The Pastoral Issue -- I

I had an e-mail a couple of days ago that began to clarify for me what the pastoral issues probably are if the St Mary's legal issues are resolved. I believe that the vestry and its attorneys need to be planning how to resume control of the property if the parish prevails in the trial scheduled to start in a few weeks -- there probably has been some planning, but as only a friendly outsider, I'm not aware of internal deliberations. However, assuming the vestry still intends to take the parish into the Ordinariate, at some point Houston needs to be brought into alignment with what is done, and what would need to continue. Given Houston's history of dropping the ball, I have reservations about how this might be handled.

As I've noted here now and then, the pastoral problems that arose in the parish during 2011-12 went well beyond ordinary cliquishness and factionalism. Ordinary stuff would include verbal snubs, snarkiness, gossip, whispering campaigns, and the like. What went on at St Mary's credibly involved threats, physical assault, vehicular sabotage, burglary, telephone hacking, and mail tampering. I believe that if anyone allowed the people responsible for this sort of thing to return to the parish, the problems would quickly resume, but in addition, it would be a threat to the personal safety of vestry members, clergy, and some parishioners. My wife and I are careful to keep our cars in the garage and our doors locked, frankly. Morello, before he went to his judgment, pointedly e-mailed me that he had my address in parish records.

The Ordinariate needs to be aware of this, and the vestry needs to do whatever it can in trial motions to be sure the dissidents who pose the greatest potential problem are kept from the parish premises. This group numbers about six or eight people. The individuals whom William Lancaster has named as his clients, Marilyn Bush, Diane Kang, and Keith Kang, are a start. (Mrs Bush, an octogenarian, is not a physical threat, although she has assumed a leadership role among the group that is.) Exactly what the current relationship is between Bush and the Kangs is a puzzle: it's my understanding that the Kangs broke with Mrs Bush in early 2013 and stomped out of an invitation-only "parish meeting". Subsequent to that, an individual who may be Mr Kang is reported to have contacted Los Angeles police asking for some type of witness protection, as he was afraid that the death of Anthony Morello was part of a plot to eliminate witnesses.

I simply don't know if the breach between the Kangs and Mrs Bush has been patched up. However, the behavior of the individual who went to the police asking for witness protection reflects what I believe is erratic conduct consistent with my experience of Mr Kang, and I would not make any optimistic assumptions. If the Ordinariate is willing to accept St Mary of the Angels as a parish, it needs to be realistically aware of potential issues. To make some naïve gesture of welcoming members of the core group of dissidents back in the name of "reconciliation" would be reckless and dangerous. Houston needs to discuss this potential problem with the vestry, and I think it needs to do it now.