Another Houston Headscratcher

My regular correspondent has been wondering for several days what Houston had in mind in planning a visit by Bp Lopes to St Thomas More Toronto for October 18 (it appears, for example, on the schedule here). The difficulty is that Canadian COVID regulations continue to require, in part, that

All persons entering Canada, unless exempted – no matter their country of origin or mode of entry – must isolate themselves for 14 days if they have symptoms of or confirmed COVID-19 or quarantine themselves for 14 days if they do not have symptoms of COVID-19.

My correspondent says,

Bp Lopes's visit had been publicised since at least early July, despite the ongoing closure of the Canada/US border to non-Canadian citizens, with a few specific exceptions for family members and health care workers, and the quarantine requirement.

Houston conceded a month ago that no Canadian clergy would be attending next month’s ordinariate Clergy Conference there, because of the necessity of fourteen days’ quarantine upon their return.

Just as of this past Sunday, however, the St Thomas More mass schedule was revised to read, in part;

• Our next Choral Mass will be on October 18th. Bishop Lopes was scheduled to offer Holy Mass for us on this day, however border and quarantine restrictions have forced the cancellation of his parish visitation.
• Those scheduled to be received and confirmed by Bishop Lopes will instead be received and confirmed by Fr. Hodgins on All Saints Day, November 1.

As my regular correspondent puts it, "Hope the ticket was refundable". Well, as far as I can see, bishops travel full-fare, first class. No standby for Bp Lopes!

What makes this oversight relatively less remarkable is the tiny size and general unimportance of the North American ordinariate. As I understand this, the bishop's secretary handles his schedule and at least orders up his travel. For an issue like this to go unnoticed for at least two months, with some people in Houston fully aware of Canadian travel restrictions due to the clergy conference, is still significant in itself and a reflection on the competence of personnel in the chancery.

The picture that's beginning to form in my mind is that the bishop's secretary, J Henry, has, as we've already seen, announced that he's running the show. But from what we've begun to see, he does things like lift the dispensation for mass attendance without recognizing that in many areas, Catholics still have civil obstacles to attending mass. And now we also see that, nominally in charge of the bishop's schedule, he's been forced to revise it because he was unaware of basic COVID restrictions.

Apparently the bishop continues to be indisposed, and he's left key functions of his office in J Henry's not-so-capable hands.

As a regular viewer of the late lamented Live PD, I can only think that if Bp Lopes were operating a motor vehicle, he'd be swerving outside his lane, running stop signs, and otherwise driving erratically. A police officer would have no chokce but to pull him over and give him a sobriety check for his own protection and that of the public.

UPDATE: My regular correspondent asks how Bp Lopes's lifting of the dispensaion applies to the ordinariate groups who have ordinariate priests, like Fr Vidal, Fr Wills, or Fr Lewis, who have both diocesan and ordinariate groups in the same building, or in fact who attend at the same mass times.

Talking Down To Catholics

A visitor responded to the excerpt from the St James Jacksonville parish newsletter that I covered in Saturday's post:

Fr. Mayer makes mention of correspondence between Bp Lopes and priests:

Bishop Lopes recently wrote to us priests that he has been intending to revisit this issue, but that the Vatican beat him to the punch when Cardinal Robert Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, wrote to the presidents of the Bishops’ Conferences to remind them of the urgency of encouraging the faithful to return to in-person Mass.

On an issue as important as this it would seem that direct communication with the entire People of God would be appropriate. And why the Cardinal Sarah reference?

If you are not in this vulnerable group and you do not have some other grave reason to miss Mass, you have an obligation of holy obedience to your bishop and as a member of the Ordinariate to return to Mass and the Sacraments

Do you read this as talking down to the reader?

If you are not in this vulnerable group and you do not have some other grave reason to miss Mass, you have an obligation of holy obedience to your bishop and as a member of the Ordinariate to return to Mass and the Sacraments.

So Bishop communicates with his priests and this information gets filtered out - in less than perfect ways it seems.

Be that as it may, the pastor could have easily listed one or two of the reasons why Catholics should attend Mass, easily available on the internet or Catechism. Those reasons would include a benefit for the attender as well.

But he chooses obedience to your bishop as first, and membership in the Ordinariate as second.

Yes, the first puzzling thing is that we don't see the original text of the bishop's letter at all (although my guess is that the actual text in question is an e-mail from the bishop's secretary in any case). So wwhat we get is Fr Mayer's interpretation of J Henry's interpretation of what the bishop may have wanted to say.

Contrast this with, just as a random example, the Diocexe of Madison, WI, where the bishop's letter lifting the dispensation is fully published.

I ran the visitor's note by my regular correspondent, who said,

Cardinal Sarah, like Pope Benedict, very big in Ordinariate circles. Mrs Gyapong, a big fan, posted recently that she had stopped using the Daily Office app prepared by St Gregory the Great, Chestnut Hill member John Covert because Cardinal Sarah was quoted (in 2017) as saying that praying the Daily Office with an electronic device “is not worthy: it descralizes prayer.” (Glad he wasn’t around when the printing press was invented, is all I can say.)

She then went on to say that learning how to “juggle a bunch of different books” was part of the Anglican Patrimony. I was happy to see that a number of commenters pointed out that Cranmer’s program in revising Morning and Evening Prayer was the exact opposite: to rectify the situation where “to turn the Book only was so hard and intricate a matter, that many times there was more business to find out what should be read, than to read it when it was found out.” But Mrs G’s acquaintance with Anglicanism is, of course, passing.

More to the point with Bp Lopes, why October 1 and not the first Sunday in October?

The question I have is why, if it was so important that Bp Lopes conform so quickly to Cdl Sarah's exxhortation, his brother bishops in the USCCB amd the CCCB seem to have approached the question with greater prudence and reserve. If you think about it, even the Evangelical pastors who've reopened their churches to in-person services have clearly implied that in-person attendance is optional, and not just for those in exempted health categories. Livestreams are available, and social-distancing options are also available on site.

I can only cnoclude that Bp Lopes's response to Cdl Sarah was not very carefully thought through, and I would guess that even the most junior diocesan bishop could provide a cogent explanation for why a diocese outsude Alaska, South Dakota, or Wisconsin would be slower to lift the dispensation.

Unfortunately, this suggests to me that Bp Lopes's judgment is impaired, and this may be a possible reason for why a full text of his letter is not available, as it doesn't exist. If this reading is correct, J Henry and Fr Perkins are the sort of marginal figures that impaired leaders select to cover for themselves. Even if the bishop were to say, "I'm short of time to do this, could you draft a letter lifting the dispensation for my review and approval?" neither would be capable of doing anything like this.

I've got to ask why any ordinariate members do not decamp and go into diocesan parishes with all deliberate speed, given these likely conditions in the chancery.

Houston Is Mailing It In

Almost at random, my regular correspondent found this notice in the September 24 newsletter of the St James Jacksonville, FL ordinariate group:

Bishop Lopes has directed that beginning October 1, 2020, the commutation of the obligation to attend Mass only applies only to those persons who are at higher risk for the Coronavirus (according to the CDC, those who are 60+ years of age, those with underlying medical conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, COPD, kidney disease, or are immuno-compromised). If you are not in this vulnerable group and you do not have some other grave reason to miss Mass, you have an obligation of holy obedience to your bishop and as a member of the Ordinariate to return to Mass and the Sacraments.

A whole bunch of questions come up. The first is why, when Bp Lopes announced the ordinariate's response to COVID measures in March, he instructed each community to follow the guidelines of its local diocese. As of September 2020, though, I'm only aware of dioceses in Alaska, South Dakota, and Wisconsin that have lifted the mass dispensation. This means that all the other North American dioceses still see obstacles to reopening and lifting the dispensation.

For instance, the St Augustine of Canterbury group in San Diego still can't return to its venue, since the school where it had been meeting remains closed. So, what are the members of that group to do, since Bp Lopes, their bishop, now tells them it is a grave sin not to go to mass? Do they go to a diocesan parish? But in California, attendance at any mass is still severely limited, and it must be outdoors only. Regular parishioners at those parishes must reserve spots, but in any case, due to the difficulties of getting to mass, their bishops continue to have the dispensation in place.

Someone might remind me that if it's impossible for any Catholic to get to mass under any circumstances, it's not a sin to miss mass. But why didn't Bp Lopes make this point himself in the letter, especially snce it's still unusual for churches to be open for general attendance anywhere in North America? Bp Lopes's letter apparently exempts only those deemed at health risk from the obligation, not those who could risk arrest by trying to get to mass.

The next question is why Bp Lopes announced this only via a letter to clergy. What puzzles me is that there isn't now, and as far as I can tell has never been, any announcement on the North American ordinariate website concerning COVID, mass guidelines, lifting of the mass dispensation, or anything else. In contrast, every diocesan website I visit, such as at random the Diocese of Fresno, CA , has exttremely detailed information on status. Dioceses that have lifted the dispensation on mass attendance have this prominently noted on their websites.

My regular correspondent noted,

Lifting of commutation mentioned on an ordinariate Facebook forum by a St Barnabas, Omaha parishioner; someone asked for a link to Bp Lopes’ letter to this effect and it was conceded that such was not available: “Our chancery is not known for well publicizing documents or rules...”

In other words, what else is new? Fr Perkins, having foresightedly quarantined himself well before there was ever a virus, is clearly exercising prudence in continuing to stay away, notwithstanding the dispensation from attending mass has been lifted, at least in Houston.

If you want my theory on what's going on, it's this. The letter was generated by Bp Lopes's secretary, J Henry, and broadcast via e-mail to priests, to do with as they saw fit. J Henry thought of including the bits about being over 60 and such, but it never occurred to him to address anything about what might be the case regarding lockdowns elsewhere in North America. He's in Houston, after all.

He probably didn't run this by Bp Lopes, as the bishop is indisposed.

Hey, did I say something recently about Anglicanorum coetibus being a hoax?

Free-Exercise Updates

Yesterday's post covered legal and legislative updates involvnig natural rights to earn a living, travel, and assemble protected under the US First and Fourtheenth Amendments and threatened by government lockdown orders. Today's post will cover legal developments surrounding the free-exercise-of-religion clause in the First Amendment.

Late yesterday, the Thomas More Society posted news on its website of developments in the Grace Community Church case:

Attorneys for Pastor John MacArthur and Grace Community Church prevailed in yet another hearing today in Los Angeles Superior Court, arguing that MacArthur and the Church are entitled to a full trial on the merits of their challenge to the constitutionality of the government shut-down orders and the preliminary injunction. Los Angeles County has sought to shut down the church and hold MacArthur in contempt, but Thomas More Society attorneys argued that a final determination on the constitutionality of the orders must occur before the county could seek contempt against MacArthur for merely holding church.

Judge Mitchell L. Beckloff indicated that he agreed there are serious constitutional concerns that have not been fully tried, and he reiterated that his prior ruling on the preliminary injunction was not a decision on the merits regarding the constitutionality of those orders. Because a contempt hearing is a quasi-criminal proceeding, Beckloff agreed that MacArthur and Grace Community Church are entitled to constitutional protections at any such trial.

Thomas More Society Special Counsel Jenna Ellis explained, “This is significant because no person can or should be held in contempt of a constitutionally invalid order. Los Angeles County continues to presume that its order is valid, with utter disregard for First Amendment protections. It’s tyranny to even suggest that a government action cannot be challenged and must be obeyed without question. This case goes to the heart of what our founders designed for the purpose of legitimate government—not to be above the rule of law. Pastor MacArthur is simply holding church, which is clearly his constitutionally protected right in this country.”

However, a trial can't take place until sometime next year, when other issues may have been resolved by the time it takes place. Elsewhere,Liberty Counsel putlished an update on its website regarding another Los Angeles area church, Harvest Rock Church in Pasadena:

Monday, I delivered oral argument before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals representing Harvest Rock Church and the 162 California churches affiliated with Harvest International Ministry against the outrageous church closure edicts of CA Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The hearing was on our emergency motion for an injunction pending the appeal. In the most basic terms, we are asking the court to STOP all of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s unconstitutional, illegal and discriminatory actions against churches until the court can hear the full merits of our case.

The three-judge panel who heard our case was hard to read. My presentation went well, but we don’t know how the court will rule. That preliminary ruling could come at any moment.

Regardless of what is decided on this emergency injunction, the court has fast-tracked the merits of the case for another hearing yet to be set. Our briefing on the merits of the case will be filed within the next week. After the state responds and we file a reply, I will return to the appeals court for the ultimate ruling on the merits.

Although most of the action in free-exercise cases has taken place in California, it's worth noting that a Washington, DC Baptist parish has also now filed suit to protect its right to worship:

A large, prominent evangelical Capitol Hill church late Tuesday filed a legal challenge to the District, alleging the city government is violating the First Amendment by facilitating and tolerating massive anti-racism protests but forbidding worship services — indoor or outdoor — of more than 100 because of covid-19.

The complaint filed by the 850-member Capitol Hill Baptist Church is the first legal challenge by a religious organization to the capital’s coronavirus restrictions. There have been two others in the region — one in Virginia and one in Maryland — since quarantine measures began, and final decisions are pending in both.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court, challenges the city’s limits on worship generally, but asks specifically only for the right to meet outdoors. It notes that Bowser appeared at a huge anti-racism rally in June, that the city police have been assigned to such events and that her office has not enforced its own ban on outdoor gatherings of more than 50 people.

As I've said, we're working in the context of the Parable of the Persistent Widow here, but the court cases are hacking away st the constitutional basis for the lockdowns. I will be interested to see how much of Judge Stickman's opinion is now included in the briefs on behalf of these churches.

COVID Updates

A Canadian lawyer and YouTuber who goes by the name Viva Frei has published an update on the status of Pennsylvania Gov Wolf's appeal of Judge Stickman's opinion:

Yet again, the prestigious constitutional law bloggers have no coverage of this matter, which I think is an indication of the shell game even the educated elite public allows to be played in front of it. The focus, even in informed legal circles, has been on Justice Ginsburg's passing and the Kabuki being played out over her replacement. The fact is that the Senate Republicans have already gamed out all the moves; almost certainly there will be agreement on one of the nominees already known to be at the top of the list, and she'll be voted in before the election.

The hysteria, the threats to lie down in front of the hearing room, the vague threats of another impeachment, are all clickbait. It seems to me that the most important point is that he US president and the Republican majority leader have been able to keep sufficient Republican senators in line to make the outcome inevitable. Why? I would say that it's generally understood in Washington that the outcome of the November election is inevitable, and there will be a Republican sweep. Even Sen Murkowski is beginning to recognize her interests lie in getting with the program.

None of the Republican senators, even those who in past years would have basked in media praise at being called "sensible moderates" or "mavericks", wants to be on the wrong side of this outcome. If there were any sense that Trump would lose, or the Republicans would lose the Senate, one or more of that group would have been off the reservation by now. Isn't happening. McConnell gave Sens Collins and Murkowski passes, because he didn't need them (and he'd gamed that out weeks earlier). Now even Murkowski is deciding maybe she doesn't need that pass after all, notwithstanding she'll forego praise from the media for it.

My guess is that Chief Justice Roberts of the US Supreme Court voted against granting certiorari to the California religious freedom cases in May because he was waiting for a better case to come before the court. Based on Viva Frei's analysis, Judge Stickman's ruling may be that case. Viva Frei points out that the Stickman opinion is a declaratory judgment issued after a full evidentiary hearing, in which both parties had the opportunity to present their evidence and arguments.

On that basis, Stickman refused to grant Gov Wolf a stay of his order pending appeal, since such stays are typically granted in the context of temporary restraining orders or injunctions, not after a full evidentiary hearing. My guess is that Roberts will vote to grant certiorari on this case, but by the time it reaches the court, there will almost certainly be another conservative justice on the court anyhow, so that five justices could grant certiorari even without Roberts's vote.

But I've been saying all along that there's no single magic bullet that will end the lockdowns, and some combination of legal, electoral, and "other" strategies will continue to be needed. A group called Unlock Michigan has been conducting a petition campaign to repeal a law that has been interpreted to allow Gov Whitmer to impose unilateral and indefinite lockdown measures. It now says it has gained sufficient signatures to move to the next stage of implementing the measure.

Unlock Michigan reported on its Facebook page they have collected 500,000 signatures on their petition for legislation that would repeal the 1945 Michigan Governor's emergency powers act.

The 1945 act gives the Governor broad power when it comes to issuing executive orders during the time of an emergency.

The petitions will now be turned into the Bureau of Elections for verification.

If the petition is certified it will then go to Michigan lawmakers to be voted on.

It's likely that Michigan authorities will attempt to slow-walk the process, but it's increasingly clear that in some areas, the authorities are on the defensive.

I'm simply not clear at this point on how Judge Stickman's ruling affects daily life in his judicial district. Can restaurants reopen without restrictions, at least temporarily, for instance? The prestigiouis constitutional law professors are so far silent

Anglicanorum Coetibus As Hoax

As we run through more and more hoaxes of the sort we've seen so far this century -- Saddam's WMDs, the housing bubble, Hillary's 2016 landslide, the Russsian hookers peeing on the bed -- I won't go into COVID-19 -- I see more and more parallels with Anglicanorum coetibus.

The big difference is that, although ingredients were there -- weepy sentimentality, Episcopalians coming home, grassroots activism -- it didn't catch on with corporate media. It didn't matter if the Episcopalians weren't coming home, nor was there grassroots interest, the media would have created it if it didn't exist.

A big part of the problem for corporate media is that it painted a potentially attractive picture of Catholicism, with educated members of the elite at least theoretically drawn to it. Never mind it wasn't happning, the media would have invented it if it had suited them. A bigger problem was at the source, Benedict XVI was, as the US president would put it, a highly overrated person. Anglicanorum coetibus was one of his major initiatives. He was also going to fix the money issues via Abp Viganò. Instead, he retired.

It's worth noting that not even the National Catholic Register spends much ink on the North American ordinariate. It started out mostly as a creature of Anglo-Catholic alternate media, but within a few years of the ordinariate's establishment, those disappeared.

Anglicanorum coetibus also emerged as a response to the "coontinuing" Anglican movement, which as its historian Doublas Bess has pointed out in Divided We Stand has always been a creature of wishful thinking and hucksterism. With the exception of David Virtue, neither corporate nor alternate media ever paid much attention to it, either.

It's also symptomatic that the ordinariate has attracted a remarkable number of frauds, con men, and phonies, chief among whom is Fr Christopher Phillips, but he isn't unoique, with the Gilbertine "brothers" a close second. And I'm still waiting for Dcn Wooten just to show us the wire transfer receipt for the mysteriuous million-dollar gift. No need to mention names, just blank account numbers out in the copy. A cobfirmaton that a transfer took place and a bank balance is plenty.

The best treatment of contemporary hoaxes by far is the film The Big Short. I highly recommebnd it. My wife and I watch it a couple of times each year. If there were a way to short the North American ordinariate, I'd do it. But in any case, the best strategy is not to send good money after bad, and certainly not to plan long-term careers on it, or expect most communities to continue in a way that will support a family's spiritual growth.

If you can't short, it's time to pull your money out.

Anglicanorum Coetibus -- Is There An Exit Strategy?

My regular correspondent reports,

I noted that worshippers at St Thomas More, Toronto were asked to pray especially for the Australian ordinariate this Sunday, and I wondered if there were some particular crisis. Mr Murphy used to update us on things there, but now I see nothing about it. So I checked their website and found this recent newsletter.

I draw it to your attention because a) while amateurish in presentation, it has content of substance (some reprinted from elsewhere, granted) in contrast to its occasional fellow, the Ordinariate Observer, and apparently is published monthly b) you may not have seen Msgr Pope’s article, which I thought you would find of interest (p 4).

On the other hand, with only eighteen small Australian communities, plus two in Japan which do not have an approved Japanese liturgy and generally seem to be a front, as explained here, it would not appear that the Australian ordinariate has a future.

There is some interest in forming Ordinariate communities in Guam and the Philippines, but I think the situation is similar to that in Japan ie driven by local men hoping for ordination. There is a Facebook page for the group in the Philippines but no website.

Early in his episcopacy Bp Lopes visited Puerto Rico to meet with Juan Garcia who had expressed interest in having his TAC diocese join the Ordinariate

I had been following the local news—-basically a flurry of ordinations ahead of Bp Lopes’s visit—-but I think he found clergy with no congregations, and nothing more was said about Puerto Rico and the OCSP. The formerly TAC leadership of the Australian ordinariate apparently was/is less discriminating.

Learned in passing that Bp Lopes is scheduled to visit St Thomas More, Toronto October 18. I guess he will be ignoring the quarantine requirement. Presumably he will fly back to Houston the same day as the OCSP Clergy Conference starts October 19. The one the Canadian clergy cannot attend because they would be required to quarantine on their return.

There are a couple of points worth comment. Guam is a US territory, and I've got to think that any ordinariate community there would be part of the North American ordinariate. I would also think the same of any ordinariate community in the Philippines -- there are far more overseas Filipinos in the US than in Australia, and contacts with the US are simply constant due to family connections. I would also think that in both Guam and the Philippines, US citizens abd US military members would be the main audience, since the Philippines have been a major Catholic nation for centuries.

Second, Bp Garcia is now Presiding Bishop of the Anglican Church in America. I suspect he was evaluating his options during Bp Lopes's visit and must have gone with a fairly obvious choice: he would become an Anglican presiding bishop in the ACA, or at best a dean of a Puerto Rican deanery in the ordinariate.

We know nothing of what may or may not be going on with regard to the future of the Australian ordinariate. But recent US events reminded me of how adults in leadership positions think. Supreme Court Jusrice Ginsburg had been in poor health for years, with recurring cancer and infections at age 87. The US president would presumably have been kept fully abreast of Justice Ginsburg's condition via any of several pathways.

A few weeks ago, out of the blue, the US president updated his list of potential supreme court nominations. Wow, why would he do that? Last Friday evening, Justice Ginsburg passed away. My goodness, what a surprise to everyone! Then the Kabuki started. Two moderate Republlicans annonced they opposed confirmation of Ginsburg's successor before the November election. Only two, when the Republicans could still pass the nomination with 51 votes.

The US president and the Reupublican majority leader had this thing contingency-planned, gamed out, and the Republican votes lined up well before the inevitable event. That's how adults do things.

Is anyone at the CDF thinking through the inevitable need for a windup stragegy for Anglicanorum coetibus? An Australian closeout, let's face it, is only the first one that will be needed.

I did wonder the other day why, if the Ordinriate Observer is there mainly as something for Bp Lopes to point to, the bishop has seen no need to point to something for over a year. Is someone gaming an exit strategy?

San Francisco Update

According to the San Francisco Chronicle,

More than 1,000 people gathered at Civic Center Plaza in San Francisco on Sunday, converging from Catholic parishes throughout the city and then marching to the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption on Gough Street in a protest that demanded the immediate reopening of indoor services.

Places of worship were closed in the city for almost six months after the mid-March shelter-in-place order. Even though the state has said San Francisco can reopen churches at 25% capacity, Mayor London Breed announced last week that one person would be allowed inside churches at a time for prayer.

“Does that make sense to you: one person indoors at a time in a church? ... Is there a rational basis? Nobody has given me a rational basis for that,” said Archbishop of San Francisco Salvatore J. Cordileone before leading a Eucharistic procession to City Hall and uphill to the cathedral.

. . . “If we can’t be inside the church, it’s just not the same. There’s no sense of being in a sacred place and sharing a community. The house of worship is irreplaceable,” said Vincent Desbieys, who drove from Santa Clara to join the demonstration and has worshiped in the parking lot of Our Lady of Peace since mid-March. “We’ve been very patient and civilized. But now, it’s time to open.”

Among the group’s gripes is that liquor stores have remained open during the pandemic and retail is now allowed to operate at 50% capacity. Breed is allowing outdoor religious services for 50 people and has said that the city hopes to allow indoor worship services of 25 people by Oct. 1.

Twenty-five people is less than 1% of St. Mary’s capacity, and the assembly there Sunday filled every plaza, veranda and courtyard before stretching across Geary Street.

Catholic authorities have been behind the curve in calling attention to the unequal treatment of churches in the COVID lockdowns, although the Stickman Pennsylvania federal court opinion makes the point that all the distinctions among categories for shutdown or opening are completely arbitrary and inconsistent. Cordileone has been the most vocal Catholic bishop to speak on this issue. He also wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post last week:

I never expected that the most basic religious freedom, the right to worship — protected so robustly in our Constitution’s First Amendment — would be unjustly repressed by an American government.

But that is exactly what is happening in San Francisco. For months now, the city has limited worship services to just 12 people outdoors. Worship inside our own churches is banned. The city recently announced it will now allow 50 for outdoor worship, with a goal of permitting indoor services up to a maximum of 25 people by Oct. 1 — less than 1 percent of the capacity of San Francisco’s St. Mary’s Cathedral.

. . . And it is not just San Francisco. According to the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, six states with a combined population of 67 million Americans single out religious worship for unfavorable treatment compared to similar secular activities: California, New Jersey, Maine, Virginia, Connecticut and Nevada.

We Catholics are not indifferent to the very real dangers posed by covid-19. This is one of the reasons Catholic churches have developed rigorous protocols to protect public health in our facilities. We submitted our safety plans to the city in May along with other faith communities, and while indoor retailers had their plans approved and went into operation, we are still waiting to hear back.

Elsewhere, Cordileone has expressed frustraition to the point where he thinks a "throw the bums out" mentality is growing.

he government has no authority telling us we can’t worship. They have no authority to tell us whether or not we’re essential. They have no authority to tell us what sorts of worship are essential. They have the authority to tell us what we need to do to keep people safe when they worship. But those restrictions can’t be so severe to effectively ban worship… The right to worship is not given by the First Amendment, it’s protected by the First Amendment… Current San Francisco law allows only one person inside a church at a time to pray… No one has given me the rationale. There is no rationale except discrimination. They’re discriminating against us. This is clearly targeting against us… I sense a sort of … “throw the bums out” sort of mentality.

Meanwwhile, Speaker Pelosi first said she'd attended some type of indoor mass in San Francisco, but apparently now mindful of the security cam video of her visit to a hair salon, has changed her story:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office told CNA Friday evening that she “misspoke” when she described “recently” attending Mass in a San Francisco church, despite the city’s months-long ban on indoor Masses.

“The Speaker misspoke. She has not been in San Francisco since September 5th due to ongoing talks around COVID relief and appropriations,” spokesman Drew Hammill from the Speaker’s office told CNA in a statement on Friday evening.

“She [Pelosi] has been participating regularly in church services virtually,” Hammill said.

Hammill did not explain what Pelosi referred to when she described Sept. 18 attending what appeared to be an indoor Mass and receiving Communion “recently” at a San Francisco church.

I have the impression that Catholic clergy, from Abp Cordeleone down to our archdiocesan vocation director are anticipating that the most effective path to resolution will be the upcoming election. Trump won the Catholic vote in 2016, and the result in November is likely not to differ.

The Payoff For The Laity?

At the end of yesterday's post, I asked what the payoff was for ordinariate laity, who, let's face it, need to find some major reward that counterbalances tiny, unstable, communities with minimal programs and resource and also-ran clergy. A visitor replied,

The payoff for the laity, if there is one, is traditional worship. There is not much to choose from in certain parts of Texas. Maybe that is why these parishes, if they succeed at all, do so in areas where there is a vacuum, or are in areas that geographically would have needed a parish.

I have a question: Is the laity the target audience of the Ordinariate Observer? I don't feel that it is.

I think there's a series of cascading questions here. The first is "what is 'traditional worship'?" I've heard the objection to the Divine Worship missal that it's just a tricked-out verison of novus ordo, that it's in English, it contains Protestant prayers, and it dates from 2015. What on earth is "traditional" about it? (This reminds me of the Fox commentator Laura Ingraham, who just last week again called herself "Roman Catholic". Right, her Wikipedia entry lists the numerous B-list gentlemen she's dated over her long dating career without marrying any of them -- but she supports Lifesite News. Payoff?)

Now, I know the visitor who wrote me about this is from one of the more stable and successful ordinariate communities, so he's speaking from that perspective. But only a dozen of the 40 or so sommunities are parishes, and of the remainder, not all provide ad orientem worship, and many have portable altars, worship in conference rooms or cafetoriums, and distribute the Sacrament standing. Not much tradition even there.

But ;let's go beyond that. The Evangelical pastor much in the news lately, John A MacArthur, has said that in the face of fines and penalties from the county for holding indoor worship without social distancing, attendance at his services has skyrocketed. Yet his church has no candles, no altar, no formal liturgy, no vestments, and normally no sacrament (and I assume it recognizes only two). It isn't "traditional worship", at least as Catholics use the term. But there's clearly a renewed demand for it.

In fact, Ven Fulton Sheen seems to have understood this demand and respectd Billy Graham and Robert Schuller. He preached at Schuller's venue. Catholics aren't required to abjure anything that isn't some version of high church. They're required to get the Sacrament each week, no other fuss and feathers involvd. People are welcome to their preference, and some parishes have a very reverent mass without calling attention to themselves as special -- but the level of churchmanship is up to the parish via its worship committee and the pastor.

But we're back to the issue of whether there's a payoff to being more Catholic than the pope, the worship committee, or the pastor a la Laura Ingraham. Among those could well be the absence of a school and the need to send one's children there, not to mention meeting its other demands on time and finance. Only one ordinariate parish has a school, and it's on shaky ground. Why is this? I suspect it's not a bug, it's a feature. If families simply went to the novus ordo parish across town, it might have a school, and they'd be on the horns of that dilemma.

The same goes for the fellowship, programs, and opporunities of a larger novus ordo parish. One of the things my wife and I miss during the current civil prohibitions has been the fellowship of wonderful Filipino and Latin friends, not to mention cradle Catholics we wouldn't have met otherwise. We've lost weekly Bible study and adoration, as well as regular social events. I question whether more than a few ordinariate parishes have anything like this range of activities. If people refuse to consider them because a parish like that probably also has female servers, that's not a bug, it's a feature.

The visitor also asks of the Ordinariate Observer is actually intended for the laity. Good question. I've asked it myself. I caan't avoid the feeling it's there as something for Bp Lopes to point to. and for whatever reason, he hasn't had to point to it for more than a year. I leave it to visitors to speculate as to why, but the thing to start with is to recognize it simply isn't a priority.

Seminarians And The Nature Of Ordinariate News

My regular correspondent has coninued the effort begun last month to figure out how many celibate seminarians are actually in formation in the North American ordinariate:

I can now verify that in September 2018 the OCSP did have eight celibate seminarians. Since that time, two have been ordained to the priesthood, three are still in formation, and three have left seminary. One new candidate has entered seminary.

I was looking at this issue apropos of the news item about Holy House; in passing I noticed an item in the Ordinariate Observer about St Margaret, Katy mentioning that it had ninety families registered and Easter attendance was 143. Less than two years later it had folded, with no apparent notice taken.

Also noted that despite the fact that all the articles were puff pieces, the Ordinariate Observer was an actual news source, of professional quality. It seems incredible that it has been issued so rarely —- perhaps twice a year, and nothing since the summer of 2019. Hard to understand why the Ordinariate has never made communication a priority.

A question popped into my head: where, I wonder, is the Anglican Patrimony component in the ordinariate seminary curriculum? As far as I can see, there isn't one, unless someone can set me straight. During the startup phase of Anglicanorum coetibus, it was apparently assumed that if you ordained an existing Anglican clergyman, he had the patrimony baked in, and you just had to do some touchup in canon law or whatever to bring him up to product spec.

But of course, this applied only to the window-dressing tier of ordinands, the ones from Nashotah House or Yale Divinity, not to the ones with mail order degrees or no degree at all. Where did they get their Anglican Patrimony? Well, not all of those neeeded it for more than a few years, huh? But that goes to the question of whether even the Ordinariate Observer is anything but a corporate-media wannabe, producing a slickly packaged fantasy.

So let's move on to a hypothetical new ordinariate seminarian who's presented himself for formation perhaps at the end of his undergraduate studies. Here there are two choices. He can present an Episcopalian pedigree of some sort, though of course he wasn't raised in a Catholic family, but somehow, perhaps watching Downton Abbey or reading Barchester Towers, he thought a sorta-kinda Catholic kind of Anglicanism would be a good idea. (I go looking for unicorns at the LA Zoo as well, come to think of it.)

The other choice is that he was raised in an ordinariate parish by a family qualifying for membership and already had ex Episcopalian Catholic credentials, and thought he had a vocation. There seems to be a small number of these, though there's an attrition rate in seminary. (Even so, wouldn't a capable guy raised Catholic see better career prospects in his local diocese? In light of the seriousness of that career choice, shouldn't he investigate all his options carefully?)

And that brings me to the question of the ordinariate as a career choice. Our novus ordo parish, as part of what appears to have been an intricate deal, had to surrender a highly capable associate to fill an mergency vacancy in another parish. It got a temporary fill-in for confessions and visitations, but apparently our pastor worked out a deal where he got the pick of this summer's ordinands as a more permanent replacement.

And a pick he appears to be. Our pastor asks us to pray for "normal" men to take up vocations, and this guy is "normal" in the sense our pastor implies, but other than that, he's poised, well-spoken, and smart. My guess is he'll have a good career. A good career in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles is probably not a bad thing.

Why would any guy with those prospects choose a career in the ordinariate? I think of Edward Feser reasoning that stability and predictability are essential objects for the rule of law. It seems to me that they're also essential characteristics of an ecclesiastical organization. It won't function well without them, but it also won't attract capable men to careers.

The North American ordinariate is neither stable nor predictable. After eight years, it hasn't improved. The men it's attracting, whether from Anglican careers or new seminarians, appear not to be "normal" in the sense our pastor has in mind.

By the way, why do people continue to support this whole phony enterprise? If there's a payoff for the poor clergy applicants -- it's the only alternative, after all -- what's the payoff for the laity? There's got to be one.

Big Events Over The Past Week: Where Are The Traddies?

So, since this past Friday, The Congregation for Divine Worship has stated. with the approval of the Holy Father, that it's urgent and necessary for Catholics to return to in-person mass, saying civil authorities do not have jurisdiction over liturgy. The Archdiocese of Milwaukee has lifted the dispensation of the obligation to attend Sunday mass. (The other Wisconsin bishops have jointly agreed to do this at varying times this month.) A Catholic-educated federal judge has ruled Pennsylvania lockdown restricitons, including those on indoor gatherings, unconstitutional.

So I checked Fr Z's blog. Since September 10, there've been multiple posts on ham radio, sonnets, one on what's going on in Mexico City -- but nothing about the developments above, which ought to be major events for Catholics. I checked Lifesite News. In a summary of the past week's artiles there, other than a belated story on Cdl Sarah's letter, zilch. Church Militant does the best, with a story on the Stickman decision and another on the San Francisco eucharistic procession, but Traditional Latin Mass Comes to Jamaica gets much bigger play.

It seems to me that, although the major events in recent religioius news have come from California Evangelical churches, there have been significant Catholic intellectual developments. These invlude Edward Feser's essay The rule of lawlessness, in which Feser argues via Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas that the "blue" civil authorities that are imposing lockdowns while tacitly encouraging riots and looting are tyrants in the classical definition.

Further,

During a speech for Hillsdale College Wednesday night, Attorney General William Barr compared lockdowns being enforced due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic to slavery, according to the Associated Press.

“Other than slavery, which was a different kind of restraint, this is the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history,” Barr said.

Barr was been critical of lockdown orders across the U.S. as the country continues to adapt to reopening various sectors of society. Barr has previously compared the orders to a form of house arrest.

Barr is Catholic. But beyond that, he delivered these remarks at Hillsdale College, which I've begun to understand is a key locus of intellectual regeneration in the US. I've taken many of their online courses, and the equivalent courses in philosopy, English lit, and history that I had at an elite undergraduate school decades ago simply aren't comparable.

A current course, Introduction to Aristotle's Ethics, is a video of a seminar which the institution's president, Larry Arnn, conducts with what appear to be a group of the school's most promisnig students. Beyond the course content, I've got to say that the students themselves, judging from their class participation, are in quality far beyond the students I knew in the Ivy League back in the day -- and those I knew have been cabinet ministers, New York Times reporters, white-shoe law partners, elite professors, and corporate media commentators. I highly recommend any of the free Hillsdale on line courses.

But this all says to me that the important new things are not emerging from Anglicanorum coetibus or Summorum Pontificum. From what I understand, Larry Arnn is a "continuing" Anglican, though I assume whatever flavor of "continuing" he is, it doesn't much resemble what we normally see. Clearly the curriculum at Hillsdale is not specific to any denomination, though it's clearly Catholic-friendly, and it stresses Plato and Aristotle and includes Aquinas.

And key intelleftual figures aren't necessarily associated with Hillsdale. Edward Feser's PhD is from UC Santa Barbara of all places, and he teaches at Pasadena City College. But he's aligned with Bp Barron, who is not a lightweight intellectually himself. The important new things are coming from unexpected places.

I started this blog when I began to realize that important new things, which i'd initially expected from Anglicanorum coetibus, weren't going to come from there. I had that one figured out by mid-2012. But it looks like Bp Barron, who probably knew this all along, is finally losing public patience with the traddies.

Their inability to address, or even to recognize, the major crisis we currently face is an indicatoin they're a backwater.

The Stickman COVID Opinion

I've been turning the Stickman judicial opinion of September 14, which ruled Pennsylvania Gov Wolf's lockdown orders unconstitutional, over in my mind all week (the text is here). I tend to agree with a YouTube legal commentator who finds it remarkable and a potential landmark:

The first thing that struck me was how closely the opinion parallels a recent blog post by Edward Feser. Checking Stickman's background, he received both his undergraduate and law degrees from Duquesnae University, a Catholic institution. The opinion, 66 pages long, highly detailed and closely reasoned, echoes Feser, a neo-Scholastic:

There is also the fact that, as I have argued before, lockdowns involve actions that, under ordinary circumstances, would be gravely unjust. Human beings have a natural right to labor in order to provide for themselves and their families. They have a natural right to gather together for religious worship. They have a natural right to decide how best to educate their children. They have a natural right to the liberty of action involved in ordinary day-to-day social activities. They have a natural right to the stability and predictability necessary for long-range planning, which the rule of law is supposed to guarantee. Interference with these normal human activities and goods causes grave harm. Hence, while they can in principle be temporarily suspended when absolutely necessary in an emergency, there is a strong presumption against this. The burden of proof is always on government to demonstrate that interference with these goods is strictly necessary, and not on citizens to show that such interference is unnecessary.

So, again, “Do lockdowns work?” is the wrong question. The right question is: “Do we know with moral certainty that lockdowns are strictly necessary to prevent the potential harms of the virus, and that those harms are greater than the aggregate of harms that the lockdowns themselves cause?” And I submit that we know no such thing, and that continued lockdowns are, accordingly, unjustifiable and tyrannical.

Interestingly, yet again, the blogs of highly prestigious constitutional law professors Glenn Reynolds and Willaim A Jacobson contain no useful commentary on the decision. (I tried a search for "Stickman" on Reynolds's blog and came up empty. Jacobson has a single, bare-bones entry nowhere near the quality of YouTube commmentaries by far less presitigous lawyers.)

What are the specific next steps in the appeal? How is the appeals court likely to respond? Did Stickman tailor his opinion in such a way to encourage the US Supreme Court to hear this case, as opposed to earlier COVID religious freedom cases that it declined to hear? So far, I've heard no informed opinion.

Meanwhile, just yesterday, a group of anti-mask protesters marched through a Fort Lauderdale, FL Target chanting, "take off your mask".

“Who here is sick and tired of having to wear one of these things every time you go into a store,”​ said a man. “Now, here is the bottom line: if someone wants to wear a mask going to a grocery store, then let them wear a mask, but how is it that if their mask is working that I have to wear one, too?”

From there, they went into the store where they removed their masks and began playing the song “We’re Not Gonna Take It” by Twisted Sister while marching through the store shouting at customers telling them to take off their masks.

Church Reopening Updates

This past Saturday, the Archdiocese of Milwaukee lifed the dispensation of the obligation to attend Sunday mass:

"[I]t will be the responsibility of those who are capable and not prohibited by other circumstances to attend Sunday Mass,” states Archbishop Jerome E. Listecki in a blog post. “Those who deliberately fail to attend Sunday Mass commit a grave sin.”

Wisconsin has been in a unique situation since its Republican-dominated supreme court ruled the governor's extension of lockdown orders unconstitutional on May 13. Subsequently., most local jurisdictions determined that they had no authority to enforce health orders independently. And on September 10, the same court ruled that Madison-Dane County could not prevent private schools from holding in-person classes.

Conseqquently, since May of this year, Wisconsin has had no restrictions on in-person mass attendance. That the archdiocese was slow to act, wating four months to lift the dispensation, is a matter to question. On the other hand, Wisconsin is demographically and economically very similar to surrounding states Minnesota, Michigan, and Illinois, where lockdowns have continued, but we must assume COVID statistics have not been distinguishable among them.

Eventually, someone is going to have to ask why mass attendance, or indeed attendance at any other religious gathering, has not led to particular COVID outbreaks.

Up to now, I've reported that the Diocese of Sioux Falls, SD lifted the mass dispensation on August 10. However, corporate media reported that this was the "first" in the US to do so -- except I've discovered that the Diocese of Fairbanks, AK lifted the dispensation in July. I'll be grateful if visitors report similar developments, and I'll publish them here.

It's likely that the Archdiocesre of Milwaukee moved in response to a statement from Cardinal Sarah and the Congregation for Divine Worship that it is "necessary and urgent" to return to in-person mass.

Sarah argues that although the Catholic Church should cooperate with civil authorities and adopt protocols to protect the safety of the faithful, “liturgical norms are not matters on which civil authorities can legislate, but only the competent ecclesiastical authorities.”

This, of course, is completely consistent with the forceful statements of California Evangelical pastors like John MacArthur, and my impression all along has been that in forbidding singing in chuch or exchanging the Peace, civil authorities are enforcing liturgical norms.

The civic atmosphere is in fact gradually changing. In San Francisco, Speaker Pelosi's well-publicized visit to a hair salon, a type of business which remained closed to the plebs, prompted widespread relaxation of this prohibition throughout the state. At the same time, news that city employees had gyms available to them, when those for the plebs were closed, prompted reopenings of gyms as well.

Restrictions on religious gatherings in San Francisco had been among the most stringent anywhere.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed had announced this week that starting Sept. 14, houses of worship may have 50 people at religious services outdoors. In addition, indoor private prayer is allowed, but only one person at a time is allowed inside.

Previously, the limit for outdoor services had been 12 people, with all indoor services prohibited.

Howevr,

The Archbishop of San Francisco has called Catholics to participate in Eucharistic processions across the city Sept. 20, which will join together and walk past city hall before public Masses are said outside the city's cathedral - in part to protest the city’s revised limits on public worship.

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone said in a memo to priests Sept. 13 that separate processions would begin at St. Anthony, St. Patrick, and Star of the Sea parishes, and would converge at United Nations Plaza near San Francisco City Hall.

I hope that Catholic authorities will begin more consistent reproaches to civil authorities, citing in particular the wildly divergent regulations among states, counties, and muncipalities, with, after so many months, no demonstrable public health benefit of the stricter vis-a-vis non-existent regulations. But as I've said, this will be a lengthy process, and civil authorities continue to insist that lockdown-related restrictions must continue indefinitely.

A glimmer of hope comes in a September 14 federal court ruling:

[Judge] Stickman’s judgment stipulates that “the congregate gathering limits imposed by defendants’ mitigation orders violate the right of assembly enshrined in the First Amendment,” the “stay-at-home and business closure components of defendants’ orders violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,” and “the business closure components of Defendants’ orders violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

St John The Baptist Bridgeport Wants A New Steeple -- Oh, Look, A Squirrel!

Among the items in this week's Ordinariate News from the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society is this:

St. John the Baptist’s ‘Steeple Fund’ has raised $200k of $500k necessary to add a steeple to their Church, almost entirely within the community. An anonymous donor has offered a matching gift of up to $20k of any donations given to the fund by Jan. 15th. Donations should be marked as for the fund.

Submitted by Peter Smith of St. Alban’s

So now there's a "steeple fund" to place a new steeple on the church. How does this relate to the parish's former building fund and its previous master plan?

For instance, in its May, 2018 parish newsletter, SJB announced,

Knowing that our buildings present some serious usability issues, we commissioned a Master Plan for the property from the church architectural firm of Cram & Ferguson. These are the architects who designed what is now our Cathedral in Houston, along with many other great church buildings over the years.

. . . Before commissioning the Plan, we identified a number of issues to be addressed: at this point only the nave level of the church is wheel-chair accessible – no floor of the parish house is nor the lower church. We lack a good space for coffee hour, and for larger meetings. The back parking lot is not convenient for either parish house or church. The church itself needs better lighting, and could use a more “Anglican” feel for our liturgy. We lack a usable outdoor space for kids’ play or for summer coffee hour. The church tower is squat, and there are long-standing cracks in some of the interior walls.

The recommendationss from the study were prioritized in a series of goals for the building fund:

• lack of handicap accessibility everywhere except the nave level of the church
• longstanding cracks in the walls of the church tower, source unknown
• tower appears squat from the street
• lack of attractive and acoustically usable meeting space in the parish house
• interior church issues: formica, obviously fake marble, dim lighting, an Italian rather than English character
• ugly exterior shelters over the side doors to the church
• lack of outdoor space usable for summer coffee hour, kids’ play, etc.
• general lack of attractiveness of outside of parish house

My regular correspondent comments,

Interesting to note that “Tower appears squat from the street” has financial priority over “acoustically usable meeting space,” “lack of outdoor space,” or even, dear Lord, “formica” and “obviously fake marble.” I guess it’s a case of “What will the neighbours think?”

There's no mention of how a $500,000 steeple fund relates to the building fund that solicits donations on the parish website. It sounds as though this is a completely separate project, with a priority that apparently has become greater than the other issues, such as lighting, parking lot access, or handicap accessibility. Or is this something that could be addressed simply by clearer communication from the parish council?

If the cracks mentioned in the tower walls are now understood to be a threat to the building and the public, that could definitely change things -- but from what we hear, this doesn't seem to be the case.

Another question in my mind is how the steeple project relates to the overall general plan. Our novus ordo parish has just such a plan -- but necessary changes are clearly explained in relation to the overall budget, line items, and priorities.

For instance, new fencing around the elementary school was originally a "Phase II" improvement. But when a full donation was made for that purpose, under the condition that the new fencing be installed immediately, this change was announced in the parish bulletin.

In SJB's case, no overall budget or schedule has been posted, and it's hard to avoid thinking the steeple has been plucked out of the middle of the list and given a new, higher priority, without explanation. And we don't know the cost of the other line items, or how the steeple will affect their implementation.

Like so much else, it's all sorta-kinda-maybe someday. Even the Protestants do better than this.

Let's Look At Dcn Wooten's Career

The most complete public record we have of of Dcn Scott Wooten's work history is his Linkedin profile. This says he graduated from Nashotah House, the snobby Anglo-Catholic seminary that, while putatively conservative, trains plenty of openly gay and female seminarians.

He lists two assignments in the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth. He was rector of Church of the Good Shepherd in Wichita Falls, TX from July 2004 to July 2015. during that time, he was a Very Rev and ran for the diocesan standing committee.

Fr. Wooten currently serves on the Commission on Ministry for the Priesthood, the Board of Managers of Camp Crucis and is the Dean of the Northern Deanery. He is the clergy representative to the Youth Commission of the Diocese.

But he left Good Shepherd in July 2015, for whatever reason, and he went to become rector of St. Peter and St. Paul Anglican Church in Arlington, TX. He was no longer a Very Rev, just The Rev, and there's no indication of other committee assignments during this period. Interestingly, he lists his rectorship at Good Shepherd Wichita Falls on his Facebook page, but not the time at St Peter and Paul.

The public record we have shows that his career with the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth came to an abrupt end in November 2017. A letter to the parish from its newly designated priest in charge, Fr Richard Moseley, reads

Dearest members of St. Peter and St. Paul Anglican Church,

It is with great sadness that I pass on to you the news that was delivered by our Rector, Fr. Scott Wooten last weekend at each of the services. He has decided to resign from his position here at STP2 effective this weekend and will be seeking secular employment. Please pray for guidance and peace for the Wooten Family.

. . . If you have any questions about Fr. Scott’s resignation, my serving as Priest in Charge, or our future, please plan to come to an ALL PARISH MEETING with Bishop Iker on Monday, November 27th at 7:00 pm here at the church.

I ran this by a former TEC priest who does not know Wooten but does know a number of other Fort Worth clergy, including Bp Iker. He says it's impossible to read any clear indication of what happened, but from his remarks, he clearly felt Wooten had been removed as rector by Bp Iker on very short notice. I would add that it looks like in response to whatever issue Iker addressed with Wooten, Wooten also resigned his Anglican orders.

I would not completely ignore Fr Moseley's remarks that Wooten "will be seeking secular employment. Please pray for guidance and peace for the Wooten Family."

My regular correspondent notes, "Sometime in 2019 both Mr Wooten and his wife changed the 'relationship status' to “nothing to show” on their respective Facebook pages."

The TEC priest I consulted suggests Bp Iker could have removed Wooten as a rector and encouraged his resignation from the priesthood if Iker had discovered an intent by Wooten to become Catholic or go into the ordinariate as a candidate. My regular correspondent suggests,

When, say, Frs Erdman and Michoacan, to cite two recent examples, left TEC to become Catholic their stories were told various places: local Catholic media, newsletters of the Ordinariate parishes where they were received, Ordinariate-themed blogs. Mr Wooten’s ordination to the diaconate seemed to come out of nowhere, and I can still find no specifics of his reception into the Church. Only thing I can find, as forwarded to you, is notice of his induction into the Knights of Columbus chapter at St Stephen, Weatherford, TX in March 2018. On January 1, 2019 he posted info on FB about mass at St Timothy (now St Thomas Becket) Ft Worth, the local Ordinariate group, and Fr Bolin referred to him as a parishioner in announcing his ordination to the diaconate.

Given Dcn Wooten's brand new YouTube persona, I would have expected more folksy-but-weepy public announcement of "my journey home to Holy Mother Church" than we saw. Instead, he quietly worked as a roofing estimator for three years until, with little fanfare, he segued back into the priesthood. The Catholic priesthood, of all things.

I recollected yesterday another of those sometime "policies" Houston enforces as it chooses: it does not ordain men who are under discipline in their former denominations. This was exercised in the case of an ACA priest who had briefly been Orthodox decades before he was in the ACA, and was deposed by his Orthodox denomination for leaving. However, in other cases, such as Fr Andrew Bartus, inhibited by his ACA bishop much more recently, it was disregarded.

In any case, it seems as though something hinky happened at St Peter and Paul Arlington that brought Wooten under the disciplinary scrutiny of Bp Iker, and it's hard to avoid speculating that Wooten resigned from the Anglican priesthood, possibly to avoid formal discipline, for whatever reason, abandonment of communion or something else.

We must assume Fr Perkins, whose assessment of priestly character has not had a good record, decided whatever it was, it's been fixed.

Right. I'd still like to know when the million-dollar wire transfer is going to arrive.

A Million Dollars? For What?

Deacon Scott "Aw Shucks" Wooten has put up an additional YouTube video, beyond the one I linked on Saturday:

The first thing that strikes me is that he apparently drives a new-looking Ford F-350, which with the crew cab shown starts at about $40,000.

The second thing is that I don't think he has the remotest idea what he's talking about, anywhere in the video. He begins with a tour of the only structure on the 15 acre property. an almost windowless metal shed with a garage door, which he says they're definitely gonna use, he's just not sure for what. Maybe it'll hold "stuff", or maybe it'll be classrooms if they finish it out. It's in good shape, just has some roof issues right now.

Wait a moment. This thing is basically a garage for a front end loader or something, no ventilation, one window, a garage door, a toilet -- and they're gonna redo it for meeting rooms? Just add HVAC and stud walls or something, voila, RCIA can move right in!

The third thing is he seems to have absolutely no plan, which is reflected in what he says about the shed, but as he drives around the property, he just mentions random things here and there. Maybe one entrance from the road, maybe two. There's a well, but maybe it'll be used, maybe not. Not sure about drainage. Not sure where the church'll go. I left a comment on the video yesterday which is still there as of this morning, but it may not last:

When will published plans and budget be available? What would be the cost of adding HVAC and finishing out the metal shed for serious occupation? Why is so much just blue-sky sorta-kinda-maybe? You said in the other video that you'd prepared a proposal to get a million-dollar grant, but what you're saying here is that so much is vaguely up in the air that the proposal must have had absolutely nothing concrete.

As I said in the comment, Dcn Aw Shucks said in the video I linked on Saturday that he'd put together a "little proposal" to get what turned out, to his surprise, to be a million-dollar grant. But I've written and received many a proposal throughout my career -- one of my job functions was often proposal writer. A proposal, as I understand the term, contains a highly detailed plan and cost estimate that specifies an exact statement of work to be performed and product to be delivered.

So a proposal for a church building grant, as far as I can see, might present options, somewhat as Dcn Aw Shucks described in the first video, a cost and scope for a $600,000 prefab building, and then quite possibly a detailed cost estimate and scope for a $1.3 million building, if the donor chose to go that route. But there would be dozens, if not hundreds, of pages outlining project requirements, elements, and phases -- parking lot, estimated size of congregation, planned activities, landscaping, project consultants, and so forth.

The impression I have is that the "little proposal" the deacon says he put together had nothing like this. And beyond that, the impression I have from this man's demeanor is that such a thing is simply not in his ken. He's all sorta-kinda maybe someday. I see no evidence that he's capable of any sort of focus or serious plan. I have no idea what he meant when he said "little proposal", but it clearly is not what an adult from a corporate or non-profit environment understands by the word "proposal".

And this brings me back to the lengthy admonition at the end of his first YouTube, that nobody should try to find out who the donor of the million dollars is. Really? People who donate a million dollars normally want the kind of proposal I used to write and receive. They don't listen to some phony deacon guy shuckin' and jivin', and then surprise him a week later with a million bucks he didn't ask for.

Something's seriously not right here. The first question I'd have is where's the receipt for the million dollar wire transfer. And I'd go on from there, but this is enough for today.

St John Vianney Cleburne And The Vice Of Curiosity

A puzzling feature of Dcn Wooten's YouTube talk that I linked yesterday is the amount of time he spends abjuring his little group against trying to figure out who the mysterious donor of this million-dollar construction gift might be. He makes it very clear that if you spend any time on this, it's a Bad Thing, verging on the vice of curiosity. On the other hand, Aquinas says that since intellectual knowledge is a good,

according to the Philosopher (Ethic. ii, 6), there can be no mean and extremes in things which are essentially good. Now intellective knowledge is essentially good: because man's perfection would seem to consist in his intellect being reduced from potentiality to act, and this is done by the knowledge of truth. For Dionysius says (Div. Nom. iv) that "the good of the human soul is to be in accordance with reason," whose perfection consists in knowing the truth. Therefore the vice of curiosity cannot be about intellective knowledge.

So let's try an experiment. After yesterday's post, a visitor sent me this e-mail:

Mr Bruce, as usual, you're reading far too much into things. The donor of the million-dollar gift is general knowledge, and if you'd simply used Google, you'd have found it. It's obviously the Athanasius F X Schmidlap Foundation, whose website expressly says its charitable mission is to make random anonymous million-dollar grants, after only perfunctory review, to small Catholic parishes intending to build churches on vacant lots. This is typical of your angry blindness to the ordinariate's holy intentions.

Well, OK, I stand corrected. So, did this answer everyone's questions?

Er, why not?

I think this is because there are real intellectual questions here that go beyond idle curiosity, even though Dcn Wooten wants to impute this to anyone who might continue to ask serious questoins.

So let's go into the questions. My regular correspondent, who follows things like the apparent size of ordinariate congregations based on evidence like photos on the web of their masses, estimates typical Sunday attendance at St John Vianney Cleburne at about 50. And that would be bodies, not pledging entities. This seems reasonable, since the group meets in a host parish cafetorium.

Here's a real question to pose to Dcn Wooten: Let's assume that he's able to build a complete church structure, plus parking lot, landscaping, and whatever else, for the 1.3 million or so he says is now in the bank, free and clear of any debt. Great!

How much will it cost per month to hold masses there? Well, I served briefly as treasurer of a small Anglican parish and had to develop a budget for the next year. Here are some very reasonable estimates for monthly expenses:

Utilities $1620
Cleaning and gardening $1500
Insurance (casualty only) $850
Total $3970

I'm leaving out salaries for the priest and an organist, as well as things like the diocesan tithe, which will take something like 12% out of all receipts. I'll overlook candles, wine, hosts, and flowers. I'll assume you already have vestments, vessels, linens, and pew missals. But if the building is brand new, maybe you can get away with not budgeting for plumbing and roof repairs, but then again, maybe not. In any case, after a couple of years, you'll have to think about those.

Bottled water? Copy machine? Office equipment?

But let's be really generous and assume you and the organist will work for free and just figure $4000 a month to keep the doors open until all of Cleburne sees the beauty of holiness at St John Vianney and flocks to your door. You'll be starting with maybe 50 bodies, but those aren't pledging entities, since many will be couples or families with children. So just for fun, let's estimate 20 pledging entities. This would require pledges averaging $200 per month, nearly $50 per week, from each entity.

Someone might disagree and say 20 families in a group of 50 bodies is too small, it should be 30. That's still $133 per month per family, or more than $25 per week per family. Er, how are pledges now at St John Vianney? Given my experience as a parish treasurer, as well as a counter of Sunday offerings at another parish, I'd say that $25-50 per week is in the upper range of pledges, not an average. Your results may vary. But again, those numbers are before anyone on staff is paid anything, and before anything is sent to Houston.

And before a rainstorm makes leaks in the roof, and before the kids clog up the toilets.

Now, if I were the Athanasius F X Schmidlap Foundation, I would have been asking how a group of 50, even if it could put up the simplest prefab on its lot, could hope to maintain it once it was erected, much less a more ambitious building. But then, I'm the Grinch. Even so, it isn't the vice of curiosity to wonder whether, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.

That's how prudent people avoid con artists. Houston so far has had a very bad record with con artists.

A New Shooting Star!

Fr-designate Scott Wooten, the new administrator at the St John Vianney mission in Cleburne, TX, has suddenly burst onto the ordinariate clerical scene

What irritated me from his YouTube, titled Hollywood-style "My Movie", is that he talks down. I don't like priests who talk down. I left our original Catholic parish because of the "Happy Birthday, Jesus" routine there, but our current parish has none of that, and the priests treat us as intelligent adults. By doing so, they seem to be effective fundraisers, among many other things.

But my regular correspondent has brought up other troubling issues. A post here on September 24, 2017 outlined what appeared to have been ordinariate policy on ordinations going forward:

The intention is that "transitional" deacons will remain so for close to a year, although I note that Fr Erdman had been a deacon for only two months when he was ordained a priest this past June. , , , The OCSP now has an upper age limit of 55 for new candidates (for the priesthood.

However, the theme of the post was the number of exceptions that take place to these putative policies. There were exceptions then, and there are exceptions now. Fr Wooten is 57, when the upper age limit had been set at 55, and in addition, my regular correspondent tells me he was ordained deacon May 21, 2020. He will be ordained priest during the OCSP Clergy Conference October 19-22, 2020. But we see in the YouTube that he's already wearing full clericals and talking down as if he'd been at this for 30 years.

Clearly something's up. I'd already surmised that the million-dollar gift was not the surprise Fr-designate Aw Shucks says it is -- what million-dollar gift is a big surprise? Nor are they granted out of the blue after a couple of phone calls and a "little proposal", as Fr-designate Aw Shucks puts it.

Given the apparent lack of transparency here, my institutional instincts, honed by years in academic, corporate, and government bureaucracies, suggest to me that the gift and Fr-designate Aw Shucks came as a package. My regular correspondent observes,

Rereading Fr Stainbrook’s letter to the members of SJV, Cleburne which you linked on Friday it seems clear that the intention was always to fast track his ordination to the priesthood—-Fr S refers to Fr Kennedy as assisting in the “short hiatus between (soon to be) Father Wooten’s appointment as your Pastor [July 1] and his Priesting.” Mr Wooten converted in 2017, I believe. Apparently he resigned from Good Shepherd, Wichita Falls in 2015. Fr Stainbrook describes him as in preparation for his ordination “since that time” but I think that statement cannot be taken at face value.

The other details of his career suggest he'd been a member of the Nashotah House-Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth clique that dates from the founding of the North American ordinariate and continues in the person of the feckless Fr Perkins and other clergy. This does not strike me as reassuring for the success of this project.

But hey, if the same old thing hasn't worked up to now, may as well try it again, right?

News From St John Vianney Cleburne, TX

Of this parish, my regular correspondent reports,

As of July 1, this community will be getting its fourth parish administrator since its creation in 2012. The founding members were former congregants of Fr Charles Hough III who followed him into the Church. Fr Hough III was appointed Vicar for Clergy of the OCSP in 2012 and then promoted to Vicar General while remaining Vicar for Clergy. At that point he relinquished leadership of SJV to Fr Jonathan Duncan.

In January 2016 Fr Duncan left Texas to take over Fr Chalmers’s congregation in Greenville, SC. Subsequently that community folded, and Fr Duncan is now incardinated in the local diocese. Meanwhile, Fr Christopher Stainbrook, who had led St Timothy, Ft Worth into the Ordinariate, was asked to take over SJV. At the time ai assumed this was because SJV was considered to have the more robust prospects for growth.

In May 2016 Fr Perkins was appointed Vicar-General of the OCSP and Fr Hough III seemed to disappear from the picture—-no longer Priest in Residence at OLW, no longer supplying at St Timothy, Ft Worth despite the fact that they had been left without a PA since Fr Stainbrook’s departure. I assumed that there was some health issue, so I was surprised to discover his name popping up at several recent events at St Bartholomew, Katy, (a diocesan parish) as here, where he is described as “one of our favorite visiting priests.” Presumably his abrupt departure from his position as V-G shortly after Bp Lopes took over was not on friendly terms.

Now Fr Stainbrook, whose departure left St Timothy, Ft Worth (now St Thomas Becket) without a PA for over two years, is becoming Pastor of SMV, Arlington as of July 1. It appears from this letter that the new PA, Mr Scott Wooten, ordained to the diaconate last month, is on the fast track to ordination as a priest. The congregation currently worships in an elementary school cafetorium and numbers about fifty, I would estimate. One hopes that Fr Wooten stays with them longer than their previous leaders.

If you can open this link you can see that Mr Wooten has quite a varied resumé Clearly the right person to supervise the construction of a new church. Ambitious, if not yet fully realised, blog plans. A new YouTube channel (this is the announcement of the $1,000,000 gift). Formerly in the Episcopal Diocese of Ft Worth with Fr Perkins, In the video Mr Wooten mentions that a “metal building” was in view with the previously available budget so this will clearly permit something a bit more impressive.

A bigger issue, for me, is how this mission parish fits in with the Catholic community in Cleburne. The donor is apparently interested in “small Catholic churches.” The other parish in Cleburne, St Joseph, does not seem particularly large I do note that two of its three Sunday masses are in Spanish.

Cleburne has a population of 30,720, so it's not in fact large. But the account above covers a lot of territory, and a couple of other questions emerge. One is how a group that apparently numbers about 50 can handle a relatively major donation and a construction project. Even in Texas, a million bucks won't go far to build a church. There will need to be serious additional fundraising. Fr Wooten's Linkdin profile via the link above says he has some background in architecture and construction, but he's nevertheless going to be undertaking a project without supervision, in a new environment.

Dioceses, of course, have building departments that parish priests can rely on. Not so here.

Another question is how this project is being branded. In the YouTube, Fr Wooten refers in a vague and folksy way to "some folks" referred to him by "friends of St John Vianney" who are "interested in donating to small Cathoic churches", or something like that. (The vagueness and the talking-down do not inspire confidence.)

This brings up the current contradiction in Houston. It's understood, reinforced by recent opinions from visitors, that Houston wants to airbrush the Anglicanorum from the coetibus and brand itself as Catholic, no hyphen. Nevertheless, even if we can't say "Anglican", Fr Wooten would not have been ordained without the special dispensation that recognizes his Anglican formation, and the authorized liturgy for his parish contains exclusively Anglican elements. To be "members" of the ordinariate, congregants must have some arguable Anglican connection.

And without all those exceptions, there would be no ordinariate, and it would not provide a billet for a bishop of Portuguese and Polish heritage. They'd have had to find something else for the former protégé of Cardinal Levada to do.

So how indeed does this strange creature fit into the diocesan world in the Fort Worth area? On the other hand, it does seem as though Fr Wooten's ties go back to the old boy network in the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth (that is, the not-TEC Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth), and maybe nobody was thinking that hard about the Catholic stuff after all. Was Fr Wooten's career in construction not working out, and he appealed to his former buddies to fast--track him into a clerical job? We'll have to see.

My money is on the old boy network. And given the fruits of that network, you don't get figs from thistles. I would not have given a million bucks for this project, frankly.

Anglicanorum Coetibus Society Annual Meeting

In response to my request the other day to see material that's distributed to Anglicanorum Coetibus Society members regarding elections and other business, a visitor kindly sent me the following:

with the comment,

May be of interest - I still get these emails even though I haven't been a paying member of ACS since 2017 (and have asked to be dropped from the list more than once).

[Name redacted]

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
On Wednesday, July 15, 2020 1:29 PM, AC Society wrote:

Dear Members:

Thank you to those who have sent in their ballots and proxies! We need more, however, to reach a quorum.

You can fill it out in Word and send it back to me---no need to scan if that's a difficulty.

I am attaching the document that includes the notice of meeting, the ballot and the proxy.

All the best,

Deborah Gyapong

It sounds as though, at least from the time she sent the e-mail, Mrs Gyapong was having a hard time generating enough interest in the society to find a quorum for the meeting. On the other hand, the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society blog only occasionally covers the society's business, and it's been only recently here that the membership of the board has been made public.

I'm also told that there's been a certain level of disagreement with Houston and Bp Lopes on how the society should operate in key areas. It's been suggested to me that, since the society is a lay group operating as a secular corporation, some attempts by Houston to interfere in its operation are not fully appropriate.

However, this may well reflect difficulty in interpersonal relations by actors on both sides. But in any case, insofar as important work could possibly be accomplished if the society and Houston were to cooperate more closely, it isn't being accomplished, to the detriment of the society and the ordinariate.

I would have to think that major changes in personnel would be needed in both organizations to get much of significance done.

California Civil Disobedience Update

A visitor sent me a link to this story at Lifesite News:

Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom has banned indoor religious services (along with various types of secular gatherings) in 29 counties representing 80 percent of the state’s population, in the name of containing the spread of COVID-19. Numerous churches have defied the order, including Grace Community Church of Sun Valley, Cornerstone Church of Fresno, Destiny Christian Church of Rocklin, and Harvest Rock Church of Pasadena.

Last week, Pastor Ché Ahn of Harvest Rock Church announced that he would pay for any tickets given to those who choose to attend in person despite the order, Pasadena Now reported.

“What I want to do is encourage you, and I have encouraged all those with underlying conditions to stay home,” he said. “I’ve encouraged the elderly to stay home. I want to encourage you that if you feel, hey, I don’t want to get a ticket, please stay home. Now, if you do show up and you get a ticket, Harvest Rock Church is going to underwrite that ticket, we’ll pay for your citation.”

Local officials have threatened Ahn with fines, jail time, or worse for his civil disobedience, such as an August 13 letter by Assistant City Prosecutor Michael Dowd. “Your compliance with these orders is not discretionary, it is mandatory,” Dowd wrote. “Any violations in the future will subject your church, owners, administrators, operators, staff, and parishioners to the above-mentioned criminal penalties as well as the potential closure of your church.”

Harvest Rock Church is the least-publicized of the four California Evangelical megachurches that are deliberately defying state and local orders mandating social distance and prohibiting indoor worship and singing. So far, it appears that the Pasadena authorities are hesitating actually to cite or fine Harvest Rock attendees, although it looks like, if the authorities do move against them, their response will be similar to that of North Valley Baptist Church, which is simply to pay the fines and go on with their usual worship.

It seems to me that the circumstances with the California churches raise two related questions. The first is that each of them reports attendance at Sunday services of several thousand -- Grace Community Church reports about 7000, for instance. This strongly suggests a total attendance for all four of over 20,000. Yet the pastors uniformly report that, of all these people, there have apparently been no reported COVID infections, and certainly no hospitalizations. Since pastors have a duty to console the sick, they'd be among the first to hear of any.

But let's say these pastors are truly nefarious and cover up the hospitalizations and deaths for their own purposes. How long could they cover this up, when health authorities and the media would make an immediate scandal of the issue? These people would have been hospitalized in noticeable numbers, and medical authorities would have investigated their deaths. But it hasn't happened.

Yet the media and health officials report their Sunday worship as "superspreader events" that must be stopped with all the resources available to the state. But with these parishes meeting for three months, since early June at least, there seems to be little empirical evidence of contagion resulting from church services, even those that include singing and handshakes at the peace. Why can't the authorities recalibrate?

A second related question arose with Speaker Pelosi's Monday visit to a hair salon, which violated state health orders by being held indoors, without wearing a mask, and using blow-dry. While the reaction to Pelosi's hypocrisy is predictable, a more important issue was raised in San Francisco news interviews:

Mrs Pelosi is 80 years old, part of the population said by health authorities to be most vulnerable to COVID. Yet as the citizens said on the news reports, she apparently sees no particular danger to herself, her family, her staff, her colleagues, or anyone else with whom she associates in exposing herself to the virus in violation of the widely dispersed and generally recognized health measures.

In that case, as the San Franciscans point out, why can't everyone else get their hair done? Why can't everyone go to church, when it's increasingly clear that there is little risk in doing so?

There will be court hearings in coming days and weeks where these issues will come up.