A Wider View Of Anglican Use

In response to my request for more information on the St Mary Las Vegas Anglican Use parish, my regular correspondent very kindly sent me a link to this 1992 article from Crisis magazine. Significantly, the 1993 meeting between Cardinal Ratzinger and the Fort Worth Episcopalians must have been something Cardinal Law was actively trying to set up at the time, so that the piece's tone was already premature:

In his Apologia Pro Vita Sua, Newman wrote that Anglicans would never convert to Catholicism en masse. Rather, individuals would come home to Rome a few at a time as they grew unable to tolerate the abuses in their own communion. Ronald Knox probably provided the best explanation for such foot-dragging in his own spiritual autobiography, The Spiritual Aeneid. It was not enough, he discovered, simply to disbelieve in a Canterbury which manifested fundamental error by tolerating so many individual errors. Rather, one must affirmatively believe in the truth taught by Rome.

The personal influence of Newman and Knox undercuts their pessimism, for these brilliant, spiritual men led many Anglicans into the Church by their personal example. If the conversion of American Episcopalians to Catholicism is accelerating, then, it must be due to reasons other than the increase of abuses—foreseen by Newman and Knox—in the ever-tolerant Anglican community.

The piece lists the following Anglican Use parishes as of its 1992 writing. I'm not sure if it claims to be exhaustive:

1. Saint Gregory Plano, TX
2. Saint Mary the Virgin Arlington, TX
3. Saint Augustine of Canterbury Atlanta, GA
4. Our Lady of the Atonement San Antonio, TX
5. Saint Mary the Virgin Las Vegas, NV
6. Saint Margaret of Scotland Austin, TX
7. Our Lady of Walsingham Houston, TX
8. Good Shepherd Columbia, SC

It mentions groups-in-formation in Corpus Christi, TX and San Diego. Neither seems to be connected with the current OCSP groups in those areas. Significantly, no mention is made of the failed St Mary of the Angels Hollywood attempt to become Anglican Use. It does not mention the St Athanasius Anglican Use community in Chestnut Hill, MA, which with Our Lady of the Atonement is the only remaining Anglican Use parish.

On one hand, that only eight Anglican Use parishes had been established by 1992 should have been an indication that Episcopalians weren't rushing for the exits, and the apparent failure of groups-in-formation mentioned in the article, as well as its silence about St Mary of the Angels, should have been another indication that Anglican Use had not been a success. No wonder Cardinal Law wanted to take a second shot.

But in addition, of the eight parishes listed, only three have survived in any form, two of them going into the OCSP and Our Lady of the Atonement still remaining Anglican Use. This is simply not a record of success, and it confirms, rather than refutes, the pessimistic views of Newman and Knox.

I would greatly appreciate further information on the fates of those parishes on the list that have disappeared, as well as information on any Anglican Use parishes that may have been formed but aren't mentioned here. According to the article, by the way, Saint Mary Las Vegas was formed in 1983 and was still in existence at the time of its writing in 1992. An obituary for Fr Clark Tea, its pastor, appears here.

What Happened In Vegas?

Some of it stayed in Vegas. Yesterday I mentioned in passing a Pastoral Provision parish, St Mary's Anglican Use Catholic parish in Las Vegas, Nevada. The bare bones of the story, as I understand them, is that it was able to purchase a former Protestant building and fitted it out for traditional Anglo-Catholic worship. I'm told the group numbered from 120 to 200, which would be larger than almost all OCSP groups. However, the former Anglican pastor was obliged to retire for reasons that are unclear.

The diocese sent a supply priest to say masses at the community, but given the small numbers of the parish by diocesan standards, the bishop could no longer afford to supply the parish with a priest. I'm told that one Sunday a sign was posted on the parish doors, informing members that the parish was closed and to start attending their local novus ordo parishes. The parish plant was sold and is now a parking lot of a mini-mart.

One might argue that this is the reason Anglicanorum coetibus was established, to put now-Catholic former Anglican groups out of the reach of unfriendly diocesan bishops. But how would the story have been different if the Las Vegas group had been part of OCSP? An Anglican pastor, for any of several reasons, is unable to continue with the group. The closest potential replacement is many hundreds of miles away, perhaps already occupied with his own group, and perhaps unable to relocate in any case. How would things have been better in the OCSP?

A visitor has pointed out that even in the OCSP, if a diocesan bishop pulls support for an OCSP group, for instance by denying living arrangements in a diocesan rectory (as was done in Rochester, NY), or denying other diocesan chaplain or supply assignments, the OCSP group is just as dead as the one in Las Vegas. A personal prelature works only in theory if it isn't prosperous, and clearly none of the Ordinariates is self-sustaining enough to relocate clergy without diocesan support. The money isn't there, and with membership numbers somewhere in four figures at best, it will never be.

I would be interested to hear any additional information on the St Mary's Las Vegas experience, especially dates.

What Did Cardinal Law Have In Mind?

I'm increasingly convinced that Anglicanorum coetibus has been a disappointment -- indeed, something more like an embarrassment. It's worth pointing out that St Mary of the Angels has been at the center of the Anglican-Roman Catholic ecumenism story from the time of initial contacts between Fr Barker and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1977, and up to December of 2011 -- based on statements by Cardinal Law's surrogate Msgr William Stetson -- it had been intended that the parish would be the first to be received into the newly-erected Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter.

This didn't happen, and the details have been the story of this blog. The puzzle has been that Cardinal Law has been involved in the process at least from the time of the 1980 Chicago meetings involving Fr Barker, unsuccessfully proposing a personal prelature, through the 1993 meeting with Cardinal Ratzinger that eventually resulted in Anglicanorum coetibus, up to the diaconal ordination of Jeffrey Steenson in Rome in 2008.

From the mid-1980s to 2012, Anglican Use proved to be a damp squib, although there was what appears to have been a notable failure, a sort of anti-proof of concept, in Las Vegas. During the same period, "continuing Anglicanism" turned out to be a comic opera production, something between The Mouse That Roared and Springtime for Hitler, with nothing to recommend it as a starting point for serious ecumenism. The 1993 proposal for Anglicanorum coetibus was simply withdrawn when it became plain that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith would never approve it, probably with good reason.

It's hard to avoid the impression that careerism motivated the major players. Clarence Pope was clearly aiming to become a married Catholic bishop, and he disintegrated personally when this proved unattainable. "Continuing Anglican" clergy, frequently without seminary degrees or even four years in college, wanted something as close as they could get to the prestigious, well-paid, and undemanding slots that are sometimes still available in TEC.

Jeffrey Steenson, unlike Pope, settled for monsignor, but he saw the position of Ordinary almost exclusively as a way to look after his cronies and a few favored attractive young candidates, with no serious plan or intent to grow the OCSP. Given 30-plus years of experience, though, there's little that could have been expected other than what's taken place.

But Bernard Law made Cardinal. He made Archbishop of Boston. It can't have been careerism that drove him to promote this losing proposition. What on earth did he have in mind?

And my guess is that Bp Lopes, who must certainly have further ambitions, does not intend to ride the OCSP to the top -- more likely, he'll want to bring about a graceful shutdown.

Losing Momentum?

My regular correspondent comments regarding my last post,

It would be interesting to know Bp Lopes' frank opinion on the question you pose in your last sentence, coming as he does from a background where the Anglican Patrimony was unknown and Not Missed. He did make a very positive comment in the last Ordinariate Observer about a cupcake rosary made by the Sunday School at Incarnation, Orlando but I cannot regard that as reflecting any aspect of AP. I think he is just trying to make the best of an ill-conceived experiment, one which will neither draw in any significant number of converts nor serve as a template for further initiatives of this sort. And the idea that it cannot be allowed to fail is without foundation, I think. Naturally no one wants something which apparently had papal support to tank, but time passes and the boosters are replaced. The Legionaries of Christ were a favoured group not so long ago. Not that I am making any kind of specific comparison, just pointing put that it is possible even in the Vatican to admit that errors in judgement were made, and move on.

It's harder and harder for me to avoid the idea that Bp Lopes is a real Catholic and a real bishop. Does he have a mandate to fix it or shut it down?

The Woman At The Well And Anglicanorum Coetibus

Ven Fulton Sheen often talks about angels, and it was probably an angel who suggested I compare two Youtube homilies on the woman at the well (John 4:1-42). One is by Ven Sheen himself, here. The other is by Bp Barron, here. It seems to me that they both represent a perspective in the mainstream of traditional Catholic thought, although nobody can be sure what Pope Francis might say about the story on an Alitalia jet.

Both Ven Sheen and Bp Barron say that a big thing the well represents in this story is concupiscence, which in the traditional Catholic view works through the tendencies in the seven deadly sins, although Bp Barron adds the dimension of marriage to the image of the well. Toward the end of the story, the woman leaves the well and forgets her pitcher, which in the view of both implies that she is leaving concupiscence behind, in response to the demand Our Lord makes. It is a story in which the woman becomes Catholic -- in fact, I would say specifically Catholic, and both Ven Sheen and Bp Barron provide far more detail and insight into the story than I ever heard in a TEC homily.

Indeed, fairly late in my TEC time, I went to an adult forum where a TEC priest -- significantly, a Nashotah House alum who is very free to advertise this about himself -- explained that "the seven deadly sins are neither here nor there". I'm not sure if he ever quite got around to explaining what is in fact here or there. At the time, his view certainly matched my own impression of Anglicanism, a via media compromise that had a basic advantage of not being as demanding as Catholicism. A big point Bp Barron makes about the woman at the well is that divine mercy is, however, demanding.

This strikes me as the big difference between Catholicism and Protestantism. Both Calvin and Luther have variations on a view that human nature is entirely depraved, and we can't help ourselves. Thus Protestant divine mercy is something that saves us completely independently of our own efforts, which are unavailing in any case. The Catholic view, as I understand it at this point, is that reason can discipline the will with the help of the sacraments and lead us to greater holiness, and our efforts are availing.

This is at the root of the personal decision I had to make in becoming Catholic. I'm increasingly convinced that particular points of Anglican liturgy -- which Bp Lopes has said are the Anglican spiritual patrimony -- are neither here nor there, especially in the context of Our Lord's demands as expressed in traditional Catholic thought. Indeed, I get the feeling that a great deal that's taught at Nashotah House is at best a distraction, and the point is repeatedly made that it busily ordains women and openly same-sex attracted people.

Yet in the US-Canadian Ordinariate, Nashotah House has up to very recently been thought to be a prestigious place. How much of the idea behind Ordinariates -- which originated, after all, in large part from the seriously compromised Jeffrey Steenson's original draft of the Anglican personal prelature -- is a distraction from the real demands of divine mercy?

Bp Lopes's Future

My regular correspondent notes,

As we have discussed previously, Bp Lopes is 40 and I'm sure he doesn't plan to stick around too long in a diocese with fewer members than the average Catholic parish. So his career path depends on whipping the OCSP into some kind of credible shape, and in short order. Given the men he has inherited from the previous regime he cannot hope that anything is going to "take off;" he is lucky that he has seven congregations that are self-sustaining.

But he can introduce structures that produce a stable, if very limited, operation. This probably means building relationships with the dioceses in which the OCSP quasi-parishes and groups-in-formation are located, ie those groups which cannot support a full-time priest. With diocesan jobs and housing, the OCSP can attract younger clergy, including those who may have been ordained under the Pastoral Provision in the first instance, to replace the motley collection of retirees from a wide assortment of jurisdictions with which he now has to deal. Part of this process will require establishing guidelines for compensation and benefits.

He will also need to bring groups into more conspicuous conformity with regard to canon law, both liturgically and administratively. He seems to have got rid of the deadwood in the Chancery, so he is in a better position to identify further areas where head office needs to ride herd. As I have said a number of times, I do not think the part-time Ordinariate, part-time diocesan priest model has much potential to produce self-supporting parishes over time, but in the short term it should ensure survival.

Comments I hear elsewhere suggest that, on one hand, the original Steenson clique was Anglican but compromised by decades of happily advancing by coexisting with women clergy -- and in 2005, Steenson effectively supported Gene Robinson's consecration in his essay "The New Donatists" (apparently now scrubbed from the web). On the other hand, Bp Lopes now has no Anglican background at all. This suggests that the OCSP has lost any indefinite focus it may earlier have had, which leads other commentators to see a limited life expectancy as well.

Another visitor makes a worthwhile point in the context of yesterday's post on Methoidsts in the Ordinariate:

[T]here is nothing whatsoever that prevents an ordinariate from receiving a minister with a congregation from any Protestant body and ordaining the former minister as that congregation's pastor.

There is indeed a distinction between Methodists and other Protestants with respect to the ordinariates, but it has nothing to do with the possible reception and subsequent ordination of clergy who come from a Methodist body, either with or without congregations. Rather, the fact that Methodism is an offshoot of Anglican Christianity, and thus deemed to be part of the Anglican tradition, means that former Methodists who were received into the full communion of the Catholic Church within the jurisdiction of a diocese may subsequently enroll in the ordinariate in the same manner as former Anglicans, even though they do not receive the sacraments of initiation within the jurisdiction of the ordinariate.

This faculty extends to former Methodist ministers, who may seek ordination for the service of the ordinariate after enrolling therein or, if already ordained as Catholic deacons or presbyters, may seek excardination from their current dioceses and incardination into the ordinariate to become part of the ordinariate's clergy. By contrast, former Baptists or former Presbyterians received into full communion of the Catholic Church in a diocesan parish normally cannot enroll in an ordinariate unless they belong to ordinariate families.

So I'm not entirely sure what the big deal is. To be a "member" of an Ordinariate strikes me as something essentially meaningless, even more ambiguous than parish registration, a little like my late mother's unfulfilled lifelong aspiration to become a Daughter of the American Revolution, which as far as I can see would not have reduced her time in Purgatory even if she'd fulfilled it.

The more I look at the Ordinariates, the more questions I have about purpose and focus.

Methodists In The Ordinariate?

A visitor pointed me to this article at The American Conservative on the United Methodist Church electing a lesbian bishop. Apparently one of his correspondents raised a question:

Since Methodists now have the right to become members of the Ordinariate, I wonder if there would be any UMC congregations that would have an interest in joining it. My guess is that there would not likely be any, but joining it could be something that some of them may want to discern.

I think this is a purely theoretical question, for several reasons. I strongly suspect that Methodists were added to the list for clergy-centered reasons, to make favored outlier candidates like Fr Baaten or Fr Treco eligible for ordination without an associated group. If such candidates have the right connections, they'll make it in over mainstream Anglicans without them.

But the process of discernment for a group or parish is also frequently divisive. Methodists don't have a Methodo-Catholic tradition, and anti-Catholic feelings are probably more likely to exist among factions in a Methodist parish. I would imagine that a Methodist parish that was sufficiently upset about the national move would go looking for an alternative similar to breakaway conservative Lutheran or Presbyterian denominations.

According to the USCCB, something like 60,000 baptized Christians are received from other denominations in the US each year. A non-trivial number of these are probably Methodists, and probably far more than would ever come in via Anglicanorum coetibus. And let's face it, the decision to become Catholic is always an individual one.

But finally, defections from liberal denominations once they make supposedly "last straw" moves have always been overestimated -- recall Clarence Pope's 1993 estimate to Cardinal Ratzinger that 250,000 US Episcopalians would come into a personal prelature. Instead, such numbers have never been sufficient even to make the national denominations take other than legal notice.

I don't think Houston will ever hear a peep from any disgruntled Methodists -- and this should be cause for reassessment of what the Ordinariates were meant to do.