairs room which I believe was an office (whether this was +Fletchers or not, I could not tell you). The rest of the upstairs seemed to have been used for miscellaneous storage: liturgical objects, vestments, bankers boxes filled with files/paperwork, tables & chairs, etc. The downstairs was more or less setup as a parish hall, as I mentioned before. It was sparsely furnished and clearly designed to host laity after mass; folding tables/chairs, coffee urns, the usual suspects. The only bathrooms on the grounds were also located inside the house; I used two of the three bathrooms and they were clearly not anyone’s personal bathroom.

Nothing about the place gave me the impression that anyone was actually living there. However, I could certainly be wrong about that — perhaps +Fletcher and Co. have considerably lower requirements for their living situation than I would expect. Additionally, I was there around the first week of November, so it’s possible that the house is being utilized differently by now.

Additionally, I struck up a conversation with one of the parishioners who appeared to be very much in the know about Presentation’s future plans. He pointed out to what appeared to be a newly laid foundation quite a ways off in the distance that he claimed was the site that the chapel will be erected. However, if I recall correctly, this property is somewhere between 20-30 acres and the area he pointed out was no less than 500-600 feet away, and I didn’t care enough at the time to inspect it further.

The big thing that strikes both me and my regular correspondent is that the only mention of this project other than on the group's website has been on this blog. For an ordinariate group, quasi-parish, mission, or whatever it is to acquire its own property almost from the start is completely new, but there's been no mention in any official ordinariate publication, and my regular correspondent doesn't think an Ordinariate Observer is on the horizon any time soon. The report we've had from Bp Lopes's presentation in Toronto doesn't mention it.

Beyond that, what the visitor reported doesn't seem fully consistent with the plan outlined on the plans page of the parish website. The plan as outlined seems more and more vague as I try to compare it with the visitor's report. The Fall 2019 phase includes purchasing land, establishing a music program, and beginning a CCD program. (I've noted before that the CCD strategy seems to involve confirming pre-teen children as "anchor babies" to make their initiated Catholic parents eligible for canonical "membership" in the parish.)

But although we're still in Fall 2019, the parish seems to have entered Phase II of the plan, involving renovating existing facilities at minimum. But the visitor also reports that a knowledgeable parishioner pointed to "what appeared to be a newly laid foundation quite a ways off in the distance that he claimed was the site that the chapel will be erected". This suggests that further Phase II and Phase III activity is already under way, with a chapel under construction as a possible intermediate stage toward construction of a large gothic building.

However, the plan as published is too vague to allow anyone to place that in any context. Has the new gothic building already been designed, with the chapel eventually to be incorporated as a transept or something? Who knows? More importantly, the numbers on the plan -- low six figures -- simply do not account for the level of expenditure that already seems to be under way. From what I understand, a diocesan building department would not allow construction to start without a detailed and carefully approved plan, for which a substantial part of the funding has already been secured.

I suspect some sort of plan is in place, and I would think the same consulting and architectural firm that built the Houston chancery and did a proposal for St John the Baptist Bridgeport was involved. But if that's the case, the plans page on the Presentation website is not fully ingenuous about what's going on.

Beyond that, if the project seems to be moving past initial plans into a construction phase of some sort, this means the actual project is probably more comparable to the Walsingham cathedral and the chancery than the initial plans suggest. And I would have to surmise multimillions have been pledged and assured for it.

But this raises more questions. Why The Woodlands? Why fund a whole new project, when the St John Vianney parish also has land and could use money for a building? Or the St John the Baptist parish in Bridgeport, which has had a proposal and could use funding for that project? And where, in fact, are the multimillions that already seem to be behind the project coming from?

And last but not least, why the radio silence? Is incompetence in the ordinariate communications department the only explanation, or, for instance, might Bp Lopes want to keep this quiet for as long as he can to avoid any possible sit-down with Cardinal DiNardo over poaching initiated Catholic families?

I've been wrong about this once already, but I can excuse myself by saying there's no reliable information anywhere on what's clearly a major project underway here. Why not bypass the blogger and just make things clear and public?

Fr Phillips's Faculties Restricted

In a letter to the Our Lady of the Atonement parish dated December 6, 2019, to be read at all masses there today, Bp Lopes has announced that effective immediately, he is restricting Fr Phillips's priestly faculties. This apparently means that he is no longer authorized to celebrate public masses in the North American ordinariate and "will no longer participate in the life of Our Lady of the Atonement parish, nor Atonement Academy".

The reason given is an additional past instance of inappropriate conduct toward minor boys by the late Dcn James Orr beyond those reported by the Archdiocese of San Antonio in January of this year, an incident which was first reported to Fr Phillips, but which Fr Phillips did not then report to the archbishop, as policy required. Bp Lopes in his letter also referred to additional documentation provided by the archdiocese covering repeated additional instances of abuse reports against Dcn Orr, which were made by parents to Fr Phillips, but which he deemed not credible on his own initiative and did not refer to the archdiocese.

However, it seems to have taken the one recent complaint that Bp Lopes received first hand, on top of multiple additional documented instances from the archdiocese beyond those reported publicly to provoke this new action, a bit of a puzzle -- as in the Calgary case of flagrant cohabitation by ordinariate priests in a decades-long same sex relationship, Bp Lopes seems to move very slowly. One wonders whether additional pressure had to be brought to force Bp Lopes's hand in this new move.

Another context to this move is the sudden withdrawal of Fr Phillips as keynoter of the recent Toronto Anglicanorum Coetibus Society conference. I believe "health" reasons were given at the time, but my regular correspondent feels it confirms impressions that it was in fact not health related. How long was this sitting on Bp Lopes's desk until he finally took the necessary public action, though?

Fr Barker was then named Fr Phillips's replacement as keynoter, but he then withdrew at the last minute as well. It seems like the ordinariate has no grand old men left, but no credible young leaders, either. Recall that Fr Phillips headlined well-publicized and well-attended meetings in San Antonio and Hollywood promoting the upcoming ordinariate project. What's come out in subsequent years, beginning with his keeping his own parish out of the new ordinariate, suggests the level of hype and disingenuousness behind his involvement.

But if the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society had to hold a new conference next month, who could they make a keynoter? The only possible choice now would be Bp Lopes, himself a late addition to the Toronto program. But he's simply not a charismatic leader, he's at heart an organization bureaucrat with no inspiring message. Says a lot about things going forward.

Building Religious Orders From Scratch!

In recent weeks, we've had published remarks from both Bp Lopes and Msgr Newton to the effect that they're both building whole dioceses "from scratch" -- indeed, at least in Houston's case, without the benefit of experienced men in key roles like vocation director. Clearly Mr Dennerly in yesterday's post has been influenced by this soap-box racer approach to running the Church, to the extent that he proposes establishing a whole new sorta-kinda religious order from scratch, notwithstanding the experience in Calgary. A diocesan visitor commented,

Out of an abundance of frustration I am sending you links to three Benedictine communities that have European roots (as all Benedictine communities hail back to the sixth century in what is now Italy). All of these groups are associated with larger organizations that span more than one country, one of which is Merry Olde England. It took me longer to type this email than find these and many more.

The Trappists: Originally from France, they have multiple Abbeys and Monasteries in the US. They had a nice history of the Rule of St. Benedict on their site that was worth the read.

The Solesmes Congregation: Also originally from France, the newest group in Hulbert, OK, USA, Our Lady of Clear Creek Abbey, celebrates their Masses in Latin using the 1962 Liturgy and Gregorian Chant. They have a very unique history in the US in that the Americans who went to France and then came back did so because they were inspired by a Great Books program at the University of Kansas in the 1970’s. Bishop James Conley, the patriarch of Lincoln, NE, became a convert because of that very Great Books program.

Last but not least, if these folks were really interested in Anglican Patrimony, the English Benedictine Congregation: This group, founded and primarily located in the UK has satellite groups in the US, Peru and Zimbabwe.

These folks do not seem to be interested in true spirituality, if they were they would live in one of these places first to discern if this is what the Holy Spirit is asking them to do. Then they would move on to create a new community if so inspired. Note, however, all these congregations began with multiple people and then grew to rather larger numbers BEFORE they became orders, some groups taking decades or longer.

The Catholic Church is not like its Protestant Brothers in autonomy. Every Tom, Dick and Harry does not get to invent something and then declare it Catholic. It works the other way. The Catholic Church invents something and Tom, Dick and Harry join and propagate. Anglican Patrimony does not seem to recognize this and thus the wheel spinning and “air castles”.

The whole Ordinariate project seems to suffer under the delusion, “If you build it, people will come” rather than the old school Catholic model, “Come with us and we will build it together.”

Certainly if a 14-year old came to his parish pastor and said, "Father, I think I may have a vocation to the consecrated life, but I keep thinking I want to start my own order -- I've been reading about Newman and the oratories," the priest would basically tell him to reflect further, maybe calm down, and certainly visit an existing monastery to get an introduction and flavor of what things are about. This is the sort of thing somone should maybe have been suggesting to Mr Dennerly before he went off with his half-baked proposal -- except that this is clearly fine in the current atmosphere of the ordinariates.

More St Mary Of The Angels Litigation

It's worth following the convoluted history of the tiny St Mary of the Angels Hollywood Anglican parish, because the litigation it started by leaving The Episcopal Church in early 1977 became the origin of the Pastoral Provision and Anglicanorum coetibus, and my experience with the parish convinced me that these have been the fruit of a poisonous tree.

As it happens, over the past couple of months, I've slowly learned of an entire new round of litigation, which appears as Los Angeles Superior Court case 18STCV04171. Anyone interested in the details of this case can use the on line case summary page of the Los Angeles Superior Court and enter that case number in the field.

My current understanding of this case as a non-attorney is that in 2014, the ACA-appointed Bush vestry took out a loan for about $750,000 from a finance company that represented private investors, using the parish property and rental income stream as security. However, the date of this loan was two weeks after the California Court of Appeals overturned the original trial verdict that awarded the property to the ACA, in the course of which it affirmed that the ACA-Bush vestry was not the valid corporate board of directors.

The 2012 Kelley vestry did not learn of this loan, or the payments on it, until possession of the property was returned to it by the court in January 2016, when a review of incoming mail discovered that payments were being made. This opened a whole new bucket of snakes, with the outcome being that although the loan was unauthorized, it was secured by the parish property, and if the parish wanted to avoid seizure, it needed to continue making payments. This it did.

However, in early 2018, the ACA-Bush vestry successfully appealed the 2015 verdict awarding the property to the 2012 Kelley vestry, and the property was returned to the ACA-Bush faction that summer. (At this point, nearly everyone involved with the 2012 vestry and the parish that applied to join the North American ordinariate moved on, and nobody in that group is directly involved in the new case.) The best I can determine is that once the ACA Diocese of the West regained control of the property, it stopped making payments on the 2014 loan its vestry took out, even though the 2012 vestry had continued making those payments.

I'm told, by the way, that since regaining the property in 2018, Mrs Marilyn Bush, who is nearly 90 years old, is no longer involved in the litigation. The individual with the ACA Diocese of the West who is identified in the new case history is now Mr John Creel, who has long held various positions with that diocese and the All Saints Fountain Valley ACA parish.

According to the new case history, the private lenders who financed the 2014 loan to the Bush-ACA vestry, Richard and Terrie Sommers, began legal action in November 2018, presumably when payments from the Bush-ACA vestry, now in control of the property, became delinquent. The ACA vestry, now identified in the litigation as "The Rector, Warens [sic] and Vestrymen of St. Mary of the Angel's [sic] Parish in Hollywood Los Angeles California", countersued at the same time. The basis of the countersuit is not clear.

The misspelling and grammatical error in the name are intriguing. In the past, the Bush-ACA group used a similar strategy to open or continue ownership of accounts actually belonging to the 2012 vestry, which used the same title, just without the misspellings. They apparently were able to maintain a separate legal identity from the 2012 vestry while continuing to cash checks issued to the 2012 vestry, on the assumption that bank employees would overlook "typos". They appeared to have used the name "Angelican" as opposed to "Anglican" for a similar reason.

As best I can determine from the information that's been passed on to me, the legal position of the ACA and the current vestry is that since the 2012 vestry had continued payments on the 2014 loan, even though Mrs Bush signed the papers, it was the responsibility of the 2012 vestry to make those payments, not the vestry now in control of the parish, although that ACA vestry had in fact taken out the loan. At least six attorneys are listed in he current case history, although no doubt there will be additional law firm associates involved as well.

So as of 2017, we passed the 40-year mark on litigation that dates back to Fr Jack Barker's reckless decision to pull the St Mary of the Angels parish out of The Episcopal Church, but as of late 2018, a new round of litigation has begun, and we may reasonably assume it will take years to resolve.

The value of the property, located in a highly desirable upscale area, is certainly into eight figures, even leaving out the value of the Della Robbia altarpiece, itself probably worth in the mid eight figures. Thus multimillion-dollar litigation is justified, although it's hard to imagine any result at this point other than bankruptcy for the parish and sale of the property to pay creditors. But the facility is so small that it would probably not be worthwhile for the Catholic Church, either the archdiocese or the ordinariate, to consider picking it up on foreclosure, even assuming it could come up with the money.

"You will be able to tell them by their fruits. Can people pick grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles?" It's worth noting that the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society chose Fr Barker, the author of all these fruits, to keynote its conference this past November. Fr Barker withdrew at the last minute. I wouldn't want to be in his position if anyone asked him serious questions about what he had in mind back in 1976-77.