Money And Related Issues

A San Antonio observer comments,

I see in the OLOTA church bulletin for March 29, 2020, the parish is reminding folks to give financially for the support of the parish. We are told that donations are drastically down for this period and if the parish is to survive we need your generous support. We are told that there is no endowment fund for the parish to rely on. The parish provides for two ways of giving, online and lock-box in the chapel.

I thought about this and it occurred to me, that while their plight might be true, it is the same for not only OLOTA, but for all Catholic Churches throughout the world. I would think because of the suspension of Masses and other services usually performed during the Lenten/Easter season that a loss revenue that the church depends on for the year will not be available. This is all exacerbated by the possible loss of tuition monies from the schools being shut down.

But I think this provides some context to Fr Holiday's recent Facebook post for to the Incarnation Orlando parish, reproduced in a screen shot below courtesy of my regular correspondent (click on the image for a larger copy):

My regular correspondent observes,

You will see from the date of March 15 that this was a letter that went out before the local diocese (Orlando) cancelled public celebrations of Mass as of March 18. However, the defiant tone strikes me as similar to that of Fr Lewis’s letter of March 12. Of course things have moved quickly from week to week in this pandemic and one’s thinking takes a while to catch up. But Fr Holiday makes it clear in a follow-up message that masses have been cancelled at Incarnation, Orlando only because of Bp Lopes’ explicit order, that the schedule for Confession at the church continues as usual, and that he will be “resuming meetings as usual beginning later this week [of March 22}. Really?

Fr Holiday's tone is also pretty fierce on the matter of reception of the Blessed Sacrament on the tongue. Again, this is more than two weeks old, and I have no idea if Bp Lopes will modify this discipline, but reception on the hand is fully licit and endorsed in our diocesan parish during the current crisis. My understanding is that if any ordinariate priest refused to provide the Sacrament on the hand in the US, he would have no canonical ground to stand on, but out of charity, no communicant should drive a priest to that point.

Instead, the prudent step is simply to move to a parish where the option is recognized and let Fr Holiday or any other stubborn man fend for himself. I have no idea whether Bp Lopes will reflect at all on this. Although the ordinariate website now carries videos of stations of the cross and Sunday masses at the cathedral, there has been no other public announcement from Bp Lopes or Fr Perkins.

The general quarantine will certainly put churches in financial straits, especially as civil authorities begin to threaten penalties for any that continue to hold large-scale public meetings. That will inevitably reduce their income, and ordinariate communities, many of which are already in precarious condition, will inevitably be affected.

I tend to agree with commentators who predict that the COVID-19 crisis will have an ongoing impact on daily conditions that will go beyond those that resulted from the 9/11 attacks. If the small business brick-and-mortar model continues to be affected, as it certainly will when so many will lose months of income, the same will apply to small churches in any denomination.

I suspect that pastors like Fr Lewis and Fr Holiday, and Bp Lopes as well, are beginning to read the writing on the wall for the ordinariate, which is reflected on one hand in the defiant tones of the pastors' messages, as well as Bp Lopes's public silence.

Even though Fr Holiday refers to practices of the Church that have taken it through plagues and wars in past centuries, the examples stand out of figures like St Charles Borromeo and Pope Pius XII, who was active and visible with Catholics in Rome throughout its occupation, visiting communities affected by misdirected bombings, and he addressed US and British Empire troops at the liberation in English. Pius's secretary, Giovanni Montini, later Paul VI, visited poor communities and Jews in Rome incognito and was recognized by them only after he become pope.

Bp Lopes and Fr Perkins may wish to consider such examples. Instead, the key men are AWOL, while we avert our eyes from the narcissistic grandstanding of marginal ones. I hope the course of events will lead devout ordinariate members to better places of worship, which will inevitably continue as so many in the ordinariate will not.

Pray To Your Father In Secret

My regular correspondent sent me a screen shot of a video of Fr Bartus on the Holy Martyrs Murreita Facebook page:

By contrast, here is Pope Pius XII blessing the crowd in St Peter's square:

As far as I can see, the Holy Father is doing this all wrong. He's versus populum, which is not done, and he's nowhere near as well gotten up.

But I think there are other issues here. As of March 27, the huge Riverside County, CA as a whole had 185 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with eight deaths. Riverside County has a population of over 2.4 million. Temecula had 16 cases, Murrieta 11. Cases, not deaths. The overall US death rate, still relatively low, is well below projections, and there's a good chance there will be no COVID-19 deaths in those communities.

So why the grandstanding? Might it not be better to offer up prayers of hope and thanksgiving that so far, the plague has passed us over? In private?

After all, the public health advice we continue to have from civil authorities is to remain indoors and maintain six feet of separation, especially where vulnerable people like the elderly are concerned. Instead, Fr Bartus is conspicuously outdoors, standing right next to an elderly bearded gentleman, who is on a nonessential excursion enabling Fr Bartus's grandstanding.

I think there's some similarity here to Fr Lewis's March 12 letter, in which he conspicuously flouted prudent public health advice to prove some sort of obscure point, when US Bishops as a whole are advising Catholics to do the opposite, prayerfully absent themselves from public celebration and do what's best for their families and neighbors.

This is yet another example of the narcissism that's often visible in the North American ordinariate.

[But] take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them; otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father. When you give alms, do not blow a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets to win the praise of others. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. . . . When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.

Local Usage In The Ordinariate

My regular correspondent went looking for evidence of how ordinariate communicants receive the Sacrament at individual groups and parishes. It turns out that there is slight variety in how policies are expressed, recognizing that in any case, there is no option other than the Roman Canon every Sunday, which is in fact contrary to the General Instruction of the Roman Missal.

Most communities, however, are a little bit more careful to avoid explicitly contradicting the USCCB policy than Fr Lewis in his March 12 letter to the Atonement parish. Some others, like St Timothy Catonsville, MD are quite low church, and others in diocesan facilities without communion rails are also exceptions.

But the mode at most seems to be effectively to enforce, however subtly, communion kneeling, in both kinds, on the tongue. None of these gives realistic options other than for those clearly unable to kneel.

Mt Calvary Baltimore has a fairly comprehensive outline in its FAQ:

I noticed that you have a communion rail. If I want to receive Communion, am I required to kneel at it?

Communicants at Divine Worship Masses receive Holy Communion kneeling at the altar unless prevented by health.

Why do you receive Communion on the tongue at Mount Calvary? Can I receive Communion in the hand?

We encourage communicants to consider the example of Masses celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, where the faithful receive the Host directly on the tongue. Reception on the tongue is an ancient and honored practice in both the Divine Worship and the Roman Rite. As with the Roman Rite, communicants have the right to receive the Host either on the tongue or in the hand.

Why do you receive Communion under both kinds at Mount Calvary? If I approach to receive Communion, am I required to receive both kinds?

Reception of Communion under both kinds is a longstanding tradition in Divine Worship liturgies, and the Ordinariate preserves that tradition. While you are encouraged to receive Communion in both the Host and the Precious Blood, the Host is sufficient, as Christ is equally present in both Eucharistic species.

This is all maybe a bit too cute, since it makes grand statements about how things are done, while not giving any indication of how one might signal to the priest that one wishes, for instance, to receive only the Host -- and that for very good reason, like wishing to avoid alcohol.

Here comes the priest, dipping each Host in the wine and placing it on tongues as he moves down the line. What do you do, grab his hand before he dips the Host? Whisper urgently that you can't have wine? My guess is that a normal Catholic would simply choose not to receive, which means there likely won't be any return visit to the parish.

St Barnabas Omaha expresses a similar policy on p 15 of its bulletin:

Communicants at Ordinariate Masses receive the Sacrament kneeling at the altar rail (unless prevented by health) and in both species.All who are not receiving Holy Communion are encouraged to express in their hearts a prayerful desire for unity with the Lord Jesus and with one another.

This doesn't explicitly say the parish doesn't observe the General Instruction of the Roman Missal or the USCCB guidelines, but it definitely does say if you want to be comfortable here and want to be in unity "with Jesus and one another" (but apparently not with the CDW or the USCCB), you do as we do. Those who struggle with kneeling due to arthritis, those who may not wish to receive wine, or those who simply prefer to receive the Host in the hand like Episcopalians do will, out of charity and wishing not to be conspicuous, probably simply elect not to receive.

Simple instructions for how to arrange perfectly reasonable exceptions aren't provided. Good luck building the parish, Fathers.

St Thomas More Scranton has a similar policy expressed in different words in its FAQ:

The Sacrament is typically received kneeling, in both kinds, on the tongue (the Priest will intinct the Host in the Chalice and place it on your tongue). If for reasons of disability or your accustomed pattern you prefer not to kneel, you may receive standing. If you will not be receiving Holy Communion today, you are still most welcome to come forward. . .

It's acknowledged that someone may prefer to stand simply because that's what he's used to, but it's pretty clear that you're expected to receive in both kinds, on the tongue, even if that's not "your accustomed pattern". Why is "your accustomed pattern" OK in one case but not another? And how does this differ from Church policy that a priest may not force a communicant to receive on the tongue? (I guess it's OK because Fr Bergman is doing it nicely, huh?) Again, if nothing else, I suspect this drives potential members, either possible Episcopalian converts or cradle Catholics, away.

A copy of FAQs on the Divine Worship Missal is linked from several ordinariate community websites. In Quetion 2, it specifically says

The liturgical norms and principles of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal are therefore normative for this expression or form of the Roman Rite. The Missal also includes a Rubrical Directory which proves instructions for those areas in which Divine Worship diverges from the Roman Missal.

However, I can so far find no reference to exceptions to the General Instruction regarding use of Eucharistic Prayer III as the normal Sunday mass, nor any rubric that requires reception kneeling on the tongue. Someone more familiar with the applicable documents may be able to clarify this for me.

Another question left unaddressed is what policy the ordinariate will follow regarding reception on the tongue once current restrictions on public gatherings are lifted in the current health crisis. It's certainly possible to argue that advice to avoid close contact with other people's hands and fingers is misguided, and visitors have sent me tracts from pre-Conciliarists to this effect. On the other hand, prudence is a cardinal virtue.

People have free will. But people do suffer unnecessarily by deliberately ignoring mainstream medical advice due to misguided religious scruple.

In looking at options for ordinariate communities as we lead up to reopening public masses, I would want to see a clear accommodation to reasonable health concerns in the matter of receiving the Host on the tongue. If this matter is not clarified with some reasonable adjustment, my advice would be that we indeed have free will, and prudence would suggest communicants concerned with their own health and that of their families move to diocesan mass celebrations.

The Problem And The Agenda

One question i frequently pose here is. "What problem is Anglicanorum coetibus trying to solve?" Over the past week, a more specific version of that question is beginning to crystallize for me. Recognize that the inflection point for Episcopalian division was the 1976 General Convention, which approved revisions to the Book of Common Prayer and women's ordination. This led to the Pastoral Provision and eventually to Anglicanoum coetibus.

So OK, the Catholic Church doesn't ordain women, but that in itself was never much of an attraction for Protestants. The actual bait on the hook was liturgy: it was felt that Episcopalians who mourned the loss of the 1928 BCP might come over if the Catholic Church could offer them a liturgy that reminded them of it, or something. One problem there was that the 1979 BCP retained the 1928 liturgy as Rite One.

But there could have been a hidden problem, although nobody ever mentioned it when I was an Episcopalian, which was that the 1979 BCP, inspired in general by Vatican II, adopted the three-year lectionary. (A TEC priest who was for a time celebrating Sunday masses at both St Thomas Hollywood and St Mary of the Angels was surprised to discover that the readings for the same Sunday differed between the 1979 and 1928 BCPs. I don't think this was general knowledge; it was certainly new to me.) More below.

But given the idea that a version of the Catholic mass that looked like the 1928 BCP might prove attractive, why did the creators of the Divine Worship Missal use the Roman Canon as the pattern, when Anglican Books of Common Prayer, especially the 1928, did not? The service is noticeably longer and contains features like the long list of saints in the anamnesis and the Last Gospel that are not familiar to Episcopalians.

And these features appear only in Eucharistic Prayer I, when according to the General Instructions for the Roman Missal, Eucharistic Prayer III is the normal Sunday mass. Mutatis mutandis, the OF Eucharistic Prayer III with Cranmerian insertions sould be very hard to distinguish from 1979 Rite Two; with some thees and thous emended, it would be hard to tell from Rite One.

My wife and I had no trouble adjusting to an OF Eucharistic Prayer III mass, so much so that we frequently comment that our parish is basically a TEC Rite Two parish with fuller pews and better music. We comment to each other, but would never tell them this, that our good friends there are actually honorary Episcopalians.

But this brought me to ask over the course of the past week how the Divine Worship Missal, so unfamiliar to Anglicans, is "Anglican patrimony". I got several remarkably angry responses from ordinariate lay visitors. One e-mail, under the title "Anglican Papalism is patrimonial", said

I don't know if your latest post is serious or just trolling, but this is where your lack of knowledge of advanced Anglo-Catholicism in the UK and US is most glaring. Many, many advanced AC parishes in the UK used Tudor English translations of the preconciliar Roman Missal. . . . You have this idea that all Anglicans have your middlebrow aversion to "stuffy," extensive Romish liturgy and ceremonial, but historically that was not the case for many UK and US AC parishes.

In a second e-mail, he said

If you need specific examples the entire Episcopal dioceses of Fond du Lac (campily known as "Fond of Lace") and Eau Claire were quite advanced and used Missals throughout the 20th century. In the UK, parishes on the South Coast and in London were often advanced, like St Cyprian Clarence Gate, St Peter's London Docks, St Alban's Holborn, St Saviour Hoxton, I could go on. Here on the East Coast St Clement Philadelphia has used the Knott Missal for about a century.

So the visitor is referring to "advanced" Anglco Catholicism in the same context as the preconciliar Roman missal! I think we're getting closer to the actual agenda here. (Let's leave aside the potential implication that an "advanced" Anglo Catholic is another way of saying a gay guy.) I replied that Anglicanism includes both high church and low, Rite One and Rite Two, but he'd hear none of it. Advanced Anglo Catholics use one or anoher version of the uniate liturgy that includes the Roman Canon, the Last Gospel, and heaven knows what else.

So we're at a peculiar place where an abusive correspondent can call me "middlebrow" and "suburban" if don't agree that the "Anglican patrimony" is to have a mass that includes elements that not even devout cradle Catholics normally see, and have it every Sunday. Remember, the Divine Worhsip Missal specifically excluded a version of Eucharistic Prayer III that would have been very close to 1979 Rite One, indistinguishable from 1928.

Apparently this angry guy is shaking at the same frequency as the DW Missal, and he regards even conservative Episcopalians who prefer Rite One or 1928 as middlebrow suburbanites!

Clearly what he and those who vibrate on that frequency want is a pre-Conciliar Roman Canon every Sunday, the Sacrament received kneeling and on the tongue. Any idea that there was a Second Vatican Council that represented the workings of the Holy Spirit is dismissed, it would seem, with a haughty wave.

Could the objection to the 1979 BCP include not just modernized language in one version of the liturgy, but its use of the post-Conciliar lectionary? Certainly this has been an under-the-radar feature of pre-Conciliarism and apparently a sub rosa complaint about the DW Missal itself -=- it isn't "advanced" enough that way!

How is this even Catholic? But this pre-Conciliar agenda is being pushed in the guise of bringing "Anglican patrimony" into the Catholic Church, when many parts of the agenda -- use of the Roman Canon in the mass and reception no the tongue, for example, aren't Anglican at all except in the fantasies of certain advanced Anglo Papalists, who for whatever reason have always been Catholic wannabes but never quite got around to becoming Catholic. He mentions camp himself.

There's a hidden agenda here. It has very little to do with bringing any large numbers of Anglicans into the Catholic Church, which is one good explanation for why so few have responded to Anglicanorum coetibus.

What Does The Divine Worship Missal Say?

A visitor has pressed me, given the views expressed by informed visitors here that the practice of the USCCB for distribution of the Sacrament must be followed by ordinariate parishes in the US, to find out if there is some other rubric in the Divine Worship Missal that would override the USCCB policy, which is that communicants may choose whether to receive on the hand or the tongue, at their option. As it happens, I've acquired an unofficial PDF of the Divine Worship Missal, so I can even search it digitally.

The first item of note is that the canon of the mass gives no special rubric for distribution. Here is what it says on p 654:

Then the Communion Antiphon may be sung or said.

Then he distributes Holy Communion to the Ministers and to the People with these words:

The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life.

Or:

The Body of Christ.

The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life.

Or:

The Blood of Christ.

Or with these words, if Holy Communion is administered in both kinds together:

The Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life.

Or:

The Body and Blood of Christ.

While there is a reference to intinction as an option, there is no reference to whether it is to be received kneeling. nor indeed specifically on the tongue (though this could be messy on the hand).

But there's another complication, which is that although General Instructions of the Roman Missal are a separate document, available for instance here, they are also incorporated in the front matter of the Divine Worship Missal itself. Here's a screen shot from the Table of Contents:

On page 62 of the DWM, it reproduces the General Instructions, which say

In the United States of America: The Priest then takes the paten or ciborium and approaches the communicants, who usually come up in procession.

It is not permitted for the faithful to take the consecrated Bread or the sacred chalice by themselves and, still less, to hand them on from one to another among themselves. The norm established for the Dioceses of the United States of America is that Holy Communion is to be received standing, unless an individual member of the faithful wishes to receive Communion while kneeling (Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum, 25 March 2004, no. 91).

When receiving Holy Communion, the communicant bows his or her head before the Sacrament as a gesture of reverence and receives the Body of the Lord from the minister. The consecrated host may be received either on the tongue or in the hand, at the discretion of each communicant. When Holy Communion is received under both kinds, the sign of reverence is also made before receiving the Precious Blood.

In other words, in the US it's up to the communicant to kneel, and it's up to the communicant to receive on the tongue or in the hand. A priest may not force a communicant to receive kneeling or to receive on the tongue. Since the DW Missal incorporates the General Instructions in its front matter, all celebrations are clearly under their authority, and this is recognized by the certifications of the individual ordinaries.

Naturally, I'm a Catholic of only seven years' standing, and someone may be able to clarify this for me.

And I'm not advocating anyone crash an ordinariate mass and create a problem by insisting on receiving the Sacrament on the hand and standing. (Who would want to sit through a homily from the likes of Fr Lewis to reach that point, anyhow?) What this does suggest to me yet again is that a devout Catholic used to reverent diocesan celebration could well find an ordinariate mass an uncomfortable experience, with fringe practices enforced effectively by snobby peer pressure.

The tone of Fr Lewis's March 12 letter to the Atonement parish reinforces this -- he maintains that there are theological reasons, apparently known only to him, though contradicted by the front matter of his own missal, for requiring parishioners to receive kneeling on the tongue, in both kinds. Presumably nobody will risk taking a copy of the DW Missal up to him if they choose to ask about it, although this would be like stannding up to a bully anyhow. Best not to if you don't want to get your clothes dirty.

My point throughout the time I've been doing this blog is becoming clearer to me, and it's basically that devout Catholics are best off avoiding the ordinariates, especially as they're at best just likely to meet unpleasant and narcissistic people and priests, but also because they do risk hearing error from people who resist authority.

More Questions On The Anglican Patrimony

I was more curious on exactly what's prescribed for ordinariates in the Divine Worship Missal, and I've come up with more questions than answers. For instance, in the order of mass, a Last Gospel does not appear after the mass in authorized Books of Common prayer, unless someone can make this clear to me. For instance, in the 1928 BCP, the eucharist ends with the blessing. There is no mention of a Last Gospel.

In the Concluding Rites of the Divine Worship Missal, we see

42. Where it is the custom, the Last Gospel (Appendix 6) may follow as a concluding devotion and is recited immediately after the dismissal. The Last Gospel is especially appropriate in Christmastide, except on Christmas Day when it is the Gospel appointed for Mass. On Christmas Day, the Gospel for the Epiphany (Matthew 2:1-12) may be read as the Last Gospel. The Last Gospel is omitted at the Mass of Palm Sunday, at the Mass of the Lord's Supper on Maundy Thursday, at the Easter Vigil, and at Masses followed by a procession.

I simply don't know how common the Last Gospel is in ordinariate celebrations, although given the over-the-top culture that seems to prevail, it must be used pretty frequently, even though it's optional. Its use in Anglo-Catholic parishes seems to date from a uniate mass created about 1905 and never authorized by any denomination as far as I know. This, or something like it, was used at St Mary of the Angels Hollywood, and there was a Last Gospel at every mass there. However, this is not "Anglican patrimony". If anyone can provide information on which ordinariate parishes celebrate a Last Gospel and when, I'd be very interested.

Next, the Roman Canon, which is the only eucharistic prayer contained in the Divine Worship Missal. The anamnesis, the "remember" passage after the profession of faith in the Divine Worship Missal, is far longer, 439 words with rubrics, than in the 1979 BCP Rite One, which is 251 words. The DW Roman Canon contains all the references to Abel, John, Stephen, Matthias, Barnabas, Ignatius, Alexander, Marcellinus, Peter, Felicitas, Perpetua, Agatha, Lucy, Agnes, Cecilia, Anastasia and Melchisedech that do not appear in BCPs that I'm aware of. How is this "Anglican patrimony"?

There is an alternate version of the eucharistic prayer in the Divine Worship Missal that resembles the ones in BCPs much more closely, but it may not be used on Sundays. UPDATE: A visitor says,

This is a retrotranslation into "Cranmerese" of EP II. I was told a few years ago that those who drew up the Divine Worship Missal were divided over whether the only permitted EP should be the Roman Canon or "a shorter one" for optional use on weekdays. Eventually, the majority decided in favor of a shorter one. The "shorter one" which they actually wanted was EP III (retrotranslated into "Cranmerese," of course), but EP II was "forced on them" by Rome.

And this takes me back to the use of the different eucharistic prayers. The Divine Worship Missal contains General Instructions of the Roman Missal, of which paragraph 364 lays out the generally understood uses of the eucharistic prayers. It says,

c) Eucharistic Prayer III may be said with any Preface. Its use should be preferred on Sundays and festive days.

Except that as we've seen, the Divine Worship Missal has no Eucharistic Prayer III, the one commonly used in diocesan parishes for Sunday mass, which is far less stuffy and unwieldy than the version of the Roman Canon in the DW missal. So at least modern versions of the Book of Common Prayer used in the US contain Anglican eucharistic texts that actually correspond more closely to the OF Eucharistic Prayer III. How is it "Anglican patrimony" to require communicants to endure a celebration much longer and stuffier than either the Anglican mass or the normal Catholic Sunday mass?

This question, as far as I understand it, applies mainly in the US and Canada, since the UK ordinariate primarily uses the OF mass, and I would assume this would normally be Eucharistic Prayer III on most Sundays.

I will be most interested in whatever info visitors can provide on local usage at individual ordinariate parishes. However, it's hard to avoid thinking that the "Anglican patrimony" promoted by apologists for Anglicanorum coetibus is something made up to further a pre-Conciliarist agenda and not actually intended to be familiar to real Anglicans. If anyone can give me greater insight into how the various parts of the DW liturgy relate to the OF, I would also be most grateful.

Communion On The Hand Is Anglican Patrimony And Catholic, Too

As the visitor who posed yesterday's question pointed out, Anglicans have traditionally received the Sacrament on the hand, and another visitor makes clear they've been doing this ever since there have been Anglicans:

I just looked at Cranmer's two Communion services, 1549 and 1552. In 1552 a rubric clearly stated that the bread shall be delivered "to the people in their handes kneling," while in 1549 the rubrics (the one before communion in the service itself and the one after mandating that the bread, although unleavened, be "more larger and thicker" than in the past) simply states that the priest "delivereth the Sacramente of the body of Christe." I suppose that this must mean in the mouth, since that was the universal and exceptionless custom all throughout the Latin Church. Certainly, Lutherans who wished to find fault with the Church of England in later times took reception "in the handes" as an indication that the Church of England was a Reformed church with which they could not be in sacramental communion. And i've already mentioned in the past that I take Article 29 of the 39 Articles as directed against Lutheran views, not Catholic ones.

The visitor provides more background on the early basis of the practice:

In the 16th Century (and beyond) receiving communion (the bread, I mean) in the hand was taken by just about everyone as a token of belief in (to oversimplify) "the real absence" of Christ's Body and blood from the communion, or from the communion elements. (I make this last distinction because both the "Radicals" - Anabaptists, Rationalists, and the like - as well as the Reformed, at least those of the reformed who followed Zwingli and Bullinger and their later followers, believed that the bread and wine was just bread and wine, . . . Calvin, however, believed that Christ was present uniquely to communicants, or at least to elect communicants, in the reception of the bread and wine, which remained just bread and wine, but which served as "implements" or "instruments" [his preferred terms] for a unique spiritual presence of Christ in the act of receiving them - as he once said, while the communicants were receiving bread and wine "in their mouths," they - or the elect among them - were receiving Christ "spiritually in the eyes of their minds."

But over four centuries later, I was told nothing of this in Episcopalian confirmation class, simply that you took communion in your hands, left hand cradled in your right, pretty much to avoid looking like a bumpkin, as you would if you wore plaid with stripes. What I see in this account is effectively a standard Anglican practice of calculated ambiguity and leaving specifics unsaid in order to avoid conflict, and if the TEC clergy who taught the confirmation classes had learned of the implications at Nashotah House or General, they left them unsaid.

By the 21st century, whether one receives on the hand, especially coming from an Anglican background, has no particular meaning, and trying to impute one would be like claiming the OK sign was a secret white supremacist gesture, a creature of the wannabe thought police. I don't believe Bp Barron, a theologically well informed man, urged believers to stop receiving on the hand even if he was worried they didn't understand the Real Presence.

Another visitor points out,

The practice of intinction, while very old in Catholic Church history, is not as old as communion under both species separately as evidenced by the actual ritual of the Last Supper. Communion in the form of bread alone was instituted by the Church in the 12th century and it primarily remained that way until after the council of Vatican II where both species distribution and intinction were revived. The USCCB website has a very thorough explanation of the norms for Holy Communion. If I am not mistaken, Bishop Lopes is a member of this Conference and therefore would be subject to its norms in America and the Canadian version for his parishes in Canada I would guess. The norms very clearly state that communion under one species is fine under circumstances where there is illness or for taking communion to an infirm parishioner. In fact, the practice of intinction, while occasionally practiced in the ancient Church has become a practice for the laity only recently, less than 60 years.

The norms also clearly state the communicant not the minister of communion chooses how to receive the host (paragraph 41). Given that Fr. Lewis refuses to provide communion to a recipient without intincture, it seems to me he is in violation of the norms. I can’t imagine it would be that difficult at OLA for a communicant who does not want intinction to just hold out their hands while kneeling at the communion rail and have Father give them an undipped host but apparently that is not allowed! Why, I’m not sure.

There is absolutely no Church law, dogma or policy that says the minister or presbyter can force anyone receiving to receive under both forms. Which brings us back to the idea that the folks at Atonement think they are somehow better or exempt from following the norms established by the US Catholic Bishops (whom Bishop Lopes is a member of that body and seemingly agreeing with and subject to its norms). The fact that both Bishop Lopes (in violation of USCCB norms) and Fr. Lewis in some in-your-face, take it or don’t come forward for communion policy, would deprive a faithful member of the Church the Holy Eucharist for such petty and indefensible(in the eyes of the Church) reasons should speak volumes of the errors occurring in that Parish and, it seems the Ordinariate as a whole.

So what I'm hearing is that reception in the hand has been the consistent Anglican tradition from the first Books of Common Prayer. While in the early Reformation, it may have implied rejection of the Real Presence, a level of ambiguity seems to have prevailed in subsequent decades, and certainly between the 17th and 19th centuries, it was accepted that Anglicans had latitude to believe in the Real Presence or not. By the mid-19th century, reception in the hand carried no particular implication, it was just standard practice.

Meanwhile, certainly by the post-Conciliar period, reception in the hand by Catholics is fully licit and accepted by the same bishops' conference in which the North American ordinariate operates. It presumably reflects belief in the Real Presence for practicing Catholics, since at the time of reception, they say "Amen" specifically as an assent to the doctrine of the Real Presence. Again, to impute something else to the practice is like insisting the OK sign is actually a white supremacist gesture.

In his March 12 letter, Fr Lewis said that there are sound theological reasons for requiring communicants to receive in both kinds on the tongue. He went on to say that he would be more than glad to explain them. I challenge Fr Lewis to explain these reasons to me, as well as to explain how reception on the tongue is part of the Anglican patrimony.

I recognize that ordinariate clergy have been instructed not to communicate with me. Perhaps Fr Lewis could forward his explanation to Fr Perkins, who might in turn forward them to me via some third party. Otherwise, I'm hard pressed to understand how the ordinariate is not, as the visitor above suggests, teaching errors to the faithful.

A Visitor Helps Clear My Mind With A Question

Asking about a remark Fr Lewis made in his March 12 letter to the Atonement parish, a visitor asked me a few days ago:

“Reception in the hand, though allowed by the Church, is problematic. Great care has been taken at Our Lady of the Atonement over the years to preserve the ancient tradition of kneeling and receiving on the tongue. There are great theological reasons for such reception...”

Isn’t it Anglican patrimony to receive the Sacrament in the hands? Reverently with the right hand cupped over the left?

Yes indeed. When I went through TEC confirmation in 1980-81, this is the only method that we were taught, high church or low, Rite One or Rite Two. Under the 1928 BCP, same thing. Intinction came in only in the mid 1980s after the HIV epidemic to assuage the anxieties of those who may have been concerned about contracting it via the communion wine. However, this was completely optional, and the communicant signaled a desire for it by leaving the Host in his hand when the deacon came around with the chalice. There was an element of receiving in the hand there anyhow, and it was done for hygienic, not theological, reasons.

However it may have soothed some Episcopalians, it had no actual hygienic benefit at the time. But given current health conditions, it's now a positively bad idea.

At Our Lady of the Atonement and similar ordinariate parishes, it's compulsory, since the priest distributes it from specifically designed intinction vessels, and he dips the Host in the wine and places it on the communicant's tongue. (Some people who struggle with alcohol may elect to receive only the Host. I don't know how this works at OLA, or if this is possible there. I assume the priest still places the Host on the tongue, intincted or not.)

This differs from current health recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic, since people are advised not to touch their own faces -- and this is because, after shaking hands or touching some other surface, their fingers can bring germs in contact with their mouth and nose. Since in my experience and observation, a priest or EM who places the Host on someone's tongue can easily brush their face or tongue with their fingers, this is clearly not a good practice in the current environment.

There is certainly a possibility that the OLA parishioner who fell ill with COVID-19 at mass there on March 14-15 contracted it in exactly this way.

So the visitor's question has several very good implicatons:

• Why has the ordinariate adopted a very un-Anglican practice as part of the "Anglican patrimony" and indeed, per Fr Lewis's statement, made it compulsory, when the USCCB considers it entirely optional?
• Why would Fr Lewis, with the tacit endorsement of Bp Lopes, refuse the very reasonable move of making it optional during a health crisis when receiving on the hand is more hygienic?

But then I went back to the question of liturgy. The 1979 Book of Common Payer emulated the post-Conciliar liturgy by celebrating in contemporary vernacular and providing options in the prayers to meet different occasions and local usages. Although it's difficult to define "Anglican" with much precision, the idea of compromise, accepting differences, and local variation might well be characterized, at least by some observers, as a particularly Anglican tradition.

Yet the DW Missal takes a very un-Anglican tack by requiring just one version of the canon, in a made-up archaic English. Those who want a workaday mass that's reverent but less stuffy and takes an hour, like Eucharistic Prayer 3 in the OF mass, are told they don't have one in the DW missal. Any other usage but the DW mass, they must go to the OF -- but hey, they're too good for the OF. That's why they're in the ordinariate.

So this is designed, apparently, for a largely imaginary group of disgruntled Episcopalians who hated the 1979 BCP but waited more than 30 years for an alternative, when some significant number would be worshiping in a different mode altogether. And this leaves out the great majority of Episcopalians, as well as those in the ACNA and other breakaway groups, who actually like the 1979 BCP and Rite Two.

So the most visible problem addressed in the North American ordinariate during a world crisis is whether it should suspend, or even make voluntary, reception on the tongue, when even the USCCB has always said it's optional. But this goes to the woozy liturgical environment that's been created in the name of "Anglican patrimony" as well, when it seems, like communion in the hand, the Anglicans have actually done things differently.

I've been thinking lately about narcissism and how it seems to be playing out as an unintended consequence of Anglicanorum coetibus. For instance,

Grandiosity is the defining characteristic of narcissism. More than just arrogance or vanity, grandiosity is an unrealistic sense of superiority. Narcissists believe they are unique or “special” and can only be understood by other special people. What’s more, they are too good for anything average or ordinary. They only want to associate and be associated with other high-status people, places, and things.

Yet again, the encouraging thing is how few people have risen to this bait.

Ordinariate Narcissists Weigh In!

Here's a puzzle. At various times in my career, I was called on to write corporate policies, so I became somewhat familiar with what policies look like, what they do, and what their consequences are. For example, banks have policies that cover areas like what's expected of branch managers in emergencies. They require employees to follow, and be sure their subordinates follow, the instructions of first responders and other civil authorities. It is implicit that violation of such policies can be a terminable offense.

So from a secular point of view, the situation we saw at Our Lady of the Atonement for the week between March 12 and March 19 was clear cut. By March 12, Fr Lewis had received policy guidance from Houston to follow the practice of his local diocese on whether to hold mass. On March 13, Abp Gustavo canceled masses in the archdiocese. In spite of that, Fr Lewis elected to hold masses on March 14 and 15. At the same time, civil authorities in San Antonio limited the size of public meetings. The numbers attending mass on March 15 exceeded those limits.

On top of that, by March 19, Fr Lewis reported that a parishioner who had attended mass both days had contracted COVID-19. This became public. Whether the parishioner specifically contracted the virus at one of those masses, he in fact did expose other parishioners, at masses that by policy instruction from Houston and instruction from civil authorities should not have been held. These facts are all in the public record.

They don't just reflect badly on Fr Lewis -- if he were a manager of a secular business that had been instructed to close by civil authorities, like a gym, and in violation of those instructions and corporate policy it had remained open, he would be fired. If a customer had contracted COVID-19 arguably at the gym under those circumstances, or had exposed other customers to it, there would certainly be lawsuits. My wife, a retired attorney, suggests that the OLA parishioner would at least have reason to discuss his case with an attorney, although neither OLA nor the ordinariate would be in a position to pay much in damages.

In a secular organization, a regional vice president who had looked the other way over a similar situation would be reassigned, demoted, or terminated. This is how things are in the real world. These circumstances are just the most recent that send a message that the ordinariate is poorly run and indeed potentially dangerous to members -- not least because any attempt to recover damages after blunders like that would bankrupt the parish and the prelature and leave the victims uncompensated.

In that context, I nevertheless heard from what I assume is a tiny contingent of Atonement Kool-Aid drinkers. One said,

What is the purpose of your campaign of whispers and assumptions? Half truths, rumors and gossip. I have been a parishioner at Our Lady of the Atonement since 1995. I am not a follower of any particular priest and stay well away from the politics of opinions about our parish or its clergy. As you have noted (very inaccurately in many cases) the parish doesn’t have a perfect past. There is no such thing as a perfect parish. For all it’s faults, the parish has brought many non Catholics to the church and that is a blessing.

What whispers and assumptions? I'm working from the public record and urging counsels of prudence.

Another Kool-Aid drinker wrote:

I consider Fr. Lewis a good friend and he is my pastor. He is one of the kindest, humblest persons I have ever met. He is a caring pastor and would never place his congregation at risk. To speak as though he would do so through neglect or malice is simply slanderous. This COVID-19 pandemic is changing all the rules. Fr. Lewis is basing his decisions on the best information he has as well as being obedient to his bishop. That's all we can ask of him. It's all we can ask of anyone, including our flawed politicians.

Again, the best information Fr Lewis had as of March 13 was that he should cancel mass if his local bishop did this in his diocese. Abp Gustavo canceled mass. The civil authorities limited the size of public gatherings, a further guideline that would have counseled canceling mass. Yet he held masses on two days, apparently over the reservations of parishioners who were concerned about receiving the host on the tongue. A communicant then was infected or exposed others to the virus at those masses.

If Bp Lopes instructed Fr Lewis to hold those masses or looked the other way, he should be held to account as well. Nobody's perfect, but people who behave recklessly or deliberately violate instructions aren't in the same category as people who make simple mistakes. Neither Fr Lewis nor quite possibly Bp Lopes appear to have made simple mistakes in this area. They placed parishioners at risk by disregarding policy and the instructions of civil authorities.

Let's Take A Closer Look At Fr Mark Lewis

In a prior post, before one of his parishioners caught COVID-19, likely from conditions at the Our Lady of the Atonement parish, during mass there when Fr Lewis continued to hold it against ordinariate guidance, diocesan policy, and civil guidelines, I recommended that Fr Lewis have someone take down his letter to the parish of March 12 from the OLA Facebook page. After all, its contents were embarrassing, and it had been overtaken by events. Well, it's still up on Facebook, but at least he doesn't have his letter to the parish from March 19 up, in which he informs them that the parishioner caught the virus, but that one got to the media anyhow.

So for the record, here's the full letter from March 12 (click on the images for a larger copy):

Several parishioners over the past week have noted the remarks in the bullet points halfway down the page:

Should you feel the need:

• Hand sanitizers will be placed in the narthex. Please feel free to use them.
• Our facilities are thoroughly cleaned/sanitized on a daily basis. If you have concerns about a clean/sanitized facility, I invite you to come on Saturdays at 10:30 am to sanitize the church and restrooms. Please purchase Clorox wipes and bring them with you. . . .
• The most commonly heard concern is about contracting the virus via the reception of Holy Communion. There will be no changes in the way the Body and Blood of Our Lord is distributed.

I can't help but think of the title an editor put on an episode of a recent true crime show -- maybe he'd been reading too many pulp detective stories -- "My Way or the Dead Way". That's kind of the message Fr Lewis is sending us in this letter. With a sneer that he doesn't even bother to conceal, he accuses those who've urged more prudent counsel -- and it's clear from his remarks that some have done this -- of false delicacy.

I would suggest that the people who felt uncomfortable enough with Fr Lewis's course to bring it up with him can't have been given a clearer message that OLA is not their parish. Fr Lewis strikes me as a distinctly unpleasant man -- why would I want anything to do with him?

But this goes to the overall problem Anglicanorum coetibus has given the Church: Fr Lewis is the best it's been able to recruit from the ranks of Protestant clergy, although I know a number of Protestant pastors who are far more tactful, and indeed just pastoral, than Fr Lewis is here. Given he was sent to one of the most prestigious parishes in the ordinariate to replace Fr Phillips, he must be close to the best of the bunch.

My regular correspondent has looked at his background to the extent information can be found on line. The most prominent detail is that he attended seminary -- Nashotah House -- only at age 40, which makes him a delayed vocation. I recall observations made of Episcopal clergy from decades ago that so many discerned vocations later in life, after they'd tried other fields that didn't work out for them. The problem was, in these observations, that the Episcopalian priesthood carried no guarantee that that field would work out any better than the others.

It looks as though, for not a few ordinariate priests, that Episcopal careers didn't work out, either, and the ordinariate was a last step before going into fast food work.

My regular correspondent outlines his bio:

My research has not yet turned up what he did between graduating from Mt St Mary’s University, presumably at the usual age, and attending Nashotah House at 40. He was ordained for the former TEC diocese of Quincy, a rather troubled spot, and then served as the curate of a small church in Whitehall, PA for about five years before becoming rector of the small parish of St Luke, Bladensburg in 2006. As we have discussed, whatever his pastoral gifts, his stewardship of the parish left something to be desired, as we read here.

Msgr Steenson apparently thought highly enough of him to make him vicar forane of the non-existent Eastern Deanery of the OCSP, but St Luke’s seems to have had a challenging time even after its move to Immaculate Conception, DC; as you can see here on page 3. The arrangement whereby the parish would be combined with a diocesan parish under the leadership of the Ordinariate pastor was already being considered. Certainly taking over OLA was a major step up from anything Fr Lewis had previously been responsible for, at least as a clergyman. The talent pool in the OCSP is very shallow.

And that's the dilemma. Fr Lewis is among the best Bp Lopes has to choose from, and although a pastor or rector who'd embarrassed the parish and the bishop so badly might be fired by the vestry or removed by the bishop in a well-functioning TEC or Catholic diocese, his replacement in the ordinariate would simply be even more disastrous.

Ordinariate members need to back off, reassess, and recalibrate. As observers are beginning to note about our current crisis, many things are likely not to be the same.

Our Lady Of The Atonement Parishioner Tests Positive For COVID-19 After March 15 Mass

Several visitors have sent me a link to this story in San Antonio media:

A parishioner at Our Lady of The Atonement Catholic Church tested positive for COVID-19, according to a letter to the congregation from Rev. Mark Lewis.

The individual, who is now self-quarantined, had attended Mass on Sat., March 14 at 10 a.m. and on Sun., March 15 at 11 a.m.

The person's symptoms "seem to indicate the exposure was recent," Lewis wrote on Thursday.

Lewis, the pastor at the Northwest Side church, said he was informed Thursday afternoon that a parent of a student at The Atonement Academy had tested positive for the virus. The Academy is a private, K-12 school attached to the church.

It's worth pointing out that although a direct cause of the infection can't be absolutely attributed to the mass, Bp Lopes instructed his clergy via a March 11 e-mail to follow local diocesan protocol, and Abp Gustavo canceled all San Antonio public masses on March 13. In addition, since the OLA masses were the only ones in San Antonio that weekend, an observer noted that the numbers attending appeared to violate local civil guidelines on public meetings as well.

Also, Fr Lewis had rather defiantly informed the parish that reception of the Sacrament via intinction, which offers no alternative to receiving on the tongue, would continue, and this would have been the practice in the masses on March 14 and 15. A visitor commented,

I'm worried now, my husband and I were at the same Mass on Sunday as this person, but we're not parishioners.

So Fr Lewis acted with disregard for the safety not only of his parishioners but also of Catholics in the local diocese, who attended mass at OLA from misguided good intentions. This simply does not reflect well on Fr Lewis or Bp Lopes. who by his admission resisted canceling masses until March 18 and presumably looked the other way when Fr Lewis disregarded the iffy guidelines from his bishop, as well as those of the civil authorities.

My wife and I did attend mass at our Los Angeles archdiocesan parish on March 15. However, the parish had suspended reception of wine some weeks earlier and as of that weekend suspended reception on the tongue. In addition, those in attendance were within local civil guidelines of fewer than 50 and were seated at a prudent social distance. Neither of us has shown symptoms. Our archdiocese canceled all public masses a day or two later.

According to the CDC, symptoms of COVID-19 include fever, cough, and shortness of breath.

How Will The Lockdowns Affect The Ordinariate?

Since religious services across all denominations are now effectively "public gatherings", they've largely been canceled until further notice. There are numerous Catholic options for daily and Sunday mass on line or on EWTN, including a daily mass from Bp Barron's private chapel conducted by Word on Fire clergy. Some of the orders are also providing additional devotional materials during this period.

However, a major issue is that no mass means no offering. Each Sunday mass collection is nominally about 2% of a parish's income total from this source, although Christmas and Easter are major ingatherings that can save a budget. But it's by no means certain that lockdowns, often the responsibility of state/provincial or local authorities, will be lifted by Holy Week.

It's generally recognized that lockdowns will have a massive economic effect in coming months. All denominations will be affected, especially if they don't receive normal sabbath offerings.

One possible mitigation, which so far I'm not seeing, is for bishops and pastors to issue urgent requests that parishioners mail in their normal pledges, pay them on line where facilities exist for this, or set up regular deductions to pay the parish. This would be good practice for anyone, including ordinariate members. But again, there's no mention of mass cancellations at all, nor any request that members consider keeping up their pledges via mail or on line, as of this morning on the ordinariate website.

But even this won't fully mitigate what will certainly be a major financial hit for nearly every parish, and although regular members will eventually get caught up, the budgeted amounts that parishes expected from Sunday pledges will probably never quite materialize over the rest of the year.

A number of ordinariate parishes are in precarious financial positions. I question whether all of the smaller groups will survive the lockdowns as well. Among other things, it will be hard for priests who don't have a solid online presence to keep such groups together over a longer period, or to maintain whatever minimal activities their pledges support. My regular correspondent notes,

I assume there will be some flexibility regarding mortgage payments, at least in the short run. But Fr Kenyon is supporting his family on diocesan supply work, now in hiatus. Presumably clergy with regular diocesan appointments will continue to be paid, but the full-time pastors of full parishes will quickly feel the bite. Not to mention the loss of energy and momentum in the Ordinariate as a whole. The worst possible time for Bp Lopes to be hors de combat. Hope his salary is endowed.

My regular correspondent notes that there is now a link to a letter from Fr Hough IV, variously referred to as the Dean, Rector, and Pastor of the Our Lady of Walsingham cathedral, that essentially just repeats the text of the e-mails Bp Lopes has sent to his clergy. The policy appears to be that any communication with faithful in the ordinariate is to go via priests and not the bishop, though this is certainly not what other bishops have done in the current crisis.

There is no mention in that letter urging parishioners to find other ways to submit their pledges than the Sunday basket.

I would guess, though, that Bp Lopes's public silence comes on the heels of whatever pressure he'd been feeling before the lockdowns that may have distracted him to the point that he fell off his attic ladder. especially if the status of the OCSP had been under some sort of review. The new, very serious, financial challenges to individual parishes and the Houston chancery will only exacerbate existing problems.

Updates And Comments

I see via a Facebook post at the St Mary the Virgin site that Bp Lopes has suspended the celebration of public mass is in the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter. The Facebook post quotes the bishop's letter:

Let me first acknowledge the heaviness of heart that I feel in “canceling Mass.” As a pastor myself, I grieve for our people who feel themselves denied the intimacy of Our Lord’s presence in Holy Communion. But let us also be clear: our action now in suspending Mass is a pastoral response! We are caring for our most vulnerable parishioners in this way. I know many of you have creatively tried—I have tried!—to keep Mass available for as long as possible. But the time has come for this pandemic to run its course and for all of us to follow the guidance of the experts.

However, from what I'm told, this letter was addressed only to clergy, and how clergy will spread the news to their parishes isn't consistent. And this leaves out the "members" of the ordinariate who aren't in parishes but are registered in Houston and receive the Ordinariate Observer and mail for the bishop's appeal. We must assume they attend mass at diocesan parishes, which by now are mostly closed, but there's so far been no general announcement that the bishop has commuted their mass obligation, As of this morning, the ordinariate website still carries no news on the shutdown.

Regarding the dialogue with Peter Smith on the ordinariate informal discussion Facebook forum that I excerpted yesterday, a visitor noted, "A communications director would not earn $100k, not in Texas." Beyond that, in any small organization, staff wear multiple hats. Updating news on a website requires a minimal level of technical ability and familiarity with basic grammar and style. News items would be prepared subject to review in any case. This is all within an administrative assistant's skill set -- such a person would not have to have a director of corporate communications position on his resume.

In that context, another visitor commented,

Remember Bishop Lopes said at some point that there really was no blueprint for the Ordinariate to follow? They then decided to act as though they were not like a regular diocese and now they are attempting to reinvent the wheel regarding dispensing the faithful from the obligation to attend Sunday Mass.

After reading a few of your recent posts. I'm reminded of a facetious saying which goes something like

The Lambeth Conference is considering a resolution to consider creating a study group, to study a potential working group to consider work on creating a commission to possibly explore a document explaining a potential theology of water.

The above is indicative of the Ordinariate in these times of Coronavirus... There needs to be no discussion, conversation or parsing of words. His Excellency could sign a decree that says in short,

I Steven Lopes, Ordinary of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter hereby grant a dispensation to the faithful of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter from the obligation to attend Sunday Mass and any up coming Holy Days of obligation.

I do this in accordance with Canon Law specifically [Insert Canons relating to the local ordinary’s ability to issue dispensations here]. The duration of this dispensation is [insert length of time or time frame for revisiting the decree].

I encourage the faithful of the Ordinariate to exercise acts of piety and charity, along with fasting and abstinence as they are able. I expect the clergy of the Ordinariate to offer private masses for the Universal Church and to implore the mercy of God the Almighty.

In Christ,

+Steven Lopes
Ordinary of the Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter

Since they clearly don’t have a writer among them, perhaps the above might work as a good template. How they would post it to the OCSP website is another matter since clearly the password to the program to make website edits and changes was not shared with current staff.

The whole thing about commuting the obligation and other stuff is superfluous, in my 37 years as a Catholic I’ve never seen ANYONE from a diocese write that... Who ever is coming up with this stuff has no idea about what they are doing. This dispensation is no different than a natural disaster (snowstorm, tornado, flood, hurricane, earthquake). . .

It sounds as though Bp Lopes has been doing his job only belatedly -- he canceled mass fully a week after diocesan bishops began doing this, at a time when it had become nearly universal. The reference in his most recent letter to having "tried" to keep mass available suggests he finally did it only under pressure. And as yet, he's still made no announcement for the benefit of ordinariate members not in parishes or who haven't heard from their priests.

And again, even if Bp Lopes's medical situation made it impossible to address these matters himself, his vicar general should have taken the initiative, certainly subject to the bishop's approval from his sickbed, to fill in. Instead, Fr Perkins appears to have sheltered in place and self-quarantined. But that seems to be what he does anyhow, pandemic or not.

It concerns me that from all appearances, nobody in that organization has a basic competence in his job.

UPDATE: My regular correspondent comments, "Nothing on the Our Lady of Walsingham, Houston site about coronavirus. Mass schedule posted as usual. Last Sunday’s bulletin has nary a mention of any developing situation. No one has been updated on situation regarding the Chrism Mass scheduled in Houston for early April." The parish has ten lay employees plus clergy.

Vignettes Of The Ordinariate During The Lockdown

The effect of the near-universal public health measures in the US and Canada has sometimes been unintentionally revealing for the ordinariate. My regular correspondent sent me a screen shot of a thread on the Facebook ordinariate informal conversation forum from yesterday afternoon (click on the image for a larger version):

My regular correspondent adds this background;

Fr Sellers was originally the (unpaid) Communications Director of the OCSP. He was pretty incompetent, but at least he held the brief. Then he was replaced with a professional—-full-time, for a while, and then on a contract basis. Why did someone decide that this was no longer a priority? The Chancery staff has expanded. Bp Lopes’ former Executive Assistant is still on staff in a new capacity. But no Communications Director.

Beyond the chancery staff, I'm told that there are an additional ten lay employees of the Our Lady of Walsingham parish. As of this morning, there is still no update on the ordinariate website. The most recent news item is from February 21 covering the Solemnity of the Chair of Saint Peter the Apostle. The dialogue in the thread is amusing: Peter Smith, whom I would characterize with Mrs Gyapong as an ordinariate narcissist, insists that the website can't be updated because there's no communications director.

Er, who put the February 21 news item up, regardless of title? In response to three participants who suggest someone ought to do it anyhow, Mr Smith insists that a person earning $100,000 a year is needed and seems to be oblivious to a suggestion that Mr Smith, an amateur writer himself, might volunteer for the task. While Mr Smith attributes the lack of updates on the website to the unwillingness of donors to fund a full-time flack, nobody brings up the fact that dioceses do in fact have the resources -- isn't this a recommendation for simply registering at a diocesan parish across town?

Another interesting case is Fr Lewis's letter to the Our Lady of the Atonement parish dated March 12, presumably based on Bp Lopes's e-mail to clergy from the day before. Both this letter and Bp Lopes's e-mail have, of course, been superseded, but page 2 of the letter, still up on the parish website, provides another example of ordinariate narcissism:

Reception in the hand, though allowed by the Church, is problematic. Great care has been taken at Our Lady of the Atonement over the years to preserve the ancient tradition of kneeling and receiving on the tongue. There are great theological reasons for such reception. I would b more than glad to speak with you about this matter.

In the preceding paragraph on page 1, he sneers, "You are not obligated to receive. . . . Maybe you could offer your sacrifice up for the salvation of souls." Ah, this takes me back to Fr Bob Oliver at St James Episcopal, the same grand condescension to the benighted among us and one reason I left TEC 30 years later.

There are, of course, great theological reasons why Anglicans are schismatics. Fr Lewis made his career as a schismatic and only came to the Catholic Church in middle age -- but now he's more Catholic than the pope, more than glad to explain to anyone how the USCCB has it all wrong. As of Monday, of course, it appears that the USCCB had a thing or two to explain to both Fr Lewis and Bp Lopes. A communication specialist really ought to take that snotty letter off the OLA facebook page.

A vistior comments,

I continue to follow your blog with interest. This matter of who is running this show is a fascinating question.

Diocesan bishops are in fact taking visible and inspiring leadership roles in the current crisis. On March 13, Abp Gómez of Los Angeles, president of the USCCB, issued a statement that said in part,

God does not abandon us, he goes with us even now in this time of trial and testing. In this moment, it is important for us to anchor our hearts in the hope that we have in Jesus Christ. Now is the time to intensify our prayers and sacrifices for the love of God and the love of our neighbor. Let us draw closer to one another in our love for him, and rediscover the things that truly matter in our lives.

The Dioces of Orange, CA has a full-screen announcement on its website on current status. The Diocese of Spokane, WA has a prominent link. The Diocese of Peoria, IL has a message from the bishop on the home page. The Archdiocese of Halifax-Yarmouth, NS has links to statements from the archbishop and the CCCB. As of today, no such message appears on the ordinariate website. If the bishop is incapable of drafting one, or asking someone to draft one, his vicar general appears to have neither the authority nor the initiative to do such a thing himself.

Who's running the show?

Houston Makes A Quick U-Turn

E-mails from Houston intended for ordinariate clergy continue to make their way into my in-box. Again, I want to stress that these are arriving via multiple third parties and have not been forwarded to me by any clergy of any prelature or denomination. I have no knowledge of which original recipients may have inadvertently let them out.

The first is from J Henry, Bp Lopes's secretary, dated Sunday, March 15, the tone of which indicates that there must have been considerable disarray in Houston on a day which normally would have been of rest. Click on the image for a larger view:

It's hard to avoid the impression that the guidance Bp Lopes gave in the e-mail referred to here, and which I quoted Sunday, was overtaken by events, certainly by Friday, when many important dioceses suspended the mass obligation and often canceled public masses. Yet in response, the only authoritative word from Bp Lopes remained, "It is impossible to account for every local recommendation or eventuality. I will not require Masses or the celebration of Sacraments to be suspended."

Can there be any surprise that there would be urgent requests for more specific guidance from Bp Lopes's clergy? Even so, J Henry is clearly annoyed that such would be the case. (Again, he seems to have bypassed the vicar general here, who would be in the normal chain of command in the event of the bishop's indisposition. Was Fr Perkins also indisposed?)

I also received the text of the e-mail dated February 16, to which J Henry refers above, from a second source. Here it is:

"Praised be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation. At this time when the faithful need to maintain some degree of equilibrium in the midst of the current health crisis brought on by COVID-19, we pastors assist them by speaking calmly, clearly, and always from the perspective of faith.

Since I first wrote to you about this crisis several days ago, the situation has developed dramatically. As much as we would like to help, it is not possible to consult with you individually about every parochial response to this developing situation. Nevertheless, for the pastoral good of our faithful, I wish to communicate the following guidelines, acknowledging that these may change as the response to the virus develops:

1) The Eucharistic liturgy is the source and summit of the Church’s life. As the federal and local governments issue new guidelines, the question of the public celebration Mass of Mass comes to the fore.

a. Priests may celebrate Mass in their churches at the posted times, though with a private character. Pastors should consider suspending the distribution of Holy Communion.
b. In those circumstances where the Ordinariate community uses space belonging to the local diocese, that diocesan policy and procedure governs the Ordinariate community as well.
c. In those circumstances where the Ordinariate parish owns its own church or liturgical space, the local Pastor should make his determination prudently and with due regard for the policies and recommendations of the local Church.

2) As indicated in yesterday’s communication from Mr. Weber, the obligation to attend Mass in the Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter is commuted on Sunday, March 22 and March 29. This means that the Sunday obligation of the Christian faithful is met through one of the two following pious practices:

a. Prayerful reflection upon the Sunday Scripture readings, concluding that time by the recitation of the Prayer of Humble Access or the Anima Christi;
b. The recitation of the Rosary as a family.

3) The following individuals are encouraged to remain at home and not attend Mass on March 22and 29:

a. Those who are currently ill;
b. Those who are suffering from a chronic health condition;
c. Those whose immune system is compromised;
d. Those who are over the age of 65;
e. Those who are uncomfortable attending Sunday Mass due to concerns over the Coronavirus.

4) The federal government has asked us to severely limit public gatherings. For the next two weeks, all such gatherings should therefore be suspended. These include: religious education classes, coffee hour, fellowship after Mass, as well as Lenten events such as communal Penance services and Stations of the Cross.

Finally, in view of his coming feast, let us pray to St. Joseph for our parishes and indeed for all people of good will, that we be delivered safely from this scourge.

St. Joseph, Patron of the Universal Church, Pray for us!

Sincerely in Christ,

+Steven J. Lopes"

Two San Antonio Catholics have indicated that the masses celebrated by Fr Lewis at Our Lady of the Atonement on March 15 did not follow these guidelines, especially as civil authorities there have asked that public gatherings now be no more than 50 people. Had J Henry and the bishop been maintaining situational awareness of the policy changes adopted by US bishops as of March 13, as normal conscientiousness would require, the guidance Bp Lopes belatedly issued yesterday would have been in place by the weekend, and poor J Henry's annoyance that the bishop was being bothered could have been avoided.

In his e-mail, J Henry basically pleads the bishop's indisposition for this matter not being promptly addressed. Again, since Houston was fully aware of the bishop's condition for fully three weeks, I have a hard time understanding how Fr Perkins, as vicar general, did not come to recognize what his role should be in these constantly changing and critical circumstances. This in turn leads to what kind of an organization Bp Lopes has created and tolerates, especially given the tone of annoyance J Henry clearly displays that any such matters would need to be addressed at all.

I think the most charitable explanation here is that Bp Lopes's medications and physical condition place him in a state where he is not fully able to maintain situational awareness, when a state of civic emergency requires this. Since circumstances will inevitably be changing on a daily basis for the foreseeable future, and since Fr Perkins may not be capable of adapting to such a new environment --- and since J Henry is clearly annoyed at it -- I'm wondering what measures the Church may need to undertake here.

UPDATE: There is a letter on the OLA Facebook page dated March 16 from Fr Lewis commuting he Sunday mass obligation for March 22 and 29. This is an abbreviated version of the e-mail quoted above. It's hard to avoid thinking Abp Gustavo had input into this development.

The Only Mass In San Antonio!

As I covered in yesterday's post, Bp Lopes gave a less than clear policy guidance to his clergy regarding whether to cancel masses during the pandemic. The operant passage in his memo was

I will not require Masses or the celebration of Sacraments to be suspended. The general rule and best practice is to keep informed and follow local diocesan protocol. Please send an e-mail to Fr. Perkins, and cc Laurie to let him know if you have cancelled Masses according to local protocol and the duration of time they will be cancelled.

In San Antonio, Abp Gustavo issued a decree dispensing Sunday mass obligation and suspending masses in the diocese at least through March 31. I've heard, though, from two San Antonio Catholics who said that on one hand, there was no announcement of any sort on the Our Lady of the Atonement web page, and in fact OLA did hold masses -- the only masses in San Antonio, as one informed me.

So Bp Lopes issued a sorta-kinda policy, but not really, as long as Fr Lewis left a message with Laurie or something.

I have some reflections. Bp Lopes himself in his e-mail said

[CCC] §2181 states: “The Sunday Eucharist is the foundation and confirmation of all Christian practice. For this reason the faithful are obliged to participate in the Eucharist on days of obligation, unless excused for a serious reason (for example, illness, the care of infants) or dispensed by their own pastor. Those who deliberately fail in this obligation commit a grave sin

The bishops who suspend masses also dispense their faithful from the Sunday mass obligation in the same announcement. But Bp Lopes has made no general announcement on ordinariate policy. Instead, he's explicitly told his priests he won't suspend masses, and he's issued no decree dispensing obligations. How does this apply to ordinariate members who regularly attend mass at now-closed diocesan parishes?

And since there's no general policy in Bp Lopes's "diocese" on suspending mass, this leaves the faithful in a state of uncertainty. The local bishop, for instance, will have dispensed his diocese from the obligation, but ordinariate masses that are canceled in response to local practice won't have their faithful dispensed in the same way. Shouldn't Bp Lopes, as the bishop of those faithful, make things clearer in the same way the local bishops publish their dispensations?

Next, I wonder about the appearances here: Abp Gustavo suspends masses. Bp Lopes allows Fr Lewis to continue to hold them. This turns out to be the only mass in San Antonio. What does this do for relations between the ordinariate and the archdiocese? Also, a visitor noted that San Antonio civil authorities have banned gatherings of 500 or more. But the OLA mass. as the only one in town, attracted more people than usual, which in the visitor's judgment may have put the mass over the limit. What are the implications there? Does anyone in Houston care? (I betcha Abp Gustavo will also have a reaction.)

And let's take up the question of communion in the hand. Bp Lopes's instruction is that, although local dioceses have suspended communion on the tongue, the ordinariate is going to push on with it -- indeed, I believe OLA administers the Sacrament by intinction, no exceptions. This strikes me as problematic from a best-practices point of view -- the advice from health authorities is to avoid contact, direct or indirect, between other people's hands and your face. But with intinction, the priest or deacon is dipping the Host into the wine -- certainly a humid environment -- and then pressing the Host onto the communicant's tongue.

At our parish, probably more than half have been receiving on the tongue, and contact between the EM's fingers and the communicant's tongue or face, unavoidable practically speaking, is pretty common. For the duration, reception on the tongue has been suspended at our parish. This seems like ordinary prudence and even charity toward the faithful. But Bp Lopes says push on! How will this play, not only with local bishops, but with the health authorities?

Someone will say the pastor can announce prior to the distribution that those who do not wish to receive the Sacrament on the tongue are free to remain in the pew or come forward for a blessing. But in that case, why come to mass physically at all? You'll get the same benefit by watching mass on TV, which is what the bishops and other Catholic spokesman are telling the faithful to do in any case.

The message being sent by Houston strikes me as passive-aggressive in the best Vaughn Treco style -- celebrate the hospital masses ad orientem, no matter it upsets the sisters who run the place. That served both poor Treco and the ordinariate counterproductively, it seems to me. No matter what the local bishop does, if you want to do things otherwise, screw the guy and go ahead. No matter how bad it looks, even if communion in the hand is licit and much healthier, screw 'em, don't mess with controversy, just tell 'em it's your way or the highway!

And if anyone genuinely wants to know the ordinariate's policy on masses in the pandemic, screw 'em! Follow the local bishop, or not, as the case may be! Questions? Just don't bother us in Houston! We're busy!

I wonder if Bp Lopes's pain meds or whatever else may be affecting his judgment.

Do Anglicans Believe In The Real Presence?

My remarks in Thursday's post about the XXXIX Articles and the Real Presence drew some pushback from my regular correspondent. This in turn brings up the issue of Bp Barron's response to the recent Pew survey that claims two-thirds of Catholics do not believe in the Real Presence.

Bp Barron immediately changed the topic of his upcoming address to the Religious Education Congress to the Real Presence. On the other hand, he's a highly intelligent man, and I suspect questions like sample size or even what the Pew survey called a "catholic" occurred to him. Nevertheless, he felt called to re-emphasize the doctrine. The Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, well, not so much. In fact, there would be a major flap if he did. At least nobody denounced Bp Barron for being non-inclusive, huh? But there's a start on the Anglican position.

My regular correspondent said,

The requirement for Church of Emgland clergy to subscribe to the 39 Articles was toned down in the 19th century. Rites which imply a belief in the Real Presence—-Reservation., Adoration, Benediction, a “watch” from Holy Thursday to Good Friday, Corpus Christi parades, etc have been part of the Anglo-Catholic movement for at least 150 years. There are propers for Corpus Christi in the latest edition of Common Worship, one of the official worship texts of the Church of England. So I do not think that belief in the Real Presence is just a symptom of disciplinary laxity in the Anglican world.

Well, since we're mostly in the jurisdiction of the North American ordinariate among visitors here, and they're coming from North American Anglican jurisdictions in most cases, I think it's easiest to refer to TEC, the ACC, and the ACNA. I would say that at least in the case of TEC, belief in the Real Presence is tolerated but certainly not compulsory. The 1979 BCP made the XXXIX Articles a "Historical Document of the Church", thus distancing itself from them.

However, continued reliance on the Articles as a credal stateemnt is generally regarded as a litmus for Low Church Anglicanism, which definitely continues. The ACNA is generally regarded as a Low Church movement. The "continuing" groups use the 1928 BCP, which places the Articles more integrally as a credal statement.

In addition, until recent decades and at least since the late 19th century, The Episcopal Church has not enforced doctrine of any sort. The closest it came was with Bp James Pike, who denied the Trinity in public statements and began his homilies with "in the name of God the Father". He resigned as bishop under the threat of a heresy trial but was basically prevailed on to withdraw in order to limit controversy, so there was never actual enforcement.

A continued policy of non-enforcement emerged from the 1990s Righter trial, in which a bishop was acquitted of canonical violation for ordaining an actively gay and same-sex partnered candidate. But this was far from traditional questions of doctrine like the Real Presence. If Bp Love is convicted in his upcoming trial of refusing to perform same-sex marriage, this will be a matter of actively enforcing a new doctrine, while one would assume TEC would never consider enforcing or not enforcing any doctrine regarding the Real Presence, or for that matter the Trinity or the Incarnation.

Whether Anglo-Catholic parishes celebrate a Corpus Christi liturgy, reserve the Sacrament, elevate it, or make any effort to mop up spilled wine isn't really a question, as this is entirely a matter of style, rather than active belief. There's simply an element of camp in Anglo-Catholic celebration.

Beyond that, the discovery of King Tut's tomb had an immense effect on Western architecture and style that continues today. Adoption of ancient Egyptian style, profoundly religious in its implication, nevertheless carries no doctrinal importance for those who visit, say, the Los Angeles Public Library-- its architect, Bertram Goodhue, was inspired by Gothic churches until he changed to King Tut.

So why has Bp Lopes never felt, like Bp Barron, the need to emphasize the Real Presence?

Ordinariate 2020 Bishop's Appeal

A visitor very kindly sent me by snail mail a copy of the ordinariate's 2020 Bishop's Appeal pitch. Interestingly, he also included the pledge card and return envelope, which either suggests he had a second copy that he planned to return himself, or that he had no need of it, or that perhaps it might move me to soften my unwillingness to pledge myself for this great project. I report, you decide. Click on the image for a larger version.

I notice that Houston is now officially calling itself a "diocese", where in the past, the usage had been "the ordinariate is like a diocese". But again this year, the bishop's appeal is nothing like an ordinary diocesan bishop's appeal, in which wealthier parishes are expected to provide mission support to poorer parishes and schools, as well as charities supported by the bishop. Instead, this year's goal of $300,000 will go entirely to support the Houston chancery and seminarians once again.

In fact, I think some of the designations are misleading.

• "Communications Outreach, $45,000": Very little communication actually comes out of Houston. At best, I think there are one or two issues of the Ordinariate Observer each year. Bp Lopes issues almost no pastoral letters -- certainly there was no Lent letter this year, and so far, there's been no general letter to the ordinariate faithful on his indisposition, although he's told clergy he'll be out through May. The latest brochure on the Holy Spirit has a major blooper in its title page and is otherwise poorly written. Clearly no competent communications professional was involved. Where's the $45K going?

• "Parish Development, $120,000": The head says "parish", but the body says "chancery" right away, which is much more accurate. The money is going to maintain the lifestyles of a few unproductive drones in Houston, pure and simple. As far as anyone can determine, these people do little or nothing, but when they put their hands to it, as in the case of Canadian tax deductions for donations, they do it wrong, and clergy must make corrections themselves. Can we get a breakdown of where this money goes and to whose salaries? A question I have is whether, with the bishop out of commission, anything noticeable at all is getting done in the chancery.

• "Evangelization, $30,000": Well, the description sorta backs off this right away: it's the bishop's travel expenses. The bishop is flying, almost certainly first class, across his "diocese", or maybe more accurately will be flying again once he recovers what he's recovering from. Although territorial bishops do fly to Rome or other conferences, they'll mostly be driven within their dioceses. Wouldn't an appeal for this amount come off much, much better if Bp Lopes were to come out and say he flies coach? Especially if he actually does?

Another point people have been educating me on is that a real diocese has functions like an education department, a building department, experienced vocation directors who are priests, and many others, that Houston doesn't have. Parish clergy in real dioceses can turn to these departments for help, and they also gain experience working at parishes with schools and other full functions, and they can network with other experienced clergy. None of this is available in the Houston chancery, where any counsel people may provide there is probably worse than none at all.

So beyond the fact that real dioceses fund all these functions from their normal budget, with the bishop's appeal going to parishes, schools, and charities instead of bureaucracy, the funds that are sent to the Houston bishop's appeal are going to sustain a corrupt group of idlers.

According to the USCCB,

What identifies a steward? Safeguarding material and human resources and using them responsibly are one answer; so is generous giving of time, talent, and treasure. But being a Christian steward means more. As Christian stewards, we receive God's gifts gratefully, cultivate them responsibly, share them lovingly in justice with others, and return them with increase to the Lord.

I think ordinariate members who are serious about being stewards need to make greater efforts to hold their clergy and their bishop accountable for effective stewardhsip.