A Few Questions About The Lehigh Valley Ordinariate Group

Various questions kept popping into my head after yesterday's post on the restart of the Lehigh Valley ordinariate group. The first is simply how it can pay for the priest's weekly visits. According to the announcement, "Fr. Hummel hails from our sister Parish to the south, St. John the Baptist, Bridgeport, from which he will travel north to minister to the mission congregation in Bethlehem." Bridgeport is 55 miles from Bethlehem via the Interstates, so it's a 110 mile round trip. The 2020 IRS reimbursement is 57.5 cents per mile, so the group owes Fr Hummel $63.25 a week in mileage alone, leaving stipend aside.

My regular correspondent comments,

You posted on this in August 2018. Fr Bergman continued to celebrate for the Bath group twice monthly until the new pastor of the Catholic church there ended that arrangement. The fact that they continued to have mass celebrated in private homes suggests that the group never grew to any size. Will be interesting to see if new arrangements result in a larger community.

Realistically, expenses plus stipend for the priest alone should run well into three figures per week. How can a group that could meet in front parlors cover that?

Also, it's seven miles from Bath, PA to Bethlehem. How many Catholic parishes are closer? And of these, how many offer a reverent OF mass and a music program? What's the draw of a tiny startup?

In part, we can't answer this, because we don't know who these people are, although Fr Bergman presumably does. Wouldn't this be the sort of profile we might expect to see in Ordinariate News, that is, if we were to see anything at all? Something like, "Herb Beatty and his wife Pat, longtime Episcopalians, wanted to become Catholic, but worried that they'd miss the thees and thous of Rite One even more than the magnificent organ and paid choir they knew they'd lose if they swam the Tiber. But together with 73 former parishioners at St Charles King and Martyr, they vowed to build. . ."

But we don't even know if the core group is former Anglican or traddy Catholic, or maybe just non-denominationals on the carousel.

It does appear that Pennsylvania COVID restrictions are more relaxed than in other areas, with churches allowed 75% occupancy, though the Sunday mass obligation is still dispensed, and communion in the hand is still "strongly recommended".

The Bethlehem group will have no problem staying under 75% capacity. Will it have an option of communion in the hand? It's anyone's guess, but I betcha there'll be a reception with "patrimonial" refreshments for the bishop's visit.

Ordinariate Group Restarts In The Lehigh Valley

A visitor sent me a link to the St Thomas More Scranton, PA newsletter, which says on page 4:

We are pleased to announce that Bishops Lopes and Schlert (of our Ordinariate and the Diocese of Allentown, respectively) have identified a new home for the congregation: the stunningly beautiful Holy Ghost Catholic Church in Bethlehem; moreover, worship will recommence with the Bishop’s visit at 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, August 16, and will proceed thereafter every week at that time. What’s more, by that time the group will have prayerfully selected a new name for itself, and will also be under the new leadership of the newly ordained Fr. Matthew Hummel. Fr. Hummel hails from our sister Parish to the south, St. John the Baptist, Bridgeport, from which he will travel north to minister to the mission congregation in Bethlehem. All of these developments portend an exciting future for our outpost in the Lehigh Valley!

All this effort to keep an apparently marginal group going. But there's no apparent interest in, say, northern New Jersey, the Pittsburgh area, or Harrisburg. It would be interesting to see insightful analysis from people familiar with Catholic evangelism on why this is, or isn't, the case.

The two identified markets are disgruntled conservative Anglicans and traditionalist cradle Catholics, but new groups in formation tend to be the projects of small families or cliques who in fact may not be in either group, and the projects never seem to grow beyond the small core group of founders.

Or is this wrong? And why is there so little growth even among the target markets, with many states and provinces having no ordinariate communities at all?

There's A Karen Bruce Society on Facebook!

The Urban Dictionary defines Karen as

The stereotypical name associated with rude, obnoxious and insufferable middle aged white women.

Karens take everything wrong with the typical over entitled western woman and crank it up by several thousand percent. They are a mutated subspecies that descends from the Soccer Mom, and have many of their traits. Such as a short temper, a crown bowl haircut, an unnecessarily large SUV to take her kids to soccer practice and be a menace on the road, etc etc. But Karens have developed their own unique characteristics /antics as well. Including but not limited to;

Reveling in making the life or retail workers a living hell by constantly making a scene over nothing and demanding to "speak to the manager" (a near universal battle cry among Karens).

There's now a Facebook group for the Kareen Bruce society, which takes the position that I'm a Karen. My regular correspondent points out that even if I were to demand to speak to the manager in Houston, they probably couldn't find the guy, so I'm not sure how well the parallel holds up.

My regular correspondent notes,

A recent creation from July 21—Christian Clay Columba Campbell looks like the ringleader—but lots of v angry people out there getting on board.

All quite sophomoric, of course. There are 29 members of the KB Society, including Frs Phillips, Catania, and Stainbrook. Do you want to know more, or do you have your own bot? In any event, a reliable indicator that your blog is hitting a sore spot. Of course human nature abhors a news vacuum, and Houston and its supporters have only themselves to blame for leaving the job of OCSP communication in your hands. The Ordinariate News is a more positive response than this FB page but it is a feeble, minimalist effort which has failed to attract any significant content. Mr Campbell is as you know SSPX and often makes snarky remarks about the OCSP on other fora. But he is loyal to some of the clergy you have exposed. The membership list/comments are quite weighted towards St Barnabas, Omaha, and the only three women members of the FB group are parishioners there

There’s no such thing as bad publicity.

Actually, my psychological makeup -- a certain resilience resulting from being a bit of a family "scapegoat", which formed a predisposition to blurt at inconvenient times -- has fostered a tendency to be this way since junior high school. (You can imagine.) In a different context, people on model train forums call me the "Unabrucie" for an essay I wrote. The Karen Bruce Society is free to adopt the name if they like.

Posting Will Be Delayed

I'm having some system issues, back in a few days, I hope!

John Milton Is Patrimonial!

My regular correspondent notesm

A fourth issue of Ordinariate News has made it up. It is now effectively the only item posted to the AC blog every week. This issue is, to my eye, free of spelling errors other than the fact that Fr Hunwicke’s name is misspelled, despite the fact that it is linked to a blog post by him which the writer must have looked at—-“Fr Hunwicke’s Mutual Enrichment” is of course the title of the blog—-just before he then went on to spell his name incorrectly as “Hunnicke.” Does show he knows how to pronounce it. But I’m glad the editor is not a journalist in real life. Apparently he is an employee of this organisation although a member of the Connecticut Ordinariate group.

Otherwise the content is extremely thin. Cycles of intercession and the readings for Morning and Evening Prayer, both available elsewhere on-line, fill the equivalent of one of the four pages, as do excerpts from “Patrimonial” writers, of whom I see Milton is regarded as one. At one point the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society blog, though never as full a source of specifically Ordinariate news as its predecessor, Ordinariate Expats, had items posted almost daily. Now it has dwindled to this feeble weekly puff sheet, which solicits only “good news” and evidently finds it in very short supply.

For the benefit of Mr Perry, Mrs Gyapong, and the other august members of the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society, John Milton (1608-1674) was for much of his life a radical Protestant pamphleteer and political propagandist, and during the Commonwealth period was Oliver Cromwell's Secretary for Foreign Tongues. Although best known as the author of Paradise Lost, according to Wikipedia, "Milton embraced many heterodox Christian theological views. He has been accused of rejecting the Trinity, believing instead that the Son was subordinate to the Father, a position known as Arianism; and his sympathy or curiosity was probably engaged by Socinianism[.]"

According to Wikipedia,

In February 1649, less than two weeks after Parliament executed Charles I, Milton published The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates to justify the action and to defend the government against the Presbyterians who initially voted for the regicide and later condemned it, and whose practices he believed were a "growing threat to freedom." Milton aimed to expose false reasoning from the opposition, citing scripture throughout the Tenure of Kings and Magistrates to counter biblical reference that would cast holy and public disapproval on Parliament's actions. Milton’s case was not that Charles I was guilty as charged, but that Parliament had the right to prosecute him.

So Milton wasn't Anglican, he wan't remotely Catholic, he was Calvinist except when he wasn't, his endorsement of the Creeds was shaky, but he's patrimonial. By this reasoning, we can almost say Marx and Engels were patrimonial, since after all they did live in England. How can we take these people seriously, and how can we take seriously their endorsement of Anglicanorum coetibus?

Nevada Church's Appeal Denied By US Supreme Court

On Friday, July 24, the US Supreme Court denied an application for injunctive relief in the case of Calvary Chapel Dayton Valley v Sisolak. This is a puzzling case to me, since the "usual suspect" public interest law firms weren't involved, and I haven't seen serious analysis of the arguments in the case, as opposed to summaries. As I've said here, every such case is different as to facts and issues, and it's a matter of interest to me why this case didn't get the support and publicity that the California cases seem to have.

The best-informed and most even-handed coverage seems to be here.

Earlier this month the church asked the justices to issue an order that would allow it to hold in-person worship services with as many as 90 people while it challenges the COVID-19 shutdown order issued by the state’s Democratic governor, Steve Sisolak. The order discriminates against places of worship, the church argued, because it limits services there to a maximum of 50 people while allowing casinos, gyms, bars and restaurants to operate at 50% of capacity. The church stressed that it is willing to comply with rules regarding masks and social distancing (both of which were largely absent from a photo included in the church’s brief, taken at a crowded Las Vegas casino on June 4); all that it was asking, it emphasized, was to be treated the same as everyone else.

The state pushed back against the church’s suggestion that casinos and churches should be treated the same. Unlike houses of worship, the state noted, casinos are “highly regulated” industries that face “significant punishment” if they do not comply with COVID-19 restrictions and can be shut down quickly during a second wave of the pandemic. Indeed, the state continued, under the COVID-19 restrictions religious services receive better treatment than similar mass gatherings like lectures, concerts, sporting events and plays. And in any event, the state concluded, Calvary could accommodate its entire congregation if it wanted to, simply by holding more services.

The court majority that denied the injunction did not issue any opinion, while the dissents by the conservative justices were generally predictable. As a result, it's hard to know what might happen in the California cases likely to reach the court in the near future. In general, the court seems inclined to give local authorities broad authority to enforce temporary emergency orders, provided the reasons for any differing treatment of churches are remotely credible. It's hard to disagree with this.

The First Amendment of the US Constitution reads, in part, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. . ." This is extended to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment. If a state passes a law specifically restricting religion, there's no problem. The difficulty seems to be in extra-legal administrative rules, emergency orders, executive actions, and the like that are meant to be temporary and have not passed through a legislative process.

It's unlikely that present circumstances will result in a case that presents a clear set of facts that can bring about a landmark decision, and my position here has always been that it's unrealistic to expect a court case to become a magic bullet that will solve the religious freedom issue for COVID-19, especially since the March-May lockdowns restricted natural and constitutional rights beyond just religious freedom.

The electoral process will be important as voters recognize that one party seems more aligned toward the protection of natural rights, while another is willing to limit natural rights to satisfy particular constituencies. Beyond that, we shouldn't minimize the effect of an enraged citizenry that finds restrictions on haircuts or de facto closing of schools intolerable, leaving church services aside. As I said yesterday, we're still in an early stage of working out the remedies.

Our pastor said in this week's bulletin,

So, what’s happening here? From the letter of James in the New Testament: “My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance.” Joy?? This brings to my mind the sufferings of St. Paul and how he endured all of his challenges with a smile on his face. Ahem … me? I got a long way to go.

Evangelical Pastor John MacArthur Defies Gov Newsom

I learned of Evangeligal pastor John MacArthur's statement that he will continue indoor services in opposition to California Gov Newsom's order via this post on the Instapundit blog, which is remarkable, since its proprietor and most of those who post there are secularist libertarians who owe more to Ayn Rand than any Christian writer.

Reynolds himself is a moderate Hefnerian whose beliefs are derived from the Playboy Philosophy as well as The Fountainhead. He is a prestigious law professor who won't hesitate to mention he went to Yale, though he has a comic book mind for all that. It's intriguing that a bunch of libertarians, most of whom haven't been to any church in decades, would find it worthwhile to link to an Evangelical pastor's stance on anything.

MacArthur's announcement was notable enough that a visitor sent me a link to its appearance on a different blog.

The announcement at MacArthur's church website is here. There's a link to the full text of the announcement.

Christ is Lord of all. He is the one true head of the church. . . . As His people, we are subject to His will and commands as revealed in Scripture. Therefore we cannot and will not acquiesce to a government-imposed moratorium on our weekly congregational worship[.]

. . . Insofar as government authorities do not attempt to assert ecclesiastical authority or issue orders that forbid our obedience to God’s law, their authority is to be obeyed whether we agree with their rulings or not. In other words, Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2 still bind the consciences of individual Christians. We are to obey our civil authorities as powers that God Himself has ordained.

This argument points to the US Constitution as reflective of God-given rights and is more or less acceptable as far as it goes, but of course MacArthur is an Evangelical, and he doesn't acknowledge any ecclesiastical authority beyond the individual parish, which for main line Protestants as well as Catholics is problematic.

MacArthur's statement has attracted some mildly stimulating comments on the blogs that linked to it. One on the Instapundit site approaches MacArthur's argument with a passing reference to Aquinas :

The situation reminds me of a famous Aquinas dictum to the effect that an unjust law -- one that restricts freedom without demonstrable intent to prohibit or punish a harm -- is a species of violence, not a law. In general, when one gets down to fighting over the lawfulness of a law, one is already outside the protective shield of proper behavior.

. . . In other words, stay away from the two kingdoms argument -- fundamentally because it is undesirable, unrealistic, and impossible to un-mix, to de-polymerize their fibers -- and focus instead on the geo-political phenomenology of anti-Christian animus and its consequences, such as actual lawlessness, actual hardship, actual harm and loss.

The reference to Aquinas reminded me of a favorable comment Bp Barron made on Dr King's Letter From Birmingham Jail, where Dr King says,

To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.

The problem with any reference to Aquinas on unjust law, though, is that the orders proclaiming lockdowns, or facial masks, or closing schools to in-person instruction, or no singing in church, or maintaining six feet of separation are not laws. They are temporary orders from a range of local authorities, governors, health directors, mayors, county executives, and others, often conflicting, and often purely arbitrary. They're imposed or relaxed based on recondite calculations, which Gov Newsom compares to a "dimmer switch".

The fact that they aren't laws passed by the relevant legislative authority is the main reason sheriffs and police chiefs have often publicly refused to enforce them. In fact, if thy're health department regulations, health departments have inspectors who normally enforce such things. If they're alcohol-related, the state alcohol board has its own inspectors, and so forth.

In cases like Wisconsin, Illinois, and Michigan, legislatures have gone through the courts to assert their authority to pass applicable laws, claiming that governors' emergency authorities cannot extend beyond circumscribed periods, and emergency directives can't be extended indefinitely.

As a result, we're in uncharted territory, since local jurisdictions from governor to county executive to mayor to city health director are imposing extra-legal constraints without specific legal authority, and thir ability to enforce them is as diverse as their individual jurisdiction.

And it can't even necessarily be argued, as the Instapundit commenter does, that these arbitrary constraints are bad because they're specifically anti-Christian. A lockdown that orders all people in "non-essential" jobs to stay home violates general human rights outside any specific one relating to freedom of worship. And these orders aren't temporary; various California legislators, as well as Mayor Garcetti, have been pressuring Gov Newsom to re-impose the full stay-at-home that was in effect from March through May.

This week, the mayor and the county health director are disposed to let us pursue our daily business, with restrictions, of course, Next week, they warn us, maybe not. The scope of the problem goes beyond whether the law is just or unjust. We're in a situation where representative government, consent of the governed, or the uniform applicability of any specific law is in question.

We're still in an early stage of working out the remedies.

Texas Sees Constitutional Problems With Requiring Remote Teaching In Religious Schools

According to this story,

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued a guidance letter to the state’s private religious schools on Friday [July 17] stating that they “need not comply” to recent local and county health orders barring in-person instruction until after Labor Day.

“As protected by the First Amendment and Texas law, religious private schools may continue to determine when it is safe for their communities to resume in-person instruction free from any government mandate or interference,” Paxton’s letter read. “Religious private schools therefore need not comply with local public health orders to the contrary.”

As I reported Saturday, California Gov Newsom has ordered both private and public schools in the state to provide only remote instruction at the start of the school year, with highly complex (and likely unachievable) criteria for any resumption of in-person instruction down the road. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles announced in a newsletter,

Although the archdiocese had planned to begin the school year with in-person instruction, the state's changing requirements have made that impossible.

. . . "We are being called to be hopeful, resilient, and faithful people. As one Catholic community, God calls us to come together once again for our children during difficult times. We will band together as we did in the spring because our Catholic schools are a gift — it’s where our students learn and love, and our families grow in faith and community,” said Paul Escala, Superintendent of the Department of Catholic Schools.

It appears that although Texas sees US constitutional grounds for not micromanaging religious schools, California doesn't. Although there might be grounds for a challenge, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles appears to be taking a strategy of weathering the storm, at least for now.

The clearest Catholic school policy statement I could find in Texas is from the Archdiocese of San Antonio in a letter dated July 17:

I am extremely proud of the work our school personnel have done this Summer to prepare for the difficult challenges of the upcoming school year. Although our remote learning efforts last Spring went exceptionally well, we have taken new lessons learned from that time to strengthen our plans moving forward.

. . . We have heard some comments such as, “If schools open remotely, we will go to public schools because of the tuition.” It is a challenging reality we face that if families choose the “free” option of remote learning during this time, we may not have the same number of Catholic schools in operation to return to when this crisis is over. This is the time to commit to what we value in our faith-based education. Although academic programming remains a high priority, coming together as a community of faith remains at the heart of what we do.

I read the letter to mean that although some parents may be nervous about in-person learning, this is pretty much what the archdiocese is committed to accomplish. I note that while the Atonement Academy, the only ordinariate school, is not part of the Archdiocese of San Antonio, it does intend to reopen for in-person classes.

Texas and California are in similar circumstances over COVID, with increasing "cases" (an ambiguous term referring to tests that may reflect either infection or the presence of antibodies, but likely without symptoms), though "peaks" in both cases are probably related to the authorities' tacit encouragement of mass protests over the past two months.

However, only California has extended an order for remote instruction to religious schools, which is an indication of the arbitrary and highly political nature of local response to the "pandemic".

It's likely that pushback will come from parents. One of my wife's friends has spirited her daughter to Nevada so she can qualify for normal college admission procedures, for example. School athletic programs, canceled if remote learning is required, are nevertheless key to college admission plans or possible career interests in many cases. In St Louis:

On July 6th following four months of closures, St. Louis County officials under the leadership of Sam Page allowed sports leagues to begin practices.

Then on Monday St. Louis County Executive Sam Page shut down youth sports . And, Sam Page shut down all sports contest in the county in this autumn season. Sam Page says the science of it. But he will not provide any data on his data to parents that are local. Nowadays hundreds and possibly thousands of St. Louis region parents are demanding that the County Commissioner supply them information on local coronavirus amounts or they will sue the county Friday.

The outcome I expect is that there will be more and more organized response to on again-off again regulation-by-whim, based on spurious "science", by citizens whose lives are directly affected. The odd thing is that in most parts of the US, probably now including California, the Democrats have lost a majority of the Catholic vote, which they could once rely on.

"Sounds Like A Carbon Copy Of Our Lady Of The Atonement"

A San Antonio visitor commented,

Concerning St. Barnabas in Nebraska, your blog posting for July 22nd sounds like a carbon copy of Our Lady Of The Atonemen in San Antonio, TX. A few Episcopalians (about 17) were the original members of OLOTA. The rest of the members of the parish were cradle Catholics who were looking for something better than what was being offered in the San Antonio diocese. Those of us (cradle Catholics) who came to OLOTA and stayed were looking for "heavy furniture" liturgy and a church that looked like a church, a mass closely emulating the "traddie" Mass, but in English.

Fr. Phillips, needing money and wanting more parishioners, decided to have a Latin Mass. This Latin Mass was a Novus Ordo Mass, but the prayers were skillfully created to closely emulate the "traddie" Mass. It is worth noting that Fr. Phillips was a frequent guest/visitor at St. Barnabas in Nebraska. One would have to wonder what Fr. Phillip's influence played in creating an OLOTA atmosphere at that parish.

It seems to me that a pattern is beginning to emerge here, Episcopalians attracted to a Pastoral Provision parish or an Anglican parish headed for the ordinariate begin to experience a bait and switch. On one hand, Rite Two Episcopalians see a great deal that's familiar in a novus ordo diocesan parish, especially if it has a reverent mass and a budget for a music program. The 1979 Book of Common Prayer, inspired by the novus ordo, had been in effect for 30 years by the time Anglicanorum coetibus was issued, after all.

So the draw among Episcopalians was less than projected -- remember that Cdl Ratzinger was told in 1993 that 250,000 would come over. But by 2009, the Rite Two Episcopalians were going to the ACNA. Instead, the ordinariate was drawing disgruntled cradle Catholics, though not all that many of those, and as yesterday's visitor pointed out, the Episcopalian heritage was being erased from the masses and a completely non-indigenous Anglican Papalist liturgy was substituted.

So Episcopalians, who'd possibly expected a familiar reverent liturgy but maybe less campiness among the clergy, were getting a new liturgical fussiness but the same old campy clergy, or if they weren't outright con artists, thy were at best also-rans who hadn't established Protestant careers.

Given this, I challenge the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society to explain what's "patrimonial" about a 20th-century Anglican Papalist liturgy invented in the UK, or a mass where many familiar Anglican features like the gospel procession have been eliminated. The Anglican in Anglicanorum coetibus has become an excuse for something new and unfamiliar that appeals only to traditionalist Catholics, not Anglicans.

There's a puzzling secondary group of people who'd been on the denominational carousel, with previous affiliations among more radical Protestant groups, who've found something congenial in the selective censoriousness of ordinariate stalwarts. My regular correspondent sent me a link to this blog by Shane Schaetzel, one of that group, who is the prime mover of the St George group in Republic, MO. My regular correspondent comments,

A lot going on here, from “Ladies put on the head covering” to “ =look to the Red States, those with strong gun rights”, but it does sum up the mentality of those the OCSP is attracting. Don’t waste your time on the mainstream Church. “God has called us to build something completely new.” For the record, I’m okay with “Gentlemen, put on some pants.” Rest I find alarming.

This is more like Anabaptist separatism, not Anglicanism or Catholicism. Who needs patrimony if we're building something completely new? The recent Society item on Bp Lopes's visit to St Barnabas refers only to the refreshments as "patrimonial". In the past, Mrs Gyapong has defended bare-breasted nursing during mass as "patrimonial" as well, which suggests that if boobs and booze are what's patrimonial, we might wish to celebrate a feast day for Ven Hugh Hefner. But as I've surmised, there's a secret payoff here. Chapel veils aren't the whole deal, if you ask me.

UPDATE: Bp Barron thinks John Henry Newman was the most influential figure at Vatican II who was not present there. So it seems like we could call novus ordo patrimonial.

A Visitor Gives More Background On St Barnabas Omaha

A visitor familiar with that parish e-mailed me yesterday:

There’s definitely an attitude of “we’ve got it right, and the rest of the Church has got it wrong,” at St. B’s, as throughout the Ordinariate. It doesn’t surprise me that they are flouting local guidelines the way they ignore authority in general, including Houston, when they don’t like what they’ve been told.

St. Barnabas is a strange place. Most of the original Episcopalian congregation have gone - the original members who swam the Tiber in 2013 number fewer than 10 at this point. The congregation is almost entirely made up of traddy diocesan Catholics who want the trappings of the Tridentine Mass in English - people who were never Anglican at all. Lots of Pope Francis bashing, and Novus Ordo bashing. Not quite the purpose of Anglicanorum Coetibus, but I digress.

Father Catania is a contentious figure, who is largely responsible for having chased away most of the original congregation after he arrived. Anything deemed “too Anglican” was done away with (Gospel procession down the center aisle, birthday blessings, etc.) in favor of a stodgy “Traditional Latin Mass but in English” liturgy. Naturally, those who were assured nothing would change when they became Catholic, felt like they’d been duped, and left. Father Catania’s lack of pastoral skills made the transition much harder than it needed to be.

Alcohol is, and always has been, a problem at the parish. After Evensong, I’m told it’s customary for people to be at the Rectory drinking until well after Midnight. Fr Catania drinks openly and often.

About five years ago, the parish was left around four million dollars. After buying a bunch of property, including an historic three story mansion for a new rectory, completely remodeling the church, and building a large addition, the money is almost all gone. No effort has been made to grow the small congregation, so income is not nearly enough to cover expenses. The obsession with everything being fancy has left them broke. I’m told Fr. Catania left Mt. Calvary in similar straits after undertaking a renovation there, too.

It would be interesting to get a similar account from Mt Calvary, but not every parish has truth-tellers. I'm grateful for those that do, but I estimate this whole ordinariate story will be entirely historical in a fairly short time.

My regular correspondent reacted,

You titled a column in 2016 “Fr Catania Rehabilitated?” Under the Steenson regime, he was exiled to Siberia, as you noted, and then an unsuccessful attempt was made to find a diocesan assignment for him in Rochester. The arrival of Bp Lopes resulted in a big turn-around in his fortunes.

The larger picture—-that the Ordinariate is a sheltered workshop for Traddies, with campy Anglophile trappings but no real connection to Anglicanism or Anglicans—-is evident to me as I look around the web. Explains why at, say, the start-up group in Arden, NC I wrote to you about on July 6 everyone at the first mass was already a communicant. It has nothing to do with evangelism.

There was a cash crunch at St Barnabas earlier this year which supports the visitor’s contention that the endowment has pretty much been used up.

The question for me continues to be that the Church, especially the Catholic Church in the US and some other countries, is under major pressure, both from mobs and vandals who are tacitly encouraged by politicians, and from politicians using a manufactured medical crisis to impose special conditions on Christian and Jewish religious expression. This will have major repercussions on how dioceses operate for some time to come, even if the civil unrest and government persecutions abate.

The North American ordinariate is pretty much irrelevant here, and its major challenge will probably be simply staving off financial extinction.

But also, in the context of New Testament psychology, for instance in the story of the woman caught in adultery (John 7:53–8:11) there's always a secret payoff to censoriousness. It's not hard to think the people who favor the heavy-furniture liturgy use it to compensate for other failings, apparently in this case using this parish as a respectable version of the Delta house.

Anglicanorum coetibus is looking more and more like a footnote to the current series of crises that isn't going to solve any particular problem, especially as COVID lockdowns put a financial strain on the ordinariate, and money that goes to the Church can be better used elsewhere.

A Visitor Questions The St Barnabas Omaha Services

A visitor remarked on the photos and description of services for Bp Lopes's visit to St Marnabas Omaha that was covered in the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society newsletter and also cited in yesterday's post:

I was particularly struck by this in your post yesterday: “Beyond that, with everything else that's going on in the world these days, the news that St Barnabas had a full cast of servers for the bishop's visit seems awfully inward-looking and provincial.”

Some might even call it obnoxious! The spectacle of a sanctuary packed with unmasked servers literally DOWN THE STREET from the Archdiocesan Cathedral, where clergy and congregation wear masks, singing is forbidden, and servers are not currently being used, is in incredibly poor taste. The message: we get to do whatever we want.

It’s in keeping with the general arrogance and recklessness of the place.

The photos and reference to a reception made me assume that perhaps regulations in Nebraska were looser than in other parts of the US. But after I got the e-mail, I went to the Archdiocese of Omaha website, which says in part:

Social distancing will be practiced at all public Masses. . .

• Everyone is encouraged to wear a mask (except children 3 and under), and parishioners are encouraged to bring their hand sanitizer and/or sanitizing wipes.
• For those receiving Holy Communion, please follow the instructions of your pastor for lining up and receiving in a safe manner.
• . . .
• Groups should not gather and socialize inside or outside of church buildings.

I've linked to discussions here by Catholic priests who are deeply uncomfortable with "social distancing" policies and suggest they're in conflict with fundamental human nature. On the other hand, I can't imagine that they would advocate disobeying the bishop's instructions.

It's worth noting that Bp Lopes's expressed policy for ordinariate parishes has been to follow the policies of the local diocese. It's plain that, for the bishop's visit to St Barnabas Omaha, numerous diocesan policies were not followed, based on the account of the visit and photos.

• The servers were photographed not wearing masks and not observing social distancing
• Groups gathered for a reception
• While not explicitly forbidden in the archbishop's policy, food and drink were served at a reception, something typically not normally allowed in churches at this time.

How did Bp Lopes and Fr Catania deal with these exceptions? Did they get the archbishop's authorization, or did they just go ahead and violate the local policy? Did the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society see any problem in publishing this account?

Another California Church Sues Gov Newsom; One Defies His Order

Last Friday, I covered lawsuits filed by three Northern California Evangelical churches against Gov Newsom over his no-singing-in-church order. Over the weekend, another church sued on the grounds that his July 13 order against indoor worship services also discriminates against free expression of religion. In Pasadena,

A network of California churches filed a lawsuit against Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday, defying the state's coronavirus lockdown orders against holding indoor church services while state officials encourage protests.

Che Ahn, the lead pastor of Harvest Rock Church, addressed the Democrat governor in his message Sunday at the Pasadena location, CBSLA reported.

. . . Liberty Counsel is representing Harvest International Ministry, which also has churches in Corona, Irvine, and is connected to thousands of ministries around the world.

According to Liberty Counsel's website,

Today [July 20], a federal District Court ordered expedited briefing on Liberty Counsel’s lawsuit filed in federal court seeking an injunction on behalf of Harvest Rock Church and Harvest International Ministry against Governor Gavin Newsom’s unconstitutional COVID-19 orders. The governor’s orders prohibit all indoor worship services, including home Bible studies and fellowships, while encouraging mass gatherings of protestors throughout the state. Gov. Newsom has now been ordered to file a reply to the request for a preliminary injunction by August 3, 2020.

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “We are pleased that the court has set an expedited briefing schedule on the request for a preliminary injunction.”

. . . The lawsuit challenges both the total ban on in-person worship (including in private homes) in the counties on the “County Monitoring List,” and the ban on singing and chanting in the remaining counties.

In addition to in-person worship at Harvest Rock Church, the church also has many “Life Groups,” which are home Bible studies and fellowship groups, which are now prohibited under Gov. Newsom’s recent order.

Liberty Counsel previously represented the Illinois Evangelical and Pentecostal churches that forced Gov Pritzker to relax his orders against group worship in May.

In the Sacramento area,

Pastor Greg Fairrington, leader of 3,500-members Destiny Christian Church outside of Sacramento, said he plans to continue holding in-person services despite Newsom's second shutdown announced Monday. The Golden State has had a steep surge of COVID-19 cases, now second to New York.

Although Fairrington is defying Newsom's order, he doesn't appear to be filing a lawsuit. Other California Evangelical churches had announced they would open for worship on Pentecost, May 31, with or without Newsom's permission, but over that weekend, Newsom relaxed his previous order to avoid an injunction from the US Supreme Court.

The new lawsuits filed last week and over the weekend are based on the new set of facts that emerged from the Black Lives Matter protests since Memorial Day weekend. These facts have been tested in one successful petition for a federal injunction in New York:

A federal judge on Friday [June 26] issued a preliminary injunction striking down some of New York’s limitations on religious gatherings during the coronavirus pandemic, ruling that the restrictions amount to an unconstitutional infringement on religious freedom considering the government’s allowing large Black Lives Matter protests and other gatherings at the same time.

. . . Citing these comments by Cuomo and de Blasio in support of the protests, as well as de Blasio’s sharp words against a Jewish funeral held in April, the judge wrote, “Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio could have just as easily discouraged protests, short of condemning their message, in the name of public health and exercised discretion to suspend enforcement for public safety reasons instead of encouraging what they knew was a flagrant disregard of the outdoor limits and social distancing rules. They could have also been silent. But by acting as they did, Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio sent a clear message that mass protests are deserving of preferential treatment.”

Moreover, Sharpe said, nonessential businesses that were permitted to open at 50% capacity in Phase 2, are not “justifiably different than houses of worship,” which had been capped at 25% capacity.

In both New York and California, Gov Cuomo and Gov Newsom made public statements approving and endorsing the large public gatherings that violated various public health provisions, while maintaining, and in California increasing, restrictions on worship services. The California lawsuits have pretty clearly been filed with the logic of the New York decision in mind.

A Celebration Of The Bishop's Visit To Paris On The Prairie

My regular correspondent tells me that there's a movement afoot to have the Anglicanroum Coetibus Society put out a newsletter containing updates on the North American ordinariate, since although this is what people in the chancery are paid to do, they aren't doing it, and people are left with no option but to go to The Blog That Shall Not Be Named, viz, this one, for news. Well, this effort has been doing on for nearly eight years, much longer than I intended, and it can't go on forever. If people can put out something useful, great.

My regular correspondent did send me an image from this new newsletter covering Bp Lopes's visit to St Barnabas Omaha (click on the image for a larger copy):

The comment:

Thought you might enjoy this account of Bp Lopes’ visit. The description of his sermon as “graciously” delivered, the image of Bp Lopes “on the throne,” and of course, the reception in the Pariah House (sic) with its interesting combination of “southwest cuisine and Patrimonial refreshments” washed down by “delicate drink” certainly brightened my morning. Glad to see that this semi-official production (the recently-launched Anglicanorum Coetibus Society weekly newsletter) maintains the standards we have come to expect from the ordinbnariate. Note the “errata slip” at the bottom here re last Sunday’s newsletter.

This is the publication whose advent was hailed by Mr Guivens as an alternative to your blog as a source of Ordinariate information. I wouldn’t worry about the competition just yet.

I can attest that careful proofreading is a key element in being taken seriously, and this requires quite a bit of focus and effort. It's easy to think you've typed what you meant to type, and spellcheck is unreliable. I proofread every post here several times in preview before I publish, but almost every day something slips through that I have to catch later in the day. Folks, if you want to be taken seriously, you need to up your game.

I don't know if there are good community college courses in how to write any more. I see that the Rutgers English Department plans to deemphasize the traditional rules of English grammar in sympathy with Black Lives Matter, so there's an option you don't have. But somebody needs to study more about how to write if they want that post to be taken seriously.

Beyond that, with everything else that's going on in the world these days, the news that St Barnabas had a full cast of servers for the bishop's visit seems awfully inward-looking and provincial. The Nantes cathedral has been torched, statues of the Virgin are defaced, there's graffiti on Catholic churches all over the US, but don't be afraid -- Bp Lopes has gone to Omaha with his faithful chancellor J Henry, and there were patrimonial refreshments.

UPDATE: My regular correspondent reports,

Apparently “the [Ordinariate News] file was updated with some minor corrections” this morning -- but the reception is still described as having taken place in the Pariah House! Remember, Spellcheck is not always your friend.

Things That Don't Add Up For COVID

Here are some random notes on things I just don't see pursued seriously in the public forum:

1. Back around early March, before it was politically incorrect to call it the Wuhan virus, the story was that it had either leaked from a Chinese lab, or it had jumped to humans from bats in soup or a market in China. But the bottom line was that people had no antibodies, because it was all new. This was a major reason why lockdowns were initially thought to be needed.
2. However, almost immediately, it was being discovered that people in fact did have antibodies to the virus. But instead of there being no public rethinking of the original idea, it's just been dropped, and nobody mentions the Chinese lab or the bat soup any more. But what does that do to the original story that this is real, real dangerous?
3. In any case, if the Chinese lab was trying to create a weapon, it was at best like the inflatable tanks and jeeps the US deployed in England before D-Day to spoof the German spy planes.
4. But what about all the antibody tests? We're hearing of many thousands of tests conducted each day, which lead to skyrocketing "cases", which conflate active infections with the presence of antibodies.
5. What are those antibodies, and where do they come from? I hear many conflicting stories, that they're only relatives of COVID but cause positive tests, or that the tests are false positives.
6. And what of the reports from central Florida that "cases" are wildly overreported, or stories from elsewhere of people who went for testing, left before they got a test due to long lines, but still got a report in the mail of a positive test?
7. What of the apparent continuing problem that deaths "with" COVID are reported in a bunch with deaths caused by COVID, most recently in central Florida (again) of a man who died from a motorcycle accident who was reported as a COVID death?
8. The central Florida reports are due to investigation by a single TV station, which are not coordinated nationally, but ought to be. What other big problems are hidden in the national data?
9. There is a near-universal consensus among politicians that wearing maks will stop the spread of COVID. But in states that mandate them, the "cases' are "skyrocketing". Why?
10. Why have there been no specific studies of the correlation between social distancing measures and the spread of COVID, especially using reliable indicators?

None of these issues is being raised in the public forum. This is a dereliction on the part of conservative reporters and independent meida.

California COVID Update

In Friday, Gov Newsom ordered both public and private schools in all but rural counties to shut down school campuses this fall and offer only on line instruction. Notably, this was in a bad-news-Friday-afternoon announcement, but it also comes in the context of earlier pressure from teachers' unions:

The Los Angeles Teachers Union issued a research paper arguing schools in the district can’t reopen without certain policy provisions in place ranging from mandatory face masks to a “moratorium” on charter schools and the defunding of police.

With classes set to begin on Aug. 18, United Teachers Los Angeles, a union consisting of 35,000 members, outlined a series of demands that should be met before reopening,

Teachers' unions are typically among the largest political donors and vote blocs in any state. What this move does is place a burden on private, particularly Catholic, schools that will make them relatively less attractive in relation to public, unionized schools, since the private schools will be forced to offer the same diluted product as the public schools. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles had within the last several days carried an announcement on its web site that its schools would offer in-person instruction this fall.

Newsom's announcement has likely forestalled that. For any school to return to in-person instruction will require conformance to intricate and likely impossible sets of conditions. My wife expects lawsuits from affected parties almost immediately. Another practical effect will probably be to increase homeschooling, especially if parents are out of work or working from home in any case. Home school co-ops would be an option if parents are willing to work under the radar of regulations against gatherings.

However, the fact that Newsom announced this on a Friday suggests he expected a furor from parents who wanted schools to reopen. Another factor is that Los Angeles Mayor Garcetti, who had been quasi-telegraphing for most of this week that he was "on the verge" of ordering a renewed full stay-at-home lockdown, backed off on Friday and instead now feels a new poster will solve the problem. I kid you not.

He has made this poster free for the download so everyone can print out a copy, maybe blow it up big, maybe stick it on phone poles or put it in your front yard. I asked my wife if we could put one in our front yard, maybe mounted on a sheet of plywood. I avoided problems in the marriage by dropping the request.

Hoeever, I'm posting it here in the interests of convincing all my visitors that wearing a mask will be essential of we're going to beat this terrible pandemic.

However, Mayor Garcetti is now telegraphing that we may be closer to doing this than we thought even on Wednesday, when he was still threatening a full stay-at-home.

But he stopped short of enacting restrictions, saying he’s hopeful that Angelenos are working to contain the spread, and the effects will be seen in the coming week. He also said that while hospitalizations are at a record high, hospital stays have become shorter as doctors learn how to best treat the disease.

Hey, that's great, it looks like he's gone to an oracle or something who's told him the curve's gonna bend next week, and we don't need to do all this stuff after all! My own view is that his earlier threats caused another behind-the-scenes furor -- somehow these things don't get to the media at all -- and he had to go to Dr Ferrer, the social justice PhD health director, and tell her the stats were gonna have to improve.

I'm sure they will.

Stay tuned.

California Churches Sue Gov Newsom Over No Singing In Church Order

I continue to be puzzled at the lack of timely coverage or comment in corporate and social media across the board on California Gov Newsom's rollback of reopening. On Wednesday, three Northern California Evangelical churches, working through the American Center for Law and Justice, sued Newsom over his July 1 order specifically prohibiting singing or chanting in churches, reinforced by his July 14 order prohibiting indoor services in most parts of the state.

Via the Sacramento Bee

In the latest challenge to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s restrictions aimed at curbing the threat of coronavirus, three Northern California churches sued Wednesday seeking to overturn his ban on singing and chanting inside houses of worship.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Sacramento on behalf of Calvary Chapel of Ukiah, Calvary Chapel of Fort Bragg and River of Life Church in Oroville, seeks an injunction against the state health department’s July 1 order that places of worship “must therefore discontinue singing and chanting” as part of the effort to slow the spread of COVID-19.

The suit, filed by Southern California attorneys who have filed other lawsuits challenging Newsom’s previous restrictions on in-person church services, says the governor banned singing and chanting inside churches but not in any other locations, and notes that at the same time he “has been unwavering in his support of massive protests” against police brutality.';“On or about July 2, 2020, following implementation of the Worship Ban, when asked to explain whether people should heed Newsom’s mandate and avoid large crowds and gatherings, Newsom refused to place the same restrictions on protesters and explained ‘we have a Constitution, we have a right to free speech,’ and further stated that ‘we are all dealing with a moment in our nation‘s history that is profound and pronounced ... Do what you think is best,’” the lawsuit says.

The suit quotes Scripture to emphasize the importance of singing in church, saying that “singing and praying aloud as a body of Christ is an integral part of worship for believers and plaintiffs.”

“Let me be clear, the state does not have the jurisdiction to ban houses of worship from singing praises to God,” Robert Tyler, one of the lawyers filing the suit, said in a statement.

Neither Legal Insurrection, a blog run by William A Jacobson, nor Instapundit, a blog run by Glenn Reynolds, both highly prestigious professors of constitutional law, has mentioned the suit so far, although it was filed Wednesday. My impression is that this was brought by law firms with experience in this particular field, with an eye to the reasons the previous California suit from South Bay United Pentecostal Church didn't get an injunction from the US Supreme Court on May 29.

For instance, I feel pretty sure they were aware of a so far successful New York suit, which succeeded in getting a New York federal judge to block Gov Cuomo from enforcing a 25% capacity limit on churches when other venues are restricted to 50%. The South Bay United Pentecostal suit primarily argued that the state couldn't restrict religious expression. The counter argument would be that the state had a compelling interest in controlling the "epidemic".

The new suit follows the New York suit more closely in arguing that whatever the state's compelling interest may be, it isn't imposing consistent orders, and those inconsistencies are enormous. The suit is available here. It says,

52. The Worship Ban, on its face and as applied, is neither neutral nor generally applicable, but rather specifically and discriminatorily targets places of worship.

53. The Worship Ban, on its face and as applied, constitutes a substantial burden on Plaintiffs’ sincerely held religious beliefs as they are prevented from practicing the teachings of their religious texts.

54. Defendants lack a compelling, legitimate, and rational interest in banning singing and chanting only in places of worship while allowing the same at similar secular gatherings and secular businesses.

55. Even if the Worship Ban were supported by a compelling interest, which it is not, the ban does not employ the least restrictive means to accomplish the government’s purported interest and is not narrowly tailored to that interest.

The whole basis for the near -universal ban on singing in church was a single choir practice in Mount Vernon, WA on March 10, when an alleged "superspreader" is claimed to have infected 87 other members of the choir. This has been explained by the "droplet" theory of contamination, whereby people singing emit infected droplets at a farther distance than people just speaking or breathing.

The "droplet" theory has come under increasing question, especially as masks are required in California, but "cases" are said to be "skyrocketing", even as people continue to social distance and in particular as churches have generally refrained from singing since in-person services resumed in early June.

We'll have to see how this proceeds -- but we apparently won't have the analysis of the prestigious constitutional law profs, whose public personae are narcissistic and their intellectual interests desultory.

Is Anyone At Work At All In The Houston Ordinariate Chancery?

My regular correspondent reports,

As you can see here, Our Lady of Walsingham, Houston has cancelled weekday masses (I saw this up yesterday, not sure when it was posted) and is determining the weekend schedule after the possible exposure of one of the clergy to Covid-19.

Meanwhile, someone on the ordinariate informal discussion Facebook page complained that he had tried to contact the Chancery by email two months ago and got no response, then one month ago ditto, and an Our Lady of Walsingham parishioner responded that “our office said about 6 months ago that they were only accepting snail mail” which as someone else pointed out makes no sense.

Especially since in that period of time both the Bishop’s Appeal and the Seminarian Formation Fund Appeal have kicked off. In any event, the retirement of Laurie Miller seems to have left a large hole in the OCSP’s operation.

Six months ago, of course, goes back to January, well before COVID and lockdowns were a thing. This applies to my observation on Fr Perkins's foresight in self-quarantining well before there was a virus. Speaking of Fr Perkins, or actually, not speaking of him, my regular correspondent reported earlier this week,

Bp Lopes made a visitation to St Barnabas, Omaha last Sunday [July 12] and I see from the photos on the Facebook page that Mr Vasquez-Weber accompanied him. Comparing pictures with those from a previous visit used to promote the event it appears that in the past Bp Lopes made such trips on his own. Of course this was before he broke his leg. Maybe J Henry helps with the bags.

Although in the past, Fr Perkins in his capacity as vicar general did travel to Calgary last summer with Bp Lopes to address concerns there arising from this blog, and Fr Perkins did visit that parish earlier to make other assessments, which seem to have gone by the board. With J Henry's promotion to chancellor, it appears that Fr Perkins's role is decreasing -- but if the chancery is now responding only to hard-copy inquiries, the question is whether anybody there is doing much of anything.

Er, does Bp Lopes fly first class and J Henry fly coach, or what? Certainly in the days of Trollope and Henry James, the gentry rode to weekend country-house events in fist class railway coaches, while the servants who came with them rode in third. And what does the extra fare for J Henry do to the travel budget? (Don't forget to keep up your pledge to the bishop's appeal, by the way.)

UPDATE: My regular correspondent comments,

Apropos of the relationship between J Henry’s appointment as Chancellor and Fr Perkins’ current low profile, I will point out that the previous Chancellor was also Bp Lopes’ Executive Assistant, as you can see near the end of this article and many other places round the web. She did not accompany Bp Lopes anywhere, nor did Msgr Steenson travel with his Executive Assistant.

If there is a concern that in-person office work could lead to COVID transmission, it seems to me that it would be logical in a work-from-home environment to conduct as much business as possible via e-mail, but based on the account we have, that's been the mode of communication that hasn't been used since even before the virus.

Another thing that strikes me is that our diocesan parish has been extremely resourceful in responding to this week's order forbidding inside masses by Gov Newsom. The parish is fortunate in having a fair-sized campus, with an enclosed patio beside the church building. Although the fully expanded schedule it briefly implemented last weekend hasn't been continued, it will be offering three Sunday masses on the patio in addition to a separate on line mass from inside the church, with lector and usher programs expanded to accommodate them.

It looks as though the strategy of the California bishops will be to do whatever they can to operate as normally as possible by interpreting the governor's orders creatively and permissively, while making sacrifices and going to extra lengths to do this. I simply don't see the same level of resourcefulness in the report from Houston.

So, What's Going On In California?

As I've said, I'm surprised and a little disappointed at the very muted response to California Gov Newsom's rollback of "reopening". The only detailed analysis of the political situation I've seen is at Politico, which is establishment corporate media aligned with the Washington Post. As a result, it's important to allow for the lens through which the piece sees things -- what's not said is as important as what's said.

The article doesn't say enough about the background of COVID lockdowns in California. Both Gov Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Garcetti are members of long-established Democrat political families aligned with the Pelosi and Brown families. They are instinctively center-left, though that particular center itself has moved steadily left over decades. Both Speaker Pelosi and Gov Newsom have been under pressure from the now-dominant Democrat alliance of \bourgeois-hippie Stalinists and the Lumpenproletariat, which is apparent in the current situation.

Over the spring, both Newsom and Garcetti faced pressure to reopen, for instance from Elon Musk, who in early May forced Newsom to take his side in a conflict with the Fremont health authorities, who opposed looser state rules on opening his Tesla plant. Newsom was also pressured by Evangelical and Pentecostal parishes who announced that they would reopen on Pentecost May 31, whether Newsom agreed or not.

County sheriffs increasingly annouced they would not enforce lockdown orders. At the same time, Newsom was forced to relax restrictions on church services as the lawsuit from South Bay United Pentecostal Church reached the US Supreme Court. In order to avoid a potential injunction that would tie his hands, Newsom relaxed the restrictions on May 29, effectively mooting the case.

It's worth noting that South Bay United Pentecostal wanted to continue the suit based on their assertion that Newsom could reinstate the restriction at any time, which of course, six weeks later, is precisely what he did.

Without mentioning this background, the Politico story begins,

It’s taken four months and 7,000 deaths for Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti — high-profile California Democrats with even higher political aspirations — to go from vanguards to nearly vanquished in the fight against Covid-19.

Newsom’s early success in the Covid-19 crisis turned into a sobering reversal Monday after the state flared into a deadly hot spot, prompting the governor to impose the nation's most sweeping reclosure to contain the alarming outbreak.

Politico's position is clearly that Newsom's been forced to see the light, that he'd reopened too early. But it does recognize that both he and Garcetti had been responding to pressure:

The two leaders have been buffeted throughout the crisis by countervailing demands: businesses and local politicians clamoring to reopen and health officials warning that overly hasty moves would reverse months of painfully earned progress. But now, with numbers exploding, a chorus of critics are second-guessing how the California governor and LA mayor reopened businesses.

The biggest pressure on Garcetti, who has often spoken for the county board of supervisors as well as the city, came from remarks by Dr (a PhD in social justice) Barbara Ferrer, the county health director, who on May 12 told the board that the lockdown would “with all certainty” be extended for another three months. Little was said about this in public, but it appears that this caused a furor behind the scenes, and Ferrer quickly walked back the comment as misunderstood.

A second factor was the California House District 25 (distant Los Angeles suburbs) special election on May 12, which had been held by a Democrat, but it was rated a tossup. Instead, the Republican won well outside the predicted margin. Voter frustration with the lockdown was cited as a key factor.

Clearly in response to conditions, Garcetti quickly began reopening parks and businesses, with restricted church services and haircuts available by early June.

What changed over the next six weeks? The Politico article doesn't mention it at all, but it's fairly plain that the main cause was the BLM protests and riots. I think that from both Newsom's and Garcetti's perspectives, they showed the power of the extreme left alliance of the bourgeois-hippie Stalinists and the Lumpenroletariat in the Democrat party. This group had kept the counties in the San Francisco Bay area under more severe lockdown than even Southern California, and they hadn't relaxed it. Politico cites as an authority one of the San Francisco hard liners:

“The desire for popularity gets in the way of making good choices in a pandemic,’’ said state Sen. Steve Glazer, a Bay Area Democrat who has repeatedly urged the governor to take “command and control’’ of the situation and not rely on a patchwork of local officials to sort it out.

But Politico tiptoes around the political reality, which I have an impression continues unabated since the District 25 election. People have been fed up with the lockdown, had become impatient with the slow pace of further reopening after early June, and are enraged at Newsom's rollback.

Over the past few days, Garcetti has been threatening that he's "on the verge" of ordering a return to full stay-at-home lockdown in Los Angeles (probably coordinating with the county as well), but any such rollback would be met with massive disobedience, as the widespread illegal fireworks displays over the July 4 weekend suggest.

Add to that the fact that Garcetti won his first mayoral election with the support of the police union, whose endorsement and financial contribution are key to that election. His recent proposal to divert $150 million from the police budget has likely put a limit on the cooperation he can expect from LAPD in enforcing any new lockdown. For now, I think the threats to reimpose a full lockdown are empty, as he needs to stay far away from controversy for a while if he wants to rebuild a political career.

The Politico piece says,

Garcetti, said Michael Trujillo, a political strategist in Los Angeles who advised one of Garcetti’s opponents in the 2013 mayoral race, is caught in “this perfect sandwich with right-wing conservatives on one slice of bread and hardened progressives being the other slice of bread.”

As to whether those forces are reflected in the broader electorate, he said, “That’s the question we don’t know the answer to.”

My guess is that the California bishops are going to sit this one out, as the November election isn't that far away. Analysts credit the possibility of a vaccine for the record recovery of the stock market, but I think that's unlikely -- the Stalinists won't drop their agenda just because there's a vaccine. They'll insist nothing can reopen until everyone's had a shot and a chip implant as well. The market knows that. What it's anticipating is a Trump landslide in November that will reestablish a more centrist political reality.

I think the Democrats behind the scenes recognize that Biden is, if anything, a worse candidate, in poorer health, than Secretary Clinton was in 2016. The Pelosi-Newsom establishment may use a 2020 debacle, with the Stalinist left as the likely scapegoats, as a way to retake power. But I strongly think they've written off the election and the potential for a Stalinist agenda.

I think the bishops are leaning that way, too.

"What I Am Worried About Is If Churches Can Weather This Storm."

A visitor sent me an e-mail:

What I am worried about is if churches can weather this storm. After we return to normal, there will be some churches or other social interaction outlets that will have folded. There will also be some church goers who don’t return. If your church publishes attendance and offeratory figures you can compare to the baseline 2019 year.

Cutting off these social networks—one has to wonder if it is related to the recent cancellation of longtime YouTube accounts. Or the firing of people on the mere accusations or racism or insensitivity. Not that there is a conspiracy. But these things serve the same end of disruption of the soial fabric, which freedom of speech and assembly are woven through.

I ran into a video of last Sunday's homily by Fr Joseph Illo, who is a priest in the Archdiocese of San Francisco. Like his colleague there, Fr William Nicholas, whose homily I linked not long ago, he sees current efforts to limit social interaction as fundamentally opposed to human nature and, as Fr Illo puts it, "social engineering".

He says, "Twelve of us are here. It's amazing -- that twelve are allowed, and twelve have come." San Francisco as of Sunday's mass had been under even more severe restrictions than the rest of the state, although since Monday, it appears that Gov Newsom's rollback may have superseded even this. (I'll have more to say about Gov Newsom's dilemma in a subsequent post.)

Later in his homily, he referred to a parishioner who asked when he thought restrictions on movement, worship, and so forth would be lifted. "I said I don't think they'll ever be lifted. What we're seeing here is a measure of social engineering that will change our lives together for the foreseeable future. . . . It's not a conspiracy, it's a consensus, which is worse. . . . I think our church leaders are hoping that, when and if restrictions are lifted, people will all come back to mass. And I don't see it. Before COVID, 75% of Catholics did not come to mass every Sunday on a regular basis. How many of the 25% who were attending will return? I think we'll be down to 5% to 10%."

The reports I've heard of how many people are attending mass under current capacity restrictions vary. In our parish, as of last Sunday, mass times had been roughly doubled, back to a normal schedule, to accommodate as many as possible, but Newsom's order has ended that. But apparently in Toronto, even with restricted attendance, masses aren't full. Beyond that, our pastor said in last Sunday's bulletin,

We will be sharing a financial statement soon with the parish, but I think it's important to give you a preview of how are we doing with Covid19 and the collections. These days we are bringing in about 75% of our normal collection. So, we are down about 25%. We understand that some people may be out of work. Currently, we are determining the best ways to deal with the current situation so that we manage our money properly and break even for the year. I will be meeting with the Finance Council and Pastoral Council to discuss the situation. Unfortunately, there are going to be a number of cuts to services and personnel until things return to normal.

. . . With the current precarious archdiocese financial situation, the archdiocese is no longer giving loans for building projects. That means that we need to have 100% of our cash on hand before we get permission to build our new parish center. (Previously, we needed 100% pledged with 60% of the cash on hand.) If you have made a pledge over five years and you are in a position to fulfill your pledge earlier, it is greatly appreciated. Without the cash we cannot build.

It's worth noting that, even with mass suspended from March through May, and now again, parishioners have continued to donate via mail or on line at a rate 75% of normal, but even with that, the parish is hard hit. I'm with Fr Illo and others who see social engineering at work here, and even as the faithful struggle to keep things going, the authorities are hitting churches hard.

A parishioner at the St John the Baptist an ordinariate parish reported,

I can only speak for my Ordinariate parish, but we've gained several individuals and families from the Novus Ordo due to restrictions on diocesan Masses. It's actually starting to become a problem, since we are now exceeding the arbitrary capacity limitations--though this is a pretty good problem to have.

People are required to preregister in our diocese, and I am often the attendance checker at the door. In past weeks, I've happily bent the rules to let in people if they hadn't preregistered, but this is becoming increasingly risky due to "overcrowding", and I'd hate to get our priest in trouble if a diocesan official swung by to check on our compliance.

It'll be interesting to see how many new people stick around after the restrictions are lifted, but it seems like we're in for several more months of this absurd and increasingly unjustifiable charade, so we won't find out anytime soon.

UPDATE: due to an error, I mistook the parish involved here. It is not St John the Baptist Bridgeport.

Checking the websites of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the Diocese of Orange, it appears that the bishops are basically accepting the new restrictions and doing what they can to fall back on outdoor masses, though it isn't clear whether these will have attendance restrictions as well. I suspect that they're now looking to a political solution in the November elections, which I think is also reflected in fr Illo's homily -- if there's a consensus that accepts a new normal, things will be quite difficult.

I've given some thought to the political state of affairs and will try to put together a post later today.

Closing Churches, Barbers, Hair Salons, Bars And Gyms: What Problem Is Newsom Trying To Solve?

As I said in my last post, I'm disappointed to find almost no insightful commentary on Gov Newsom's reversal of reopening, even though it represents a clear indication that the State feels able to override constitutionally guaranteed freedom of religious expression and assembly, as well as the natural right to earn a living, at its whim.

But one thing did occur to me. Although all the now-proscribed activities vary in potential exposure -- huffing, puffing, sweating, and showering at a gym isn't the same as having someone cut your hair, which aren't the same as tossing back some shooters at a bar, while none of those is much like sitting prayerfully on a sanitized pew while refraining from exchanging the peace or singing. But they all do have something in common: they are, or at least used to be, the focus of informal social networks.

Barber shops and hair salons continue to be major social centers in the black community. Churches are major social network centers as well as houses of worship. Bars, of course. Gyms, apparently too. The authoritarian state has, for whatever reason, suspended the effective operation of all these, for an indefinite period. The medical reason for this is at best unclear, since churches in particular have maintained thorough social distancing policies.

At the same time, BLM protests are permitted to continue.

When asked if the closure order included protests Newsom said, “We have a framework around protests,” indicating that the new restrictions would prohibit indoor, but not outdoor gatherings of that type.

"Outdoor protests" (is there any other kind?) are extensively covered by the media and tend to be highly demoralizing to ordinary citizens, since they often feature demands to defund police, glorifying criminals, and such, not to mention the potential that they'll erupt into looting and violence. But venues where anxiety might be reduced via ordinary social networks are now proscribed. This isn't good for mental health.

So far, I'm seeing very little in the nature of planning or ideas for proactive response to these new conditions on social media, possibly because people are stunned. I hope this begins to change.

It seems to me that the pretty clearly arbitrary nature of the restrictions leaves them open to constitutional challenge: the State looks the other way over mask wearing and social distancing at "protests", but prohibits normal assembly, even observing social distancing.

But even beyond that, these things tend to backfire. The normal social venues have been under severe restriction since March. People have already formed their opinions and are more and more likely to act on them at the next election, no matter they can't chat with their neighbors much in the meantime. Newsom's rollbacks simply amplify existing resentments.

California Gov Newsom Closes Churches, Many Businesses Again

At a noon press conference yesterday, California Gov Newsom announced a rollback of reopening measures, closing barber shops, hair salons, gyms, and churches, among others.

Newsom has repeatedly implored people to refrain from social gatherings and he expressed frustration that many aren’t following the guidance.

“COVID-19 is not going away anytime soon, until there is a vaccine and or an effective therapy,” Newsom said. “Limit your mixing with people outside of your household. It’s just common sense, but the data suggests not everyone is practicing common sense.”

Newsom’s move faced immediate resistance from religious groups and business organizations. Fred Jones, attorney for the Professional Beauty Federation of California, suggested many hair salons may not comply with the order.

There are several reasons why far more people than Californians should be concerned about this, not least because other states, including those with Republican governors, are considering similar actions, with Oregon now banning indoor gatherings of more than 10 people.

I've found disappointingly little intelligent or informed commentary on this development anywhere. For instance, while Gov Newsom blames the measures on people who are not practicing common sense, just from observation, few places have been more conscientious in maintaining all social distancing measures than churches. Everyone is required to wear a mask. Singing has been discontinued. Six feet of distance is maintained between all family units, with alternate rows of pews roped off and pew surfaces wiped down between masses.

But churches are among the groups now forced to close. Why should this be? Prohibiting singing goes along with all the other "social distancing" measures, which are meant to counter the "droplet" theory of contagion: the idea that the virus spreads by droplets emitted by people when they sneeze or cough. The experts say six feet is enough for the droplets not to reach other victims. Not singing prevents them from going farther than six feet. Wiping down the pews removes droplets that could be picked up by people in the next mass.

Beyond that, the churches take everyone's temperature at the door, so that those who are currently sick aren't allowed inside. If someone isn't sick, they aren't coughing or sneezing, so how can they transmit the droplets? So how are churches a big part of the problem? Diocesan reopening plans were approved in detail by health departments in just about every jurisdiction. Now, that doesn't apply -- churches are in the same class as bars.

This is part of the basic incoherence of the public health response, which only a few YouTubers have pointed out so far. And on top of that, BLM demonstrations continue to be allowed, when public health authorities have ben forced to acknowledge, very reluctantly, that they've contributed to the putative increase in "cases", which themselves aren't clearly explained. Test results aren't reported in a way that distinguishes between past infections with antibodies that indicate recovery, versus current active infection. But isn't that an important distinction to make, especially as testing increases?

The incoherence of the policies suggests this hasn't been clearly thought through. (Just for starters, Newsom said at noon Monday that the rollback was "immediate"; now its said to be effective as of tonight.)

I see a certain level of panic in Newsom's response, and the panic isn't from people getting sick. Why are "cases" increasing while deaths continue to trend downward? The suggestion seems to be that there'll be a delay from all the new infections, and it'll take weeks for those newly infected to die and start filling the mass graves in the public parks or something. We'll have to see, but such predictions have consistently not come to pass.

That this whole new rollback seems so hasty, so driven by some odd panic, and so clearly not thought through suggests it's not going to end well for the governors and the public 'health establishment.

Is It Like The Sixties?

The humorist Scott Adams got a lot wrong in a YouTube video yesterday,

but he raised an interesting question when he said tentatively that the current round of riots and protests were a version of those in the 1960s, they would pass, and we would "blow them off". However, he was born in 1957, and he more or less asked if those who'd lived through the sixties with more awareness could substantiate this.

Well, just weeks before I graduated from college in 1969, several dozen people I knew quite well took over the administration building as part of a Viet Nam protest or something. One of my closest acquaintances was among those jailed, and he spent commencement in a cell. (I spent my final year just anxious to get out of there and had no role in it.) But I know a thing or two about the sixties.

There were two separate movements that drove protests and riots in the sixties, on one hand, urban black riots and the non-violent civil rights movement, and on the other, student riots and academic protests against the Viet Nam war. The first was based to some degree on legitimate grievance, the second was an extension of mostly pure hedonism, and it was ephemeral. The sixties ended with the Altamont "Gimme Shelter" concert, the Manson LSD murders, and the deaths by overdose of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison. They haven't returned, and they won't.

One big difference between the sixties unrest and what we see now is the complete absence of clergy in any protests or demonstrations. If any are there at all, they certainly aren't spokespeople, and the media doesn't feature them. A major figure in the sixties, though, was Dr King, whose role throughout was as a Baptist pastor. Bernard Law and Paul Moore Jr rose to become prominent bishops in the Catholic and Episcopalian hierarchies by marching with Dr King at that time. Other Catholic priests, like the Berrigan brothers, played prominent roles in Viet Nam protests, and Ven Fulton Sheen was publicly against the war.

There is nothing like that now. Catholic and Episcopalian bishops expressed disgruntlement that President Trump should walk across Lafayette Park to a burned-out church holding a Bible, but that's about it. They didn't join protests otherwise as far as I'm aware. They certainly didn't march in clericals at the head of a parade, arms linked for the cameras like Paul Moore or Malcolm Boyd.

A feature of the current round of protests, in fact, is a minor strain of anti-Semitism but a much more visible anti-Christian, primarily anti-Catholic pattern of vandalism and destruction. Over the past weekend, three churches were burned, two of them Catholic, including the historic Mission San Gabriel. Two statues of the Virgin Mary were vandalized. Statues of St Junipero Serra have been pulled down or hidden for safekeeping.

A continuing conflict persists in St Louis, where Catholics have been praying the rosary around a statue of St Louis (Louis IX of France) to protect it from vandalism or destruction by rioters who want the city renamed. It's clear that some Catholics are defending their heritage, but media coverage makes this problematic, as the protesters will insist they're protecting "white privilege".

There's one, not entirely direct, similarity between now and the sixties, which is that the draft, used to support an escalating war that had gotten out of the generals' control, was increasingly seen as an abuse of the conscription power of the state. This led to generalized dissatisfaction among the plebs, which in turn fed protests. When Nixon mitigated and then ended the draft, it relieved a lot of that pressure.

One thing Scott Adams does get more or less right in the link above is that he sees the COVID lockdowns and the protests as related. People were cooped up with not enough to do, so they rioted. I think it's more closely explained by saying the lockdowns were seen as an abuse of emergency powers of the state, especially when predictions amounting to mass graves in public parks and morning cries of "throw out your dead" never materialized, but the lockdowns persisted, partly persist, and may return in fuller form.

A major source of pressure will come from continued restriction on religious activity. There is simply no end in sight for limited attendance, social distancing, masks, and no singing. Maybe this is why religious leadership hasn't been playing much of any public role anywhere now. This will need to change.

Unfilled Mass At St Luke's Washington

My regular correspondent sent me a copy of the July 12 bulletin from the St Luke's ordinariate parish in the Washington, DC suburbs. It beginas,

We had a single unified 11 am Mass in the auditorium last Sunday [see below for the reason]. There were 57 in attendance. Since we are now permitted 50% capacity, that still leaves 93 possible spaces open for you in the auditorium. Granted, we only set out seating for about 80 people. But, no matter how you look at it, we still have plenty of room for you.

So we hope we will see you soon. Do bring a mask to wear

My correspondent comments, "I have discovered that the capacity of the church I have attended for the last three Sundays is over a thousand. Saturday Vigil has drawn perhaps thirty people. I do note that other parishes in the Archdiocese require pre-registration, so I assume some are much fuller."

Our diocesan parish requires pre-registration, which is done via an on-line app. Registration for the following Sunday opens at 9:00 AM Wednesday and fills within about an hour for the total of several hundred seats available. As of this Sunday, the number of masses will roughly double, so things may be a bit easier, but this is due only to the increased mass times and not to any expansion of capacity. Meanwhile, the state and county continue under threat of renewed lockdown.

It sounds as though the demand for mass varies among parishes. Our parish seems to be the sort that fills its seats. This doesn't surprise me, given the stream of lies, panic, threats, and outrage directed at the faithful over the past several months, combined, remarkably, with rigorous limits on access to the spiritual support they need. I suspect the motive for those who want to get to mass, notwithstanding the obligation is dispensed, is related in some way to the lyrics of a favorite hymn from my Episcopalian days:

The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to his foes;
that soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I'll never, no never, no never forsake.

Think how many contagious droplets are being spewed out toward the unsuspecting in the video below.

How long will it be before the authorities allow this sort of thing again? On the other hand, how many people are leaning to Olde Englishe liturgy for that sort of repose?

Ordinariate Parish Reopening Reports

My regular correspondent has gathered news on various reopening efforts in the North American ordinariate. For the first one below, recall that their former priest, Fr Simington, was reassigned to the Irvine, CA Newman group.

Fr Davis celebrated his first mass for St Alban, Rochester July 5. Because of NY State travel rules, he is self-isolating until July 15 after his arrival from Texas, so last Sunday’s mass had no attendants or servers, nor will next Sunday’s.

The self-isolation is due to typical arbitrary New York State rules requiring visitors from Texas and Florida to self-quarantine for two weeks after arrival in New York. As though the problem were not in New York itself.

Meanwhile, Fr Simington celebrates his first mass for St John Henry Newman, Irvine this Sunday. The Queen of Life Chapel website announces that social distancing restrictions are in place and capacity is reduced. As we know, the chapel has only four rows of pews, of which the first is not normally used by the SJHN community as it has no kneelers and is quite close to the altar party in an ad orientem celebration. I have seen pictures where worshippers are seated there, but presumably at least part of it could not be used if social distancing is to be maintained. So the capacity of the chapel, 65 under normal circumstances, will be sharply limited.

The Queen of Life website shows only one mass at 11 am next Sunday but perhaps this is inaccurate. The BJHN, Irvine website and FB page seem have been barely maintained since the lockdown so I am not sure where potential attendees would look for reliable information.

The California limitation on mass attendance is 25% of capacity or 100, whichever is fewer. So the maximum at the Newman group will be 16. The 16 includes celebrant, cantor, usher(s), lector(s), and server(s) as well. However, to maintain six foot social distance, alternate rows of pews must be roped off, and people not in family units must also be separated by six feet in the pews. Thus it may not be possible to accommodate anything like 16 in pews.

UPDATE: I'm now told the Newman group will celebrate mass in the parking lot this coming Sunday, an inevitable result of the restrictions.

Regarding Holy Martyrs Murrieta,

Sunday mass at Holy Martyrs, Murrieta is now inside the chapel. “Fr William,” who celebrates a daily mass at his home chapel which is live-streamed on the SoCal Ordinariate Facebook pages, was the celebrant last Sunday. I thought he might be a Norbertine but I see no one by that name on the St Michael’s Abbey website. Elderly.

In addition, my regular correspondent is trying to determine why Our Lady of Walsingham, Houston has stopped publishing Sunday attendance figures in the bulletin for the first time in about ten years.

Reopening is complicated by efforts in the media, "blue" jurisdictions, and the public health establishment to reimpose a lockdown. I don't know how churches will respond, but my impression is that churches and bussinesses have been extremely conscientious in following public health protocols regarding masks, social distancing, and capacity.

These public protocols have been based on the "droplet" theory of COVID transmission. If churches and businesses have been following these protocols, the disease should not be spreading, right? Gov Newom and Mayor Garcetti attribute the spread to "too many pool parties" and in effect blame the putative resurgence on the plebs. We're not aware of pool parties in our neighborhood, anyhow. I think it's more likely that the infection spreads via means other than droplets; it's more contagious but less severe than we've been told.

It's hard not to conclude that the current state of the virus is as follows:

• Expanding numbers of "cases", but the reports do not distinguish between current infections and past infections that indicate recovery and immunity
• Asymptomatic or very mild cases around 80%
• "Hospitalizations" that reflect only testing of people admitted to hospitals for any reason who happen to test "positive", though this again does not distinguish between current and past infections/recovery
• A declining mortality rate, resulting from increased testing with declining absolute numbers of deaths.

The tea leaves I'm reading in our diocesan parish are that it is moving toward reopening, with increased mass times (preserving public health protocols) and retraining of parish volunteers for more functions. I can't imagine this is being done without the knowledge and approval of the bishops. This gives me some level of confidence that even with a renewed set of lockdowns, the bishops and other denominational representatives will be able to get some accommodation.

However, my view is that as more information comes to light, the March-June lockdowns were an overreaction to a manufactured crisis.