Back To CCD: The Good Shepherd Program

Regarding the Good Shepherd Catechesis program that was brought up last week, a visitor comments,

Good Shepherd Catechesis started in the 1950s as a lay-led catechesis program. It's grown a lot in Canada and the United States in the last several years.

In the last 10 or 15 years, the Montessori method had grown in popularity, at least in my area, among both Catholic, Protestant, and secular families. In fact, the public school system the next city over from mine opened a Montessori elementary school.

That's probably why Catechesis of the Good Shepherd has been implemented in a number of parishes and dioceses in the United States. Near as I can tell, it's spearheaded by Catholic moms. That's certainly the case in my diocese: parishes that have implemented it do so when moms go get CGS training at their own expense.

There are three or four CGS "atriums" in our diocese, including one in a Catholic preschool. An Episcopal parish and one of the ACNA churches each have one too. There has been. . . I won't say an outcry. . . but a strong desire to implement it in more places. All of it's coming from moms in pews. Part of the hold-up has been the expense. CGS training is expensive and time consuming: something like 300 hours to become a "Level III" catechist, and parishes aren't able to shell out for it. It also has to happen at one of a handful of CGS training centers. As I said, a few moms are doing it on their own so they can present it to their pastors as turnkey.

Other parishes (including mine) are adopting aspects of CGS, especially for younger children, without going full-tilt for the program.

I know nothing about Our Lady of the Atonement, but my relatives' Ordinariate parish wants to adopt CGS. Last I heard, they were talking about how to deal with the same sticker shock my own parish saw. But everything I've seen of it indicates that it's worth having.

I see two issues here. One is that, yet again, only a handful of ordinariate parishes would be able to afford it -- if Our Lady of the Atonement is considering it, will it pay the catechists' fees, or will they finance it themselves? But the impression I continue to have is that, beyond the small size of typical ordinariate groups, which would make adopting the program impractical from economies of scale vs expense, even if individual ordinariate members could afford the tuition, I think they'd just be too cheap to pay it -- especially if they've taken their children out of diocesan schools to join an ordinariate co-op.

The second issue is that quality catechesis doesn't seem to be on the minds of either ordinariate laity or clergy. Houston, as far as I'm aware, has issued no guidelines or policy nor recommended any program. It's interesting that the visitor above mentions TEC and ACNA parishes taking an interest in CGS -- but would that be part of what would make the ordinariate attractive to Anglicans? Apparently not, if there's a better chance for Anglicans to find CGS in their own denominations.

Related to that, it seems to me that the merits of a particular catechesis program are an issue that would appeal primarily to conscientious cradle Catholic families in the first place. As far as I can see, Houston's very vague idea of its target market would be disaffected Anglicans who'll jump ship over women's ordination and the 1979 BCP -- I hate to say it, but the issues with McCarrick and the other gay Catholic bishops have taken the Gene Robinson selling point off the table.

The problem there starts with the fact that the people who left TEC in the late 1970s are aging and were never as big a group as they thought they were. But the old observation about "continuers" is still accurate, that they'll tolerate unqualified priests and bishops, so why on earth would they be particular about the quality of a catechesis program? (And did I mention that they're cheap?) So Houston is probably correct in its unspoken assumption that a good catechesis program isn't what the market necessarily wants, except they've still got the problem that the market they're after isn't big and has probably already been fully exploited.

This seems to be an area where diocesan parishes, led by laity, are showing initiative and doing the best they can. Anglicanorum coetibus will have nothing to do with any progress in better catechizing Catholics, though it will evangelize few Protestants, either. This goes to the basic lack of seriousness in Houston and the inward-looking culture of ordinariate laity and clergy.

Fr Mike Schmitz, Crossfit, And CCD

I've had a lot of comments about this week's posts on Our Lady of the Atonement, home schooling, and whether or not there should be CCD at Our Lady of the Atonement. They brought to mind a recent YouTube from Fr Mike Schmitz:

At about 4:55, he talks about something he feels the Church can learn from Crossfit, that there might be a "prescribed workout" for the day, but the program makes it clear that for those who may not feel able to perform at that level (at least at the start), the workout can be scaled. As a new Catholic, I appreciate the idea he presents -- let's recognize that many visitors here have eased into Catholicism from being "Catholic lite" Anglicans in the first place.

keeping in mind that, as the recent letter from Fr Lewis reminds us, the ordinariates are meant to evangelize Protestants, this issue of CCD and Catholic schools is important. On one hand, it isn't an objective sin simply not to send one's children to Catholic school. There could be any number of reasons why this is impossible, and the Church does not demand the impossible.

I know of a few families from my Episcopalian days who sent their children to Catholic school, but it's important to remember that there were highly prestigious Episcopalian schools in the area, and in those cases, the Catholic schools were simply cheaper.

So for evangelized Protestants, the idea of Catholic schools is probably one where scaling the program will work to good effect -- being a good Catholic means effective budgeting. (Our pastor has our diocesan parish provide a course in budgeting, in fact.) Sending one's children to CCD on Saturdays seems like it would be an effective way to scale the program. What on earth is wrong with that?

Several visitors provided background to the absence of CCD at Our Lady of the Atonement based on yesterday's post. The most complete was this one:

OLA's motivation for not offering CCD in the past was so you would enroll your children in the school. The school was where you would get religious education. Again a way to bump up enrollment and their profit.

After joining the Ordinariate, it was announced they would now offer CCD. They began open registration expecting people to line up for classes. Well that did not happen. There wasn't enough interest and they squashed it.

I am now told they are going to use a different CCD curriculum called Good Shepherd. They are "confident" this will work...

Another responded,

When we were at that parish, Fr. Phillips and Jim Orr told the congregation that if we were parishioners with children, we had an obligation to put put them in the Academy. Therefore CCD was not necessary and they stopped having it. They did provide for sacramental preparation if we were new and hadn’t gotten around to getting our kids all their sacraments. AFTER that, you were expected to enroll them in the Atonement Academy. They would call you out on it to your face if you hadn’t complied. We left soon after that, around 2008.

Our diocesan parish has a K-8 school and a girls' high school, but if offers both CCD and RCIA for older teens, so clearly the Phillips approach isn't necessarily the case in the Church at large. (In fact, the parish recognizes that the schools are in a highly competitive environment, and parishioners will send their children to a better Catholic school across town if it comes to that. They take nothing for granted.)

But here's another question. My regular correspondent found mention in OLA bulletins that "training" of catechists is under way for the new Good Shepherd CCD program. What does that "training" involve, and how does it correspond to the three-year formation program for certified catechists that's found in dioceses?

Wouldn't catechesis for the families of converts need to be even more comprehensive than for longtime faithful Catholic families? Isn't there a greater danger that a former Anglican catechist, like the Mrs Schmidlap I've postulated who studied Jane Austen, may think she's got it all down because she used to be Anglican, and anyhow, she's an expert on the Anglican patrimony?

The same goes for the ordinariate priests who supervise these catechists. How many were received, ordained a deacon, and ordained a priest in the course of a weekend? How many were waived in with MDivs from Nashotah House or Yale?

And even if there's halting and belated attention now being paid to CCD in San Antonio, what policies govern it, and what standards exist for licensing catechists, in Houston? On one hand, someone woke up last month and recognized we're dealing with evangelization here. On the other, a decade after the promulgation of Anglicanorum coetibus, nobody's yet given much thought to catechesis. Why not, for instance, enroll prospective ordinariate catechists in diocesan formation programs? Not sure if anyone's thought of it.

This goes to the lack of seriousness in this effort, and it's a reflection on Bp Lopes.

"Still No CCD At OLOTA. "

A visitor sent me an e-mail with this brief message. To clarify my understanding, "CCD" refers, according to Wikipedia, to "a religious education program of the Roman Catholic Church, normally designed for children." OLOTA is the abbreviation sometimes used here to refer to the Our Lady of the Atonement ordinariate parish in San Antonio. But wait -- they have heavy furniture liturgy at OLOTA, don't they? And the ladies wear chapel veils, and everyone receives the Sacrament kneeling, right? That oughta make up for it, huh?

Someone may be able to clear up any misunderstanding here or provide a better explanation of what's going on -- but the big news from OLOTA recently has been Fr Lewis's cancellation of the Sunday evening OF Latin mass, which, since it'll be replaced with an English mass, makes no change in the availability of the Sacrament there. But that was the issue that got James Henry Schweiter Lowe and the others on Facebook all bent out of shape. In other words, as far as I can see, OLOTA is focused on issues of style -- maybe kneeling to receive the Sacrament, wearing a chapel veil, or having a Latin mass are nice to have, but hardly essential -- but a much more critical piece, religious education for the next generation, is missing.

How much catechesis did those dozens of kids receive at Holy Martyrs, the girls kneeling in chapel veils, before their confirmation last Pentecost, anyhow? A visitor commented on yesterday's post,

No Catholic school curriculum can substitute for or cover all knowledge needed to be a good Catholic, it can only HELP lay the foundation. I would like to think that between the school and my family, we gave our kids a pretty solid Catholic foundation.

That may be so, but the visitor continues, referring to the recent Pew numbers that allege 70% of Catholics do not believe in the Real Presence (I'm highly skeptical, but that's off topic for now):

In a true Catholic sense, priests and Bishops and Catholic Educators should be in full-on panic mode to correct this embarrassing, deadly defect that undercuts the entire foundation of Jesus’ sacrifice and restoration of salvation and our Catholic Faith.

But as best I can see, Fr Lewis and Bp Lopes are doing nothing about that embarrassing defect in one of the showcase parishes in the North American ordinariate. An incomplete CCD program is one thing. No CCD program at all is another -- but the bone of contention there is the Sunday evening Latin mass in any case. The visitor continues,

I agree it seems a little strange that the Ordinariate would confirm so many children and, again, call me jaded, it could be some parents are just checking the “got my kid confirmed by the quickest, easiest route” box but, in all fairness, it could be those folks are in the 30% of Catholics who believe in the Real Presence and do not find that sentiment in the local diocese. Call me jaded, are they are trying to fix the Barque of Peter or setting sail in a completely separate life boat? I think I know what you think.

Well, my view is that chapel veils for one's daughters are far cheaper than full Catholic school tuition, and the evidence we have at OLOTA is that the parents don't seem to care much if there's a CCD program for them for free, either.

One might argue that maybe those families are in fact sending their kids to CCD at a diocesan parish, but wouldn't that contradict a view that the diocese is unfriendly to the Real Presence? I would say that if a major ordinariate parish neglects CCD, that undermines any position that the ordinariate is doing much to keep the Barque of Peter afloat.

Houston, What About Religious Education?

At Sunday's mass, we had a pep talk from a certified catechist at our parish, urging parents to sign their children up for the religious education program in preparation for confirmation next Pentecost. He made the point that caring for children includes taking their Catholic formation seriously, and he noted how thankful he is to his own parents for doing this.

I grew up in different times, raised Presbyterian in a confirmation class that said we're not saved by works. I do think that had I had the opportunity to grow up in a conscientious Catholic family with good religious education, I might have responded differently to influences I encountered when I was young, but that would be in an alternate universe, and I have the life I had -- but I can't underestimate in hindsight the value of good catechesis.

But I keep coming back to the pictures of all the children being confirmed at Holy Martyrs Murrieta. Houston has no program for forming and certifying catechists. In our archdiocese, formation for catechists is a three-year program. Where does the North American ordinariate get its catechists? I have an uneasy feeling that at places like Holy Martyrs, the catechist is Mrs Schmidlap, who studied Jane Austen.

But the girls wear chapel veils, so I guess that makes it all OK. I was listening to a recent talk by Jordan Peterson on home schooling. He said he saw more of a point to home schooling than he would have seen 15 years ago, but the real issue is that parents need to communicate with their children and find out what they're actually being taught, and then determine what other options are available if they're needed. This seems like a good general appraisal of parental responsibility in all areas of education.

The question I have is whether the Catholic parents who take their families out of a diocesan parish and have their children confirmed at an ordinariate parish -- and it's hard to avoid thinking this is what happened at Holy Martyrs -- have given any thought to the quality of religious education their children are getting. If they think Mrs Schmidlap, who studied Jane Austen, is an adequate substitute for a certified diocesan catechist, they're neglecting their actual duties as Catholic parents.

And is anyone in Houston paying any attention to the issue of religious education for ordinariate children? Isn't this an area where parents should be getting serious guidance from clergy? Shouldn't the ordinariate be looking at how to provide adequate resources for this duty? This might go as far as suggesting parents send their children to catechism at a nearby diocesan parish, but that, of course, raises the question of what need the ordinariate parish actually fulfills for them.

Fr Phillips Represents A Dilemma

Reflecting on yesterday's post, my regular correspondent comments,

Fr Phillips was 67 when OLA entered the OCSP. A youngster by Ordinariate standards. Yet he was immediately demoted to “Pastor Emeritus” and replaced with someone who, I am sure, had no thought of relocating from 1600 miles away until approached by his superiors. This was of course presented as a Good News story by the OCSP and its flacks but even at the time there was dismay expressed by Phillips loyalists who saw the appointment for what it was—a disciplinary action.

So why is Fr Phillips the poster boy for the AC Society Conference? He was, of course, a major force in the run up to the erection of the North American Ordinariate—-communicating regularly with Christian Campbell and hosting the Becoming One get-together in San Antonio . Many hoped and expected he would be the first Ordinary. Presumably he did too —-he chose to repost this fawning follow-up article by “Mary Ann Mueller”

But when the OCSP was established he stunned the blogosphere by announcing that OLA would not be joining. This deprived the Ordinariate of financial resources and apparently of experienced leadership, although in retrospect maybe this part was not such a bad thing. But it made for an awkward start. And as you point out, despite his role, now formalised, as a mentor to some aspiring OCSP clergy his recipe for growing a group of 18 adults and children into a large thriving parish with a church and a school has not been reproducible.

He clearly remains a source of division at OLA. Someone suddenly decided that the conversation about him on the Anglican Ordinariate Forum did not showcase the Ordinariate at its best. So why give him centre stage at a conference supposedly celebrating AC? Won’t it just draw attention to the fact that “Ut unum sint” remains as elusive an aspiration in this tiny corner of the Church as it does in the larger Christian world?

The bottom line, it seems to me, is that there's no there there in Anglicanorum coetibus. The draw for the Anglicans is pretty much some combination of liturgy and Anglophile mummery, dressing up as Lady Chatterley and her gamekeeper for the parish picnic.

But this isn't the Catholic Church my wife and I discovered, for instance, when the ordinariate plans crashed and burned in Hollywood. A number of influential parishioners at St Mary of the Angels wound up becoming Catholic via RCIA, and all seem quite clearly better off becoming Catholic via established channels.

We're participating in a full range of activities at real parishes, learning about things like the Doctors of the Church, and finding perspectives on the Faith from many different cultural backgrounds. It seems like all the ordinariates have to offer is self-congratulation that the Catholic Church is finally becoming more Anglican. And of course, Fr Phillips.

Somehow Bp Lopes thinks this is adequate.

People Read This Blog!

Several visitors have e-mailed me to note that the post on the Facebook Anglican Ordinariate Forum with the erudite exchange between James Henry Schweiter Lowe and Christian Clay Columba Campbell has been deleted. Er, might it have been a better idea not to have posted such silliness in the first place?

Why The Veneration Of Fr Phillips?

My regular correspondent sent me a link to a thread on the Facebook Anglican Ordinariate forum from August 20, in which the original poster, who styles himself James Henry Schweiter Lowe, announces Fr Lewis's decision to end the evening OF Latin mass at Our Lady of the Atonement. In the ensuing discussion, Christian Clay Columba Campbell replies, "Perhaps he is doing away with the celebrant as much as the service?"

An extended exchange between James Henry Schweiter Lowe and Christian Clay Columba Campbell ensues, which touches on the issue that Fr Phillips was "involuntarily retired", although they "never told us the full story and actual reasons".

I think there were plenty of public reasons. When Abp Garcia-Siller removed him as pastor, he said it was because the OLA parish, under the Pastoral Provision, had become "not just unique but separate" from the archdiocese, an attitude that continues to seep out in ordinariate-related discussion threads, not excepting this one.

Beyond that, the archdiocese listed Phillips's deacon at OLA, James Orr, among clergy credibly accused of sexual abuse. The specific allegations involved dated from the 1990s, but complaints against Orr, such as kissing pubescent boys on the lips, were reported to me from much more recent years, with the assertion that when they were made to Phillips, he discounted them and took no action.

In other words, Phillips had been enabling and covering up abuse by Orr for at least 20 years. In fact, the parish and school probably could not have operated without Orr, based on accounts I've heard. Up to the time of Orr's death, Phillips continued a strange relationship with him, allowing him on parish property in spite of a ban and taking him on at least one pilgrimage.

Other reports indicate that Phillips cut financial corners, setting up parish accounts outside archdiocesan supervision (from which he apparently paid Orr) and other irregularities in areas like the bishop's appeal.

If Houston ever seeks to engage a church consultant, a worthwhile question would be why Our Lady of the Atonement is the only parish in either the Pastoral Provision or an ordinariate ever to grow de novo into a full Catholic parish with a school. Efforts to send Fr Phillips to other ordinariate communities following his retirement have not resulted in a reproducible formula, and in fact the few bits of advice he's given that have reached me involve things like tips on how to spoof building inspectors.

That the Phillips formula at Our Lady of the Atonement has so far not been reproducible should be deeply troubling.

My own view is that Fr Phillips is largely just an opportunist and a charlatan. That he should continue as some sort of eminence grise among the lay wannabes in the forums and elsewhere says a great deal about the whole Anglicanorum coetibus movement. Why has no stronger leader come along? Why is no younger successor rising in the ranks? Just yesterday Mrs Gyapong announced a forthcoming conference to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Anglicanorum coetibus

Our keynote speaker is Fr Christopher Phillips, the first Catholic priest in the world dedicated to an Anglican patrimonial form of liturgy and the founding pastor of Our Lady of the Atonement in San Antonio, Texas. He will be joined by other speakers, including respected Canadian Catholic writer David Warren, who has written at times about “things I miss from my Anglican days”.

It's worth looking back, in fact, to the runup to the establishment of the North American ordinariate, when Fr Phillips was a cheerleader who keynoted gatherings at places like St Mary of the Angels Hollywood -- that is, before St Mary of the Angels failed to go in and Fr Phillips himself held Our Lady of the Atonement out, until Abp Garcia-Siller removed him and he had no choice but to go in.

I was thinking just the other day that back in 2011-12, many of us thought Anglicanorum coetibus was a good idea because Fr Phillips said it was -- and we weren't sure quite who Fr Phillips was, of course, but he must have been an important guy.

Some of us are ten years older. Some apparently aren't.

UPDATE: My regular correspondent comments,

Contra the last sentence of your penultimate paragraph, I think Fr Phillips had decided to enter the OCSP before Abp G-S went so far as to remove him. I think that is the obvious reading of “not just unique but separate.” But I now concede that Fr Phillips’ decision to take OLA into the Ordinariate must have been made ahead of some kind of threatened intervention on the part of the archbishop, if not one as drastic as removal from the parish. I have accused Abp G-S of being an enabler as long as OLA and the Academy were contributing to the diocesan coffers, but that does not explain why Fr Phillips woke up one day and decided to join the Ordinariate in the first place. More likely, the Deacon Orr situation and perhaps other instances of Fr Phillips's financial hanky-panky were becoming hard to ignore and Fr Phillips hoped to avoid diocesan reckoning by switching jurisdictions. His immediate sidelining, albeit without the disciplinary language employed by Abp G-S, suggests that whatever it was it was too egregious for Bp Lopes to ignore, whatever Fr Phillips might have hoped in jumping ship.